Deviled Eggs

Oh my. How did I let myself go so long without posting again? By way of apology, let me explain that I've been on three trips in the last month and a half (Boston, DC, and Indy for my little sister's wedding) and am now working on editing wedding photos while also catching up on actual work. I guess time has just gotten away from me, and I apologize for leaving you hanging for so long. It seems like it comes to this every few months, unfortunately, but you know, life gets in the way sometimes.

Spring is in full force here in Hampton Roads. (Actually, when we came back from the wedding, it seemed like we had skipped spring entirely and gone straight into summer. when we left it was in the 50s, and when we came home, it was seriously in the mid to high 80s.) With spring, comes picnic foods--ham sandwiches, potato salad, macaroni salad, and deviled eggs. I personally am not a fan of deviled eggs, but Justin loves them. Being the wonderful wife that I am, I do occasionally make them for him. This recipe is our attempt at recreating his mother's deviled eggs. She doesn't use a recipe, of course. She just adds the ingredients until it tastes right. Someday I'm going to use a food scale to weigh the containers before and after to figure out her exact recipe, lol, but I haven't done that yet and so this is as close as it gets.

Alfredo Toss

Whenever we were craving Italian but didn't want to go out, my mom used to make one of two things: her spaghetti or her alfredo. The alfredo recipe was quick and easy, so it made for a great weeknight dinner. When she put Italian sausage in it, we were really in heaven. However, while it taste greats, it's not really alfredo in the most traditional sense. The flavors are all there, but there isn't really an alfredo sauce. Instead my mom would toss fettuccini together with garlic, heavy whipping cream, melted butter, and parmesan cheese (the kind from a can/plastic jar, not the real stuff). The result tasted a lot like alfredo but didn't require you to go through the trouble of making a bechamel sauce and melting in all the cheese.

Justin and I recently visited a friend in Boston and decided to cook dinner for the three of us. Even though it's been years since I've had my mom's alfredo, for whatever reason that's what I thought of when trying to decide what to cook. However, now that I'm older, I don't love the original recipe quite as much as I did as a kid. I'm not a huge fan of the texture of all that powdery parmesan, and my stomach hates me if I eat that much butter or heavy cream. I did what any logical person would have done--I adapted it. Replace the canned parmesan with the real thing. Replace the heavy whipping cream with half-and-half and cut down the amount used. Leave out the butter. The resulting recipe gives you the alfredo flavor you're looking for but with much less trouble. As a bonus, it feels a lot lighter, too, especially if you throw in some veggies.

Crawfish Bread

As soon as March arrives, I start to crave one thing: crawfish. Crawfish season is typically March to June. This is when they're cheap, big, and easily available, and so it's also when you get to have crawfish boils, an integral part of my childhood. There's nothing like running around in the spring sunshine while someone boils up a huge batch of crawfish, red potatoes, corn, and sausages/hot dogs. When it's time to eat, they just dump it all into a big pile on a newspaper-covered picnic table, and everyone digs in. It's messy. It's hot. It's a lot of work, but oh man is it delicious.

Living outside of southern Louisiana makes it difficult to experience anything even close to a crawfish boil. Thankfully, Norfolk, VA holds a Cajun festival every summer, and one of the things they offer there is fresh boiled crawfish. It's WAY more expensive than they would be in New Orleans (like $5-6/lb at the festival rather than $2-3/lb in New Orleans) and doesn't come with all the awesome extras, but it's the closest I've come to the real thing since moving away.

Fajita Macaroni & Cheese

Sometimes I just get this cooking idea that I can't seem to escape from. It's like when you get a song stuck in your head and you do anything to try to get rid of it. Think of that but with food. I don't even know where the idea came from, but I must have heard or seen something that set it off: fajita mac and cheese. Once the thought was there, I couldn't not make it. No matter how much I told myself I didn't need to make a pot of mac and cheese for dinner, my stomach wouldn't listen. Eventually I gave in and made this. Let me tell you--my stomach knows what it's talking about. It was right to urge me to throw together this recipe because it was pretty spectacular.

If you're looking for some sort of lighter twist on mac and cheese, you've come to the wrong place. This is a full fat, balls to the wall kind of mac and cheese recipe. The chicken and the veggies almost make it seem lighter than it is, but don't let them fool you. This stuff will make you fat if you let it. You can leave out the chicken or substitute it with beef or shrimp if that's your kind of thing. You can change out the veggies you don't like or add in more that you do. Do whatever you want to the fajita part of the recipe, but do yourself a favor and make the cheese sauce the way you're supposed to. When you get that craving for ooey, gooey, rich, creamy mac and cheese, there is no substitute. Enjoy it in all its fatty gloriousness. Work out hard to make up for it if you must, but don't skimp on the good stuff here. Trust me.

