Copy Cat Chex Mix

I love salty savory snacks and chex mix always hits the spot!! But... I don't want all the funky ingredients and lets be real, I pick around the stuff I want to eat. So here is a recipe that you can make with ONLY the tasty bits you want to eat! 

To sum it up, 16(ish) cups of stuff (cereals, pretzels, chips, cheerios, cheese its, bagel crisps, nuts, etc) and then coat it all in the seasoned butter mixture. Bake for 1 hour and stir every 15 minutes!

The only changes I'd make next time? I'd add a little more seasoning and make sure you mix it all up well so the things are coated nicely!! I've updated the amounts below! Enjoy!!

Copy Cat Chex Mix

adapted from Brown Eyed Baker

5 cups corn chex

4 cups wheat chex

2 cups pretzels

1 cup honey-nut cheerios

2 cups cheese its

1 cup almonds

1 1/2 cups peanuts

¾ cup butter, melted
5 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 tablespoon seasoned salt
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional, a little goes a long way!)

1. Preheat oven  275F
2. In a large roasting pan, stir together the cereals, pretzels and nuts.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the melted butter, Worcestershire sauce, seasoned salt, garlic powder, onion powder and cayenne pepper. Drizzle evenly over the cereal mixture and, using clean hands, toss to combine, making sure that the mixture is evenly moistened.
4. Bake for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Once cool, store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 weeks.

Rice Pilaf

I grew up eating the boxed rice pilaf and I had a craving for it the other day. The boxed stuff has a lot of sodium so I was curious about making it at home from scratch. This was so easy and I don't know why people use the boxed mix.

I will give you a warning...red onion turns green so you should use the white onion.

Rice Pilaf

Adapted from All Recipes 

Serves 4

2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup orzo pasta
1/2 cup diced white onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup uncooked white rice
2 cups chicken broth or veg broth

1/2 cup slivered almonds (optional)

Melt the butter in a lidded pot over medium-low heat. Stir in almond and orzo pasta until golden brown. Add onion and cook until onion becomes translucent, then add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Mix in the rice and chicken broth. Increase heat to high and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until the rice is tender, and the liquid has been absorbed, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand for 5 minutes, then fluff with a fork.

Soft Cut-Out Sugar Cookies

WOW this is my 200th post!! I'm glad its a festive recipe!

I made these fun decorated sugar cookies for a bachelorette party!

The dough was easy to work with, the recipe is easy to double, and they were quite tasty!

The Sugar Cookie recipe was adapted from Sallys Baking Addiction. The icing recipe is adapted from All Recipes.

I doubled the cookie recipe and it made 60 cookies. The cookies were about 3 inches big. I used the Wilton 4 Piece Wedding Cookie Cutters. Unfortunately the bells did not frost easily and didn't look like bells so the evidence was consumed.

This is a recipe for softer sugar cookies but if you prefer a crispier cookie roll the dough thinner and cook for an extra minute.

You'll want the eggs and butter to be room temperature but you want the dough to be cold when you are ready to work with it.

While my dough was cooling in the fridge I made these cinnamon/sugar Snickerdoodle cookies!

I let the cookies cool for about 6 hours before adding the icing. After icing them I let them harden for 4 hours before stacking and bagging them.

It was about 2 hours of effort (making dough, cutting, putting in the oven) but a lot of other hours of waiting while chilling the dough and cooling the cookies and drying the icing.

Note: I also use this icing for my Gingerbread Cookies!

I made these for a fundraiser! How cute!!

Soft Cut-Out Sugar Cookies
Adapted from Sallys Baking Addiction
Yields: 18 medium size cookies or 30 smaller cookies

COOKIES
3/4 cup unsalted butter, slightly softened to room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
2 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

In your stand mixer beat the butter until creamed and smooth.
Add the sugar and beat on high speed until light and fluffy.
Add the egg, vanilla, and almond extract and beat on high until fully combined.

In a different bowl mix the flour and baking powder.
With the mixer on low slowly add in the flour until just combined.

Chill dough in fridge for about an hour or up to a day. If more than an hour, cover the dough so it doesn't dry out.

