Great Day Granola

Hello All!!! Sheesh, seems like I've been away forever (hanging head in shame...)

Last week was just one of those crazy kid weeks. You know how it can be. Both of my girls are in dance and the recital was last Saturday. There was practice EVERY single night until the recital.

I did two big cook days so I didn't have to worry about it, but I'm not quite in the habit of having my camera (or iPhone) handy for pictures yet.

I decided since this was the only picture I did take, I would share the recipe with my cyberpeeps : )

This is a recipe from the Pillsbury bake off winners cookbook 2007. I love it, my kids love it, happy hubby loves it, kids friends love it... Need I say more??

Ingredients:

4 cups oats ( I think the quick cooking work best)

3 cups golden grahams cereal

3 cups fiber one cereal

1 cup chopped walnuts

1 cup sunflower nuts

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup water

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp almond extract

Preparation:

1. Heat oven to 250F. Line 2 (15 by 10 inch) pans with parchment paper, spray lightly with cooking spray. In very large bowl, mix oats, both cereals, walnuts, almonds and sunflower seeds.

2. In a 2 qt. saucepan, cook brown sugar, oil, honey, and water over medium-high heat 3 to 5 minutes, stirring constantly until brown sugar is melted. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla and almond extract. Pour over cereal mixture; stir until well coated. Spread mixture evenly in pans.

3. Bake 1 hour (I do mine a little longer, cuz I likes mine crispy!) rearranging pans once halfway through baking. Cool completely on the pan, about 1 hour. Break into pieces. Store in tightly covered container. Serve as a breakfast cereal, snack or as a topping for ice cream, yogurt or fresh fruit.

There it is : ) This recipe is not only yummy, but is fun to experiment with. I've used honey nut cheerios or kashi heart to heart in place of the fiber one. Different kinds of nuts and so on...

This makes quite a bit, but disappears quickly and is so much cheaper than organic granola. I hope you get to try and enjoy!

Grand Prize White Chicken Chili

Not mine : ( But that's okay... A good recipe is a good recipe that needs to be passed on.
I am a huge Rachel Ray fan ( which I've yet to find in the blogosphere, but I digress...). Sometime back in March, she had a contest for the best "game day" recipe. The two final recipes were a white chicken chili and a bbq chicken bacon ranch pizza.

I made the pizza right away and loved it. Yesterday, I had leftover chicken from a roast chicken and a quick check in my pantry confirmed that I had the rest of the ingredients.

As you'll see, it's a very simple, hearty, filling recipe. My husband couldn't get enough, and even my little one liked the "taco soup.". ( with the beans picked out of course! Little did she know I smashed some in there!). As for me... I did like it.... However, I felt like it was missing something... I added some jalapenos to mine, which really kicked it up. If I wasn't the only one in my family who loves spicy, I would probably toss some in there to simmer along with everything else.. Some cilantro would have been perfect with this, unfortunately I had none on hand.

I will definitely be making this again ( and again ) it satisfies my mexican craving and i can't wait to try experiment with it some more. Next time, I might use ground chicken or turkey, maybe a tad of crushed red pepper flakes, to bring out a little more flavor.

I served it in soup bowls with a dollop of sour cream, a drizzle of taco sauce, a tortilla chip, and some jalepenos (on mine anyway)... I'm posting the recipe below. I think it's a great way to use up leftover chicken and a great dinner for those "no time to cook". I'm sure it would freeze well, if it lasts that long : )

Ingredients:

1 32 oz. box chicken stock

3 cans cans white beans*, left undrained

5 cups cooked chicken (rotisserie or boiled)

1 16 oz. jar salsa**

8 oz. pepper jack cheese, grated

2 teaspoon ground cumin

2 cloves garlic, minced

Black or white pepper to taste

1/2 cup crushed tortilla chips (optional if you like thicker chili)

Sour cream for garnish

yields: 6 servings

Preparation

Place all ingredients (except corn chips) in a crockpot on high until cheese is melted.

May also do on stovetop over medium heat.

When the chili is ready, add crushed corn chips, if using and simmer ten more minutes to thicken.

garnish with more chips, cheese, and/or sour cream and enjoy!!

* I used cannelini beans and only two cans (personal preference) next time, I may puree the third can and add it to also help thicken.

* I pureed my salsa before adding

*I used tostitos baked whole grain tortilla chips

TGIFriday Family Night

> Greetings everyone! Just thought I'd share one of our Friday nights here in the Glitterkitchen home.

Somewhere along the way, Friday night became known as family night. In short, it means that it is the one night where we are not totally crazy with us working, girls dancing, no homework... You get the picture.

Sometimes we go to the movies, out to eat (although that's rare, what with the Glitterkitchen being here and all : ) play games, etc. Mostly, we like to hang out at the homefront. That's what we did tonight.

