Take Out :)

I used to get a subscription to Kraft Food and Family magazine with tons of great recipes, I looked forward to getting a new issue every couple of months. That was until they started making you PAY for it?! Since I can be quite a spendthrift (aka tight-wad) I refuse to pay for it. Luckily they have all their recipes on-line and even this handy-dandy app on my i-phone called the iFood assistant. I can browse all the recipes and even ones I have saved in my recipe box all from my phone! I <3 my i-phone, it makes me happy. When I am bored I go to my app on my phone and browse for some good recipes. I stumbled across this recipe and turns out I had it saved from one of my old magazines also. It is a recipe for Chicken Lo Mein. I usually try to stay away from chinese food type recipes, they never quite turn out they way I expected, are NEVER like the chinese food in a restaurant and I am always disappointed. But I figured, it has noodles, veggies and chicken, can't really go wrong with that, right? Well, it turned out amazing, I swear somehow it tasted like Chicken Lo Mein from a restaurant! I was amazed. I have made it quite a few times since I originally tried the recipe and since I am the only one in my house that eats veggies, it is usually all mine :) I will make it and eat on it for several days and the kicker is that it is a bit more healthy than the things I usually make, there is no butter, oil or cream (which for some reason I use ALOT of in my house.) So that makes it even more appealing to me. So if you have a chinese craving and don't want to get out, make this take-out at home.



Chicken Lo Mein- via Kraft Food and Family


1/2lb spaghetti uncooked
1/4 cup Asian Toasted Sesame dressing
1lb boneless chicken cut into very thin strips
2 cloves garlic minced
1 pkg (16 oz) frozen bell pepper and onion strips, thawed and drained
1/2 cup fat-free reduced sodium chicken broth
1 TBSP peanut butter
1/4 cup lite soy sauce


Cook spaghetti noodles, drain.
Heat dressing in large skillet on med-high heat, add chicken and garlic and stir fry 3-5 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink. Add vegetables, broth and peanut butter, stir fry an additional 3-4 minutes until meat and veggies are cooked through. Add drained spaghetti noodles to pan, add soy sauce and mix well. Let sit for 5-10 minutes so noodles can soak up the sauce.


**My notes- Instead of frozen veggies I used half of a green bell pepper, red bell pepper and orange bell pepper and sliced them thinly. I also used fresh sliced onion. I did not use the whole 1/4 cup of soy sauce, I just did a few quick turns around the pan and it turned out great, I am not a huge fan of soy sauce but I think you need a bit in the recipe.


ENJOY!

Sinfully Delicious Brownies

Happy Cinco De Mayo! We had a Mexican fiesta at work today and I was too tired to go to the store last night to get the ingredients for my Mexican Corn dip that everyone loves, so I decided to make brownies, except I did not have a brownie mix in the pantry. I was stuck making brownies from scratch, my first attempt. I have been searching for a few weeks for a brownie recipe that looked tempting to make and I finally found one to try, I also just so happened to stumble upon a recipe for cookie dough icing earlier in the day. Hmmm, what is better than brownies AND cookie dough, together?!? The answer is nothing! These brownies turned out amazing and got rave reviews from my co-workers. So they were indeed a keeper. I did take a picture of them, but pardon the poor quality, I had to snap a pic @ work with my i-phone since I didn't have time to take a pic before leaving for work this morning. Hope you enjoy!

Over the Top Brownies-via My Baking Addiction
Ingredients

1 cup butter, melted
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate (chunks, disks, chips or mini chips)


Directions
Preheat oven to 350 F
Prepare a 9×13 baking dish as follows: lightly spray the insides with cooking spray then with the dish horizontally in front of you lay in one sheet of aluminum foil across the length (left-to-right) leaving enough overhang on the sides so that you can use the excess foil as handles and on top of that lay in one sheet of aluminum foil across the width (top-to-bottom). Spray the foil with cooking spray. You want to be sure the insides of the pan are completely covered and you have foil “handles” which you’ll use to lift the slab of brownies from the pan after baking

In a large bowl, combine the melted butter, both sugars and the vanilla extract in a large bowl. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition until the liquid mixture is completely blended.

In a separate bowl, sift the flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Gradually add this into the liquid mixture until it is fully incorporated. Add in the chocolate pieces (chunks, disks, chips or mini chips) and stir to combine. It will resemble fudge frosting at this point… and it will taste delicious!! Spread evenly into the prepared baking dish.

Bake about 40-45 minutes until a few moist crumbs cling to a toothpick inserted in the center. Don’t bake to the point of the toothpick coming out clean or the brownies will be dry. Remove the baking dish from the oven and cool on wire rack for 10 minutes… then… using the foil handles remove the brownie slab from the dish and cool completely on wire rack

Cookie Dough Icing

1/2 cup butter softened
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
3 TBSP milk
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 to 1 Cup flour
1 cup chocolate chips

mix butter, sugars, milk, vanilla and salt until well blended. Mix in the flour until well combined, I used 3/4 cup, but you can add the other 1/4 cup if you want the icing stiffer. Add the chocolate chips and mix well. Spread over the top of cooled brownies. Keep any leftovers in the refrigerator.

*** I iced the brownies then put them in the fridge overnight. Cut them the next morning then stored them in the fridge until about an hour before I served them. I pulled them out to soften up a bit and they were delicious!!!

Enjoy!

Tea anyone?

So I really have been trying to branch out a bit and try making new things, things that kinda intimidate me. Scones are one of those things. I think I am a decent baker, but not great, so I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would ever make a scone. Recently I have discovered scones, yes I know, not very worldly of me, but I don't get out much. Of all places I discovered a really good scone at the cafeteria at work. That says one of two things, either I have not so great taste since I am picking things I like to eat from a hospital cafeteria (an excellent one though!) or they were REALLY good. I am going to go with the latter :) They were blueberry and they were delish. So it got me thinking (yet again) that I could make these at home.

 So began my search for a scone recipe that seemed simple enough that I could do it.  I did find a great recipe on Pioneer Womans website for a petite vanilla bean scone and made it (a bit of a fiasco) but after actually making it realized I had left an ingredient out, which technically was not my fault, there was a typo in the recipe that I didn't realize until after I made it.....gasp! Actually the scone turned out very tasty, but when I actually get it right I am not going to blog about it. So on went my search for another recipe and alas, I found one on Annie's Eats, another fantastic site that you should check out, lots of yummy stuff!

Dark Chocolate Chip Scones-via Annie's Eat's

3 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1TBSP+1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups (12oz.) package Dark chocolate chips
2 cups heavy whipping cream
2 TBSP melted butter
additional sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 375. Lightly grease 2 baking sheets.
Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. Stir in chocolate chips. Add heavy whipping cream to flour mixture, stirring until ingredients are moistened. Turn the mixture out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead gently until a soft dough forms, about 2 minutes.
Divide dough into 3 equal balls. One ball at a time, flatten into a 7 inch circle, cut into 8 triangles (think slicing pizza). transfer triangles to pan, brush with melted butter and sprinkle with additional sugar.
Bake 15-20 minutes or until lightly browned

**My tips- the dough will be very flaky at first, to get it to hold together while kneading it, I had to add a few splashes of some heavy whipping cream to it to moisten it up and make it stick together better. It took a bit, but it did form a dough, you just have to be patient.

ENJOY!