This past weekend I made one of my most favorite chocolate candies ever. 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Meltaways

Of course, I couldn’t eat them because chocolate and my pregnancy do not get along these days so I took these candies to a get-together we went to on Sunday night.  I had no problem QUICKLY unloading the candies on a bunch of single seminary guys that haven’t had a home cooked meal since they left home last month.  They devoured those meltaways like starving, ravenous wolves and with their mouths stuffed, they muddled, “THANK YOU!”

Meltaways are similar to the ever famous buckeyes I make every Christmas but with the addition of crispy rice cereal, the extra crunch is delightful!  Make them for your next party, teacher or doctor gift, or family party- just do yourself a favor and don’t make them to keep at home or you will find that all 40 candies are gone within a matter of hours and you are the only person home.  WHOOPS!  

Recipe Source:  My dear friend Beth T.

 

Ahhhhh…. I woke up this morning, walked outside onto the patio and was delighted to experience some cooler temperatures.  I went inside, grabbed a sweatshirt and my tennis shoes, and took the dog for a nice brisk walk.  Fall is all around us and I love it!

I haven’t done a whole lot of cooking this week, but I did manage to cook up some really delicious chicken pesto lasagna roll-ups last night.  Y’all know I love lasagna and I really like trying different variations of lasagna.  These roll-ups are very easy to throw together and take a lot less time to fix than the traditional pan of lasagna, especially if you use store bought (or pre-prepared) marinara and pesto sauces as well as pre-cooked chicken.

I have been plagued with pregnancy heartburn and tomatoes in any form send me into orbit these days.  This recipe was appealing to me because the lasagna rolls do not contain any red sauce but rather, you serve the rolls on a bed of marinara so you can control how much sauce you have (or, don’t have).

The original recipe serves 2-3 people so if you have a larger family or you like to take the opportunity to freeze food for later, I would recommend DOUBLING the recipe.

Recipe Source:  Sunny Side Up, original recipe by Sargento

Well, hello, hello…

Gees Louis, I’ve been a horrible blogger as of late.  Pregnancy has done crazy things to my taste buds so I have really been lacking creativity.  BUT, here I am again, attempting to get back on the horse.

Nothing motivates me to blog more than fall.  I love ALL foods that have to do with fall.  Now, I realize that as I write this, it is 90 degrees outside and there are no signs of autumn.  But my motto is “cook it and they will come,” or “IT will come.”  Fall is just around the corner and I can’t keep the pumpkin canned up any longer!

Pumpkin snickerdoodles are a great way to jump into fall!  Easy and delicious!  I was looking at Pennies on a Platter the other day and Nikki has this great recipe for these cookies.  They are fluffy, moist, sweet, and have just a slight pumpkin flavor- nothing to crazy.  After all, it’s not even October yet.

 

 

Chicken week continues!  Today is “what to do with leftover chicken” day.  Yesterday I talked about roasting a chicken and chances are you will have some chicken leftover.  If not, maybe you have some chicken breasts in the fridge that you need to cook up soon.  Either way, leftover chicken is actually a blessing in disguise because there are so many go to meals you can prepare!  One of my favorites is chicken empanadas.

Chicken empanadas are easy, fun, and a great party appetizer!  They can either be fried or baked, depending on how good or bad you wanna be.  ;-)  The recipe makes quite a bit of filling so I used half of the filling for the empanadas and then used the rest last night for quesadillas.  TWO meals in one!  SCORE!  Like yesterday, I have listed below other delicious leftover chicken ideas that you might want to try.

•  Crockpot Chicken Spaghetti
• BBQ Chicken Pizza
• Cranberry Almond Chicken Salad
• Chicken Tortilla Soup 

Recipe Source:  Libbie Summers via Paula’s Home Cooking

It’s Chicken Week here on Sweet Tea & Taters!

I get asked all the time, “what should I do with chicken?”  This week I will give you some of my most favorite, quick and easy chicken recipes!  Let’s start with a basic roasted chicken.  You might be thinking, “why would I roast a WHOLE chicken?!  That sounds complicated.”  Lemme tell you people, I roasted a chicken for the first time at age 12, BY MYSELF, and the chicken turned out so amazing.  If I can do it, you can do it!

Once you discover how incredibly easy it is to prepare a whole chicken, you will add it to your weekly meal plan!  All you have to do is put the chicken in the roasting pan, add the flavors of your choice, add vegetables if you like, and stick it in the oven.  It is SO MUCH EASIER than trying to come up with what to do with those two raw chicken breasts in the refrigerator.  (Shake n’ Bake again???)

If you have a large family, stick two chickens in at once!  I like to roast two chickens at one time anyway so that I have a lot of leftover chicken to use the rest of the week, (I’ll get to leftover chicken ideas tomorrow).  Below is one of  my favorite roasted chicken recipes (garlic and lemon roasted chicken) but I have also provided links to other delicious birds!

