Back to the matter at hand, though.  This recipe is my favorite of 2011 up to this point.  I promised myself that I’d have only one slice, but that quickly doubled and almost tripled.  Wowza.

Ingredients:

3  tbsp  olive oil

3  cloves  minced garlic

1  sprig fresh basil (Substitute dried if needed.  I just had some handy from my wimpy garden.)

1/2  tsp  dried oregano

1/4  tsp  thyme

1 1/2  c  sliced fresh mushrooms

1  6 oz bag of baby spinach

1 small tomato diced

1/2  c  sliced black olives

Small jar of spaghetti/pizza/marinara sauce of your choice

1/2  grated mozzarella cheese

1/4  c melted butter

freshly grated parmesan cheese

1  can crescent roll dough

Preheat to 375.

Heat olive oil in skillet over medium heat.  Add garlic, basil, oregano, and thyme.  Heat for 45-60 seconds and add mushrooms.  Saute for a couple of minutes and then add the entire bag of spinach.  Toss it around until it’s nicely coated in oil and seasonings.  Leave that to wilt, checking occasionally while you prepare your dough.

When you remove the dough from the can, do not separate into triangles.  You want to patch the rectangles together Frankenstein-style.  Pinch all seams and tears (I can’t get the dough out of the can without tearing.  Ever.) together until it looks like this:

Spread a few spoonfuls of your sauce down the center and add some mozzarella (leave some cheese for later) to look like this:

By now, your mushrooms should be tender and your spinach wilted.  Remove from heat and spoon onto your saucey/cheesey strip.  On top of that, add your tomatoes and olives.

Sprinkle remaining mozzarella on top of that and close it up.  Bring up the sides, pinch them together and then fold up your ends.  I cut a few pretty little slits in mine.

I brushed mine with melted butter and sprinkled on a little fresh parmesan.

Bake at 375 for 15-18 minutes or until nice and golden.

Mmmmm.  Slice diagonally and serve.  You can use your remaining sauce for dipping, but it’s just wonderful without it.

Try it out and let me know what you think!

You’re welcome for the new word.

Side note:  I thought to grab my camera at the last minute and wasn’t prepared, so please forgive missing & poor quality photos.  Thanks.

Moving on….

Spinach Cream Sauce

What you’ll need:

Pasta (this was superb with gnocchi, but use whatever floats your boat)

Olive oil

8 cloves garlic

Sprig of fresh basil

9 oz bag of spinach

3-4 large shitake mushrooms

1 pint heavy whipping cream

1 cup fresh parmesan, grated

1 tsp corn starch

Mince your garlic.  Set aside approximately 2 cloves-worth for later in the recipe.  Mince the basil and dice your mushrooms.

My pretty basil from my backyard:

And my diced mushrooms.  Small enough to enjoy, big enough for my husband to pick out of his plate.

Heat about 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a medium-to-large skillet.  I don’t measure, I just pour, so I’m estimating here.  When the oil gets hot, add your garlic ( 6 cloves worth) and your basil.  Allow to cook for about 30-60 seconds and then toss in your mushrooms and bag of spinach.  Toss with spatula to make sure everything is nice and coated in oil.  Add a little splash if you didn’t start with enough.

Cook until mushrooms are tender and spinach is thoroughly wilted. Remove from heat and drain excess moisture.  I chopped mine up pretty good to make sure nobody gets any stringy spinach.  Any mom knows that one stringy bite is all it takes to turn a kid off of a food in a heartbeat!

Set that aside.

In a medium saucepan on medium heat, add your cream, remaining 2 cloves of garlic and 3/4 cup of your parmesan.  Whisk continuously to prevent sticking and burning.  When cheese is melted, vigorously whisk in a teaspoon of corn starch, just a sprinkle at a time.  Continue heating & whisking until the sauce is thickened.  Dump in your spinach mixture and continue to cook for about 2 more minutes or until desired thickness is reached.

