Mini Chicken and Waffle Sliders

My last post about nothing glamorous coming out of my kitchen due to not having an oven wasn't entirely true. Well, it was when I posted it because I forgot about my superbowl food. I know what you're all thinking. "How could you forget about the Superbowl? Your team won in one of the best games to ever be played!" With all this snow, I guess my focus has been on the misery that is the 7 foot wall of snow in my front yard from endless plowing and shoveling in the last two weeks.

These were made in the toaster oven and a huge hit with my friends. This recipe couldn't get any easier. Seriously. The only thing that would make it easier would be someone else making it, and then all you have to do is eat it. Frozen mini waffle, frozen popcorn chicken, maple syrup, toothpicks. And, you're done.

I only did a tiny drizzle of syrup in case my friends weren't syrup fans, but they ended pouring a bowl of syrup on the side to dip them in.

Mini Chicken and Waffle Sliders
from Food, Folks, and Fun

1 box frozen mini waffles
20 pieces of frozen popcorn chicken (or chicken tenders cut up after cooking)
A few tablespoons of maple syrup
20 toothpicks

1. Cook waffles and chicken according to package directions.
2. Place a toothpick into a waffle, slide a piece of chicken on top, drizzle with syrup, and top with another waffle. Repeat 19 more times.

The Best of 2014

I have to apologize for the lack of posts. As much as I know it saddens you, it's killing me.

You see, I still don't have an oven. STILL. That has me cooking easy stove-top meals like pasta, sauted chicken, etc. Nothing to blog about by any means. And most of my baking is on hold until we get a new oven. I'm missing my oven, my baking, and my blogging.

Once that new oven appears though, you better watch out. I've stored a serious amount of recipes for my triumphant return to the kitchen. Okay...I've been in the kitchen, just nothing glamorous has come out of it recently.

To try and stay motivated and not leave my blog so lonely for much longer I figured I'd round up my favorite recipes from the past year. A little trip down memory lane...

These are in no order, mostly because I didn't want to take the amount of time I know it would take to rate them. And then I'd want sub-categories, like cupcakes, other baked goods, dinner (which would then be broken down even further), etc.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Banana Butterscotch Cream Pie Cupcakes

Sweet and Sour Chicken

Mum's Stuffed Peppers

Crock Pot Spaghetti Sauce

Kahlua Caramelized Banana S'More Bread

Shrimp & Corn Chowder

Earl Grey Honey Whiskey Bread

 

 

Chocolate Merlot Cupcakes

BBQ Pulled Pork

We are buried in 3 feet of snow.

Yes. Three feet of snow.

Okay, okay, so we were buried, but not so much any more. Life went mostly back to normal today, except I had another snow day from school. From Monday night into last night, we watched the snow just pile on. If Lana was a fan of the snow, we would have lost her in it. Meanwhile, Tess bounded through it, making her own pathways through the blizzard.

Good thing we have 2 more storms coming out way this week....

We lucked out here. There was a lot of damage predicted due to the high wind speed with the blizzard, but it didn't seem as bad as was predicted. We were worried about losing power, but all was well. I was able to make some chowder and dog treats Sunday night, and then threw some pork roasts into the crock pot yesterday so we had pulled pork for the day.

How do you all like your pulled pork? Dan likes it with the just the dry rubbed pork and spices in it, while I like mine smothered in barbecue sauce. I added in a little sauce at the end but not as much as is called for in the recipe. I added more sauce to my own sandwiches when I ate them (with a little ranch dressing too!).

This was the biggest blizzard we've had in YEARS and the most depressing part was that I couldn't bake. We still don't have an oven. I don't even want to talk about it anymore....

BBQ Pulled Pork
from Easy Slow Cooker Meals

2 medium onions, sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced or sliced
1 cup chicken stock
1 tbsp. dark brown sugar
1 tbsp. chili powder
1 tbsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
4-5 lbs. boneless pork shoulder (I used two smaller ones)
2 cups barbecue sauce (if using)

1. Place onions and garlic in the bottom of the slow cooker and pour stock over it.
2. Pat the roast dry with paper towels.
3. Combine the brown sugar, chili powder, salt, cumin and cinnamon and rub over roast. Place on top of onions and garlic.
4. Cook on high 6-7 hours or low 8-10 hours.
5. Remove pork and shred. Discard fat. If you don't use barbecue sauce, save about a cup of the stock in the crock pot and discard the rest. Return to pork to the crock pot and pour in stock. If you do use barbecue sauce, discard all stock, and return pork to crock pot. Add in the 2 cups of barbecue sauce. Let cook another 30 minutes for either option and serve.

