Dare to Eat Cookies!

 

This is probably my favorite challenge from Kim’s Dare to DIY Blog Party. I have been waiting to do this since I read “Eat Cookies”!

So, ladies and gentlemen, (do men really read this blog? If not, they probably should, right?! Especially THIS post.) Anywho…I give you Alton Brown’s Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Wait…You’ve never heard of Alton Brown? Seriously? The Mastermind behind Good Eats? You must be kidding me. Surely the Meckleys aren’t the only household that has Good Eats on 24/7 and DVRs every single episode?

Oh. Okay. Perhaps we are. You might have found humor in my exageration but I’m only slightly ashamed to tell you that is the God honest truth; Andy has Good Eats on every single day. I nearly broke his heart when I accidentally erased everything on our DVR, which included the Good Eats 10th Anniversary show. Oops. Luckily he has forgiven me. For the most part.

Regardless, let me tell you, as usual, Alton is on to something with this recipe! While watching this episode I realized the reason my chocolate chip cookies were often flat is probably because I used too much baking soda. Baking is not like cooking, you must be very precise in your measuring.

Andy & I made these babies a few weeks ago and he insistedwe go out and buy not onlly the proper ingredients, but a large scoop so we could make giant cookies. As it turns out,  we should’ve bought a Pampered Chef scoop because the $11 scoop from the Kitchens store was junk so I made Andy return it. The PC scoop is on my Christmas List if any of you wants to send us a gift.

But I digress…we made the giant cookies and they were everything I had hoped for and more!

Here’s what you need:

• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 2 1/4 cups bread flour
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons real vanilla extract
• 2 cups chocolate chips
• #20 ice cream scooper (or Large Pampered Chef Scoop!)

I agree that buying the proper ingredients makes all the difference; these cookies are amazing! I’ve decided these are the difference-makers:

• REAL vanilla extract
• DARK brown sugar
• BREAD flour

Believe me, you will taste a difference! This is what you need to do:

• Melt butter. Set aside.
• Sift together flour, salt, and baking soda. I think this is the first time I’ve ever sifted ingredients since my 7th grade home ec class, but I do it because Alton said to do it!
• Cream butter and sugars on medium speed.
• Add the eggs, milk and vanilla until well mixed.
• Slowly incorporate the flour mix until thoroughly combined.
• Stir in chocolate chips.
• Chill the dough (Another difference maker!!)
• Scoop onto parchment-lined baking sheets.
• Bake for 14 minutes or until golden brown.

Recipe from the Food Network.

Mmmm….these are my absolute favorite! Andy’s too!

 

Fall Festival Party

The Meckley’s threw a Fall Festival/Wine Tasting/Halloween Party last weekend. Andy went all out with a fog machine, strobe light and a great Halloween playlist. The fog machine was awesome, but we had to disable the smoke alarms all through the house!

 

Only a few of us dressed in costume, but it was a fun night anyhow. I told Andy you know you’re getting old when everyone tells you that you threw an awesome party, you feel like you threw a good party, when everyone leaves you get things picked up and then get settled into bed and when look over at the clock you see that it’s not even midnight! Oh well, we all had a good time and I prefer that to our previous knock-down-drag-out-nights followed by a 2-day hangover. The party pretty much died down quickly after watching the Hawkeyes add another notch to their helmets after the nail-biting game against the Spartans. (Yay Iowa!)

Here’s a little run down of our menu and other fun photos:

Caramel Peanut Butter Apple Dip

 

A bag of caramels
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
Splash of milk
Splash of vanilla creamer

Cheese & Fruit for the wine

Cheese Dip
1 box of Velveeta cheese
2 lbs. of browned breakfast sausage

Everyone’s favorite Buffalo Chicken Dip

Apple & Pear Crisp Fake Out
Thanks to Kimba’s recipe
on A Soft Place to Land
Sadly, I don’t think anyone ate any of it! I had a bite later but need to
make it again because I know it’s super delicious.

