Baked Potato Soup

This is another recipe that I got from Pinterest.  The original pinner pinned it from Pearls, Handcuffs & Happy Hour.

I threw it in the crock pot this morning, and it made a great lunch.

A few adjustments I made/ideas for next time:

- I used a 32 oz. carton of  stock instead of 3 cans.  (could use veggie instead, to make it vegetarian-friendly)

- Next time, I might try cream of celery or cream of broccoli soup instead of cream of chicken.  (thinking of my vegetarian friends)

I didn't have time to cook some bacon to put on top, but I did add some cheese and scallions.

Delicious!

Melt-in-Your-Mouth Baked Chicken

I got this recipe from Pinterest.  The original pinner pinned it from This wonderful blog.  After discovering this recipe and reading more of her posts, I'm hooked.

I used Onion powder instead of garlic powder (since I didn't have any garlic powder on hand)  I also didn't have any seasoning salt, so I used Trader Joe's "Everyday Seasoning"  (which happened to have garlic in it as well as most of the ingredients in Seasoning Salt).  I also used Monterey Jack cheese in place of the parmesan.  (I forgot a lot of the ingredients that her recipe called for, so I used what I had on hand.  It worked out well. 

Curried Quinoa

Prepare Quinoa according to package directions.
Coat bottom of wok or pan with sesame oil.
Add frozen peas & carrots and prepared quinoa.
Stir in 1tbsp peanut butter and a few shakes of soy sauce.
Stir to combine.

Prepare sauce:
heat 1 can of coconut milk with your choice of spices.  (I used ground ginger, turmeric, curry powder and cardamom)
Add sauce mixture to quinoa mixture one ladleful at a time.  (Similar to the preparation of risotto)

Oven Roasted Broccolini with Sun Dried Tomato Pesto

I've never used broccolini before and I was eager to try it out.  Here's my first attempt at using it as a side dish:

1 pkg broccolini
1/2 cup Sun Dried tomato pesto.  (I pulsed mine in the food processor with about a tsp of olive oil for about a minute to smooth the sauce a bit)
Pour sauce over broccolini and put in fridge until ready to use

Preheat oven to 375.

Put broccolini and sauce on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil and seasonings of your choice. I used Dean & Jacobs Spicy Garlic
Bake for 15-20 minutes

Mint Chocolate Rice Krispies Treats

A few weeks ago, I posted about Cake Batter Rice Krispies Treats.  Here's another RKT recipe.

I bought a bag of Mint Chocolate Marshmallows, and used those in place of the plain.  (Stop and Shop had a ridiculous amount of marshmallow varieties)  The bag was 8oz instead of the usual 10, so I added a 1/4 cup of plain.

Melt 3 tbsp of butter and add 10 oz of marshmallows.  Stir until blended.  I added a couple drops of green food coloring.  Add 4-5 cups Rice Krispies and stir.

Press into a pan and top with crushed Andes Mints.

Enjoy!

Chicken Korma

Yesterday afternoon, a few of the girls from high school and I decided to get together and make a delicious curry for lunch.

 We used this recipe for Chicken Korma as a guide, and tweaked it as we went along.

We started by heating coconut milk in a saucepan with 3 cinnamon sticks, 3 pieces of Star Anise, a few shakes of Cardamom, and a few shakes of curry powder.  Really, you can use whatever spices you want.  Cayenne, Coriander, Turmeric, Cumin.... the possibilities are endless!  Also, most Korma recipes tell you to cook it in the oven, but we found that cooking it on the stove was easier.  After that mixture thoroughly heated, we added almonds and golden raisins.

While that was heating, we heated coconut oil and added cut up onions, peppers and eggplant.

 When it was heated, we put the veggies aside and cooked the in the pan.  When everything was heated, we mixed it all together.

Buffalo Chicken Dip

I love all things buffalo chicken.  I've tried several buffalo chicken dip recipes over the years and none really spoke to me.  This time around, I thought I'd do it my own way.

I started by using this recipe for crock pot shredded buffalo chicken.  After I took it out of the crock pot, I refrigerated it overnight, then added the last little bit of buffalo sauce left in the jar.  I built the dip in the same way that I make Baked Mexican Dip, but used the buffalo chicken instead of the salsa.