Chili Win but a Wolfpack Loss...

Happy belated Thanksgiving!  We had such a fun week with our family!  Shout out to all of them!  I have the best family ever!

This week for dinner I made a white chicken chili!  It was delicious!  I had a very busy day so I googled a crockpot recipe so I could make it in the morning before I went to class and it was ready when I got home.  The crock pot is a beautiful thing, isn't it?  Kristen and I enjoyed this dinner while watching the Wolfpack lose to Michigan.  Not the combo I was hoping for but at least the chili was good.

http://www.food.com/recipe/crock-pot-white-chicken-chili-114789

Oh and I also made some rolls to go with the chili!  I need to work on my side items.  What do you have with white chicken chili?  Happy Dead Week to all you NCSU students out there!  Make me some brain food for my exams next week, Kristen! :)

Brownies with style :)

I made, wait for it, Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies.  So good!  Brownies are one of my favorite desserts, if I was forced to pick one, so these instantly caught my eye.  Once again, a recipe found on Pinterest.  The brownies were homemade with melted chocolate, sugar, eggs, etc. (in other words, not from a box!)  I used Nestle Dark Chocolate Morsels for the chocolate.  I went easy on the red food coloring, as it is an unneccessary ingredient except to add the "style" :)  Here is a pic:

http://www.doughmesstic.net/2012/01/23/red-velvet-cheesecake-swirl-brownies/

They don't look as good as the pic on the website with the recipe, but that was to be expected haha.  Part of this is probably because I overcooked them slightly.  The oven temperature was set a little too high for the first 15 minutes... whoops!  But they still tasted great!  Worth a try for anyone that likes cheesecake and brownies!

Feast before the feast

Sorry for the delay, Thanksgiving got a little crazy busy at the Eure household so I didn't have time to post last week.  

It was my week for dinner, and this week was special because I got to cook for mom, dad, Megan, and my boyfriend Shawn.  Pressure's on!  

I made a honey butter pork tenderloin, crockpot macaroni and cheese, sauteed asparagus, and wheat rolls.  All turned out great!  (in my humble opinion ;) )

The pork tenderloin was another Pinterest success.  Here's a picture and the link:

http://bestestrecipes.blogspot.com/2012/11/honey-butter-pork-tenderloin.html

It was so easy to make!  My only question/worry was how long to cook it.  But it turned out really nice!

The asparagus were just sauteed in some olive oil and I used the juice of half of a lemon for flavoring.  I've done this before when cooking with my momma.

The crockpot macaroni and cheese was my favorite part of this meal!  I got this recipe from my co-worker Nicole.  She brought some to lunch one day at school and shared the recipe with all of us in the teachers' lounge.  Here is a pic and the recipe:

Ingredients:

8 ounces elbow macaroni

3 cups shredded cheese

1/2 stick butter

1 1/2 cups of milk

2 eggs

1 small can of evaporated milk

Directions:

Boil and drain macaroni.  Put butter and 2 cups of the cheese in the macaroni and mix.  Put in the crockpot.  Mix eggs, milk, salt, and pepper in bowl.  Pour over macaroni- DO NOT STIR.  Put final cup of cheese on top.  Cook on low for 3 hours.

I like this recipe because you can put it together ahead of time and get it cooking while at work or the gym. Then it's ready when you come home and have to make the rest of the dinner.  It was nice to have one dish out of the way so I could focus on the others, because I get stressed out when I have too many things to work on at once!  I'm a newbie at this cooking thing so less is better.  This turned out to be a huge hit!

The rolls were frozen Sister Schubert's wheat dinner rolls, so nothing special.  But who doesn't love Sister Schubert's??  

All around a great meal with great company!

"I love pie"

Last week Kristen was in charge of dinner and I made dessert.  This was a special week because we cooked for more than just ourselves!  Mom, Dad, and Shawn (Kristen's boyfriend) joined us!  Kristen made a delicious dinner that she will post about soon.

Now the two of us usually prefer desserts that involve chocolate!  I would pick a chocolate dessert over a fruit dessert any day!  My dad, however, LOVES fruit desserts!  One day last week he and my mom were out and out of nowhere my dad said "you know, I love pie".  If you know my dad and could hear the way he said it you'd think it was funny.  I am not ambitious enough yet to make a pie (maybe sometime before Christmas I will try it) so I made a cobbler!  It was a triple berry cobbler with raspberry, blueberry, and blackberries.

Looks so good right??  It was delicious!  And Dad loved it too!  Yay! Success!  Making dinner this week.  Excited to try something new!

Chicken and Waffles, Y'all!

This week I wanted to go with a BforD (Breakfast for Dinner) meal!  At first I thought, pancakes? Ehh...maybe.  Then I decided I would go with a less boring, more southern dish.  Chicken and Waffles, of course! (with a little pizazz)

Though I am from the South, I am not afraid to admit that I have never used a deep fryer! Honestly, it scares me.  I'm pretty sure it'd turn out like a scene from Arrested Development with George Bluth and the Cornballer (shout out to my uncle Kevin, a faithful reader of our blog! That reference was for you!). For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, basically I'd probably burn myself with hot oil.

