BLT Poached Eggs with Avocado Hollandaise

This is kind of a spur-of-the-moment post, as I actually just made this dish the day before yesterday. I say "spur-of-the-moment" because usually I spend weeks or months working on a post. Making and remaking a recipe so I can take and retake photos. Rearranging the pictures in the post. And then, I usually spend a couple of weeks looking at the photos daily, deciding if I want to share them.

Things sure have changed since I first started the blog 😂 

This dish is so tasty though, I couldn't wait to share it. It's pretty darn easy and fool-proof for how delicious it is. You won't believe how simple it is to make the Avocado Hollandaise, I think it's 100 times easier than real Hollandaise! I also like the flavor better than the real stuff, but I digress. Let's talk about this dish and my inspiration for it! 

Jalapeño Popper Pizza

It's Friday and we're going to talk about pizza. As such, I hereby open with this quote,

"You can't have Thanksgiving without turkey! That's like Fourth of July with no apple pie, or Friday with no two pizzas!"

I bet you can guess what show that quote is from... 

If you guessed 'Friends', you guessed right 😜 What can I say? I was picking up the house this morning, doing my normal chores, making the bed, and thinking about what I was going to write today. I started thinking about pizza... and that it's Friday... and the quote just popped into my head. Quotes from 'Friends' strike my mind every day in almost any situation, and while we won't be having 2 pizzas this Friday, the quote still made me smile. 

25 Seafood Recipes

Time for a round-up!

I haven't posted a round-up since September, so it's definitely time. And this has to be one of my favorites because seafood? I would eat it at EVERY meal if I could. Seriously! But there's another reason I'm posting a round-up today-

I've spent the last 2 days in the kitchen, up to my ears in potato parts and banging my head against the counter. What's going on? Gnocchi, that's what. I've been trying my hand at homemade gnocchi. You know, those little Italian potato dumplings that are like little clouds of dreaminess? It has not been going well. It turns out there are lots of mistakes to be made while attempting gnocchi. So far, I've had gnocchi that fell apart in the pot, I've had mushy little balls with a texture that can only be compared to snot, and finally, I had a dough that came apart at the seems. 

Turkey Bacon Avocado Paninis

It has been one of those kind of weeks.

Last Monday, a familiar but most unwelcome acquaintance set up shop in my house- the common cold. And ugh, it has been anything but fun. I've been running the gambit from sore throat to fever to head fog to a lost voice. Truly, by the end of the day Saturday, the hubby and I were communicating by text. I'm normally a very quiet person, but found the sensation of not being able to talk very unpleasant. Not cool when you are trying to watch Oregon football! 😡 Luckily, I'm on the mend. My voice is back and with only a nasty cough left, I'm pretty much over the hump.

Good thing too, because I'm doing the Thanksgiving shopping today 🙀

25 Side Dishes

Hey hey! We've got a holiday weekend coming up y'all!

The Memorial Day Holiday weekend is upon us. I don't know about you, but ever since we moved to Kentucky, Memorial Day has been spent with the hubby's family. The hubby's cousin and his wife drive in from out of town, and we all gather together for a family barbecue. This time, the hubby's cousin and his wife are bringing their new baby girl for everyone to meet! We are excited. The weekend is promising to be very sunny, right now they are forecasting a high of 90º. Whew! Good thing the hubby's-cousin's-wife's-mother (whose house we party at) has a pool. The pool is the best part of the get-together, at least as far as all the nieces and nephews are concerned :-)

Wild Rice & Mushroom Soup

-with toasted almonds, chives, and Gruyere toasts

Today is just one of those days. Yes, it's Spring and we've had a spate of nice weather days. But you know the old saying "April showers bring May flowers?" Today is a day of April showers. It's been gray, rainy, and cloudy since I woke up. Not only do I get a day off from keeping the un-sprouted seeds in the garden moist, but it's the perfect day for a comforting bowl of soup.

25 Tomato Recipes

Happy Monday! 

Wowsers, did this weekend fly by or what? I just can't even, I don't know where it went. I'll start with my doctor's appointment on Friday morning-

So, that appointment... It was first thing in the morning, 8 am. I was the surgeon's first patient of the day. Now, most of the surgeons I've seen, they start by asking me questions and conclude by giving me an exam. And truth be told, the exams are usually quite gentle. Painless. This surgeon started the appointment by giving me an exam. Somehow he managed to locate the exact evil spots on my back. Not only did he locate it/them, but he pressed insanely hard into them.

