Sesame Chicken with Broccoli

I'm a big fan of Chinese food, but I don't always know what goes in it when I order it from the local Chinese restaurant. I figured I would try some homemade Chinese food at home instead. I did change up this recipe a bit because I wanted to make it a little healthier so my changes are reflected below in italics. Oh, and for some reason I could not get a good picture of this dish!

Sesame Chicken
Adapted from Taste & See


Ingredients:
3 whole boneless chicken breasts (I only used 2, but didn't cut down on the sauce because I didn't feel like figuring out the measurements)

Marinade
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
1 tablespoon cooking wine or dry sherry
3 drops sesame oil
2 tablespoons flour (Omitted)
2 tablespoons cornstarch (Omitted)
2 tablespoons water (Omitted)
1/4 teaspoon baking powder (Omitted)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda (Omitted)
1 teaspoon vegetable oil (Omitted)
Sprinkle of sugar (my addition)

Sauce
1/2 cup water
1 cup chicken broth
1/8 cup rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 teaspoon chili paste (or more)
1 garlic clove, minced

Frying
peanut oil (4 cups) (Omitted because I decided to bake mine in the oven)

2 tablespoons sesame seeds (Omitted because I couldn't find them in my local grocery store!)

Directions:
Cut the chicken into 1-inch cubes. Mix the marinade ingredients (the first 9 ingredients listed) and marinate the chicken for 20 minutes. (I only used the first 3 ingredients & the sugar addition since I decided to bake the chicken instead)

To prepare the sauce:
Mix together all of the sauce ingredients (the LAST 9 ingredients beginning with water). Pour them into a small pot and bring to a boil, stirring continuously. Turn the heat down to low and keep warm while you are deep-frying the chicken.

To deep-fry the chicken:
Add the marinated chicken pieces a few at a time, and deep-fry until golden brown. Drain on paper towels and then place chicken in warm oven (130 degrees) while you continue frying. Repeat with the remainder of the chicken. Just before you are finished deep-frying, bring the sauce back up to a boil. OR you can bake the chicken. I just dredged the chicken in flour after marinating the pieces and baked them at 375 for about 20 minutes.

Place the chicken on a large platter and pour the sauce over. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Serve the Sesame Chicken with rice. (and I also added some steamed broccoli to get some vegetables in)

Blueberry Cobbler

I don't remember ever eating cobbler. Sure, I've had crisps and crumbles, but cobbler? Maybe it's because I grew up in Ohio and cobbler is typically a Southern treat...or maybe I've just been sheltered. Anyhow, I got a craving for a cobbler this week so I decided to go ahead and make it. I knew I would like it - who wouldn't like fruit, sugar and a biscuity topping with whipped cream on top? I did like this cobbler, but the almond extract was a little bit too much. I would definitely cut down on it, or just sub in vanilla extract instead.

Blueberry Cobbler
Source: Honey and Jam


Ingredients:
1/4 cup of sugar
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
3 cups blueberries (I used frozen - yes, I KNOW it's berry season but they weren't on sale the day I bought them!)
2 tablespoons almond extract
1 tablespoon lemon juice
topping:
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup whipping cream
1 egg, beaten

Directions:
Heat oven to 375.

Mix sugar and 2 tablespoons flour in large bowl. Add fruit and toss gently to coat. Add extract and lemon juice. Spoon mixture into 9 x 9 baking dish.

Topping:

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together in a medium bowl.

Beat whipping cream and egg in small bowl. Add mixture to the flour mixture and stir until a soft, sticky dough forms.

Drop dough over the fruit along the edges of pan, leaving the center open.

Bake 35-40 minutes or until topping is golden brown and juices are bubbling.

Fudge Brownies

Our friends (and neighbors!) invited us over for dinner last Thursday and asked me to bring a dessert. I didn't have too much time to throw one together after work and also didn't want to make a trip to the store so I decided to go with this recipe since I had all of the ingredients in the house...and really, who doesn't love a good brownie dessert? I don't know if I did something wrong when I made these, but they definitely did not look like these. However, they still tasted pretty darn good and they got great reviews all around. Oh, I also halved this recipe and baked in an 8x8 pan, but I included the original recipe for you.

Fudge Brownies
Adapted from Sing for Your Supper, who got it from King Arthur Flour


Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
2 1/4 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 1/4 cups Dutch-process cocoa (regular cocoa is fine too)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon espresso powder, optional (I omitted)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups All-Purpose Flour
2 cups chocolate chips (I used a combo of choc chips & butterscotch chips)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9" x 13" pan

In a medium-sized microwave-safe bowl, or in a saucepan set over low heat, melt the butter, then add the sugar and stir to combine. Return the mixture to the heat (or microwave) briefly, just until it's hot (about 110°F to 120°F), but not bubbling; it'll become shiny looking as you stir it. Heating this mixture a second time will dissolve more of the sugar, which will yield a shiny top crust on your brownies.

