Recipe: Bacon Wrapped Chicken

This is what I had for dinner tonight.......bacon wrapped chicken, oh my.  I saw a variation of this on Pinterest, you can find it HERE she has more detailed directions (with measurements!)

First step is to gather your ingredients:  Chicken Breasts, bacon, brown sugar, honey, can of pineapple chunks in juice, and I used a little BBQ dry rub from a local BBQ joint. 

I foil lined a baking sheet and sprayed it with Pam - basically I didn't feel the need to clean the baking sheet after cooking these and with Pam on the foil they slide off.

Slice the chicken breasts into strips (be sure to trim off as much of the fat as you can), I cut the chicken diagonally.  My chicken breasts were huge, so I then cut each strip in half because they were so thick.  I only used 2 of the breast because I ran out of room on my baking sheet, telling ya they were some big breasts!

Next cut your bacon in half and roll each piece of chicken and place it on the baking sheet.  You don't need anything fancy to keep the bacon in place, it'll stick to the chicken.  Don't over crowd your baking sheet, give them a little breathing room - you don't want them to stick together when you bake them.

After you get all the chicken pieces wrapped in bacon and laid on your baking sheet, I lightly pepper mine.  If you don't like pepper, don't use it.  

I don't use salt - EVER - so I will never tell you to add salt, plus they are wrapped in bacon so they have some salt already (oh I buy the low sodium bacon so my bacon has the minimal amount of salt)

Now for the sauce - I don't have exact measurements, sorry that's just not the way I cook.  Measuring cups only come out when I absolutely have to use them. 

I wisked together 'about' a tablespoon of honey, a couple cereal spoons of brown sugar, about half of the juice from the can of pineapple chunks and several shakes of the dry BBQ rub.  Suggestion, after you wisk together the ingredients - taste it!  If you don't like it now you won't like it on your chicken.

Last time I made it I used a squirt of BBQ sauce instead of the dry rub.  I like the dry rub better but ate all of it last time I made it too so it's not like it was bad.  You could also add a little soy sauce with the pineapple for more of a Hawaiian flair.  Basically you can mix up any type of sauce that you and your family like.  This isn't an exact science.

Now brush your chicken with whatever kind of sauce you decide to use.  I threw in a handful of pineapple chunks.  Next time I'll throw in ALL the pineapple chunks cause I love them.





Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes (basically until the chicken is done in the middle).  Then turn your oven up to 450 degrees to get the bacon as crispy as you like it.  It took about 15 minutes to get mine to look like this.....





.....and this is what I had for dinner!  Trust me, it was GOOD! 

I mean, come on it's wrapped in bacon - what isn't good wrapped in bacon. 

The chicken will shrink up a little when you bake it, just to let you know.



My aunt happened to stop by for something on her way home from work and decided to eat supper, she really liked it too & asked me to pass the recipe along to her daughter.  I ran a few pieces down to my parents house for them to try, didn't take dad long to eat all I sent down there - I think he was a little disappointed I only took about 5 pieces!

I'll be making this again, no doubt about that.  Hope you enjoy it if you give it a try!



Peppermint Mocha

I've found a new LOVE! I read a comment someone made a few days ago about Peppermint Mocha Coffee-Mate, saw it on my trip to Walmart the other day and decided to give it a try.

OH MY!!! It tastes like you're eating candy or some type of dessert with every drink of coffee. I was afraid the peppermint flavor would be stronger than what I'd like, but I was wrong - it's so delicious.

I was just visiting Coffee-Mate's website and found this recipe using the Peppermint Mocha creamer:




Peppermint Mocha Cheesecake!

Ingredients:
2 cups ground Oreo's Mint N'Cream cookies
3 pkgs (8 ozs) room temp cream cheese
1 cup Peppermint Mocha powdered creamer
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 container (16 oz) sour cream at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350F and grease bottom and sides of a 9" springform pan.

Press cookie crumbs into sides and bottom and place in freezer for 5 minutes.

Beat cream cheese, coffee-mate and 1/4 cup sugar until creamy. Beat in eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Pour into crust.

Bake 45 to 50 minutes until edges are set but center still moves slightly.

Combine sour cream, remaining sugar and vanilla; mix well. Spread over surface of cheesecake and bake for an additional 5 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on wire rack. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight. Remove from springform pan.


ENJOY!!

I haven't tried this yet but it sound YUMM-O!
Planning on making some for the holidays.

