A "Man" Breakfast and Some Mexican For Ya...

I'm so glad it's spring, although the weather lately has been more summerish (we're talking like 80 degrees!)  It's been nice though.  I love my short sleeve tops!  But with spring comes rain, which it has been doing since yesterday.  Not too thrilled with that.  Rain makes me feel kinda blah and I don't want to do anything productive.

Yesterday morning, I made what I called a "man" breakfast.  I had eggs and leftover chili, so what do I do?  Make omelets covered with chili!  It was...different.  It took a couple of bites to get used to, but it was good.  Towards the end, I was starting to get a little sick from all the protein, but like I said, it was still good!

Over the week, I also made an awesome dinner, courtesy of Pinch of Yum's Chicken Tamale Pie recipe (recipe follows).  O.M.G. it was good, and so incredibly easy.  I bought a rotisserie chicken and shredded that for the pie.  The sweet from the corn and the savory from the meat and sauce just went so well together.

I'm going to use the picture from the website since I was too excited to eat this to take a picture.  And hers looked way better than mine anyway.

How amazing does this look!!??

I came home the other day, and saw this.

One of the animals, not sure which one, sure does love sleeping under the covers while we're gone. As you can see there's a perfect little animal tent going on there...

Chicken Tamale Pie from Pinch of Yum
Serves: 8 
Total Time:  45 minutes

Ingredients

1/3 cup fat free milk

1/4 cup egg substitute

1 1/2 tablespoon taco seasoning, divided

1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper

1 (14 3/4 ounce) can cream-style corn

1 (8.5 ounce) box corn muffin mix (such as Jiffy)

1 (4 ounce) can chopped green chiles, drained

1 (10 ounce) can red enchilada sauce

2 cups shredded cooked chicken breast

3/4 cup shredded white cheese

cilantro and crumbled Cotija cheese for topping

Instructions

-Preheat oven to 400°.

-Combine the first 7 ingredients (milk through green chiles), using just 1/2 tablespoon of the taco seasoning, in a large bowl, stirring just until moist. Pour mixture into a round pie plate coated with cooking spray.

-Bake at 400° for 15 minutes. While corn is baking, toss the chicken in the remaining 1 tablespoon taco seasoning. When corn is done, pierce entire surface liberally with a fork. Pour enchilada sauce over top. Top with chicken and sprinkle with cheese.

-Bake for 15 minutes or until cheese melts. Remove from oven; let stand 5 minutes. Cut into pieces and top each serving with cilantro and Cotija cheese.

Stay classy my friends,
Heidi

All Quiet Throughout...

The BF had a family emergency and had to fly back to Michigan for a couple of days.  Since we moved out here, he hasn't had to go anywhere overnight without me.  I had a 2 night trip a couple of years ago.  He's only gonna be gone for 2 days, but it just feels weird.  I'm not used to it.  Even the animals are acting weird.  Last night, our dog Gypsy, sensed that he was leaving.  She started the night sleeping on top of the BF, which is not normal. 

But anyway, I have the place to myself for a bit. 

Here's some stuff from the week.

1.  I made mini pizzas.  I used Pillsbury Grands! Biscuits and lined a muffin cup (I halved the biscuit dough to make a thinner crust).  Cover with pizza sauce and top with whatever pizza toppings you want and cook.  I even used some mini pepperonis.  We ate every single one...

2.  I've been growing green onions for a couple of months now.  I love those little guys...

3.  For St. Patty's, I made a Guinness cupcake, filled with a Jameson whisky ganache and topped with a Bailey's icing.  Recipe follows.  They're delicious, and it's unfortunate that I made so many, because alot of them ended up in our bellies.  And I don't recommend these if you don't like the taste of liquor, because you can taste it :)

The recipe was adapted from Smitten Kitchen.

Chocolate Whiskey and Beer Cupcakes
Makes 20 to 24 cupcakes

For the Guinness Cupcakes
1 cup Guinness
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

Ganache Filling
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate (I used semi-sweet chocolate chips)
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1-2 teaspoons Jameson Irish whiskey

Baileys Frosting
3-4 cups confections sugar
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperatue
3-4 tablespoons Baileys

For the cupcakes:

• Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners. Bring the Guinness and 1 cup butter to simmer in a heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until the mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.
• Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt in a large bowl to blend. Using an electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add the Guinness mixture to the egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add the flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using a rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined. Divide batter among cupcake liners, filling them 2/3 to 3/4 of the way. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, rotating them once front to back if your oven bakes unevenly, about 17 minutes. Cool cupcakes on a rack completely.