Pumpkin Peanut Butter Dog Treats

Not having an oven is KILLING me. For meals, using the stove and crock pot is perfectly fine, but for baking...

I looked through my recipes to see of I had anything small-batch that could be made in the toaster oven. I came across this recipe and figured with the snow coming (and boy, it came) the dogs might like some homemade treats.

Well, we are at just about 3 feet of snow since last night, and it's not quite slowing down yet. School is off for tomorrow as well, and the road bans haven't been lifted. I'm just glad that Dan got to be home with me for this one, we've never gotten an actual snow day together.

This recipe is really easy and contains ingredients I have in my house at all times. Other than taking to small amount of time to roll it out, it was done and baked in under an hour.

Pumpkin Peanut Butter Dog Treats
from Will Cook For Friends

1/2 cup canned pumpkin puree
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
2 eggs
pinch of salt
2.5 cups whole wheat flour (if your dog can't have wheat, use brown rice flour)

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. In a large bowl mix together the pumpkin, peanut butter, eggs and salt.
3. Mix in the flour with a spatula or your hands (hands is WAY easier).
4. If it's too dry add in small amounts of more pumpkin, or small amounts of water.
5. Lightly flour some counter space and roll out the dough to 1/4" or 1/2" thickness. Cut into whatever shapes you like.
6. Bake for 20 minutes, then flip over and bake another 10 minutes. Let cool completely.
7. Make your dog do tricks for them.

She tucked a whole bunch in her mouth for fear I would take it away

Tess likes to parade around with her treats before she eats them

Toaster Oven Apple Cinnamon Monkey Bread

You may have read my last post, the one where I mentioned that MY OVEN BROKE. I have been wallowing in that sadness all day today. After some thought, I decided to try and make it positive by looking up some toaster oven recipes. My toaster oven is relatively small, so I had some thorough research to do. I finally found this recipe that seemed perfect.

Well almost..

When you make this, I recommend baking the bottom layer of biscuit for 10-12 minutes to let it start cooking. I baked mine for 35 minutes, and the bottom biscuits were not cooked, barely at all, and the top was going to burn if I left it in any longer. If it had all come together the way it should have, it would have been great. I was only able to pick off some pieces from the top to eat. If you try it with my recommendation, let me know how it goes. I'll try this again sometimes and hopefully update this post with the right way to do it.

Toaster Oven Apple Cinnamon Monkey Bread
from Zag Left

1 can Pillsbury flaky buttermilk biscuits (I used 6 of them)
1 Granny smith apple, peeled and diced
2 tbsp. butter, melted
2 tbsp. brown sugar
2 tbsp. white sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

For the topping:
1 tbsp. butter, melted
1 tbsp. brown sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1. Preheat toaster oven to 350. Butter an individual ramekin.
2. Break 6 biscuits into quarters and roll into balls.
3. Pour 2 tablespoons of melted butter into a large Ziplock bag. Mix the brown sugar, white sugar and cinnamon in a second large Ziplock bag.
4. Place the dough balls into the butter bag and shake to coat with butter. Transfer to the sugar bag and shake to coat with sugar.
5. Press a few dough balls into the bottom of the ramekin. Bake for 10-12 minutes.
6. Cover with diced apples. Cover those with another layer of dough balls.
7. Mix together the tablespoon of melted butter, brown sugar and cinnamon and pour on top of the biscuits.
7. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until browned and cooked through.
8. Flip over onto a plate and watch the brown sugar mix melt down to the bottom. Eat!

Vanilla Bean Bundt Cake

Where do I begin? How about with how I was all excited for my first time making meringues...and how they came out great...and then were ruined. OR, about how I got my positive vibes back from the failed meringues and decided to throw this Vanilla Bean Bundt cake into the oven at 9:30pm, only to return to it to find my oven WASN'T HEATED. And not because I forgot to turn it on or anything like that, but because it's broken. MY OVEN IS BROKEN.

More on how this cake was a miracle later on...

OR, we could talk about non-baking related issues, like the sound on my TV suddenly not working???

Can I just hide in a cave for a while, and when I come out, I will have a brand new gas range, double ovens (maybe just a whole new kitchen), and I will know how to bake everything, and I can do so while watching my 60" 4K Ultra HD TV. Is that too much to ask??

Okay, okay, first things first. The meringues.