Jambalaya Recipe

This is what was for lunch at our house today, and it was sooooo easy and for the most part it all came out of a box! Semi-homemade, my favorite kind of meal.


You start with a box of Jambalaya rice mix, a package of sausage (type is your choice or in my case what happens to be in the fridge), a can or two of beans - I usually use black beans but black eyed peas were in the cabinet, and extra ingredients to your taste. I typically add a can or two of diced tomatoes, an onion, some red pepper and lots of garlic. Dad canned homemade salsa yesterday and didn't have room in the canner for this jar.....so I used it today, after all it had all the 'extra' ingredients combined in one.

I did add a few more tomatoes (fresh out of the garden - no cans this time of year) and a half a head of garlic. What can I say, I LOVE garlic.

Simply dump all ingredients (along with some water) into a stock pot, bring to a boil and turn down heat allowing it to simmer for at least 30 minutes.

Once the Jambalaya was in the pot cooking I used this box, following the directions on the back to make a small pan of cornbread.


We had a few small zucchini that needed to be fixed before they went bad. Fried zucchini seemed like a good side for the Jambalaya & corn bread. Simply slice, dip in egg mixture, dip in flour/bread crumb mixture and fry in hot oil. This was my favorite part of our lunch!

I love FRIED ZUCCHINI!!!! Prep, cooking, eating and clean up last about 1 hour total.
Just doesn't get much better than that.

Reading a Recipe

I'm glad I had to privilege to learn 'Grandma' recipe language from the Grandma herself. When I asked her for a recipe for her potato salad she informed me what time to be at her house to watch her make it - that was my recipe.

Looking in the fridge I noticed that the leftover Easter ham was still, well leftover. I sent Aunt Eileen a message asking if she knew how to make Grandma's ham salad. Her text back to me:

yep, ham eggs mayo sweet relish and a dash of onion

Now I'm pretty sure most people would ask the obvious question - how much? What kind of recipe is that just telling you what to use. But I knew Aunt Eileen's reply would be.....depends on how much ham you have and when I'd asked Grandma how much mayo she said "until it tastes right", my mother would always say "just add a little more....yah that looks about right".

I found this somewhat frustrating when I was learning how to cook, but after having made potato salad many a time now I realize that it's never the same. Sometimes the potatoes are dry and soak up dressing, the more you add the more they soak it up. I accept that it really does just depend and you mix a little more until it tastes right.

Well, I was able to successfully 'read' the ham salad recipe texted to me and will be having it for supper tonight - thanks for the recipe Aunt Eileen!

Mother's Day Lunch

There's a local meat market that sells bacon hamburgers and charges you the price of gold for them. So for lunch today I decided to try to mimic their burgers in a cheaper fashion. I chopped up bacon and added it to the burger mixture - there weren't any burgers left over so I guess they were pretty good! I also fixed french fries - I think this was the first time I've done this since I left McDonald's.

Strawberry Cake (not low fat!)
Cake Ingredients:
3/4 Cup softened butter
1/2 Cup vegetable oil
3 Cups granulated sugar
5 large eggs
3 Cups cake flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 Tbsp strawberry gelatin
1 Cup thawed frozen strawberries - pureed (I don't do this)
1/4 Cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 tsp red food coloring


Icing Ingredients:
1 1/2 packages softened cream cheese
3/4 Cup softened butter
6 Cups powered sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and arrange racks in center of oven. Grease three 9 inch round layer cake pans, line bottoms with wax paper or parchment paper. Grease top of paper and sides of pan, then dust with flour (I cheat and use the spray with flour in it).

Beat butter and oil until smooth and creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating until very light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Sift flour with baking soda and gelatin and set aside.
Blend pureed strawberries with milk, vanilla extract and red food coloring and set aside.

Reduce speed on mixer to low setting and stir flour mixture and strawberry/milk mixture alternately into batter, beginning and ending with flour. Divide batter evenly among three pans and bake 30-35 minutes or until tops spring back if lightly pressed in their centers. (I didn't cook the full 30 minutes because the sides of my cakes were getting really dark - could just be my oven)

Cool layers in pan for 10 minutes then turn out onto racks to completely cool before icing.

Icing - beat cream cheese with butter until smooth. Gradually beat in powered sugar on a medium speed until light and fluffy. Blend in vanilla and continue beating until frosting has a smooth, satiny appearance.

Spread generously between layers and over the sides and top of cake.

The first time I made this I made cupcakes and used Wilton's buttercream icing. I love cream cheese icing but seriously think it was too much for this cake. I liked the buttercream better.