Chicken Bacon Orzo Soup

Here in Kentucky, winter is about to give what I suspect is its last gasp. I even woke up to a dusting of snow this morning. Judging from the future forecast though it looks like after this next week, the weather will break. No more nights in the 30's with the fear of frost. Days in the high 60's, low 70's. The garden will flourish. Our privacy fence of densely populated trees at the edge of our property (which lose their greenery every winter) will fill out with leaves again. And chicken soup that warms the soul will lose just a smidgen of its appeal. 

25 Pasta Recipes

Hey-o!

Happy Day-After Christmas folks! Did everyone have a great holiday with lots of friends and family? We sure did! Due to the holiday festivities yesterday, there was little time for blogging. The hubby and I have been go, go, GO! for the last couple of days. I'm definitely feeling it, and am ready for life to slow down just a bit. We've got our niece and nephew staying the night with us tonight, but come Monday, I should have some alone time. We aren't even planning anything for New Year's Eve, thank goodness. At the top of the list of my least favorite holidays you would have New Year's Eve. I'm always so-done with the holidays and usually 5 lbs overweight by the time it rolls around. This year, we are staying in. The more you progress into your 30's, the less you care about going out. Missing out on something. Not being in the pictures the next day. All the things that mattered so much in your 20's? Eh. I take em' or leave em' now.

Kentucky Hot Browns

If you want me to be completely honest with you, I will. I'd never heard of Kentucky Hot Browns until I moved to Kentucky. Seriously. I'd lived here a year and a half before I even heard the term. I was perusing FaceBook when I saw an article about The Brown Hotel, birthplace of the Kentucky Hot Brown. The story is, in the 1920's, upper class citizens used to come to The Brown Hotel to dance until the wee hours of the morning. After dancing away the night, they would make their bleary way to the kitchen where they would request a breakfast-y type dish. Wanting to serve his patrons something more upper-crust then eggs and bacon, the chef at The Brown Hotel devised an open-face turkey sandwich slathered in Mornay (that's CHEESE!) sauce. The Kentucky Hot Brown was born.

Creamy Bacon Broccoli and Brie Pasta

This is really mac and cheese in disguise. A grown-up mac and cheese, if you will. Tender pasta tossed in a creamy cheese sauce flavored by brie, all mixed in with crispy bacon and bright green broccoli. The hubby and I went nuts over this, truly we ate more than we should have.  I couldn't believe when I discovered we (the two of us!) ate almost a whole skillet of that wonderful brie-coated pasta. 

Little piggies, I tell you.

25 Deliciously Cheesy Recipes

You guys.

We are less than 24 hours away from the hubby and I hitting the road to go pick up our little man. To say I'm excited would be an understatement of mammoth proportions. I'm counting down the minutes till it's 8 am here, and I can call the puppy's foster mother to finalize our arrangements. Not that it will help. My brain is all like, "Puppy, puppy, puppy, puppy, puppy... Is it time to leave yet? No? Puppy, puppy, puppy, puppy..."

Smoked Salmon Chowder

The hubby gets home tomorrow! Hip, hip, hooray! 

I'm excited, can you tell? I guess you could say I've had my fill of Mexican food. I'm ready to have my best friend back. Sure, it's been great fun slacking on the house work. Watching Days of Our Lives with a bowl of ice cream, hair in a scrunchy, living in my pajamas. Feasting on Mexican food all day, all night. It was all very amusing. But I'm done with it now. I like my life for a reason.

Turkey Bacon Guacamole Sandwiches

Happy Friday!

I still love weekends, even though I'm not technically part of the work force anymore. Fridays were my favorite day of the week as a school-aged kid. It remained my favorite day all the way through college, and even up through all my subsequent jobs. The day I quit my corporate job? Well, it was a Tuesday, but Fridays were still my favorite day at that point. I mean, aren't Fridays the best? When it's 5 o'clock pm after a long workweek, and you still have the entire weekend of possibilities in front of you? I loved that feeling.

25 Easy Chicken Recipes

Happy Friday! Happy March Madness! 

The NCAA tournament has been going as planned for the hubby, with Kentucky chugging right along. My bracket is looking awfully precarious, though I do have Kentucky winning it all. As long as Kentucky can keep on winning, I'm still in it. But barely, and by the skin of my teeth. I'm in 4th place in the family pool. Out of 5. I guess you can't win em' all.

Cheese Enchiladas with Chili Gravy

I believe I've finally done it.

I've been playing around with chili gravy for years. My battles are detailed here:

The Year of The Entomada

Shredded Beef Entomadas

Enchilada Trouble Shooting

25 Super Bowl Snacks, Treats, and Meal Ideas

Good morning, and happy Tuesday!