So, I was all pumped because I had found an easy starter recipe for meringues. I know meringues can be finicky things, so I read the recipe about 4 times. And, I even researched some more on meringues. I made my meringues, baked them for 2 hours, let them sit in the oven another hour and they were all dry and peeled off the Silpat mats with a couple of sticky ones just to make it more of a challenge. I then let those sit for a while. I made sandwiches with them and some chocolate ganache. I then boxed them up and set them aside. So where did it go wrong?

Setting them aside meant moving them to some open space on the counter. That space is over the dishwasher. When I run the dishwasher, the counter gets warm. Warmth causes humidity and humidity ruins meringues. I ended up with sticky, chewy meringue cookies.

What else did I learn from this? When piping meringues, your hands really heat up the meringue, which makes it lose it stiffness and not pipe as pretty. See my photos below.

First sheet all piped out

See the difference in the top, which was piped early, and the bottom which was after the heat from my hand softened the meringues?

All baked

Sandwiched with chocolate ganache

Boxed up...before they were ruined

To redeem myself from this meringue failure, I decided to throw a cake in the oven at 9:30 last night, just because I needed to feel accomplished. So, I preheated the oven...it beeped...I put my cake in (not fully paying attention that it's not particularly warm, let alone 350), and then set the time. I return in 35 minutes to find a cold oven and a pan of cake batter.

Panic sets in. Dan gets up to investigate. After laughing at me for looking like I was about to cry, he tells me to bake it in the toaster oven, and he will see about the oven tomorrow. Except he's gone Sunday-Wednesday from 7:00am to 10:00pm. So when I remind him of this, he says if we need a new one, we'll get it Thursday.

No oven for 3 days (or longer)?!?!?!

I was able to salvage my cake in the toaster oven. It came out a little denser than it would have in the regular oven, but it was still pretty good. I cut into it just to be sure it was okay before I dusted it with some powdered sugar.

Vanilla Bean Bundt Cake
from Tartlet Sweets

1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 eggs, room temp
1/2 cup milk
1 tbsp. vanilla bean paste, or one vanilla bean scraped
1.5 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
powdered sugar for dusting

1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour a bundt pan.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing between each egg. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
3. Add the flour, milk, vanilla, baking powdered, and salt and mix until very smooth.
4. Pour into the bundt pan and smooth the top of the batter. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
5. Let sit in the pan for 10 minutes, then flip over onto a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Dust with powdered sugar and eat!

Slow Cooker Sweet & Sour Meatballs

Let's talk about the AFC championship yesterday and how the Patriots dominated that game. Let's also talk about how I decided to have a playoff party at my house, and spent my day cleaning and cooking to prepare. Now, it's well known, I'm not much of a football fan. I mean, I'll watch a game, and be into it when I'm watching, but I don't actively plan my Sundays around football. That was like the second Pats game I watched all season. I will, of course, watch the Superbowl, and enjoy that, but I more enjoy the food for football games.

Now, if it's the Bruins, I plan my life around their games.

Yesterday, Dan worked all day, so I knew he wouldn't be home until right after the game started. I made our famous buffalo chicken crescents, which we get asked for every time we go anywhere. I also tried a couple of new things I found. One are these sweet and sour meatballs, and the other are these loaded baked potato rounds. Everything was a hit. We also had some friends bring brownies, lil' smokies, baked and breaded jalapeno poppers, queso dip, and some other chips and dips.

What's even better than all that? I have today off for Martin Luther King day. So aside from blogging today, I'm also trying my hand at making some meringues. Fingers crossed they come out alright!

The meatballs are great because they're SO easy to make. Chop up some veggies, then throw your meatballs, veggies, pineapple, jar of sauce, some brown sugar and soy sauce in, set your crock pot, and walk away. I wish it had a little bit of a thicker sauce to it, and I almost debated buying two jars of sweet & sour sauce for that reason, but trying to be budget friendly I just grabbed the one. Either way, they're great, and the veggies and pineapple are a nice extra. Usually cocktail-style meatballs are just meatballs and no extra goodies.

Slow Cooker Sweet & Sour Meatballs
from Six Sister's Stuff

2 lbs. frozen meatballs
1 (20 oz.) can pineapple chunks, drained
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 (10 oz) jar sweet & sour sauce

1. Place meatballs, pineapple, and veggies in the crock pot. Cover with brown sugar, soy sauce, and sweet and sour sauce. Mix everything together.
2. Cook on high for 4 hours, or low for 7 hours.

Sorry for the not-so-appealing picture. I use crock pot liners for easy cleanup, but that makes for not-so-great pictures of anything cooking in there.