Pesto Pizza Pinwheels

Well, the hockey gathering has ended. Lana is curled up next to next to me, completely spent. Not only did we have the food that I made, but we had burgers, dogs, and the best part of the night - venison!!!

One of the guys on Dan's team is a hunter and brought us some some fresh venison steaks and sausages (currently in the freezer awaiting the perfect recipe), and some fresh marinated venison that we grilled up. Sooooo goooooood.

Anyways, one of the things I made today were some pesto pizza pinwheels. The original recipe had a really healthy dough made from scratch, but I've posted in the past that dough in my nemesis. Even with store-bought pizza dough, it just never works out for me. No matter if I let it get to room temp or make sure my surface is clean and floured, dough just never wants to cooperate. I almost reconsidered making these, but I went for it anyways. I didn't use a homemade dough, I went for the Pillsbury dough, to save time and frustration. Let me tell you, it worked perfectly! The Pillsbury dough is so easy to spread and roll out how you want it, without shrinking right back into place. You could make these however you want. Throw in some sauce for a more traditional pizza roll, add more toppings if you please. I stuck with the pesto (from a jar), pepperoni, and cheese with some marinara to dip into. I've made my own pesto before, which is pretty easy, but today was all about cleaning and making several things, so time savers were a must.

Pesto Pizza Pinwheels
adapted from Recipe Girl
makes 16 pinwheels

2 cans Pillsbury pizza dough
1 small jar prepared pesto (I used maybe half the jar)
2 cups shredded Italian blend cheese
Pepperoni

Marinara for dipping

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease two baking sheets.
2. Grease your surface your working on to make it easier to move around and roll up. I worked on a large cutting board I had. Roll out one pizza dough. Press it down to stretch it out to how large you want it.
3. Spread a few big spoonfuls of pesto over the dough. Top with pepperoni and about 3/4 cups of cheese. Roll up at the longer edge. Cut into 8 pieces, discard the ends where it's mostly dough. Play the pinwheels flat on the greased baking sheet. Sprinkle a bit more cheese on top.
4. Repeat with the other pizza dough, pesto, pepperoni and cheese.
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes until crust is golden. Serve with marinara sauce.

Buffalo Chicken Cheese Balls

Post #2 of today's appetizers for Dan's hockey gathering here. After throwing the cocktail meatballs in the crock pot, and throwing the cupcakes in the oven (recipe coming soon), it was time to get the chicken.

I had already boiled the chicken earlier in the day. I recommend cooking your chicken (however you choose to, baking, boiling, or buying rotisserie) before hand. It makes this much easier to throw together when you're shorter on time. This is another easy recipe, with only 6 ingredients - chicken, buffalo sauce, cheddar cheese, egg, flour, and Panko breadcrumbs. The only time consuming part is making the balls and rolling them in the flour, egg and breadcrumbs.

Buffalo Chicken Cheese Balls
adapted from A Turtle's Life for Me

3 chicken breasts, cooked and shredded into small pieces
1/3 cup buffalo wing sauce
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup flour
2-3 cups Panko breadcrumbs

Bleu Cheese Dressing for dipping

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the shredded chicken, wing sauce and cheese.
3. Put the egg, flour and breadcrumbs into three separate shallow dishes.
4. Make small balls with the chicken mix. Roll in the flour, then the egg and then the breadcrumbs.
5. Place on baking sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes.
6. Serve with bleu cheese dressing.

Easy Cocktail Meatballs

So many exciting things this weekend. It started with the Halloween party on Friday. Dan and I decided to be Sheldon Cooper and Amy Farrah Fowler from the Big Bang Theory. It was pretty fun! Yesterday, Dan and I spent the day cleaning around the house. I'm pretty sure I did 4 loads of laundry, washed, dried and folded. I also cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed the whole house, and watched the dogs, while Dan took the leaf blower to the lawn, mowed the lawn, and brought 2 weeks worth of trash and recycling to the dump. Productive day overall. At night, Dan went to work and I got the next exciting thing of the weekend - my new Chromebook! We were in need of a new laptop soon, and the Chromebooks were recommended because they are portable (2 lbs!), suits all basic needs, and easy on the wallet. We got the HP Chromebook 11. So far, so good. It takes a little while to get used to Chrome, since I've been a PC Windows user since my first computer as a kid, but it's somewhat similar to a mac or iPhone. It's all web-based and uses apps instead of programs. It did take me 5-10 minutes to learn how to save my photos on here so I could blog all my goodies for the weekend, but it's super simple.

