Healthy Jalapeno Poppers!

I've just recently become a fan of jalapeno poppers, thanks to Buffalo Wild Wings who had a great appetizer this fall.  These little babies are much healthier, which makes them even more amazing!  If you haven't discovered wonton wrappers in the produce section of the grocery store, you're missing out.  These little squares make great little pockets and bake up nicely in muffin tins for little cups (I'll be sharing a recipe for this!).  They have the wonton wrappers and then they have the egg roll wrappers (larger squares)..which are good for making chimichangas (I'll get to that recipe later too!).  I got mine from Walmart, they're by the salad mixes and salsas in the produce chiller.  This is another little treat you're going to want to take to parties...everyone will love them!

 First you'll need to soften cream cheese by letting it come to room temperature.  When that's ready you can then dice some jalapenos.  I just bought a jar of jalapeno slices and diced them up, but if you make this in the summer you could use some fresh jalapenos.

Then sprinkle in some bacon pieces (everything's better with bacon, right?!) and shredded cheddar cheese.  Mixing time, since the cream cheese is soft, you can just use a spatula.  If after mixing, you notice you don't see a speck of each thing added to the cream cheese, then add some more!

Here's your popper filling!  Ok, so I kind of had both hands busy while putting these little things together, so I didn't get a picture of the wonton filling process, oops!  But it's super simple.  I used a regular spoon and got a scoop of the mixture that was about half of the spoon, then dolloped it in the middle of the wonton square.  (Have a cup of water near by so you can easily seal the wonton and move on to the next.)  Dip you're finger in water and get two of the edges, connected by a corner, wet.  Then fold the opposite corner over and press edges together, making a little triangle.  After you've used all your filling, place poppers on a sprayed cookie sheet.  To get a crisp, golden brown top, give a quite spray of cooking spray to the tops of the poppers.

Heat oven to 375 and bake for 15 minutes.

I served mine with sweet and sour sauce that you can get in the Asian food section at Walmart.

Since their baked and not fried, you can enjoy a few more with out all the grease!  I bet you can't eat just one!

Jalapeno Poppers

   16 Wonton wrappers

   4 oz cream cheese, softened (I used the reduced fat kind)

   1 1/2 Tbsp jalapenos, finely chopped (I didn't use an exact measurement)

   1 Tbsp bacon bits (again, I didn't use a measurement, just sprinkled some in)

   1/4 c shredded cheese (approximate)

   Sweet and Sour sauce

1.  Preheat oven to 375.  Spray cookie sheet with cooking spray.

2.  Mix cream cheese, jalapenos, cheese and bacon together.

3.  Place Tbsp of mixture in wonton wrapper.  Dip fingertip in water and wet 2 edges of the wrapper, fold over to form a triangle and press to seal.

4.  Spray lightly with cooking spray for crispy golden brown.

5.  Bake for 15 minutes.

6.  Serve with sweet and sour sauce and ENJOY!!!

Thanks to Pinching Your Pennies for this delicious little snack!  The recipe you'll find on the linked site is a smaller portion than mine, but I was making mine for a party.

Happy baking!

Frito Pie

Thoughts on Sunday lunch....it should be simple, quick and still have a lot of flavor.  This recipe may be the easiest Sunday lunch I've ever made...seriously.

Here's just how simple it really is...3 ingredients.

I didn't take any pictures during the building process, but here it is.

S-I-M-P-L-E.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Dump Frito corn chips in 9x13 pan.  Spoon dollops of chili on top of the fritos (dollops beside one another will give you complete chili coverage, because spreading is impossible).  Sprinkle cheese on top of chili.  Put in oven for 20 minutes.

Done!

The recipe calls for 3 cans of chili, but 2 seemed to be enough.  After dishing it out, we topped it off with sour cream.  This easy dish received great reviews from everyone.

Frito Pie

   1 bag of Frito corn chips

   3 cans of chili (w/ or w/o beans)

   1 c. shredded cheese

Click here for the recipe.  Thanks, Chef in Training!

Happy cooking!

Crispy Cheddar Chicken and Cheesy Ranch Potatoes

This was a weekend for cooking at home.  I had several recipes I wanted to try and this was the weekend.  I found this recipe on, where else, Pinterest.  Ok, so when it comes to cooking, there's something you should know about me...I very rarely follow the recipe.  Baking is another story...there's too much science involved in baking to mess to much with the recipe and get a good ending result.

One of my favorite foods is crispy chicken, so when I find a recipe for crispy chicken I'm eager to try it out.

This dish calls for one of my favorite cooking techniques - dredging.  I have no idea why, but I love to dredge.

First you start by crushing the crackers...my tool of choice is a rolling pin.

