Country Dumpling Remix

A couple weeks ago I posted some of my guilty pleasures. One of these was my Country Apple Dumplings. I can eat three or four of those guys in one sitting! Well I was inspired by my friend Pretend Chef to try to make these guilty pleasures a little more healthy....so I did! I used my favorite seasonal drink, Diet Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash, in place of the sugary citrus soda, berries in place of apples and I cut down the butter and sugar. I was worried about this becoming an epic fail but I was very pleased with the outcome! It was sweet but not to the point of sugar overload. The only thing I would change is to either use a homemade dough rather than the crescent dough and to still eat it with ice cream instead of the whipped cream I served it with. Enjoy!

Yummy Sugared Berries

Getting ready to roll up the dumplings

I did not intentionally give the whipped cream mouse ears

Homemade Meatballs with Marinara

So I am still sick...but this time for sure I believe I am on the road to recovery. The last time I thought I was getting better my symptoms were just morphing into something far worse. I believe I had/have bronchitis. The only reason I have no clue what was wrong with me is because I went into the doctor and told him my symptoms he gave me some meds and pretty much disappeared. No real check up. I know for sure though that I do not have strep because they did swab me for that. The only bad part is that although I am getting better I still can not take deep breaths because it hurts.
This year I spent Thanksgiving alone. I felt like it was not good for me to go to the festivities around babies and food while coughing up a lung. So I enjoyed my favorite snack of chips and guacamole, took my meds and slept. I was lucky enough to get Thanksgiving leftovers brought to me by my husband so I got out of bed and drowsily ate the cold oyster stuffing and broccoli casserole and fell back asleep. I had big plans to contribute yummy goods to send with my husband but all I was able to make before whining about feeling too awful to stand up were some delicious butterscotch oatmeal bars. And I didn't even get any pictures! I was given the word that they were enjoyed but I had a few mad people that really wanted some apple dumplings. Hey....I was really sick!
I actually made this dinner early last week before I got sick. Spaghetti and meatballs is one of my favorite dinners and I had been craving it for about a week. And what is even better is that you can totally use the leftovers for an awesome meatball sandwich the next day! I am officially opening the kitchen back up so until my next post....Enjoy!

Homemade Meatballs
1 lb. Ground Round
1 Egg
1-1/2 pieces of bread (white or wheat
3 teaspoons Italian bread crumbs
1/4 cup Fresh Parsley
1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese
2 cloves garlic chopped
1 teaspoon Garlic Powder
Coarse Black Pepper and Salt to taste

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees.Get a big bowl and put the 1 lb. of ground round in it. Chop up 1/4 cup of fresh Parsley as fine as you can. Add the Parsley to the bowl. Add egg, chopped garlic, and parmesan cheese, black pepper, salt, garlic powder to the bowl. Take your bread and moisten it with milk or water then squeeze as much of the liquid as you can out of the bread. The bread should be gooey add to the bowl. Mix all the ingredients in the bowl well. You will need to work the meat for about 3 minutes until you end up with a big relatively firm ball. Spray a casserole dish or metal pan with cooking spray. Take the meat and make 1" to 1-1/2" balls and place in pan about 1 inch apart. Bake in oven for 20 minutes rotating halfway through. Remove from pan and drain on a paper towel. Add your favorite homemade pasta sauce and enjoy!

One of my favorite dinners

Apple Cranberry Salad with Pomegranate Vinaigrette

So I have really felt under the weather the past few days. I had a touch of that nasty cold virus that has been going around. But I am one of those people that at the first sign of sickness starts popping Vitamin C tablets and drinking Thera-Flu. Thankfully I think I knocked this out in two days because I woke up feeling a million times better this morning. No more sore throat and no more fever. So this meant that I was able to go back in the kitchen! Since I am still a little weak I wanted a light nutritious lunch that was easy to make and packed with flavor. I decided to make one of my favorites, an Apple Cranberry Salad. Made with sweet butter lettuce, chopped Macintosh apples, dried cranberries, sliced almonds and crumbled bacon. I typically use an organic raspberry vinaigrette but I wanted a little more seasonal so I added some pomegranate to the salad and topped it with pomegranate vinaigrette. MMMM...yes I enjoy healthy just as much as unhealthy. I hope to be completely cold free in a day or so because I have a few things that I would like to bring to Thanksgiving. And in order to successfully do this I need to be one hundred percent. I think that right now I might be at eighty five. I guess I need to go buy some oranges because that always helps. Until then I am going to eat up the pomegranates I bought. Yum!