Chicken & Gnocchi Soup

Winter has been making one last effort (or at least I hope it's the last effort) to maintain a hold on the weather around here. It's been cold and windy and not quite sunny. In other words, it's still perfect soup weather. I decided to adapt another Pinterest recipe that I found. It was a copycat version of Olive Garden's chicken and gnocchi soup, which I really enjoy. I upped the amount of gnocchi in the recipe to make it more of a meal, but if you're serving it as an actual soup course, feel free to cut it back down to just 16 ounces. Justin wasn't a huge fan of this soup--he said it tasted canned, which is really bizarre since everything is made from fresh ingredients. Only the gnocchi came in any sort of a package, and I seriously doubt that would give it a canned flavor. I think he's just weird. I loved this soup and since Justin apparently doesn't want to have it for dinner again, I will definitely make it again for lunch sometime.

Chicken & Noodles

My younger sister is getting married next month, and I've been helping her with some of the paper goods that she needs (invitations, place cards, programs, etc.) for the wedding and reception. For one of the projects, we were discussing her reception menu, and she mentioned chicken and noodles. I've been craving chicken and noodles ever since then, so I finally gave in and made some. I didn't actually have a chicken and noodles recipe of my own, so I tried out one that I found online. While it wasn't a perfect recipe, it was a good first attempt. Next time I need to find a way to make it saucier. I want a thick, creamy sauce, almost like a gravy but not quite, on my chicken and noodles, and this just didn't quite do it for me. The flavor was good, but I just need to figure out the sauce.

That being said, I still ate it all up, and Justin liked it a lot, too. He compared it to chicken noodle soup without all the broth, and since that's pretty much how he wants his soup, he was completely fine with this recipe. Sometime down the road I'll give it another try, but for now, I thought I'd go ahead and share the recipe with you anyway. Be forewarned though; this makes a huge pot full of chicken and noodles. It all just barely fit in my 8 quart pot.

Chopped Challenge #13: Macaroni & Cheese Pot Pie

Well, it seems that I have misplaced/lost/accidentally deleted the photos for Chopped challenges #11 and 12. :( I'm usually so careful about my photos, but I seem to be missing the pictures for those two challenges and a couple other recipes I planned to post. I think I probably uploaded some of the pictures on the memory card but not all of them, and then when I looked at the card later, I saw those same photos, assumed I had transfered everything on the card already, and deleted everything that was on it. C'est la vie. There's nothing I can do about it now. For the record, for challenge 11, I had to cook with chicken, Italian seasoning, tri-color pasta, and flavored wine. Justin left it up to me to pick the flavor of wine. It could be blueberry, peach, strawberry, etc.--anything that specifically listed a flavor on the label was fine. I decided to go with an orange and peach flavored one and used it to make Orange-Honey Chicken with Asian Pasta Salad. I marinated the chicken in the wine and some of the Italian seasoning, and I also used it along with some honey to make a sauce. I coated the chicken with some panko and baked it until it was done, and then I served it with the sauce drizzled over it. For a side, I combined the tri-color pasta with some diced onion and bell pepper, as well as some Asian sesame dressing to make pasta salad. It was pretty good. I think the pasta salad was my favorite part.

For challenge 12, Justin had to use cream cheese, king cake-flavored vodka, chai powder, and frozen waffles. He turned that into Boozy Ice Cream with Chai Topping and Waffle Chips. He used the vodka in some ice cream, like in the Boozy Wedding Cake Ice Cream recipe, and he combined the cream cheese with some pudding mix and the chai powder to make a topping with a consistency that was somewhere between pudding and mousse. Just before serving, he toasted the waffles and cut them into quarters to use for dipping into the dessert. It was tasty, and the mixture of the warm waffles with the cold ice cream was really nice.

That's enough about those though. On to today's challenge! Justin gave me boxed macaroni and cheese, ranch seasoning, pork sausage patties, and frozen broccoli to use. I combined those to make a macaroni and cheese pot pie. In the end, I think it could've been a little saucier--it was definitely more on the dry side--but otherwise the flavors were good. You could just make an extra 1/2 recipe of the sauce (minus the extra cheese) or even just add a bit more milk so that it thins out a bit, and that would probably take care of it. If you like your sauce on the thicker side though, try it as is.

