Chicken and Noodles Picture

Here is a picture of my chicken and noodles before I enjoyed them on the back porch. I think next time I will use different noodles of a thicker and slightly heavier version in order to help thicken up the consistency.

Roasted Chicken Thighs

Today is MY day! So I put a little Harry Connick Jr. on the I-pod and was off to roast some chicken thighs. The original plan was to make Chicken and Noodles with the roasted chicken, which I did, but the true glory was the roasted chicken. I took four pounds of bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs coated them in oil, salt, pepper, and some thyme, then roasted them. They were quite delicious and so easy, that you have absolutely no excuse to not try them.

Now, I'm sure my mom is wondering "what, where are the chicken and noodles?". Now to that I must say that I did make them and they are good, so I will add the recipe for those at the bottom as well!

Okay so here are the recipes:

Roasted Chicken Thighs

Modified from Bon Appetit

Ingredients:

4 lbs. Chicken Thighs

Sea Salt

Pepper

Canola Oil

Rubbed Thyme

4 Carrots, peeled and chopped into 2 inch pieces

4 cloves of garlic, peeled

1 whole onion, chunked

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Oil a 13x9" pan with 2 Tablespoons of canola oil or olive oil (not extra virgin olive oil, trust me it smokes). Put your chicken thighs skin side down into the pan. Coat with plenty of salt and pepper. Turn them over and do the same. Bake for 25-3o minutes skin side up.

While baking, chop and prepare your vegetables. Take the chicken out and let rest on a different baking pan. Cover loosely with tin foil. Put your carrots, garlic, and onion into the 9x 13 pan you just took the chicken out of. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 15 minutes or until carrots are tender to your liking.

Take out of the oven and put the chicken on top of the roasted vegetables. Sprinkle with about 2 teaspoons of dried thyme and let the chicken finish cooking in the oven for about 15-20 more minutes, or until done.

The skin will be so crispy and delicious it's so worth it! Serve with the vegetables and some yummy crusty bread!

Chicken and Noodles

By Amber Carver, Assisted by my mom :)

Ingredients:

12 oz. noodles of your choice, a homemade type version is best

96 oz. (3, 32 oz boxes) of chicken stock

5 Roasted Chicken Thighs

Directions:

Bring chicken stock to a boil.

After letting the chicken thighs cool, go through and pull the meat off the bones, placing the meat on a separate plate. *Notes: this is not a "clean" job. After removing the chicken from the bone place into chicken stock.

Once stock is boiling add a liberal amount of salt and the noodles. Let cook until al dente. Follow the directions on the package for the correct time. Once the noodles are done there you have it, Chicken and noodles. Now I drain off the majority of my stock because I love my chicken and noodles to be thick not like a soup. I must stress please do not be afraid to taste the stock to adjust the seasonings!

I highly recommend making some mashed potatoes to go with the chicken and noodles!

Flourless Chocolate Cake, Chocolate Valentino

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

We were instructed to use our favorite chocolate in this simple recipe. I chose to use dark chocolate. It turned out moist and tasted exactly of dark chocolate. When paired with the vanilla ice cream suggested by Dharm coming from the Ice Cream Book by Joanna Farro and Sara Lewis, it sweetened every bite. If I were to make this again, I would use a mixture of dark chocolate and milk chocolate to balance it out and maybe add some sugar.

This was my first time making ice cream and found it to be quite simple. I don't have an ice cream maker, so I never even considered making ice cream, but now having done it, I'll be sure to try some different flavors and mixtures.

This was a great challenge that definitely stretched my baking knowledge!

Chocolate Valentino

Prep. Time 20 Minutes

16 oz. of Dark Chocolate (or chocolate of your choice) roughly chopped

1/2 C. plus 2 T. of unsalted butter

5 large eggs separated

1. Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water and melt, stirring often.

2. While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.

3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.

4. Whip the egg whites in a medium /large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).

5. With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.

6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.

7. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rd. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter. 

8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375.

9. Bake for 25 minutes or until an instant read thermometer reads 140F.

10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

**Mine was done quicker than 20 minutes.

Dharm's Ice Cream Recipe

Classic Vanilla Ice Cream

Prep. Time 30 minutes

1 Vanilla Pod (or substitute with vanilla extract) 

1/2 Pint of 2% milk or whole milk

4 large egg yolks

6 T. granulated sugar

1 tsp. cornstarch

1/2 Pint Double Cream (48% butter fat) you can use heavy cream.

