Cheesy Chicken, Bacon & Avocado Quesadillas What is it about bacon & avocado that I absolutely love?? I am especially loving these quesadillas right now. With their buttery, crispy, heavenly tortilla shells… Yum! They’re one of our favorite quick & easy weeknight meals. Don’t let the green scare ya! I’ll even show you how to pick out the perfect avocado. Cheesy Chicken, Bacon & Avocado Quesadillas Recipe Try it this week.. you’ll love it!
Lasagna Rolls Most restaurant lasagnas are soupy messes. This unique twist on a favorite is easy to make, appealing to eat, and much healthier for you The idea of building a multi-tiered, multi-component lasagna can be dizzying for most cooks. For them, we offer this simplified form, the lasagna roll: a tight pasta bundle containing all the same flavors as the traditional baked pasta, but without the daunting architecture. It's basic shape helps you avoid creating one of those cheesy, soupy catastrophes so common in Italian-American restaurants, the ones where it's impossible to discern where the pasta stops and the sauce begins. The structure is sound, the flavors are clear and pronounced, and the calories are greatly reduced. How to Make It: *Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. *While the pasta cooks, brown the sausage in a large saute pan over medium heat until cooked through. *Preheat the oven to 400F. *Top the lasagna rolls with the remaining marinara, then with the mozzarella.
Crispy Chicken Sandwich Topped with a Fried Egg, Prosciutto and Spinach-Garlic Aioli As a grownup, I now know that breakfast-for-dinner wasn’t a loving concession but a well-orchestrated cop-out. Most pre-10AM treats take a hot minute to prepare and they’re always crowd-pleasers. Show me the person who flips off Cinnamon French Toast or Apple Pie Pancakes; who thumbs her nose at Eggs Benedict or a plate piled high with Hash Browns. For this month’s installment of Secret Recipe Club – SRC, as it’s known in the biz – I was sent to From the Bookshelf: a fantastic blog that plumbs the pages of classic cookbooks and adapts them into NYC-friendly creations. Inspired by From the Bookshelf‘s rendition, I decided to blow the doors off the thing and put the “dinner” back in “breakfast-for-dinner.” Print This Recipe Crispy Chicken Sandwich Topped with a Fried Egg, Prosciutto and Spinach-Garlic AioliServes 2 Rest of the Ingredients: 2 eggs – stock 2 pieces of thinly sliced proscuitto – $1.50 2 soft rolls – $1.00Grand total assuming “well-stocked” kitchen: $9.89Cost per sammie: $4.94
Pizza Braid A pizza braid is very kid-friendly, easy on the wallet and extremely simple to make. My aunt and cousin first introduced me to them and I’ve been hooked ever since. The possibilities are endless of the varieties you could make (check out the Apple Dessert Braid!), but the recipe below is for a very basic hamburger and pepperoni braid. You could make your own dough, but I prefer the shortcut of using Rhodes rise and bake dough. As I said, this is extremely basic. The dough takes a few hours to rise, so I take it out in the morning and place a towel over it. Yes, yes the dough in that photo has not risen fully. Then you spread out the sauce, lay the meats down, followed by the cheese. Then with a pizza cutter, start cutting about 1 inch thick strips down the whole rectangle. Follow the pictures above. A few minutes before it’s done I brush with olive oil and sprinkle with oregano.
