Eggs Ole'

This recipe is courtesy of the wonderfuly talented Lea Ann over at Mangos, Chili and Z.  Lea Ann is a big fan of Southwest cooking and always has great recipes to share. She is my "go-to" source for Southwest/Mexican flare.  When I saw this recipe on her blog I knew I had to make it ASAP.  I mean, what could be better than a Mexican quiche covered in Velveeta dip??? 

OMG - this was fantastic!!  We loved this.   We ate this for dinner, and I had make myself stop eating it.  This was my first time cooking with chorizo and it turns out I really like it.  I cooked the chorizo the night before; so it only took a few minutes to assemle the casserole after work.  Dinner was on the table in no time.  We just ate some chips with it, but next time I will serve it with some refried beans or black beans and rice.  It's also not a bad idea to make extra Velveeta dip to go with the chips.  I'm just saying.... I HIGHLY recommend this!  Thanks for so much for sharing Lea Ann!!

Cheez-It Chicken Fingers

Chicken fingers are one of my favorite weeknight meals.  They are quick, easy and delicious.  This recipe is from the new Dash Recipes magazine.  Dash Recipes is from the editors of Parade, Gourmet, bon appetit and epicurious.   It comes with the Sunday paper, along side the Parade magazine.  I don't get the paper, but fortunately you can find all the recipes online at http://www.dashrecipes.com/

My mom actually pointed this recipe out to me when I was down for a visit (she gets the paper).  She had planned on giving it a try to tell me about it, but I beat her to the punch.  I made these last week and they were great.  I had 7 tenders in my pack of chicken.  I had 3 and Chicken Legs had 4.  Chicken Legs said next time we would split them 7-0 in his favor.  We dipped them in some additional honey mustard, but I think BBQ or Ranch would be good too.

 

Cookies & Cream Peanut Butter Cookies

This might be the perfect cookie for our house.  I love peanut butter anything and Chicken Legs loves Oreos.  This was the best of both worlds - a Cookies & Cream Peanut Butter Cookie!

I actually made these cookies for a belated birthday present for a friend.  Luckily, this made a ton of cookies.  I filled a box up for my friend (one for her, two for Chicken Legs) and saved a few for us.  These didn't last long in our house.  I think Chicken Legs' self control lasted all of 2 days (including baking day).

If you want a really quick cookie - use a bag of peanut butter cookie mix or roll of peanut butter cookie dough and mix in the crushed Oreos.  Easy peasy!

Meow Monday

Jack

Sherbert

Marmalade

Cheesy Garlic Drop Biscuits

I needed a quick bread recipe for our Lemon Alfredo Pasta the other night, and this easy recipe from the side of the Bisquick box was perfect.  The original recipe was only Bisquick and milk.   I wanted a little more flavor, so I added mozzarella cheese and garlic.  They turned out great.  They were exactly what we were looking for to go with dinner.  

Chicken Roll Outs

I wanted to finish off the rotiserrie chicken we used for the Lemon Alfredo Sauce with Chicken and Prosciutto that I posted yesterday, so I came up with this.  This was inspired by one of my favorite lunch places, Zoes Kitchen.  I LOVE their chicken rollups and chicken marinara.  I have been into flatbreads lately, so I decided on an open-faced chicken rollup - a/k/a Chicken Roll Out!

The rollups at Zoes are made up of tortillas, feta, lettuce, tomato, caramelized onions and served with a side of salsa.  I, of course, order them with just chicken, feta and salsa.  Chicken Legs will eat it the way Zoes intended.  For my Chicken Roll Outs, I used flatbread instead of the tortilla and salsa as my base.  I topped Chicken Legs' Roll Out with mushrooms (he loves mushrooms) and served it with a side salad.  This was a simple weeknight meal.   

Lemon Alfredo with Chicken and Prosciutto

This dish was inspired by a menu item at a restaurant we've never eaten at.  We were checking out the menu at a new restaurant in town and the only thing I saw that caught my eye was a Lemon Alfredo Pasta with Chicken and Prosciutto.  We eventually decided against going to try the restaurant (it was expensive and that was the only thing I saw that I could eat), but I was still thinking about that pasta dish.

