First Time Using Crock Pot = Success!: Sesame Chicken Wings

Ok before all of you question the idea of using a crock pot to make chicken wings, lets just

take some time out to admire the beauty of these wings and their sauce..and the beauty of crock

pots for that matter. Chicken wings are traditionally made by deep frying the chicken first and then adding the sauce and toppings you please. These babies on the other hand, are bathed in a mixture of hoisin sauce, soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic powder, and ginger. Then at the end they are topped off with some crunchy and nutty sesame seeds. For one, adding these to the crockpot makes them amazing for two reasons: 1. these chicken wings are much healthier than the fried alternative. 2. they are slow cooked, which gives great time to seal the flavors in and make the chicken tender. When I made these last Friday, I had all the ingredients besides the chicken so this recipe was rather inexpensive to make. Also, letting the slow cooker cook em up was great because I was able to focus on completing my project. From time to time, I tossed the wings in the sauce for an even coating.

From: Food.com

Ingredients:

3 lbs chicken wings, wing tips removed

1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar

1 cup soy sauce

1 tablespoons hoisin sauce

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1 tablespoon chopped parsley ( optional garnish)

sesame seeds (ADD THESE ON TOP!)

Steps: Have wet and dry ingredients measured out in small, separate bowls. MICE EN PLACE!

1. Place chicken wings in a slow cooker.

2. Combine all of the following ingredients except sesame seeds.

3. Stir in the sauce with chicken wings. Try your best to coat evenly.

 

4. Plug your crock pot and cover. Cook for 3 hours.

5. Remove wings and sauce and place in a large baking dish.

5. Bake or broil 5-10 mins until the wings caramelize a bit.

6. Top with sesame seeds and devour!

Serves 6

Where I've Been This Whole Month

Many of you may have been wondering why I haven't been posting as much as I used to..

    Well, the truth is I have really been busy! Although I am not at my job anymore (long story), I have   gotten quite tied up with my 15 credits worth of classes and trying to spend as much time with the love of my life who recently left for Puerto Rico. When I am not doing either of those things I am either in class for up to 9 hours ( in total) or trying to stay in shape. Oops, I can't forget I have been playing and loving my (sort of ) new cat Peanut.  Don't worry I still LOVE cooking and baking as much as I did when I started this blog. SCRATCH THAT! I love baking and cooking even more now, and I have improved greatly since starting Culinary college. Blogging is not an easy task because there are many pictures to upload and things to write.  In my opinion, those are the two main components of a great blog. In a few moments I will be posting a recipe of Sesame Chicken Wings I made last weekend. Stay tuned for a food review soon as well. There is a plethora of recipes from school and other blogs I am dying to try. I can't wait to share them with you! :)

Just Something I Threw Together: Fiesta Shrimp Salad

There is nothing like a big healthy salad! Now a days, there are so many choices

of salads to buy and make, you would have enough salad for life. Many

fast food chains (McDonalds) and modified quick serve ( Panera) offer salad

as a main meal. The salads can range from a modest 390 calories to a whopping 650 calories ( Panera's  Chicken Cobb Salad) Now, the salad itself without dressing has 430 calories. Not bad. But, pretty much everyone I know likes dressing on their salad! I, myself, am rather conservative with the amount of salad dressing I put on my salad.   

 

Panera's Chicken Cobb Salad clocks in at 650 calories! Don't let the healthy

appearance fool you. Courtesy of (Panerabread.com)

Premium Chicken Bacon Ranch Salad has 390 calories, and that's without dressing. Still this salad is under 600 calories, which is good for a main meal.

I like making my own salads because I know exactly what goes in them. If I really wanted to I could figure out the nutrition facts for my salad. This recipe doesn't have exact measurements, I just added as much as I thought was necessary to get a bite of everything. Who wouldn't want layers of crispy lettuce, creamy avocado, lime infused shrimp, corn, and flavorful black beans?! In addition I made a lime vinaigrette using lime juice, oil, and some spices. The recipe I found for this said to use 1/4 cup of dressing, I found that to be too much. In fact, I would probably skip the dressing and just squirt some fresh lime juice on!

 Ingredients:

1 small box/bag of mixed greens

1 small bag of frozen shrimp (fresh is good too)

1 can of Green Giant Fiesta Corn ( corn with red peppers)

1 avocado, diced

3/4-1 can black beans, drained and seasoned

1 1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, halved

2-3 tbsp butter

3-4 tbsp lime juice

salt

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 tsp red pepper

Steps: Have avocado diced, shrimp defrosted (if frozen) and tomatoes halved.MICE EN PLACE!

