Upside Down Chicken Pot Pie & Candy Bar Brownies

This is another really easy, quick weeknight meal that I adapted from a recipe of Jenny's from Picky Palate (love Jenny's blog - you should check it out if you haven't already. It's perfect for winter - total comfort food. It's also a great way to use leftover chicken.

Upside Down Chicken Pot Pie
adapted from Picky Palate

Ingredients

• 1 sheet of frozen puff pastry, thawed (I recommend Pepperidge Farm)
• 1 large boneless, skinless chicken breast
• 1 cup frozen mixed vegetables
• 1 cup milk
  
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup (you could also use cream of chicken or cream of celery, whatever you have on hand or whatever is your preference)
• 1 teaspoon Garlic & Herb flavor Mrs. Dash (or more to taste)
  
• 1 teaspoon Lawry's Seasoned Salt (or more to taste)

Directions

First, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Cook the chicken breast until done, about 30-45 minutes. After the chicken is done, cube or shred it. Lower the heat to 350 degrees.

While the oven is lowering temperature, gently unfold the puff pastry onto a well floured surface and cut it into 9 equal squares. Place the squares on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

While the puff pastry is baking, prepare the chicken gravy. Pour the soup in a medium saucepan, and add the milk, mixed vegetables, chicken, Mrs. Dash, and seasoned salt to taste. Simmer for 5 minutes or so or until the veggies are tender. You can thin out the sauce with more milk to your desired consistency if you like.

To serve, place 2 puff pastry squares in a bowl and ladle the chicken gravy over it. Enjoy your upside down chicken pot pie!

Next, I have a second super easy dessert recipe for you as a bonus!

This is a great brownie recipe if you need something super quick and easy in pinch. And they look and taste fantastic. No one would ever guess you just doctored up a box mix. Everyone loves these!

Candy Bar Brownies

Ingredients

• 1 box of your favorite family size brownie mix, for a 9x13" pan, prepared according to the directions on the box
  
• 3 large size Hershey's Symphony Bars (I like the ones with toffee and almonds)

Directions

First, prepare the brownie mix according to box directions. Pour half of the brownie batter into a 9x13" pan. Top the brownie batter with the candy bars (three of the large ones should just fit into your pan). Then, top with the remaining brownie batter. Bake according to box directions. Enjoy!

Coming Up....

This Saturday, I spent the entire day baking and I gave away my holiday boxes on Sunday! They contained Cookies 'n Cream Fudge, Neiman Marcus Cookies, Christmas Rice Krispie Treats, and Swirled Turtle Brownies! I hope the recipients enjoyed them. I'm going to do a big post and share all of my recipes soon.

Also, I just finished planning our Christmas Eve menu! This year, Mr. JY and I will be having our own party and exchanging gifts on Christmas Eve, and we'll be spending Christmas Day with our parents. I've decided to make Beef Wellington, Brussels Sprouts Gratin, Carrot Souffle, Homemade Yeast Rolls, and Homemade Butter! And individual chocolate souffle cakes for dessert! It's going to be so yummy. So be on the lookout for an upcoming post about that.

Oh! And also, I wanted to tell you, I WON the cubicle decorating contest at my office! I will be posting about that tomorrow.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Not Yo Mama's Banana Puddin'

Here's a recipe I made a while back to tide you over until my holiday entries. This would be a great, easy recipe to take to your next holiday party.

This is Paula Deen's Not Yo Mama's Banana Puddin'. I first saw Paula make this on tv a few years ago, and I was appalled. Paula Deen is supposed to be the queen of Southern cuisine, and here she was making a Southern dessert staple -banana pudding - with packaged vanilla pudding mix, shortbread cookies instead of Nilla wafers, and cream cheese? I'd grown up on my Mema's recipe, the traditional one, which contains a homemade custard pudding cooked on the stove. I turned my little nose up at this recipe and refused to make it, until my good friend Sarah (yes, the same Sarah that I baked the chocolate cake for) convinced me otherwise. I decided to give it a shot. And, boy, was Sarah right on! Traditional or not, this stuff is amazingly delicious! Even if you don't care all that much for bananas, you'll love this banana pudding.

Not Yo Mama's Banana Pudding
recipe courtesy Paula Deen

Ingredients

• 2 bags Pepperidge Farm Chessmen cookies (you may want to get three, I felt I ran out of cookies)
• 6 to 8 bananas, sliced
• 2 cups milk
• 1 5oz box instant French vanilla pudding mix
• 1 8oz package cream cheese, softened
  
• 1 140z can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 12 oz container Cool Whip, or equal amount homemade whipped cream

Directions

Line the bottom of a 13 by 9 by 2-inch dish with 1 bag of cookies and layer bananas on top.

