Monday, October 8, 2012

Chicken Parmesan Sandwiches





Joel's Chicken Parmesan Sandwich



Ingredients:
  • 1 loaf of french bread
  • 1 1/2 lb of chicken (for 3 servings)
  • favorite spaghetti sauce
  • provolone cheese slices
  • panko Italian seasoned bread crumbs
  • salt
  • pepper
  • Italian seasoning
  • 1 onion






Directions:
Preheat oven to 375. Cut the loaf of french bread in half, and then cut into 3 or four sections to make buns for the sandwiches. First you cut chicken breasts in half length wise, and then pound them even thinner with a meat tenderizer. Second you sprinkle salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning on both sides of the chicken. Then roll the chicken in panko bread crumbs. saute onions in olive oil in a saucepan. Once they are sauteed pour desired spaghetti sauce over them in the same pan. Drizzle vegetable oil over the chicken breasts, place them in a large pan and cook in the oven for 20 minutes, or until fully cooked (NO PINK). Once the chicken is done, toast the bread in the oven for about 1 minute. After 1 minute place a slice of provolone on each slice of bread. Put the bread back in the oven until the cheese is melted. On one slice of bread put sauce, and on the other half place the chicken. Stack the sandwich and enjoy!







 - Joel

Red Velvet and Cream Cheese Cupcakes!


So this recipe is a recipe that I did a while back, and it is definitely one of my very favorites! This was one of my baking days that I just really wanted something delicious but was on a budget and time constraints. The cupcakes were just a red velvet box mix, and the icing was just store bought cream cheese icing. (I am really working on my own mixes and recipes for batter, but when I'm on a time crunch which is usually the case, I just like to alter box mixes. I figure why not just buy a box with everything already measured out?) Anyway, even though I used a box mix which is my go to for near instant gratification, I also made a simple cream cheese mixture to amp up the flavor and dynamics of the cupcakes. I also ended up chopping up leftover white chocolate chips to roll the iced cupcakes around in for some extra flavor and texture, plus it just looked that much more delicious!

Ingredients:
  • store bought red velvet cake mix
  • store bought cream cheese icing
  • standard bag of white chocolate chips
  • sugar
  • 2 8 oz packages of cream cheese (there will be leftover, but hey that just means you have a delicious cream cheese and chocolate chip mixture to enjoy on gram crackers...or just a spoon!)
  • vegetable oil  and eggs (or whatever your box mix calls for to mix with it!
Directions:
 First, Mix the red velvet cake mix as directed and preheat the oven as directed on the box. Second, in a separate bowl soften cream cheese with a hand mixer and add sugar to the cream cheese...unfortunately I don't know the exact amount, I do it so many times just by taste. I would suggest adding one table spoon at a time, and after adding 3 tablespoons taste to see where it is at. The mixture should just be a sweeter version of cream cheese, it really just depends on how much cheese or how much sweet you prefer for the filling. After you have mixed the cream cheese and sugar, fold in 2 cups of the chocolate chips.
After everything is mixed fill the baking cups with the batter as directed. Then dollop a table spoon of cream cheese mixture into each batter filled cup. Bake in the oven as directed on the box.

Once the cupcakes are baked and cooled, ice them with the cream cheese icing, and then chop up excess chocolate chips and roll the edges of the iced cupcake around in the icing! And that is it! So delicious :) Enjoy friends!

 - Love, Maddy.

Joel's Loaded Mac and Cheese


Joel's loaded Mac and Cheese! 

