Old Recipe with a New Face

Good Afternoon,

So today I thought I would stop by and share with you the new face I put on an old recipe! Do you remember THIS recipe? The mini chicken pot pies? Well Jason has been asking for them for awhile now and seeings how fall weather is gracing us with its presence I figured why not?

The basics of the recipe are still the same, the crust and the filling but instead of putting a lid on this little pie so to speak were going to top it a little differently.

One change I made was to buy the honey butter flaky biscuits from Pillsbury, truth be told I just grabbed them and didn't realize but Jason really enjoyed it.

The second change that needs to be made is to bake the crusts a little before putting the filling inside to make sure the crust get crisp everywhere. I made six little pies and bought a package of 8 buns.. so the two extras I just pulled them into three pieces each and added the 1 piece each to the 6 buns. I rolled them flat and put them into the muffin tins. As I mentioned at this point when you have tucked the crust into the muffin tray you will want to bake the crusts alone for a good 10 minutes on 375 - 400. Make sure before putting your crusts in the muffin tray make sure to butter the cups so your pot pie will slip out without issue when you are ready to eat.

Prior to filling your pie crusts or starting any of the pie itself you will want to make some mashed potatoes! For 6 little pies I believe I used 4 regular sized potatoes. You can make the potatoes however you want, we like garlic whipped so that's what I did.. but however you like them go with that.

After you have baked the crusts you will want to take the crusts out of the oven and add your filling which you can find a recipe for in the post above.. or HERE.

Once you have filled your pies with your stuffing put them back in the oven for another 10 minutes or so until you know your crusts are fully cooked and your filling inside is hot! 

Hopefully your potatoes are still warm at this point, bring out your pot pies that are now fully cooked, switch your oven to broil and top your pot pies with your potatoes. 

As you can see it can get a little messy, probably because in my opinion its better to over stuff than under stuff! I made sure to have a baking sheet under my muffin tray to prevent a huge in the oven as well. Now that you have topped your pot pies stick them back in the oven on the top shelf and let the tops of your potatoes crisp a bit and reheat a little I suppose. If you don't care to crisp the potatoes then you can absolutely skip this step. 

I personally use a muffin stone, its not an actual tin but I believe it will work the same in a tin. As I mentioned above make sure you buttered the inside of the muffin cup before putting in your crust and baking it, you can also use cooking spray. I also made extra gravy to use on top of your potatoes, again this is a preference thing. 

Obviously these are going to be hot coming out of the oven so be careful, but as I said they should slide right out. I just used a knife to cut the pieces that had baked together and then slid them onto a plate. I would make sure to have your plate handy, these things aren't super sturdy and they are hot, you don't want to be carrying them to the other side of the kitchen. 

So there you have it, super easy and so very tasty a great fall or winter dinner! We obviously didn't eat all 6 of these that night so I decided to cover them in foil and reheat them in the oven when we decided to have them the next day for lunch. Reheating them in the microwave would definitely work but I figured with the gravy inside they would potentially go soggy. Take them out of the fridge about 20 minutes before you plan to put them in the oven so they aren't so cold and then they will heat evenly in the oven without burning!

We enjoyed these both ways, with a top and with the potato topping!! 

If you give this recipe a try please tell me what you think! As I have mentioned before you can absolutely make them your own, using beef or turkey as well. You can mix up the vegetables, whatever suits the liking of your family or those you are feeding! 

Thank you as always for stopping by, happy cooking! 

Shredded Buffalo Chicken

Hello there!

Well I am here with another recipe! It wasn't my intention to post two recipes side by side but it just happened to work out that way! I don't have a ton going on, I haven't been sleeping which has left me not feeling so hot and I haven't finished my book so a recipe is what is going on!

I saw this recipe last week on a blog and knew I wanted to make it right away, but then yesterday when I went to find the recipe to make sure I had it down before I started and I couldn't find it anywhere! I don't know if I don't remember whose blog it was on, or if they took it off.. lord knows. Anyways I decided to do it to the best of my memory and see what happened.

