Tortellini with Pork and Broccoli

In the mood for pasta but want something other than marinara or cream sauce? This was one of those recipes that I made up because I made pork carnitas on Saturday and didnt want another pork taco for dinner but also didnt want to make something new since it was 7 pm and I had just gotten home from work and the pork was in the fridge. Although I really liked the flavors, if I make this again, I will make it with pork chops or medallians instead of shredded pork. The texture with the shredded pork is a little off.

Tortellini with Pork and Broccoli

1/2 pound cooked pork (I recommend cooking thin pork chops in a little garlic and olive oil with salt and pepper and cut into bite size pieces and it will work perfectly)

1 package refrigerated 3-cheese tortellini (I used whole wheat)

1 T olive oil

1/4 cup chicken stock

1/4 cup parmesian-asiago salad dressing (I used Kraft Reduced Fat)

1 T butter

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 broccoli crown, chopped into pieces

1 tsp salt

1 tsp garlic powder

Parmesan Cheese

Boil water for tortellini and cook per package directions. Steam broccoli sprinkled with 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp garlic powder for about 5 minutes until tender. Add olive oild to a large skillet over medium high heat. Add minced garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes. Add chicken stock and dressing and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and add butter and stir to combine. Add pork and stir to combine. Add broccoli and tortellini and stir gently until well mixed. Remove from heat and sprinkle with parmesan cheese if desired.

Butternut Squash Salad

I've had a butternut squash in my fridge for a week now, debating what to use it for. I've never cooked it before and wasn't sure if we would like it, so every time I thought of a use for it, I would end up making a tried and true recipe and forget the experimentation. Well yesterday we had plenty of pork carnitas in the fridge as a back up plan just in case the squash didnt work out but I shouldn't have worried. It was delicious. Butternut squash just tastes like fall food should, so warm and sweet and good.

Sorry for the dark picture, this is what happens when daylight ends at 5 pm now.

Butternut Squash Salad

Inspired by Bridget at The Way the Cookie Crumbles

Serves 4

1 medium butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and diced into bite-size chunks
3 T brown sugar
4 T olive oil, divided
1 T coarsely ground salt
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp ground mustard
6 cups baby spinach
1/4 cup dried cranberries (Craisins)
1/4 cup pecans, chopped
1/4 cup feta cheese, crumbled
1/4 cup apple cider
2 tsp dijon mustard
S&P

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with aluminum foil. Toss squash with brown sugar, 2 T olive oil, salt, ground mustard, and chili powder until evenly distributed and spread in a single layer on the cookie sheet. Bake for about 20 minutes, add cranberries and pecans to pan. Continue baking about 5 more minutes.

Mix together apple cider and dijon mustard, slowly stream in remaining 2 T olive oil, whisking continuously. Add salt and pepper to taste. Spoon squash, cranberries and pecans over spinach and top with feta cheese and add dressing as desired.

Baileys + Cupcakes = Good

I finally made the Irish Car Bomb cupcakes (or Guinness and Bailey's Irish Cream Cupcakes to be PC) from Annie's Eats for tailgating yesterday. So good - I only made a half batch since we only had 6 people but I probably wouldnt have had leftovers if I had made the full batch. Definitely a recipe I'll be making again in the future. The recipe below has my slight adaptations.


Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes
Recipe from Annie's Eats and Smitten Kitchen
Makes 24 cupcakes

Chocolate Cupcakes

1 cup stout beer (I used Smithwick's Irish Ale because the hubs doesnt like Guinness and I didnt want to buy a 6 pack of something he wouldnt at least like)
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare muffin pans by either lining with paper liners or buttering and flouring each cup. Combine beer and butter in a saucepan over medium heat and cook until melted, whisk in the cocoa powder until smooth and remove from heat. Let cool for a few minutes so you dont cook your eggs when you add it to the mix. In a mixing bowl, combine eggs and sour cream and beat until well combined. Add beer mixture and beat just until combined. Mix in the flour, sugar, soda and salt on low speed just until combined. Pour into muffin tins, filling each cup about 2/3 of the way full. (I like to add my batter to a large ziploc bag and snip off the corner and pipe into the muffin tins to make the process easier and less messy.) Bake about 15-17 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. After cooling about 10 minutes, remove from muffin tins and cool completely on a wire rack.

