Drooling...

Amanda was asking for beet recipes on her blog. Who cooks with beets? Ok, don't answer that. I'm sure it's like everyone but me.

I have never cooked a beet in my life and I think I have had beets like twice in my life. Oh, they are around at places I eat. They have never appealed to me, especially the beets that have been plopped out of a can and still have the ring marks from the tin can. The texture of Jello and my gag reflex do NOT get a long! Ok..well on to more appetizing things.

I thought, I will check out what Foodgawker has to share with us about beets and I found this amazing looking salad. We will be eating this at our house soon, I think I am literally drooling!
And you thought a post about drooling would surely be about Baby K. Nope, not this time. ;)Recipe: (as shared by Helen on her blog)
"[Peaches], these were supposed to be grilled. I forgot to light the BBQ, so I cooked them gently in a little butter and black pepper. I tossed them with the salad leaves, some walnut halves, roasted beets, crumbled gorgonzola - all drizzled with a dressing made by whisking olive oil, balsamic vinegar and lemon juice. A little chopped mint is good too if you have it."
Source: Food Stories

Thought: I think the 1st time I make this I will leave the walnuts plain but I think some walnuts that are tossed lightly in butter and then in sugar with a hint of cayenne pepper and then toasted lightly in the oven would be even better!

Coffee Ice Cream Results...

I made the coffee ice cream - actually we should call it coffee custard. AMAZING!!!
The recipe is in my previous post and if you love coffee and you love ice cream and you're looking for something to do - MAKE IT! This isn't your typical coffee ice cream that really tastes like ice cream w/ a hint of coffee flavor - no this is frozen creamy coffee goodness!

It only makes a quart (which is 4 cups) but it is rich rich rich and if you can eat a whole cup you have a stomach for rich things that I could only dream of matching.

In the future I plan to follow the recipe as directed below - however when I add the custard mixture to the ice cream freezer I am going to add 1 cup of whole Milk to the mix. This should actually make it a little less rich. This stuff is thick, it is definitely frozen custard and not ice cream.
Oh, and 1/2 cup of heath bars didn't seem to be enough if you ask me - I used about 3/4-1cup of crushed heath bar - YUMMY YUMMY!

I'm not a photographer and I couldn't get the light right so the camera wouldn't focus correctly, please excuse my very amateur photograph - but you get the idea.

Sweet Treat...

I am bored just sitting around waiting for this baby to come. Baby is due Thursday - I'll be induced if she doesn't make her appearance by next Saturday morning - this waiting is about to make me batty.
Anyway, what's a girl to do while she waits....hmmmmm....Make Ice Cream! :)

I found a recipe today for Coffee Ice Cream (actually a custard based ice cream) a blogger I found had revised a recipe she found in a book and I have revised her recipe so who knows how much of this is other people's recipe and how much is mine. I'll give a shout out to the original author. I plan to take a picture of my finished product but that will have to wait until tomorrow. The custard/ice cream base is all mixed up and chilling in the fridge. Tomorrow, Adam and I will freeze it (hopefully right after church b/c I am really excited about it!) and then I will take a picture and give you a review.
Ben and Jerry's Coffee Heath Toffee Crunch is my favorite ice cream so the bar is set high for this experiment.

