Heaven

Our sweet tooths got the better of us at the grocery store yesterday so we went to visit that horribly mean area of the store - the bakery!

Dr. Bob was excited because he finally found a "mini" egg custard pie. Up until now he has only found large ones. He has avoided buying them because that is not my type of dessert, so I would not help him eat it. It is never a good idea to have that large of a dessert in our house!

I got this:

Whoever thought about dipping cheesecake into chocolate was a GENIUS! It is a HUGE piece of cheesecake so I am trying to pace myself but this thing is unbelievably heavenly!

Reader Questions:

Do you ever get sucked into the bakery section of the grocery store?

If so, what types of "yummy delishiousness'" catch your eye?

Quick and easy

No, this isn’t going to be a dirty post :)

The Mrs. & I were looking for something different. Pasta has been getting boring, even with some delicious homemade meatballs or amazing homemade chicken parmesan (more about those another time).

So…we had a bunch of pasta from a recent BJs trip, and picked up some chicken when it was on sale at Kroger this week. Here’s where the quick part comes in – we also picked up a small jar of pre-made pesto. This has been one of the things I’ve wanted to try to make from scratch, but I also wanted Mrs. Bob to try it first before we invested time, effort and mess in making it.

Here’s what you need:

Boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into bite size pieces

Basic spices (or my “use it in everything” spice starter)

Balsamic vinegar

Olive oil

Pasta

Pesto

Boil the pasta, like you normally would.

While the water is coming to a boil, heat about a teaspoon of olive oil in a fry pan over medium heat. Add the chicken (we did about 16 ounces of uncooked chicken – this will give you about 12 ounces of cooked chicken), making sure the pieces are broken apart. Sprinkle with spices (salt, pepper, garlic, etc.), and dribble about ½ teaspoon balsamic vinegar. Let the chicken cook, undisturbed, for a while, until the bottom is cooked and starting to brown. Flip the chicken pieces, let cook on the other side until cooked through. Stir around when it’s finishing cooking, to make sure the spices and reduced balsamic are mixed.

After you drain the pasta, heat about 2 tablespoons pesto in another fry pan, add about 4-5 ounces cooked pasta and about 3-4 ounces of cooked chicken. Stir it around a bunch, until it’s all mixed together and heated through. Remove to a bowl, sprinkle with parmesan cheese, and serve immediately.

This is a great, quick meal to make, and it is easy to measure out nicely portion-controlled servings. If you use whole wheat pasta (we usually get Barilla whole wheat at BJs), the serving size I described above (depending on the type of pesto), will be about a 450-500 calorie, very satisfying dinner.

Envious...

I know this has nothing to do with cooking and that we haven't blogged any yummy recipes lately but I have to share the love.....

Niki over at Debt Free by Thirty has just accomplished her goal of paying off her debt, celebrating her 1st Blogaversary, and having her 1st give-away. Boy is it a big day!

I am envious of their family having paid off over $14,000 in a year. They are now consumer debt free and going to work on paying off things like their car and building a huge emergency fund. Good for them! I have enjoyed reading her posts and watching her progress. It has helped DrBob and I think about what we need to do and put plans in place.

Congrats Niki!

I promise we will be back with some great posts soon! (I actually have one that I wanted to put up yesterday but ran out of time. Who knows, maybe you will get 2 posts today!)

Slow cooker madness

Woke up this morning with a desire to get stuff cleared out of the fridge. We’ve been doing a lot of shopping for things we need and stocking up on non-perishable items (just wish BJ’s was a bit closer, but oh well); this led to a drawer full of chicken in the fridge and a bunch of random stuff calling my name. So, I decided to seriously overwork our little 3 quart slow cooker.

First task – BBQ chicken. No real recipe here. Just put some BBQ sauce on the bottom of the slow cooker, add a boneless chicken breast, more sauce, more chicken, until the slow cooker was about ¾ full. I let this go on low for about 3 hours, at which point the chicken was amazingly tender and moist, even though the internal temperature was about 180 degrees. A quick shred later, back in the sauce, and finished it for another half hour.
Side note: this is going to go great with the sweet Vidalia onion coleslaw that I made.

Next up – after cleaning the slow cooker, I basically repeated the BBQ chicken, except with salsa. This is currently being made into refried bean/chicken/cheese quesadillas as I type.

Finally – after another cleaning of the slow cooker, in went 2 cans of light red kidney beans, 4 strips of cooked bacon, half cup of ketchup, quarter cup of brown sugar, half cup of maple syrup, 1 cup of water, and about 2 tablespoons of mustard. That’s cooking on high for the next four hours.

Can’t wait for tomorrow’s lunch – BBQ chicken, coleslaw and “baked” beans.

Once the slow cooker is done, I’m gonna let it rest…at least for a little while.

Melt in your mouth min muffins

Today's amazingly yummy treat comes to us via Little House on the Prairie Living. Dr. Bob found the recipe and proceeded to do what he does best when it comes to baking, "Baby, you should try making this recipe!"

But it sounded too good not to try.

You can find the recipe here. The recipe makes 24 mini muffins.

The only things I added were:

1.) 2 tablespoons of flax seeds to make it a smidge healthier

See the flax seeds....
And 2.) cinnamon to the topping because just the sugar wasn't enough for me. I am definitely a cinnamon and sugar type of gal.Don't they look delicious?!

I actually made something along these lines for the day my nephew was born (to have something for people to munch on while visiting) and while that recipe was good - this one was a lot better and quicker! I will absolutely use this one again.

Like I said, it is beyond simple and quick. I think it took me 45 minutes from pulling out the ingredients to being completely cleaned up.

Little bits of heaven!

Give the recipe a try and let me know what you think!