Individual Peach & Blackberry Pies!

Looks yummy- don’t it.

Living in an apartment with two people, my boyfriend and myself, desserts are a dangerous thing to make. Because, well, once I make one, we have to either eat it or waste it. Which is why I am always looking for desserts that are either already only two servings, or can easily be scaled down… like pie.

Using pre-made pie shell, I cut out circles using a peanut butter lid as a guide, and lined muffin tins with them. The stuffing is peach and blackberry, but you can use whatever pie filling you want.

For the top, I planned on doing a lattice, but they are so tiny that it was ugly. I settled on hearts- cute right.

One of the best things about them? They are so small that you don’t feel guilty adding ice cream- or eating a second! 😉

Peanut Butter Swirly Brownies

For the past month I have been having issues with lactose, but I’m getting better now… This recipe was something I made back when the issues first started, but I didn’t care… I saw the recipe in a Canadian Living magazine, and was like “Yepp, I’m making that RIGHT now,” so I made it right then.

I know that Brownies are ‘supossed’ to bake in a rectangle pan, but my only rectangle pan is HUGE, so I used a circle 🙂 (Hmm, maybe when I go grocery shopping tomorrow I will grab a normal sized rectangle pan)

These brownies were SUPER quick to make, and tasted like I had slaved all day working for hours to make the perfect brownies. No, it’s not magic. Well, maybe a little magic I like to call ‘Chocolate’

I don’t even remember them making me feel sick (which is what Dairy was doing to me), all I remember is being so excited to eat one, that I didn’t take very good pictures, I just cut out a chunck and shovelled it in!!

In fact, I don’t even remember what I had for dinner that day… I just remember the brownies.

Did I have dinner that day?

Probably.

But, that doesn’t matter… The important thing is that I made some yummy brownies, using a technique I had never used before (the swirl) and am thinking of using that in a blueberry cheesecake this week, using “real” blueberries. I’ve been living in Northern Ontario for over 2 years, and this will be my first time baking with Northern Ontarian blueberries… WISH ME LUCK.

Prep Time: 5 mins | Cook Time: 20 mins | Servings: 20 | Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (125 mL) smooth peanut butter
• 1/2 cup (125 mL) butter
• 2/3 cup (150 mL) granulated sugar
• 3 egg
• 1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla
• 5 oz (142 g) bittersweet chocolate
• 3/4 cup (175 mL) all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp (5 mL) baking powder
• 1 pinch salt

Directions:

In large bowl, beat 1/4 cup (60 mL) of the peanut butter, the butter and sugar; beat in eggs, 1 at a time. Beat in vanilla. Beat in chocolate.

Stir in flour, baking powder and salt. Spread in parchment paper–lined 8-inch (2 L) square metal cake pan.

By spoonfuls, drop remaining peanut butter over top. Run knife through batter to swirl; smooth top. Bake in 350°F (180°C) oven until tester inserted in centre comes out with a few moist crumbs clinging, about 20 minutes. Let cool in pan on rack. Cut into squares.

Nutritional Info:

Per square: about – cal 173 pro 4 g total fat 11 g sat. fat 5 g carb 15 g fibre 1 g chol 40 mg sodium 87 mg potassium 58 mg % RDI: – calcium 2 iron 5 vit A 5 folate 8

Source: http://www.canadianliving.com/food/peanut_butter_swirly_brownies.php

BBQ Pulled Chicken Lettuce Cups & Apple Crisp Cups

They look gross, they look really really gross. But they didn’t taste gross, and that’s what counts.

 

So, yeah. It looks a little unappetizing. But the flavour was so nice. I found this recipe while stumbling, only they were on buns as sliders, and I put the meat mixture on lettuce to make lettuce wraps- which is something I just do every now and then for a healthier take on certain meals.

One of the best things about this recipe is that it can be transformed easily into a SLOW COOKER recipe. I love slow cooker recipes, it’s so easy to put everything in the slowcooker on days that I know are going to be busier than usual, and this recipe converted easily.

 

Shredded BBQ Chicken Sliders

Prep Time: 15 mins | Cook Time: 10 mins | Servings: 10-12 Sliders | Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ Cups ketchup
• 3 Tablespoons Dijon Mustard
• 4 Tablespoons worstershire sauce
• 2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 ½ Tablespoons lemon juice
• 4 Tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon fresh cracked black pepper
• 1 teaspoon honey
• Pinch of salt
• 2 large boneless skinless chicken breasts, cooked and shredded

 

Directions:

Combine all ingredients into a medium saucepan over medium low heat. Cook for 15 minutes, stirring often. Reduce heat to low and stir in shredded chicken. Let simmer

Notes:

Add a chipotle pepper in adobe sauce, minced, to make chipotle pulled chicken sandwiches

Source: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2kXE13/picky-palate.com/2008/09/04/slide-on-over

To make this a slow cooker recipe just put all of the ingredients into a slow cooker, replacing the cooked chicken with frozen chicken breasts. Cook on low for about 6 hours. Take out chicken breasts, shred, and stir back into the slow cooker pot. Serve hot.