I meant to publish a post yesterday, but the morning ended up being way too hectic. The hubby and I had to leave the house at 7 am yesterday to drive my car about an hour away to the Nissan dealership. It was not the best day for travel (thank you, East Coast Blizzard!), not to mention the problems I was already having with the drivability of the car.

Chicken Bacon Ranch Pizza

We have one brewery in our little, tiny town. One place that dares to ferment their own beer. The hubby and I are big, big fans. I'll take a draft Pilsner any day over a bottle of any over-produced mainstream lager. It's a good day when we parallel park in front of the 100-year old building, open our car doors, and smell YEAST.  That means beer is being brewed that day. Beer that the hubby and I may be sipping on in a couple of months. This brewery is one of the only non-chain restaurants in a small, dying town filled with Buffalo Wild Wings, various Roadhouse's, and a McDonald's every 2 miles or so. As such, it's one of the only restaurants in town that we frequent. It's our top spot for date night, you can find us there about once a week. While we may go for the beer, we stay for the pizza.

The brewery uses a thin, crispy crust that is to-die-for when they bring it to your table straight out of the pizza oven. It makes a crunch sound if you tear it in half. I love when places uses this type of crust, it's my favorite. They make a specialty pizza called, you guessed it, The Chicken Bacon Ranch. It's the best pizza there, and also, the most expensive. They have it half-price on Tuesdays, so if it's a Tuesday, you know what I be ordering. So, when I had some leftover rotisserie chicken and a few lonely strips of bacon, I decided it was time to make a homemade version. 

And the hubby went nuts. He loved the homemade version, and he's not even as crazy about the brewery pizza as I am. I think the homemade crust did him in. I could put anything on homemade pizza crust and he'll go coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs over it. 

The pizza sauce is ranch dressing, and I think that's part of the appeal of this pizza. The ranch dressing gives the pizza such a distinct flavor, and pairs perfectly with chicken and bacon. This pizza wouldn't be nearly as special with a plain red sauce. I haven't found my perfect ranch dressing recipe yet (a 2015 goal perhaps?) so I used a combination of sour cream, mayo, and a ranch dressing seasoning packet. The hubby really liked the ranch, but as I mentioned, it's not "The One". At any rate, testing out different ranches sounds like something I'll be doing in the not-too-distant future. You could also use bottled ranch dressing for this pizza, or substitute your favorite recipe. 

All right, change of subject time. I only have 2 items on my to-do list today:

1. Early morning doctor's appointment (boo!)

2. Bake Christmas cookies (yay!!!)

As soon as I get home, I plan on putting on a Christmas movie (I think it's going to be "Love Actually" today), getting out my tubs of flour and sugar, and having a grand old time tossing cookie dough around the kitchen.

It sounds heavenly :) 

Have a wonderful Wednesday everyone!

Ingredients (makes 1 large pizza):

Basic pizza dough

cornmeal

3 tbsp ranch dressing

1 cup chicken, cooked, diced or shredded

3 slices of bacon, cooked, crumbled

1 1/2 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded

1 tbsp fresh parsley, minced (optional)

Directions:

1. Prepare the pizza dough according to directions.

2. Preheat oven to 550º. Place a baking stone on the top rack. Allow oven to preheat for 1 hour. While oven is preheating, remove dough from fridge and allow to come to room temperature. 

3. After oven has preheated for 1 hour, turn oven off and turn "broil" on. 

4. Roll your pizza dough out onto a well-floured surface and into a large circle. Remove baking stone from oven (CAREFULLY!) and place on its rack. Sprinkle cornmeal over baking stone. Move large circle of dough onto baking stone. Brush ranch dressing all over the dough. Sprinkle the chicken and bacon evenly over the dough. Evenly sprinkle the cheese over the dough. Place baking stone back in oven, and broil for 5-7 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the pizza has begun to get browned and toasted in areas. Remove from oven, sprinkle with parsley (if using), slice, and serve immediately. 

Printable Recipe

Looking for other pizza recipes? Try these!

Roasted Vegetable Pizza

Pineapple Pulled Pork Pizza

Buffalo Chicken Pizza

Linked to: Weekend Potluck, Foodie Friday, Foodie Friends Friday Linky Party

Creamy Chicken, White Bean, and Green Chile Soup

Today, I'm sharing one of my most favorite of soups with you guys. This recipe has been hanging around my kitchen for years. Since right around Day 1 of my food obsession. I've told y'all the story before- how I became super unhealthy in college, gaining 70 lbs from the day I graduated high school. Eating, and eating, and eating until I reached my rock bottom. Either go up another size in clothes or change my life. I chose to change my life and "Cooking Light" was where I started. In the beginning, I created a username at myrecipes.com and began to save recipes under my username. I would spend hours trolling the website, looking for new recipes to add to my bucket list. This soup just happened to be one of the first recipes I tried in the those days. 