Serve over your favorite pasta and sprinkle your leftover parmesan on top.  Absolutely heavenly.

So, because I’m transitioning over to the world of vegetarianism, I’m experimenting with quick, easy recipes that I can make for myself while also preparing meals for the rest of the family.  This afternoon’s experiment led to an instant favorite.  They were so good, in fact, that the kiddos ate them out from under me.  Great success!

Stuffed Mushrooms

10-12  shitake mushrooms

6-8  cloves garlic

6  green onions

1  stick butter (use a few tbsp of olive oil instead for healthier alternative)

1  bag baby spinach

3/4  c  bread crumbs

1  c  shredded mozzarella ( or freshly grated Parmesan or  both)

dried parsley leaves for pretties

Preheat oven to 350.

Lightly spray the bottom of a casserole dish.

Thoroughly wash your mushrooms.  If you’d prefer, you can use button mushrooms or even portabellos.  When I sent my husband to the store with a list that said “mushrooms around 2 inches around”, he brought back shitake and they were perfect.

Cut the stems off and then cut the tough tips off of the stems.  Mince up the stems and put them aside.  (If you don’t care for the stems, you can buy a few extra mushrooms and mince up the caps instead.  I did a little of both.

Then peel and chop your garlic.  Mine was starting to sprout and is a bit green, but even more fragrant and delicious than ever.

Throw it aside with your minced mushroom.

In a medium-to-large skillet over medium heat, put in your stick of butter (or olive oil) and let it start to melt.  Dump in your bag of spinach.

Toss it around until the leaves are coated and leave them to wilt while you chop your green onions.

By now, your spinach is starting to wilt nicely.  Toss in your goodies: minced mushrooms, garlic and onions.  Mix well and continue to cook until the spinach is nicely wilted.  Use the side of your spoon to cut up any long, stringy pieces of spinach once it’s tender enough.

Remove from heat and mix in bread crumbs.

Place mushroom caps in baking dish and then stuff them full of your mixture.  Of course, with the flatter nature of shitake mushrooms, they aren’t actually stuffed so much as piled.  Either way, heap in/on the goodness.

Sprinkle a little cheese onto each one.  I added a tiny sprinkle of dried parley flakes for the heck of it.

Bake at 350 for 12-15 min and enjoy!

So, let’s get to business.  For my first post-hiatus trick, I give you……Bad MoFos*!

Bad MoFos are kind of a hybrid recipe I came up with.  I started with my favorite cookie recipe and tried to turn it into a cross between a cookie and a granola bar.  See, during my absence, Shayne and I have been dieting, working out and just generally trying to live a bit of a healthier lifestyle.  I still need my sweet splurges, but I’m trying to develop some with a healthy twist to take away some of the guilt factor.  Recently, I had a flight coming up and as I was preparing for it the night before, I was dreading all the unhealthy airport food choices and I experimented.  I came up with these lovely little bars but was very uninspired when it came to naming them.

I packed them up–some for my carry-on and some in the checked bag to have at the hotel and share with friends–and headed out.  Turns out I made a fast friend on the flight from Dallas to Vegas.  We started discussing food (imagine that, right??) and while she said she wasn’t big on sweets, I practically forced her to “try just one bite and if you don’t like it, I’ll eat the rest”.  Well, I never got it back.  She loved them because they aren’t super sweet and would serve as a great quick breakfast, too!

Then, feeling confident after seeing someone else enjoy them, I gave Shayne one (he’d been in NYC and Vegas all week, so he was in need of some of my food. ).  Instantly, he fell in love with the bars and declared them “Bad MoFos”.  Clever.

I continued to share the bars with different friends during WordCamp Las Vegas and it was unanimous:  the name had to be Bad MoFos.

What’s extra cool about this recipe is the huge amount of flexibility you have with it.  Add white chocolate chips and dried cranberries.  Reduce shortening, add peanut butter and chocolate chips.  Add walnuts or pecans or raisins or….anything.  YUM.

