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Tu-tu-tu-Tuesday: Frozen Nutella Chobani

chimes — Tue, 22 May 2012 15:00:00 +0000

I had a kind of naughty and crazy idea.

Then I bought the ammo.

And then? I actually did it.

I must warn you. This is far too sugary for me. If you do decide to make this? Small portions or you might die of high sugar intake. I was flying high the day I made it from eating just a little bite.

I’m going to make this again using plain Chobani and a small container of Nutella. Just. Sayin’.

But here’s how to make super-crazy-sugary chocolatey-overleoaded Nutella frozen Chobani.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Ingredients
32 oz. container of Vanilla Chobani
26 oz. container of Nutella
optional: milk chocolate chips (ground into smaller bits)

Directions

Open the Nutella and put in the microwave for 45 seconds. Even though it says RIGHT ON THE PACKAGE to not microwave or refrigerate. Ignore that.
Get out a large bowl and pour 3/4 of the Nutella into it.
Pour ALL of the Chobani into the bowl.
Stir until combined. Taste, and if you think it needs more Nutella, add the rest of the jar here (if you’re worried about using too much, start with 1/2 a container and go from there).
Add chocolate chips if you’re using.
Pour into your ice cream maker. If you used a whole jar of Nutella, there might be too much of the mixture. Hang onto it and make a second batch. Follow the instructions on your ice cream maker to finish. FYI This doesn’t freeze rock solid because of the oil in the Nutella.

The mixture actually spilled over the edges of my machine as it froze. WHOOPS!

What’s your favorite kind of frozen yogurt? Have you tried Nutella before?

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(mostly) Homemade Chicken Jalfrezi

chimes — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 15:00:00 +0000

I think I’ve mentioned that I’ve kind of been obsessing over Indian food.

I haven’t? Well consider it mentioned.

Here’s where the parenthetical mostly part of this post comes in: I recently got a jar of Jalfrezi sauce (from Midwestern Bite … I don’t think I was supposed to tell y’all about my foodie pen pal haul just yet, BUT … I had to share this cooking experience).

The best part about this sauce? Our local co-op has it. And other sauces by Seeds of Change. Next up? Tikka Masala.

I spent the evening that I received my pen pal’s package taking photos of it, and looking up recipes to use this sauce. I found this recipe for Chicken Jalfrezi on BBC’s Good Food website. We had the sauce, so we bought ingredients for the rest of the recipe.

And actually, even if you don’t have the sauce, this looks to be a really easy recipe. And cheap.

Red peppers.

Onion.

Chicken breast (diced). And a few spices (most we already had).

Cook.

Add sauce.

Maybe some rice and peas on the side (does anybody know how to get rice cooked like Indian rice? not sticky? help.)

And serve. But make sure that you aren’t too busy instagramming your dinner to take a REAL photo of it. I didn’t. Whoops. I assure you this was more delicious than this photo makes it look.

Question: How the hell do you get rice to not be sticky? I cannot do it. I suck at cooking rice. Help?

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mock kale lasagne

chimes — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 15:00:00 +0000

One of the lovely ladies whose blogs I follow regularly shared this recipe for mock lasagne from Kalyn’s Kitchen. I wish I could remember who it was that shared it so I could give her a virtual hug. If you try this recipe, make sure to leave a comment on Kalyn’s original post.

Basically it’s not lasagne. There is no pasta involved. Instead, there is a MIGHTY helping of kale.

Scurred yet?

You shouldn’t be. Mark approved this recipe. It wasn’t his FAVORITE (because he’s part Italian and calling this lasagne was sacrilege). But, he ate it. It’s pretty much my new favorite thing, and I need to talk him into making it again.

Start with a metric butt-ton of kale. 1-2 bunches should do ya. Cut it up and rinse it. Let it drain until dry.

If you’re new to kale (I was), this is how you go about cutting it.

Remove the stems …

… roll leaves up (like basil) …

… and cut!

You’ll get shreds.

