Buffalo Turkey Burgers with Blue Cheese Coleslaw

I'm on vacation in Florida right now with my two kiddos, my mom, and some extended family. We're spending a week pool and beachside with three of her cousins and their families. It's a blast so far!! My boys were in the pool for over six hours today before we pulled them out to go to the dollar store to get some beach toys. Boy #2 fell asleep in the car on the way there and is still snoozing (so I volunteered to stay back here with him), and Boy #1 is back at it, either swimming or going to play on the beach, I'm not sure.

We had a four hour plane ride yesterday, and I was alone with my kids. In my mind, they'd spend the entire flight enthralled with various new movies I'd purchased for the trip and basically leave me alone except for the occasional DVD switch or another snack (you have no idea how much food I take along on an airplane ride...it stems from a mantra of "when in doubt, feed them" from when we traveled with our boys when they were babies). While they were busy being fixated with movies I was going to spend the flight updating my blog, be one of those people typing away on my laptop on the plane. Now, if you have kids you're probably shaking your head at me right now, and I don't blame you. I should have known better. No one wanted to watch a movie for more than 10 minutes, and I was constantly picking up a backpack so they could find something else to do or trying to come up with something to entertain them. My laptop stayed packed away in my backpack in the overhead compartment the whole trip.

Sigh.

But, I'm at least hoping to get caught up on some entries while on vacation. I mean, I can't spend an entire week laying by the pool or on the beach eating tasty food and having delicious adult beverages, right? Ha! Who am I kidding? That sounds awesome, so this may very well be the only post I do. We'll see. I can't let Boy #2 sleep too long or he'll never go to bed tonight.

So...

I recently found ground turkey on sale for BOGO, which I love. And then a day or two later I happened to see this recipe on skinnytaste.com and thought it would be a perfect addition to my meal plan for the week. I wasn't sure about the coleslaw on the burger but figured it was worth a shot. Plus I don't think I've ever been disappointed with a recipe I've made from her website! And one more thing, we really love anything deemed "buffalo" so it was worth a shot!

Buffalo Turkey Burgers with Blue Cheese Coleslaw
Source: skinnytaste.com
1 1/2 cups broccoli slaw
1/4 cup skinny blue cheese dressing (recipe below)
1.25 lbs 93% lean ground turkey
2/3 cup grated carrots (grate in food processor) 
1/4 cup seasoned whole wheat breadcrumbs 
1 clove garlic, grated 
1 tbsp red onion, grated
1/4 cup Franks Hot Sauce
salt and fresh pepper
oil spray
5 slices reduced fat cheddar
5 whole wheat burger buns (I used Martin's 100 calorie Potato Whole Wheat Buns)

Directions: In a medium bowl combine broccoli slaw and skinny blue cheese dressing. Set aside. In a large bowl, combine ground turkey, carrots, breadcrumbs, garlic, onion, hot sauce, salt and pepper.

Makes 5 equal patties, 5.5 oz each. Servings: 5 • Size: 1 Burger  
Calories: 358 • Fat: 15 g • Protein: 38.3 g • Carb: 22.7 g • Fiber: 5.6 g • Sugar: 5.9

Low Fat Creamy Blue Cheese Dressing
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
6 oz fat free Greek yogurt
1 tbsp light mayonnaise
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
salt and freshly ground black pepper

In a small bowl, mash blue cheese and yogurt together with a fork. Stir in mayonnaise, lemon juice, vinegar, and garlic powder until well blended. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Makes 1 cup.

Servings: 8  • Serving Size: 2 tablespoons •  Calories: 46.8 • Fat: 3.0 g • Protein: 2.8 g • Carb: 2.2 g • Fiber: 0.3 g 

*****

As I've mentioned before, my children are very anti-spicy food, so before adding in the Frank's I pulled out enough of the mixture for a burger patty each for them and set it aside. I was pretty liberal with the Frank's, but I really could have put more in it. Oh, and I skipped the garlic and onion and instead went for a bit each of garlic powder and onion powder. I'm lazy, and neither was enough of an amount to deal with using the real thing. We loved these burgers!! I will warn you, with the slaw on top they were very messy, but they were oh-so tasty. I would have eaten another if we'd had it, I loved it so much. The slaw on top was a great addition, too. Mellowed out the tang and heat of the Frank's and added an interesting texture. I think if you weren't a fan of blue cheese (which I just don't understand) you could easily substitute ranch dressing for the blue cheese dressing when mixing up the slaw. My kids were happy with their normal burgers, the husband and I were happy with our tasty buffalo burgers, so it was a win-win all over!!