Coffee Ice Cream
from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz - revised by Correnta
3 cups heavy cream, divided
3/4 cup sugar
1 3/4 cups coffee beans (whole)-I used Starbucks Espresso Roast b/c the beans are strong and sweet.
pinch of salt
5 egg yolks
1/4 tsp vanilla
Brown food coloring paste - I just threw this in b/c I wanted it to have more color, I am ALL about aesthetically pleasing food.
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate, chopped (optional) - I think I'm going to use crushed Heath Bar
Instructions
1) In a saucepan over medium heat, warm 2 cups cream, sugar, beans, and salt until steamy, but not boiling. Cover with a lid, remove from heat and steep for 1 hour at room temperature.
2) Reheat the milk mixture over medium heat until hot and steamy (but not boiling).
3) In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks and slowly pour the heated milk mixture with the beans into the yolks while constantly whisking to avoid cooking the eggs. Pour the egg mixture back into the saucepan.
4) Set the saucepan over medium heat and stir constantly, scraping the bottom and corners of the pot, until the mixture reaches nappe stage and coats the back of a spoon (about 8-10 minutes).
5) Pour the remaining cup of cream into a medium bowl, place med. bowl over a larger bowl that has ice in it. Set a strainer over the medium bowl.
6) Pour the custard through the sieve and stir it into the cream, pressing the coffee beans to squeeze out as much liquid as you can. Discard the beans.
7)Mix in the vanilla and stir until cool. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator then freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions. Stir in the chocolate and set in freezer to freeze.

I'll let you know how it turns out. I can't wait!!

Something Sweet

So I realized a few days ago that The Sweet Spot has not had a sweet recipe since I posted the chocolate chip peanut butter oatmeal cookies...
That's just wrong! :)
I can't remember where I got this recipe but I tried it tonight and it's yummy and quick!

Rocky Road Popcorn
1 (3.5-ounce) package natural microwave popcorn (not the buttered kind)
1 cup chocolate chips
2 cups mini marshmallows
1 cup salted peanuts, optional
Pop the popcorn according to package instructions. While it's still hot, carefully open and dump into a large bowl. Add the chips and marshmallows. Return popcorn to the microwave. Cook on high until the chips and marshmallows get gooey, about 1 minute. Add the peanuts, if desired, and toss with a spoon until all the popcorn is coated. Cool until chocolate hardens, about 20 minutes. Transfer to a sealed container and tuck in a lunch box.

After the popcorn was coated I poured it out on a cookie sheet I had covered w/ wax paper (so I don't have to wash it) I thought this would help it cool faster and allowed me to go ahead and wash my bowl.

As for my cooking & freezing. I made the Chicken Spaghetti tonight. It's pretty good. Making the recipe whole I split it into one 9x9 pan and one 8x8 pan. The 9x9 I am freezing the other I popped in the oven for dinner tonight. Suggestions: more green pepper - like double. and more chicken - maybe 3 cups instead of 2 cups. use low fat cream of mushroom and low fat cream of chicken, it was still yummy and I can't imagine how rich it would have been if I had not used low fat. Also I used low sodium chicken broth. Serve with something light - raw veggies or salad or fresh fruit.

Enjoy!

You Gotta Make This...YUM!

Ok so 3 posts in 1 day is pretty ridiculous - oh well, what can I say - I have a lot to share today. :)

My new addiction - The Pioneer Woman - led me to this great potato recipe that we ate tonight along with the BBQ Texas Beef Brisket that I finally cooked. These 2 dishes plus some leftover Mac N Cheese and a fresh peach I cut up made for a wonderful dinner tonight.

All of this good food and really I just keep thinking about having the potatoes again - like more than once a week - I LOVE THEM! And they are easy.

SO make the potatoes! Make the brisket too if you have the time - it wasn't tough at all, tender and juicy - it is spicy so be careful there if you don't like spicy make some simple adjustments and you'll be fine. I am SO glad my brisket is not going to waste. :)

Potato Recipe
BBQ Texas Beef Brisket

Enjoy!

New Addiction...

I have a new addiction. A friend introduced me to a website with great recipes and the author of the website is hilarious! Plus there are TONS of pictures of the process and final product of each recipe - really over the top, but you can always scroll down to the bottom of the page for the direct recipe and skip looking at every step by step picture.

The author is a crack up, she has some personal things on her site as well.
Anyway - thanks Jen for the great new find...I'm sure I will be entertained for hours, days, weeks...I'm lovin' it!

So check out The Pioneer Woman for some great recipes and a good laugh - she's a hoot!

New Recipe

Can't sleep, so I am blogging. :)
I am starting to feel better though, I think the fact that I just got 4 hours of sleep in a row w/o a coughing fit or a potty break has something to do with the fact that I am totally awake at 4:30am. Oh well.