Bailey's Chocolate Ganache

2/3 cup heavy cream
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped
2 T butter
2 tsp Bailey's Irish Cream liquor

In a microwave safe bowl or at least 2 cup measuring cup, heat heavy cream in the microwave for 30 second intervals until hot (mine took a little less than 1 min). Add chocolate and let sit for approx. 1 min until melted. Stir to combine, if necessary microwave for a few more seconds until smooth. Add butter and stir until melted and combined. Add Baileys and stir. Place in the refrigerator to cool, stirring occasionally until mixture is thickened enough to pipe into cupcakes (about 45 min to 1 hour). Cut a cone shaped pocket into the top of each cupcake to make space for the ganache filling. Fill a piping bag fitted with a wide tip (I used Wilton #12) or ziploc with corner snipped with the ganache and pipe into the center of each cupcake. (I covered and refrigerated overnight to continue to thicken the ganache and because I did the frosting the next morning.)

Bailey's Buttercream Frosting

1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tsp meringue powder
3-4 cups powdered sugar
4 T Baileys
1-2 T milk

Cream butter in a mixing bowl for 2-3 minutes until creamy and smooth. Add Bailey's and mix in sugar and meringue powder just until smooth, adding milk as necessary. (You can add all Bailey's if you prefer but I thought the flavor was plenty strong with a mix.) Pipe on frosting as desired.

Pork Carnitas

These pork carnitas will give you maximum reward for minimum effort. This takes about 5 minutes of prep work and your slow cooker will do all the work. It has so much flavor, is incredibly tender and will make your whole house smell fantastic.

Pork Carnitas

(Recipe adapted from Allrecipes.com)

1 pork shoulder roast, 6-8 pounds

2 T chili powder

2 T ground cumin

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 T coarsely ground salt

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 cups apple cider

1 cup chicken stock

Put pork roast into a crock pot, you can cut it into smaller peices if necessary to make it fit. Mix spices in a small bowl and pat onto meat on top and sides. Pour cider and stock around the sides of the roast so you dont wash all the spices off the top. Cook on low for approximately 10 hours. The fat will easily pull off the top of the meat with a fork or spoon. Use 2 forks to shred the meat and remove the bone. It should just fall apart. Skim off some of the excess liquid, leaving about 1/2 - 1 cup in the crock pot and turn to warm until ready to serve. If you prefer you can also remove the roast before shredding the meat and just add about liquid as necessary to your serving dish. (I cooked mine all night and then turned it on warm about 9 am and served it about noon with no problems.)

Serve on tortillas with whatever toppings you want, I used finely diced jalepenos, red onion, and roasted red peppers with pepperjack cheese. This is also a perfect filling for enchiladas.

Note: I used a 6 qt. crock pot and a 7 1/2 pound roast. If you dont have a crock pot that big, adjust accordingly as mine was a little more than 3/4 of the way full.

Another Wilton Cake

This week was the final class of the first Wilton Cake Decorating Course. This week we learned how to complete the Wilton rose (yay I can now work at a grocery store bakery!) and leaves. I'm hoping to start Course 2 next week but as of now, I'm the only person who signed up so it will most likely be cancelled and I'll have to wait until next month. I'm having fun in the classes and really want to get farther along so hopefully its not delayed too long.

For this class we had to bring in another layer cake, so I decided to try out another new recipe. I was a little limited on the ingredients I had on hand, but I found a classic pound cake recipe in my Mark Bittman How to Cook Everything cookbook and decided to make a lemon pound cake with a lemon curd filling from Martha Stewart.

The cake came out a little dry - I think I over-beat the egg whites a little and should have added a simple syrup. I would also have liked the cake to be a little taller as the layers were quite thin even when baked in my 8" pans so next time I think I would make 1.5 times the recipe and add a 3rd layer. The lemon curd filling turned out to be fantastic and I will definitely be using this recipe again in the future.

Lemon Pound Cake

Recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything

1/2 pound unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened

2 cups (9 oz) cake flour

1 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 cup sugar

5 eggs, separated

1 tsp grated lemon zest

1 T fresh squeezed lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour pans (I used 2 8" round pans) but the traditional recipe uses a 9x5 loaf pan.

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Use an electric mixer to cream butter until its smooth. Add half the sugar and beat well. Add the remaining sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Beat in each egg yolk, individually. Mix the dry ingredients in by hand, just until smooth.