Chocolate Hazelnut Muffins

For my last batch of muffins in February, I decided to go all out and make something chocolatey, which I had been avoiding for most of the month because it's much harder to feign eating a healthy breakfast with a chocolate muffin stuffed in your mouth. These muffins have chocolate and hazelnuts in them, as well as a dollop of Nutella inside which is melty and extra delicious if you eat these muffins when they're still warm. (Full disclosure, I actually used Korger's brand of Nutella because they have a crunchy version that has little bits of hazelnut in it, too. You can use whatever kind you prefer though.)

Chopped Challenge #10: Choripollo Flatbread Sandwiches

For our tenth Chopped challenge I gave Justin Pillsbury pizza dough, chorizo, chives, and mashed potato flakes. One of our favorite Mexican restaurants near our last apartment in Indiana had choripollo on their menu, which was a mixture of chicken, chorizo, and cheese sauce. It was really delicious, and you just tossed it onto a tortilla with rice, beans, etc. or inhaled it straight from the plate. Originally Justin was going to attempt to make some sort of choripollo empanadas, but he ended up just turning his idea into more of a sandwich instead, using the pizza dough as the bread and putting the cheese sauce on the side for dipping. The flavor was really good, and I would definitely have him make these for dinner again sometime.

Cinnamon Donut Muffins

Have you ever had those little, pre-packaged, cinnamon-coated donuts? These muffins taste a lot like those except more awesome because they're homemade. I used to make them at the coffee shop all the time, and it was always hard to sell them to customers rather than eating them myself. They're that delicious. The secret to these muffins is butter. You dip them in butter and then roll them in a cinnamon-sugar mixture. Not only does this make the cinnamon-sugar actually stick to the outside of the muffins, it gives them a bit of extra moisture and a ton of extra richness. If you're looking to save on calories, you can just dip the tops in butter instead, though believe me, you'll be missing out on the extreme deliciousness of a fully-coated muffin.

King Cake

Happy Mardi Gras! Being from New Orleans, this is one of my favorite times of year, though it's always a little sad when I don't get to go home for it. To make up for it though, I always bake a couple king cakes throughout the season. The Mardi Gras season officially starts on Epiphany, which is January 6, and lasts until the day before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. (In case you don't know, Ash Wednseday is always 46 days before Easter, which traditionally falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. It's complicated, I know.) Depending on when that is, Mardi Gras day can fall anywhere from February 3 to March 9, giving me anywhere from just under a month to just over 2 months to bake king cakes to my heart's content.

At this point you might be asking yourself, "What is a king cake anyway?" Well, dear reader, a king cake is traditionally served during the Mardi Gras season--in case you hadn't figured that much out already. It's not really a cake per se; it's actually much more bread-like. Flavorwise, it's a bit like a giant cinnamon roll, though don't let anyone fool you into thinking that it is just a giant cinnamon roll because it's not. The differences are subtle, yes, but it's still not a cinnamon roll. A plastic baby is also placed inside the cake, and finding it in your piece is good luck (and symbolizes the wise men finding baby Jesus in the manger). Typically when we would have Mardi Gras parties in school and such, whoever finds the baby also brings in the next king cake, in which case you may not feel it's so luck after all. Also, take it from the voice of experience here, when you go to cut the cake, try to remember where you put the baby so that you don't cut it in half. Nobody likes finding half a baby in their cake.

Tea & Honey Muffins

This year Justin and I decided that instead of making New Year's resolutions that we had try to keep for the whole year, we would make monthly resolutions and try to stick to them for 30 days at a time. Then the next month we'd make a new resolution, continuing this throughout the year. I decided to take it a step further and make three resolutions each month--one food, one fitness, and one personal. My food resolution for February is that I will eat breakfast every day. Too often I have a habit of waking up, jumping on the compuer and killing a few hours, and then discovering that it's lunchtime and I've yet to eat anything. For these 28 days, I'm trying to be very cognizant of that and make sure that I have some form of breakfast each and every morning, even if that's just a big cup of hot chocolate; I just need to have some kind of caloric intake to start out the day.

My go-to breakfast is usually a bowl of cereal. I decided to try to change it up this month and try out some new recipes, as well as making some old favorites. One of my favorite breakfast options is homemade muffins. They're incredibly versatile and can be as healthy (or not) as you want them to be. A basic muffin recipe also lends itself well to the addition of a variety of mix-ins and flavorings. For these particular muffins, I've adapted a basic recipe from King Arthur Flour. Some muffin recipes come out too light, crumbly, and cupcake-y for my taste, but these are much more dense and hearty like a good muffing should be. Any strongly brewed black tea will work here. I used some of my favorite tea--an apricot-flavored blend of Ceylon and Darjeeling--that we had at the coffee shop where I worked, but plain black tea from Luzianne or Lipton or something would be just as good. Tea isn't known for giving a very strong flavor to baked goods, so the stronger the brew the better.