Roasted Chicken variations to try:

• Ina Garten’s Perfect Roast Chicken, a great basic staple recipe
• Giada’s Balsamic Vinaigrette Chicken is sweet and tangy!
• Who doesn’t love roasted garlic?  Try this Garlic Roasted Chicken 
• Add some heat and spice to your chicken with Crepes of Wrath, Mexican Roasted Chicken
• Itsy Bitsy Foodies adds a French twist using dijon mustard and herbes de provence

 

My husband and I were recently in Chicago visiting family and friends.  While we were there, we celebrated my husbands 30th birthday by going out to eat to this great restaurant called Wildfire.  It’s a delicious steakhouse but the steak wasn’t what I left remembering that night.  No, no.  What I remember about that meal was the dessert.  We had a S’more Ice Cream Pie that was to die for!

Crunchy graham cracker crust.
Silky, rich chocolate ice cream.
Dreamy marshmallow fluff.
Warm, toasted marshmallows on top.

When I got home from our trip, I was determined to replicate this awesome dessert.  Mission accomplished.

A few notes on this pie:

• I chose to make these pies in miniature quiche dishes because the bottom comes out, making it really easy to get the pie out of the mold.
• I do not recommend trying this pie in muffin tins, a large pie dish, or a cheesecake pan.  They really only work in miniature version because the marshmallows have to be toasted and unless you have a fancy, schmancy kitchen torch, you have to broil the pie.  The longer it’s in the oven, the more the ice cream will melt.  Therefore, a small pie is best.
• Before broiling the marshmallows, make sure the ice cream is frozen rock hard!  The pies need to set in the freezer for at least 4 hrs. before broiling otherwise, you will have a real mess on your hands.

 

 

Happy Monday!  Don’t you just love summer time?  Long hours of daylight to play outside, swim, eat snow cones, having cookouts with friends and enjoy the warm weather!  This past weekend we were invited to a party and I was asked to bring a salad.  Since it’s summer I decided to throw together a macaroni salad using The Pioneer Woman’s recipe.

It was light, tangy, sweet, and had a real zip!  Unlike so many other macaroni salads, it wasn’t smothered with mayonnaise and it didn’t call for celery and red onion.  I used Wickles Pickles in the salad which are AWESOME.  If you have never had Wickles, you really must try them.  They are sweet at first but then pack a punch of heat at the end!  I use them to do fried pickles and they really stand apart from the ordinary bread-and-butter pickle.

 

Last night I made a creamy, dreamy pasta dish.  The sauce was rich, flavorful, and very filling but I did NOT use cream!  That’s right!  I found this recipe in Cooking Light Magazine and at first I was skeptical of a recipe that promises a “creamy sauce” without the use of heavy cream but I tried it anyway.  The secret to getting a nice thick sauce is the combination of light cream cheese and the pasta water.

Here’s what I love about this dinner:

• The ingredients required are probably already items you have in your pantry/refrigerator.
• It takes less than 30 minutes to make!
• One serving is only 383 calories!
• Fresh herbs (in this case, basil) add so much flavor to a dish without adding calories.
• It only costs $7.47 to make the entire dish.
• You could easily add meat of your choice to make this dish a little more hearty.

 

Hey Y’all!  My sincerest apologies for being out of the blogging world for almost two months now!  I feel just awful that Sweet Tea & Taters has been gone but I have good reason…

Yep, my husband and I are so excited to announce that we have a little tater tot coming sometime around January 19th!  We are thrilled to pieces and can’t wait for this next exciting chapter in our lives!  With all that said, I have been sick, sick, sick and have pretty much hated the sight of food, much less writing about it.  I’m fourteen weeks now and my appetite is starting to slowly come back so I am attempting to get back to my blog and cook y’all some good food!

Today, I will start with one of my preggo favorites.  Strawberry Granita.  You might remember the lemon ice I made not too long ago which I have LOVED since I have been pregnant.  This strawberry ice is so refreshing and bursting with fresh fruit!  Oh, and it’s simple simon.  Seriously takes about 10 minutes to prepare but the secret to granita is the scraping.  Once you stick it in the freezer, you have to take it out every half an hour or so for about two hours and scrap it with a fork so you get that nice shaved ice effect.  If you wait till it’s frozen solid to start scraping, it’s not gonna be pretty and you better have some strong muscles!

Recipe Source:  Epicurious.com

 

Hey Y’all!  I’ve been gone for a while because I haven’t been feeling great.  Sorry to keep you all waiting but I’m back today with a real HUM-DINGER!

“Knock You Naked” Brownies.  Ok, a few notes on this recipe.
1.  I didn’t come up with the name.  That’s The Pioneer Woman’s doing.
2.  If it were up to me, I would just call these brownies, “the best darn brownies in the world.”
3.  Layers of chocolate brownies, melted caramel, chocolate chips, and then MORE chocolate brownies.  Seriously?!
4.  The song that comes to mind while eating this brownie is, “Tell Me Something Good” by Chaka Khan.  ”Tell me something good. Tell me that you like it…YEAH.”

You might be saying, “Jamie, why did you cut those brownies so small?”  Well, there’s a little thing called modesty people!  These brownies are so rich you might not be able to consume more than a couple of bites.

I like what I just did there.  I made you think I’m a conservative chocolate consumer.  But I’m SO not.  Here’s a little trick I’ve learned from years of eating chocolate… cut the dessert smaller so you are totally justified in taking seconds.  Because, you WILL take seconds.  

Recipe Source:  The Pioneer Woman Cooks Cookbook