Chris and I dressed ours up with shredded cheese, ranch, and Franks hot sauce. Yumm Yumm.

 

After eating the ugly but yummy BBQ Chicken wraps, I made Apple Crisp Cups.

There isn’t much to be said about these, other than that my apartment is awful for getting butter the right temperature for making Crisp topping. My kitchen is way to hot to keep the butter out, but the frige is to cold so it solidifies. It’s a frustration I am forced to deal with and makes me want to go buy Apple Crisp instead of making it. But other than that, it is such an easy dessert to make. And making the Apple crisp into muffin tins makes portion control all too easy. Just pop one of these into the microwave for half a minute, then add some ice cream and enjoy.

 

Apple Crisp Cups

Prep Time: 45 Min | Cook Time: 20 Min | Servings: 4 dozen apple crisp cups | Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients:

• 3 large McIntosh apples – peeled, cored, and chopped
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, or to taste
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg (optional)
• 1 1/2 cups butter

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease 4 12-cup mini-muffin tins.

 

Mix apples, water, white sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon together in a saucepan, and bring to a simmer over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally. Simmer until apples are partially cooked, about 5 minutes; remove from heat.

 

Combine flour, oats, brown sugar, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, and nutmeg in a large bowl; cut the butter into the flour mixture with a pastry cutter until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Place a heaping tablespoon of the crust mixture into a mini muffin cup, and press it into the cup so that it covers the bottom and pushes up the sides of the cup. Make the crust go all the way to the top of the little muffin cup, and patch any holes with more crust mixture. There will be crust mixture left over. Place about 2 teaspoons of apple filling in the crust. Sprinkle about 1 teaspoon of the remaining crust mixture on the filling.

 

Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes.

Nutritional Info:

Amount Per Serving Calories: 109 | Total Fat: 6.1g | Cholesterol: 15mg Powered by ESHA Nutrient Database

Source: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Apple-Crisp-Cups/Detail.aspx

Peanut Butter & Jelly…. COOKIES!

I read about these cookies a long time ago in a magazine issue of People (I think??) the one with Eva Longoria on it, about her cookbook. Anyway, there was an article in it where these cookies were shown and I fell in love with them… It just took me a long time to actually make them.

Peanut Butter & Jelly Cookies:

• Make your favorite Peanut Butter Cookie Dough
• (Or use this one: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/peanut-butter-cookies-i/detail.aspx [but if it’s bad don’t blame me, I’ve never made those one in particular])
• Sugar
• 1/4 Tbsp measure
• Your Favorite Jam 🙂

Preheat oven to 375F. Form your peanut butter dough into 1 inche balls, and place on baking pan, flatten slightly. When all the balls have been slightly flattened, sprinkle them with the sugar. Bake for 7 minutes, then working quickly, remove the pan from the oven, and use the back of the 1/4 Tbsp measure press into each cookie leaving a dent in the middle of the cookie. Then use the 1/4 measure to spoon jam into each dent. Place the tray back into the oven and continue to bake for 7 more minutes. Remove from oven and move to a cooling rack.

Be careful about eating the cookies right out of the oven, the jam is like liquid LAVA. But so, so, so yummy. I made them with crunchy peanut butter, Omnomnomnom. A definte make again.

Oh, and earlier that day I decided to do a little food art- Yepp, I am a loser like that =D

I called him Octo-Naner. Ahahahhahaha!

Caramel Apple Cheesecake

Chris and I made this on a whim. We were relaxing at home after the May long weekend, and I was on Stumble Upon on my IPad, and stmbled upon a recipe for these Caramel Apple Cheesecake Bars on the-girl-who-ate-everything.com. We didn’t make bars because we didn’t have the right sized pan, so we just made a normal cake.

Strangely enough, we had all of the ingredients on hand, which was great. Well, actually, most of the ingredients. We did not have any caramel, so I just whipped out my Paprika App and opened my caramel sauce recipe from one of the recent food network magazines. BTW when you add the milk to the melted sugar, add it slowly and carefully- don’t just dump it in like Chris did, it makes a huge mess of boiling hot lava sugar.

The cheesecake was yummy yummy. We had our first slices the day we made it while they were still hot and it was SO good. The next day we ate them cool, and it was still SO good 😉

I will definatly make this again, maybe when I have guests or go to my parents for a weekend.

 

 

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

Om nom nom nom nom.

I found this recipe while stumbling- it is from Betty Crocker. I made them for dessert after the bacon bowl dinner. They were on my list of things to do this summer, as were the bacon bowls- so it was nice to be able to check both off at the  same time 🙂

The cookies are SO easy to make- you use Betty Crocker’s sugar cookie mix, green dye, mint extract, and chocolate chips (and the egg and milk that is required for the cookie mix).