Fancy Baked Sweet Potatoes

I was reading through a recent issue of Martha Stewart Living (I told you I love Martha!) and saw these amazing looking sweet potatoes. There wasn't really a recipe, just a one page thing about how fantastic sweet potatoes are. The picture was gorgeous! I decided I must try them, and the opportunity presents itself shortly thereafter when I received a bunch of sweet potatoes from my produce co-op one week. I knew there was no way my kids would eat these, so I slated them for a date night dinner for the husband and me.

Fancy Baked Sweet Potatoes

Per serving:
1 baked sweet potato
1 cup roasted Brussels sprouts
2 Tbsp blue cheese
2 Tbsp dried cranberries
1/4 cup toasted pecans

Split baked potato lengthwise and top with Brussels sprouts, blue cheese, dried cranberries, and pecans. Serve.

*****

Doesn't get a whole lot easier than that. The sweet potatoes I had were pretty little, so I baked two for each of us. All other ingredients are estimated because I'm really not sure how much of each I used. These looked GORGEOUS--the orange potatoes, green Brussels sprouts, crimson cranberries, flecks of white and little bits of blue from the cheese. I was so excited to eat these...then I took a bite and was so disappointed. It was not at all what I expected and honestly I thought it was kind of gross. So did the husband. But we didn't really have anything else we could make for dinner at that point because it was late on a Friday. So we muscled through it, and surprisingly we discovered that the more bites we took, the more we liked it. The trick was to have a little of each component on each bite. We ended up both really liking it and cleaning our plates. I'm so glad it worked out because I was really apprehensive after that first bite and debated running out to get us a pizza. I'm glad we stuck with it and finished them off. It ended up being so tasty!

Blue Cheese Stuffed Pork Chops with Pears

Have I mentioned how done I am with P90X?! I'm tired of my precious afternoon quiet time being taken up with stupid Tony Horton. I like the workouts, but I'm just annoyed I have to spend Boy #2's naptime every day doing them. You've probably noticed I haven't updated the ol' blog here in almost a month. The husband has been helping me meal plan, so we've had some tasty dinners, I just haven't had a chance to update anything. Sigh. I made a list this morning of posts I want to write, and the total was 17! SEVENTEEN!! Thankfully the husband took today off work and took Boy #2 out for some quality daddy time so I could work on my blog. God bless him!

So, get ready for some massive updating!

This was originally going to be a family dinner, but I suggested to the husband we have a date night dinner instead a few nights before Boy #2 turned three back on the 19th. I wasn't sure how excited my kids would be about it. This was in last month's Cooking Light, which I haven't read yet. The husband and I were meal planning and I just looked through the index to get some ideas. It sounded tasty, and I had blue cheese and an abundance of pears. I had a Costco trip planned, and I love their pork chops, so it was a pretty easy decision to add it to our meal plan.

Blue Cheese Stuffed Pork Chops with Pears
Source: Cooking Light, October 2011


4 (4-ounce) boneless center-cut loin pork chops, trimmed
1/2 cup (2 ounces) crumbled blue cheese
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons butter
1 ripe pear, cored and cut into 16 wedges

Cut a horizontal slit through thickest portion of each pork chop to form a pocket. Stuff 2 tablespoons crumbled blue cheese into each pocket. Sprinkle 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper evenly over both sides of pork. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add olive oil to pan; swirl to coat. Add pork to pan; sauté for 3 minutes on each side or until desired degree of doneness. Remove pork from pan, and let stand for 5 minutes.

Melt butter in pan; swirl to coat. Add pear; sprinkle with remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and remaining 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Sauté 4 minutes or until lightly browned, stirring occasionally. Serve with pork.

