Hawaiian Pizza Jalapeno Poppers

We are a jalapeno popper eating kind of people. These delightful boats of cream cheese are usually the first thing to go at our family gatherings, followed so closely by deviled eggs that it's actually hard to call. While I am not opposed to mixing up an old favorite, Collin was not so sure and lingered in the kitchen as I was making these, making comments about how the jalapenos should be cut, etc. I eventually shooed him off and these were assembled in no time. (Ok, it took time, but what respectable jalapeno popper doesn't?)

She asks that you put a cube of pineapple and a cherry tomato on the ends of the toothpicks, but no one in my family would eat them and they would go to waste. So. I omitted that small detail but kept everything else the same.

She also tells you to put these in the oven, which I've never done. Poppers have always been a strict barbeque item and therefore this made Collin question them yet again. I made these with her burger recipe and he was a bit put off that the grill was not needed. A little out of his element, I think. Anyway.

Little poppers

Once these were done and he had shoved some down his popper hole, he admitted defeat in that these are really good. I don't know where the "pizza" part is supposed to come in, but who cares? These are delightful and we may have just found an unconventional new "barbeque" item. 

Capon's Chrissy Burger and Onion Rings

To me, a burger is a burger. It's delicious and the toppings are fun but at the end of the day, it is just a burger. There has only been one burger in my life that I've ever actually craved and it was from a little mom and pop restaurant called Kelly's. I swear he put crack in that burger. Once the craving hit there was nothing that could satisfy it. My mom and I would go there as often as was possible without jeopardizing our wallets or waistlines. He knew us, too, and would make sure to make our fries extra crispy the way we liked them. I don't think I ever tried anything else from there either. It was always about that burger and nothing else. Sadly, he went out of business and mom and I shared a cry in the car in front of the little empty restaurant the day we found out. Sometimes we talk about hunting him down in hopes of persuading him to make it for us one last time. *sigh*

In any case, I probably would have waited until it was the last recipe left to make this if it weren't for my friend Leah. She made it on the fourth of July and raved about it:

"So proud of myself, I made my first ever burger from scratch with homemade onion rings. They were delicious!"

We chatted about it for a bit and she convinced me that this was a definite keeper. So, since I was off today and had some time to create, I stuck this baby on the menu. I added in Chrissy's jalapeno poppers, too but I'll do a separate post on those. 

I was very skeptical about this burger because it only has 4 ingredients and 2 of those are salt and pepper. Could it be that less is more?

*drool*

The answer is hell fucking yes. This was amazing. Even her sauce, which has mayo in it, was mouthwatering. I cannot believe something so simple could turn out so freaking phenomenal. And a burger! And the best part? This burger is gluten free all on it's own. (Well, minus the bun and onion rings, obvi.) I just can't believe how good this turned out. Does it rival my beloved Kelly's burger? I decline to comment. 

The onion rings were simple and tasted like regular ol' onion rings. Calvin was intrigued, "These are super good, mom. Look! There's an onion inside!" He ate them up like nobody's business. 

Calvin approved.

Needless to say, I'm stuffed and I have found excitement for a burger again. Yay!

Zucchini "Lasagna" Bolognese

I've been slacking, I know. But - good news! Collin is on vacation for the next 12 days or so and this means I will have plenty of time to cook things! To get into the spirit, I decided to go after this lasagna inspired dish as I'm always down to make things no-carb.

Truth be told, I'm a huge sucker for Stouffer's lasagna and could probably (Ok, I can) eat the whole thing by myself and still want more. Because of this, I have never felt the need to create my own lasagna recipe. Thinking on it, I don't believe I've ever made a lasagna from scratch before...Anyway, this was on the menu tonight and after reading the recipe, I started early.

I made the sauce around 2 so dinner would for sure be ready by 5-6 ish. She tells you to simmer it for about an hour to an hour and a half to let it reduce and thicken. OK. I've thought this before, but now I'm convinced that she must have some sort of special celebrity oven that cooks things quicker than us common folk ovens. After 2 hours I still had soupy sauce. It had reduced some, yes, but nowhere near the consistency needed for lasagna. It took me cranking up the heat for another hour or so before it was finally a good consistency. Everything else went pretty smooth and, unsurprisingly, this only made 2 layers for me as opposed to her 3 layers. I'm really not sure how she did it to make it 3 layers, but I don't really think it matters how many layers you have so long as there are at least 2.

I was starving when I pulled this out of the oven:

Looks fairly lasagna-y

But I let it cool down for a few minutes before I decided to cut into it. 

Now. I was very unsure about this because of the layer of grease floating on top and around the edges. I was also very unsure about how to put it in the bowl. Once I figured out that a spoon was the best way I noticed this was no longer a lasagna, but a lasagna-y soup.