1. Using a small knife slit the vanilla pod lengthways. Pour the milk into a heavy based saucepan, add the vanilla pod and bring to the boil. Remove from heat and leave for 15 minutes to allow the flavors to infuse. Life the vanilla pod up. Holding it over the pan, scrape the black seeds out of the pod with a small knife so that they fall back into the milk. Set the vanilla pod aside and bring the milk back to the boil.

2. Whisk the egg yolks, sugar, and corn flour in a bowl until the mixture si thick and foamy. 

3. Gradually pour in the hot milk, whisking constantly. Return the mixture to the pan and cook over a gentle heat, stirring all the time.

4. When the custard thickens and is smooth, pour it back into the bowl. Cool it then chill.

5. By had: Whip the cream until it has thickened but still falls from a spoon. Fold it into the custard and pour into a plastic tub or similar freeze -proof container. Freeze for 6 hours or until firm enough to scoop, beating it twice (during freezing process-to get smoother ice cream or else the ice cream will be icy and course)

Cobb Pasta

Cobb Pasta is quite an interesting creation that would have taken me many years to ever come up with, but leave it to Rachael Ray to take care of it. I don't normally watch her show, but I happened to catch it a few weeks back and she was making Cobb Pasta. I thought hmmmm this should be interesting. It's exactly what it sounds like the ingredients to a cobb salad only in place of the lettuce she throws in pasta. She takes blue cheese, roasted tomatoes, chicken cooked in hot sauce, avocado, and pasta to make quite the creation! I'm not going to lie I was skeptical but yet hopeful. John likes blue cheese and it's a food that I've been trying to teach myself to like so I thought why not give it whirl. And you know what it's quite good. The roasted tomatoes are divine in it and it comes together so quickly that there's really no reason to not try it. Now if you don't like blue cheese you could easily use a different kind of cheese. And please, please don't be afraid of the hot sauce in the chicken. It really is good and balances it out with the other ingredients. The link to the recipe is on the title, so I encourage you whole-heartedly to go check it out.  Oh and don't forget to keep an eye on the bacon as it cooks in the oven, it's easy to burn :) 

** I did substitute the bacon for turkey bacon (like always). I also left out the avocado because mine went bad before I could use it up.

Slow Cooker Chicken Enchiladas

Chicken enchiladas really can't get any easier than this.  I've made chicken enchiladas many different ways, but this is definitely by far my favorite.  We've been really busy around the house, but I hate to miss out on cooking and I have an awesome slow cooker so I'm getting the most use out of it possible. This is a great way to have dinner ready for you without a fuss.

INGREDIENTS

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts

8 oz. Salsa

1/2 C. milk

Mexican style cheese

Crushed tostitos

Tortillas

*and the toppings of your choice (salsa, green enchilada sauce, etc.)

Serves: A lot! My guess is you could get at least 8 enchiladas out of this mixture.

Directions:

Grease your slow cooker.  Place chicken in the bottom.  In a separate bowl combine the salsa and milk then pour over chicken. Crush up some tortilla chips, I used probably a cup of crushed tortillas, layer the crushed chips on top of the chicken and salsa. Finally put cheese on top use as much as you desire.  Cook on low for 8 hours.  

Before serving pull out your potato masher and mash up the chicken. Mix everything together and serve in tortillas with desired toppings.  A cheese sauce on top would be a nice touch!  Let me know what you think.  I sauce in other similar recipes that you can use a can of cream of chicken soup instead of the milk.  I'm not sure what the milk does, I'm thinking about omitting it next time to see if there's a difference.  I hope you enjoy it!  

January Daring Bakers

This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Baking Soda and Zorra of 1xumruehren bitte aka Kochtopf.  They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angelique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

I'm posting this challenge without time to provide the instructions, so if you want them let me know.  All I did was wrap the cookies around a skewer to get the twirly shape.  I then used the Hershey's Dark Chocolate Icing recipe to decorate them!  They were quite good!

S'more Pie

So I was craving s'mores yesterday and when I looked in the pantry I found marshmallows, chocolate chips, and graham cracker crumbs leaving me to invent Amber's S'mores Pie.