Harvest Snack Mix
I adapted a recipe I found somewhere online. (Sorry, can’t remember
where!)
This is what I *think* I did:
Mix 4 tablespoons melted butter with 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves. (P.S. Note to self, DO NOT try to ground your own whole cloves in your Magic Bullet. You will ruin the plastic cup. Those suckers must be pretty rough or something. Not sure how or why, but I really messed up the cup and I had to toss it.) Then add a bag of popped microwave popcorn and 2 cups of pretzel sticks. Mix well, put in cake pan and toss in oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, let cool, then add in however much you want of candy corn (or pumpkins as you can see), chocolate stars, I threw in some kind of Ritz mini-bites that had frosting, and a cup of Banana Nut Cheerios because I knew they’d never get eaten otherwise. Then again, nobody but me ate this mix. I kinda like it. 

And, last but not least on the menu, my favorite food item of
the night:

This was really fun. Not really easy to eat, and no one really ate much, but it was a great addition. Find a plastic (or in this case styrofoam) skull. Wash well. You could add plastic wrap as someone mentioned at the party but I did not. Mix 2 blocks of cream cheese with whatever seasonings, I used garlic salt & onion powder. Spread on skull and cover with torn pieces of
lunchmeat. I left the eye sockets, nose, and teeth uncovered and popped two
large olives in the eye sockets. Dave decided the head needed a little more so
he added a festive knife:

 

Andy added dry ice to the punch:

  

And to drinks (P.S. we learned you should not add to beer!)

 

I forced my tall blonde babe to dress up like Fred so I could
be Daphne. I pretended for a moment Tiger was Scrappy. Our wigs were terrible, looked nothing like the photo on the front of the package, but oh well, you get the idea, right?!

Of course I had to dress up the boys:

 

The Willetts were super cute all dressed up. Karen even made
Lena’s costume!

 The Duitsmans were great sports. They came from a wedding and
added accessories to their outfits to be in costume, though Tom almost
immediately took off all his cop gear. Amber made a great Flapper girl.

 

Demitrios decided to don my wig:

 And The Elliotts and I had a good time hogging Andy’s remote later in the night so we could kick some old school tunes and reminisce back to our Junior High and High School days. :::singing::: One, Two, Three and To Tha Four…Because I’m Real…Meet Met at the Alter in Your White Dress…

 

And speaking of back in the day, Schmeed even brought us a
bottle of Mad Dog. Funny! That brought back some memories. I never knew it was a form of wine!

All in all, a great night with great friends – some old, some new…Love you all!

Buffalo Chicken Dip

I know I’ve posted this before, but seriously, this recipe is worth repeating. And re-eating. Repeatedly.

 

 

INGREDIENTS:

2 Cans Chicken Breast (13 oz ea?)
1-2 Cups Shreaded Cheese
1 Cup Ranch (or Blue Cheese) Dressing
1 Cup Frank’s Red Hot Sauce
2 Blocks Cream Cheese

(This is a pretty decent sized recipe. You can divide it in half if you want but
I promise once you try it you’ll think making less is silly.)

DIRECTIONS:

Dump everything into a crockpot. Turn on whatever – low or high. Stir occasionally. Eat. Eat some more. Share with friends. If by some crazy chance you have leftovers this is also GREAT cold and can be reheated if you like it warm. Eat with tortilla chips, in a quesadilla or if you’re like me – by the spoonful.

You’re welcome.

Ever Wonder…

about the cleanliness of the restaurant at which you’re eating? Or if they had any recent health code violations? (GROSS!) Well, I happened upon a site that allows you to look up those very things in my county: http://www.scottcountyiowa.com/health/food_search.php 

Some violations are as simple as a crack in the floor tile but others are flat out DISGUSTING, and I quote, “3 ROACHES WERE SEEN IN THE DINING ROOM DURING THIS INSPECTION. WHEN ROACHES ARE PRESENT DURING THE DAYLIGHT HOURS YOU HAVE A MAJOR INFESTATION.” Ew!!!

If you live in another county try looking at their website as I bet they may have something similar. Careful though, it may make you lose your appetite! (Which, isn’t always a bad thing for some of us  who seem to be holding onto our “winter” weight for dear life.)

Control

This is a post about control. My control. Control of what I say and control of what I do. And this time I’m going to do it my way….

Okay…that was for all you Janet fans out there; You know what I’m talkin’ about!

