White chicken chili for the winter

When the sun is shining bright, but there's a chill in the air, chili is the food I crave. Jeff found a recipe at our new grocery store, Green Valley Marketplace. I made some changes but it turned out really good. Good enough that there aren't any leftovers.

What you need:

1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped (I used a red one and it added a nice color)
1 jalapeño, chopped (I skipped this so Oli could eat it)
1 can creamed corn
1 can green chillies
1 can beans, any white ones (I used great white north, you can use navy)
2 cups milk (recipe called for whole, I only had 2%, it turned out fine)
2 cans cooked, shredded chicken
Your favorite shredded cheese in your favorite quantity
Salt & pepper to taste
I also added garlic

What you do:

Put the olive oil in your favorite deep cooking pan/skillet/wok, heat it. Add onions, bell pepper and jalapeño to the oil. Stir for a few minutes till the onions look opaque.

Add corn, beans and canned chillies to the mix and stir well. Add milk and let it come to a boil.

Add chicken and lower to a simmer. Add salt, pepper and garlic to your taste. Let it simmer for 10 minutes or so to let the favors mix.

Ladle into your favorite chili bowl, sprinkle some shredded cheese and enjoy!

I also added some chopped up serranos into my bowl and it was delicious! The non-spicy version also got two thumbs up from Oli and Jeff.

It makes 6 cups. Serving wise, I'd say that's 4 servings because I had a cup and a half and it was enough for dinner.

Since I'm n Weight Watchers right now, I also calculated the points plus and it's 5 per cup.

Cornbread recipe

I need to type this out because I have made this a gazillion times but never recorded it and I forgot some items today as I was telling a friend what to do.

Ingredients:

• 2 packages corn muffin mix
• 1 cup butter
• 2 cans creamed corn
• 2 cans any other kinda corn
• 2 cups shredded cheese
• 2 cups sour cream
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 4 eggs
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 4 chopped jalapeno peppers

Melt butter slightly in microwave. Add everything else and mix well. Pour into a greased 9X13 pan. Bake at 375 for 50-60 minutes. Keep an eye on the top so it doesn't burn. The middle will be slightly wobbly, let it sit for 10ish minutes to let it set.

Enjoy!

Salvaging a baking disaster

I wanted to make mini cupcakes for a fundraiser at work. I had a box of orange cranberry muffins, that I decided to go with. But, after they came out of the oven, they were just stuck to the little paper cup thing and I hated that wouldn't come away clean. So, I took them and did this:

Then, I got a container of cream cheese frosting and some Wilton melting chocolate and did this:

 

Then, I got the mini cupcake holders and did this:

They sold out at the fundraiser. So, something yummy and good came out of my baking disaster.

Re-organization

So, our Super Fresh declared bankruptcy and closed down (I think all of them in MD did). Very sad, because one, the store was right across the street from us and well do I really need a 2?

But, during their closeout sales, I went a little crazy in their baking aisle. And my pantry went a little crazy trying to accommodate all of my purchases, and I went crazy with not having an organized pantry.

So, I remembered something I read on somebody's bog a long, long time ago and got myself to Bed, Bath and Beyond and bought one of those hanging plastic shoe organizers.

And, voila! Behold what is now a usable, easily identifiable set of ingredients and not getting on nerves-falling out of the pantry when I open the door stuff:

Another step forward in the cake pop making

As you can see, I got my dipping technique down pat. I used lollipop sticks and used baking chocolate bars instead of chips.

Now, my problem is how do I get the chocolate to not pool at the bottom?

This recipe was: carrot cake mixed with walnut coconut frosting covered in white chocolate.

As I love everything in these pops, I thought they tasted delicious!

Second attempt at cake pops

Banana nut cake with cream cheese frosting

covered in peanut butter chocolate

And I am ready to buy a dipper, something like this. Because my microwave melting is not really helping with the dipping. I made some more cake balls/pops (I want to call them balls since I haven't put the lollipop sticks in them) yesterday. This flavors this time were banana nut cake with cream cheese frosting covered in a chocolate and peanut butter mix. They are delicious and I don't even like banana bread. But, the dipping once again sucked. It actually came out looking worse than before. I used chocolate chips this time which was what was used in many recipes I saw online. As you can see in the photo, it's not a smooth covering. (Sorry about the sucky iPhone photo, am at work or I'd use my Nikon for a better photo). I think I'll stick with bark or baking chocolate bars in the future and use a small fondue pot to do the dipping.

I am trying another flavor this weekend: carrot cake with walnut coconut frosting covered in white chocolate. Wish me luck.

Cake Pops

Ingredients

I have been fascinated by cake pops, ever since I had the Tiramisu ones at Starbucks. I saw some simple recipes online and decided to try my hand at it last weekend. I used Butter yellow cake, baked as the box suggested, mixed with a whole box of strawberry frosting.

Rolled into balls and refrigerated for a few hours.

Rolled and cooled

 Then, I microwaved the chocolate bark and rolled the cake balls in it. I need to get better at this, as you can see.

Dipped in melted chocolate

They might not have looked good but they tasted yummy. Pardon the terrible photos!

 I'm already thinking of the next flavor combination: carrot cake mixed with a walnut coconut frosting, covered with white chocolate.