And this is what I 'made' for my mother......she loves them, what can I say.

The strawberry cake was for me, my birthday that is. I almost always get a strawberry cake on my birthday (different recipe - sheet cake usually), but this year Johnathon had a track meet and everyone got home late - so I made myself one today!

New Recipe

I was surfing blogland the other day and ran across The Pioneer Woman and instantly fell in love with her blog. You should really check it out. She's a photographer/home school teacher of four married to a rancher, aka "The Marlboro Man". In addition to photography and home schooling her children she loves to cook and has step-by-step directions on how to prepare the recipes she has listed - great site, check it out.

I printed out one of her recipes and fixed it last night - LOVED IT! It's an Asian Noodle Salad and you can view her step-by-step directions and print the recipe HERE. It tastes 20 times better than this picture represents.

The recipe makes a really, really large amount but I ate two plates full last night so I think the quantity is a little deceiving. I didn't mix it all together in one bowl either (I knew it wouldn't be eaten all at once since I was the only one eating last night!) - I put the vege's in one bowl, the noodles by themselves with a little oil and the dressing in a separate container. I also left the cilantro separate as I've been told that cilantro will cause food in the fridge to spoil quicker. Not sure why but I've heard it more than once from different people.

Anyway, the salad is made with cooked linguine, baby spinach, purple cabbage, bell peppers (I use red), scallions, cucumbers and lots of cilantro. The dressing is soy sauce, olive oil, sesame oil, brown sugar, garlic and fresh ginger. Hot peppers are optional!

It was delicious, like I said I ate two plates full! I wish I'd brought some for my lunch but I know I'll be having it for supper tonight.

Weekend Recap

It was another busy weekend around here, no different than usual.

Johnathon had a game Saturday afternoon (Sesser won!) and I spent the rest of the day cleaning and shopping. Sunday was my Pampered Chef party, BIG thanks to all who came. I had a great turn out. Cleaning and partying is the excuse I'm using for not having more basketball pics up. I did get a few edited the other night. Can't wait to post them, there were some good ones in there.

On to the party....in addition to the cheeseburger salad and two dump cakes (chocolate cherry & peach) that my Aunt made, I made a savory sandwich ring, spinach dip with beer bread, and a new Pampered Chef recipe to me....mini faux potato skins. The "potato skins" are made with thawed, shredded hash browns pressed into the mini tart pan. In keeping with the taste of the potato skins that a few fellow Com-Pac employees & I LOVE and eat at least once a week at a local BBQ joint, I put BBQ pull pork on the "skin" and topped it with cheese. They were really quite tasty and super simple. While cheeseburger salad may not sound good (it didn't to me I'll admit it) it was really good. It had a similar taste to the taco salad made with Catalina dressing. You basically use all ingredients that you put on a cheeseburger to make the salad. We even toasted the burger buns to make our own croutons.

My whole reason for having the Pampered Chef party was to get the pots & pans that I've wanted since I first attended a PC party, I can't wait to get the show closed and get my new cookware in route to me!! I'm waiting for a few more orders to come in so if you need anything I'll have the show open a few more days.

Here's to a productive week. I have a board meeting to get ready for on Wednesday and I'm decorating a wedding and a bridal show this weekend.....another typical week with hardly anything to do!!

Ramon Noodle Slaw

There's been some discussion over the past couple of weeks about the Ramon Noodle Slaw my grandmother use to fix. Remembering Grandma fixing it when she lived accross from Aunt Eileen, my cousin has been craving it. It's been a little frustrating not being able to come up with her exact recipe. It would have been a shame for her to have actually written a few of her recipes down for future generations. But her philosophy was always "if you want to know how to make it then I suggest you come watch me fix it".

The best I've come up with is the following:

Boil 2C Vinegar, 2C Sugar, 1/2C Oil (we use Olive). Add to it 1/2 packet of Chicken Ramon Noodle seasoning. Allow the dressing to cool completely (make up night before and store in fridge).

Break noodles up and brown these along with 1 small package of slivered almonds in approx 2T butter over medium heat. Set aside.

Pour cooled dressing over 1 package of shredded cabbage. Allow this to sit for at least 1 hour. Toss with browned noodles/almonds prior to serving.

If you know this recipe and think I've left something out be sure to let me know! I'm a big onion fan so I add a few onions to it. I don't think Grandma added sunflower seeds but I've seen them added to a recipe similar to this.