Baked Crab Wontons

Whenever I go to a Chinese restaurant, I ALWAYS get crab rangoons. Whether it’s a buffet, a sit down place, a takeout place, a booth in the student union, I  always get these crispy little crabby cheesy bites.
Just thinking about them makes my stomach growl. You bite into a soft-in-the-middle-crispy-on-the-edge wonton and your mouth fills with creamy cheese and soy/onion flavor and sweet crab. You dip it in some soy sauce or duck sauce, and you wonder why you ever eat anything else.

I don’t like to fry. It’s bad for you, it’s scary, and it’s a lot harder than heating an oven. So, I decided to bake up these wontons so I could eat even more at once.

Here’s my recipe. Make em’ for lunch with some eggdrop soup, serve as an appetizer before some stir fry, or bring them as a hearty snack to a party. Beats a cheese tray any day.

Baked Crab Wontons
Ingredients:
1 8 0z block of cream cheese ( I always use lowfat cream cheese.)
1 clove garlic
1 6oz can crabmeat, drained
2 green onions, sliced
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
A package of wonton wrappers (how many depends on how much you fill them)

Instructions:
Beat together every ingredient but the wrappers until blended.
Preheat the oven to 425 and lightly spray a baking sheet or two.
To fill them, take a wrapper and lay it out. Put in a tablespoon or so of filling. Dip your finger in water and run it along all four edges. Fold the wonton diagonally.

Put them on the baking sheets and spray with oil again. Bake for 12-15 minutes.

Serve with soy or duck sauce.

 

 

Thanksgiving Turkey Burger

I LOVE gourmet burgers. There’s a place in Little Rock that makes the best burgers I’ve ever had. They have a jalapeno popper burger, a smokey BBQ burger with fried onion strings, a Farmer’s burger with a poached egg… it’s amazing. So, I decided to try my hand at doing a fun gourmet burger.

I’m trying to eat kinda healthy these days, so I decided to work with a turkey burger. I’d seen a Thanksgiving Burger recipe online recently, so I decided to work off that.

This has a delicious mix of flavors. Sweet and savory combine into a bite that makes me think it’s November.

Thanksgiving Burgers:
Ingrediants:
Butter for sauting
1/2 onion
2 cups of instant cornbread stuffing mix
3/4 cup chicken stock
4 turkey burger patties (mine were frozen)
A can of cranberry sauce
1/2 cup-ish of chicken or turkey gravy (mine was from a jar)
4 awesome hamburger buns (mine came from the bakery. You can do brioche or just a really fluffy, awesome bun)

Instructions:

Get a small saucepan on the stove on medium high heat. Cook the onion in a couple tablespoons of butter until it’s soft. Then, pour in the chicken stock and bring it to a simmer. Dump in the stuffing and stir it around until moist. Set aside with the lid on.

Next, cook the turkey patties in a frying pan with a little butter. Get them fully cooked and browned on both sides.

Meanwhile, microwave the gravy or heat it on the stove.

Assemble the burgers! Put the patty on the bun, then top it with a spoon of cranberry sauce, a scoop of stuffing, and a drizzle of gravy. Put on the top bun, squish, and bite!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Birthday Candy Brownies

My boyfriend’s brother has a birthday coming up, so I decided to make some brownies. Not just any brownies: brownies stuffed with candy and potato chips and nuts and covered in fudgy frosting. It’s a birthday, so it’s the perfect excuse to go all out with something really celebratory.

Of course, the candy and nuts are always a home run in a brownie. The chips, however, tend to freak people out.

Here’s the thing: these brownies NEED the salt from those chips. Yes, you can just sprinkle on some sea salt or something, but it’ll just melt and blend in and not be nearly as affective. Plus, it’s a birthday! Of course you want something really decadent and guilty, like potato chip brownies. You can just try it on half the pan if you’re scared, but that half will go faster!

So, here’s a brownie recipe for a super fun, childhood embracing celebration. Enjoy 🙂

Ingrediants:

1 chocolate cake mix

1/3 cup evaporated milk

1 stick melted butter

Fillings!: peanut butter cups, milky ways, m&ms, and potato chips were my choices

1 can Fudge Frosting

Instructions:

Combine cake mix, evaporated milk, and butter until sticky. Put half of it in a greased 8×8 pan.

Layer your fillings on top. Then, take the other half of the brownie mixture and roll it into the same size as the pan. Put it on top.

Bake at 350 for 22-25 minutes. Allow to cool, then chill in the fridge for a couple hours. Frost with the fudge frosting and decorate with more candy!

No Frills Peanut Butter Cookies

Peanut Butter cookies are my mother’s favorite. I love them as well, though I prefer to throw in some chocolate chips, make a cookie sandwich, or fancy them up in some way.
My mother does not accept this. She will not listen to any suggestion that involves messing with a classic peanut butter cookie.

I am even a huge fan of the popular concept of three ingredient peanut butter cookies, which I think work quite well. But my mother insists that they are “imitation cookies,” and if I want to make them, I’d better make some real ones too.

So, here we go. For the die-hard, purist, no-adaptations-allowed peanut butter cookie lovers, this is your recipe. It is completely classic, no surprises whatsoever. Exactly like your grandmother would’ve made.

Don’t worry though- you can throw in some chocolate chips too.

