Asian Slaw Salad

Asian Slaw Salad:

2 pkgs. beef flavored ramen soup mix (3oz each)

16 oz cole slaw mix

1 cup sliced almonds (toasted - on cookie sheet in oven or toaster oven)

1 cup sunflower kernels/seeds (I used unsalted but the recipe says either)

1 bunch green onions - chopped

1/2 cup sugar

3/4 cup oil

1/3 cup white vinegar

Crush uncooked ramen noodles.  Layer noodles, slaw, nuts, seeds, and onions in a bowl.  Set aside.  In a separate bowl combine flavor pack from soup mix with sugar, oil and vinegar.  Mix well.  Pour dressing over salad and chill.  Serves 8-10 people ( if they eat a lot otherwise serves way more!).

Good the day after too.

White's Chili

Chili:

3/4 lb ground beef

1 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped green pepper

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 16 oz. can tomatoes, cut up

1 16 oz. can dark red kidney beans, drained

1 8 oz. can tomato sauce

2 to 3 tsp. chili powder

1/2 tsp. dried basil, crushed

1/4 tsp. salt (optional)

1/4 tsp. pepper

 

    In large saucepan cook ground beef, onion, green pepper, and garlic until meat is brown.  Drain fat.  Stir in undrained tomatoes, kidney beans, tomato sauce, chili powder, basil, salt, and pepper.  Bring to boiling, reduce heat.  Cover, simmer for 20 minutes.  Makes 4 main dish servings.  (I had doubled the recipe)

Smokey Sweet Potato Souffle

I keep seeing recipes that I'd like to try, so I'm adding a "TO BE TRIED" label for those recipes. Once I try them, I'll update the pose and remove that label.

Saw this while I was watching 5 Ingredient Fix on Food Network with Little Lady #1 recently. Looks fantastic!

Ingredients

• 5 pounds sweet potatoes, pricked with a knife
• 1 pound sliced bacon
• 1 chipotle in adobo, chopped, plus 2 teaspoons adobo sauce
• 1/4 cup Grade B maple syrup
• 5 eggs, separated
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Roast the potatoes on sheet tray until fully cooked, about 1 hour. Set aside until cool enough to handle.

Meanwhile cook the bacon in large skillet over medium-high heat until crisp. Remove and drain on paper towels, reserving the rendered bacon fat. Chop bacon and set aside, reserving 1/4 cup for garnish.

Peel the sweet potatoes and mash. Add the potatoes to a large bowl. Stir in the chopped chipotle, adobe sauce, maple syrup, chopped bacon and egg yolks. Mix together until combined. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper.

In a separate large bowl, whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Add 1/3 of whipped egg whites to sweet potato mixture and fold to create a lighter base. Fold in remaining whites until just incorporated, leaving some white streaks.

Grease a 2 quart baking dish with some of the reserved bacon fat and gently pour in sweet potato souffle mixture. Sprinkle with the remaining chopped bacon. Put the baking dish on a sheet tray and bake 40 minutes.

Slow Cooker Cider Applesauce

Like most New Englanders, we always have tons of apples come Fall. I made my very first apple pie this year and it was YUM! Another favorite is apple crisp - although I have yet to make one this year. Have to rectify that STAT!

Last year I started making apple sauce to use up apples we had sitting around, and then I freeze it. It's pretty good if I say so myself! Usually, I just cook the apples on the stove until they're good and soft and then call it a day. But this year I ran across a recipe on Pinterest for Cider Applesauce in the slow cooker! It's crazy easy and tastes delish.

I modified it a little bit, but the original recipe can be found using the link above.

Ingredients
enough apples to fill your slow cooker, any flavor of your choosing - peeled, cored and cut
2 tsp Cinnamon Plus Spice Blend*

Directions
Layer apples and spice blend until the slow cooker is full. Cook on high about 4 hours, or until apples have completely softened. 

Serve hot, or freeze for later use.


*The Cinnamon Plus Spice Blend is a Pampered Chef product that includes cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and orange peel. It's a great substitute when making apple pie or pumpkin pie.
The original recipe calls for 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ground cloves and 1/4 tsp nutmeg.

Baked Pumpkin Donuts

Another recipe found on Pinterest. Seriously... that site is crazy addictive!!!

Original recipe is found at the King Arthur site.

The Little Ladies got me a donut pan for my birthday in June (with the help of their dad), and I finally decided to christen it. Little Lady #2 is down for a nap (which means it's quiet!!), so Little Lady #1 and I went to work!

It was a pretty easy recipe to make. We didn't have pumpkin pie spice, so we used the make-your-own method that's listed. I found that 12-13 minutes was a way better time than the 15-18 that's listed in the recipe. Speaking of... the recipe on Kind Arthur's site doesn't mention an oven temp (at least not that I saw), so I went with the 425 that's listed on the pan. I might try 400 next time though.

Little Lady #1

Place the following in a mixing bowl:

1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups pumpkin purée (canned pumpkin)
1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice, or 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon plus a heaping 1/4 teaspoon each ground nutmeg and ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Beat everything together until smooth.

Add 1 3/4 cups + 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour, stirring just until smooth.

Lightly grease two standard donut pans. (I only had one pan, so I just kept re-using it)

If you don’t have doughnut pans, you can bake these in a couple of standard muffin tins; they just won’t be doughnuts.

Fill the wells of the doughnut pans about 3/4 full, using a scant 1/4 cup of batter in each well; a tablespoon cookie scoop helps with this task. I found 4 scoops per donut well worked well.

If you’re making muffins, fill each well about 3/4 full; the recipe makes about 15, so you’ll need to bake in two batches (unless you have two muffin pans).