I will say there are TONS of recipes on Pinterest for this and I am sure they are all very similar so I am just letting you know what I did, how it turned out and how I think you could play with it.

What you will need:

4 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast

1 Cup of Franks Hot Sauce (or whatever hot sauce you prefer)

1 Package of Hidden Valley Ranch Powdered Salad Dressing Mix. 

Crockpot

I put a little bit of hot sauce on the bottom of the crockpot so the chicken wouldn't stick. I sprinkled the package of hidden valley ranch powdered salad dressing over the top of the chicken and then poured a cup of Franks Hot Sauce over the chicken. 

I set the crockpot to medium heat and cooked it for three and a half hours! Honestly the apartment smelled AMAZING while it was cooking. 

After the three and a half hours I opened up the crockpot and the chicken shredded apart super easily. I mixed it around and let it sit on low until Jason got home. 

We had ours on a sandwich which a side salad. If I was thinking I would have made some type of slaw to go on top but I didn't. The sandwiches were fantastic!

If you are thinking you wouldn't like this because its hot, it really wasn't. The ranch dressing mix really takes away from the heat. But you can always add some barbecue sauce or honey to it if its too much for you! Or if you don't like the tang of the hot sauce you could put chicken in the crockpot and just add a whole jar of your favorite salsa and cook it the same way!

Obviously Jason and I didn't eat all of that last night so I froze the rest. In the future I was thinking we could use it for:

- Nachos

- Burritos 

- Quesadillas

- A salad topping

- In chili

- Tacos

And whatever else you can think of! Shredded chicken isn't something we eat a lot of and I cant really give you a reason why because we definitely eat a lot of chicken but I think I will definitely add it into our mix now. If you aren't around to throw this in three and a half hours before dinner then I would recommend putting it in 6-7 hours before on low! There is enough liquid in there that you really aren't going to overcook it! 

Sorry I didn't take pictures, it was so super easy that I wasn't sure I was going to make a whole blog post out of it but it turned out to be so super good that I really wanted to share it with you guys! 

There are tons of recipes on Pinterest for this, just type "shredded buffalo chicken" in the search bar! 

If you like a little spice in your life give this a whirl, I would say it would easily feed 4 people! 

Hope you guys are having a great week!! Thank you as always for stopping by! 

Chicken Pizza's!

Good Afternoon,

I am super excited to share this recipe with you guys today, one because it is sooo good and two because you guys seem to be enjoying the recipes around here lately and I love hearing how you have tried them yourselves and what you think!

As you know last week I went to a taping of the Rachael Ray Show and the final recipe she shared was this one. Again as I always say you can take any recipe and make it your own and that is exactly why I like cooking. I knew that I was definitely going to try this recipe and as soon as I tasted it I knew I was going to share it with you guys!

So lets get started!

Basically what you are making is a pizza but the crust of your pizza is going to be a chicken breast, the point of this is not only for flavor but to eliminate the carbs. Its super easy and even something you can get your kids involved in!

What You'll Need:

Chicken Breast (One per person)

Cheese (of your choice)

Pizza toppings (I used mushrooms and onions)

Cherry or Grape tomatoes

Garlic

Olive Oil 

Spices of your preference

Salt and Pepper

Tools:

Cutting Board

Sharp Knife

Baking Sheet

Meat Tenderizer (If you don't have one use a coffee mug)

I started out chopping the things I wanted for my pizza, sadly I forgot green peppers which are one of my favorites so you can add that if its something you like and I couldn't find any fresh basil. The next time I make these (and there will be a next time) I will make sure to grab a green pepper as well as try and find fresh basil. 

I decided to chop my veggies and saute them a little before I put them on my pizza. You could put them on raw but I thought it might be nice to have them cooked a little so at the end I could add my toppings and cheese and just broil. Again however you would like to do it! I chopped my mushrooms SUPER thin because when I do them that way Jason will actually eat them and then I roughly chopped my onions. I added them to a pay with a little garlic infused olive oil and moved onto my sauce. 

