Parmesan White Sauce Chicken

Parmesan White Sauce Chicken

1 package of chicken breasts, either flattened or filleted lengthwise to get four skinny patties
1 cup of your favorite White BBQ Sauce (we use Big Bob Gibson Original White Sauce)
3-4 c Parmesan Cheese, shredded
Salt and Pepper

1. Trim fat from chicken and fillet lengthwise.
2. Use salt and pepper to season the chicken and then place in a plastic bag.
3. Pour 1 cup of white sauce over chicken in bag and marinate for at least 1 hour.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
5. Grease the top of a double broiler pan with butter and line the bottom of the pan with aluminum foil (to save you from having to wash the bottom of the pan).
6. Use a fork to remove chicken from the bag and place on the top of the double broiler pan.  Spoon remaining white sauce over the chicken.
7. Cover chicken with parmesan cheese.
8. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20-30  minutes.

Pork Tenderloin with Apples

Pork Tenderloin with Apples
adapted from this recipe

1 Pork Tenderloin
3/4 - 1 cup Pure Maple Syrup
2 1/2 T Cornstarch
3 Sliced and Peeled apples
3 T Dark Brown Sugar
2 T Craisins
2 T Golden Raisins
1 1/2 t Cinnamon

1. Cut pork tenderloin into halves or fourths.  Marinate pork in syrup in a plastic bag in the fridge for at least 1 hour before cooking.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
3. Place pork in roasting pan, pour remaining syrup over it.
4. Combine all other ingredients in a medium sized bowl.  Mix ingredients well.
5. Spoon the apple mixture over the pork.
6. Cook at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes with the lid on the roasting pan.
7. Remove lid of roasting pan, stir apple mixture, put back in the oven to cook for another 15-20 minutes.

Note: The smaller the sections of pork are cut, the less time that it will need to cook.  The key is to cook for half the time with the lid on, and half the time with the lid off, to lock in the moisture.

Birds' Nests

I briefly mentioned these last year when I made them but didn't elaborate.  I'm now going to let you in on the best Easter candy secret of all....Birds' Nests.

Y'all.  I can't even begin to describe how good these are.  They are super easy to make (take maybe 10 minutes) and will get you some of the best cooking compliments of your life.  I'm sure others have known about these for years, but I didn't until last year when I saw them on Pinterest and now I MUST make them every Easter!

You can check out the recipe at The Curvy Carrot.  I think some people make these without the chocolate and with other stuff in them (and call them Haystacks), but I'm here to tell you that this is the BEST way to make them.  They would be super cute for a baby shower (you could use jelly beans if the Cadbury mini eggs aren't "in season") or really any occasion that you can think of.

My one tip is to make sure they stay COLD because they tend to get melty pretty quickly when set out at room temperature or warmer.  The meltiness doesn't make them taste worse (maybe even better), but it makes them even messier!  I wouldn't serve them at an outdoor party, for instance, and might only put a small dish out and continuously replenish from the fridge if possible.

Strawberry Cupcakes

I mentioned in my Easter post that we celebrated Gramme's birthday on Easter Sunday.  I asked her what dessert she would like since it was her birthday and, while she was reluctant to add more to my plate, she finally said that strawberry cupcakes would be good.  So I set out to find the best strawberry cupcake recipe and I'm happy to report that I think I found it!

I modified the Southern Living Triple-Decker Strawberry Cake recipe to make cupcakes and iced them with the Southern Living Strawberry Buttercream Frosting Recipe.  This made 48 cupcakes and enough icing to ice them with.  They were delicious and moist and so good.  I got tons of compliments on them and even sent the leftovers to work with Jason on Monday where they also got rave reviews.

Some notes from my cooking:

- I cooked each pan of cupcakes for about 12 minutes in a 350 degree gas oven set on Convection Bake.  You'll need to modify accordingly, just make sure to test a couple to make sure a toothpick comes out clean to ensure that they're done.  They're not as firm coming out of the oven as cupcakes usually are and if you leave them until they are totally firm they will end up browning as they cool.