Nutritional Information
Amount per serving
Calories: 246
Fat: 13g
Saturated fat: 5.5g
Monounsaturated fat: 1g
Polyunsaturated fat: 4.8g
Protein: 24.4g
Carbohydrate: 7.3g
Fiber: 1.4g
Cholesterol: 81mg
Iron: 0.8mg
Sodium: 493mg
Calcium: 98mg

*****

The magazine had this pictures with some roasted Brussels sprouts, which we love, so I figured that was an easy side dish. When we saw the magazine, the husband and I both thought this sounded tasty, but it really blew us away with just how awesome it was. I got a perfect sear on the pork chops, so the outside was a little crunchy and the inside was perfectly cooked. The creamy, tangy blue cheese was awesome with the sweet pears. At first, before tasting it, I was wishing I had made some kind of pan sauce to go with these, but after taking my first bite I realized they really didn't need it. There was a lot of ooh-ing and aah-ing as we took bites of our dinner. Even better, it was SO EASY to make. If you've never bought pork chops at Costco, let me tell you that they're huge. Each one was around eight ounces. I asked the husband if he'd want me to slice them in half to get to the recommended four ounce portion size, but we figured at just 246 calories, it was fine to leave them big. Plus for just 500 calories this was really filling and tasty.

Did I mention these were tasty and awesome? Just in case you missed it above I wanted to reiterate. We will definitely have these again!

I love the sight of ooey, gooey cheese dripping out of meat!

Gnocchi with Spinach, Ham, and Gorgonzola

My kids are entertained with a cartoon right now (well, the boy is at least, the baby is just wandering around playing with whatever he comes across), so I figured I might as well get a little caught up on my blog while I have some peace.

This is another recipe from the America's Test Kitchen 30-Minute Suppers magazine. I had recently cooked a whole ham and of course had a ton of ham leftover from it, so I was very excited when I saw this, especially since all I needed to make it was some spinach.

Gnocchi with Spinach, Ham, and Gorgonzola
From America's Test Kitchen 30-Minute Suppers Summer 2010 Special Issue

1 pound vacuum-packed gnocchi
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
6 slices deli ham, cut into 1/4-inch strips
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
3/4 cup crumbled gorgonzola cheese
1 tsp juice from 1 lemon
2 ounces baby spinach

Bring 4 quarts water to boil in large pot. Add 1 tablespoon salt and gnocchi to boiling water and cook until tender and floating, about 4 minutes. Reserve 1/2 cup cooking water, drain gnocchi, and transfer gnocchi to paper-towel lined plate.

Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add gnocchi to skillet and cook until browned, about 4 minutes. Stir in ham and cook until it begins to brown, 2-4 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

Add reserved cooking water, pine nuts, cheese, and lemon juice to skillet and stir until cheese starts to melt and sauce becomes creamy. Add spinach and stir until just wilted, 1 to 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve.

*****

This was so tasty and so easy!! The baby had three helpings, I couldn't believe it. I ended up using regular blue cheese instead of gorgonzola because I had some on hand already. And I could have sworn I had pine nuts in my freezer, but apparently I used them all. I don't think they would have contributed a ton to the flavor but the texture they would have added would have been a nice touch. We all really liked this, so I'll definitely make it again. In fact I may reserve some of the leftover ham for it!!

Claire's Buffalo Chicken Pizza (aka Father's Day Pizza Fest)

Happy Father's Day!! I hope all you dads out there have been sufficiently spoiled today. My husband was inundated with gifts this morning and got to have pizza for lunch AND dinner! We've had a really nice family day, and I hope the husband is feeling loved and appreciated.

I asked him earlier this past week what he'd want for dinner tonight, and at first he wasn't sure then he decided on grilled pizza. I wanted to do something special but couldn't decide what, so I figured I'd make up a double batch of homemade pizza dough and split it into four smaller pizzas so we could have a real pizza feast and have an assortment of pizza flavors.

Two of the ones we did were pretty boring--one with a mix of cheeses and one with meat (pepperoni, sausage, and prosciutto). The husband said I could pick two fancy ones to make. I knew one would be the veggie pesto pizza I make pretty often because we love it, and I had everything on hand to make it.