Of course wash your tomatoes to start, then you are going to chop up your garlic, using as much as you desire. I LOVE garlic so I tend to use a little more. You can add onions to this if you would like but I was already putting them on top of my pizza so I chose not to, if you are not adding onions to the top of your pizza maybe put some in your sauce. 

You are going to take a pot that has a lid, if you have a frying pan with a lid you can use that as well. Put a generous amount of olive in the bottom of your pan and let it get warm. If you let it get too hot you risk the flavor and when you add your ingredients the grease will splatter so be mindful of that. Once your oil is warm, add your tomatoes whole along with your garlic and whatever else you choose. Salt and Pepper to taste. Essentially you want these tomatoes to cook through and they will eventually soften and pop or you can break them up with a fork or potato masher. Just like you were making real spaghetti sauce to jar. If you can't be around to watch this part of the cooking process I would wait until the tomatoes cook down a bit before adding the garlic so it doesn't burn.

(I'm sorry guys I flaked and didn't take a picture of the finished product, but basically your tomatoes are going to mash up. It smells and tastes incredibly fresh!)

I purchased my garlic infused olive oil at the Union Square Market in NYC, its from The Filling Station but you can use regular extra virgin olive oil of course. If by chance you can get near an Oil and Vinegar store though, guys I highly recommend it! Infused oils can make all the difference in your flavors!

I sauteed my onions and mushrooms until they had really good color, the key to this is NOT to add salt while they are cooking. Salt is going to pull the natural juices out of any vegetable therefore adding too much moisture to your pan and you want get the color or crispy edges. If you prefer not to have that than by all means salt away! When these were done though they almost tasted as though they were done on the grill, it was fantastic. 

At this point pull out your chicken breast! I used one per person I was cooking for. You are basically going to butterfly your chicken to make it larger as well as thinner. For this step I use my Ulu, for my its just the sharpest and because of its shape easiest to work with, a sharp fillet knife will work just fine. Whatever you are using, be careful. 

Once you are finished I laid a piece of plastic wrap on the counter, laid my butterflied chicken on it and then added another piece over the top. If you have a meat tenderizer than this would be the time that you would pull it out, I however do not. I really need to get one though. Anyways I just used a coffee mug (you do what you gotta do!), I basically banged my coffee mug on the chicken until it was to my desired thickness. 

Once you are finished you will want to season your chicken. You can season your chicken however you want, I used a little garlic powder, onion powder, Italian seasoning and a bit of seasoning salt. Make sure to season both sides! I would use regular extra virgin olive oil to lightly oil the bottom of you pan as the infused oils tend to burn. Keep in mind because your chicken is now so thin its going to to take as long to cook. 

I baked my chicken at 375 for almost 40 minutes, it was done well but not overdone. I am really over the top about making sure meats are THOROUGHLY cooked. When my chicken was done, I brought it out of the oven, set the oven to broil and then added my toppings. 

I added my sauce, mushrooms and onions and cheese over top. You can use whatever cheese you want, I used a shredded mozzarella! I put the chicken back in the oven under the broiler and let it brown. 

Keep in mind this is going to be SUPER filling so you wont want to plan a big side dish unless you're feeding a bunch of teenage boys are something. I chose to do a cesar salad. 

Guys the flavor was so good, it was even better than I thought. It was just so FRESH tasting. You can add whatever you want to it, add as much as you want but the whole point is to avoid the crust. 

I feel like this is definitely going to be a staple in our house, I get really tired of dinners.. having the same old thing and at this time of year it can be really hard to add freshness into your meals as produce isn't at its best. 

You can simply this meal by buying already butterflied chicken, using quick pizza toppings such a pepperoni and bacon bits (Jason's kind of pizza) and go from there. You can change it up (and make it a little less healthy) by doing BBQ sauce instead of tomato sauce, or alfredo sauce and greens. Make it your own, that's half the fun!!