Pepperoni Pizza Monkey Bread Kids can be frustratingly picky eaters. They can also have highly entertaining quirks. My niece used to ask for pepperoni pizza and then proceed to discard all of the pepperoni. Un-Pepperoni Pizza. But when you wrap pepperoni pizza into a fun, savory, pull-apart style bread, it’s no longer “icky” pepperoni pizza. I’ve had these Pizza Bites bookmarked for ages, so when I finally found an excuse to make them, I wanted to take it in a slightly different direction: a savory monkey bread. A very light coating of garlicky butter-covered pepperoni pizza bites, piled into a bundt cake pan, makes for a very fun Pepperoni Pizza. Or Pepperoni Un-Pizza. You can take the long route and make your favorite pizza dough and marinara sauce, or the short route and pick up your favorite pizza dough and red sauce from the store. Ingredients Instructions Heat garlic and butter over medium heat just until the garlic begins to brown. Wrap the dough around the pepperoni and cheese, pinching well to seal. Notes
Cheese Pinwheel Rolls Sooner or later, all my conversations inevitably turn to food. Don’t believe me? Call me up sometime and try to, say, sell me some insurance. I guarantee that before we get off the phone, I’ll be giving you my recipe for blackberry jam. Perfect example: I was in a meeting a few weeks ago at the office. What was the best way to make them? Ah, the Frankenroll This recipe borrows heavily from two fairly unrelated things. To make these rolls, spread pizza dough liberally with melted butter, sprinkle it with cheese and spices, roll it up like a stromboli—then slice and bake like a pan of cinnamon buns. The result? Fill them however you like The best part about these rolls? This is what I always refer to as a Sliding-Scale Recipe. You can toss it together with a ball of pre-made dough and a bag of shredded cheese from the grocery store—or you can go all out and make the dough from scratch and grate your favorite cheeses by hand. I like to throw these rolls together on a weeknight. Bake the rolls
Lemon-Basil Ricotta Stuffed Shells in a Champagne Cream Sauce: Can you EVEN believe I almost forgot to share with you this delicious baked pasta recipe? It was back in November when I made this pasta… and I remember the day perfectly… It was real sunny. My hair in a scrunchy, the stretchy grey comfy-pants are on, I was totally rocking the whole I-don’t-give-a-care-what-I-look-like-it’s-my-day-off look like nobody’s business. POW {that’s the sound it makes in my brain when a recipe happens}! Please don’t think I ran out and bought champagne. Butter a baking dish and set aside. On the large holes of your box grater; shred a cup of Pecorino Romano or Parmesan cheese. Season the ricotta with a little extra salt and pepper if you haven’t already. Combine half of the pecorino with the ricotta and set aside. Measure out 3/4 cup of champagne. Cook the pasta just short of al dente in salted water. Drain and spread them out onto a rimmed sheet pan or some parchment paper. Stuff each shell with some of the cheese and place them in your prepared dish. Ingredients:
Better Than Takeout Orange Chicken Yesterday as I stood in the kitchen trying to figure out what to make for dinner I wondered to myself, how do those people do it on those shows where they are given random ingredients and are suppose come up with something genius. I think I stood there for a solid 20 minutes looking in the cupboards and staring into the freezer hoping that I would be struck by some ingenious idea. Then I saw the oranges, and it hit me “O-raang Shh-ikun”….that is orange chicken if you can’t understand the accent. I love orange chicken, and I almost always order # 14 Orange Chicken when we order Chinese take out and I wondered to myself if I could make it better at home. The sauce is sweet, tangy, there is no lack in orange flavor, and the red pepper flakes give it just a touch of heat. Combine corn starch, salt, and pepper. As you finish each batch, drain cooked chicken in a paper towel lined plate. In a large saucepan combine 1 ½ cups water, orange juice, rice vinegar, and soy sauce. Ingredients Chicken