I used 1/2 of a package of dark chocolate chips,

Mini marshmallows

1/4 C. Heavy Cream

T. Butter

Graham Cracker Crumbs.

Spray your pie plate with cooking spray add in graham cracker crumbs as much as you like to form a crust.  Melt chocolate chips over stove top with heavy cream and butter. Pour over graham cracker crumbs. Place mini marshmallows on top and broil in your oven until marshmallows are browned. Serve warm!  

Now I warn you to be careful to watch it as it broils or you will end up with slightly browned marshmallows as mine are (I got distracted with a phone call).  It was still delicious though!  You may want to consider your crust too because mine came out kind of crumbly or you could use whole graham crackers.  

M & M Cookies

A favorite Christmas cookie of mine has to be m & m cookies, made with red and green m&ms. They remind me of my Grandma who makes the best m&m cookies! Mine turned out to be good as well, once I got the baking time right. I have begun to realize that my oven cooks a little bit uneven, which is fine once you figure it out. Anyways these cookies are delicious and I can't seem to keep my hands out of them and with the two sticks of butter they can't be good for you.  They are wonderfully creamy and moist though! I love the feeling I get when you have your dough combined and you pour in the festive candies! Then when you swirl the dough around to blend them in, and you see those little pops of color bursting out, you know that those cookies are going to be so great!

I got this recipe from recipezaar.com. There's a link to it if you click on the title.

Ingredients:

1C. margarine, softened

1 C. brown sugar, packed

1/2C. granulated sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

2 1/4 C. Flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

14 oz. M&Ms

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350. Cream butter and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla. In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking soda, and salt with a whisk. Slowly add your dry ingredients in with the wet. Once combined add in half of the m&ms. Drop by rounded teaspoon onto a cookie sheet (I line mine with parchment paper for easy clean-up). Press extra m&ms onto rounded cookie dough, this way the cookies have m&ms visible on the top of the cookie and you can make sure all of the cookies get m&ms! Bake for 10 minutes or until slightly golden. I let mine cool on the cookie sheet for a minute or two to finish baking, then remove to a cooling rack or in my case more parchment paper. 

For a finishing touch grab a glass of milk and enjoy your creation!

First of Many

I started my Christmas baking today! I made myself wait until finals were over and let me tell you it's a great reward! I asked John if he had a favorite Christmas cookie and I was expecting him to respond with chocolate crinkles or peanut butter blossoms, you know something Christmasy. Instead he responded with yeah, double chocolate chip cookies with chocolate frosting. I was like seriously, those aren't Christmas cookies. But since I asked and he responded this post is about those cookies exactly! They are pure chocolate, rich, and quite good! To make them appear as a Christmas cookie I put red sugar sprinkles on them. So now we are both happy, he has his favorite "Christmas" cookie and they are festive as well.

Enjoy!  This recipe was taken from Nestle. Click on the title of my blog to be taken directly to that page!

Cookie:

1 12 oz. package of semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided

1 1/4 C. flour

3/4 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 C. butter, softened

1/2 C. packed brown sugar

1/4C. granulated sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1 large egg

1/2C. chopped nuts, optional ( I omitted these, but they would probably tone down the chocolate taste

Frosting:

2 T. butter

1 1/4. C. sifted powdered sugar

2 T. milk

1/2 C. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Red sugar sprinkles

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Microwave 3/4 c. of chocolate chips for 1 minute, stir then 10-20 second intervals until smooth, let cool. Mix flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Set Aside.  Cream butter and both sugars in a large bowl. Add egg and vanilla. Beat in the melted chocolate. Slowly add in the flour. Finally stir in 3/4 cup of the chocolate chips.  Bake at 375 degrees for 8 minutes until edges are set and centers are slightly soft. Be careful with this because it's easy to let them get too done. Let cool for 2-3 minutes on baking sheet to finish cooking, then move to a cooling rack to cool the rest of the way.

For frosting melt butter and remaining 1/2 C. of the chocolate chips in the microwave for 30 seconds, stir then continue to microwave at 10-20 second intervals, stirring until smooth.  Mix the milk and powdered sugar in with the butter and chocolate chips. When cookie have cooled completely frost them and add the sprinkles.