So, this spring we bought half a side of beef. This has been great to have so much meat on hand, especially with the rising cost of groceries. The problem is I have brisket and roast and quite a bit of it and I don't really cook either of those very often. Yesterday I decided I should hunt down a recipe to experiment with.

I decided to try and cook the brisket and found a recipe from the food network website for
BBQ Texas Beef Brisket....why not.
I thawed the meat and rubbed it down with the dry rub before we went to bed. I'm going to cook it today and see how it goes. My brisket isn't as big as what the recipe calls for so I may have to adjust the cooking time...hope I don't have dry brisket - that will make me so mad!

Anyway, I think this recipe is promising...I'll keep you posted.

2 Great Finds and 2 Great New Recipes

2 Great Finds:
1) The Green Bags I blogged about last month (see entry "A New Fav") are available at Walgreens for $10 (Actually $9 and some odd cents) Great Deal! I saw them there yesterday.
2) Scrapblog.com - I am loving this! A great free creative resource for making digital scrapbook pages, or invitations or announcements.

2 Great New Recipes:
BBQ Chicken Pizza - I threw this together so I'm not sure about portions for the ingredients.
Pillsbury refrigerated Pizza Crust
Cooked chicken, shredded (1 1lb)
BBQ Sauce (1 cup divided)
Red Onion (1/4 c ish)
4-6 slices of cooked thick bacon, diced
Shredded Monterey Jack Cheese (as desired)

Depending on time, cook chicken one of the following ways:
a)Buy a cooked Rotisery Chicken from the store, shred what you need.
b)grill chicken on a george forman grill
c)place chicken in a crock pot with 1/2 c or so of BBQ Sauce

After cooking chicken, shred and toss with BBQ Sauce just to lightly coat, do this even if you cooked the chicken in the crock w/ sauce.
Follow directions on Pizza Crust package.
Assemble: 1/2 c sauce spred on crust. Add chicken, red onion, bacon, and cheese.
Bake as directed on Pizza Crust Package.

Chicken Wraps (Buffalo Style) - Yield 2-3 servings, I made this up from a salad I love, this is what fed Adam and I for dinner last night
1 lb boneless skinless chicken
4-5 flour tortillas (soft taco size)
1-2 cups shredded lettuce
1 tomato diced
1/4-1/3c diced cucumber
1/4 c red onion, thinly sliced
shredded Monterey Jack Cheese
Ranch Dressing
Frank's Hot Sauce

I cooked the chicken on the George Forman Grill with a little salt and pepper.
While the chicken was cooking I cut the veggies.
Cut the cooked chicken into strips, toss strips in a bowl w/ hot sauce to taste. (if you don't like Buffalo hot sauce, try BBQ sauce or leave "naked" - I think adding avocado slices to the naked chicken wrap would be yummy).
Put a few slices of chicken in a tortilla with some lettuce, tomato, cucumber, cheese & ranch. Wrap up and eat up!
Makes about 5 wraps, depending on how full you fill each wrap you may get more or less.

We had Buffalo Wraps & fruit salad for dinner last night and it was AWESOME! It took me less than 20 min to cook, little clean up, healthy and tasty!

Ta Da! Amazing Peanut Butter Pie!

I promise to stop posting about Peanut Butter Pie after this. :)

I served this pie to 6 of our friends last night, plus Adam and I were judges. Eight votes later - The verdict is in...YUMMY YUMMY RICH SO SO RICH & YUMMY!!! Our friend Bob requested a PB Pie for his going away dinner (sad), I had never made one but gave it a shot. Bob had 2 pieces (how? I have NO IDEA, I could barely finish my piece it was so rich) - he loved it. The Recipe Passed the test!

I found a great recipe on Jif.com for Peanut Butter Pie. I actually found several on that site, also my favorite site Allrecipes.com, and a couple of other sites. It was hard to choose which one I wanted to try but I figure Jif probably has a good idea of how to make yummy things with peanut butter since PB is their thing.