In the meantime, you’re going to cook up some sausage. We couldn’t find turkey italian sausage to save our souls, so I asked the nice meat department guy if we could have some of their italian sausage spice. They gave us a LARGE container of it (makes 50 lbs of sausage!) for a buck. Now THAT is service.

We made our own sausage by mixing our newly procured spices with some ground turkey breast. Again, Mark doesn’t like turkey Italian sausage … same reason as above. But, he got over it.

We used our own marinara sauce for the sauce. No sense buying a jar when ours is much better.

Layering time. Layer the kale … then the sausage sauce mixture … then some cheese and repeat.

That’s a lot of greens!

And if you’re lucky, it will come out of the oven looking like this:

Except not as badass. Because I’m pretty sure none of you have Megadeth potholders.

Again, definitely one of my favorite meals. It’s not cheap WW points-wise. It makes 12 servings and each serving is 8 points.

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coooooooooooooooooooooooookies

chimes — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000

I may have lied to you yesterday when I said that I would have a blog post with a prom recap. Who was I kidding??

I mentioned the other day that one of my friends just had her baby.

Well, I promised her that I’d make her some food for the family to nom and not have to worry about cooking. Today is the day for cooking!

Don’t worry. I plan to feed them more than just cookies. But after the enormous batch this recipe made, they might not NEED to eat more than cookies. Or want to. These are freaking awesome.

I give you the chimesmonster cookies. These are modified from a recipe I used when I was a kid. I may have perfected these. In my opinion anyway. Mark gave these a standing ovation. And I’m guessing that Adria and her beau will be grateful as well.

I mentioned as I was making them that I hope I don’t kill her dad with these cookies … he’s a diabetic (stay away, Steve!). I may have eaten quite a bit of cookie dough (psh, raw egg, shmaw egg, I eat raw eggs for breakfast. Not really, but that would be cool. And gross). But I’ve kicked my sugar habit. Mostly. I ate a lot of this dough, which was the first time I’ve had this amount of sugar for a while (used to be an almost DAILY thing) and my heart rate was CRANKED. I may have also done some Richard Simmons-like moves while dancing to the theme to Dr. Who in the living room (hey, that theme is awesome. LISTEN!).

And I may have had two for breakfast. I’ve proceeded to put the bags of cookies in the garage to chill and be out of my site until I can get them safely to my buddy. Because otherwise, she won’t get any cookies. I just ate 3 stalks of celery to combat the sugar (it’s working already) and am sucking down some green tea. Whoops. Now I’m going to have withdrawl symptoms all week.

Also, this recipe is pretty much why I love parchment paper. I had to bust out ALL my cookie-sheet-like devices for this recipe. Otherwise I would have been waiting for sheets to cool and that’s a waste of time. I prepped all my sheets (5!) with parchment and didn’t have to wash them afterwards. BEST. INVENTION. EVER.

[ FYI this bowl is 18 inches in diameter. no joke. ]

[ also, my mom got me this awesome cookie scoop a while back. I can't find it online, but I'm sure it came from the Beyond section of Bed Bath & Beyond. ]

[ ummm ... there are 2 more full sheets in the oven baking in this photo. yeah. nuts! ]

the chimesmonster cookies

Ingredients:
1/2 c butter (1 stick)
2 c brown sugar
3 eggs
1 T vanilla
1 1/2 c chunky peanut butter
5 c quick cooking oats
6 oz plain M&Ms *
6 oz white chocolate chips*

Directions:
You will need a LARGE bowl. And an army of cookie sheets.

Preheat the oven to 350°.

Cream together butter and sugar. Add peanut butter and beat until somewhat fluffy. Combine eggs. Add oats in small portions until they are completely combined. FYI this is a hand-mixing job — this will kill your electric beater. SUPER thick. And you might work up a sweat mixing these.

To make regular sized cookies, drop by tablespoon onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Or if your dough allows, roll into balls and place on sheet. Smash your balls or drops down with a fork or spoon (these don’t flatten out as they bake, but get terrifically chewy!).