For the filling:

• Chop the chocolate and transfer it to a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream until simmering and pour it over the chocolate. Let it sit for one minute and then stir until smooth.  Add the butter and whiskey and stir until combined.

Fill the cupcakes:

• Let the ganache cool until thick but still soft enough to be piped.  Meanwhile, cut the centers out of the cooled cupcakes. You want to go most of the way down the cupcake but not cut through the bottom - aim for 2/3 of the way.  Put the ganache into a piping bag with a wide tip and fill the holes in each cupcake to the top.

Make the frosting:

• Whip the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, for several minutes. You want to get it very light and fluffy. Slowly add the powdered sugar, a few tablespoons at a time.
• When the frosting looks thick enough to spread, drizzle in the Baileys and whip it until combined.
• Ice and decorate the cupcakes.

Note: You can bake the cupcakes a week or two in advance and store them, well wrapped, in the freezer. You can also fill them before you freeze them.




Stay classy,

Heidi

Week Recap

-Finally e-filed my federal tax return!  That was probably the biggest thing on my to-do list, so now I can spend all time back on Pinterest and catch up on my shows.

-I've made an improvement on my running distance.  I won't tell you what exactly it is, but just trust that it's a HUGE improvement for me and I'll leave it at that.

-I'm so looking forward to daylight savings.  Although we're losing an hour, we're getting more sunlight, so I'm game.  If we could have it my way, there wouldn't even be a daylight savings.

Picture recap (with explanations at the bottom):

#1.  The BF and I just had to try the Dorito taco shell at Taco Bell.  It was better than a regular hard shell taco, but I'd much rather have the Beefy Crunch Burrito, which they discontinued in order to make room for the new taco.  Call me bummed out :(

#2.  Speaking of taco, I made turkey tacos!  And I threw in some chopped avocado for the topping.  It was fantastic and I ate enough for a family of four :(

#3.  Monkey is strangely obsessed with plastic bags, any bag really.  He gladly jumped into this one.  Sometimes I wonder about that cat...

Stay classy my friends,
Heidi

Sloppy Joe Casserole

I love sloppy joes.  I did a little twist of it earlier this week.  I adapted the recipe from a cookbook that I wish I could remember the name of, so if anyone knows, please tell me so I can give the credit deserved for this awesome recipe.

Sloppy Joe Casserole
Makes 8 servings

*The amounts of each ingredient are a good starting point, but I usually eye ball alot of it and add less or more of each depending on my taste
4 tbsp olive oil
2 chopped onions
2 cloves minced garlic
2 lbs ground beef
1c ketchup + 1c bbq sauce (the original recipe called for 2 cups of ketchup, but I prefer even amounts of both ketchup and bbq sauce)
4 tbsp molasses
1 tbsp chili powder (I had Mexican chile powder on hand)
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
*I also added a little bit of brown sugar for a sweeter overall taste.  I normally don't if the BBQ sauce already has it.)
salt and pepper, to taste (which I forgot this time and didn't even notice in the end)
2 handfuls of shredded cheese
1-2 tbsp melted butter
1 pkg premade dinner roll dough (I used a can of Pillsbury Grands!)
sesame seeds

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  In a skillet, heat the oil and saute the onions and garlic.

Add the beef and cook.  Stir in the ketchup, bbq sauce, molasses, chili powder, and Worcestershire sauce.  Season with the salt and pepper.

Simmer for about 15 minutes.  Remove from the stove and transfer to a casserole dish and sprinkle with the cheese.

Separate the dough and place on top of the cheese. Brush the rolls with some melted butter and sprinkle with the sesame seeds.  Bake uncovered until the rolls are golden brown, about 25 minutes.

Besides being incredibly easy, I love how they're not messy like traditional sloppy joes.  Even with just the BF and I, these didn't last long.  They even taste great reheated the next day.

Stay classy my friends,

Heidi