All my goodies is the next exciting part of the weekend. Dan's hockey team has the night off this week, so he decided to invite the team here tonight to hang out. So, between the cleaning of the house, I had some serious cooking to do. This is the first real time we've entertained people here, other than having a bonfire once this summer. Dan told me to grab some burgers and hot dogs, and I reminded him that I write a cooking blog....burgers and dogs are not blog-worthy, so I would be making things that were. Obviously!

First up is a recipe that I'm pretty sure everyone knows and loves. Cocktail meatballs. You know, the sweet and sour kind, the kind that's at every potluck you go to. The kind that people say, "You know? The meatballs? The sweet ones, not the Italian ones?" I always forget about really really easy recipes this like when I go to make appetizers. I figured today was a good day for it, they take a total of 5 minutes to prepare, and a few hours in the crock pot. Three ingredients. Five minutes of actual work. Hours of your house smelling fabulous.

Easy Cocktail Meatballs
from my mom telling me how she makes them

2 (1.5 lb) bags plain frozen meatballs (I used Angus Beef, but you could use turkey or any kind)
1 (18 oz) jar grape jelly
1.5 jars chili sauce (you could use 2, but I like mine a little sweeter)

1. Heat the jelly in a microwave safe bowl for 2-3 minutes, until it thins out and is easy to stir. Add chili sauce and mix to combine
2. Place frozen meatballs in a crock pot. Top with sauce and cook on low for at least 2 hours or longer. Mine will be cooked for 6 hours once the gathering starts.

** By the way, I love crock pot liner bags. Though they aren't so pretty for pictures or presentation, they make clean up ridiculously easy, which is great when you're entertaining because you're going to have lots of dishes to do after the party.

Fall Flavors Poke Cake

Happy Halloween!!!

I had always dreamed of the day that I would be passing out candy to kids in my neighborhood from my own home. Except, my own home is on a main road, so I don't think we'll get any kids here. Looks like the bag of Dum Dum Pops are coming to work with me tomorrow....

Today, in my classroom we had a Halloween/Send Off party. One of our teacher aides had her last day today, so the kids and teachers brought in goodies and we had a celebration all afternoon. I decided to make something for it, obviously, and I wanted it to be pumpkin. Apparently, poke cakes are all the rage on Pinterest, I've seen about 30 different recipes for them, and I actually made an oreo one last year for a student's birthday. I found a recipe for a pumpkin one, but then couldn't find any pumpkin spice pudding at the store, so I improvised and made the cake my own. I decided to go with cheesecake flavored pudding, and chose butterscotch pudding to put into the cake mix. It's a great mix of pumpkin, butterscotch, cheesecake, cinnamon and maple flavors. We just need some apple and it would be every fall flavor you could think of. Oh, and I topped it with some caramel, so even more! The great thing about poke cakes, is that you can make it any flavors you want, with extremely little work. You used a boxed cake mix, boxed pudding mixes, and can use Cool Whip for the topping, with a few extra ingredients threw in. I recommend taking the 5 minutes to make fresh whipped cream though, there are few things better than fresh whipped cream, except maybe a flavored whipped cream.