Whisk eggs whites until soft peaks form and fold into batter gently. Batter will be thick. Pour into prepared pan(s) and bake. In a loaf pan, bake about 1 1/4 hours, for 8" pans it took about 30 minutes. Remove cakes when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool about 10 minutes and then remove from pan to a wire rack to continue cooling.

Lemon Curd Filling

Recipe from Martha Stewart

3 large egg yolks

6 T sugar

Zest of 1 lemon

1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

4 T unsalted butter, cold and cut into small pieces

Prepare an ice bath by filling a large bowl with ice and setting a smaller bowl inside.

Combine egg yolks, sugar, lemon zest and juice in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon until mixture is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon (about 7-10 minutes).

Remove sauce from the heat and add in butter, piece by piece, stirring with a wooden spoon until each addition is incorporated. Strain finished mixture through a fine sieve into chilled bowl. Stir occasionally until mixture is cooled, about 7-10 minutes. Cover with a sheet of plastic wrap placed directly on top of mixture to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate at least one hour.

After mixture is cooled, level cakes and brush off any crumbs with a pastry brush. Smooth on lemon curd with a spatula, leaving a 1/2" space around the outside edge empty. Top with 2nd layer and frost as desired. I used the Wilton buttercream recipe again which can be found here.

Chicken Skewers with Peanut Dipping Sauce

Another quick and easy appetizer recipe that's perfect for a low maintenance party.

Chicken skewers with Peanut Dipping Sauce

Adapted from Martha Stewart

1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1/2 cup apricot preserves, divided

4 T soy sauce, divided

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 tsp ground mustard

3 T olive oil

2 T apple cider vinegar

1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

Juice of 1 lime

Salt and pepper

Cut chicken lengthwise into 1/2" thick strips and place in a gallon size plastic bag. Add 1/4 cup preserves, 2 T soy sauce, garlic, mustard, oil, and vinegar. Marinate for at least 1 hour in the refrigerator. When marinated, preheat grill and thread chicken onto skewers. (If using wooden skewers, soak them in water at least 30 minutes prior to skewering chicken.) Grill approximately 2 minutes on each side.

Prepare dipping sauce by combining peanut butter, remaining apricot preserves, remaining soy sauce, lime juice and crushed red pepper flakes in the food processor. Combine until smooth.

Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake

In the spirit of Saturday football parties, I decided to put some of my new cake decorating skills to use. I picked up a cute football helmet pan at Michaels with a 40% off coupon and thought I would try to impress the hubs by making him a Louisville cake. I think it came out pretty well for my first attempt.

I was able to trace a picture of logo onto parchment paper with piping gel and then transferred it to the cake to fill in.

The cake was actually a little too much batter for the pan so it overflowed in a couple places and was a little undercooked in the center. But it tasted good and it looked cute.

Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake

2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and use shortening to grease pan (use 2 9" pans, 9"x13" pan or specialty pan if desired) and dust with approx. 2 T flour. Combine sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in bowl of mixer. Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla, beat 2 minutes on medium speed. Stir in boiling water, mix to combine and pour into prepared pan(s). Bake 30-35 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (Increase baking time as necessary for single pan cakes.) Cool for approx. 15 minutes and remove from pan. Continue cooling on wire racks until completely cool and frost as desired.

Stuffed Mushrooms

These little mushrooms were a big hit yesterday. They were gone in about 10 minutes!

Stuffed Mushrooms

Recipe adapted from The Way the Cookie Crumbles

1 pkg white button mushrooms (approx 25-30)

1 T olive oil

3 shallots, finely diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/3 cup Italian bread crumbs

5-6 sun dried tomatos, packed in oil, chopped, reserve 1 tsp of soaking oil

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

1 egg yolk

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried parsley

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remove stems from mushrooms and place caps face down on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for approx. 10 minutes. Meanwhile, chop mushroom stems and saute with olive oil, shallots and garlic in a small skillet until shallots are soft. In a small bowl, mix bread crumbs, tomatos, herbs, and most of the parmesan (reserve approx 1 T to sprinkle on top). Add mushroom mixture and egg yolk. Stir to combine. Drain off any liquid from mushrooms. Turn mushrooms over and stuff with prepared mixture. Sprinkle tops with parmesan cheese and return to oven for approx. 15 minutes.