You eat it with a spoon.

It was about this time that Collin starts talking about how Dominoes has a special going on right now and it wasn't too late to order pizza. I, however, was determined to try this and like it. I had spent too many hours preparing this freaking dish and we were going to eat this soup, dammit.

The taste was actually not bad. It was very salty - very salty - but I do believe this would be better with actual noodles (duh). What I mean by that is that the sauce and the cheese mixture are pretty good, but the zucchini noodles were a total fail. They basically dissolved into the soup and I couldn't even tell they were there. I did, however, get a "This is good food, mom" from Calvin and I do agree that the taste is not bad. 

But. If you're going to spend half the day in the kitchen preparing lasagna, use this recipe, just substitute the zucchini for actual lasagna noodles (oh, and go easy on the salt). I understand that defeats the purpose, but now I'm stuck with three quarters of a pan full of salty lasagna-y soup that I can assure you will get thrown away. Take it from me: lasagna should always have carbs. 

Margarita Chicken Fajitas with Mushrooms and Spinach

Well it took what felt like forever to finish off that turkey, but I finally did and now I can get back in the swing of things. I will admit though, it felt so good to take a week off of grocery shopping so I can thank mom for that. Of course, by the end of the week Collin was begging me to toss what was left of the turkey and make something else, so we ate like crap on the days he was off and I started back up again today. I figured fajitas are always a crowd (and Collin) pleaser, so I kicked it off with this recipe.

This bad boy calls for some tequila, which we don't keep in the house as we tend to be more beer drinkers, but Collin had some co-workers over a few months ago and one of them left some Patron here. Lucky for me, cause I didn't really want to make a special trip to the liquor store. This recipe looks like it has a lot of ingredients, but once you put it all together it's really not that bad. Most of it is for the marinade which absolutely reeked of tequila. The whole time I was making it I kept having flashbacks to my 21st birthday where my co-workers kept feeding me Patron. This also reminded me of why I don't drink it. I recalled some memories I thought were locked away for good... *shudder* Anyway, she has you marinate the chicken first and after that it's smooth sailing.

What really threw me off here was the mushrooms. I can't recall a time I've ever eaten fajitas with mushrooms. Even spinach isn't really that strange of an addition, but I throw spinach in pretty much everything so maybe that's just me. It also felt weird not adding green/red peppers in here. Maybe I just need to stop being such a snob and expand my fajita horizons.

The recipe calls for flour tortillas, but I'm really more of a corn tortilla kind of girl, so I went my own way with that part, but this turned out pretty damn good. I found myself eating the chicken straight from the pan so I'll keep the marinade at the very least.

I probably should have put the chicken on top.

I don't know that I'll make the mushroom part again, but the chicken/marinade is a keeper for sure...at least until I run out of tequila. Then I'll probably never make it again unless someone else leaves tequila leftovers here.  I did, however, have 3 tacos so I really don't have any complaints. Look at me, expanding my fajita horizons already!

Dutch Baby Pancake

I always have the ingredients on hand for this recipe and I was going to make it when I first bought this book, but I didn't have a flour sifter and all my colanders have holes that are too big. I went in search of a flour sifter (ok, I went to one store) and settled on a colander with really small holes. Fast forward to a few months later and I still haven't made it. This morning I woke up starving and knew my usual fruit smoothie wasn't going to cut it so I decided to try this one out. I waited as long as I could so it would be more brunch time because I knew the calories were high and I'm hoping that making it 2 meals in one makes a difference. Of course, with 2 kiddos, waiting until brunch time really wasn't my choice...

This is a simple dump and bake kind of recipe. There aren't a lot of ingredients and you don't have to go around town looking for anything specific. You probably have all of the ingredients in your kitchen right now. You dump it all in a blender and have at it. One thing you may want to take note of: once you dump the ingredients in the blender, I wouldn't let it sit too long before blending. I put the flour and salt in first and went to go take care of something with the boys and I think it settled together a bit because once I added in the wet ingredients and hit "go" on my blender, it kind of clumped to the sides. A spatula took care of the stubborn batter and this was ready to pour into the pan in no time - no big deal.

This was fun to take out of the oven:

An aerial view

Am I the only one who thinks this resembles a certain lady part? hahaha Or has the internet ruined me?

I won't lie, I had an immature moment of laughter upon taking this out of the oven. Anyway, I cut this up and stuck it on some plates for me and the boy and we went to town. Calvin ate this up (of course, it's covered in butter and syrup and powdered sugar) and I almost went back for more before I remembered I have a baby gut to work on here. 

So. You really have no excuse not to make this because I guarantee you have everything you need for it already and it's delicious. I'd like to call for my sister Jen to make this because she's a Celiac and I'd like to see how it turns out for her. Guest post coming soon...?