How to Make Pizza Without Dough | « LXRCUISINE I was getting kind of sick of ordering delivery pizza (this happens at least 2-3 times a month). It was time to put a spin on gourmet pizza, but I just didn't know what it would be. Without pizza dough or an oven that is capable of creating the perfect pizza crust (I don't have an oven that can go up to a 1000 degrees), I decided I would use potatoes instead. For 4 small, personal sized pizzas 4" in diameter, you will need: 2 large potatoes peeled and cleaned4 teaspoons salt (to flavor the potatoes) I'm doing four different flavor combinations here, and the measurements for each combination will top 4 small pizzas or 1 large pizza. Cheese & pepperoni pizza: 3/4 cup mozzarella cheese1/4 cup marinara sauce10 slices of pepperoni (or as much as you like)7-8 leaves of fresh basil Mushroom swiss and ham pizza: 1/2 cup chopped ham1 cup cooked mushroomssalt & pepper to taste2 tablespoons butter 1 tablespoon olive oil4 slices of swiss cheese Shrimp scampi pizza: Bleu cheese & arugula pizza:
Bacon Breakfast Pizza This is part of my Oh My Bacon Grease! Series. To see how it all began, click here. I’m working on filling up my bacon grease jar today so I followed my mother’s advice and decided to make her breakfast pizza, starring bacon. In it’s original form, this recipe could feed an army. After I post this I’ll be hitting the ground running. Yesterday when he woke up we had the den all decorated and little strips of crepe paper hanging from his door. My kids enjoying the Star Wars thingiemajigger that is currently in our town. So today as I rush around (and squeeze in an eye exam for my little girl who will surely pick the loudest colored eyeglass frames available) I’m feeling all nostalgic and emotional. Thank goodness they come back home when I set the dinner table. You’ll need: frozen shredded hash browns(can use cubed), shredded cheddar, eggs… You can also add your favorite things into this. and bacon of course! Go ahead and fry that up. Eh, that looks even enough for me. Like so!
Brown Sugar Bacon Buttermilk Waffles So you pretty much need to make these waffles immediately. This was my first foray into homemade waffles, and I was blown away by the results. Although I have owned a Belgian-waffle maker for a few years now, all I had ever done was mix up some Bisquick which, now that I think about it, is probably an insult to my awesome Waring Pro round “flip over” fancy-schmancy waffle maker. Well, I’m sure it was happy to see this batter hitting its surface. Imagine bacon that is topped with brown sugar and then baked in the oven so that the brown sugar carmelizes into a glaze on top of the bacon. My favorite part of grabbing breakfast out at a diner where they load up all the food on one plate is that, without fail, the bacon and/or sausage will always end up, at least in part, sitting in syrup that has pooled somewhere on the plate. Tip: This recipe makes a good amount of batter.
Pepperoni Pizza Monkey Bread How do you make bread even better? You stuff it with pepperoni and cheese. Then, you bake it in a bundt pan that allows you to pull off little chunks and dip them in pizza sauce. This is the perfect thing to bring to a party (and I did, where it disappeared quickly!) This bread takes a little bit of time to prepare, but in about half an hour I had filled my bundt pan with little dough balls, each with a piece of pepperoni and cheese stuffed within it. My new definition of bliss: warm dough with a cheesy center and a bite of pepperoni. Pepperoni Pizza Monkey Breadfrom Confections of a Foodie BrideIngredients: -2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced -4 tbsp butter -2 lbs pizza dough (I used 2 balls of Trader Joe's fresh dough) -6 oz. mozzarella cheese, cut into small cubes (about 48 pieces) -pepperoni (about 48 slices) -2-3 cups marinara sauce for serving Directions: 1. 3. 4. This post is linked to Eat at Home.
pan roasted chicken breast with sage vermouth sauce | The Red Spoon First of all, I am not cut out to be a butcher – just in case anyone thought I possessed such skills. I have always been a little squeamish around raw meat and after preparing this meal, that fact has not changed. In full belief that Cooks Illustrated knew what they were doing, I bought my chicken breast with the skin and ribs attached as they recommended, got home, and freaked out. Channeling my inner butcher (which, I discovered, doesn’t exist), I grabbed my kitchen shears and started to hack up the chicken breast. Incidentally, Cooks Illustrated did not provide the detailed information a novice butcher like myself needed for this undertaking. Second, before telling you about the splendor of the crispy golden chicken topped with a pan sauce full of caramelized shallots and a hint of sage, you should know how much I detest and loathe chicken breast. Salt and water is the key to getting chicken to actually taste like something, and something good. Serves 4