Pigs in a Blanket

1 sheet puff pastry

1 pkg Lil' Smokies

Sharp Cheddar Cheese

1 egg

1 T water

1/2 tsp garlic powder

Flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Cut cheese into small thin slices approx. 1" x 1/4". Cut a small slice in each sausage link. Stuff cheese slices into meat. Roll out thawed puff pastry on a well floured surface to approx. 12" x 12". Cut into strips approx. 1" wide and 3" long. Roll each sausage link into a strip of puff pastry, place seam side down onto prepared baking sheet. Beat egg and mix in water and garlic powder. Brush tops of each roll. Bake approx. 15 minutes until golden brown. Serve with spicy mustard.

Hot Spinach Dip

The addition of goat cheese adds an unexpected depth of flavor to a fairly standard appetizer recipe. Add Red Hot or Tabasco to spice it up according to your preferences.

Hot Spinach Dip

1 10 oz. pkg chopped frozen spinach

1 jar roasted red peppers, drained and diced

1 pkg cream cheese, softened (I use 1/3 less fat)

1/2 red onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup mayo (I use FF)

1/4 cup sour cream (I use FF)

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

1/4 cup goat cheese

Approx 1 T Frank's Red Hot (adjust to your taste)

1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

1 tsp herbs de provence

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Saute spinach, garlic and onions in a skillet over medium high heat. When onions are soft, add red peppers. Turn off heat and add remaining ingredients. Stir until well combined. Pour mixture into an oven safe dish or 8x8 pan. Cook about 20 minutes until bubbly.

Apple Mustard Pork Chops

Such a good fall meal and quick and easy for a weeknight dinner. Todd said these were the best pork chops I've ever made! The mustard and apple flavors go together so well.

Apple Mustard Pork Chops

1 pound boneless pork chops

1 apple, diced (I used Granny Smith)

1 T butter

2 T brown sugar

1 T plus 1 tsp dijon mustard

1 egg

1/4 cup plus 1 T olive oil

1 T apple cider vinegar

1 T honey

1/4 all purpose flour

1 tsp garlic powder

salt and pepper

Cut pork chops to about 1/4 inch thick slices. Heat a large skillet over med-high heat with 1 T olive oil. Mix together egg and 1 tsp dijon mustard in a shallow bowl. Combine flour and garlic powder on a plate. Season both sides of pork chops with salt and pepper. Dip each cutlet into egg mixture and then into flour mixture and place in pan. Cook approx. 3 minutes on each side until browned. Meanwhile mix together remaining mustard, vinegar and honey and slowly whisk in olive oil to form a vinegrette. Pour over pork chops and reduce heat to low. Melt butter in a small skillet and add apples and brown sugar. Cook approx. 7-10 minutes until apples are softened and carmelized. Pour apples over pork chops and serve.

I added a side of baked sweet potatos with a little butter and brown sugar for a nice fall meal.

Wilton Class 2

We learned a few new tricks and techniques this week... star flowers, swirl flowers, shell borders, and clowns. Since I made cupcakes from a box and used the Wilton buttercream recipe (sorry its been a very busy week), I'll just leave you with a couple pictures...

Pumpkin Apple Quick Bread

Adapted from: BrannyBoilsOver

Topping:

5 T sugar

1 T all-purpose flour

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 Tbs unsalted butter, softened

Bread:

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground cloves

15 oz can solid-pack pumpkin

3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

2 cups sugar

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

2 Granny smith apples, grated

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 2 9" loaf pans. Coarsely grate 2 apples (think zucchini bread). Cream together applesauce, pumpkin, sugar and eggs. In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Add to wet ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Fold in grated apples. Pour batter evenly into prepared pans. Combine topping ingredients, working butter into mix with your fingers until crumbly. Sprinkle on top of loaves. Bake for approximately 1 hour, until a skewer or knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool for about 15 minutes and then remove from pans and finish cooling on a wire rack.

This bread is great plain or topped with a little apple butter.

Best Baked Mac and Cheese Ever

Seeing as I made this exactly as PW suggested, with the exception of subbing 2 cups 1% milk and 1/2 cup heavy cream for the 2 1/2 cups whole milk, and whole wheat shell pasta for the elbows and I'm super short on time today, I'll just give you the link to the recipe.

P.S. I promise the macaroni isnt really green, that's what happens when I take pictures in the kitchen after dark.