My little one (Lyra, closest to the camera) had her LAST EVER preschool picnic today ( sniff.... ) So being busy with that and playing outside, I didn't give dinner much thought.

The dinnerbell waits not for Mom around here (and at your house to I'm sure.)



Time to check out my leftovers and pantry... I found two leftover new york strips from wed. Storebought thin pizza crust, jarred alfredo, arugula, roma tomatoes, gorgonzola cheese and corn on the cob.. HMMM... Knew the girls would want steak and corn, but decided to make a lovely pizza for my hubby who had been working hard in the sun all day.

He loves steak gorgonzola alfredo from the Olive Garden (where i work), I thought a pizza version of this would hit the spot..



I started with the store bought thin pizza crust. Rubbed all over with olive oil and roasted garlic. Sprinkled parmesean cheese and pizza seasoning and in the oven it went to prebake. After I pulled it out I topped it with alfredo, arugula, gorgonzola, mozzerella and fontina cheeses... MMmmm smelled soo good!!

Tasted good too.... if I do say so myself!



In between all that, I made myself some crab legs (Michael, aka, happy hubby developed an allergy to shell fish, so i don't have to share, tee-hee... )



We headed out to the deck..... and as you can see, it was some very happy eating!! (FYI, the big sister in the pic. is my Harmoni Bella. The best sous chef in the world!)

The girls and Daddy played some baseball while I cleaned up (of course)...

A few days ago, I promised Harmoni a brownie sundae. Luckily, I had four brownies and vanilla ice cream in the freezer...

Drizzled some magic shell (shudder... all things in moderation, right?) and caramel... Voila!! A sweet ending for a sweet family night...

And I get to sleep in tomorrow?! What else is there in life?

My first Homemade cake part 2

Okay, so I'm new to this whole blogging thing and i had to break my blog up into two separate posts because i couldn't get my pictures the way I wanted, and it seemed like i ran of room. If anyone other than family actually reads this, I'm way open to constructive criticism :)

Back to my cake... Yes! The layers baked absolutely perfect. As my "smittenkitchen" mentor suggested, I wrapped the layers separately and froze them over nite (Actually she said only about 20 min, but I had to get to work, and NO WAY was I leaving an assembled cake unprotected with my husband around...)


Freezing the layers made them so much easier to frost. Of course that counted for exactly zero because I had to fight to keep 30 fingers out of the bowl that it was in. I can't blame them though, this peanut butter cream cheese frosting really should be illegal. It was that good! Thanks to my fab new birthday stand mixer, the frosting whipped up in a snap. I don't even want to think about trying to plough through the cream cheese, peanut butter, and sugar with that lil thing.

I frosted in between and stacked (Yep, i stacked!) the layers and frosted all over. Then I made the chocolate peanut butter glaze to pour over. Sorry to say, i have no pictures of that process.... the chocolate and peanut butter weren't getting along at first....But I held my ground... I just told it (yes, out loud ) "Hey, I've got two little girls, five & seven. I'm not frightened of a little glaze not wanting to cooperate."
It listened... i didn't get quite the beautiful "drip" effect i was looking for. Probably because I didn't have an offset spatula, but I was happy.



There it is!!! My first homemade triple layer cake. ( I LOVE being able to say that!) That's the birthday boy, with his little ladies : ) Everyone raved about it.... So this definitely wont be my last cake adventure. I'm going to try more Sky High recipes, and others from you fellow bloggers... I was so proud of myself, but I know I need more work on the presentation of it, I'm sure it will be fun......

My first homemade cake

So..... Not only is this my first homemade cake, but my first blog ever! I've been spying on all you lovely gals, sneaking recipes, making them and loving them. Staring at the beautiful pictures so long, i have had to wipe the drool off my keyboard : )

Anyway, i was thrilled to find so many people with such a passion for all things food, esp. from scratch.. so i knew i had to jump in and join all of you!

So this year Mothers day and my hubbys birthday were on the same Sunday. (sidenote: since i work in a restaurant Mothers day is the biggest day of the year, which means no one gets off : ( )

I had it in my head i wanted to make him a fabulous cake from scratch, to make up for not being able to be home all day with him. Off to1 the computer i went and googled "peanut butter cake". Several clicks later I found this awesome blog called "smittenkitchen" with the sour cream chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting and peanut butter and chocolate ganache.. courtesy of Sky High Cakes. It even had step by step photos!!

This is SO up his alley, seeing as he has a love for all things chocolate... with peanut butter. I decided i was going to make it. Now keep in mind, i've never made a homemade cake before, let alone a homemade triple layer cake with from scratch frosting and glaze! Typical me....

So here it is... my first cake journey.. with my own photos...

Here are all the batter ingredients and the batter. I got really worried because the batter seemed so thin. I was convinced it wouldn't rise...




Cakes are in oven... those are my two beauties :) They said it smelled soooo good! And yes, they rose!!