I decided to make my vision of the Lemon Alfredo with Chicken and Prosciutto at home.  I made this on a weeknight, so it is quick and easy.  I used refrigerated light Alfredo sauce and some rotisserie chicken.  If you want to get all fancy, you can make your own Alfredo sauce and cook the chicken yourself.   The dish turned out really good.  I imagine that it was better than the original.  It was actually pretty light even though it used Alfredo sauce.  I think the lemon juice lightened it up.  I also loved the crispy prosciutto sprinkled over the top of the pasta.   

Kung Pao Chicken Spaghetti

I don't like Asian food.  I don't eat at Chinese buffets or Japanese steak houses.  The one and only Asian dish I eat is Kung Pao Chicken.  Just like George Costanza, Steph likes spicy chicken! 

I actually discovered that I liked Kung Pao by accident the first time we ate at PF Changs.   I ordered lemon chicken, to be safe, and didn't really like it.  It was too bland.  Chicken Legs had ordered Kung Pao chicken and let me try it.  It turned out that I really liked it!  We recently went to CPK for dinner and Chicken Legs ordered their Kung Pao Chicken Spaghetti.  I had a bite and it was fantastic.  I remembered that I had the CPK cookbook at home, so I decided to whip up a batch last weekend.  

This was super fantastic!  Chicken Legs declared it the best thing I've ever made.  He hasn't stopped raving about it all weekend (seriously!).  This is really spicy - I mean really spicy.  I didn't add the dried chili peppers (couldn't find them), and it was plenty hot without them.  This tasted just as good as it did at CPK (if not better).  It wasn't hard to make;  it just took some prep work before getting started.  I would recommend making this on t he weekend.  I highly recommend this if you like spicy chicken like Chicken Legs, George & I do.

Meow Monday

Jack

Sherbert

Marmalade

Swiss Chicken

I saw this recipe over on Mommy's Kitchen and thought it sounded like something we would like.   The original recipe uses white wine in the sauce.  Tina mentioned that the wine flavor was a bit overpowering, so I decided to just used chicken broth in the sauce.  (I don't really like to waste wine in chicken casseroles anyway!)  I also used Texas Toast garlic croutons instead of stuffing mix.

This was fantastic!  We both loved it.  I ate the whole piece of chicken and I rarely do that.  I was stuffed, but it was worth it.  This was quick and easy and doesn't use any specials ingredients.  I would highly recommend it!

Irish Soda Bread

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  I decided to top off my Irish celebration this week with Irish Soda Bread. I’ve never had Irish Soda Bread, and, I must admit, I didn’t really know what it was.   I searched the internet and found several recipes; some traditional and some not so traditional.

I settled on a traditional Irish Soda Bread using only flour, salt, baking soda and buttermilk.  It only took a few minutes to mix together and it was in the oven in no time.  Now, this isn’t a pretty bread, but it tasted fantastic!   We slathered it with some plain butter, but I bet it would taste great with some jam too.  We'll try that next time, because there will be a next time.

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is another treat for St. Patrick's Day.  These cookies tasted just like mint chocolate chip ice cream.  They also look like mint chocolate ice cream when you scoop them on the cookie sheet.  

This is a really easy and quick recipe.  They are made from a bag of sugar cookie mix!  Now, I don't usually bake with cookie mix.  I actually never even knew cookie mix existed until I went to the grocery store by myself for the first time in college.  Growing up we always made cookies from scratch.  We used cake mix, but never cookie mix.  

The cookie mix is a great shortcut.  They take about 45 minutes from start to finish.  You can't beat that!  You could always use your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe and add some mint extract, green food coloring and mint chocolate chips.   Either way, they taste great!

Frosted Irish Cream Brownies

We went down to Auburn last weekend, and since St. Patrick's Day is coming up I decided to make a festive treat.  My Mom loves Bailey's Irish Cream, so I knew these would be the perfect treat.  These are really quick and easy.  Just substitute Irish Cream for the water in a brownie mix and top with an Irish Cream Buttercream Frosting.  They were really good!!  You could easily substitute other liqueurs - amaretto, peppermint schnapps, Kahlua, creme de banana...... Let the fun begin!