The fourth pizza caused me some strife. In the March issue of Cooking Light magazine there was a special article on pizzas and several of those looked amazing. I slated one for the fourth pizza but couldn't find arugula at the grocery store. Bummer. So I remembered one I'd seen on my friend Jen's blog that used prosciutto and fontina cheese. But then when I got home and looked at the recipe it also called for ricotta, which I didn't have. Oops. I'd recently had two ideas for pizza toppings and knew I had everything for one of them. So I gave the husband his choice between a Claire creation pizza or a smoked salmon pizza from that issue of Cooking Light. He went with the Claire creation pizza.

Apparently I'm on a buffalo chicken kick lately because that's the kind of pizza he choose. I gotta say I was pretty excited to try it. I figured I'd base it on the buffalo chicken lasagna I made awhile back. All measurements below are approximate.

Claire's Buffalo Chicken Pizza

1 recipe pizza dough (or pizza dough of your choice)
1 cup pizza sauce
1/4 cup to 1/2 cup wing sauce (I used Frank's Red Hot)
2-3 cups diced, cooked chicken
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
1-1/2 cup shredded mozzarella (or pizza blend) cheese

Preheat oven to 450. Roll out pizza dough to desired size. Combine pizza sauce and wing sauce in a bowl. Spread over the dough. Sprinkle chicken and blue cheese on top of sauce. Cover pizza with shredded mozzarella. Bake 12-15 minutes or until crust is golden brown and the cheese is melted.

*****

Like I said, all measurements are approximate. I have no idea how much sauce I used, I poured some into a bowl, added the wing sauce, mixed it up, and called it good. For the chicken I was going to defrost and cook a chicken breast, but then I saw my bag of Naked Nuggets in the freezer (I may boycott Costco if they ever stop selling these, by the way) so figured I'd just heat up those and then chop them up.

I'm going to grill all my pizzas but I included instructions for baking them because it was just easier to type out that way.

*****

Wow. Wow. WOW!!! This pizza was phenomenal!! I think this is our new favorite pizza. The kids had already had cheese pizza by the time this one was done, so I didn't get their take on it, but the husband and I were all over this one!! I'd probably increase the amount of wing sauce I used next time, but I really have no idea how much I even used.

This pizza is definitely going to be a favorite in our house over the summer!! Especially since I always have blue cheese and wing sauce on hand.

(And I do have pictures, but I need to get them uploaded still.)

Buffalo Chicken Lasagna

Wow, it took me a lot longer to get caught up than I had intended! And I think I still have two things I didn't post, but one wasn't very interesting, and the other was the goat cheese from my cheese making class, which for some reason I feel I need a big chunk of time to post. Or maybe I'm just too lazy to go downstairs and find the recipes from the class and type up how to do it. But, I promise you that some day I will!! Right now I'm sneaking a couple minutes while the boy is at preschool and the baby is sleeping to post tonight's dinner. Then it's an exciting morning of putting away laundry, throwing more laundry in the washer, and cleaning my kitchen. You're jealous of me, aren't you? Being a stay at home mom is sooooo glamorous, I know.

I was flipping through my Make it Fast, Cook it Slow cookbook recently looking for ideas for Wednesday night (Bible study night) dinners and saw this Buffalo Chicken Lasgna recipe. It sounded intriguing, and all I really needed for it was some ricotta, so I figured I'd slate it for one night this week. Although I'm not doing it in the crockpot, I'm going to do it in the oven like a regular lasagna.

Actually I'm going to be super lazy and just post the link to the original recipe:

Crockpot Buffalo Chicken Lasagna

I'm using no-cook lasagna noodles because I have some on hand I want to use up, and then I'll bake it in the oven, probably at 350 for 30 minutes covered, then 10 uncovered to let the top brown a bit. Our friend Steve is having dinner with us tonight, so I really hope this turns out!! I'm going to look up a low fat Ceasar dressing and make a salad to go with this. I may stop at the store for some bread, too, but I'll have to decide if it's worth it to go to the grocery store with two kids for just one thing!

*****

Mmmmmm...this was really good! I love interesting takes on lasagna, something other than the normal "ricotta, meat sauce, noodles, mozarella" recipe. I used too much blue cheese, but I don't think it was too distracting from the overall flavor. I ended up having not quite an entire cup of hot sauce because I didn't have enough, but still had that wing tanginess to it. The boy didn't really eat it--he said he didn't like the cheese in it. He just picked the chicken out of his. The baby, however, had THIRDS. So three out of four of us loving it is pretty good! I'll definitely make this again, and I'd like to try the crockpot version next time to see how that does.

