Saturnalia Candy

Well, it's been an extremely LONG time since I've posted anything.  Today I'll probably be posting twice because there are some things I'm fairly proud of.  Some general updates on my life...

1.  I moved into a house in September.  I LOVE my house an the kitchen was the REAL selling point.  It's just a fantastic kitchen.  It has TONS of counter space.  Jess and I can both work in the kitchen on different things and have plenty of room without even bumping into each other unless we're both trying to use the stove top at the same time.

2.  I got a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer!  I have to have the most amazing boss in the world.  The Monday before Christmas we were at work and Rex (my boss) came by my office and asked if I wanted to walk across campus with him.  I said sure, he said to grab my keys.  As we got out the door he asked, "How would a used Kitchen Aid stand mixer work?"  I stopped, stunned and asked if he was serious.  Apparently, one of his sisters had one and had only used it once and didn't want or need it so he took it for me!! :)  It's basically brand new!!  Unbelievable!!  I didn't know how to respond I was so shocked.  BEST DAY EVER!!  I wrote his sister a thank you note and today I'm baking bread to take to him tomorrow as a thank you, but that's a later post.

So anyway, this year I decided I wanted to make Saturnalia candy (Most people would say "Christmas Candy" but I don't discriminate so I prefer to celebrate the "Feast of Saturnalia") to thank the ladies who work in our office.  That candy is below.  CRAZY easy to make and DELICIOUS!! I got the recipes out of a Frito-Lay Dessert Cookbook (Funny story, I have three copies of this cookbook because my folks gave me one at Thanksgiving and forgot.  They then gave me a copy of it for Christmas and my sister gave me a copy.  Hahahah.  Guess they REALLY REALLY wanted me to have it.)

So first, I made Puppy Chow.  My friend, Craig, use to make this when I was in Grad School and My mom made it a few times when I was a kid to take to various carry-in dinners but she used to serve it in a clean dog bowl because she thought that was funny.

Puppy Chow

Ingredients:  1/2 jar of peanut butter, rice chex (1 box), 1/2 lb of powdered sugar, 1 stick of butter, 1 bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Put the bag of chocolate chips in a bowl.

Add the stick of butter, cut into smaller pieces, and 1/2 the jar of peanut butter.  Microwave until melted.

This is after about 1 minute.  Stir it and put it on for 30 seconds more until you can stir it together.

This is what it looks like all stirred together.  YUMMY, I wanted to just take the spoon and eat this delicious peanut butter cup soup (that's what it tastes like), but I had to control myself.

Put your Chex in a huge bowl (this is a red one I got when I worked at EMU for some party or something... every time I use it I think of EMU and my friends and former staff there.  Makes me Michigan home sick).   Pour the chocolate/peanut butter mixture over the rice and then stir.

This is all stirred together.  This stuff is addicting.  I don't recommend making it for yourself.  ONLY  make it if you plan to take it somewhere and leave it. I even encourage taking it in a throw-away dish, but whatever you do, do NOT bring home left overs. 

Pour the powdered sugar over it and stir it until it's all coated in the sugar.  That way you can eat it without getting your fingers all goopey.  That's it.  It's DELICIOUS, but remember do NOT make it for yourself -- give it away SOON.

Oreo Truffles

I made Oreo Truffles, but I didn't take as many pictures. 

Ingredients:  1 bag of Oreos, 1 8 ounce block of cream cheese softened, 2 bags of white chocolate chips.

Put the Oreos in your food processor and process into crumbs.  Add the softened cream cheese until it makes a paste-like dough.  

Roll into small 1 inch balls and put on waxed paper.  You'll have several.  Refrigerate them over night.  I tried dipping them after 2 hours, but they were too crumbly.  So, wait over night or at least 3 hours.  These I actually did about four days later.

Melt the white chocolate chips over a double boiler.  I didn't have one so I made one.  Don't ask about the skewers.  I removed them before dipping. 

This is how it looks all liquidy.   Do NOT try to lick that spoon after stirring.. it's HOT.  You WILL burn your tongue.  Don't ask how I know, just TRUST me. 

I don't have any finished shots of these, some how I got distracted and didn't do them, but they are DELICIOUS.  I strongly encourage you to make them. 

English Toffee:

Ingredients:  2 sticks of butter, 1 cup of sugar, 3 tablespoons of water, one teaspoon of Vanilla, and three Hershey plain chocolate bars (I substituted for chocolate chips because that's what I had, but trust me use the Hershey bars) and one cup of your favorite nut -- I used Cashews, but not here. 

