Apricot Chicken

My husband was telling me about an Apricot Chicken dish he remembered having a child. All he could really remember was it had apricot jelly. I decided it probably had apricot preserves. The internet is such a great thing, hard to remember life without it. I did some searching and the recipe that kept coming up was one with just three ingredients, apricot preserves, onion soup and russian dressing. How simple is that? I decided to make it even easier and use my slow cooker. I work full time and the slow cooker is my friend! There's nothing better than coming home and having dinner ready.

Apricot Chicken

1 1/2 cups russian dressing
1 envelope onion soup
1/2 cup apricot preserves
6 pieces of chicken

Combine and pour over chicken. Cook in the slow cooker 8 hours. Remove the chicken from the the slow cooker, strain the sauce and use a fat separator to drain the grease. Whisk together 2 tablespoons of cornstarch and 3 tablespoons of water. In a saucepan, combine sauce and cornstarch mixture. Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes or until thickened. Place chicken in serving dish, cover with sauce. Serve over rice.



My notes on this recipe: I thought this was good but a little bland. I want to experiment with the ratio of dressing to preserves. I think the addition of some herbs or spices would help as well.

Indoor Gardening - Week Six

Six weeks have passed since I "planted" the herbs in my AeroGarden. The garden is really starting to take shape.

I am seeing the same pattern with the chives and mint. The chives are very slow in growing and aren't as I would like. The mint leaves are really small. Hopefully they will grow larger as the garden continues to grow.

As with my last herb garden, the basil is the star! I am looking forward to using experimenting with the lemon basil. And of course, there's nothing better than fresh basil when it's cold outside.

Hopefully within the next couple of weeks, I can begin to harvest some of the herbs.

Pear and Cranberry Muffins with Gingersnap Crumble - SMS

This recipe couldn't have come at a better time. A co-worker gave me several pears from their backyard tree. They remind me of our backyard apples, lots of spots but beautiful, juicy fruit on the inside.

The Pear and Cranberry Muffins are the same base recipe as the Peach Muffins we made in August. This recipe makes a lovely, moist muffin. I decided to make 6 large muffins instead of the 12 small ones. They took about five minutes longer to bake. I used lemon zest instead of orange zest and rehydrated craisins for the cranberries.

Not being a big gingersnap fan, I was a little concerned about the flavor of the topping. Boy was I wrong, the topping ended up being one of my favorite things about these muffins. I used store bought gingersnaps. Next time I make these, I will use more pears.


Thanks to Jennifer of Maple N' Cornbread for choosing this week's recipe. The recipe can be found on her blog. You can find the links to all of the other Sweet Melissa Sunday's bakers he For links to all of the Sweet Melissa Sunday's bakers here.

Next week's Sweet Melissa Sunday's is Butter Toffee Crunch, a perfect recipe for holiday giving.

Culinary Boot Camp Week 5

Tuesday night was my last Culinary Boot Camp class. It was hands down my favorite class of the series. The chef asked us last week what we wanted to do for tonight's class. We all wanted to make pasta and some type of bread.

We made pasta dough, focaccia bread, alfredo sauce and marinara sauce. We made ravioli's with the pasta dough. The fillings for the pasta were ricotta cheese with basil or chives or butternut squash. (Oh and I did remember the camera BUT the batteries were dead.)

The bread used a Poolish starter. This enababled us to make our focaccia bread during our two hour class time. The alfredo sauce was quick and easy but tasted like you worked on it for hours.
I was sad to see my classes come to an end. After the holidays, I plan to take a few more. The Classy Gourmet offers a wide variety of classes and I would also like to take a Wilton Cake Decorating Class.

In the meantime, you can bet I will be making these recipes. Look for them to be blog topics in the weeks to come.

Smoked Gouda Mac n Cheese

One of our new favorite restaurants in town is Ryan's Bistro. It's a warm, intimate bistro not far from our house. Ryan's serves a Smoked Gouda Mac & Cheese as a side dish. It is so good. I've been wanting to make homemade mac & cheese and decided to try making it Smoked Gouda.

I was a little nervous since the base for any homemade mac & cheese is a bechamel sauce and I am sometimes sauce challenged! I was pleased with how this mac & cheese turned out. It wasn't quite as flavorful as Ryan's but very good nonetheless.



Smoked Gouda Mac & Cheese
Recipe from Emeril Lagasse

6 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 pound ditalini or small elbow macaroni
2 tablespoons plus 1/2 teaspoon unsalted butter
2 tablespoons bleached all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups milk
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
1/4 pound smoked Gouda cheese, grated
Parsley
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Put the water, 1/2 teaspoon of the salt, and the oil in a large, heavy saucepan over high heat and bring to a boil. Add the macaroni and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 8 minutes. In a small, heavy saucepan, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter over medium heat. Add the flour and cook, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Slowly add the milk, whisking constantly. Add the remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt and the white pepper and continue whisking until the sauce is smooth and thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon, about 8 minutes. Remove the white sauce from the heat and stir in the cheese. Continue stirring until the cheese melts. Lightly grease a 6 1/2 by 10-inch casserole dish with the remaining 1/2 teaspoon butter. Combine the cheese sauce and macaroni in a large mixing bowl and mix well. Pour into the prepared casserole and bake until lightly golden on top, about 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve hot. Garnish with parsley.

Indoor Gardening - Week Five

My AeroGarden is really beginning to grow. The herbs are taking shape and starting to be recognizable.

At week five, the garden still does not require much water or care. As the garden starts to grow more, it will require pruning and more frequent watering.

I am beginning to start accumulating recipes using my fresh herbs!

White Chocolate & Orange Cookies - Sweet & Simple Bakes

I have been looking forward to making these cookies all month. I was going to make them last week but ended up with a busier week than I'd anticipated. I did print the recipe and using the internet convert grams to cups. Or so I thought...the site I looked at showed 200 grams as 7/8 cup. As the first cookie sheet was baking, I knew the conversion was oh so wrong!!! My cookies were running all over the cookie sheet. I looked on line again and found another site that said 200 grams is 1 3/4 cup. At the end of the baking time, I let them cook and scraped them off the sheet and into a baggie. I think they'll make a great topping for ice cream. I added more flour and baked the second sheet...better but still runny. On my third attempt, I think I was able to add enough flour but sadly only had enough dough for 6 cookies.

The theme of my last two Sweet & Simple Bakes has been the same, I need to get a scale. I've been looking at them and need to make the purchase, SOON!!! If anyone can recommend a good scale, please let me know!



The flavor of these cookies is amazing! The orange and chocolate are wonderful together! I didn't have any white chocolate and am not a white chocolate fan, so I substituted milk chocolate.

You can find all of the other Sweet & Simple bakers and the recipe here!