Fall Flavors Poke Cake
adapted from Beyond Frosting 

1 pkg. spice cake mix
1 3.4 oz. pkg butterscotch pudding
3 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup sour cream
3/4 cup milk

2 pkgs. cheesecake pudding
4 cups cold milk

2 cups cold heavy whipping cream
3 tbsp. pure maple syrup
1 tsp. cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9x13 pan.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix together the cake mix and butterscotch pudding mix. Add the eggs, oil, sour cream and milk and beat until combined.
3. Pour into the pan and bake for 18-22 minutes.
4. When the cake is done baking, cool for 10 minutes and then, using the handle of a mixing spoon, poke holes into the cake all over.
5. In a bowl, whisk the cheesecake pudding and cold milk together for 2 minutes. Let sit for 3-5 minutes until it thickens up just a bit, but is still pourable. Pour over the cake, spreading to cover the holes and entire cake. Place in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
6. In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk the heavy whipping cream for about 5 minutes until soft peaks form. Slowly add each tablespoon of syrup while whisk. Add cinnamon and whisk on low until combined. Spread over pudding layer of cake. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

Top with chocolate chips or caramel sauce (or any topping you like!).

Crumbs Bake Shop Review

A Crumbs Bake Shop went into the mall near us some time ago, and I just never got the chance to get in there. I was excited when I saw the "coming soon" sign in the store front, so you would think I would have made it a point to go there when it opened. But, I never did. Today I had to go to the mall to pick up newly re-sized engagement ring, so cupcakes just seemed like a good idea.

My good idea got even better when I walked into Crumbs and the girl told me, "Everything today is buy one, get one". Really?! A BOGO sale at a cupcake shop? Don't mind if I do. I had planned on just grabbing two to try, so now I could get four! For someone who almost never eats sweets, I was overly excited. Here's what I ended up with, and what my thoughts are. I took a big bite out of each (it will take me about 3 days to eat all 4, though Dan will get to them first).

Cupcake #1: Pumpkin
Pumpkin cake, filled and topped with a vanilla cream cheese frosting, with streusel around the edges and a cinnamon dusting on top. The cake was actually pretty good. Not as moist as many homemade pumpkin cupcakes I've had, but good flavor. The frosting was pretty standard. I'd give this a 3 out 5.

Cupcake #2: Cannoli
Vanilla cake, filled and topped with vanilla cream cheese frosting mixed with mini chocolate chips, and topped off with a mini cannoli that is filled with vanilla cream cheese frosting and mini chocolate chips. This was just eh. The cake was slightly drier than I would have liked, and it's that same basic frosting. It also would have been nice for the cannoli to be a little more authentic, rather than filled with the same frosting as the cupcake. I give this a 2 out of 5.

Cupcake #3: Thin Mint
This is a Girl Scout special. It's a devil's food cake filled with fudge, topped with mint cream cheese frosting, rolled in chocolate cake crumbs, and topped with a thin mint cookie. This is getting better as far as the cupcakes go. The cake was pretty moist, but I never noticed any fudge filling. The frosting was slightly dry too, and only had a hint of mint flavor, I would have liked to taste more mint. I give this a 3 out of 5.

Cupcake #4:Caramel Coconut
Another Girl Scout special. Vanilla cake, filled with caramel and topped with chocolate cream cheese frosting. Then it's rolled in toasted coconut and finished off with a caramel coconut cookie. The vanilla cake was the same, a little drier than I preferred. The frosting was delicious and the coconut added a great flavor and a little chewy texture. I did not, however notice any caramel filling in my big bite. I give this a 4 out of 5.

Maybe after I eat some more, I will notice the fillings that seemed to be missing in my bites.

All in all, I would say Crumbs are worth a try, but not so sure they're worth the money. Every time I try a nationally known cupcake brand, they fall short of that yummy homemade goodness that cupcakes are all about. I still prefer my own standard cupcakes baked in my own kitchen.

White Chocolate Chai Spice Cupcakes

It was freezing today. Seriously. There was still frost everywhere at 8:30 this morning. It was so cold, I even made Lana wear her coat today for the first time.

What else did I do for the first time? I made brown butter. Or browned butter. Or beurre noisette if you want to get fancy. I've seen plenty of recipes calling for browned butter, but never attempted it yet. Why?I have no idea, it's so easy. I followed the directions given in the original recipe for these cupcakes, but I also did some researching as well. Lots of my resources (blogs, cooking websites, etc) said basically the same thing. Some recommended using better brands of butter, such as Kerrygold or Plugra. And, almost said to use unsalted butter. The recipe I followed called for regular salted butter, which I was skeptical about. Whenever I make frosting I always use unsalted. But, I also always follow on original recipe as intended the first time I try it.