Barefoot Contessa's Blue Cheese Coleslaw

I can't remember if I mentioned that my awesome mom got me an awesome birthday present. It's something I've been coveting for awhile now but never in a million years ever thought anyone would buy it for me. She got me the Cuisinart Elite food processor. Lordy mama, I was so flippin' excited!! My friend Jen came over for a food gadget play date last week so we could break it in. I also got the food grinder attachment for my KitchenAid mixer from my aunt and uncle that I'm dying to try, but we ran out of time to play with that one. Her darn twin baby girls needed to be fed and she had to beg and plead with me to give one of them a bottle. Yeah right...who am I kidding. I went and got the one she wasn't feeding out of her car seat and popped the bottle in her mouth. I'm a complete sucker for babies--especially super cute girl babies. Anyway, we made a guacamole recipe that came with the food processor, and it was pretty good, but I was still dying to play with it more. Jen had mentioned we should do something with blue cheese because her husband doesn't like it, so she never gets to eat it, but sadly I didn't have any on hand. I did, however, remember this Barefoot Contessa recipe I had seen and promptly went to the store over the weekend to get some so I could make it because it's a very food processor heavy recipe. Woo hoo! First, a picture of my new toy:



Now, on to the recipe. Conveniently it's posted on the Food Network website and on the Barefoot Contessa website. But I'll go ahead and post it here, too.

Blue Cheese Coleslaw
Copyright, 2006 Barefoot Contessa at Home, All Rights Reserved

½ small head green cabbage
½ small head red cabbage
4 large carrots
2 cups good mayonnaise
¼ cup Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons whole-grain mustard
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon celery salt
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1½ cups crumbled Roquefort (6 ounces)
1 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Cut the cabbage halves in half and cut out the cores. Set up the food processor with the slicing blade and place the pieces of cabbage horizontally in the feed tube, one at a time. (If they don’t fit, cut them to fit lying down.) Insert the feed tube pusher and turn on the processor, but don’t press on the feed tube pusher or the slices will turn out too thick! Continue with the remaining red and green cabbage. Transfer to a large bowl, discarding any very large pieces. Before you pour the dressing on the salad, save a handful of the grated vegetables to decorate for serving.

Change the slicing blade for the large shredding blade and cut the carrots so they will fit horizontally into the feed tube. Replace the feed tube pusher and press firmly with the food processor on. Transfer the shredded carrots to bowl with the cabbages.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, two mustards, vinegar, celery salt, kosher salt, and pepper. Pour enough mayonnaise dressing over the grated vegetables to moisten, and toss well. Add the Roquefort and the parsley and toss together. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours to allow the flavors to meld. Serve cold or at room temperature. Garnish with the reserved granted vegetables.

*****

I only had a head of green cabbage, so I just used the whole thing instead of getting purple as well. I also couldn't find the celery salt in my pantry, so that got left out of mine. Now, I want to point out something very important in the instructions above:

Pour enough mayonnaise dressing over the grated vegetables to moisten, and toss well.

Note that it does not say to pour in ALL of the dressing, which is what I did. I'm just trying to save you all from the same mistake I made. And of course I read that part as soon as the last drop of dressing was in my big mixing bowl. Sigh.

In spite of my oversight, this coleslaw was awesome. I of course had a taste once I took it out of the fridge and was instantly in love. So I kept taking more test bites just to make sure it was all okay. Then I called the husband over to make sure he liked it--and he kept doing the same, even though it was really, really wet and had way too much dressing on it.

This is definitely something that I'll make again, only I'll gradually add in the dressing. It was really fine the night we had it, but leftovers the next day and day after that were really too soggy to enjoy.

