Zesty Ranch Pretzel Sticks

This recipe is the perfect solution for a last minute party (or anytime) snack!

The holiday season will quickly be approaching (I’ve seen Christmas shopping commercials on T.V. since early October!) and that means it’s time for holiday parties, both at home and in the classroom. When you’re in need of a last minute party treat, don’t settle for a bag of store bought chips! These ranch pretzels literally took me 15 minutes from start to finish, and they are so addicting. They also taste just like Cool Ranch Doritos, which are my favorite, but they are slightly healthier!

 

You will need:

¾ c. light olive oil

1 packet Hidden Valley Ranch dressing mix

 ½ bag of pretzels

(Side note: Double the olive oil and use two ranch dressing mixes if you would like to use the whole bag of pretzels.)

To do:

Preheat oven to 300˚ and line a baking sheet, preferably with sides (so the ranch oil doesn’t drip everywhere), with parchment paper. You can also use a 9” x 13” pan if you don’t have a baking sheet with sides. Lay out pretzels on the baking sheet, making sure they are all flat and in one layer.

Measure out olive oil in a measuring glass and mix the ranch packet right into the cup (to save a dish or two). Pour the mixture over the pretzels and stir so that all sticks are evenly covered.

Bake at 300˚ for 10 minutes, stir once or twice to ensure even coverage.

Let cool slightly before serving. (They are actually really good if served hot or warm… just don’t burn your tongue!)

Stuffed French Toast

Breakfast may be my favorite meal of the day. Omelets, bacon, and cereal are just a few of my early (more like not-so-early…) morning preferences. My two favorite dishes, however, are stuffed French crepes and French toast. I love the sour cream/cream cheese stuffing in the crepes, but the buttery cinnamon coating of French toast is tasty, too. What could be better than putting these two together and making stuffed French toast?!

Try adding fresh fruit as a topping, or even to the filling!

What You Need:

4 slices of Wheat Bread (or French Bread for a more traditional French Toast taste)

2 eggs

½ tsp cinnamon

For the stuffing:

3 Tbsp Fat Free Plain Cream Cheese

2 tsp powdered sugar

½ tsp cinnamon

What To Do:

In a small bowl, combine cream cheese, powdered sugar and cinnamon until creamy and smooth.

In another bowl, whisk together eggs and cinnamon.

Put a heaping tablespoon of cream cheese mixture on one piece of bread. Place the other slice on top.

Dunk the sandwich in the egg mixture, and place on a greased griddle or pan. (I used a Cuisinart Sandwhich Grill.)

Cook until golden brown. Flip if needed.

Served topped with powdered sugar.

Chicken and Broccoli Stir Fry

This is probably my very favorite dish to make because it is so easy and delicious! Since I've moved back to college, it's hard to find time to make food at my apartment, and buying groceries is a whole other battle. Usually I just run to one of the food courts (yum…) and grab something, but the recent fall weather has inspired me to get back in the kitchen.

There's not really a recipe for this, I just diced some chicken breasts and cooked them in a pan with a dash of salt and pepper to taste (or whatever your favorite spices are), a little olive oil and soy sauce. I steamed the broccoli in the microwave and caramelized the mushrooms with butter in a separate pan. Once everything is cooked I tossed them in with some whole grain rice and a little more soy sauce and that's it! You can add whatever vegetables you like, these are just the ones I picked up when I went grocery shopping with my roommate this morning. It's super fast, cheap, and easy!

Creamy Chicken and Mushroom Pasta

Today seemed to fly by much faster than I could keep up and before I knew it, it was 8 o'clock in the evening. I was browsing one of my favorite food blogs Eat, Live, Run for a yummy pasta dish because I have been craving something of the sort lately. It didn't take me too long to find several that sounded delicious, but I decided on her Creamy Chicken and Mushroom Pasta recipe. It took less than 30 minutes to make, and mushrooms are quite possibly one of my favorite foods ever. So this was the winner for the night.

By the time I ran to the store (and library to return almost over-due items for the third time this week) and came home it was past 9 pm and my mother looked at me like I was crazy when I told her I had planned on making this tonight. I started at about 9:55 pm and was completely finished by 10:20. Needless to say, this is my new favorite dish. So easy, and so tasty. 

This recipe made enough for about 4 people, and the only thing I would do differently is add a teeeeeeny bit more broth (I used beef) and cream because the sauce seemed to have disappeared once I added everything together. Also, I completely forgot to add the parmesan at the end, which probably would have solved my whole-lack-of-flavor-in-the-sauce issue. However, it was incredibly light and didn't give me that heavy, lazy feeling afterward like most creamy pasta dishes. I'll be looking forward to having this as my lunch tomorrow, too!

