Monday, March 30, 2009

Stir Fry with Peanut Sauce

1/4 cup Catalina dressing
1/4 cup peanut butter
2 tbsp soy sauce
1/4 cup red pepper flakes
3 tsp canola oil
1 lb chicken breast, cut in strips
4 cups fresh or frozen vegetables
8 ounces pasta or rice
2 green onions, sliced (optional)







Start the rice or pasta cooking.

Mix dressing, peanut butter, soy sauce and pepper flakes in a bowl, set aside. It seems like a strange recipe for peanut sauce, but it worked and tasted pretty good. Easy to remember too. Plus I had some Catalina dressing left over from taco salad one night, so everything was just perfect.






Heat 2 tsp of oil in a pan. Add chicken, cook on medium heat until chicken is cooked through. Remove from heat and place in large serving bowl.
Cook vegetables in remaining 1 tsp of oil for about 5 minutes, or until crisp tender.









Toss pasta, chicken, vegetables and sauce. Sprinkle with green onion.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Double Chocolate Cranberry Cupcakes

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk
1 pkg white chocolate chips
1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries


Icing:
1/2 cup butter
1 2/3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup cocoa
1 tbsp milk or 1/4 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a muffin tin with Pam, or line with paper liners.

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well with each addition, then stir in the vanilla. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk; beat well. Fill the muffin cups 3/4 full.







Mix in cranberries and white chocolate chips















Lick beaters.















Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. A wire rack is really a must when it comes to cakes and cupcakes, because of the icing. You can probably get away without one for cookies or muffins.
These turned out really good, I like the combination of sweet white chocolate and tart cranberries, and it just make a little something different for a chocolate cupcake :)


Instructions for making icing, beat everything together. Commence licking once you're finished.

Caribbean Turkey Wraps

1 1/4 lb lean ground turkey
3 tbsp minced parsley
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp Caribbean jerk seasoning
salt & pepper
1 tsp olive oil (Maybe, see step #1)
1/2 cup mayonnaise
Tortilla wraps
Shredded cheese
Lettuce
Diced tomato
3 tbsp chopped green onion
Diced mango or apple
Hot sauce (optional)


Cook turkey over medium heat. You may or may not need to put olive oil in the pan first, because ground turkey is drier than some other meats.













Add parsley, Worcestershire, salt and pepper, jerk seasoning, and green onion (which I omitted, stupid Anthony).
Cook turkey thoroughly and until the liquid is absorbed.











While the meat is cooking, chop up a tomato, mango or apple, shred some cheese, chop or rip up lettuce if you'd like, get everything ready for the wrapping.
When the turkey is done, mix it up with some mayo.











Layer it up and wrap away. This is the part I make Anthony do; I suck at wrapping.













You can also make burgers out of these by changing the recipe slightly:
Mix together turkey, salt, pepper, Worcestershire, green onion, parsley, Jerk seasoning as well as one egg and 1/2 cup breadcrumbs, then make into patties.
You can add sweet red pepper rings, mango slices and lettuce leaves to your burgers. It makes about 4 thick ones.