1. Heat a large, non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add butter, lime juice, cumin, red pepper to the pan. 

Add frozen shrimp.

2. Cook until sauce has evaporated a bit and shrimp is tender, about 10 mins.

3. Assemble salad in the following order:

lettuce

shrimp

corn 

avocado

tomatoes 

beans

4. Squirt with additional lime juice.

5. Toss salad

6. DEVOUR

 Serving Size: 2-3 large entree salads

New Year's Eve Dessert ( for the win): Churro Cupcakes

Adapted from: Lady Behind The Curtain

This years New Year's Eve was one of the best NYE celebrations to date. I celebrated

with the love of my life and his mother. Obviously that is not many people, but it was amazing quality time with both of them. We were supposed to be with my boyfriends family members, but they cancelled and celebrated at a home much farther away. I didn't know that before I made the cupcakes so I made exactly 14 cupcakes because including me that's how many people would be there. I made these after coming home from work and I am proud of how they turned out. I dug out my piping bag and went to work. These were pretty simple to make ( even after 8:00) and scrumptious! The addition of cake flour and buttermilk ( my secret) makes them even better. The cake is slightly sweet and very tender. The cinnamon sugar topping makes a nice contrast with the cake and cream cheese icing. I did not use the cream cheese icing recipe because I did not feel like washing extra dishes at night (lazy me). Canned is fine if you are dolloping on a little bit as I did. As a last note, I made half of this recipe, but I will give the full amounts ,which makes 28 cupcakes.

      Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups cake flour

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

    1/2 tsp salt

  1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

2 sticks unsalted butter ( at room temp)

1 3/4 cup sugar

4 large eggs ( at room temp)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

* milk ( 1 cup buttermilk , 1/4 cup regular milk)

Cinnamon Topping

4 tablespoon melted butter

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon.

Steps: Have your eggs and butter at room temp. Have flours and other dry ingredients measured! 

MICE EN PLACE.

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Whisk both flours,baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a bowl.

3.Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.

3. Add eggs in one at a time. Scrape the bowl as needed with a rubber scraper.

4.Add flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with the milk.

5.Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full until all the batter is used.

6. Bake for 20 minutes until cake is set.

7. Cool cupcakes ( I cooled them on the window sill) ;)

8. Brush with melted butter and dip each cupcake in the cinnamon sugar mix.

9. Pipe out small dollops of frosting with a piping bag.

These are some of the BEST  cupcakes I've ever had. They surpass Crumbs and other bakeries.

                                                     

Thanksgiving Dessert: Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake

Thanksgiving seems to be one of the more complicated holidays. I find

that most people like turkey, but not everyone agrees on the sides and desserts.

This year, my family had a very nice and delicious menu for thanksgiving. It consisted of

: turkey

gravy

mashed sweet potatoes

regular mashed potatoes

homemade veg. stuffing

bread

green beans 

cranberry sauce

red wine :)

shrimp w/ cucumber appetizer

cheese and crackers

nuts and chex mix

kielbasa

lemon tart

CINNAMON COFFEE CAKE

It seems like alot of food, but as of December 2 most of it is gone. It was quite the successful thanksgiving it was! I made this coffee cake for my aunt because she wanted to eat lighter this holiday. Plus, we celebrated her birthday (Dec 1) that day. I was in charge of making her cake. No problem. This is not your traditional New York/ NJ ,overly sweet, crumbly coffee cake. This is a more sophisticated cake. It is not overly sweet, yet it has the wonderful taste and aroma of cinnamon every coffee cake should have. It's weird, some people actually think coffee cake has coffee in it . Silly gooses.. This recipe, unlike most of mine is not from a blog. It is from an old baking book called the Cake Bible. I think people who are over 40 will know what I'm talking about (since the book is from the 80's. A great and talented chef at my college knew of it so I guess I chose the right source for my recipe. Not like I don't like blogs or anything LOL. 

From: The Cake Bible! (cookbook)

Ingredients: Streusel Topping and Filling

1/3 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp granulated sugar

1 cup walnuts or pecans

1 1/2 tsp good quality cinnamon

1/2 cup cake flour

4 tbsp butter, softened

1/2 tsp vanilla

Batter

4 large egg yolks

2/3 cup sour cream

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

2 cups unsifted cake flour

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

12 tablespoons butter, softened

Steps: Have measuring cups ready, oven preheated, mixing bowls, and electric mixer handy. Mice en place!

Preheat oven to 350.

