Sweet Potato Casserole

I love when people share great recipes! I've been making this casserole since I got married and it's a huge hit! It's more like dessert than a side dish! Enjoy!!!!

Worlds Greatest Sweet Potato Casserole (because I said so)

2 cups mashed sweet potatoes
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 stick butter
1 1/2 tablespoon vanilla

Blend together and pour into baking dish.

Topping

1 cup chopped pecans
6 tablespoons flour
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 stick butter (soften)

Mix topping and sprinkle on top of sweet potatoes.  Bake @ 350 for 35 minutes.

Happy Almost Thanksgiving!!

(pic via )

Blue Cheese Chicken

We have been keeping up with our Wednesday night "dinner club" with our friend Julie and we were looking for a new recipe this week to try out.  When it comes to recipes around here, two things are important, there has to be few ingredients and there has to be lots of flavor. Especially when it comes to chicken. 

My girlfriend Candace had mentioned a chicken recipe she and her husband make relatively often so I asked her what it entailed and when I realized how seriously easy it was, I ran to the store to get the ingredients and have now added it to our favorites list. 

It almost sounds too easy but it just is! Here is the recipe for you all. I am a big fan of the Perdue perfect portions chicken breasts but any skinless, boneless breast would work.  Same with the blue cheese dressing. Marie's is our choice but any chunky blue cheese would be fine.  I served it with Rice Pilaf on the side and marinated some cucumbers as well. Everyone was pleasantly surprised at how full of flavor the chicken was.

Thanksgiving Recipes as Promised

Save these for next year!!!

Pumpkin Creme Brulee

{This is about a 3.5 hour process}

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1/2 cup whole milk

1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

2 pinches nutmeg

1 pinch ginger

1 pinch ground cloves

4 egg yolks

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup canned pumpkin puree

1/3 cup coarse sugar or raw sugar

Directions

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.



In a medium saucepan, heat the cream, milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves over medium heat, stirring occasionally, just until it comes to a boil. Immediately turn off the heat and set aside to infuse at least 15 minutes. In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the granulated sugar. Whisking constantly, gradually pour in the hot cream mixture. Whisk in the pumpkin puree. Pour the mixture into 4 ovenproof ramekins and arrange in a hot water bath. Bake in the center of the oven until almost set but still a bit soft in the center, 30 to 40 minutes. The custard should "shimmy" a bit when you shake the pan; it will firm up more as it cools. Remove from the water bath and let cool 15 minutes. Tightly cover each ramekin with plastic wrap, making sure the plastic does not touch the surface of the custard. Refrigerate at least 2 hours, and up to 24 hours.

{I used a kitchen torch and it worked wonderfully.  I see them at TJ Maxx all the time! }
When ready to serve, preheat a broiler to very hot (or fire up your kitchen torch). Uncover the chilled custards. Pour as much coarse sugar as will fit onto the top of 1 of the custards. Pour off the remaining sugar onto the next custard. Repeat until all the custards are coated. Discard any remaining sugar. Place the ramekins on a baking sheet or in a roasting pan and broil until the sugar is melted and well browned, 1 to 2 minutes. Let cool 1 minute before serving

Turtle Cheescake

Ingredients

2 c. vanilla wafer crumbs (can use half graham cracker crumbs)

6 tbsp. melted butter


Use a 9 inch springform pan. Preheat oven to 350°F.  Sidenote*{I have three springform pans and had no idea what they were for}

Mix and spread in pan.

Bake at 350°F for 10 minutes.

5 oz. can evaporated milk

14 oz. caramels

1 c. chopped pecans

16 oz. cream cheese

1/2 c. sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

2 eggs

1/2 c. chocolate chips, melted

Melt 14 oz. of caramels with milk until smooth.

Pour over crust, sprinkle with pecans. Mix cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until well blended. Add eggs, one at a time. Mix well. Blend in melted semisweet chocolate chips. Mix well.

Pour over pecans. Bake at 350°F for 40 minutes.

Mini Pecan Pies

**I modified this recipe by doubling all the ingredients, cutting up the pie crusts (with a pizza cutter) and making mini pies in a muffin pan.  They were a hit.

Ingredients

1 9-inch pie shell, frozen or chilled for an hour if freshly made. (See pie crust recipes.)

1 1/4 cups pecans, coarsely chopped

2 eggs, slightly beaten

1 cup light corn syrup

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 Tbsp molasses

2 Tbsp melted butter

2 Tbsp flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 Preheat oven to 375°F. Spread pecans along the bottom of the pie shell. Mix the remaining ingredients and pour over pecans. (No need for an electric mixer, you can mix by hand.) The pecans will rise to the surface of the pie.


2 Bake at 375°F for 40-45 minutes until the filling has set. About 20 minutes into the cooking you may want to use a pie crust protector, or tent the edges of the pie crust with aluminum foil to prevent the pie crust edges from burning.

3 Remove from oven and let cool completely.



Happy Baking!

My Greek Pizza Recipe

I have never claimed to be a good cook but once in a while I make something good.   I think anyways.  Most everything I cook is super simple.  I wish I read more blogs with quick, tasty recipes.   So, I thought I would share this one with you.   I'm not very techinical so bear with me. 