Bake for 12-15 minutes. Depends on your oven and your desired done-ness. I like mine a little crispy, so I go for 15 minutes.

Makes 5-6 dozen, depending on how much dough makes it to the cookie sheets and not in your belly.

*You can mix anything in of your choice here … possibilities are endless! I usually do M&Ms and dark chocolate chips, but I thought I’d mix it up.

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Sunday Brunch: Blueberry Breakfast Quinoa

chimes — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Meet my latest obsession: Quinoa.

[ look how pretty it looks with some black and white mixed together! ]

It’s nutty. It’s different. It’s filling. It’s awesome.

Mostly eaten with savory foods, quinoa is often overlooked for breakfast.

But look at this? Doesn’t this look yummy? Trust me. It does.

And it’s gluten free. Which is a bonus. I have an issue with gluten and sometimes oatmeal bugs me, and I was REALLY missing oatmeal this winter.

I found this great recipe on pinterest [ of course ] from Martha Stewart [ who else? ]. But of course I added some extra flair.

chimes’s Breakfast Quinoa [ modified from Martha Stewart's recipe — 7 points + per serving ]
Ingredients:
2 c unsweetened almond milk [ or milk of your choice — moo works too ]
1/2 c white quinoa, rinsed
1/2 c black quinoa, rinsed
2 T honey [ or sweetener of your choice ]
1/4 t ground cinnamon
1/4 t ground nutmeg
1 c frozen blueberries

Directions:
Bring milk to a boil in a small saucepan. Add quinoa, and return to a boil. Reduce heat to low, and simmer, covered, until three-quarters of the milk has been absorbed, about 15 minutes. Stir in honey and spices. Cook, covered, until almost all the milk has been absorbed, about 8 minutes. Stir in blueberries, and cook until most of their water has been absorbed. Serve.

Makes 4 servings.

Of course, you can mix things up. If you don’t like cinnamon or nutmeg, use cocoa [ cocoa and blueberries go together really well ], add peanut butter, use all black or all white quinoa. Go nuts! Add nuts? It’s really good cold over greek yogurt too.

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(finally) Flourless Chocolate Cake

chimes — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

So a long long time ago, I had a birthday party. Yes. In October.

Regardless, you’re getting a recipe, so ignore the un-timeliness of this post. As you may know, I’ve been obsessed with everything spicy. Including chocolate. Chipotle chocolate to be precise. So for my birthday I made a spicy chocolate flourless cake. Because, as you may also know, I quit eating gluten in hopes of fixing my tummy troubles [ it worked ].

I used the Chipotle Flourless Chocolate Cake recipe from Simply Recipes. But there was one major problem: I couldn’t find chipotle anywhere. Apparently WalMart has it [ for future reference ]. So instead, I ground up about a teaspoon of crushed red pepper in the coffee grinder and added that.

Also, this is the easiest recipe ever. It’s basically 1 bag of chocolate chips [ semi-sweet or darker ] + sugar + butter + 5 eggs + any spices you want to add. And the end product? It’s like a slice of chocolate that’s the consistency of cheesecake.

[ melt the chocolate and butter together ]

[ stir up the eggs and sugar ]

Did I mention Danielle helped me bake? She’s my favorite baking partner-in-crime and we live so far apart we hardly ever get to do this anymore. My yearly birthday get-togethers are usually when we do such things. Last year we made Guinness Cupcakes.

[ grind up the spices ... or use chipotle ]

[ mix all together ]

[ bake in a springform pan ]

[ serve! ]

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Tu-tu-tu-Tuesday: Pumpkin Bourbon Frozen Yogurt

chimes — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 14:00:00 +0000

How about a Thanksgiving recipe? Okay. I’m on it. And it even involves booze.