Here's what I have to say about using salted butter for this...

The frosting tastes like salted butter. It kind of made the cupcake akin to drinking chai tea with a side of buttered toast. As far as one of those sweet and salty desserts, this would be great. but if you want a nice sweet cupcake resembling a cup of chai tea, go with unsalted. I'm wondering if the original poster meant to list unsalted butter or not. There was no mention of it under the comments either. Next time I make browned butter (and I most definitely will), I want to try a better brand of butter and most definitely use unsalted. So, if you make these, go for unsalted! But the process of making browned butter is easy. Make it ahead of time so it can chill in the fridge and harden up a bit. I chilled mine for almost 3 hours and let it sit out for an hour before using it in the frosting and it worked well. When they say you can really smell the nuttiness of the browned butter, you really can, even more so when it's chilled and you beat it in the mixer. When you're melting and cooking the butter, keep it over medium or medium-low heat. Once it's brown and you can see the little brown flecks, take it off the heat. I actually wish I had left mine on slightly longer to get a deeper amber-brown color, but I did get the little flecks, which are just the milk solids that cooked faster. It can be very easy to burn butter, so watch it when you make it. It took me about 10 minutes with some whisking here and there.

One last thing about this recipe. I followed all directions, but did have to adapt the frosting after. I added in about 3 tablespoons of milk to the frosting and a half teaspoon of vanilla. The browned butter and 3 cups of powdered sugar just made an incredibly unspreadably (that's a new word) thick frosting, and I like a smooth frosting that is easier to pipe and smoother to eat as well.

All in all, these cupcakes are good, but just not what I expected due to the saltiness.

A little closeup so you can see the flecks in the brown butter frosting...

White Chocolate Chai Spice Cupcakes
adapted from The Proper Pinwheel

For the browned butter:
2 sticks of unsalted butter

For the cupcakes:
1 and 2/3 cups cake flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 egg whites
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla
2/3 cup white chocolate chip, melted *(see note)
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. cardamom

For the frosting:
prepared browned butter
3 cups powdered sugar
3 tbsp. milk or cream
1 tsp. vanilla

1. Make the browned butter ahead of time. In a sauce pan or small skillet, melt the butter over medium or medium-low heat. Keep cooking until it turns a nice deep amber brown color with little brown specks in it. Whisk occasionally. Chill in the refrigerator for at least one hour until it hardens up. You want it the consistency of softened butter.
2. To make the cupcakes: Preheat the oven to 350. Line a muffin tin with liners.
3. In a medium mixing bowl, soft together the flour, baking powder and salt.
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter until creamy. Add the sugar and beat. Add the egg whites and beat until combined.
5. Add the flour mix and milk in alternation. Start with the dry mix, then some milk, then some dry mix, then some milk and end with the dry mix. Mix until just combined. Don't over mix.
6. Add the vanilla, melted chocolate and spices and combine.
7. Fill liners 2/3 full and bake for 17-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool on a rack.
8. To make the frosting: Beat the softened browned butter in the bowl of a stand mixer. (Feel free to really take in the nutty aroma!)
9. Add the powdered sugar, one cup at a time. In between each addition of sugar, add a tablespoon of milk or cream. Add the vanilla and mix. If you want a thicker frosting, add less milk or add more sugar in the end. If you want a smoother frosting after this, add a tablespoon more of milk or cream at a time until you reach your desired consistency.

Sesame Chicken

At the end of the summer, I signed up for Weight Watchers. I did good for a couple of weeks, then went on vacation for a week at the beach. The beach means almost all meals out, seafood, fried food, fried seafood, and a week of bottomless drinks. When I came home, school was starting and my diet wasn't so much continuing...