So, this weekend we were obviously not cooking on the lighter side, however the food was so delicious we didn't really care! And neither did our friends for that matter! Joel decided to experiment with mac and cheese to go with some burgers and sausage he was grilling for everyone, and this experiments turned out fantastic! It was a very cheesy, flavorful amazing dish!This is the recipe as dictated by Joel :)


 Ingredients:
  • 1 1/2 boxes of penne pasta
  • 1 16 oz package of bacon
  • 1 lb of Velveeta sharp cheddar
  • 1 package of provolone cheese
  • 2 cans of rotel
  • Italian seasoned panko bread crumbs
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. First, start melting the Velveeta and rotel in a crock pot, (just like you would make Velveeta queso). While the queso is warming up, bring water to a boil, and then cut the bacon into small pieces and start cooking it in a pan. Boil the pasta as directed on the box, and once the bacon is done cooking saute the bread crumbs in the bacon grease. Once the Velveeta is melted, stir the bacon and pasta in with the Velveeta mixture. Pour it all into a large baking pan. Rip some pieces of provolone and place them on top of the pasta in the pan. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs on top of the provolone and place in the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until the cheese looks melted and the dish starts getting golden brown. 



  - Joel

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Reeses Fast Break Cupcakes!



So, one of my all time favorite candy bars is the amazing Reese's Fast Break. Something about peanut butter, nougat, and chocolate combined is pure amazing. Joel and I both love making cupcakes, and we love coming up with new ideas, and yesterday this one popped into my head. Usually when I have a cupcake idea, I just look it up online and someone has already made something similar. In this case however, I did not find a Fast Break cupcake recipe. Realizing that this idea was fairly original and that it would most likely taste AMAZING, I decided to just make up my own. 

The first step in this experiment was making the cupcake. I kept it simple by just using a chocolate cake mix and following the directions on the box. I also mixed a pack of chocolate pudding mix in with the chocolate cake batter. (I used most of the pudding mix, but not all of it, I left about 2 table spoons worth left in the package.) 

For the nougat part of the cupcakes, I made a quick and easy nougat filling. 

Nougat filling ingredients:
  • 1/2 cup of room temperature butter
  • 200g of white marshmallows (The bags are usually a little over 200g, so Joel and I just ate a handful of marshmallows and then put the rest of them in the pan!)
  • 1 tablespoon of vanilla
  • About 2 cups of powdered sugar, or however much it takes to get it to a thick consistency.
Instructions:
1.) Pour the marshmallows into a microwave safe bowl or container. (We used a deep pyrex baking dish). Heat the marshmallows for a minute, and then stir them around. They should be melted, but if not only put them in for 10 second intervals and then stir until they have all been melted together. 

2.)Use an electric mixer or just a hand mixer, and mix the marshmallows and butter. After they are creamed together, add your vanilla and mix it in.

3.) Once everything is mixed in, gradually mix the powdered sugar into the mixture until it reaches a thick consistency. It can still be somewhat runny, putting it in the fridge while the cupcakes are baking will make it thicker.

Note*: For our first trial, we tried to dollop the nougat filling on top of the batter placed in the cupcake tin, and it ended up just melting and disintegrating into the cupcake...it didn't taste bad, but the nougat I was craving was not present, at all. It almost was like it disappeared. The solution that we came up with for this was that we put the nougat in the fridge so that it would set, and then once the cupcakes were done we put a generous layer of nougat on top of them, and then topped that with the peanut butter frosting. It had the desired effect, although both of us agree that an even better approach might be to hollow out the cupcakes and then inject the nougat in the middle. (We do not have the tools to do that so we made do with slathering it on top!)

After the nougat came the peanut butter frosting, which is a very simple and delicious recipe!

Peanut butter frosting ingredients:
1/2 cup of softened butter
1 cup of peanut butter
2 cups of powdered sugar
3 tablespoons of milk

Instructions:
1.) Mix the butter and peanut butter together with an electric or hand mixer.
2.) Add small amounts of powdered sugar to the mixture and mix it in well, do this until all of the sugar is used.
3.) Whenever the mixture starts getting thick add 1 tablespoon of milk. 
4.)If you mix the frosting for 3-4 minutes it should be fluffy, (If you don't do it for exactly that long it will still turn out delicious, haha I am impatient and i didn't mix it for that long!)


Make the cupcakes, add the nougat either on top or on the inside if you want to get fancy, and then ice it with the peanut butter frosting, and you have a baked version of the greatest candy bar ever! Enjoy! 



 - love,
Maddy