Chopped Challenge #9: Steak Chili-Smothered Tater Tots

For Chopped challenge #9, Justin gave me tater tots, chili powder, pearl onions, and beef jerky. I decided to make a steak chili served over tater tots. It was really quite tasty, and I think it's something I would definitely make again sometime, though I could really take or leave the beef jerky. It's used here sort of like bacon bits and would be wholly unnecessary if it hadn't been one of my required ingredients. It tastes good, but it just really wasn't needed.

Chopped Challenge #8: Pulled Pork Sliders with Macaroni and Cheese

Even though I wasn't writing any blog posts during the holidays, Justin and I were still trucking along with our Chopped challenges. Over the next week or two, I'll try to catch up on the posts for the ones we did during that time. We'll start with my challenge to Justin to use Hawaiian sweet bread (one of my favorite foods), steak sauce, mushrooms, and condensed cheese soup.

Chocolate-Marshmallow Whoopie Pies

What exactly is a whoopie pie? Is it a cake? Is it a cookie? Does it really matter? It's delicious, whatever you consider it. I used to make these all the time when I worked at the coffee shop, and the older customers especially would snatch them up, saying that they tasted like childhood. I think that's a pretty apt description no matter who you are. These whoopie pies have a simple, classic taste that almost has the flavor of a homemade Oreo, though the texture is quite different.

Bang Bang Shrimp

I should preface this post by saying that I have never eaten at Bonefish Grill, where this is apparently a menu item. Our favorite local restaurant has an appetizer called Boom Boom Shrimp for which the menu description only says "You know the story. We stole it and made it better." Having heard a few times just how great these shrimp were, we decided to try them, even though we really didn't know what to expect at all. We were quite pleasantly surprised at what we received, fried shrimp coated in a sweet, creamy, rich sauce with a lot of Asian zing to it. When we asked what the "story" was behind them, that's when the owner told us that he improved upon the Bang Bang Shrimp from Bonefish Grill. I had no idea what ingredients the original recipe would include, much less this modified version, but I knew I wanted to try to make it at home because it was extra tasty.

Pancetta and Mushroom Quiche

I love eggs. If we go out to breakfast, it's hard for me to resist getting an omelet or frittata or scramble of some sort. When I was a kid we used to go out for big, family brunches on Sunday at the buffet at a local casino, and the first thing I would do was head straight for the omelet making station, every single time. Breakfast is one of my favorite dinners. I seriously just love eggs.

Another thing I love is pie crust, though Justin thinks that that love is unnatural. I think if he could have pie without the crust, he'd be all for it. I on the other hand want it surrounded by crust--bottom, sides, and top. I'll take the extra bits that stick up off of his pieces of pie. Pie crust is flaky and delicious. I don't know what his problem is.

Naturally, these things combine to mean that I really, really love quiche. It's basically a frittata in a pie crust, and what's not to love about that? According to Justin, everything apparently. He likes eggs, but he doesn't like it when they're baked. He's weird like that. Therefore, quiche is one of those things I only get to make when he's not around. This was my first time trying this particular combo, and it's definitely a winner. If you are cheap--like I am most of the time--you could just get regular bacon instead of pancetta, but where's the fun in that?

Mushroom Soup

Mushrooms are another one of those things that I really love but that Justin could really live without. He'll eat them in various recipes if they're chopped up pretty small, but he definitely doesn't want to eat soup based entirely around them. I knew that this was something I wanted to make while he's out of town, and I was not disappointed.

I've only tried making mushroom soup once before, and I didn't love it. It wasn't creamy enough or mushroom-y enough for me. This one was much better. It would make a good first course, but I just ate it as dinner along with some crusty bread. I still think it would be even better with a few additions; my favorite mushroom soup ever was one we had at the coffee shop where I worked which was made with brie and madeira wine, so I think next time I'll try adding those and see how it comes out. However, if you just want a basic, tasty, creamy mushroom soup recipe, this is it.

French Onion Soup Pizza

Let me start by apologizing for the lack of posts in the last two months or so. I wasn't really cooking as much as usual, and when I did cook, I wasn't really making a lot of interesting, fun things. I did save up a few recipes during that time though, so I have quite a few lined up to post now. Things should hopefully be back to what might be considered normal. So with that said, let's get to it...

Justin's in California right now for a conference. As much as I miss him when he's gone, I do always look forward to planning my solo meals. There are things that I love that he just can't seem to get behind, so when he's not here, I make as many of them as I can.