I highly recommend giving this a whirl, if you do please let me know what you think!! 

As always thank you so much for taking the time to stop by!! Have a fabulous day!!

Delicious Banana Bread!

Good Morning!!

I have been wanting some banana bread for quite some time now and while ago I found a few recipes but for some reason never got around to making it. I decided last week enough screwing around I was going to see what I needed and do some baking!

I made sure I had all the stuff I needed including some super ripe bananas and Saturday afternoon while watching it snow I got my bake on! I had never tried the recipe before but I thought I would take pictures and plan to blog about it hoping it turned out good and I was honestly beyond impressed! The recipe was super easy and the bread is super delicious, I also found that the bread didn't dry out the next day or anything which is an added bonus.

You will need:

2 Cups All Purpose Flour 

1 Cup White Sugar

1 Teaspoon Salt

1 Teaspoon Baking Powder

1 Teaspoon Baking Soda

1/2 Cup Softened Butter

3 Ripe Bananas

2 Large Eggs

1 Teaspoon Vanilla

1 Tablespoon Milk

Preheat Oven to 325

Keep in mind everyone's oven is different and if you usually have to make adjustment to temperature than definitely do that. 

When I am baking I like to get out all of the ingredients I will need ahead of time that way it is easy to grab and as I use it I put it away so the clean up at the end doesn't seem to daunting. You want to begin by adding all of your dry ingredients to a bowl.

Once all of your dry ingredients are in your bowl, put it aside and get out another bowl. I unpeeled my 3 ripe bananas and mashed them up in a smaller bowl using a fork. You can do this however you feel comfortable, they don't need to be liquefied so no equipment is necessary.  

You may not want to make more dishes than necessary but I also always crack my eggs in a separate bowl just in case. You don't want to ruin your whole mixture with a bad egg. Ha!

Make sure your dry ingredients are thoroughly mixed, and in your separate bowl you wet ingredients are thoroughly mixed, now you will combine the two. 

Try not to over mix the batter, just make sure everything is combined well and there is no flour stuck at the bottom and you should be good to go. I lightly buttered my loaf pan, I don't generally have cooking spray on hand but if you do that will work just fine as well. 

Once your loaf pan is read add your batter, it should fill the loaf pan approximately half way. I used a regular load pan found at Target. 

The recipe says to bake your bread for 60-70 minutes, I found that to be a long time but I set my timer for 60 minutes and started checking on with (through the oven window about 50 minutes in). I ended up cooking my bread for about 65 minutes. 

The bread looked soo good, and the apartment smelled absolutely AMAZING!

I let the bread cool for about a half hour before turning it over and it dropped right out of the pan, no issues at all. 

I am super happy with this bread, I will definitely be adding this recipe to my recipe book to make sure I use it again. Jason has been loving it as well, and requested I make a loaf for him to take to work, so I guess I need to get some more bananas. 

I really enjoy baking and don't know why I go so long without doing it, probably because I don't want to eat it! 

I hope you guys enjoy this recipe, let me know if you give it a try and how it turns out!! 

As always thank you for stopping by and happy baking!! 

Mini Chicken Pot Pies!

Good Morning,

I am really excited to finally be sharing a recipe with you guys, as it has definitely been awhile. I won't lie not being at home in my lovely big kitchen doesn't leave me totally inspired all the time. I like to try new recipes though and I get so sick of dinners that its definitely good to try something new.

So awhile back I was perusing Pinterest looking for some new recipes to try and came across THIS one. We really love turkey/chicken pot pie but this was just a different way to make it, I pinned it not knowing when I would actually try it but I knew that it looked good.

