Massive Recipes For The Weekend

Here's the thing. I can't really be bothered to feed myself during the day. I eat a bowl of cereal...maybe a Slim Fast shake...and that is about it. So I am all about dinner, and I used to love dinner because SOMEBODY made really good dinners every night. But now that SOMEBODY doesn't cook anymore (in fairness this somebody is pretty busy), so yesterday I did the unthinkable. I cooked on a day other then Friday.

I'm just so sick of warming up my dinner out of a bag.

So I decided to make Chicken Tetazzini ala the good ol' Betty Crocker Cookbook (Thanks Mom!). The sauce was a little tricky, but overall it was a success. Here is my adapted version:


INGREDIENTS:
1 pkg of spaghetti, broken into thirds
1/4 cup butter or margarine (I added more to the mixture because I could not get the sauce smooth without adding more butter. If you can do it with 1/4 cup more power to you.)
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup heavy whipping cream
2 tbs sherry or water (I forgot to put this in and it turned out fine)
2 cups of cubed cooked chicken or turkey (Next time I think I wont put this in, I didn't really like the chicken in it)
1 jar of sliced mushrooms (I did not put this in either because the mushrooms I thought were still good so were not.)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees

2. Cook and drain spaghetti as directed on package

3. Meanwhile, in a 2 quart saucepan, melt the butter over a low heat (make sure you completely melt it and it is covering the bottom of the whole pan! Trust me! I had to do this twice!) Stir in flour salt, and pepper. Cook, stirring constantly (very important!) until mixture is smooth and bubbly; remove from heat. Stir in broth and whipping cream. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and stir for 1 minute.

4. Stir spaghetti, sherry, chicken, and mushrooms into sauce. Pour spaghetti mixture into ungreased 2 quart casserole. Sprinkle the top with cheese (OR DUMP CHEESE ALL OVER THE TOP! :) MMMM!)

5. Bake uncovered about 30 minutes or until bubbly in center.

Voila! I even served it with a nice salad. I'm like Betty freaking Crocker reincarnated. Its sad, because I always wanted to be a political figure reincarnated. But apparently its Betty Crocker. Don't worry, Friday Cooking Experiment is still happening (Cooking twice in a week? Miracles do happen!) It is a salsa chicken in a crock pot. So yes, another chicken recipes, but at least I am breaking away from the pasta.

In dessert news, my friend Stephanie sent me two great dessert recipes. I am dying to try them, but I am trying not to have a ton of dessert oriented things in the house since I have a tendency to eat them in mass quantities...which is not good since I seem to be on a cheese and pasta cooking binge. So someone please make them and blog about them so I can live vicariously through you.

The first is a cheesecake brownie recipe that looks amazing and can be found at AllRecipes.com. Yummy!

The next was inspired by a post over on Seven Dames a Week (that fun little collaborative blog I'm a part of and you need to check out). Tinkler wrote a funny piece called Tasty Balls where she gave the recipe for Oreo truffles. Well Steph had a great recipe for chocolate balls:

Ingredients

1 box chocolate cake mix – I like dark chocolate cake (and whatever you need to make the cake, I think it’s oil and eggs)

1 tub chocolate frosting

¾ cup of semi-sweet choc chips

¼ cup white chocolate (I use white choc chips)

1 stick butter (or margarine/butter in tub)

Small ziplock baggie

Waxed paper

Steps:

1. Bake the chocolate cake as directed on the box.
2. Once cake is done (no need to let cool), scrape the cake into a large mixing bowl.
3. Add the entire tub of frosting into the crumbled cake in the mixing bowl.
4. Stir until the cake and frosting are completely combined. Should be a sticky mess!
5. Roll new cake “batter” into small one inch balls and place on a cookie sheet covered with waxed paper. No need to space them far apart.
6. I usually then place the cookie sheet with all of the balls in the freezer for about 10 minutes just to speed up the cooling process.
7. Melt about ½ bag of semi-sweet choc chips with about ¼ cup butter over low/med heat. You probably won’t need this much, but I always make more just in case J
8. Once the chocolate mixture is smooth (add butter as needed for consistency), decrease heat to low & dip each chocolate cake ball into the melted chocolate and replace onto cookie sheet. Continue to stir melted chocolate as it likes to burn easily.
9. After all the cake balls have been dipped, again I usually place the cookie sheet into the freezer to speed up the cooling process.
10. Melt the white chocolate chips with about 1 TBSP of butter (I usually do this step in the microwave).
11. Stir white chocolate/butter mixture until smooth and spoon into a ziplock bag (into the corner)
12. Cut off the very tip of one corner on the ziplock bag and drizzle the white chocolate over the chocolate balls.
13. Allow to cool (I usually just keep the chocolate balls in the refrigerator because there is a lot of chocolate in there that could melt!)
14. TA-DA! Chocolate Balls!!!

Happy Cooking and Baking! (I never thought I would say those words on this blog ever.)