Remove dough from fridge and divide the dough in half. Put on piece on floured surface and put other half in the fridge. Roll to about 1/4″ thickness and cut into desired shapes. Put on cookie sheet (with parchment paper or Silpat mat) and place back in the fridge for 10-20 minutes. This allows the dough to firm back up and prevents spreading.

Re-roll the remaining dough and continue cutting until all is used. I alternated pieces in the fridge and pieces to work with so that the dough was a little cooler.

Bake for 8-11 minutes, until very lightly colored on top and around the edges. My cookies took 10 minutes. Allow to cool on baking sheet and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before icing.

Make the icing and decorate the cooled cookies!

ICING
Adapted from All Recipes
Makes enough for 1 dozen cookies

1 cup confectioners' sugar
2 teaspoons milk
2 teaspoons light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon almond extract (optional, I would omit next time)
Food coloring (Wilton Gel Food Colors)
Sprinkles

In a small bowl, stir together confectioners' sugar and milk until smooth. Beat in corn syrup and almond extract until icing is smooth and glossy. If icing is too thick, add more corn syrup or milk by the 1/4 tsp.

Divide into separate bowls, and add desired food coloring to each. The food colors I used were very strong and ONE drop was plenty.

Put frosting into bag and snip the corner to easily frost the cookies. An easy way to add the frosting into the bag is to use a drinking glass and that holds it open while you put the frosting in.

Broccoli Slaw

This is the broccoli slaw recipe from Smitten Kitchen. I loved this! It was refreshing and surprisingly light. 

I did use real buttermilk instead of my usual substitute (milk + white vinegar) because I wasn't sure of the flavor impact.

Next time I would add some dice chicken, or red cabbage or maybe sprinkle some crispy bacon pieces on top because...why not?! If I added more I would make more dressing too.

Broccoli Slaw

makes about 9 cups

2 heads of broccoli (florets and stems)
1/2 cup thinly sliced almonds or walnuts
1/3 - 1/2 cup dried cranberries or raisins
1/2 small red onion, finely chopped (about 1/4 cup)

Buttermilk Dressing:
1/2 cup buttermilk, well-shaken
1/3 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar

Salt & Pepper

Trim broccoli and cut into bite sized pieces using a knife, food processor, or mandolin slicer.

Toss the sliced broccoli with the almonds or walnuts, cranberries or raisins, and red onion in a large bowl (I used my largest cooking pot). 

In a small bowl, whisk all the dressing ingredients together. Pour the dressing over the broccoli and toss it well. Season with additional salt and pepper if you'd like.

Store in the fridge until ready to serve for up to a week.

Italian Chicken with Almond Rice

Happy New Year! My goal this year is to try 2-3 new recipes a month and to get back into the swing of writing. Ready? Here goes a new one! Italian Chicken with Almond Rice. This was adapted from SparkRecipes. 

I couldn't believe how easy this was and the chicken was very tender. Adding the nuts to the rice makes it similar to a rice pilaf. I will be making this again because I almost always have these ingredients in the fridge or pantry!

This time I cooked my rice according to my dad's rice instructions. Next time I would cook the rice in 1 3/4 cup broth + garlic powder + Italian dressing. Then use the remaining broth to cook the broccoli and deglaze the chicken pan. 

Italian Chicken with Almond Rice

2 very hungry grownups

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts (1 lb), cut into large chunks
1/4 cup Italian Dressing
1 can (10 fl oz) low sodium chicken broth
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
2 cups broccoli florets
1 cup white rice, cooked (under cooked by 5 minutes, when the rice has absorbed most of the water)
1/4 cup sliced almonds

Cook chicken in 2 tbsp. dressing in large nonstick skillet on medium heat about 4 minutes on each side or until evenly browned and cooked through. Remove chicken.

Pour in broth, garlic powder and remaining dressing; bring to boil. Add rice, broccoli, and nuts. Cook until rice absorbs most of the liquid and the broccoli is tender. 

Serve chicken over rice.

Gluten Free Blueberry Cobbler

Birthday dessert!! I was looking for another gluten free dessert recipe. I made a gluten free blueberry cobbler from here! I made these in individual 6 oz bowls. The blueberry part tasted like blueberry pie, but the almond part on top... was good but didn't make me feel very cobbler-ish. I was just expecting it to be more like a pastry, the almond topping is very thick and doesn't spread very easily but you can just dollop it around.