So there you have it.  And here you have the Bad MoFo recipe:

Bad MoFos

1  c  shortening

3/4  c  brown sugar

1/4  c  raw sugar

1 1/2  tsp  vanilla

1 1/2  c  whole wheat flour (update: I now prefer 1 c ww flour and 1/2 flax seed meal)

1/4  tsp  salt

1  tsp  baking soda

1/4  c  boiling water

1 3/4  c  quick oats

1/4  c  flax seeds

1/2  c  sunflower seeds

Preheat oven to 350.

Put water on to boil.

Mix shortening, brown sugar, raw sugar and vanilla well.

Add in flour and salt.  Mix.

Dissolve baking soda in boiling water and mix into dough.

Mix in oats, flax seeds and sunflower seeds.

Spread into a greased 13 x 9″ pan.  The dough is thick and not super easy to spread, so I use my rice paddle.

Bake at 350 for 25-28 min.

Cool 10 minutes and then cut into bars.  I like to wrap them individually after they’ve cool so that I can just toss one into my purse and go.

Feel free to use a more family-friendly moniker with your children. Bad Motorscooters?  Yummy Cookie-nola?  Ummm…..I don’t know.

These were inspired by Grab-a-Nola from Sandi’s Breads.  Since I don’t live anywhere near Pennsylvania and quickly realized that I was going to spend a fortune on shipping while I was eating 4 of them a day, I had to do something, right??  I will say that while my recipe does rock (I can say that, right?), there’s nothing like Sandi’s Grab-a-Nola.  Try hers.  You won’t regret it.  This is not a paid advertisement.  I just really, really like her Grab-a-Nola.  And her muffins.  And her bread.  And…yeah.  I like food.

Go bake already, would ya?  Why are you still reading this??

Go!

Growing up, one of my very favorite things for my mother to cook with dinner was fried eggplant.  It wasn’t something we ate often, so I was always thrilled when I spotted a beautiful eggplant sitting in the fridge after a trip to the grocery store.  To me, it’s the coolest looking produce in the market.  The shape, the color, the size…love it.

It’s has lots to offer nutritionally, as well.  Did you know:

• Eggplant is low in saturated fat, sodium, and cholesterol?
• Eggplant is high in dietary fiber, folate, potassium, manganese, vitamin C, vitamin K, thiamin, niacin, vitamin B6, pantothenic acid, magnesium, phosphorus and copper?

It’s good for you.  But I’m going to change that.  Because I grew up country-fried and it’s what I do.

So…

Grab a skillet and put enough oil in it to cover the bottom.  Heat the oil over medium-high heat.

Select a beautiful eggplant and lop of the ends like this:

Then cut it in half.

Slice it into 1/4″ slices.

Coat each slice in a flour, salt & pepper mixture.

Dip in milk.  Or evaporated milk.  Or buttermilk.

And dip in flour again.

When your oil is hot and ready to go, lay your slices in there.  Cook each side until they reach a deep golden brown or whatever level of doneness that appeals to you.

Drain them on a plate covered with a paper towel.

And the special ingredient??

Sugar.

Lightly sprinkle them with sugar while they’re still hot.  Trust me.  It’s worth it.

The whole family loves them and while it may not be the healthiest way to serve eggplant, it’s a way to get them in kids’ tummies. Yummy comfort food.

I’m curious, though….how do you prepare eggplant?

How could anyone resist these?

I found the original recipe at allrecipes.com, but made a few minor changes to make the recipe a little more to my taste.  Here’s my version:

Abbie’s Fudge Puddles

1 cup softened butter
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar*
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla**
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Preheat to 325.

Mix butter, peanut butter, and sugars until creamy.  Mix in eggs and vanilla.  In a separate, smaller bowl, mix your flour, baking soda and salt.  And to peanut butter mixture.  Once you’ve got your dough mixed well, roll into 1 inch balls and place in greased mini-muffin pans.  Bake for 14-16 minutes or until golden brown.