- By using a smaller scoop to get my batter into the cupcake cups I was able to get cupcakes that were flat on the top and perfect for icing.  I would recommend filling no higher than halfway up the cupcake cup.

- I used a little less powdered sugar and chopped strawberries than the icing recipe called for.  My icing was a tad runny as I iced the cupcakes but hardened up to the perfect consistency by the next day when they were served.  You might want to let the icing sit a little while before icing the cupcakes to make it easier on you.

- These are much better the day after you make them and even better the day after that!  If you eat them still warm they are very rich.

- I put my icing into a pastry bag and piped it onto the cupcakes.  This uses more icing than the traditional way of icing (with a spatula or knife) so be aware if you're making a full 48 cupcakes and only one batch of icing.  You'll notice in the picture that the cupcakes on the top level of the stand had much prettier icing on them than those on the bottom.  I started to run out of icing and so didn't use as much on the bottom cupcakes.  If you want the perfect shape for the top of the cupcakes you might want to make 1 1/2 recipes of frosting.

Cauliflower Poppers

For some unexplainable reason I have always like cauliflower.  However, no one else even in my extended family even remotely agrees with this like.  But I saw on Pinterest a pin for Cauliflower Poppers and it looked like they were dipping them in ketchup, so I thought that this might be a sneaky way to get Charlotte to eat her veggies.

Delighted Momma's recipe (which I followed) calls for 1 teaspoon pepper and two heads of cauliflower.  I ended up only making them with one head of cauliflower but didn't think to cut the pepper.  This resulted in very spicy poppers.  Charlotte tried one but said they were too spicy and I didn't blame her, they were almost too spicy for me!  But aside from the spice they tasted great!  I'll definitely be making these as a more common side dish in our family but will probably limit the pepper by quite a bit.

Raw cauliflower that's been coated with olive oil, salt, and pepper

Baked Cauliflower Poppers

Chicken and Artichoke Calzones

My friend, Erin, has blogged about her Chicken and Artichoke Calzones multiple times.  She always talks about how this is her "go to" dish for new Momma's or those hurting.  And when she blogged about them a few weeks ago I knew it was time to finally try them out.  Boy am I glad that I did!  They were fantastic and everyone (except James who isn't eating much of anything these days) gobbled them up.  They're a little time consuming to make if you're chopping by hand but well worth it.

All the yumminess before it went into the calzones.  I'll be honest and say that I stole a bite or two and even like this it was fantastic.  I bet it would be great on two thick slices of fresh bread! Maybe grilled into a panini! Yum!

Wrapped up in my (not so pretty) calzones

Fresh out of the oven!

The recipe makes six very full calzones.  You could easily probably make 12 normal sized calzones if you got two cans of pizza crust. I also made mine with thin crust pizza crust (just what I happened to get) and I'll probably try it with thick crust next time.  Or not worry about getting all the filling into the calzones.  Even by stuffing mine to the brim I had filling left over.

Gooey Cookies and Cream Double Chocolate Cake Bars

Jason came home three days before his engineering Christmas party for work and told me that it was a potluck.  Awesome.  I requested that he try and sign us up to bring a dessert since there were so many on Pinterest that I've wanted to try.  Thankfully, we were able to bring a dessert so I emailed him a few choices like Nutella Pretzel Brownies, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Pie,  German Chocolate Cake Bars, Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie, Best Ever Buckeye Brownies, Peanut Butter Eclair Cake, and a Triple Chocolate Trifle. (Can you tell that peanut butter and chocolate are my love languages?!?)

Jason chose Picky Palate's Gooey Cookies and Cream Double Chocolate Cake Bars and I have to say that I'm glad that he did!  These were pretty easy to make and baked quickly and tasted great.  They were very rich warm but weren't too rich when they were cooled.  And were just as yummy a day or two later as we enjoyed leftovers!  Definitely a good option if you're looking for a pick up dessert to take to Christmas dinner!