Well last week when trying to plan dinner I decided that I was going to give the mini chicken pot pies a whirl. I made sure I had all the stuff and then for some reason I didn't get to them last week, and so I made them last night. Prior to actually making them I kept thinking of all the things that could go wrong, they might get stuck in the muffin tray, ooze out everywhere and then be try.. you know, not that I was trying to be a pessimist but I always worry when I am making something I have never tried before. I couldn't have been more wrong which made the whole thing that much better! So let me tell y'all just what I did.

I made 6 decent size mini pies, I used a baking stone which is a little deeper and wide than a regular muffin tin.

What You'll Need:

- Extra Virgin Olive Oil

- 2 Boneless skinless Chicken breast

- 1 package of turkey gravy mix (you can use a can, or if you're fancy make your own)

- Onion (to your taste, Jason doesn't love onions so I didn't use a lot)

- Garlic

- Vegetables of your liking. (again to your discretion what you like, I used a country mix. Carrots, green beans & corn). 

- Pillsbury Grands flaky biscuits

- Butter

- Chicken Stock

I started out with two chicken breast and just baked them in the oven. I'm sorry but at the beginning of this process I was thinking it was probably going to be a Pinterest fail so I didn't take any pictures. Season the chicken to your liking, but remember its going in a savory dish with other strong flavors and so you don't want to make it too strong and overpower the natural flavors. As the chicken was baking I chopped my onion and garlic and put it in a pan with a little extra virgin olive oil. Once the onion and garlic had sweated a bit I added my vegetables. Season with salt and pepper at this point if you would like.

I used frozen vegetables which is something I actually never do and therefore I didn't need to actually cook them it was more a matter of reheating them. If you are going to use fresh veggies I would suggest blanching them before adding them to your filling. When the chicken was finished I chopped it up into smaller chunks and added it to the vegetable mixture in my pot.

Now that everything was in there I added a cup of chicken stock along with my package McCormick turkey gravy mix as pictured HERE. On medium heat the gravy will thicken. If you feel its too thick feel free to add some more stock to thin it out a little, recipes are all about tweaking them to your own liking. Once to desired thickness, turn off and let cool.

I would say start assembling your little pies about a half hour or so before you are ready to eat.

Pull your biscuits out of the fridge and pop open the packaging. As you can see on the picture below there are 8 biscuits in the package and you are making 6 pies but they will need little tops. Use your discretion as to how thick you want the tops to be, you will have two full biscuits to split between 6 pies for topping, you may need to keep an extra layer or two.. this is why its great to use this flaky layers because they literally pulls right apart!

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Once you have popped out your biscuit you are going to need to flatten it out so you can have enough to cover the bottom of you muffin spot in your tray. You don't want it too thin though as i needs to be able to hold your filling in when you pop it out of the pan. See picture below.

Before putting the biscuits in the tray I did lightly butter the tray so they wouldn't stick. I just took a little butter on a paper towel and lightly coated the inside, you could use a cooking spray as well. 

I made mine one at a time, I was worried that once I put the biscuit in the tray if I didn't fill it than it might shrink. 

I overfilled mine just a little, I worried that they would eventually leak everywhere when I was cooking them but they surprisingly did not!

I did put a baking sheet under my muffin tray just in case they did leak everywhere. I put the top layer on each little pie and pinched around the sides to make sure everything was sealed as best they could be. Don't be too much of a stickler here, mine definitely were not perfect and if they aren't if just give a little better of an outlet for steam so they don't explode. Think about when you are baking a regular pie, you poke holes in the top to let the steam out, same idea. 

As you can see above I did poke some holes in each one, better safe than sorry. 

I put mine in the oven at a temperature of 375 for about 17-20 minutes. Everyone's oven is different, the Pinterest recipe I looked at said 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes, I say just watch them and when they are browning on top use your judgement. When mine were getting quite brown I took them out and put a really light layer of butter on top, leave this out if you don't feel like it.. it probably doesn't make that big of a difference. After that I popped them back in the oven for 2 minutes. 