Immediately press center of cookies with melon baller ( I use a round teaspoon) and then let cookies cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan.  Any less time and they’ll be too soft to transfer in one piece and any longer, they might get too hard and stick/break.

For fabulous fudge filling:

1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips***
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla.

You can use a double boiler to melt this, but I just put them in a Pyrex bowl and microwave them for 1 minute.  Stir, then microwave in 20 second increments until nice and smooth.  Spoon into cookies and allow a few minutes to set.

*I love using dark brown sugar for a richer taste.
** I keep the huge bottles of clear Mexican vanilla on hand. I prefer the clear, because with the Mexican clear, you still get the amazing flavor, but it doesn’t affect the color of my icing when I decorate cakes.
*** I prefer semi-sweet to the sweeter milk chocolate, but do whatever appeals to you.

I’ve decided to share this glorious thing with you today and let you know how I do it. I’m sure there are a billion and 3 ways to do it, but here’s my way.

Things you’ll need:

2 Eggs
1/3 cup milk
2 cups flour
paprika
salt & pepper
3/4 cup Louisiana hot pepper sauce
3 Tblsp Butter
1 tsp vinegar
oil
about 3 chicken breasts cut into strips

Please keep in mind my measurements are very approximate….I don’t ever measure on recipes like this.

Pour oil into skillet until it’s about 1/2 deep or so. Set the burner to medium heat and let the oil get hot while you prepare your strips.

Put milk and eggs into a small bowl and mix with fork.

I like to put my flour and seasonings in a pie plate. Dump in a heap of flour and sprinkle in seasonings to taste. I don’t add tons because I have to keep a few strips out for the kids without sauce, and I want theirs to be pretty mild. Mix ‘em up.

Take your breast strips and roll each one in the flour mixture, then in the milk mixture….and back into the flour mixture. Gotta make sure they’ve got a nice coating on them.

By now your oil should be hot enough, so throw in your strips and let them brown on one side. Flip them once and let the other side brown. (See that one dark one?? What the heck? He got a little anxious and had to get brown a little too fast. And it wasn’t because he was the first one in and my oil was too hot. It wasn’t.)

While the chicken is frying, put your pepper sauce, butter and vinegar in a microwavable bowl. Zap it until the butter melts and then mix it up. Just smelling it will give you heartburn. Mmmhmmm.

When your chicken is cooked, drain it on a paper toweled plate. Pull out some for the kiddos and then dump the rest in a big Ziploc bag. Dump in your prepared sauce, too. Zip it up really tightly and shake it until your strips are good and coated.

Dump into a dish (Choose one that makes your food look plentiful, though. I did not.) Eat up and let me know what you think!

Well, it was one of those days. I really should have gone grocery shopping a day or two before that, but hadn’t, so supplies were running low. I grabbed the only things that even made sense together and came up with my Chicken Roll-ups. They have become a huge hit with my family….and many of my friends’ families! Let me know what you think!

1 can chicken breast
1 can cream of chicken
1 can cream of mushroom
1 can chopped green chilis
garlic powder to taste
chopped onion or onion powder to taste
about 1/2 cup milk
1 can Grands biscuits
shredded cheese

In a skillet, mix chicken, the soups, peppers, garlic, onion, milk and a handful or two of cheese. Heat until soups have thinned some, but not to the point of melting the cheese completely. (don’t you love how specific my directions are…)

While that cools a bit, roll your biscuits flat with a rolling pin. Plop a big spoonful of chicken mixture in the middle of each biscuit and roll them up burrito style. Place them seam-side down in a casserole dish and cover them with remaining mixture. Sprinkle cheese on top. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

Keep in mind when you read my recipes that Shayne can’t cope with onions….so anytime you see ‘onion powder’ please add chopped onion if your family can cope. I dream of chopped onion……