Bake the doughnuts for 15 to 18 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of one comes out clean. If you’re using self-rising flour, bake for the longer amount of time.

If you’re making muffins, they’ll need to bake for 23 to 25 minutes.

Remove the doughnuts from the oven, and after about 5 minutes, loosen their edges, and transfer them to a rack to cool.

While the doughnuts are still warm (but no longer fragile), gently shake them in a bag with cinnamon-sugar. Or better yet, pumpkin-spice sugar, made by combining the aforementioned pumpkin pie spice (or substitute) with granulated sugar.

If you’ve made muffins, sprinkle their tops heavily with the spiced sugar of your choice.

Buffalo Chicken Rolls

I've been M.I.A. for a while. Trying to figure out the new normal for me and my Little Ladies. We're getting there ;-)

Another Pinterest recipe! This one's from Can You Stay For Dinner.

I've become a big fan of Buffalo Chicken over the past few years. When I saw this recipe, I just had to try it.... especially since we've had egg roll wrappers hanging around for a while.

I made a version for the Little Ladies that had the slaw, plain chicken and shredded cheese on it. Little C liked them, but Little M did not.

We had them for dinner, but they'd be really good for a party! They were super easy to make too. I whipped them up in about 15ish minutes, after a veeerrrrryyyyy long day out with the Little Ladies.

Ingredients

12 egg roll wrappers (roughly 4 square inches)

1 cup cooked and shredded chicken (6 ounces)

1/3 cup Frank’s Red Hot Sauce

1 cup crumbled blue cheese (4 ounces)

1 cup broccoli slaw (dry)

Small bowl of water

Nonstick cooking spray

Blue cheese dressing, for serving

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Lay egg roll wrappers on a clean work surface. In a small bowl, stir chicken* (see note below) and hot sauce until well coated, using more or less sauce depending on your spice preference. The meat should be moist with sauce.

Begin by placing one tablespoon of the broccoli slaw on the diagonal of the bottom right corner of one of the wrappers. Next, place 2 tablespoons of shredded spicy chicken evenly on top of the slaw. Spoon 1 tablespoon of the blue cheese crumbles over the chicken. Do not overfill.

To fold: Fold the bottom right corner over the stuffing mixture so that it covers it completely, with the tip of the corner now pointing to the center of the egg roll wrapper. Fold in the bottom left corner, followed by the right, so that you now have formed an envelope. Roll the wrap upward one time, leaving the top left corner open. Wet your index finger in the small bowl of water and press to moisten the top left corner. Now fold that down on top of the filled roll, sealing it like you would an envelope.

Repeat with remaining rolls.

Place the rolls on a wire rack set on top of a cookie sheet (or just on a greased cookie sheet) coated with nonstick cooking spray. Spritz each roll evenly with nonstick cooking spray. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until the rolls crisp and turn a light golden brown.

*Note: To make the chicken, place 1/2 lb of uncooked chicken breast in a small pot and fill with enough water just to cover it. Bring to a boil on your stovetop, reduce the heat slightly, then simmer for about 12 minutes, or until cooked through. Drain and let cool before shredding with two forks, pulling against the grain of the meat.

S'mores Cupcakes with Graham Cracker Buttercream

Who doesn't love s'mores??

My niece's 9th birthday was last month, but her party with her friends is tomorrow. She's having a make-your-own-pizza party - how fun!

I offered to make cupcakes for her party to give her mom a little break on the party planning. I had to find something that was gluten-free since she has Celiac Disease, and also nut-free since so many kids have nut allergies. I didn't want to risk something happening with that at all.

I offered her mom a few choices and this was her pick.

I tweaked the original recipe just a bit. I used a box of King Arthur Gluten-Free chocolate cake mix instead of making a from-scratch cake like the recipe called for, along with GF graham crackers. I'd probably do the same thing if I was making a regular cake. The box I used called for 1 1/3 cups of water (plus eggs and oil), but I used only 1/3 cup of water and 1 cup of sour cream. I think the sour cream adds nice moisture to a cake!

The below recipe is how I made it, and the original can be found here at Your Cup of Cake.

Ingredients

Chocolate Cakes:

2-layer box mix of chocolate cake plus ingredients on back minus 1 cup of water

1 cup of sour cream

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 cup sour cream

Graham cracker crumbs (fine crumbs)

Marshmallow Cream Centers:

4 oz cream cheese

½ cup Fluff (marshmallow cream for you non New Englanders)

1 ½ - 2 cups powdered sugar

Graham Cracker Buttercream:

8 oz cream cheese

½ cup butter, softened

4 cups powdered sugar

¾ cup graham cracker crumbs (fine crumbs)

1 teaspoon vanilla

2-3 tablespoons whipping cream or milk

mini marshmallows and chocolate for decoration

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 360 degrees and line cupcake pans with liners (24).
2. Mix cake mix, ingredients from back of the box and sour cream together in a mixer until fully combined.
3. Spoon ¾ teaspoon of graham cracker crumbs into the bottom of each cupcake liner. Shake pan to spread evenly.
4. Fill liners ¾ full and bake for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
5. Mashmallow Cream Centers: Beat cream cheese, marshmallow cream and powdered sugar. Add more powdered sugar to taste. This mixture should not be thick like a buttercream, because it will be in the center of your cupcake.
6. When cupcakes are cooled, cut out a small area from the top of the cake and pipe marshmallow cream into each cupcake.
7. Graham Cracker Buttercream: Beat cream cheese and butter until light and creamy. Add powdered sugar, vanilla and graham cracker crumbs. At this point, the buttercream will look like cookie dough. Add heavy cream a little bit at a time until buttercream consistency is reached.
8. Pipe onto cooled, marshmallow filled cupcakes and top with mini marshmallows and melted chocolate.