Super Tuna Melts

I've been doing pretty good lately about working out and eating right-ish, so I tossed this bad boy on the menu for lunch today as a little treat for losing a few pounds. I worked out this morning to even the score and by the time I was out of the shower I was starving and craving cheesy tuna.

This calls for mayonnaise which, as stated before, I despise. I tried not to think about it as I was mixing the ingredients together and by the time these were in the pan, I hadn't gagged once and that is a very good sign. This also called for sweet relish, which I also hate. I think a pickle - or anything pickle related - should be dill or sour. I can't handle sweet or bread and butter pickles so I tried to find the smallest, least expensive container of it at the store. Unfortunately, that's not really a thing so I went with the least expensive. I think her deviled eggs also call for sweet relish so at least I know I'll use it one more time.

Anyway, This makes a lot of tuna mixture and, though she says to divide it between 2 sandwiches, I opted to stick a little bit in a tupperware for later. I have to be able to put my mouth around the damn thing and I just showered so I also didn't want leftovers falling on my boobs. Not that I'm ok with boob leftovers if I haven't showered...except that I kind of am.

A little background here. I am not the world's best grilled cheese maker. I get very impatient and usually burn the toast. I try to scrape it off before I give it to Collin, but he always notices and makes fun of me anyway. Needless to say, he's the grilled cheese maker in this house. I did manage to make a pretty good one once for my brother though. I used incredibly low heat and it took about 20 minutes but it didn't burn and that's what really counts. True to grilled cheese form, she tortures you by telling you to use low heat. I did this. And I danced around my kitchen because I was freaking starving and I don't know if you have ever heard the phrase "a watched pot never boils" but I think it should be "watched cheese never melts". I will admit, I took them off the heat a bit early because I couldn't take it anymore and this is what I got:

The picture in the book looks way better. Obvs.

Even with my half ass toasting, this was freaking amazing. It didn't even register in my tuna filled brain that this has the dreaded mayo in it. I finished off my sandwich and relieved my son of one of his halves. This was so good that I don't even really care that I basically ruined my workout (though when the high wears off, I probably will). So now I'm super happy that I stuck some of this in a tupperware for later because now my husband can try it when he gets home from work. Or I'll just completely fuck up my day and eat it myself. Whatever. 

Crab, Cream Cheese and Scallion Wontons

My mom cleaned out her freezer the other day and she gave me a big frozen turkey. I'm not usually the biggest fan of turkey, outside of the lunch meat kind, but I took the bird and decided to eat off of it all week. So, I injected it with seasoning and my husband smoked it and I meal planned around this turkey for the week. Now, as you may or may not know, there are no recipes in Chrissy's book that call for turkey. Apparently she feels the same way about it as I do. I flipped through the book and tried to find a recipe that I had all the ingredients for so I could save myself a trip to the grocery store and I landed on this beauty. The only thing I did not have was the crab meat. So, I broke my number one rule. I did not make this exactly as it appears in the book...can you see where this is going? Yes, I substituted the crab meat for turkey.

Now, I'm very certain that Chrissy does not read this blog. But if she ever did I'm sure she would have a heart attack from my little "substitution". Before I go on, I will say that I have every intention of re-making these exactly as it is written. I just needed to use up some damn turkey.

First, prep work. There really isn't a whole lot that you do to prep for this. It goes rather quickly and even stuffing the wontons doesn't take long. Andrew had his first Gerber baby meat the other day and I gotta tell you, pulsing up that turkey in my food processor looked an awful lot like meat baby food. And if you've never seen or smelled meat baby food then you're lucky because that shit is the worst. When Calvin was a baby he refused to eat it. Andrew, of course, eats the shit out of it but he's a little sausage so he eats anything.

Moving on...so prep - easy. Frying them up is also a piece of cake even though you use a massive amount of vegetable oil. Like, massive. You probably use about 2 standard size vegetable oil bottles. Is it really necessary to use that much? I think so. They have to float and if they stick to the bottom I imagine it would be a big mess. Luckily, vegetable oil is cheap and we should all be grateful that it doesn't call for 2 bottles of olive oil.

Try not to think about the fact that there is pureed turkey in there.

These were...good. And I say it like that because if I had used the crab meat, like anyone with a brain would have, these would have been absolutely phenomenal. We ate them and we actually went back for more - though I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe that's because that's just what you do when faced with finger food. After a while, I started dipping them in barbeque sauce because the sauce she has you make just didn't sit well with the turkey. Collin did request that I make these again, but that I use the crab meat next time and I 100% agree. In the end, we fought over who was going to eat the last one, but not the good way. Eventually, he lost and ate the last one and now I know not to fuck with Chrissy again.