I could not be happier with how they turned out, they looked fantastic!! I was so worried that when I went to take them out of the stone they would either, not budge and there was going to be no pretty way of scooping them out, or they were crumble in my hand. I really dreaded either of these things happening but when I went to pick them up they slid right out of the stone. PERFECTION!

I am so happy with how these turned out, and let me tell you they were SO easy! This is something you could make a lot of the filling and freeze half for a quick and easy week night dinner, pull the filling out of the freezer in the morning on your way to work and throw them together in no time at night when you get home. Even if you choose not to freeze it, this is a super quick and easy meal. 

Side note, I really didn't find mine to be dry at all but if you have dippers in your family or would just prefer a little extra gravy it doesn't hurt to have a little on the side. You can make an extra package or whatever you choose. Like I said the great thing about recipes is you can make it all to your own liking, tweak them in flavor and texture to please those your feed!!

I hope you guys enjoy this recipe, if you happen to make them at home yourself please tell me how they turned out!!! 

Have a great day, and as always thank you for stopping by!

Sunday Christmas Baking

Good Morning,

Don't get too excited, I haven't gotten into Christmas cookie baking like I usually do this is strictly some cupcake baking for the guys from Jason's work!

Every year when we are on a job I try really hard to make something for the guys Jason works with, its not every year that everyone will get to go home and be with their families and I can imagine if that's the case it can make it really hard to get in the Christmas spirit, so I try to do a little baking although its not much to at least push them in the holiday direction!

I have done these cupcakes before, I do cookies closer to Christmas generally but every year is different depending on my work situation, if we are staying for Christmas or traveling as well.. you know how it goes! Anyways Jason specifically requested these cupcakes this year and with friends coming to visit this month for the Patriots games and few weekends left until Christmas arrives (crazy!) I thought I would make the cupcakes Monday. Turns out Jason ended up working Sunday too and I had nothing on the agenda so I got to work!

I was really thankful that we brought our mixer back from the house because this would have been a much longer, more frustrating day trying to get this done with my shoulder still being a mess. 

I just used the box cake mix because I just wasn't feeling making it all from scratch.. I'm sorry I'm lazy! Either way I was anxious because I haven't baked anything like this in this oven before and every oven is completely different. When the first batch was done I was confident I wouldn't have any problems!

Once the cupcakes came out of the oven I put them on the dining room table to cool because as you all know you cannot frost warm cupcakes. I will tell y'all if you are thinking about baking anything with a mix of sorts than check your local supermarket because everything is on sale!

I went with classic butter cream frosting, it is America's favorite after all.. and Jason's! 

I feel the key to these cupcakes are the decoration of peppermint M&M's! I put a red, white and green one on each! If I was eating them I would pick them off and eat them first but to each their own!!

I like to use a little colored icing to give the cupcakes a little something extra, generally I would just color some of the icing I already bought but these were on sale when I got my baking stuff so I figured why not! I will say I didn't like the taste of this icing as much but I am really glad I got it because I ended up running out of icing and had nothing for the two last lonely cupcakes. 

I probably made too many.. Probably. 

I am super happy with how they turned out.. there is a million of them and I had a really hard time finding something to put them all in for Jason to get them to work! 

I saved a few for home as well because I know Jason will be looking for one come Wednesday.. although I highly doubt there will be any left. 

Bad picture but there are actually more here than it appears! I had to laugh! 

I really enjoy Christmas baking, my cousin and I use to do it all the time when I lived at home but for now I do it on my own. Last year we were at home and I baked home made short bread cookies and although not Christmas cookies these amazing chocolate chip cookies because they are such a fan favorite! The mailman at home has been wonderful to us every since I made him a huge plate! HA! 

I do plan to bake a little more, we have friends coming for a visit and Jason has a thing for gingerbread men although I absolutely hate them.. I suppose that ensures that I wont eat them though!

Its funny how holiday baking is just another way to put yourself and hopefully those who enjoy the finished product in the Christmas spirit! 

Let me know what you are baking for Christmas and if you would be interested in some of my favorite Christmas baking recipes!!