You can find this recipe on Cooking Light's website under the name "Witches Brew Chicken Soup". However, since it's long past Halloween, I decided to call this soup what it is rather than stick to the themed name. Besides, this soup is good all winter, not just in the fall. It's creamy. Flavorful. Delicious. And customizable with your choice of toppings!

One of my favorite parts about this soup is that it's made creamy by mashing a can of beans and mixing it with a little bit of milk and flour. You know, rather than thickening with a larger volume of flour, and then adding heavy cream. This soup is so creamy, you'd never know it was made that way by a healthy trick. 

I suggest serving the soup with a nice crusty bread. You'll want to sop up every last drop of this soup. 

Choosing this soup to feature today actually brought about a really fantastic blogging idea for me. There are so many wonderful recipes I've got hidden in my Cooking Light archives. I think it would be fun to dig out some of my most favorite recipes I haven't made in years and feature them on the blog. Of course, I think this may be a project of the new year. We'll see. I've got Pumpkin and Pecan pies to make this week, Pumpkin Brownie Bread and Cinnamon and Toffee Chip Cookies in the pipeline, and then... dun, dun, dun... It'll be time to feature Christmas Cookies. I held off pretty long on choosing this years cookie menu, mainly because I get so darn excited I want to start at that moment. And cookies get stale, so they aren't anything you can make early. So I waited, and waited. Until yesterday. Temptation took over, and I was on Pinterest like white on rice. It only took about 10 minutes before I'd picked out what I was going to make this year. Above all else, I make Snickerdoodles every year. They are tradition, and everyone looks forward to them. I'll also be repeating my Christmas Crunch Popcorn. Mainly because the hubby's family is addicted to it. The rest of my lineup will be as follows: Cake Batter Christmas Cookies, Peppermint Truffles, Peanut Butter Cup Bark, and Homemade Turtles. 

And there I go. All excited again. And there's still a couple of weeks before I get to start! Argh, the humanity!

Ok, I'm going to try to get excited to bake my pies. I'm making my first-ever pumpkin pie! I freshly roasted another pumpkin yesterday, and I have big plans. Big, BIG plans. Pumpkin Pie, Turkey Pumpkin Chili, and as I mentioned before, Pumpkin Brownie Bread. 

Yep. Excited again :)

You know what I'll be doing this weekend. I hope everyone else has a fantastic and safe weekend!

Ingredients (serves 6-7):

4 slices bacon, chopped

1 large onion, chopped

2 large carrots, chopped

2 garlic cloves, chopped

4 cups chicken broth

1 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp ground red pepper

2 (16 oz) cans great northern beans, rinsed and drained (divided)

1 (4.5 oz) can diced green chiles

2 tbsp flour

1/2 cup almond milk

2 cups cooked chicken, chopped or shredded (I used leftover meat from a chicken I roasted)

1/4 cup cilantro

toppings: shredded cheddar cheese, sour cream, sliced green onions (optional)

Directions:

1. Add bacon to a large stockpot while cold. Place over medium high heat. Sauté bacon until crispy. Remove from pan with slotted spoon and place on paper towels to drain. Set aside, reserving the bacon grease. You only need about a tbsp, so you may want to discard some grease if you have more. 

2. Add onion and carrot to the bacon grease. Sauté for 8-10 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Add garlic to pan, sauté for 30 seconds.

3. Add chicken broth, cumin, and ground red pepper to the pot. Bring to a boil, then lower heat to a simmer. Simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in 1 can of beans and green chiles.

4. In a small bowl, mash remaining can of beans. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the flour and milk. Add milk mixture to the mashed beans. Stir to combine. Slowly, and stirring the soup continuously, add bean/milk mixture to the soup. Cook about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until soup thickens. Add chicken and cilantro, and heat until chicken is hot (about 2-3 minutes).

5. Ladle soup into bowls and top with desired toppings, including reserved crumbled bacon. 

Printable Recipe

Recipe adapted from Cooking Light.

If you liked this recipe, you may enjoy these:

Roasted Cauliflower Soup

Vegetable Beef Soup

Lentil Soup with Spicy Sausage and Kale

Linked to: Weekend Potluck, Foodie Friday, Foodie Friends Friday Linky Party, Treasure Box Tuesdays

Baked Jalapeño Poppers with Raspberry Dipping Sauce

I have two things to discuss with you today- jalapeños and football.

Remember how I said I was super-scared for when all my jalapeños were going to come in? Because 2 of my bell pepper plants turned out to be jalapeño plants? 