Fisher Nutty Bacon Cheese Ball

This is one of the recipes I meant to blog about but never did. The pictures had been uploaded, so I figured I'd go ahead and post it. The Christmas party for my MOMS Club was one night last week, and everyone was asked to bring an appetizer or dessert. I chose appetizer, and was trying to come up with something to make when I remembered this cheese ball recipe I'd made once before several years ago. I saw it on an episode of Oprah around Christmastime and had bookmarked it. I don't know how I thought of it, but I figured it would be tasty. I mean really...cheese and bacon?! How can you go wrong?! Paula Deen prepared the recipe, but apparently it's from a KitchenAid mixer cookbook, so any of the mixer references in the recipe refer to that.

Fisher Nutty Bacon Cheese Ball

1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese , softened
1/2 cup milk
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1/4 cup (1 ounce) blue cheese , crumbled
1/4 cup finely minced green onions (white part only)
1 jar diced pimento , drained
3/4 cup Fisher pecans , divided
10 slices bacon , cooked, drained, finely crumbled and divided
Salt and pepper
1/4 cup minced parsley
1 tablespoon poppy seeds

Place cream cheese in mixer bowl. Attach bowl and flat beater to mixer. Turn to Speed Two and mix 1 minute. Stop and scrape bowl. Turn to Speed Two and gradually add milk, mixing until well blended about 1 minute. Stop and scrape bowl. Add cheeses, onions, pimientos, half of the bacon and half the pecans. Turn to Speed 4 and beat until well blended, about another minute. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Transfer mixture to a large piece of plastic wrap. Form into a ball and wrap tightly.

Repeat with the remaining mixture. Refrigerate (or freeze) at least 2 hours.

Combine the remaining bacon and remaining pecans, parsley and poppy seeds in a pie plate. Then, remove the plastic wrap and roll the cheese ball lightly in the bacon/nut mixture until evenly coated. Wrap it back up in plastic wrap and refrigerate again until ready to use.

*****

Since it had literally been years since I made this I didn't really remember anything about the recipe. I questioned the addition of the milk, but I went with it...and then regretted it. I really don't think it was necessary as the mixture didn't hold together hardly at all. I put it in the freezer for two hours hoping that would help bring it together more than just having it in the fridge, but when two hours was up the outside of the ball was frozen and the middle was still really squishy. I reshaped it in the plastic wrap and let it go a little longer. I thought about taking something different, but I didn't want to have to stop at the store, so I went ahead and took it, even though it was more cheese blob than ball. THere were only a few bites left at the end of the night, so it tasted fine, it just didn't look the greatest. I think next time I will either skip the milk entirely or cut it back to 1/4 cup or less. I made two cheese balls out of the recipe and have the second one in the freezer, saving it for Christmas.





I have to say that I was pretty pleased with my "plating." Since I had to take it somewhere I wanted an easy way to transport it, so I stuck the cheese blog in a pie plate and then surrounded with crackers. I thought it was ingenious!!

Shower Food

We are back from our quick weekend jaunt to Boise. It was so great to see my best friend--I really miss her. :( We've known each other since our ages were single digits. I'm so excited for her to be a mommy. She and her husband are going to be great parents. Her shower was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed putting together all of the food. We had a ton, but a lot of it was eaten, so it must have been a hit. I figured I would list everything I made in one post, linking to previous posts of recipes and posting ones I haven't done before. So, here goes!!

Hummus

Smoked Salmon Dip

Vegetable Dip

Floating Island Punch

Confetti Pasta Salad

Chile Cheese Spirals
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese
1 can (4 ounces) diced green chiles
3 green onions, sliced
1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
1 can (2 1/4 ounces) chopped ripe olives, drained
4 (8-inch) soft taco-size reduced-fat flour tortillas
Bottled chunky salsa

COMBINE cream cheese, cheddar cheese, chiles, green onions, bell pepper and olives in medium bowl.

SPREAD 1/2 cup cheese mixture on each tortilla; roll up. Wrap each roll in plastic wrap; refrigerate for 1 hour.

REMOVE plastic wrap; slice each roll into six 3/4-inch pieces. Serve with salsa for dipping.

Pioneer Woman's Mystery Rolls

2 sticks butter
4 to 6 ounces crumbled blue cheese
2 cans flaky biscuits
Combine butter and cheese on baking pan. Place into 350 oven for a couple of minutes, or until butter is melted. Remove from oven and stir. Cut biscuits into fourths, then toss in butter mixture. Bake on same pan (or different, if you prefer) for 8 to 12 minutes, or until golden. Eat warm.