Anyway…just a little update on my “healthy living” / 30 Day Shred idea. After looking for the DVD at several different stores (that apparently didn’t have it) I decided to go ahead and order the darn thing online. So, it’s on the way. Baby steps.

 

This morning I tried a “Green Monster Smoothie”  (which I found here - scroll down) only I added more berries so it was more like purple sludge. Never mind my little mess. Note: The Magic Bullet wasn’t the best option, the blender worked better.  

Ingredients included 1 cup Almond milk, 2 leaves of kale, small handful of spinach, small handful of each frozen raspberries & frozen blackberries, a banana, and 1 tablespoon of milled flax seed. Sounds gross, huh? Good news is that it tasted really good. Seriously!

Around 11:30 am I was close to gnawing off my right arm because I wanted to eat a donut the work peeps* brought into the office. Instead I decided to confess to you, Internet, so that I will maintain control.  But to be completely honest, I did help myself to some breakfast pizza. Though I managed to avoid the donuts during our morning meeting. Then they put the treats in the office directly across from me and I swear they were calling my name. I decided to manage another half hour until I devoured my portion controlled healthy lunch I packed in my new Fit ‘n Fresh lunch container I picked up at good ‘ole Gordman’s last night.

 

*Speaking of peeps, I have to remember to share some funny photos with you later!

Kudos Pampered Chef!

I believe I’ve mentioned a time or two how fond I am of my Pampered Chef products. Let me tell you a little story that explains WHY I love my stoneware so much.

Since Andy’s been doing like double time between work, working at home after hours, school and homework I thought I’d whip up some dinner the other night. Andy reminded me we had a bunch of hamburger in the freezer. Easy enough. They were in two pound packages so I thought I’d brown it all and divide it for a couple different meals, thinking about what a nice and efficient wife I was.

So, I browned the meat and divided it for the chili I was making to eat that night and put the rest aside for what we have deemed Mexican lasagna (some new concoction I recently came up with.) I prepared each respective recipe, if you consider tossing random ingredients together a “recipe” that is, served Andy his bowl of chili with a side of cheese quesadilla, and then tossed the Mexican lasagna into the oven (P.S. I used my Pampered Chef Deep Dish Baker…this is important information.)

After dinner we settled in the living room, each on our laptops. Andy was pulling cases for work and attempting to work on homework. I was poking around the internet (as usual) and working on the designs for a couple orders.

Fast forward about an hour and a half later:

Andy (peering in the oven door): “So…how long does this caserole thing need to bake exactly?”

Me: “OH <BLEEP!> I forgot to set the timer!!!” :::grumble, grumble:::

Feeling bad about wasting food, wasting money, and how I’m an idiot for rarely using the kitchen timer when I bake, I jumped up, ran to the kitchen, whipped open the oven door to rescue my surely-burnt-to-a-crip dish.

But, wait a minute…it didn’t look entirely burnt to a crisp. Nope, in fact it was just the little bit of cheese and tortilla chips on top. A couple good stirs and it looked fine!!! I tasted a bit, and it really was fine! Then I remembered, I used my trusty stoneware that does not scorch food like other dishes would have done. Yipppeee!! Our future meals were saved!

I totally should have taken a photo to show you but like using the timer, I forgot. But, for what it’s worth, there’s my testimony.

Baked Chicken Parmesan Stuffed with Spinach & Mozzarella

I thought I’d let Andy take a break while I made dinner for my family today. I poked around the Internet for baked chicken parmesan recipes and I sort of came up with my own recipe. (I don’t always measure so I apologize if you want to try to make this! I’m sure you can follow along and experiment a bit. It will be fine. Just be sure to THAW your chicken….is that a hint of foreshadowing there? Oh yeah…keep reading.)

First, I thawed four chicken breasts (well, I thawed them most of the way…) and also thawed and drained one 10oz package of chopped spinach.  I mixed the spinach with a handfull of shredded mozzarella cheese. Then I sliced the chicken breasts through one side like Andy did when he made his feta and spinach stuffed chicken dinner and stuffed the spinach/cheese mix into the chicken breasts.

 

Next, I chopped some fat free seasoned breadcrumbs with my handy dandy Pampered Chef Chopper. I sprinkled some italian seasoning and parmesan cheese over the breadcrumbs and mixed it all up.