Max was my photography assistant

Meow Monday

Sherbert

Maralade

Jack

Buffalo Chicken Wrap

We have implemented sandwich night once a week.  Our sandwich night isn't cold cut sandwiches, it is hot grilled or baked sandwiches.  I've shared two of my other favorite Roly Poly sandwiches - #52 Hickory Chicken and #28 Santa Fe Chicken.  This sandwich inspired by another favorite #65 Buffalo Slim at Roly Poly.  

Roly Poly describes #65 as Sliced Chicken Breast, Melted Reduced Fat Cheddar Cheese, Mushrooms, Onions, Tomatoes, Spicy Wing Sauce, Grilled Golden Brown with a Side of Fat Free Ranch Dressing on a Whole Wheat Tortilla.  My version is a little different.  I used jalapeno jack cheese, omitted the onions and used some salsa instead of tomatoes.  This was a huge hit!  We had enough chicken to make wraps for lunch the next day.  Sandwich night is quickly becoming our favorite night of the week!

Bubble Up Pizza

This is an oldie but a goodie.  I haven't made this in forever.  I had forgotten how good it is.  This is one of the very first Pampered Chef recipes I ever made.  It is quick, easy and GOOD!  This pizza casserole is full of flavor and easy to customize to your family's taste.  We used sausage and turkey pepperoni because that is what I like.  (When you are the cook, you get to make it the way you like it.)  I may add some mushrooms to half of the pizza next time for Chicken Legs.  This will definitely be going back in the rotation for pizza night!

Chicken Enchiladas

This recipe is all about the sauce.  I've never made homemade enchilada sauce, and boy, have I been missing out!  I've always just bought a can of it at the grocery store.  I don't buy it often because I don't really like it.  I ran across this recipe on Annie Eats, and the sauce seemed easy enough so I gave it a try.  OMG - best sauce ever!!!!!  I can't believe I waited so long to make enchilada sauce from scratch!  I will never ever buy canned enchilada sauce again.

My second favorite thing about this dish were these golden blend tortillas.  They are a fusion of corn and flour tortillas.  The corn was the dominant flavor, but they were pliable like a flour tortilla.  It was the best of both worlds.  They tasted great and didn't get soggy in the sauce.  They were bigger than regular corn tortillas so I got fewer enchiladas in my version.  I found the tortillas at Publix.

Chicken Pesto Flatbread

I've said it before, we love pizza at our house. I probably love it more than Chicken Legs. I could eat it every meal, every day! I know Chicken Legs isn’t as much of a fan, so I am always looking for new twist to ensure that he doesn’t get bored with it.

We recently went out to dinner and ordered the cheese toast appetizer. Now, this wasn’t any cheese toast; it was a pesto cheese toast. It was so simple, but it was SO good. I’ve never thought about combining pesto and cheddar. I immediately thought this would make a great starting point for pizza.

To mix things up a bit, I decided to use flatbread for the pizza crust. I also added some chopped Italian seasoned chicken to make this more of a meal. I wanted to keep the same flavors for the pizza that were in the cheese toast, so I chose a Wisconsin Mild Cheddar and a Wisconsin Jack Cheese. We were not disappointed. This was fantastic! It was ooey gooey cheesy goodness!! We served it with some warm pizza sauce for dipping, but it is just as good on its own.

This is a simple lunch or dinner, or a great snack. It only takes a few minutes to prepare and it tastes great. I can’t wait to experiment with more flatbread combinations!

Meow Monday

Sherbert

Jack & Marmalade

Easy King Cake Knots

I made these easy mini king cakes to go with our Slow Cooker Jambalaya, because no Mardi Gras celebration is complete without King Cake.  I really like king cake, but I don't want to spend all day kneading dough and waiting on it to rise.  This recipe uses refrigerated french bread dough and only takes a few minutes to assemble.  We had just enough time to recover from dinner before we gobbled these up.  These would even be good for breakfast.