Easy Weeknight Paninis

Need a dinner that takes 15 minutes or less to prepare? Paninis are one of my go-to meals for busy nights when I dont feel like spending a lot of time in the kitchen but still want hot food.

Cheddar Chicken Panini with Roasted Red Pepper Spread

8 slices of French Bread (about 1/2" thick)

2 chicken breasts

1/2 jar roasted red peppers

4 slices sharp cheddar cheese

1/4 cup mayo (I used light)

1 clove garlic

1/2 tsp ground mustard

1 T olive oil

Salt and pepper

Heat a large skillet over medium high heat with olive oil. Slice chicken breasts in half horizontally and cut into 4 peices. Pound to equal thickness. Generously salt and pepper both sides and sprinkle with ground mustard. Add chicken to the pan, cooking about 3 minutes on each side until cooked through. While chicken cooks, crush and peel garlic clove, add to a food processor with red peppers and mayo. Pulse lightly until combined and mostly smooth. If you have a panini press, heat it now. Spread onto each peice of bread. Top 4 peices of bread with cheese, breaking the slices so they fit. Add cooked chicken and top with remaining bread. Place sandwiches on a panini press and cook until bread is golden and toasty (about 5 minutes).

If you dont have a panini press, you can use a grill pan with a slightly smaller heavy lid to press down the sandwiches. Alternatively if you dont want to dirty another pan, wipe out the pan for the chicken with a paper towel and use it.

Golden Layer Cake

I signed up for Wilton cake decorating classes a few weeks ago at my local Michaels. I thought it might be fun to learn some decorating tricks and tips rather than just always slathering on icing with a knife. This week was the second class in Course 1, so I actually baked a cake, frosted it and took it in to class with me to decorate. I had to make 4 different colors of icing this week in 3 different consistencies (although we didnt even use 2 colors but oh well). The first class you just sit and watch the instructor. She showed us how to prepare the icing in different consistencies and some basic piping bag techniques and skills. We learned some pretty basic decorating stuff this week, star tip patterns and zig zags, dots, and pattern transfer. Practiced writing a little bit and that was about the extent of it. The first course isn't too challenging but its nice to learn the basic tips and techniques properly from someone who has been doing it for years.
So far I have invested about $60, $25 for the class plus supplies. I bought more than I needed to because I plan to take Course 2 as well, so I bought a 50 piece decorating kit that had more tips in it, a tackle box to carry all my supplies in, a turn table, lots of piping bags, gel coloring, piping gel, meringue powder... Luckily I always have a Michael's coupon so I was able to get most everything at 40% off.
For the cake this week, I decided to experiment with a new recipe. I wanted something basic that would easily stack and mix with the buttercream frosting. The Wilton buttercream isnt exactly gourmet (or even really good) but it definitely wouldn't stand up to a really elaborate cake. I found this recipe for yellow cake in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything
and it worked out great. It was very light and tasted great. This one is going to be a go-to recipe for basic cake/cupcakes. (Sorry for the bad picture, this is the "extra" 3rd layer because I sent the decorated cake to work with Todd and forgot to tell him to take a picture when he cut into it.)

Golden Layer Cake
10 T unsalted butter, softened
9 oz (2 cups) cake flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk (I used skim)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter and flour 2 9" pans or 3 8" pans (I think in the future I will just use 2 8" pans - 3 resulted in 3 very thin cakes). In a mixing bowl, cream butter until smooth and gradually add the sugar. Beat until light, 3-4 minutes. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then the extracts. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt and add to the egg mixture by hand in parts, alternating with the milk. Stir just until smooth. Pour the batter into the prepared pans (to get your cakes to be the same thickness, divide batter evenly by putting in 1/2 cup cake batter into each pan, alternating until you've used all the batter). Bake for about 25 minutes, until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, rotating the pans in the oven so each cooks the same amount of time in each position (this will help keep them level).

Cheesy-Beer Bread

Adapted from Katie at Good Things Catered

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1/3 cup packed light brown sugar

4 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp garlic powder

1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

12 oz bottle of beer (I used Harvest Moon)

2 T unsalted butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray loaf pan with cooking spray. In a mixing bowl, combine flours, sugar, baking powder, salt, garlic powder, and cheese, stir to combine. Slowly add beer, mixing until combined. Knead dough gently until well mixed. Pour batter into prepared pan and pour melted butter over the top. Bake for 50-60 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Oktoberfest Dip

Todd loves beer and cheese so when I was thinking about what to make for our tailgate on Saturday, I decided to make a cheesy beer dip and combined the two. I had some cream cheese on hand and I found this recipe on Brown-Eyed Baker that I thought would work. My minor adaptations are below.