Carmel Cake

The challenge for November was an amazingly wonderful carmel cake! Now I thought hmmm a carmel cake I wonder what that will be like. It did not have an overwhelming carmel flavor, it was subtle. The cake was a thicker consistency which after my first bite I decided that I really enjoyed it. I was able to share this cake with family as well and they also really enjoyed it! We ate the whole thing over two days and were left wanting more. The cake had a few extra steps, but it was by no means too difficult. I will admit that I did burn the carmel mixture the first time and had to start over. A word to the wise don't leave the carmel mixture unattended! I will definitely be making this cake again, it was fantastic!!

This recipe is courtesy of Shuna Lydon.  This months hosts can be found at the following websites. Alex, Jenny, and Natalie.

The recipe can be found at http://eggbeater.typepad.com   Scroll down on the page and you will see where it says carmel cake revisited this is the recipe you need.  

I hope you enjoy the cake!

Pizza Challenge

I recently joined a group called Daring Bakers and each month I will be given a challenge, this month it was homemade pizza dough.  I had never made pizza dough or worked with yeast before, so it was definitely a challenge.  We were supposed to toss the dough in the air like real pizza makers, I however was not that good at it.  Here is a picture of my attempt.  The dough only left my hand by maybe an inch so we couldn't really get a picture quick enough. 

Anyways I made two different pizzas.  The first one I made had an olive oil infused with garlic and onion sauce topped with tomatoes and a little bit of basil and mozzarella cheese.  It was mighty delicious!  

The second pizza was a barbeque pork pizza.  Now John and I love bbq chicken pizza, but I only had pork chops so, I cooked them up in barbeque sauce and ta da.  I put sweet baby ray's barbeque sauce down first and then covered it in the now shredded pork and of course covered it with both cheddar and mozzarella cheese.  This was also equally delicious and if you ask John he would probably say that he enjoyed this one better than the first one because he loves barbeque sauce!  

So you're probably wondering about making the actual crust.  Well, it does take some time because it is a process.  However, the recipe makes 6 small pizza crusts that are freezable so it is worth it if you have the time.  After you make the dough it only takes like 6 minutes in the oven so it is super quick once you are to that point.  Plus the pizza isn't greasy at all!  A lot of times after eating pizza I feel gross from all of the grease, but these pizzas are smaller in size and they aren't covered in grease, so totally guilt free!  Okay so here's the recipe which was taken from "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" by Peter Reinhart.

Ingredients:

4 1/2 C. All purpose flour chilled (which you do this by putting it in the freezer for 15 minutes)

1 3/4 tsp. Salt

1 tsp. instant yeast 

1/4 C. Olive oil or vegetable oil 

1 3/4 C. water, ice cold (40 degrees F.)

1 T. sugar

Semolina/durum flour or Cornmeal for dusting

Directions:

Day 1:

1.  Mix together the flour, salt and instant yeast in a big bowl (or in the bowl of your stand mixer).

2.  Add the oil, sugar and cold water and mix well (low speed with paddle attachment if you are using a stand mixer) in order to form a sticky ball of dough.  On a clean surface, knead for about 5-7 minutes, until the dough is smooth and the ingredients are homogeneously distributed.  If it is too wet, add a little flour (not too much though) and if it is too dry and 1 or 2 teaspoons extra water.

*If you are using an electric mixer, switch to the dough hook and mix on medium speed for the same amount of time.  The finished dough should be springy, elastic, and sticky, not just tacky, and register 50-55 degrees F.

3.  Flour a work surface.  Line a jelly pan with baking paper/parchment.  Lightly oil the paper.

4.  With the help of a metal or plastic dough scraper, cut the dough into 6 equal parts.

5.  Sprinkle some flour over the dough.  Make sure your hands are dry and then flour them.  Gently round each piece into a ball.

6.  Transfer the dough balls to the lined jelly pan and mist them generously with spray oil.  Slip the pan into plastic bag or enclose in plastic wrap.

*If you are wanting to freeze them here is where you would do that.  Instead of spraying them with oil coat them completely with oil and put them in a freezer bag.

7.  Put the pan into the refrigerator and let the dough rest overnight or for up to three days.

Day Two:

8. On the day you plan to eat the pizza, exactly 2 hours before you make it remove the desired amount of dough balls from the refrigerator.  Dust the counter with flour and spray lightly with cooking spray.  Place the dough on the floured surface and sprinkle them with flour.  Dust your hand with flour and delicately press the balls into disks about 1/2 inch thick and 5 inches wide in diameter.  Sprinkle with flour and mist with oil.  Loosely cover them with plastic wrap.  Allow them to rest for 2 hours.