The dredging station...this step is all about organization (which I love!).

When you see the recipe, you'll notice that I'm missing another bowl for the dredging station...the cheese.  (Next time I plan on making the recipe with the cheese, but this time I was also fixing Cheesy Ranch Potatoes and didn't want to have cheese with sides of chicken and potatoes for dinner.)  I also didn't use the milk to start the dredge...I used 2 whisked eggs (maybe this is why I didn't get the crisp that I wanted?)  You'll notice in the picture below that my chicken pieces look smaller...that's because I used chicken breast tenderloins.  I had them in the freezer and that's what I pulled out...it also saved the step of cutting the chicken breasts into chunks.

Here's the final product...

Even after putting the chicken back in the oven without the foil, the top didn't crisp like I thought it would (possibly because I used egg instead of milk in the dredging process...hmm?), so I put it under the broiler for several minutes.

The recipe also calls for a sauce, which I didn't make for the dinner, but made it for the left over chicken.  When I made the sauce, I added more sour cream and some milk to thin it out some.  (The step-daughter who had some of the left over chicken said the sauce was good...yay!)

Crispy Cheddar Chicken

   4 large chicken breasts

   2 sleeves Ritz crackers

   1/4 tsp salt

   1/8 tsp pepper

   1/2 c. milk

   3 c. cheddar cheese, grated

   1 tsp dried parsley

Sauce

   1 can cream of chicken soup

   2 Tbsp sour cream

   2 Tbsp butter

1. Cut each chicken breast into 3 large chunks.

2. In a small food processor grind up the Ritz crackers.

3. Pour the milk, cheese, and cracker crumbs into 3 separate small pans.  Toss the salt and pepper in with the cracker crumbs and give a little stir.

4. Dip each piece of chicken into the milk then the cheese and finally the cracker crumbs.

5. Spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray and lay the chicken inside the pan.

6. Sprinkle the dried parsley over the chicken.

7. Cover the pan with tin foil and bake at 400 degrees for 35 minutes.  Remove the foil and bake an additional 10 minutes, or until the edges of the chicken are golden brown and crispy.

8. Into a medium sauce pan, combine the cream of chicken soup, sour cream and butter with a whisk.  Stir over medium heat until the sauce is hot.  Serve over the chicken.

Click here for the printable recipe, thanks to Jamie Cooks It Up!

Cheesy Ranch Potatoes

Now you're probably going to freak out when I tell you this, but I HATE ranch...anything ranch.  I always have.  I've tried it several times over the last couple of years and have no idea what all the craziness is with putting ranch on absolutely everything you eat.  I have my sauces of choice and they are probably ones that you detest...most of my family does too.  It's okay, I don't mind being different.

Again, I didn't follow the recipe exactly...red potatoes were $2.49 for 5 lbs and russets were $1.39 for 10 lbs.  I'm a bargain kind of girl, so I went for the cheaper, bigger bag.

Spray the baking dish with cooking spray and then start cutting the potatoes into chunks...make sure they're all about the same size, this helps with making sure all of the pieces are cooked evenly.  Then add a couple of dollops of butter, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and I added a dash of steak seasoning...it has a couple of more savory spices that I love and give just a bit more seasoning to the potatoes.  Then cover the potatoes with foil and pop them in the oven to roast.

After an hour of roasting, pull the potatoes out of the oven and remove the foil.  See that little dish?  That's my dish of potatoes WITHOUT ranch.  I added ranch dressing to the other potatoes, stirred and then added the cheese.  Gave everything one last toss and then threw on some bacon crumbles.  Put the potatoes back in the oven for about 15 minutes just to melt the cheese.

Potatoes on the top rack...chicken on the bottom

tada!

Cheesy Ranch Potatoes

   3 lbs potatoes, diced

   dash of salt

   dash of pepper

   dash of chili powder (or steak seasoning)

   4 Tbsp butter, divided

   Shredded cheddar cheese

   Ranch Dressing

   Bacon crumbles

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees

2. Spray 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray.

3. Dice potatoes and put in baking dish and season potatoes with seasonings.

4. Put the divided putter on top of the potatoes and cover dish with foil.

5. Bake potatoes for an hour.

6. Remove potatoes from oven.  Eyeball it when putting on the ranch dressing...you can always add more.  Stir potatoes to coat with dressing.  Sprinkle cheese (you can also just eyeball this...I think I used about a cup).  Stir one more time and then add the bacon (optional) to the top, and put back in the oven, uncovered, for 10-15 minutes to melt the cheese.

Click here for a printable recipe, thanks Mrs Happy Homemaker!

Happy cooking!