Cut up your butter and put it, the sugar, and water in a sauce pan (a heavy one) over medium to medium-high heat.  Slow cooking is the best way otherwise it will get a head of you.  Stirring constantly.

Keep stirring.  When every thing is melted together turn the heat to medium-high and keep stirring.  It will get really bubbly.  Just keep stirring.  What you're doing is slowly browning the butter which is what gives the toffee the delicious nutty-sweet flavor. 

Doesn't that look DELICIOUS?? It's fantastic.  Don't taste it now, though.  You'll burn your tongue.  Don't ask how I know, but TRUST me.  (Notice a theme??).  While it's boiling, you'll want to make sure to line a 9/13 baking dish with aluminum foil and butter the foil. 

 

 When it gets this light tan color and loses the yellow tinge, remove it from the heat and add 1 tsp of Vanilla.  Stir ti together, then add nuts if you want.  The candy will begin pulling away from the sides of the pan once it's off the heat and will try to form a ball.  Don't let it. 

This is the color it should be after the vanilla is mixed in.

Immediately pour it into your prepared foil lined pan.  Spread it around to the edges.

 

As soon as you spread it in the pan put the chocolate on top of it (remember Hershey bars not chocolate chip -- mainly because milk chocolate makes a better topping than the semi-sweet, but all I had on hand was semi-sweet).  It will immediately begin to melt and you'll be able to spread it like icing.  Once it's all spread, sprinkle it with nuts (If you used them) and put it in the refrigerator to cool.  When it's all cooled, you can lift the foil out of the pan and peel it right off.  Then break it into pieces and enjoy!!

That's my Saturnalia Candy offerings!!  They were delicious!  I gave them all away!!  I would have posted this sooner, but I was enjoying my break and trying to stay off the computer.  

Enjoy!!

Easy Linguine Casserole al la Steph

So I found a magazine called "Healthy Cooking:  Comfort Food Makeovers" and found several delicious looking recipes and decided to try one.   This one looked good, but I just KNEW I could make it better.  So I changed a few things:  1.  I added chicken and mushrooms, 2. I caramelized the onions because I cannot stand biting into crunchy onions, 3.  I omitted the small green pepper the recipe called for because Jess was eating with me and cannot stand green peppers, 4.  I used the whole box of linguine instead of half so that I would have plenty of left-overs, and 5.  I added garlic -- it's not real food without garlic.  I love garlic!!.  Oh and I used a tiny bit of milk to stretch the sauce a bit.

So let's begin....

Ingredients:  1 box of whole wheat linguine, broken in half, 2 cups fully cooked lean ham, 1-3/4 cup of shredded Swiss, divided, 1 can reduced fat-reduced sodium cream of mushroom soup, undiluted, 1 cup reduced fat sour cream, 1 medium onion chopped,

Get your pot of water on to boil the linguine.  Cook it until Al Dente because you're going to bake the dish as well and you don't want mushy pasta.

Next, chop your onion -- and while you're chopping it heat some olive oil in a skillet. 

Olive oil is heart healthy!!

Cook the onions for a bit and as the start to soften add about a tablespoon of garlic and the mushrooms. cook them until the onions are translucent.

Then I added the two chicken breasts and covered them with the onions and mushrooms while they cooked.  While the chicken cooked the onions, garlic, and mushrooms added flavor and caramelized.  They were so sweet and yummy!!

While the chicken is cooking it's a great time to shred the cheese if you have to.  Don't forget to check your pasta often to make sure you don't over cook it.

When the chicken was done it looked like this.  Mmmmm

I mixed the linguine, ham, cheese, soup, sour cream, and milk in a large bowl and mixed it well.

Then I diced up the chicken.

and added the chicken, mushrooms/onions to the mixture in the bowl and tossed it all together.

Then I spread it into a 9x13 casserole dish and baked it at 350 degrees, covered for 35 minutes.  Then I took it out, uncovered and sprinkled 1/4 cup of Swiss cheese on the top and put it back in, uncovered, for 10 minutes.

We had it with some fresh steamed green beans. 

It was a very starchy meal, but delicious!! 

We had tons of left overs and had it for lunch the next day and then I cooked some Brussels sprouts and had it for another dinner.  During the week I love having left overs in the fridge because they are quick and easy. 