Queso Dip

1 lb. VELVEETA Pasteurized Prepared Cheese Product, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 can (10 oz.) RO*TEL Diced Tomatoes & Green Chilies, undrained

MIX ingredients in microwaveable bowl.

MICROWAVE on HIGH 5 min. or until VELVEETA is completely melted, stirring after 3 min.

SERVE with assorted cut-up fresh vegetables, WHEAT THINS Original Crackers or tortilla chips.

*****

I think that was it. Oh, I did a baked brie, but that's just puff pastry around a wheel of brie, so not really worth posting a recipe. I need to upload my pictures and look at the food spread to see if I missed anything. We also bought a few things from Costco--their turkey roll sandwiches, shrimp cocktail, a broccoli salad, fruit and veggie trays, sliced cheese for cheese and crackers. The Mystery Rolls were fantastic...I think I'm going to make them to bring to Bunco later this week. I couldn't stop eating them. They were especially tasty with some of the smoked salmon dip on them. Yum!





That's the boy sampling some of the food.

Potato Gnocchi and Mushrooms in Gorgonzola Sauce

I had a near dinner disaster tonight. Well, not really. I had planned on having roasted chicken, but the chicken was still frozen. I thought about doing Tortilla Pie but the avocados I bought last night were still hard and need to ripen up a bit. That left me four other dinners to choose from, from what I had planned out for the week. We had a park play date this afternoon, so I figured I'd see what stuck my fancy when we got home from that.

The boy was having fun, and I was catching up with some friends I hadn't seen much of recently, so it was 5:15 by the time we were leaving the park. I decided to make what ever was going to be the fastest. Since most everything else required defrosting some form of protein, I went with this because I knew the gnocchi would cook quickly. This was one of the recipes from that vegetarian cookbook I meant to get rid of for years and am now insanely pleased that I did not. Looking through it a second time, I found even more recipes I want to make. I don't think I've ever been so excited about eating vegetarian!

Potato Gnocchi and Mushrooms in Gorgonzola Sauce
1 Tbsp olive oil
12 ounces mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 pound frozen potato gnocchi
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup milk
3 ounces gorgonzola or other blue cheese, cut into small dice
2 Tbsp minced fresh parsley
1/4 tsp salt
Generous seasoning freshly ground black pepper

Bring a large stockpot of water to boil. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms and saute until they render their juices, then reabsorb them and begin to get dry, about 10 minutes. Stir often.

Drop the gnocchi into the boiling water and cook until tender, about 7 minutes. Add the garlic to the mushrooms and cook 2 minutes, tossing frequently. Pour in the milk and bring to a boil. Stir in the blue cheese, parsley, salt, and pepper and toss.

Drain the gnocchi and add it to the skillet. Toss 1 minute, or just until the cheese melts. Serve immediately.

*****

I had freeze-dried gnocchi from Trader Joe's, not frozen, so I followed the package directions on that for cooking them. Let float to top and boil two minutes after that. Super easy. The hardest part of all of this was slicing the mushrooms.

I wasn't sure what the husband and boy would think of this because of the blue cheese (I used regular blue cheese because there was no gorgonzola to be had when I went to the store last night). I loved the first bite I took of it, the husband didn't look too sure of it. He said later that he did like it and would eat it again, it was just an unfamiliar texture (gnocchi) and tase (blue cheese) so it took some getting used to. The boy ate it reluctantly at first but then he ate pretty much all I had served him, except one or two gnocchi.

This is definitely something I'd make again. I'm excited to have more things to do with gnocchi because they're inexpensive and super easy to cook. I have a recipe to make my own, so maybe some day when I have a little more time (i.e. my baby isn't a newborn anymore) I'll try to make my own. Anyway, I love easy, inexpensive dinners, and it's also great to have another vegetarian dish to add into the rotation.

Chili Cheese Tortilla Wraps

Okay...after this post I'm all caught up! I told you I didn't cook much last week, and I wasn't lying! Plus I gotta get this done so I can fold laundry--baby clothes--and get them put away so I'm ready for this baby to get here and everything's done and put away. All I have left to do is pack my hospital bag. Oh, and potentially buy a new coming home outfit for the little buy since the temperatures here in AZ are still in the freakin' upper 80s!! Somehow I don't think a cute fleece outfit will work if it stays that warm for the next couple weeks.