In a bowl, combine the milk and pudding mix and blend well using a handheld electric mixer. Using another bowl, combine the cream cheese and condensed milk together and mix until smooth. Fold the whipped topping into the cream cheese mixture. Add the cream cheese mixture to the pudding mixture and stir until well blended. Pour the mixture over the cookies and bananas and cover with the remaining cookies. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Just About Perfect Chocolate Cake

photo courtesy my lovely friend Sarah (yes we have the same name), the birthday girl

I made this classic chocolate cake for my friend Sarah's birthday Saturday (also the day of the Iron Bowl..... ROLL TIDE!). It's from Tyler Florence's cookbook Tyler Florence's Real Kitchen. This was actually the first cake recipe I ever made from scratch when I made it for my dad's birthday a few years ago.

It's a very classic chocolate cake, moist, with a nice, rich chocolate flavor. There is a frosting recipe to go with it, but my attempt fell flat - it came out much too thin to use as a frosting, more like a glaze, and I ended up going with Betty Crocker instead.

The cake recipe, however, is fantastic. For now, it is my go-to chocolate cake recipe. I'd like to try some variations, like maybe using coffee or buttermilk in place of the water in the recipe, but this cake is also delicious just the way it is. I wish I'd taken a picture of the inside; it was light, fluffy, and almost had a reddish tinge to it, like Red Velvet Cake. It's the perfect cake for a birthday or for any time. What's your favorite type of cake to have on your birthday?

Triple Chocolate Threat

adapted from Tyler Florence's Real Kitchen by Tyler Florence

serves 8-12

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups cake flour
  
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature)
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 (1 ounce) squares unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups ice water
  

Steps:

1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2) Prepare 2 round 9" cake pans by coating the hottom and sides very well with cooking spray and flour (or use Baker's Joy like I did and save yourself a step). Line the pans with parchment paper by tracing around the edge of them and cutting out a circle that will fit perfectly in the bottom of your pan. Then, spray the tops of the parchment. This will ensure your cakes come out.

3) In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

4) In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the cooled chocolate and beat for 3 minutes to incorporate.

5) Beat in each egg on at a time and then add vanilla extract until well blended.

6) Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat for another 3 minutes.

7) Gradually add in the dry ingredients in 3 batches, alternating with the ice water. Beat for 1 minute after each addition to incorporate the ingredients and strengthen the cake's structure. Mix until the batter is smooth.

8) Pour the batter into the prepared pans, dividing it equally, and smoothing out the top. The pans should be two thirds full.

9) Place the pans on the middle rack of your oven and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and/or the cake springs back when touched.

10) Cool the cakes in the pans on a wire rack until completely cool. This is a very important step! Do not attempt to take the cakes out of the pan while they're still even remotely warm, as you risk this very light cake falling apart.

11) Once cool, turn them out and remove the parchment paper. Frost with your favorite frosting of choice!

I would post Tyler's frosting recipe here, but it didn't turn out well for me and I didn't care for it all that much. I used Betty Crocker Whipped Chocolate frosting, but you could use your favorite buttercream recipe or whatever blows your skirt up. I decorated my cake easily by pressing handfuls of mini chocolate chips onto the sides.

Make this for a friend or family member's next birthday.... they'll love you for it!

2 Ingredient Brownie Muffins

This week my husband is away on a business trip and he took my camera with him, so again, no pictures. But, I do have a super simple, super easy recipe for you that has just two ingredients! And, its pretty healthy! I served these at a girls night in I was having at my house, and none of the girls could believe how simple and delicious they were. You'd never believe that they have just 2 ingredients, and that one of them is pumpkin.

2 Ingredient Brownie Muffins

from Hungry-Girl.com

Ingredients:

• 1 box your favorite Devil's Food cake mix (I used Betty Crocker Moist Deluxe)
• 1 15oz can pumpkin (I recommend Libby's brand)

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Line a muffin tin with paper cupcake liners. Combine the cake mix and canned pumpkin in a bowl. It will be relatively thick, but don't be tempted to add water, oil, eggs, or anything else, as it will ruin the mixture. And add fat and calories, and we wouldn't want that, now would we? Fill each muffin cup 3/4 of the way full with the mixture. I think I got 16 muffins out of my batch, but I wasn't really exact with the measurements. Bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack & enjoy!

1 Muffin, or 3 minis - 181 calories, 3.5g fat, 37g carbs, 2g, fiber, 2g protein - 4 WW points.

Variations:

• Instead of Devil's Food cake mix, try using spice cake for yummy, moist pumpkin spice muffins.
• To add a little bit of decadence to your brownie muffins, stir in chocolate chips or other add ins. I bet peanut butter chips would be good. Of course, this makes them higher in fat and calories. Last night, I stirred in some Nestle chocolate chunks that I had in the pantry.
• You can also just spread this in an 8x8 baking dish and cut into squares for low fat brownies. A friend of mine made hers this way and they turned out great!