Creamy Chicken and Mushroom Pasta Skillet [via Eat, Live, Run]

serves 4 

Ingredients:

8 oz dry farfalle pasta (bow-ties)

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into bite-sized cubes

1 shallot, minced

1 tsp minced garlic

1 tbsp oil

20 oz sliced cremini mushrooms (or whatever mushrooms you have on hand)

1/2 cup beef or chicken broth

1/2 cup cream

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese (or to taste)

fresh minced parsley for serving

Directions:

Heat up the oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add the chicken and cook for about six minutes, until cooked through. Remove chicken to a plate and drizzle in a teeny more oil in your pan. Reduce heat to medium/low and add the minced shallot, followed by the garlic, mushrooms and a pinch of salt. Cook until mushrooms are juicy—about five minutes. Then, slowly stream in the broth and cream. Add the chicken back to the sauce and bring to simmer for a couple minutes.

Cook the pasta in boiling salted water. Drain and add pasta to the sauce. Add the salt, pepper, parmesan cheese and parsley. Serve.

Yellow Curry and the Farmer's Market

About a month ago, while I was approaching the end of my sophomore year of school, I visited the Bloomington Farmer's Market on a drizzly, gray Saturday morning with my sister. I've been living in B-Town for the past two school years and I can't believe that I haven't been to more of these! I have been seriously missing out of some good, local stuff. They had everything from local eateries that had samples out, to hand-picked coffee beans, to beautiful (and pricey... $6 a carton! [i am a poor college student]) strawberries, to fresh flowers. Despite the not-so-beautiful weather, it was so wonderful to see so many people out enjoying the local offerings and supporting a homegrown community. I really need to go to these kinds of things more often!

Anyway, to get to my point... That Saturday they were having a special "Asian Culture" fest type of thing and had a live cooking show going on and other events throughout the day. While we were there, an elderly Asian woman was hard at work making this yellow curry dish. Now. I have never been a huge fan of curry, so I was skeptical about this recipe, which also included tofu and cooked carrots and I've never really been a huge fan of those either. But, since the samples were free, I gave it a try.

I have never been so incredibly mistaken about a dish of food in my life. Oh my dear goodness, was that little plate of food delicious.

The dish was comprised of the yellow curry sauce mixed with cooked carrots, potatoes and sweet potatoes, served over a bed of steamed white rice.

So I picked up the recipe (they were freely giving it away!!) and three weeks later I had the worst craving for this dish ever. So I dug out the recipe and gave it a try. And I found out that it is so incredibly difficult to find some of the international ingredients without the help of the little old Asian woman who made the recipe. But with some minor changes, I made my own yellow curry dish. It wasn't quite the same as it's origins, but according to my family (whom I forced to try and critique despite some of their lack of interest) it was really quite delicious. So, here it is!

(I am in the process of figuring out the proportions of the ingredients is used, but for now here is a basic description of what I did.)

Combine about 1/2 cup of yellow curry sauce (not yellow curry powder) with about 1/2 cup of coconut milk. Add 1-2 cubes vegetable flavoring, or a 1 tsp of vegetable seasoning. Add 2 cubed potatoes and 1 cubed sweet potato, as well as a bunch of carrots (I didn't actually end up putting these in). Add 1/2 yellow onion, minced. Add in pepper to taste. Add cubed tofu (or chicken if tofu isn't your favorite), let cook until potatoes are soft-ish and tofu is warm. Serve over a bed of white rice or whole grain rice.

Peachberry Cobbler

What better recipe to start with than a delicious cobbler? In honor of Mother's Day, I decided to make a cobbler for Sunday Dessert. I was originally going for a Gingered Peach and Blackberry Cobbler (recipe from Eat Live Run), however I couldn't for the life of me find fresh peaches or blackberries. So, I modified the recipe a little bit, using canned peach pie filling, fresh raspberries, and a blueberry/blackberry cocktail mix. While I would have really liked to use fresh fruit, the reality is that it simply wasn't available.      
And it turned out to be quite tasty! The biscuits were perfectly soft with a little bit of crunch on the outside, and the berries were nice and tart. Add the sweetness of the vanilla ice cream... ahhh talk about delicious. Check it out!

Peachberry Cobbler

serves 12

Ingredients:

22 oz can peach pie filling

12 oz raspberries

6 oz blackberries 

6 oz blueberries

1 1/4 cup sugar

2 T cornstarch

juice of 1 lemon

3 cups all purpose flour

1 T baking powder

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (I did half and half)

1 tsp salt

1 1/4 cup almond milk

2 sticks butter

cinnamon and sugar for topping

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 and spray a 9 x 13 inch pan with cooking spray.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and carefully drop in the peaches. Cook for only 30 seconds and then remove quickly. This will cause the peach skins to literally peel right off. After peeling, slice peaches and put them into a bowl with the blackberries. Add your sugar, lemon juice and cornstarch and toss to combine. Pour berry mixture into the baking pan and bake for 15 minutes until bubbly.

While fruit is baking, combine the flour, baking powder, salt and ginger into a large bowl. Using your fingers, cut in the butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Add the milk and stir to create a sticky biscuit dough.

When fruit is done, remove from oven and carefully drop 1/3-1/2 cup portions of dough onto the mixture. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar and return to oven to bake for 35 more minutes. The biscuits will be golden brown when done. You may want to line the bottom of your oven with tin foil in case cobbler boils over. 

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.