1. To make the streusel and filling, process sugars, nuts, and cinnamon until the nuts are coarsely chopped. * Reserve 3/4 for the filling.*

2. To the remainder, add the flour, butter, and vanilla, and pulse briefly to create a coarse, crumbly mixture for the topping.

TIME TO MAKE THE BATTER

1. In a mixing bowl, combine egg yolks, 1/4 of the sour cream and vanilla.

2. In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients and mix on low speed for

30 seconds. Add the butter and remaining sour cream. Mix on low speed until

the dry ingredients are moistened. Increase to high speed ( if using a stand mixer switch to medium)

and beat for 1 1/2 minutes. Scrape down the sides as you go.

3. Incorporate the egg mixture in 3 batches.

               

^ This is what it should look like after everything is incorporated. Nice and fluffy!

4. Reserve 1/3 of the batter and scrape down the remainder into a prepared pan.

Try to smooth the batter as much as you can so the cake bakes evenly.

5. Sprinkle the streusel filling and spread over the top of 

prepared batter.

6. Add spoonfulls of the reserved batter over the top of the streusel.

7. Spread the mounds of batter over the streusel topping. This may be tedious to do,but do your best.

It's worth it, I promise.

^ See I did it!

8. Sprinkle with remaining streusel topping made earlier.

9. Bake at 350 for 55 to 65 minutes. Cover loosely with buttered foil after 45 minutes to prevent 

overbrowning.

Serves 8-10

It makes a great birthday cake for anyone who isn't into 

those overly frosted and sweet birthday cakes. You know what 

I'm talking about.

Try This For Breakfast: Dutch Puff Pancake!

From:WholeFoods Market site

Look how puffy it is!! Look at it! So it's that time of the year again. My brother has come back

from college for his first fall break. My mother made him all his dinner favorites such as pasta with meat sauce and steak. Now I wanted it to be my turn to make something special. It seems he doesn't eat anything exciting at his dorm for breakfast because he is far from the dining hall. That means he just has boxed cereal almost every day. BORING! I researched through my recipes for a great breakfast recipe and I remembered that I have been meaning to make this. I'm not sure why they call this a Dutch "pancake". I'm not sure what it looks like, but it tastes good too. It reminds me of  a very light,crispy, and eggy version of a pancake. It is delicious nonetheless. I served this with some homemade cinnamon apples.Feel free to fill it with whatever you like, though.  This is a quick recipe to make, do not be discouraged by the looks of it.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp butter/margarine

1/2 cup flour

1/4 tsp salt

4 eggs

a pinch of vanilla

* Cinnamon Apples ( you can fill it with anything you want)

Steps: Have butter melted and eggs beaten : MICE EN PLACE. There's not much to say since this is an easy recipe. :)

1.Preheat oven to 425. Grease a 8 in pie pan with spray or butter, set aside.

2. Melt butter over low heat and place in a small bowl.

3. Place eggs, flour, milk, and vanilla in a blender.

4. Blend until smooth and lumps are no longer visible.

5. Pour mixture in the greased pie pan.

6.Bake for 25 minutes, or until pancake is puffed and golden brown.

7. Top with your desired filling and cut into slices.

^ Isn't it pretty?!

Crisp on the outside, light and soft on the inside.YUM. 

 

Serving Size: 4-5 people

Did Someone Say French Toast?!: French Toast Flavored Protein Shake

From: The Dashing Dish

I promise this will be one of the last healthy recipes.. JUST KIDDING. Last weekend my parents went on vacation, so I had the house to myself. Most would think I would cook up a storm , but I wanted to focus on getting a lot of homework and exercise completed. I mean who wouldn't take advantage of being alone. You don't have to tell anyone you are going out/ won't have anyone distracting you. Sorry that was an ADD moment right there.. back to the protein shake! I've made quite a few of these shakes over the past week, this one was pretty damn tasty. It does not taste exactly like French toast but it has a fresh maple and brown sugar flavor. I especially enjoyed this recipe because the cottage cheese was muted out more than the previous shakes I have made.I know putting cottage cheese in a shake scares most of you, but I assure y'all it makes the shake more "shake like". As a final note, I suggest making this for breakfast or a snack because it will not keep you full during lunch.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup cottage cheese

1 scoop vanilla protein powder(Designer Whey)

2-3 tsp sugar free/regular maple syrup

3-4 tsp stevia

3/4 cup water

6 ice cubes

 

Steps:

1. Blend everything together until desired consistency is reached. Top with whipped cream or cinnamon!