Sooo I went with a safer and healthier option of oven-baked chicken.  I tried to make it a spicy baked chicken but unfortunately it did not turn out as spicy as I was expecting.  I doused the chicken in hot sauce before breading it but I guess that was not enough to give it the kick I was going for.  Next time I'd probably do some chili powder or red pepper in the breading.  Or maybe marinate the chicken in hot sauce.  Any suggestions are welcomed!

As for the waffles, no way could we leave those plain!  I decided to go with a sweet potato waffle.  I got a little impatient with the mashing of the sweet potato so there were small chunks throughout the waffles but they were still good.

Then on top, since Kristen claims that even the smell of maple syrup makes her nauseous, we put a little bit of honey.  It was a great balance of sweet and savory.  I definitely learned some improvements I would like to make for the next go round but overall I would say this dinner was a success!

Oh! And I have no idea where the waffle iron that we have came from but I think we could use a new one...it may have been from prehistoric times and there was some smoke coming out of it when I first plugged it in...a little scary.  Still looks pretty good though, right?

ooey gooey goodness :)

In a last stitch effort to make seasonal goodies, I made Paula Deen's ooey gooey pumpkin bars.  I have to admit that I have made these before, but under the guidance of my amazing chef aunt Tricia.  I wanted to attempt this dish on my own (plus I love these things!)  I made the recipe as directed with a small addition: Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chunks.  Thank you Aunt Tricia for this neccessary modification!  What's dessert without a little chocolate??  Aunt Tricia has also made this recipe with spice cake mix rather than the yellow cake mix that Paula Deen calls for, but I used yellow cake mix this time.  There are many different modifications to this recipe, some that Paula Deen posts on the Food Network site, but my favorite is one that my aunt has done.  She made the traditional ooey gooey bars (yellow cake mix and plain cream cheese filling) but added Health Bar toffee bits.  AMAZING!  That's just one idea, but there is a modification for everybody (peanut butter, pineapple, etc).  Here is a picture of the deliciousness and the link to the recipe:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/pumpkin-gooey-butter-cakes-recipe/index.html

I would say I did a pretty good job, no?  (They tasted delicious if I do say so myself...:) )  It's too bad Megan doesn't really like pumpkin...  but I think she was able to appreciate the success of the dish regardless of her taste preferences.

Sweet potato-avocado burger bliss

Week 4, November 6, 2012:  Sweet potato avocado burgers with zucchini chips

I redeemed myself after last weeks horrible mess!  Dinner this week was sweet potato avocado burgers and parmesan zucchini chips, another Pinterest-inspired dinner and it was so good!

Megan and I both really like sweet potatoes and we both saw the burger recipe on Pinterest so I decided to give it a try.  I followed the recipe pretty closely, but I did modify it a little.  It called for tahini in the burger mixture, but since I never use that and the only jar I could find at the store was huge and $8, I googled tahini substitutes.  A couple different places suggested an organic, unsalted nut butter, and, wouldn't you know, I had some fresh ground almond butter at the apartment!  It worked really well.  I chose to use lemon-pepper seasoning and added some fresh ground black pepper and sea salt.  My only complaint is that my burgers did not stay formed very well, even after adding a little extra flour.  I would definitely look into ways to thicken the mixture a little more next time I attempt this dinner.

Here are the burgers:

Rather than using whole grain buns, I made my own honey wheat bread in my bread machine.  I didn't have school today, so I took advantage of the extra time.  Here's a picture of the loaf:

The final product was topped with fresh avocado slices, romaine lettuce, and dijon mustard.

Here is the recipe!  It serves 7-8 people.  I would definitely make these again!

http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2012/02/easy-sweet-potato-veggie-burgers-with.html

Our side dish was Parmesan zucchini chips, also a success!  My only complaint with these is that they were a little salty...  The only modification I made with this recipe was using almond milk rather than regular milk because that's what I drink, but it didn't seem to make a difference.  Turned out pretty tasty!

http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/zucchini-oven-chips-10000001087041/

Sugar high!

 So I think I made the biggest mistake you can make in baking...improvising.  I found a recipe for cookie dough blondies.  They were screaming Kristen's name!  I looked through and thought I had all of the ingredients to make it work.  The first ingredient was a box of yellow or white cake mix.  Well I didn't have yellow or white but I had french vanilla...that should work, right??  WRONG!  I started making the bars as instructed and the "dough" was a crumbly dust.  Not the kind that that turns into a delicious crust but the kind that blows away in the wind.  So I thought to myself "this must be because I used french vanilla cake mix.  Maybe if I add another egg to moisten it up a little bit it will be ok!"  So I did.  This was either going to work or turn into a cookie dough quiche.

Looks pretty good, right?  So the bottom turned out OK (looking) but then after cooking I had to add to add a topping.  The top was going fine until I realized we did not have any more chocolate chips for melting and pouring over top.  Well...I had white chocolate chips?  Maybe that could work?  False! White chocolate does not melt the same as semisweet.  It is also SOOOOO sweet!

So this is the final product.  Still looks alright I guess.  I'm pretty sure with one bite these might rot your teeth.  They are soo sweet.  If anyone knows my sister you know how much she loves sweets. (Her motto: I run to eat dessert) Even she thought they were way too sweet!  So we each tried a bite to see just how bad they were but in an effort to save us and all of our friends from diabetes they are going in the trash...womp womp.  My first fail.  Definitely did not nail it.