Amy's Cooking Adventures: September 2015

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Lemon Infused Vodka #HandCraftedEdibles

In an effort to make all of her holiday gifts this year, Camilla at Culinary Adventures with Camilla invited some of her favorite foodie bloggers to share recipes for hand-crated edibles. Over the course of the next twelve weeks, we'll be sharing recipes from libations (this week's theme) to cookie platters. Hope you'll follow along for inspiration.

libation (noun li·ba·tion \lī-ˈbā-shən\) - beverage; especially a drink containing alcohol

That’s right, we’re bringing you all of those yummy infused beverages that we’ve all come to love! And since some of those libations take some time to infuse, we need to start now! Side note – if you’re making homemade vanilla extract for Christmas, start now!!!

This time around, I wanted to make Lemon Infused Vodka (though you could use rum instead). Lemon Vodka is so yummy and versatile! And it only needs to infuse for 5-7 days, so it’s quick!

Chocolate Dipped Jalapeños #FoodNFlix

Today’s chocolaty surprise is a bonus round for this month’s Food ‘n Flix! Heather from Girlichef is hosting the special 5 year Anniversary of the club, and we can choose any of the previous movies and make something from them!

I mentioned in my previous post that I wanted to watch Chocolat, but sentiment won me over and I watched How to Lose a Guy in 10 Daysinstead. But at Heather’s encouragement, I watched Chocolat and here I am again!

I loved Chocolat! It was a sweet, light hearted story. Yes, there were struggles, but they were brilliantly portrayed. Plus there is a pre-Pirates of the Caribbean Jonny Depp…kinda playing a pirate. Go figure!

In the movie, Vianne blusters into a small town and opens a chocolate shop - during Lent – when most of the very devout townspeople have given up sweets. Yet her infectious personality and delicious confections slowly win people over.

One of her key ingredients in her chocolates is chili pepper, especially in her delicious hot chocolate (which you can also see in the photo – but you’ll have to wait for that recipe!)

Homemade Cheese & Potato Pierogi

Remember that bucket list I had going on the blog? Yeah…

It’s been a loooong time since I checked anything off of there. Or added anything for that matter.

But that changes today because I made homemade Cheese & Potato Pierogi. Before, I’d only eaten the frozen variety (and they’re delicious!!) so I knew I needed to make them from scratch because they would be that much better.

Oh, before we go on – I grew up calling these ‘pierogies’, which, as far as I can tell, is Americanized, because pierogi is already the plural of the rarely used singular ‘pierog’. Cue the NBC Rainbow ♪The more you know!!♪

Source

Anyhow, as expected, the homemade pierogi were completely amazing and blew the frozen ones out of the park – it was probably the stick of butter the recipe called for (shhhhh…no one needs to know, let’s just enjoy us some pierogi).

Baked Chicken Nuggets

A few weeks ago, Dude & I were garage sale-ing and he found a “free” box. After digging through, he ecstatically showed me a 3-year old magazine. It had the word “Food” on the cover and he was sold!

When we got home, he immediately started paging through the magazine. He came running down the stairs and showed me the recipe for Baked Chicken Nuggets.

I admit, I was pretty skeptical, after all, Crunchy Onion Chicken Fingers have been declared “better than McDonald’s”. Would the kids actually like these? Would I?

French Onion Soup Meatballs

My boys love meatballs, so I’m always looking for fun new flavors to stuff into those meatballs (some of my favorites are Asian Turkey, Pesto, Chicken Parmesan, and Bacon Cheeseburger!)

This time around, I wanted to play with the classic: French Onion Soup (don’t miss The Classic, The Twist, & The Grilled Cheese). It is one of my favorite wintertime soups, but the kids won’t touch it with a 10-foot pole. Unless of course, those caramelized beef infused onions are stuffed into their meatballs!

This is truly a match made in heaven and adds a bit of sophistication to plain old meatballs. We will be enjoying these time and time again as the weather grows colder!

Muddy Buddy Frappuccino

Where I live, fall can never make up its mind. It’s hot, then cold, then hot again! Or maybe we skip fall altogether and abruptly switch from temperatures in the 70’s to temps in the 40’s (for real). Or perhaps an early October blizzard is in order?

This year, we’re having huge temperature swings. The first week of school, temperatures were in the 90’s. The second week of school, they were in the 60’s. Now it’s the third week of school and temperatures are in the 80’s.

Just last week, we were enjoying soup and all sorts of cozy recipes.

This week I’m back to frappunccinos for breakfast like this super yummy muddy buddy frapp. Because I’m totally the sort of person who eats dessert for breakfast (here, here, and here).

Hasselback Potatoes #SecretRecipeClub

It’s Secret Recipe Club Day!

For today’s SRC reveal, I was assigned CJ’s blog, Morsels ofLife. At Morsels of Life, CJ shares her recipes. She’s an engineer and a new mom so she values easy, efficient meals using ingredients that she has on hand.

So what to make?

As I was browsing, I was feeling the carby side dishes. I was positively drooling over the Pesto Swirl Biscuits and the Cheddar Bacon Swirl Biscuits. I mean – De-lish! But then I got lazy and didn’t want to make my own biscuit dough and didn’t have any Bisquick on hand.

Sloppy Sliders

It’s football season and that means tailgating. Now, I’m more partial to hockey, myself, but I certainly have an appreciation for tailgating chow!

And since I’ve started making my own slider buns, I have a whole new appreciation for sliders!

Small, compact, two bite burgers – all the joy of eating 3 burgers with none of the gluttony!

This time around I added some homemade sloppy joe mix to the sliders – along with cheese and pickles, of course! They were absolute perfection!

Amy's Cooking Adventures on Yummly

Hey there wonderful readers!

I’m just popping in quickly today to tell you all about Yummly.

I just signed up as a Yummly publisher, which enable you, the readers the click the “yum” button (found at the top of each post) to save your favorite recipes to your personal Recipe Box!

How awesome is that?!?

You can see my Yummly profile here and set up your own recipe box! Happy Yumming!

Monday, September 7, 2015

Baked Chicken with Spinach & Mushrooms

Recently, one of my Zumba ladies came to class absolutely raving about a baked chicken recipe she had made. She listed off the ingredients: chicken, ham, spinach, mushroom, white wine, onion soup mix; and I had to admit, it sounded divine!

When I got home, my best friend, Google, and I got to work and honed in on the recipe! I made a few adjustments: prosciutto, fried onions, fresh herbs and got to work.

The recipe was just as easy and delicious as promised. It was another hit that the entire family enjoyed, even my picky eaters!

Chicago Dog #FoodnFlix

Though I’ve only participating in Food ‘n Flix for a year now, this is actually the club’s 5^th anniversary!

For the 5^th anniversary, Heather from Girlichef is opened up this month’s viewing to any of the previously chosen movies! I originally intended to watch something new, in fact I nearly watched Chocolat (I still will someday).

But then I saw How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days as one of the choices. I LOVE that movie! I first saw the movie the year Hubs & I were engaged and planning our wedding. And I fell in love with the song, Feels Like Home that appears during the (totally PG) shower scene. In fact, Hubs & I chose that song for our first dance as husband and wife. So How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days had always had a soft spot in my heart.