9.  At least 45 minutes before making the pizza , place a baking stone on the lower third of the oven.  Preheat the oven as hot as possible (500 degrees F.)

*If you aren't using a stone don't worry about this step.  DON'T preheat your pan.  But DO PREHEAT YOUR OVEN!

10.  Generously sprinkle the back of a jelly pan (if you aren't using a stone) with semolina durum flour or cornmeal.  Flour your hands.  Take 1 piece of dough by lifting it with a pastry scraper.  Lay the dough across your fists in a very delicate way and carefully stretch it by bouncing it in a circular motion on your hands, and by giving it a little stretch with each bounce.  Once the dough has expanded outwards, move to a full toss.

*Make only one pizza at a time.

11.  When the dough is the shape you want place it on the floured or cornmealed jelly pan.  

12.  Lightly top it with toppings of your choice.

13. Bake  for 5-8 minutes turn it 180 degrees after 2 minutes.  Watch the pizza carefully!

Well there ya go good luck!

Most Wonderful Soup

Now, I don't have pictures of this soup, but I'm going to give you the link to go check it out.  Another food blog that I read is the kitchen sink and a while back there was a post for a black bean soup.  I tried it and it is the most wonderful soup.  Now don't be afraid of the name black bean soup.  Yes, it's made up of black beans, but you blend it so it doesn't feel like you're eating a bean filled soup, it's just pure thick, yummy goodness!  So anyways please give it a try.  The recipe calls for bacon and I used turkey bacon which turned out great.  Anyways I'm giving you the link to the recipe (click on "recipe" to get to the recipe) and her blog, but you must promise me that after you see her blog you won't judge my blog.  Remember I'm new at this.  Anyways Enjoy!!  

Blueberry Crumb Cake

Well, I know it would appear that I haven't been cooking lately by my posts but that's not the case I just haven't taken the time to blog about my endeavors.  So anyways last week I made a wonderful blueberry crumb cake!  Now I normally don't care too much for crumb cake, coffee cake, or pound cake simply because it's dry and boring.  But let me tell you this was neither.  I have taken quite the liking to Ina Garten so this is her recipe.  After the 2nd day of having this cake it was still moist, I couldn't believe it!  So please if you have some blueberries and aren't sure what to do with them, go ahead, give this a whirl!

Blueberry Crumb Cake

Ina Garten

Ingredients

For the top:

1/4 C. Sugar

1/3 C. Light brown sugar

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/4 lb. unsalted butter, melted

1 1/3C. all purpose flour

For the Cake:

6 T. unsalted butter, at room temperature

3/4 C. granulated sugar

2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature (I used large eggs and they worked fine)

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp. grated lemon zest

2/3 C. Sour Cream ( I used non-fat)

1 1/4 C. flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 C. fresh blueberries (you could probably use frozen blueberries that have been thawed)

Powder sugar for sprinkling

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees & grease a 9 in. round cake pan.

For Topping:

Combine the granulated sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a bowl.  Stir in the melted butter and then the flour.  Mix well and set aside.

For Cake:

Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer for 4-5 minutes on high, until light.  Reduce speed to low and add the eggs one at a time.  Then add the vanilla, lemon zest, and sour cream.  In a separate bowl sift together the dry ingredients.  With the mixer on low slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet, just until combined.  Fold in the blueberries and make sure the batter is completely mixed.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and spread it out with a knife.  With your fingers crumble the topping evenly over the batter.  Bake for 40-50 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.  Cool completely and serve sprinkled with powder sugar.

*I heated my piece up in the microwave for 10 seconds.

**You may want to put your cake pan on top of a cookie sheet just in case it would over flow.  Mine did not, but some other reviews I read had this problem.

One of my favs!