Pumpkin Bourbon Frozen Yogurt

1 32 oz container of 0% Plain Chobani
1 small can of pumpkin (plain pumpkin)
1 c sugar (I like to use brown sugar, but regular will do)
1/4 t cloves
1/4 t nutmeg
2 t cinnamon
4-5 T bourbon
Optional: 1 vanilla bean

If using the vanilla bean … you should probably start making this recipe 3-4 days ahead of time. Why? Because you’re going to need that time to infuse the bourbon with the vanilla. Put your bourbon in an airtight container and throw in your bean. You could probably add a bit more bourbon if you wanted to have more of the vanilla-infused bourbon saved for later.

Since I didn’t know any better, I mixed the two together and let them sit for about 6 hours. The bourbon was more vanilla-y but not quite what I had expected.

Okay — to make the yogurt you mix all the ingredients in a big bowl. I let them sit in the fridge for a few hours to let the flavors mingle.

Pour the mixture in your ice cream maker and let it go to work. Should take 20-30 minutes.

You should come out with a lovely orange batch of frozen yogurt. Bonus? You can stick it in the freezer and it won’t get super hard because there’s just a little bit of booze in it.

Have you tried baking or making things with alcohol or spirits? Savory or sweet?

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Sunday Brunch: Chocolate Banana Smoothie

chimes — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 15:00:00 +0000

I’ve been obsessing over smoothies. Big time. One every day for breakfast. I keep this one for the weekend because sometimes bananas give me stomachaches, but it is SO worth the tummy ache for this smoothie.

Chocolate Banana Smoothie

1 frozen banana
5 ice cubes
2 T cocoa (unsweetened)
1 scoop whey protein powder
1/2 c–3/4 c almond milk

Crush ice then blend until smooth. Serve cold.

Yummmmmmmm! It’s like having ice cream for breakfast. Except less naughty.

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Sweet and Sour Chicken

chimes — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 15:00:00 +0000

We’ve been obsessing over making Asian food lately. I found this recipe on RealSimple.com and modified it so we’re not using frozen chicken nuggets. We kind of did our own thing with the veggies, added pineapple and omitted the cashews. It was still pretty amazing!

Sweet and Sour Chicken

Ingredients

1 cup long-grain white rice
1 whole chicken breast, diced
1/2 cup apricot preserves
2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
1 tablespoon canola oil
4 stalks celery, thinly sliced
1/2 pound snow peas
1 chili pepper (such as serrano or jalapeño), seeded and sliced
1/2 cup roasted cashews
2 scallions, thinly sliced

Directions

Cook the rice according to the package directions.
Meanwhile, cook the chicken thoroughly.
In a small bowl, whisk together the preserves, soy sauce, vinegar, and ginger. Set aside.
Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the celery and cook, tossing, for 2 minutes.
Add the snow peas and chili pepper and cook, tossing, until the vegetables are just tender, 1 to 2 minutes.
Add the chicken, sauce, and cashews and toss to coat. Serve over the rice and sprinkle with the scallions.

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Rockin’ Sandwich

chimes — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 12:48:14 +0000

Hey all. I realize my blog is beginning to derail and I’ve kind of gotten away from my regularly-scheduled-programming, so to speak. I am REALLY busy with work and with the holidays, so I haven’t had much time to post anything really well-thought out.

However, I did want to share with you this amazing sandwich idea I had this week. In fact, it’s so amazing that I’ve made one for myself for lunch every day this week.

Smoked Gouda and Chicken with Apples

1/2 apple — thinly sliced
2-3 slices of smoked gouda cheese
deli sliced or shaved Turkey or Chicken Breast (a dryer meat works best)
whole grain bread — a really seedy one is amazing with this
Mustard (optional)
butter or margarine (if you’re going to grill the sandwich)

Assemble: One slice bread, mustard if using, gouda, apples, chicken, more gouda if you happen to want another slice and the other slice of bread.

BONUS POINTS: Grill the sandwich. Assemble the same way (I would omit the mustard) except butter the outside of the bread. Place on a skillet over medium heat for 2-3 minutes, flip, cook for 2-3 minutes more and enjoy.

This is quite possibly the most amazing thing I’ve packed for lunch. EVER.

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