I made my own crust b/c the tin pans the store bought crusts come in drive me batty, pet peeve I guess, anyway I really don't like them.

To make your own crust - 1 1/2 cups crushed oreos (or chocolate cookie of choice) and 6 Tbs. melted butter. Mix together and press into a 9 inch pie plate. Place in fridge while mixing pie filling. Fill & chill as directed in recipe. No baking required. Nice.

I also cut up 4 Reese's cups into tiny pieces and sprinkled them on the top after the pie was all done. It made it look SO pretty. :)

I did use creamy Jif for the PB. I think if I make it again I will try using Skippy Natural Creamy PB, I don't like natural PB (it needs more sugar!) but I used skippy natural for some cookies and they did have a more Peanutty taste to them. This pie is So RICH that I think the change in PB might make a yummy difference. We'll see.

Ok enough of my blabbing....
here is the recipe, ENJOY!

Decadent Peanut Butter Pie
Ingredients:
•1 cup Jif® Creamy Peanut Butter, plus 2 tablespoons, divided
•1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese, softened
•1/2 cup sugar
•1 (12 oz.) container (4 1/2 cups) frozen whipped topping, thawed and divided
•1 prepared chocolate pie crust
•1 (11.75 oz.) jar Smucker's® Hot Fudge Spoonable Ice Cream Topping, divided

Directions:
1.BEAT together 1 cup peanut butter, cream cheese and sugar in large bowl with an electric mixer on medium, until well combined. Gently mix in 3 cups whipped topping until thoroughly combined. Spoon mixture into pie shell. Using a spatula, smooth mixture to edges of pie.

2.RESERVE 2 tablespoons of hot fudge topping into the corner of a resealable food storage bag; set aside. Microwave remaining topping on HIGH (100% power) for 1 minute. Stir. Spread topping over pie, covering entire peanut butter layer. Refrigerate until set. Spread remaining whipped topping (1 1/2 cups), over hot fudge layer, being careful not to mix the two layers.

3.CUT a small corner from bag containing topping. Squeeze bag to drizzle topping over pie. Place remaining 2 tablespoons peanut butter in a resealable food storage bag; cut bag corner and squeeze to drizzle in opposite direction from topping. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Yield: 1 pie (6-8 servings)

Try This!

New Favortie Recipe! My hubby and I LOVE this new meal!

Basil Chicken Over Angel Hair Pasta

I scaled this down for 2 people. It is perfect with a salad and a piece of bread or any side veggie. Healthy and de-lish!
the recipe is on All Recipies.com if you want to make it for 4 or more people.

Basil Chicken and pasta for 2....

4 oz. angel hair pasta
1tsp. olive oil
1/4c chopped onion
1/2 clove garlic, chopped
1c cooked & cubed chicken breast halves
1 can diced tomatoes, drained
2Tb. Fresh Basil chopped (or 1-2 tsp. dried basil)
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp of hot pepper sauce
Parmesan cheese to garnish.

In a large pot of salted boiling water, cook pasta until it is al dente, about 8-10 min. Drain and set aside.

In a large skillet heat oil over medium-high heat. Saute onions and garlic. Stir in tomatoes, cooked chicken, basil, salt and hot pepper sauce. Reduce heat to med. and cover skillet.
Simmer 5 min., stirring frequently until mixture is hot and tomatoes are soft.

Toss Sauce with hot cooked pasta to coat. Serve with Parmesan cheese and crushed red pepper to taste.

***Here's a great idea! I made my pasta ahead, only boiling it for about 5-6 min and then stored it in a zip lock bag in the fridge. Then I cooked up my chicken mixture and stored it in another zip lock bag.
Then later in the week I but the chicken mixture and the pasta in a large skillet and heated them through and then served them up (this will also finish cooking your pasta that you didn't cook for the full time before). You can have dinner in literally minutes with little clean up!