No Frills Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
Additional white sugar for rolling

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 375.
Beat the butter, peanut butter, sugars, and egg with electric beaters until smooth.

Add in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and mix until also smooth. The dough is pretty sticky; don’t be scared. That just makes for a tender cookie.

Roll the dough into 1 inch balls, then dump them on a plate of white sugar. Roll them around until completely coated.

Place the balls 2 inches apart on a parchment lined baking sheet. Press the cookies with a fork twice, making a crossed pattern. If you’re out of parchment paper, DO NOT use cooking spray instead. You’ll get soggy bottoms! Try aluminum foil instead. Or just pray that your pan is nonstick.

Bake at 375 for about ten minutes. They’ll be kinda soft on top, but once the edges are a little bit brown, they’re done. Leave em’ on the hot pan for a few minutes, then put them on a cooling rack and call my mother to come have a cookie.

 

Two Ingredient Any Flavor Frosting

There are plenty of ways to shortcut frosting. You can use peanut butter, marshmallow creme, or a pudding mix with half the milk.

All of those are great if you want a rich creamy frosting, like to pour over a cake. Or a super sticky marshmallow glob.

If you want something a little more fluffy, things start getting complicated. You start adding cream, beaters, powdered sugar, cream cheese, softened butter. The ingredients pile on, and it’s not a shortcut anymore.

Enter this beauty. There are some many possibilities. Just two ingredients, a whisk, and you get your favorite flavor of pudding in a frosting.

So, you need 8oz Frozen Whipped Topping (like cool whip) and one box of instant no cook pudding (any flavor).

What flavor are you going to chose? Cheesecake? Pistachio? White chocolate? Banana?
Peanut butter cake with banana frosting…. Caramel cake with butterscotch frosting… coconut frosting and some chocolate covered almonds on a chocolate cake (thinking of a candy bar?)….

So many options!
So what exactly do you do?

Just whip the Frozen Whipped Topping and the Pudding together with a whisk. One bowl, one utensil. 

Go. Do it. It’s somebody’s birthday or something!

 

Cauliflower Crust Pesto Chicken Pizza

I am completely engrossed by the concept of Cauliflower pizza crust. It is such a phenomenally good idea for so many reasons and uses. Use it to make pizza for kids; its way healthier, and they won’t be able to tell under a good layer of pepperoni and cheese. It cuts carbs, it adds vegetables in a sneaky way where you forget you’re eating vegetables.

Now, add pesto. You’ve seen my Perfect Spinach Pesto post, and know how truly and deeply I value this green spread. This is another sneaky veggie addition in this dish: the sauce is flipping spinach! You’re eating cauliflower and spinach. It’s practically a salad, but it’s pizza. In love yet? Sure, there’s some cheese, and some oil, but I put that on my salad too!
So….

Cauliflower Crust Pesto Chicken Pizza

For the crust:
1 head cauliflower, cut into florets
1 egg
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese (grated or shredded- don’t get complicated)
1 Teaspoon Italian Seasoning

For the Pesto (Fine, you’re rushed. Use pesto from a jar. But it won’t be as good.):
1/3 cup pine nuts
3 cups fresh spinach (Yes, you traditional pesto lovers- use basil. It’s fine too.)
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 teaspoon salt
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
½ cup olive oil

For the Pizza toppings:
1 cup cooked chicken (use the stuff from the deli, use the frozen Tyson stuff, do what I did and boil a chicken breast and shred it. Or skip it all together and be vegetarian. You do you)
1 cup Mozzarella cheese
3 Tbls Pine Nuts
Other stuff you may like: black olives, shrimp, roasted garlic cloves, roasted red peppers, jalapenos, a drizzle of balsamic. Mmmmmmm…..

Instructions:
Make the crust: Preheat oven to 450. Put the cauliflower in your food processor and spritz it until its rice-ish. Put that cauliflower in a microwave safe bowl. Clean out your processor- you’ll need it for the pesto.

Microwave the cauliflower for two minutes, then stir. Be liberal with the stirring: you want the steam to escape so it gets dry. Microwave another three minutes, stir again. Microwave five minutes, stir. Microwave five final minutes, stir. This is a total of 15 minutes.

Add in the other crust ingredients. Be careful with the egg- it could scramble.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (DO IT) and dump the cauliflower mixture onto the baking sheet. Form a square, like a pizza crust.
Bake for about 15 to 18 minutes, until it’s pretty brown on the edges and feels kinda solid. Don’t stress: it’s just a crust.

Make the pesto: Toast pine nuts in a dry pan over medium high heat until light brown and smelly. Pulse in the food processor (which doesn’t have cauliflower in it anymore, yes?) until ground. Add spinach and parsley, garlic, and salt. Pulse until finely chopped. Add cheese. Pulse until combined. With the food processor running, drizzle the olive oil slowly through the feed tube on top until smooth and saucy.

Assemble: Once the crust is out of the oven, let it cool for like five minutes so that the pesto doesn’t melt all over the place. Then, spread on the pesto. Throw on the cheese, chicken, and some of those optional toppings. DO NOT do the pine nuts yet; they’ll burn.
Pop it into the oven for five minutes, until the cheese is bubbly.
Throw on those pine nuts, and slice it up!

The best part? This is totally guilt free as far as pizza goes. Make dessert. Or order it from the pizza place 🙂