I love the way the dough looks, I kind of wanted to stop right there are eat it- but I have a thing against eating cookie dough (unless is it in Cookie Dough ice cream)… so into the oven they went.

And this is how they came out… delicious. Eat them warm!! They are so much better when warm (I only know of one cookie that isn’t better warm, and that’s oreo’s!)

Asian Orange Chicken

The other night I made Asian Orange Chicken. This is one of the favorites in our apartment. It’s just like the Orange Chicken at Manchu Wok. Yum Yumm Yummm!! I found the recipe on Allrecipes.com, but have found a ton of versions online.

One word for the wiser- If you ever chose to make this dish, make sure you marinate the chicken in the sauce for about 2 hours before tossing it in flour. This makes the flavours so rich and thorough, much better than if you don’t marinate it. We had it served over very thin rice noodles. We usually have it over Raman noodles, but this way tasted jsut as good 🙂 The sauce stood out more with the thin thin noodles, but the Raman noodles made it more substantial of a meal.

After dinner, Chris and I were in need of some dessert. I attempted to make Butterscotch Cresents. I found the recipe on Tastebook.com a few weeks ago. Notice how I said ‘attempted’, well that is because they were nearly IMPOSSIBLE to roll together. I eventually gave up and just smushed them into whatever shape would hold the butterscotch chips.

All said and done, they were not worth the hassle. Chris and I both agreed that we would have preferred regular old cresents with hot butter. The cresent baked before the butterscitch/coconut mix melted… they were difficult to roll together, and the stuff kept falling out without even being touch… and they didn’t have that great of a taste. We served them with ice cream, and the ice cream is what made dessert worthwhile. ❤

Strawberry Chicken and Nectarine Salad w/ Buttermilk-Chive dressing

Yepp, you read the title right- Strawberry chicken. I got this recipe from a magazine that Chris’s mum had in her box of recipes. It is pretty much exactly what it sounds like, strawberries, chicken, and some spices here and spices there, and the sauce base is apple cider.

The recipe for the strawberry chicken says to serve it over pasta, but we decided to jsut have the chicken with some salad. The salad is SO SO good. Chris and I had it a long time ago at his parents, loved it so much that we made it for my parents one day for dinner later that week.

The salad is iceburg (boston works well too) with sliced up nectarine in it. The dressing is what makes it soo good! The dressing is a buttermilk-chive dressing, takes about 2 minutes to whip together, and is super yummy!! It is the perfect dish for a nice sunny day… I made it on a cold chilly day, but it was still really really good!!

After eating our dinner Chris and I whipped up an instant box of cupcakes. Nothing like my Aunt Jaime’s! But hey… when you live 4 hours away, you gotta do what you gotta do 🙂

My Auntie Jaime runs a business called “Sweet Displays”

Check it out… http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Sweet-Displays/115925048465360 I promise, they are AMAZING!

Portobello “Cheese-Steak”

This weekend Chris & I didn’t eat any good meals. It was just one of those weekends, yeah know. I worked Saturday night, so Chris fended for himself, then on Sunday we just snacked on junk food all night instead of making an actual dinner 🙂

Last night, we got back into our normal habits. After class all day, and a TERRIFYING nightmare the night before, I needed to escape into the kitchen but was too tired for anything big. I made Portobello “Cheese-Steak” sandwhiches, which are a vegetarian alternative to normal Cheesesteak meals. The recipe is from Good Housekeeping’s Budget Friendly cookbook.

Mushroom, Green Pepper, and Onion in Balsamic Vinegar with Melted Cheese all wrapped in a pita. Yumm yumm. We had them with some french fries, nothing special.

For dessert I attempted to make Maccaroons. Keyword= attempted!! I didn’t make them compact enough, so even after cooking a little longer and letting them cool they just crumbled. Lesson learned, next time I will make them much smaller. Although the crumbles taste good 🙂

Strawberries with Cream Cheese!

Chris and I are in the middle of moving into an new apartment, and when we went to view it, it looked like a decent size. But, once we had the keys in our hands and had to start moving stuff in it started to look really really small. So, yesterday I bussed to the apartment during the day (which included going into the Timmies downtown Sudbury, which is TERRIFYING!). I brought a measure tape with me and measured out all the rooms, mapped them all out in a notebook, and drew in the furniture, just to make myself feel better about things fitting into the apartment.

For lunch, I brought my Bento Box, filled with the fixings for a spinach-strawberry-walnut salad. Yumm yumm.

For dinner, I was planning on making a pasta dish, but when Chris and I realized that it was the night before Lent, we decided to go out since I have decided to give up fast food and eating out/ordering in for Lent. We went to Tony V’s, a cute little restraunt right around the corner from the old apartment.

But, of course, I felt the urge to make something. So, for dessert I made a recipe I often make for dessert called “Valentine’s Night Strawberries” from Allrecipes. Fresh Strawberries that have creamcheese filling in them 🙂

These ones are from one of the other times I made them, but they look very similar (last night I didn’t dye the cream cheese green though)!!