***I have enjoyed taking my raw chicken and seasoning it with a little salt and pepper and then cooking it on the grill, when cooked through let the meat "rest" for a least 5 min (so it will hold it's juice and remain tender) then cut into bite size pieces. Adds a yummy grilled flavor to the chicken.

Yummy!!!

My new favorite recipe...and who would have guessed Salmon! Not me...but I love it. I actually made it twice last week and truthfully I'd eat it again tomorrow, but I don't want to burn myself out on it. I don't really enjoy eating fish, but I feel like I should for certain nutrient reasons. Well, now I get the best of both worlds.
You have to try this recipe - even if you're not sure. Let me know what you think.
Props to All Recipes.com and to Arnie Williams, who submitted the recipe.
Also, we have Dillions (Kroger grocery) here and they sell individual portions of Salmon for $1/4oz serving...amazing price!
I served it with roasted potatoes, and a spinach salad w/ dried cranberries and a sweet vinaigrette dressing.

Baked Dijon Salmon
Submitted by: Arnie Williams Rated: 5 out of 5 by 993 members
Prep Time: 20 Minutes Cook Time: 15 Minutes
Ready In: 35 Minutes Yields: 4 servings
"Salmon fillets brushed with honey and Dijon mustard, coated with bread crumbs and baked."

INGREDIENTS:
1/4 cup butter, melted
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 1/2 tablespoons honey
1/4 cup dry bread crumbs
1/4 cup finely chopped pecans
4 teaspoons chopped fresh
parsley
4 (4 ounce) fillets salmon
salt and pepper to taste
1 lemon, for garnish
DIRECTIONS:
1.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
2.
In a small bowl, stir together butter, mustard, and honey. Set aside. In another bowl, mix together bread crumbs, pecans, and parsley.
3.
Brush each salmon fillet lightly with honey mustard mixture, and sprinkle the tops of the fillets with the bread crumb mixture.
4.
Bake salmon 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until it flakes easily with a fork. Season with salt and pepper, and garnish with a wedge of lemon.

Great Idea!

This past week I got an email from Pillsbury with a recipe idea that is wonderful! Now at first I wasn't so sure about it, but my roommates and I tried it yesterday and I would say we were pleased with the result. You should know that there is nothing I hate more than soggy bread texture, and I did fear that these eatable bowls would become soggy and ruin my Chili, but that proved to be false and the bowls proved to be my favorite part of the meal. Keep reading because after the chili bowl recipe there is a great dessert recipe I thought I would share!

Pillsbury Golden Corn Bowls 1 (1 lb. 1.3-oz.) can Pillsbury® Grands!® Refrigerated Golden Corn Biscuits
4-8 Custard cups or Ramekins
Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Place custard cups upside down on a cookie sheet. Grease cups. Separate the eight biscuits. Use a small amount of flour to roll each biscuit into a
5 1/2 inch circle. Place each circle over the bottom of a custard cup, making sure the biscuit is NOT touching the cookie sheet.
Bake for about 15 min. Remove when golden brown. Carefully remove bowls from the custard cups and let cool. Fill each cup with approximately 1/2 c chili and top with cheese or sour cream. These bowls are surprisingly sturdy and very sweet and tasty!
It may be nice to even serve taco fixings in these bowls...I may try it.

Now for dessert:
Berry Lemon Mousse Parfait, compliments of McCormick & Company
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/2 c sugar
1/4 c lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
1/2 tsp lemon extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups sliced strawberries
1 cup fresh blueberries

In a large chilled mixing bowl, using an electric mixer, beat cream, 1/3 c sugar, lemon juice and extracts (lemon & vanilla) until mixture mounds softly.
In a small bowl add remaining sugar to berries and mix gently.
Spoon layers of mousse and fruit into dessert dishes. Serve immediately or chill and serve later.
Makes 4-8 servings (4 if you use large parfait glasses, 8 if you use smaller glasses or dessert dishes)
Garnish with a whole strawberry w/ stem on top for a beautiful finish.

Tasty and wonderful, a little piece of heaven I think.