Monkey Bread

So I made this super delicious monkey bread from the Our Best Bites Cookbook. Unfortunately I only took one picture, and it's not a very good one, but this was so delicious! It was easy and Mike loved it! it's hard to stop with just one serving though, so consider yourself warned!!

Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ok, these are so not healthy. And definitely not part of anyones diet. Except for maybe Papa's. Which is the 9,000 calorie diet. Man, I'm jealous of that diet.

Anyways, I found the recipe on Our Best Bites. Check it out ourbestbites.com

It's kinda the cookie basics and after mixing it all together, you get this....

Voila!

Oh my gosh. It's seriously delicious. I would even put it out there that I like the dough better than the cookies. The toffee just adds a nice extra crunch in the dough.

When you bake the cookies, I think the toffee loses a little of the crunch, but they are still amazing. I didn't put the white chocolate chips in though. Next time I might try them. Make sure you watch these puppies while they are baking, because they tend to go from doughy to burnt in 1.2 seconds. But in the end this is how they turn out....

Don't let them sit on the cookie sheet for too long, or the toffee will make the cookies stick to the pan. So let them cool a rack after a few minutes.

Enjoy!



Grilled Pizza

A few months ago Jill told me that she had grilled pizza and it was delicious. So for dinner tonight I grilled pizza using the method on Our Best Bites Blog - Jill was right! We loved it. If you like a crisp thin crust pizza with great flavor this is something you should definitely try.

We tried a couple of different combinations. This one is Pesto Sauce, chicken (I boiled the chicken and then chopped it small and tossed it in some Pesto Sauce), sauteed sliced yellow squash, fresh sliced tomatoes all topped with fresh mozzarella cheese. We loved this and it was light and fresh tasting.

The other pizza we tried was a barbecue chicken pizza. It had BBQ sauce, chopped chicken, caramelized onions, Gouda cheese and then topped with Parmesan cheese. This was really good too. The caramelized onions really gave it a lot of flavor.

Of course Chris wanted his plain pepperoni and we cooked it in the oven - why mess with what he already knows he loves?

Definitely give this a try. Jill was right - delicious

Guiltless Alfredo Sauce

Ok, so I have been wanting to try this "Guiltless Alfredo Sauce" from Our Best Bites for a long time, but I just barely got around to trying it on Sunday! We are trying to eat a little healthier, and while alfredo doesn't sound like the way to go, this was a pretty low fat sauce for an alfredo sauce. We also used whole wheat noodles and served it with broccoli to make up for the fat in the sauce :)

First I put skim milk, flour, salt, and low fat cream cheese into a blender

Then I sauteed butter and garlic in the pan....

Then I added the milk mixture and let it simmer until it started to thicken...

Last I added in the parmesan cheese. Now here is where I made my mistake (and thus the pictures end). I used the prepackaged shredded cheese instead of shredding my own. Now trust me the sauce was still incredibly delicious, but it was kinda lumpy and didn't look pretty. It was a little more cheesy I guess you could say, and it didn't totally incorporate into the sauce, but it was still amazing. I one and a halfed the sauce so I would have leftovers and I'm glad I did! This would be great as a pizza sauce, over veggies, with pasta, anything! Definitely easy and everyone should try it!!

Shredded Chicken Tacos

I made these tacos a couple weeks ago and am now just getting around to posting about them. Yes yes I know, procrastination, forgetfullness and laziness are all running through your mind but once I show you the pictures of my tacos you wont care at all. I like to use chicken instead of pork becuase I personally think that it tastes better and plus it is better for you. This recipe is so easy that I look forward to making it. I use chunky green salsa as the base and then Tabasco, Valentina, Cayenne pepper and black pepper for a kick. I put all of those ingredients into the crock pot on low while I am at work and then by the time my husband gets home they are ready to eat.

After cooking in the crock pot all day I shred my chicken and it then looks like this.

There you have it. That's it! They are so easy and so delicious you will be making them once a week.

potato chips

No pictures, just a recommendation that you try Our Best Bites blog homemade chips. Made them for dinner today with our garlic burgers and delicious! Not one leftover. A lot easier than I thought they would be.

Spaghetti Carbonara

So you know when you go to a restaurant and you order something and it's soooo delicious you decide you just have to try and make it at home? Well that's what happened to us in Rome. We sat a a sidewalk cafe and ate the most delicious carbonara (and margherita pizza). I just had to try to make some. I researched several recipes and decided to try the Food Network recipe from Tyler Florence.

www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/spaghetti-alla-carbonara-recipe/index.html

I weighed the pasta on my kitchen scale and used only 1/2 pound of pasta but didn't half the sauce amount. I bought my bacon from Snyders and used their thick cut bacon. I also bought a high grade pasta because I knew the Italians use a good pasta (it was dried pasta)

It was easier that I thought it was going to be. I was nervous about the eggs cooking but with the pasta HOT everything cooked perfectly.

Sorry I forgot to take a picture of the finished pasta but as you can see, we finished every last bit - no leftovers ;(

Cookie Monsters!

When cookie, Ice cream, caramel and Chocolate sauce all meet in one bowl my in-laws call it a Cookie Monster! I call it heaven in a bowl, but Cookie monster works just as well. Sunday my mother in-law Lisa and I made the best chocolate chip cookies ever! We took her original chocolate chip cookie recipe and added toffee pieces to it. Yes I know in my previous post about chocolate chip cookies I said that the recipe was so good that nothing needed to be changed or added. This is still a true statement however this time we just enhanced the cookies just a little. When you took your first bite into that cookie you got the gooey chocolate followed by the sweet crunch of the toffee! To top it off we added two scoops of ice cream, homemade fudge sauce and caramel sauce which made it a great cookie monster. one of my favorites actually. I think that these pictures do it some justice. :)