Strawberry Pretzel Salad

{insert pretty food photo here}

I promise one of these days I'll actually learn to take photos of my food. Right now, my camera is hanging out in a box somewhere. Haven't dug it out yet. I'd really like to have fabulous photos and tutorials a la two of my favorite blogs The Pioneer Woman Cooks and The Crepes of Wrath, but for now, I guess this'll have to do.

Last night, I made Strawberry Pretzel Salad to take to my small group. We have dinner together every week, which makes it a good testing ground for recipes. Samantha made a fantastic Santa Fe soup, and at the request of my friend Jana I made her favorite, Strawberry Pretzel Salad.

I really can't think of enough good things to say about SPS. First off, its called a salad, when really, it's a dessert.... it almost tricks you into thinking it just might be healthy. It's really easy to make, its light, its refreshing, and everyone loves it. It's creamy, sweet, tart, and salty all rolled into one. And the longer it sits, the more delicious it gets. In fact, I'd recommend making it the night before you are going to serve it. Or at least the morning of. I really wish I'd done that yesterday instead of making it right before taking it to small group.

This probably won't be the first post you see about strawberry pretzel salad in my blog. That's because I am trying to perfect this recipe to duplicate my favorite SPS from a local restaurant here, Main Street Cafe. And last night's came close, but it wasn't quite there yet. So I gotta keep tweaking and testing..... not that I'm complaining.

Here's the recipe I used, from Cooks.com:


Strawberry Pretzel Jello Salad

2 c. crushed pretzel sticks
3/4 c. melted butter
3 tbsp. sugar
8 oz. cream cheese
1 c. sugar
8 oz. Cool Whip
1 (6 oz.) pkg. strawberry banana Jello
2 c. boiling water
2 (10 oz.) pkgs. frozen strawberries, partially thawed

Mix first three ingredients and press in bottom of a 9"x13" pan. Bake at 350 degrees (metal pan) or 325 degrees (glass pan) 8 minutes. Let cool completely. Beat 1 cup sugar and cream cheese. Fold in Cool Whip. Spread over pretzels. Mix Jello and water until dissolved. Add strawberries. Stir into Jello, then set aside for 10 minutes. Pour over cheese mixture. Chill.

My notes:

First off, don't know why this recipe calls for strawberry banana Jello, but I just used regular strawberry. Never heard of using strawberry banana, and I don't think I'd want to. But if the idea blows your skirt up, by all means, go for it.

First off, I noticed that I didn't have enough pretzel mixture to cover the bottom of my pan. I don't like to completely pulvarize my pretzels, I leave them pretty chunky, since grinding them into a fine powder makes for a soggy crust and also the pretzel crust is (for some) the most important element of a strawberry pretzel salad. I wanna know they're pretzels. I'd defintely recommend doubling the pretzel mixture ingredients. And maybe adding even more butter after that. My pretzels just didn't wanna stay together; and I want to end up with uniform "slices" of my salad, just like Main Street Cafe's.

The cream cheese filling turned out good, but I added 1 capful (not sure what the exact amount is) of vanilla extract and beat the tar out of the cream cheese and sugar until it was fully combined, light and fluffy. Don't be afraid to beat it for a good 5 minutes, or until it looks good to you. Make sure you fold the Cool Whip in carefully as it can "break" easily. I don't think I need to double this mixture. I think adding 4oz more of cream cheese and maybe a bit more sugar would help it be a little bit thicker, though, and more rich.

The strawberry Jello layer was a small fiasco. The recipe says to let it sit for 10 minutes in the bowl after the addition of the partially thawed strawberries. Well, maybe my strawberries were too cold because it completely gelled in the bowl when I walked away for 10 minutes, resulting in me having to just spoon it atop the cream cheese mixture. Not so pretty, and not the affect I was going for. Also, it seemed to me there was not enough Jello and too many strawberries; I'd recommend using 1 bag of strawberries (either 10oz or 16oz) and maybe 2 boxes of Jello and 4 cups of boiling water.

All in all, this attempt still tasted pretty good. It's hard to mess up! It's a perfect treat for a pot luck, family gathering, or just an anytime dessert. You could probably lighten it up a little by using sugar free Jello, neufchatel cheese in place of cream cheese, Splenda in place of sugar, and fat free or sugar free Cool Whip. Not sure what you'd do about all those pretzels and butter though......

The Crepe Cake Revisted

I wanted to post today to make a correction to my former recipe for the luscious delight you see in the picture above. This, my friends, is my quickie version of a crepe cake. I made it last night for my small group, and in doing so realized that the recipe I posted here was a little bit incorrect. So, I thought I'd repost.

Also, I'd like to take the opportunity to tell you how much I truly love this "cake." It is so easy and looks so impressive. Anyone can make this. There's simply no way you can mess it up! It looks like you spent hours on it, when in reality, whipping this baby up took me under 1 hour.