Oktoberfest Dip

1 pkg cream cheese (I used FF)

1 pkg shredded sharp cheddar cheese (about 2 cups)

2 T spicy brown mustard

1/3 cup Sam Adams Oktoberfest (or similar)

2 T heavy cream

2 tsp dried parsley

Blend all but the beer in a food processor until well-combined and add beer and parsley and pulse until smooth. Tastes great served with pretzels. Can be refrigerated up to 4 days.

Southwest Spicy Chili

When the weather starts to get chilly and football games become our regular Saturday entertainment, I always want chili. The hot, spicy soup is the perfect thing for a lazy Saturday or Sunday. Throw everything in the crockpot and let it cook. The longer it sits, the better it gets. (The hotter it gets too - so be careful when you're adding the spices up front!)

Southwest Spicy Chili

(Serves a whole bunch of hungry people)

3-4 cans diced tomatos

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 green bell pepper, diced

1 white onion, diced

2 cans black beans, rinsed and drained

1 cup frozen corn

1 small can tomato paste

2 lbs. ground turkey

2 jalepenos, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 small can chipotles in adobo

2 small cans green chilis

1-2 T chili powder

1-2 T ground cumin

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Cayenne pepper to taste

4 green onions, diced

1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, grated

Brown ground turkey over medium high heat with garlic. Add 1 T chili powder and 1T cumin. Drain any excess grease when browned and add to crock pot.

Meanwhile dice bell peppers and white onion. Remove ribs and seeds from jalepenos and finely dice. Add to crock pot.Add 3 cans of tomatos and beans. Stir to combine. Remove chipotles from adobo sauce and chop. Add peppers to crockpot with 2 T adobo sauce. Reserve any remaining sauce and add later if desired. Add corn, green chilis, cinnamon and tomato paste and stir to combine.

Cook on high for 2 hours. Taste for seasoning, add additional cumin and chili powder if desired. If the chili is too spicy, add remaining can of diced tomatos. Turn heat to low and continue cooking an additional 2 hours. Add additional chili powder and cayenne pepper if desired. Add shredded cheese and green onions, stir gently and serve.

I always serve mine over Fritos corn chips with a spoonful of sour cream.

NOTE: I make this in a 6 1/2 quart crock pot, you will have to adjust the quantities above if you wish to make it in anything smaller than 6 quart capacity.

Pumpkin Cheesecake (Again)

So my 2nd attempt at a pumpkin cheesecake was much more successful. The addition of real pumpkin made it so.much.better. That should have been a given, I guess.

This recipe was adapted from Joy of Baking, but the changes were minor (mostly due to what I had on hand).

Pumpkin Cheesecake
(Serves 10)

Crust:
1 1/2 cups graham crackers
2 T sugar
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
4 T butter, melted

Pulse graham crackers in a food processor until finely ground, add sugar, ginger, cinnamon and melted butter and pulse until the mixture is combined and crumbly. Press into a buttered, 9" spring form pan, using a smooth glass or measuring cup to uniformly press the crust into the bottom and sides of the pan. Refrigerate crust while you prepare the filling.

Filling:
2 packages cream cheese, room temperature (1 pound) - I used 1/3 less fat
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup pumpkin puree

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In mixing bowl, beat cream cheese on low speed until smooth (about 2 min). Slowly add the sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and salt and beat until smooth and creamy (1-2 min). Add eggs individually, beating and scraping the sides of the bowl after each addition. Add vanilla and pumpkin and beat lightly (about 30 sec). Pour the mixture over the chilled crust.

Place springform pan on a jellyroll pan in oven. Place a cake pan, filled halfway with water on the bottom shelf of the oven to moisten the air. Bake for 30 minutes, then reduce heat to 325 degrees. Continue baking for 10-20 minutes (I only did 10) until edges begin to puff but center of cheesecake is still wet and jiggles. Remove to a wire rack to cool. Run a knife gently around the edge of the pan to help prevent cracking.

Topping:
1/2 cup sour cream (I used FF)
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt (I used FF)
2 T sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
Dusting of cinnamon

Whisk topping together and pour over slightly cooled cheesecake. Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours before serving.