Pomegranate Vinaigrette
1/4 cup pomegranate or raspberry vinegar
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons minced shallot
1 teaspoon grainy mustard
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Source: Food and Wine

Oh Glorious Salad

I devoured this after no food for a day

Listening To:

Corduroy-Pearl Jam

Be Somebody-Kings of Leon

We're Going To Be Friends -The White Stripes

Everything Zen-Bush

Guilty Pleasures Week: Thanksgiving Sammich

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. And the day after is pretty awesome too. Just as I start to creep out of my food coma, I hear a voice. "Alllleeeexxxx......sammich time." Yes. Leftovers often talk to me and Thanksgiving leftovers pretty much beg to be thrown on a buttery roll and devoured. This brings me to my third and final guilty pleasure, the Thanksgiving Sammich. Seriously people I think I'll have to do a Slimdown Salad week because eating my guilty pleasures three days in a row is pretty redonkulous. And what is worse is that my skinny friend read the blog and figured out I am purposely feeding her so....yeah all the food is pretty much staying in my house for a while.
The inspiration for this sandwich came from a sandwich shop in my hometown Tucson, AZ. They offered a Sundown Sandwich which is basically a turkey dinner on a roll. I took out the cream cheese (substituted with butter, eeek) and added dry cranberries to the stuffing to make it my own and the outcome was awesome. Then the coma set in yet again and all was well in the world..........

Thanksgiving Sammich    Makes 2 sandwiches
2 Whole Wheat or White Sandwich Rolls
6 heaping tablespoons of Leftover Stuffing (with some dried cranberries thrown in for extra flavor)
2 tablespoons Cranberry sauce/Relish
Sliced Turkey or Oven Roasted Turkey from the Deli
1 teaspoon of butter softened /spread

Split your sandwich rolls and spread butter on inside of each roll. Spread cranberry relish on bottom side of bun on top of butter. Put three tablespoons of stuffing on each sandwich. Add Turkey last and add the top bun. Enjoy!!!!

Oh man.....

Now thats a sammich!

Guilty Pleasures Week: Cheesy Chili Hashbrown Bake

AKA: Chili Cheese Fries disguised as a casserole

Day two of my guilty pleasure week and I am faced with the processed guilty pleasure food that is the Cheesy Chili Hashbrown Bake. It is layer after layer of potatoes, cheese and chili. I think what makes me feel so guilty eating this it that it is like eating chili cheese fries....for dinner. But seriously if there is one thing that is always needed in my hectic life it is comfort intertwined with calories. And the extra bonus is that my husband is CRAZY about this. You can either use canned chili or homemade chili. Sometimes homemade chili isn't thick enough so make sure that the homemade chili is hearty enough to not water down the dish. I really enjoyed this...it made me all warm, fat and fuzzy feeling :)

Cheesy Chili Hashbrown Bake
2 cups 30-Minute Chili
1 bag (16 ounces) fresh or frozen shredded hash brown potatoes, thawed if frozen
4 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded (1 cup)
1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro (optional)
Coarse salt and ground pepper

Preheat oven to 425, with rack set in upper third. Place potatoes in a double layer of paper towels; squeeze out as much liquid as possible. In a large bowl, combine potatoes, cheese, and cilantro; season with salt and pepper. In a 8x8 dish or a round pan pour a small amount of chili into the bottom. Add a layer of potatoes, a layer of cheese then a layer of chili. Top with a final layer of cheese.Place baking dish in oven and bake until potatoes are golden brown and chili is bubbling, 20 to 25 minutes. Serve.
Source: Recipe adapted from Martha Stewart