I took one egg and added a little bit of my Pampered Chef Garlic Infused Oil, and beat it with a fork. Then I dipped each breast in the egg mixture (both sides), rolled it around in the breadcrumb mix, then put them in the glass pan that I spritzed with a bit of oil and put it all in the oven at 400 degrees.

I let it bake for about twenty minutes, then took it out.

I added marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese and put it back in the oven with some garlic breadsticks.

After another ten minutes or so I took it out and put it on a plate of angel hair pasta and served it with broccoli and cottage cheese.

Looks pretty good, right? (Sorry about the poor photography…I think my camera is on its last leg.) Check out the inside of the chicken:

Yeah, it looked really good so I took a bite. And chewed this bit of rubbery half cooked chicken…blech!!!! GROSS!!! Remember I said I thawed the chicken? Well, I didn’t thaw it completely so it didn’t get done in the amount of time it should have. I felt so bad, my family had to sit around and wait while I kept baking and checking, microwaving, baking, and checking. My picture perfect meal wasn’t as spectacular as I had hoped, but I do think I’ll try this recipe again and I will be sure to cook it long enough next time.

Crafty Christmas Gifts in a Jar

While blog-stalking Kim over at Newly Woodwards I ran across a link for a really fun S’More’s in a Jar recipe. I made a batch and boy are those good…Andy and I ate an entire batch over the course of one day. I wish I were joking, but I’m not; These things are dangerous! Leave the pan out in the open and it’s a bite here, a piece there and the next thing you know someone’s licking the pan. (Okay, not really…but I thought about it. They are THAT good!)

I searched for more gift in a jar recipes and found these Sand Art Brownies. Since we are FREE FROM SCHOOL (YAY!) for a few weeks we slept in late, then I whipped together a few Christmas gifts this morning.

Ladies & Gentlemen…Mr. Rachel Ray!

Since he wasn’t feeling real well on Friday, Andy spent most of the evening on the couch watching the Food Channel. He decided he wanted to try some new recipes from Rachel Ray’s show. We usually lunch with my grandparents, my sister, and two nieces on Sunday so it gave him the perfect opportunity to show off his cooking talents. 

On Saturday we went to good ‘ole Wally World and bought fresh green beans, new potatoes, tomatoes, spinach, feta cheese, frozen chicken breasts, bacon, Rachel Ray’s Chicken Stock-in-a-Box, and some biscuits. Sunday morning Andy was a cookin’ fool…Check out his delicious masterpiece!

Beautiful! (Notice the awesome striped silverware, a wedding gift!)

What a meal!

Spinach & Feta Stuffed Chicken Breast Wrapped in Bacon

Fresh Green Beans and Tomatoes – these are WONDERFUL drizzled with Pampered Chef Basil Blend Canola Oil and a bit of ground pepper and salt. 

Although I didn’t get any photos, Andy also made a big ham and tested the new roaster and meat slicer we got as wedding gifts. It was delish! The boys were happy to get the bone and some scraps and we sent Grandpa home with some ham so we can have ham and bean soup later this week…yum!

We have some new neighbors a couple doors down so while Andy was cooking I whipped up some Chocolate Chip Kiss Cookies in my awesome Pampered Chef mini-muffin tin. Of course I designed a fun little note to attach.

 ** Anyone in need of Pampered Chef items can shop online here or e-mail my favorite PC Consultant Brenda Cunningham!

Buffalo Chicken Dip

This was such a hit at the party last night…er, um, it’s past midnight so I guess I mean, on Saturday night that I thought I’d post for all to enjoy. Super easy, super delicious.

Buffalo Chicken Dip
 
8oz Cream Cheese
1/2 Cup Dressing (Ranch or Blue Cheese (gross) - I used Ranch)
1/2 cup Frank’s Red Hot
1/2 cup Shredded Cheese
2 Chicken Breasts, Cooked & Shredded (or you can use canned chicken)
 
Mix ingredients and heat until bubbly (works great in a crockpot). Once it’s been heated and mixed you can chill and serve cold if you like; it’s great both ways! Great on crackers, chips, celery, or even a spoon. Oh yeah. I’ve totally taken a naked spoonful. And it was everything I hoped it would be.