Well... they're heeeeere. 

Luckily, luckily I came up with a fabulous solution to my problem- jalapeño poppers! I decided to serve them up for our draft party last weekend. I'd put some serious thought into these poppers when I met my friend for lunch at the local cantina last week. She suggested making a raspberry sauce to dip them in. The thought had never crossed my mind. I'd never tried jalapeño poppers with raspberry sauce before, although I vaguely think I'd at least heard of the combination. Never one to turn down the possibility of eating those succulent red berries, I decided to foray ahead. 

The morning of our draft party, I ambled out to the jalapeño plants and proceeded to harvest approximately 20 of them. A word of advice when handling these peppers? Wash your hands afterwards. Immediately. I have on occasion removed all the seeds and membranes, only to forget to wash my hands. This inevitably leads to me touching either my face or the hubby's. You want someone to jump six feet in the air and run down the hall to the bathroom yelling? Put a jalapeño hand on someone's face. That'll do it. Wash your hands my friends, just do it. After the harvest, I stuffed the pepper halves with a mixture of cream cheese and bacon. Dip the poppers in a little panko, place them on the baking sheet, and get them in a nice, hot oven. In 15-20 minutes, you'll have melty, bacon-y peppers with a nice crisp topping. Super simple. 

And the raspberry sauce? Raspberries and sugar. That's all you need. It's the perfect foil to the savory, spicy peppers. 

When I was younger, I avoided any combination of savory and fruit. In fact, I avoided lots of combinations that sounded weird. As I got into my late 20's however, it's almost like my tastebuds became bored. All I wanted was new and different combinations that I'd never tried before. Combinations like strawberry and gorgonzola, chicken and waffles, and smoked duck with pickled blackberries were revelations to me. I know a lot of combinations (or dishes) I post on here are unconventional, but that's what makes life fun. I know it may be tempting to stay in your comfort zone, sticking to "normal" food ideas, but what if, just for today, you tried something you've never tried before? You might just like it. You might just love it. Life is short people, and the world is so very big. Try some raspberry sauce on your creamy, bacon-y jalapeño popper :)

All right, I've talked jalapeños. Let's talk football. The NFL kicked off last night, and with it an ominous foreshadowing of my fantasy year. As I was setting my roster yesterday morning, it occurred to me that this year's strategy of drinking a pitcher of margaritas pre-draft did not a good team make. Let the ribbing begin as I tell all of you that I drafted not only Aaron Rodgers, but Randall Cobb. I'm not necessarily against taking a quarterback with a corresponding wide receiver, in fact, I was most successful with Peyton Manning and Wes Welker last year. But that's Peyton Manning. Man who is more machine than human. Last night's combination of Rodgers/Cobb, well, sucked. The 12th man was in Rodger's head like white on rice. Granted, I always give my fantasy teams a couple of weeks before I start to panic and begin rowing for shore, but anxiety is already setting in this year. After the first game. 

Oh brother.

It's Friday! Does everyone have fun plans for the weekend? The hubby and I have dedicated ourselves to housework this weekend, as we are leaving for Minnesota super-early on Wednesday morning for my aunt's 80th birthday. We'll be bringing my parents home with us from Minnesota, so we need to get stuff done NOW. Hopefully your weekend will be more enjoyable than mine :)

Ingredients (makes 20 jalapeños or 40 halves):

2 (6 oz) packages of fresh raspberries

1/8 cup granulated sugar

2 (8 oz) blocks of cream cheese, softened

5 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled

20 jalapeños, seeds and membranes removed, halved

1 1/2 cups panko

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400º.

2. Prepare the raspberry sauce- in a small saucepan, combine raspberries and sugar over medium-low heat. Cook for 10-15 minutes or until raspberries have broken apart. Remove from heat. Place a sieve over a small bowl and push raspberry mixture throw the sieve. Discard the raspberry seeds caught in the sieve. Set sauce aside to cool.

3. In a medium size bowl, combine cream cheese and bacon. Place panko in a small bowl. Fill a jalapeño half with a tablespoon of cream cheese mixture, then dip jalapeño half in panko. Place on baking sheet. Repeat with all jalapeños.

4. Bake jalapeños in pre-heated oven for 15-20 minutes, or until panko has browned. Serve immediately with raspberry sauce.

Printable Recipe

Looking for other jalapeño recipes? Try these!

Easy Homemade Salsa

Chipotle Shrimp Tacos with Lime Sour Crema

Mango-Avocado Salsa

Linked to: Weekend Potluck, Foodie Friday, Foodie Friends Friday Linky Party, Treasure Box Tuesdays