Mmmm...Cheesy deliciousness

Comfort

Guilty Pleasures Week: Country Apple Dumplings

Guilty Pleasures. We all have them. Merriam-Webster defines a guilty pleasure as something pleasurable that induces a usually minor feeling of guilt. For some this guilt stems from a goofy tv show and for others it is a awesomely bad song or band. Well what happens if your guilty pleasure is food so good that it causes an immense amount of elation and euphoria while simultaneously adding three inches to your waist? The only solution I can think of is to make it and try to feed a majority of it to your skinniest friend. Just kidding! (or am I? muahaha)
This week I decided to make and share some of my top guilty pleasure foods. These items are so amazing yet so bad that they make you wanna go to confession. They are all quite unhealthy and borderline kooky but I love them....even if I have to run on a treadmill for two days to burn the calories off.
The first item I give you is the Country Apple Dumpling. A coworker actually shared this recipe with me about three years ago and I have been hooked ever since. Now let me tell you first off that I had no idea how these were made when I first tried them. And that is a good thing since I hate, I mean loathe Mountain Dew. Yes. I said it. This recipe uses Mountain Dew. Now is a good time for all the health nuts to push the little x in the upper right hand corner of your screen because it gets uglier. Besides a can of soda this treat has 2 sticks of butter and a cup and a half of sugar. And for all of you people with your jaws on the ground...this isn't a joke. Somehow these ingredients make up one of my guiltiest of pleasures. So pull out your sweatpants and enjoy!

I will note that this recipe can be be modified to be slightly better for you by using diet soda and cutting back on the butter and sugar. But that's no fun! :)

Country Apple Dumplings
2 large Granny Smith apples, peeled and cored
2 cans refrigerated crescent roll dough
1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 (12 fluid ounce) can or bottle Mountain Dew

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 inch baking dish. Peel each apple and cut into 8 wedges and set aside. Separate the crescent roll dough into triangles. Roll each apple wedge in crescent roll dough starting at the smallest end. Pinch to seal and place in the baking dish. Melt butter in a small saucepan or in microwave safe bowl and stir in the sugar and cinnamon. Pour over the apple dumplings. Pour Mountain Dew over the dumplings. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, flipping dumplings halfway through. The liquid will thicken as it cools.Serve warm or reheated with vanilla ice cream. Gorge!

The beautiful natural apple...before I drowned it in butter and sugar

Golden brown puffs of deliciousness straight out of the oven

The result! A gooey sweet appley hot mess

Guilty Pleasure Numero Uno

(Thanks Dad for the hookup on a sweet set of Fiesta Plates and Platters)

Nutella Cheesecake Topped Brownies

"More batta is betta!"

Or at least this is what my husband exclaimed. I on the other hand had a problem with more "batta". My brownies just did not want to set up. But after some patience and the realization that it was in fact the brownie batter and not the cheesecake topping that needed to set up, I became happy with the outcome. Another realization I came to this week is that I love LOVE Nutella. If you have never eaten this awesomeness...do it. By the spoonful, on toast, with bananas, or if you are really adventurous make these brownies. The only thing I suggest is to add more Nutella than the recipe calls for. I couldn't really taste it. So maybe add some to the brownie batter as well as the cheesecake topping? Just sayin.
On another note I cannot believe that it is almost time for Thanksgiving! This will be the fourth Thanksgiving away from my family and it gets harder every year. Unfortunately my job does not allow me to take time off during the holidays so the possibility of seeing them is very small. I know that hopefully I will get them out here one year to relax and enjoy my cooking. But hopefully before they get here I will get a table with more than two chairs hahah!!

I have a fun little theme planned for the blog this week. Something that I hope my followers will enjoy reading and laugh at too! I know I will enjoy it since the job stress has tripled after accepting a new position at work last week. Stay tuned followers....until then enjoy some Nutella gloriousness. :)

Flour, Cocoa, Baking Powder and Salt. Ready for Siftage

Nutella Cheesecake Topping

Brownie Batter Spread in Pan

Note: DO NOT use a round pan. It was almost an epic fail

All pretty and swirled pre-baking

The outcome

I obviously have no patience to cut into brownies...yet again jagged edges

Nutella Cheesecake Brownies

Brownie Layer

4 eggs
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cocoa powder
1/2 cup Nutella (this is what I recommend adding)
1/3 cup flour

Nutella Cheesecake Layer:
8 ounce cream cheese
1/2 cup Nutella
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs

In one bowl, beat all the brownie ingredients together. In a separate bowl, beat together all of the Nutella Cheesecake ingredients. Scrape the brownie batter into the bottom of an 8×8 pan (it will be quite full. These are thick brownies!) Spoon little globs of the Nutella cheesecake all over the top of the brownie batter. Smooth the cheesecake carefully and completely over the brownie layer with a spatula. Bake in an oven preheated to 350 degrees and bake for 50-55 minutes. The center of the brownies will be set, but if you poke a toothpick into them, it won’t come out dry. No worries! The cheesecake layer needs to cool completely to set up.
Enjoy!!