Was pretty good comfort food!!  If I had made it exactly as the recipe stated it would have only been 293 calories a serving, but mine was a bit more with the chicken and the caramelized onions/mushrooms.  but not much more. :) 

No worries -- I got a new exercise bike and worked it off anyway.  I'll post pictures of it soon.  It's amazing and has a computer attached that tracks speed, mileage, calories burned, time elapsed, and will take my pulse.  It also has games to play and I can plug my iPod into it.  Like I said, I'll post pictures soon.

Penne with Turkey Bolognese

So, this past weekend was closing weekend.  Saturday Jess and I went up to visit one of our hall staff's to drop off some stuff and they were eating spaghetti.  Man oh man it smelled GOOD.  So I decided to make some.  However, I HATE HATE HATE jar spaghetti sauce and will only eat it if I can make the sauce from scratch.  It's a lot easier than you think, and I wanted to health it up.  So I decided to make the healthiest sauce I know -- a Bolognese (bal-lon-nyaeys) sauce.

But Steph, why is it so healthy you ask?  Because it has a LOT of veggies in it, low sodiumish, and is very tasty!!

Ingredients:  Extra-virgin olive oil, pancetta, onion, garlic, carrots, celery, ground turkey, crushed tomatoes, Italian parsley, basil, parm/romano, and penne pasta.

Start by chopping your pancetta, onion, and garlic.  (You can substitute two - three strips of bacon for the pancetta.  It brings a smokey flavor to the sauce and bacon would be an OK substitute)

In a large pan, heat the pan and add the oil.  Just before it begins smoking add the pancetta and cook it on medium-high until the fat begins to render (5 - 8 minutes depending on how thick it's cut.  I used the shaved variety so I only cooked it about 3 - 4 minutes.  .

Then add the onion.  I used a whole medium sized onion.

Add 2 garlic cloves.  Saute onion and garlic over medium heat until the onions become very soft -- about 8 minutes.

While the onion/garlic is sauteing, chop 1 carrot and 1 celery stalk.  I had some matchstick carrots left over from the chicken salad, so I used those and just chopped them a bit and diced the celery.

Add the carrot and celery and saute for 5 minutes.

 Raise the heat to Medium-high and add the ground turkey.  Saute, stirring frequently and breaking up any large lumps.  Cook until the meat is no longer pink.

Since I used turkey instead of beef I added a bit of Worcestershire powder to add a bit of a beefy flavor.

 While the turkey is cooking, you'll want to chiffonade the basil and parsley.  That's just a fancy way of say coarsely chop, but is sounds fancy and I like it.  The easiest way to do it is to pile the parsley up, roll it up, and then chop it.  Do the same with the Basil. 

When the turkey is cooked -- salt and pepper the veggies/turkey.  Not a lot, but it helps to salt it before adding the sauce because you can see it easier --at least I think so.  Then add a 28-oz can of crushed tomatoes, and the basil and parsley. 

Stir it all together, reduce the heat to low and cook until the sauce thickens -- about a half hour. 

Trust me -- make it from scratch IT'S WORTH IT!! You'll never eat jar sauce again.  you can make a lot and freeze it and pull it out as you need it. 

While that is cooking, put on your pot of water for your pasta.  I always use a HUGE pan -- my biggest one.  So that the pasta can move around freely.   You know how to make pasta.

I use whole wheat penne. I love Penne Rigate because it's easy to eat.  Spaghetti noodles are messy and make you look silly while you try to eat so I almost always use penne instead.  Plus with a bolognese, the meat and veggies settle inside the penne and it's amazing. 

Your sauce will thicken and look like this.

Add 1/4 - 1/2 cup of Parmesan.  I really like Trader Joe's grated parm. It has a stronger flavor than the Kraft grated parm.  Mix it in and let it cook about three minutes longer to meld the flavors.  Remove from heat and let it sit while you finish cooking your pasta. 

Drain the pasta and then put it back in the pan, add the bolognese, and cook it for a tiny bit longer all mixed together.  It melds the flavors and lets the sauce coat and get up all in the penne's business.  YUMMM!!

I served it with these little garlic/Parmesan puff pastry things I got from Trader Joe's.  They were AMAZING!! 

We also had salad with the pasta. 

Was a delicious meal!!  

Seriously, though, make your pasta sauce from scratch.  It's SOOO Much better.  It's pretty easy as well.. you can make a pretty simple sauce with just onion, garlic, basil, and crushed tomatoes.  It just gets fancier from there.  It is fresh and yummy and tons TONS better for you than the sodium they add to the jar sauces so that they don't spoil.  

Plus -- canned tomatoes are awesome.  They come low to no salt added and are often canned at the peak tomato season so they are delicious!!

OK that's all -- see you soon!!