While the sugar heats a second time, crack the 4 eggs into a bowl, and beat them with the cocoa, salt, baking powder, espresso powder, and vanilla till smooth. Add the hot butter/sugar mixture, stirring until smooth.

Add the flour and chips, again stirring until smooth. Note: If you want the chips to remain intact in the baked brownies, rather than melting in, let the batter cool in the bowl for about 20 minutes before stirring in the chips.

Spoon the batter into a lightly greased 9" x 13" pan. Bake the brownies for about 30 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean, or with just a few moist crumbs clinging to it. The brownies should feel set on the edges, and the center should look very moist, but not uncooked. Remove them from the oven and cool on a rack before cutting and serving.

Raspberry Lemonade

I love a good homemade lemonade. It reminds me of going to festivals as a child. When I saw this recipe, I knew I would not be disappointed. This is a great lemonade to serve in the summer at a cookout or party...or to keep all for yourself!

Raspberry Lemonade
Source: Joy the Baker, who adapted it from Simply Recipes


Ingredients:
1 cup sugar, for a less sweet lemonade, take the sugar down to 3/4 cup
1 cup water to make the simple syrup
1 cup fresh lemon juice
4 cups cold water
2 Tablespoons to 1/4 cup raspberry sauce, depending on how much raspberry you like

Directions:
Make simple syrup by heating the sugar and water in a small saucepan until the sugar is dissolved completely.

While the sugar is dissolving, use a juicer to extract the juice from 4 to 6 lemons, enough for one cup of juice. (I don't have a juicer so I just squeezed the lemons and ended up using 7 lemons to get enough juice - I heated them up in the microwave and then rolled them on the counter before cutting and squeezing to release more of the juice)

Add the juice and the sugar water to a pitcher. Add 4 cups of cold water, more or less to the desired strength. Add the prepared raspberry sauce and stir to combine. Refrigerate 30 to 40 minutes. If the lemonade is a little sweet for your taste, add a little more straight lemon juice to it.

Serve over ice.

Easy Raspberry Sauce

Ingredients:
1/2 of a 12-ounce bag frozen raspberries, thawed (I used a pint of fresh raspberries)
1 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoons water

Directions:
Place the thawed raspberries in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a blade attachment. Add sugar and water and mix until the raspberries form a smooth puree. Transfer raspberry puree to a fine mesh strainer fit over a bowl. Press the puree through the strainer, until only the raspberry seeds and a bit of pulp remain the the strainer, and a beautiful raspberry sauce is all that’s in the bowl.

Fresh Rhubarb Pie

We used to have a rhubarb plant in our yard when I was growing up. I remember my mom digging it up one year since it basically started to overtake the yard. It came back the next year. My mom dug it up again...and it finally went away. Fast forward 5-7 years later and I started dating my now husband. He loves rhubarb - especially in pies. I wish my parents still had that rhubarb plant.

Anyways, as a belated birthday gift I made this pie for Jon not really knowing what to expect. I have had strawberry & rhubarb pie before, but never strictly rhubarb. Oh, and did I mention that I've never even made a homemade pie crust before? So I was diving into a few unknowns with this project, but I think it turned out pretty fabulous if I do say so myself. The only thing that went wrong was the size of the crusts when I rolled them out. They weren't quite large enough so I couldn't flute the crusts together that great, but there was still a slight crust around the pie.


Classic Crisco Pie Crust
Source: Crisco.com

Ingredients:
2 cups Pillsbury BEST® All Purpose Flour
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup well-chilled Crisco® All-Vegetable Shortening
4 to 8 tablespoons ice cold water (I only needed 4)

Directions:

BLEND flour and salt in medium mixing bowl.

SPRINKLE half the maximum recommended amount of ice cold water over the flour mixture. Using a fork, stir and draw flour from bottom of bowl to the top, distributing moisture evenly into flour. Press chunks down to bottom of bowl with fork. Add more water by the tablespoon, until dough is moist enough to hold together when pressed together.

TIP: Test dough for proper moistness by squeezing a marble-sized ball of dough in your hand. If it holds together firmly, do not add any additional water. If the dough crumbles, add more water by the tablespoonful, until dough is moist enough to form a smooth ball when pressed together.

SHAPE dough into a ball for single pie crust. Divide dough in two for double crust or double deep dish crust, one ball slightly larger than the other. Flatten ball(s) into 1/2-inch thick round disk(s).Chill for 30 minutes or up to 2 days.