We made Pamela's Gluten Free Pancakes and the pancakes were great! Since the batter can also be used as a baking mix I would try making a topping with that instead next time.

However it was very easy to make, great for a quick snack, and I would give it another shot!

Birthday Menu: Beef Tenderloin, Swedish baked potatoes, roasted onions and mushrooms, and a Gluten Freeblueberry cobbler!

Gluten Free Blueberry Cobbler

Ingredients

• 16 oz frozen blueberries (I used frozen but I can imagine the fresh would be great too)
• 1/2 cup sugar, divided
• 1 Tbsp cornstarch
• 1 Tbsp lemon juice
• 1 cup slivered blanched almonds ground in a food processor
• 4 Tbsp butter
• 1 whole egg
• pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 400.  In a large bowl gently toss together the blueberries, 1/4 cup of sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice.  Pour into a buttered 2-quart baking dish.  In another bowl mix together the ground almonds/almond meal, butter, the other 1/4 cup of sugar, egg and salt until well combined.  Spread topping over the blueberries.  Bake for 25-35 minutes until the fruit is bubbly and the top is golden brown.  Let cool at least 10 minutes before eating.  Serve hot or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream!

Almond Crusted Chicken

 This recipe is a keeper! Nutty, versatile and fast. 15 minutes for making breadcrumbs and bake for about 20 minutes (depending on thickness of the chicken).

I found the basis for the recipe from Cooks Illustrated, but you can't actually see the recipe unless you sign up... so I found another blogger who made their recipe :) See here. Basically I didn't follow the recipe at all, I just took the breadcrumb technique from them.

Melt some butter in a pan. I added oregano, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper at this point.

Meanwhile use the food processor (I love using this machine..) to chop the nuts. I used almonds because they were the cheapest. I wanted to use pecans or macadamia nuts... but it was about twice as expensive. FYI the 99 has macadamia crusted chicken... its amazing.

Once the butter is melted, wait a few more minutes. It should start to turn a golden brown. Once that happens change the temp to med low and add in the panko breadcrumbs and the almonds. Stir it around gathering up all the butter and spices. Stir occasionally but this step toasts the almonds.The kitchen starts to smell awesome at this point.

I want to point out that we used panko breadcrumbs. This blogger gives more information about panko. But long story short, these are Japanese breadcrumbs, flakier and bigger than regular style, and don't absorb grease as much either. This yields a crispy and crunchy crust for whatever you are cooking.

Time to get the chicken ready! I used thin sliced chicken breast because it cooks faster and I'm an inpatient chef. The recipe says to pierce the chicken a few times with a fork and salt it. I did it, I didn't notice any changes though. Does anyone else know?

Flour the chicken and shake off any excess.
Dip it in the egg mix and let the extra drip off.
Then go ahead and put it in the heavenly breadcrumbs.

I used foil in my pan for faster clean up.

Bake at 350 for about 15-25 minutes. I'd keep an eye on the chicken though, you don't want it over cooked but the cooking time really changes based on the thickness.

This also makes about 1 1/2 - 2 pounds (8 pieces of chicken).

What would I change next time? I would be more patient when browning the butter. I would try different nuts. I'd add in more oregano, closer to 2 tsp because I like oregano.

Almond Crusted Chicken
Serves approx 8

4 tbsp butter
1 tsp oregano, garlic powder, onion powder
Salt & Pepper
1 cup Panko Bread crumbs
1 cup chopped almonds
2 lbs of chicken (8 chicken breast, thin slice)
1 cup flour
2 eggs, beaten

1. Melt butter with the spices. Once melted wait another 4-5 minutes for butter to turn light brown. Add in bread crumbs and almonds.
2. Lower temp to med low. Cook, stirring occasionally for 10-15 minutes. Taste to see if you need more seasonings.
3. Put some flour in a bowl and beat 2 eggs in another bowl.
4. Coat chicken in the flour. Shake off excess. Dip it in the egg, let excess drip. Dip in bread crumbs. Press crumbs in as needed.
5. Place in casserole dish and cook at 350 for 15-20 minutes.

Enjoy!!