Talk about digressing! Anyway, I wasn't motivated at all this morning to come up with dinner plans for the week, but I pushed on through and did it. I saw that my store had refried beans on sale, so I thought we'd have this tonight. I'm not super excited for it, but it's always good, and the husband absolutely loves it. He had me make this for his birthday dinner last year, that's how much he likes it. Plus it's easy, just throw everything in the crockpot and let it do its thing.

Chili Cheese Tortilla Wraps
1 16-oz can nonfat refried beans
1 8-oz package nonfat cream cheese, cut into cubes and softened
1 4-oz can diced green chilies, drained
3/4 cup chopped green onions
1 cup nonfat shredded cheddar cheese
4 98% fat free flour tortillas

Spray inside of slow cooker with cooking spray. Combine refried beans, cream cheese, chilies, and green onions in slow cooker and mix well. Cover and cook on low heat for 4 hours or high heat for 2 hours, stirring once or twice during cooking. If cooking on low heat, increase to high. Stir in 3/4 cup of the cheesse and sprinkle 1/4 cup cheese over top. Warm tortillas. Spoon bean mixture into tortillas; roll and serve immediately. Can be served with tortilla chips instead of tortillas.

*****

I've probably posted this at least 15 times before, so I won't go in to too much detail. I didn't have any green onions. Rather, the grocery store didn't have any. For the life of me I couldn't find them anywhere, and I walked around the produce section three times searching. There was an older woman there looking for them too and didn't have any luck. Weird, right? So we're doing without the green onions, but I don't think it should make too much difference.

There you go Jen...all caught up. ARe you happy now?!

Barbecued Chicken with Blue Cheese and Celery Paninis

My panini press has been neglected lately. I just felt like I was always making the same sandwiches with them, so I got the genius idea to look up panini cookbooks at the library instead of buying one. I heart the library...especially for cookbooks! Since I have an overwhelming cookbook collection already, it's a nice way to indulge in my guilty pleasure without dropping a small fortune.

So I flipped through the book and found several that sounded good. Unfortunately some have really obscure (or expensive...or both) ingredients, and some there is no way the husband would touch them with a ten foot pole. I'll still have to copy them down before the book is due back.

The husband is actually sick today, but when I asked if he'd want dinner he asked what the choices were and thought these sounded good. The other choice, by the way, was Shepherd's Pie, which we were supposed to have last night, but due to some issues at our vet's office (i.e. they're slow and incompetent and ALWAYS take forever to get simple things done), there wasn't going to be time to make it and pick up the dog before they closed. So it was a mac & cheese and hot dog night. Anyway...on to the recipe.

Barbecued Chicken with Blue Cheese and Celery Paninis
1-1/2 cups (about 8 ounces) shredded barbecue chicken
3 Tbsp barbecue sauce (optional)
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 Tbsp sour cream
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
1 scallion (white and light green parts), finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
2 ciabbata rolls or store-bought Italian rolls
1 celery stalk, trimmed, tough outer strings peeled away, and thinly sliced

Heat a panini or sandwich press. Combine the chicken and barbecue sauce, if using, in a small bowl and stir to combine. Season with salt and pepper.

Slice the rolls in half and spread some blue cheese dressing on the inside of each roll. Arrange the celery on the bottom halves of the rolls. Pile the chicken on top of the celery. Top each sandwich with the top half of the roll.

Put the sandwiches on the press, pull the top down, and cook until they are brown and crisp, 4-7 minutes, depending on the machine. Carefully remove from the press and serve immediately.

*****

I don't think I'm really changing things up except that I have some foccacia rolls I'm using instead of ciabatta. I just realized I need to go hustle so we can eat at 6:00. Not sure what we'll have with it, I may throw some tater tots into the oven because I have them and they're easy.

Oh, and I didn't have any barbecue chicken laying around so I just cooked up some chicken breasts and shred them, then I'm going to mix them with some BBQ sauce. This would be a great use for leftover chicken meat from cooking a whole chicken!