At school, my breakfast and lunches are decently healthy. Three days a week at least I have a Lean Cuisine or other healthy frozen meal for lunch. I do usually have a breakfast sandwich from Dunks with my pumpkin coffee, which isn't the healthiest thing, but I at least choose the turkey sausage egg white flatbread sandwich. My Dunks runs will end tomorrow, since I found some pumpkin spice creamer at the grocery store today. Usually I just have coffee with skim milk, but when pumpkin season rolls around, it's pumpkin and skim milk, which makes it a bit unhealthier. But, I'm a firm believer in a little indulgence each day, and since sweets aren't my thing, a little pumpkin spice in my coffee isn't so bad. Right?

Yesterday, I went with my bridesmaid to choose their dresses. I cannot believe how smoothly it went. I have 10 bridesmaids (yes, 10) and 9 were there and it took under an hour for everyone to choose a dress they loved. I also tried on my dress again for them. It's definitely time to re-instate the Weight Watchers.

When I do diet, I like to use some sort of tacking for it. Weight Watchers, though it's not free, has a great system. You get all the tools you need to track your meals and recipes. I have the website (I don't do the meetings) and the apps on my phone (the tracker and scanner). I've also used MyFitnessPal.com (and the app), which is free and pretty good. Sometimes some foods can be hard to find, and portions can be hard to track unless they can do individual pieces of things. Sometimes, on MyFitnessPal, you have to choose a set serving size, so trying to put in that you ate 10 Wheat Thins, instead of a serving of 12, can be tough. With WW, there was more variety. Also, when I diet, I don't religiously stick to every single rule. It's okay to have a meal out on date night and not feel like a total failure. Just eat some extra veggies the next day and try to get more exercise in. I'm also honest when I track my foods. I put everything in, and if it ends up being high in points (for WW), then I try and remember and balance it with healthier foods for the rest of the day. I also put my recipes into the recipe calculator, so I can see exactly what one serving will be. I don't necessarily choose healthy meals to cook either (seriously, I bake cupcakes once a week...but I don't eat them). My first two weeks of Weight Watchers and a week or two of semi following it after that (other than beach week), resulted in a 7-pound weight loss. Not bad. Now if I can just keep up with it, and use to help me be more conscious of what I eat around the holidays, I'd say that would be making some good progress. Oh, and be more physically active. I wish looking up wedding ideas and recipes on Pinterest burned some serious calories...I'd be a stick figure if that were the case. Wishful thinking!

Tonight's recipe, when I put it into the recipe calculator on WW, is worth 9 points if you portion it out to be 6 servings. The rice jacks up the points, but a girl needs some starch every now and then. The sauce for this was really good, but not enough to cover all of the chicken in there, so next time, I'll double it. That may bring the points up a bit if I do. I also added in some steamed broccoli for color, health, and something more than chicken. I used 3 pretty large chicken breasts, so there was more than 1 pound, but I reflected that when I put it into the WW calculator, so if you only use 1 pound, that may bring the points down.

Sesame Chicken
from Budget Bytes

For the chicken:
1 egg
2 tbsp. cornstarch
salt & pepper
1 lb. boneless, skinless, chicken breast
2 tbsp. vegetable oil

For the sauce:
1.5 tbsp. brown sugar
2 tbsp. water
2 tbsp. soy sauce
1/2 tbsp. sesame oil
1.5 tbsp. rice vinegar
1 clove garlic, minced (I left out because I forgot!)
1 tsp. ground ginger or 1-inch piece of fresh ginger, finely grated
2 tbsp. sesame seeds
1 tbsp. cornstarch
1 bag frozen broccoli pieces that can be steamed in the microwave (like Valley Fresh Steamers)

4 cups of cooked jasmine rice

1. Cut the chicken into 1-inch pieces.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the egg, cornstarch, salt and pepper. Toss the chicken in the egg mix to coat.
3. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Once the oil is hot, add the chicken and all of the egg mix. Cook the chicken until cooked through and browned, stirring occasionally.
4. Mix all the of the sauce ingredients together in a small bowl. When the chicken is cooked, add the sauce. The sauce will thicken once it's added to the pan. Stir and cook until sauce is heated. Add the steamed broccoli, mix with the chicken and sauce and serve over rice.

I really need to work on my sub-par photography...