So, without further ado, I give you:

Easy 20 Layer Crepe Cake

Yes, I am changing the name of the recipe. Why? Because I realize that this simple recipe can be used as a base for many, many creations. Just get creative! You can make tons of variations of this cake. We'll talk more about that after the basic recipe.

Basic Recipe:

Crepes

- 20 basic crepes (I used store bought Melissa's brand, but you could make your own, of course)

Mascarpone Cream

- 2 8oz containers mascarpone cheese

- 1 8oz block cream cheese

- 1 3.4oz box instant vanilla pudding mix

- 4 tsp. vanilla extract*

- 3/4 c. milk

- 1/4 c. powdered sugar (or more to taste)

To assemble the cake, all you do is layer it with about 1/8 c. mascarpone cream for each layer(and whatever other ingredients you'd like) and garnish with powdered sugar, fruit, chocolate, whatever blows your skirt up!

Now, for the varations. For the one in the picture, I made it a Chocolate Hazelnut 20 Layer Crepe Cake by spreading every third layer with Nutella (aka the food of the gods). I garnished it with a sprinkling of powdered sugar, whipped cream, and strawberries. Last night, the cake I made for my small group became a Strawberry Chocolate Hazelnut crepe cake because I added sliced strawberries in each Nutella layer.

To make a variation, all you have to do is add things to the cream (like different extracts instead of vanilla, switch out the vanilla pudding for chocolate and add cocoa to make a chocolate cream) and use different ingredients for layering. Here are three variations I came up with on my own. Can you think of any others?

Citrus Crepe Cake: Omit the vanilla and add orange, lemon, or lime extract to taste. You could even add in some zest for extra flavor. Then, layer orange, lemon, or lime curd on every third layer.

Mocha Crepe Cake: Add a bit of cocoa powder, substitute brewed coffee or espresso for the milk, and substitute chocolate pudding mix for the vanilla.

Bananas Foster Crepe Cake: Add a bit of rum or rum extract to the cream, use banana pudding mix instead of the vanilla, and alternate with layers of caramel and bananas. Yum!

As you can see, the possibilities are endless!

Easy, No Cook "Cheat" Desserts

Since I've been rather absent lately, I'm going to give you two recipes for the price of one! These are two "cheat" dessert recipes I came up with when I was in a pinch. As I mentioned before, Mr. JY, and I have been really busy lately house hunting and then purchasing our first home, so it's times like these I turn to super easy recipes like these. They are by no means fancy and some foodies might be appalled at them.... but, to me, they were beautiful, impressive, and delicious enough to serve to guests.

Easy Sugar Cookie Fruit Tarts

1 package of a dozen bakery sugar cookies (I got mine from Target)
1 tub of your favorite brand of cream cheese frosting (or, feel free to make your favorite homemade recipe)
An assortment of your favorite fruits


Procedure:

All you've got to do is first wash and slice up your fruit. I used fresh peaches, kiwi, strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. But whatever you like and looks good in the produce section would work. Just make sure you dry the fruit well before putting it on the cookies later.Next, very liberally ice your cookies with that delicious cream cheese frosting, and decorate your cookies with the fruit any ole way you'd like. And you're done! Put 'em on a pretty plate, and no one will be the wiser. They'll think you've been baking all day. You could also do some pretty neat variations of this recipe with lemon curd or chocolate ganache.... but that's another day and another entry.

Next up, we have.....

20 Layer Chocolate Hazelnut Crepe Cake

20 basic crepes (store bought - I recommend Melissa's brand - or homemade, using your favorite recipe) 1 - 8 oz pkg cream cheese (softened) 2 - 8 oz containers mascarpone cheese 1 - 3.4 oz vanilla instant pudding mix 3/4 cup milk 1-2 tsp vanilla extract (you could also use almond or orange for a nice variation) 1 container Nutella chocolate hazelnut spread Strawberries, whipped cream, & powdered sugar for garnish (optional) First, make your vanilla mascarpone cream by mixing up the softened cream cheese, vanilla pudding mix, vanilla extract, milk, and mascarpone cheese in a mixer until well combined. Then, get out your jar of Nutella (can we say... YUM?) and start layering! Slap a crepe down on a pretty dish, and slather on a real good amount of your vanilla mascarpone cream. Top with another crepe, more cream, and then, on your third layer, spread it with a good amount of Nutella. I said a good amount, don't skimp. That stuff is heavenly. Keep repeating with this method, every third layer Nutella, until you have all 20 layers done. I topped mine with a sprinkling of powdered sugar, and decorated it with strawberries and whipped cream, but you could do anything that blows your skirt up - drizzle it with chocolate ganache, whatever you like! This dessert looks totally impressive and you can take all the credit.