ROLL dough (larger ball of dough for double crust pie) from center outward with steady pressure on a lightly floured work surface (or between two sheets of wax or pa rchment paper) into a circle 2-inches wider than pie plate for the bottom crust. Transfer dough to pie plate by loosely rolling around rolling pin. Center the rolling pin over the pie plate, and then unroll, easing dough into pie plate.

For a DOUBLE pie crust, roll larger disk for bottom crust, trimming edges of dough even with outer edge of pie plate. Fill unbaked pie crust according to recipe directions. Roll out smaller dough disk. Transfer dough carefully onto filled pie. Trim edges of dough leaving a 3/4-inch overhang. Fold top edge under bottom crust. Press edges together to seal and flute as desired. Cut slits in top crust or prick with fork to vent steam. Bake according to specific recipe directions.

Fresh Rhubarb Pie
Source: Allrecipes.com

Ingredients:
4 cups chopped rhubarb
1 1/3 cups white sugar
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon butter
1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C).

Combine sugar and flour. Sprinkle 1/4 of it over pastry in pie plate. Heap rhubarb over this mixture. Sprinkle with remaining sugar and flour. Dot with small pieces of butter. Cover with top crust.

Place pie on lowest rack in oven. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C), and continue baking for 40 to 45 minutes. Serve warm or cold.

My Mom's Potato Salad

My mom makes great potato salad. She usually makes it for me when I come over in the summer since she's such a great mom. :) I decided to try to replicate her potato salad tonight, but of course it didn't taste the same! I don't normally have regular mayo in the house so I used Miracle Whip instead and I put in pickle juice (I thought my mom used pickle juice in hers but she uses it in macaroni salad, not potato). I thought my version still tasted good though. I would like to get my mom's version down someday!

Potato Salad (sorta kinda my Mom's version)
Inspired by my mother!


Ingredients:
2 potatoes, peeled and chopped (I used red-skinned but really you can use any kind)
3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
The following ingredients are all estimates since I go by taste:
1/2 - 3/4 cup Miracle Whip
1 teaspoon mustard
1 teaspoon pickle juice
1 teaspoon sugar

Directions:
Boil potatoes for 12-15 minutes until fork tender. Drain water and put potatoes in a mixing bowl. Add hard-boiled eggs to potatoes. Mix together the Miracle Whip, mustard, pickle juice and sugar together. Adjust ingredients to your taste. Add mixture to the potatoes and eggs. Refrigerate.

Chipotle Rice & Black Bean Burritos

These burritos had a ton of flavor, but I do think that they would taste even better with some sour cream! (I realized I had some after I ate them - oops)

Chipotle Rice & Black Bean Burritos Adapted from Cook Like a Champion, who adapted it from Elly Says Opa!


Ingredients:
1/2 Tbsp. canola oil
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 chipotle in adobo, minced
1 bay leaf
1/3 cup uncooked rice (I used Uncle Ben's brown rice - the 90 second kind - because I have terrible luck making rice!)
2/3 cup water or broth (Omitted since I used instant rice)
1/2 cup black beans
1/2 tsp. oregano
Salt and pepper
Cooked chicken, shredded (my addition)

Directions:
-Heat the oil in a shallow pot/saucepan that has a tight-fitting lid.
-Add the onion and cook until tender.
-Stir in the garlic, chipotle, and bay leaf, sauteing an additional minute.
-Stir in the rice, and toast it until just a little golden.
-Add the water (or broth), black beans, oregano, and salt and pepper to taste.
-Bring to a boil, cover, and then turn the heat down to low.
-Simmer for about 15 minutes.
-Remove from heat (but keep the lid on) and let sit for about 5 minutes before fluffing with a fork.

Chili Gravy
Source: Cook Like a Champion, who adapted it from Homesick Texan

Ingredients:
1/4 cup lard (or vegetable oil)
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons powdered garlic
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 cups chicken broth (or water)

Directions:
-Heat the oil in a skillet over medium-high heat.
-Stir in the flour and continue stirring for 3 to 4 minutes, or until it makes a light brown roux.
-Add all the dry ingredients and continue to cook for 1 minute, constantly stirring and blending ingredients.
-Add chicken broth or water, mixing and stirring until the sauce thickens.
-Turn heat to low and let sauce simmer for 15 minutes.
-Add water to adjust the thickness.

Makes 2 cups.

To assemble the enchiladas:
-Preheat oven to 400°.
-Cover the bottom of a 13x9 baking dish with 1/2 cup chili gravy.
-Heat tortillas (corn or flour) over stovetop or in microwave.
-Fill each tortilla with chipotle rice and beans (how much will depend on the size of your tortilla).
-Place in baking dish seam side down and cover with remaining chili gravy.
-Top with shredded cheese and bake for 15 minutes or until sauce is bubbling and cheese is melted.