Greek Pizza

Ingredients:

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

1 Roma Tomato

1 Cucumber

1 Red Onion

Kalamata Olives

Feta Cheese

2% Mozarella Cheese

Tzatziki Sauce (cucumber sauce)

 Balsamic Vinagrette

Step 1

Set your dough out 20 minutes before you want to use it. That way it will be easier to roll out. 

Pre heat your oven to 350 degrees.  

Flour your pizza stone (or an area on your counterop and then transfer pizza to pan)

Roll out your dough. I am the world's worst dough roller.  My pizzas are always lop sided.

Step 2

Instead of using standard pizza sauce, you are going to use your Tzatziki Sauce.  I get mine at Trader Joe's and it's really good.

I use a spoon to spread mine and it works really well. Make sure you leave space near the sides for your crust area.

Step 3

Layer your mozarella over the Tzatziki sauce. I use a thin layer but it's up to you how much cheese you want to use.  Pop the pizza in the oven at 350 degrees.  I would say it takes about 20 minutes. I would just check on it to make sure it's not burning.

 Step 4,5,6

Chop your tomato, cucumber and red onion into small cubes.   This is where you would also cut up your Kalamata Olives I just wasn't in the mood for them the other night.

Toss it lightly in Balsamic Vinagrette. I love the Maple Groves Farm Fat Free. 

 add as much or as little Feta cheese as you want. I add about an 1/8 of a cup. 

Step 7

Once the pizza is done, remove it from the oven and spoon your veggies and feta over the top.  I usually let mine cool for just a few minutes and then add the topping.  That way the feta melts a little.  Mmmm.

Step 8

Drizzle Tzatziki over the top!!!

Step 9

Cut and Serve!!!

Seriously it is soooo good.   Make it and tell me how much you loved it!!!  

Adam and Aidan weren't in the mood for Greek Pizza so they just made cheese and pepperoni.  Doesn't this look good too??



If you have any questions feel free to email me!

White Chocolate Covered Pretzels

For my girlfriend Jill's baby shower, I wanted to make white chocolate covered mini pretzels to put on the candy bar.   I had never done it before but figured I could do it.  It was even easier than I thought!  There may be an even easier way that you know of but I just made this up as I went. Here's a quick tutorial on what I did. Give it a try, they are delicious and they were quite a crowd pleaser {and cute}.


Materials: 
White Chocolate Candy Melts {One package was enough to make 110 mini pretzels}
Pretzel Rods {I chose to do mini ones because at Costco they were $5 for a huge barrel}
Assortment of Sprinkles {If your a sprinkle girl like me}
Wax Paper

Step 1:  Follow the directions on the back of the candy melts.  You can use your double boiler or the microwave.  I think the double boiler option was the way to go EXCEPT I don't have a double boiler so Adam rigged up a stainless steel mixing bowl in a big pot. It served it's purpose.

Step 2.  Once the chocolate is completely melted, just start dipping pretzels.   You only want to dip them half way. I can't really explain my technique but try to twist them a little to create a little end spot.  It's really easy to get the hang of.

Step 3.  Immediately lay flat on a piece of wax paper.  {I put wax paper over one of my cooling racks}.  

 Step 4. Sprinkles!!!!  I have about 25 random containers of sprinkles at my house from various projects.  You  want to use the teeny tiny sugar sprinkles.  {They sell them in packs with different colors around the holidays in the dollar bins at Target.}  I only did about 10 pretzels and then I would stop and add sprinkles. You don't want them to set before you get them on there.

AND THAT'S IT! I told you it was easy!!! They actually sell bags big enough for the long pretzel rods but I bought shorter ones for these and wrapped them in a fun ribbon and Voila!  Perfect for parties, gifts, snacks etc!  Start to finish this only took me about 45 minutes. 

 That does not include placing them in the plastic and tying ribbon on every single one of them. Haha!

I made exactly 110 and by the time it was baby shower time, my dad, brother, husband and small child had eaten about 30 of them.  I am going to make more for the holidays.  I think I might try chocolate flavored with mint for the Christmas. Doesn't that sound so good? 

Let me know if you make some!

Loving This Salad

I know I haven't told you girls, but I started Weight Watchers three weeks ago. I have already lost 10 lbs. I am pretty proud of myself but I don't want to talk about it too much because that's usually when I stop doing it.  My goal is to loose at least 35lbs by Christmas. I don't know if that's even possible with Thanksgiving in between now and then but pray for me, I want to loose this weight.  After Christmas I plan to keep on loosing I just want to set small goals.

I have been making this salad at home and it's sooo good I wanted to do a post about it.  It's a big deal to make something I love because I am so picky and I hate my own cooking.  This was a big accomplishment for me to make something I want to eat all the time! Haha. 

My Little Salad Recipe:

Spring Mix ( I buy the stuff you scoop yourself but they sell it in plastic containers and that's really good too) as much or as little as you  like. 
1/2 Pear, sliced
1/3 c Craisins
1/4 c Blue Cheese Crumbles
2 Tbs. Maple Grove Farms Fat Free Poppy seed Dressing
Weight Watchers Points=7

I promise you it is absolutely delish!