Last week I decided to bake one of my very favorites, chocolate chocolate chip cookie bars!  I know not surprising right.  It was a late night and I can't quite recall what I had been doing that day, but I know that I was busy because I didn't get done baking until 11:30pm (past my bedtime), but let me tell you it was so worth it.  Now these cookies may look like brownies and with all the chocolate you can't help but think about brownies, but these are definitely not a brownie.  They have the consistency of a cookie and the recipe, which I got from foodnetwork.com courtesy of Cathy Lowe, actually calls for you to drop them by rounded teaspoons to make the cookies (which I've never actually done).  You see while I may love baking I do not love to make cookies for the simple reason that it's a more drawn out process.  The dropping of the cookie, the waiting for them to cook, then taking them off the pan, letting them cool, and then starting all over again.  So I decided to skip that and just make these into bars which the recipe also suggests.  When you choose the bar instead of the cookie it lessens the steps dramatically. Anyways give these a try it's definitely worth it!

Ingredients:

2 1/4 C. flour

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

2 sticks of butter, softened

1 C. granulated sugar

1 C. packed brown sugar

2 large eggs, beaten

1 T vanilla

1/2 C. unsweetened cocoa (I used dark cocoa this time)

2 C. chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet)

1 C. walnuts (I left these out, but I bet it'd be good)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  In a bowl combine flour, salt, and baking soda.  In

 a separate large bowl stir together butter, both sugars, eggs, vanilla, and cocoa.  Then gradually stir flour mixture in a little bit at a time, just until combined.  Finally, fold in chocolate chips and walnuts. Pour into a greased 9x13 pan (or drop by rounded teaspoons onto a baking sheet).  Bake for 20-25 minutes.  Cut into squares when cooled and enjoy.

What's for lunch?

I don't know about you but this is a question that I dread.  I don't want to spend time cooking a big meal for lunch and then again for dinner, I mean maybe if that's all I had to do it wouldn't be a big deal.  So this is a recipe for cheesy potato soup compliments of Sandra Lee (click on the title of this blog to go directly to her website) that I partnered with a simple turkey sandwich.  I toasted the bread for the turkey sandwich for prime dipping.  I didn't put any cheese on the turkey sandwich either because the soup is so cheesy already!  Anyways this recipe is super easy and takes very little time.  It doesn't make a whole lot probably 4 servings so you may want to double it if you want leftovers.

Ingredients:

1 large baking potato

2 cans cheddar cheese soup

2 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken stock

1/4 cup real bacon pieces

Sour cream for garnish

Microwave the baking potato for 7 minutes on high.  Carefully remove from microwave (it'll be extremely hot).  Set it aside and let it cool.  I let mine sit for 10 minutes.

Then cut up your potato into bite size cubes.

In a medium sized sauce pan mix cheese soup, chicken stock, and bacon pieces over medium high heat.  At this point I also added garlic powder and onion powder.

Bring it to a simmer stirring off and on.  I found it easier to whisk it so that it would combine the soup and stock quicker.  Then add the potato and let it heat over low heat for about 5 minutes.    

Sprinkle with pepper and serve.  This is also where you would add a dollop of sour cream if you want.  

*I wouldn't salt this soup because it is already salty from the bacon.  I also used turkey bacon which worked out great!  I didn't have the full 2 1/2 cups of chicken stock so I had to use about a cup of chicken broth, it turned out fine it just wasn't as thick and rich, so use all stock if you can.

**And if you want it to have a kick add a dash of hot sauce or sprinkle in some crushed red pepper!

A Girl's Dream Come True

How could I not use this as my first food post?  Cookie Dough Brownies a girls (and possibly some males') dream come true!  It was love at first sight when I tasted these at a wedding shower that my best friend had for me!  They are super easy and worth the time it takes for the brownie to cool!  So when you can't decide which you want more cookies or brownies, why not have both!

Ingredients:

Brownie Layer

Brownie Mix ( I used dark

 chocolate)

Whatever you need to make the brownies according to the package

Cookie Dough Layer

1/2 cup of butter or margarine

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup sugar

3 T milk

1 tsp. vanilla extract

  1 cup all-purpose flour

  1 cup chocolate chips

Directions:

Bake the brownies according to the package and allow to cool completely.  Otherwise you'll bake the cookie right on top of the brownies!

Then mix the remaining ingredients and drop by tablespoon over cooled brownies and spread over the top.  I then covered them and put them into the refrigerator to cool the dough.  Then enjoy!!

*Make sure to store these in the refrigerator!

Thanks Jen F. for such a great recipe and Court for throwing me an awesome party!!