Quick Tasty Food: Salsa Chicken Pasta

Who doesn't love salsa? Who doesn't love chicken? ... Ok, not everyone likes them. Obviously those people won't like this recipe. I, on the other, loved this random creation. I had the brilliant idea to marinate chicken in salsa. I grabbed a Hot Salsa from Whole Foods that was on sale and then grabbed a pound of chicken. Cut the chicken up into pieces (I went for half inch cubes). Cover the chicken in the salsa and marinate. How long? Depends. I sort of forgot about it so it marinated for almost 2 days and turned out great. In other words, marinate for however long you think is adequate, with at least a suggestion of an hour.

I then dumped the chicken and salsa in a skillet set to medium heat. I also decided to make some pasta so I had a small pot going of that. After a few minutes, turn the chicken pieces to make sure both sides cook. Once the pasta was done, I added it to the chicken salsa.

I also decided it needed more veggies than what was in the salsa. I wanted to go with a can of corn but all I had was cream corn which likely would not have been very great addition. Thus, I went with French style green beans. Dump the whole can (drained, of course) in with the chicken salsa pasta.

After that I realized that I likely made the wrong choice with the hot salsa as there was a definite spicy smell coming from the skillet. I added maybe a half cup of Mexican cheese, yet you can obviously go with whatever cheese you want. I just had some Mexican on hand because I had planned to make some Taco Cupcakes.

And it does make a lot. I ate this for 1 dinner and 2 lunches, feeling satisfied each meal.

You can also make several variations of those. You can make it "traditional" by using pasta sauce instead of salsa. Add more veggies or don't add veggies at all. Cutting carbs, don't add the pasta. Yada yada yada, on it goes.

You can also take just the salsa chicken and make it into loaded nachos by cutting the chicken up into smaller pieces and serving it over nachos with whatever other regular nacho additions you want. This is actually a great idea I may have to make at some point. Hmmm....

Recipe: Dismembered Gingerbread Man Cheesecake

I found a recipe which describes how to create a Gingerbread House Demolition Cheesecake. I decided to try my hand at it with a different type of cheesecake, using the basis of the recipe as a starting point. Instead of using a gingerbread house, I bought a large gingerbread man at the store to decorate.

I forgot to take a "before" but remembered to take a dismembered picture.

After letting him live for a night, with a heavy heart, I dismembered him into small pieces. Then I ground it up in a small Cuisinart food processor, edible decorations and all. You want it to be finely chopped to get rid of all the candy chunks. Sadly I don't have a normal size food processor so the one I had was lacking in power. While it had no problem grinding up the gingerbread and the peppermint candies, the jelly candies were too tiny for my already small blades. It thinned them out a bit forcing me to take a pair of scissors and cut them up into small pieces. I think if they had been normal sized jelly candies (such as Chuckles) then the food processor would have had an easier time taking care of them. Not sure if a normal food processor would have the might to take care of them.

Candies and all!

To make the crust, I took about a cup and a half of the crumbs/powder and mixed that with a third cup of melted butter. When I make cheesecakes, I only coat the bottom of the pan and leave the sides bare. If you want to coat the sides, I'd likely increase it to 2 and a quarter cups of the crumbs and half a cup of melted butter.

You can see the tiny bits of peppermints and jellies.

Then I decided to spruce up the crust a bit more. I used Trader Joe's Cinnamon & Sugar Grinder to coat the crust with some extra spices. Then I made a small bit of glaze icing and drizzled that over the bottom. I baked it at 350 degrees for 8 minutes. Take it out and let it cool.

Mmmm!

As for the cheesecake, I decide to whip together a vanilla spice cheesecake to complement the gingerbread crust:
Three 8 oz cream cheese packages, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 scant tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 eggs, room temperature, lightly beat

Mix the cream cheese until it is smooth, then mix in the sugar. I actually had some homemade vanilla sugar laying around so I used that for an extra taste. Once the sugar is blended completely with the cream cheese, I mixed in the pumpkin pie spice. Honestly, only reason I used pumpkin pie spice is because I homemade a cup of it and had a bit leftover and figured it would work here. Then mix in the vanilla extra. I also homemade my own vanilla extract which is why I have no problem using a large amount, if a tablespoon is too much you can use 2 teaspoons of it. Finally slowly mix in the eggs. It's important to not incorporate too much air into the mixture so mix on slow until well blended. If you mix on high then the cheesecake will come out too puffed up with air, almost doubled in size. If you feel the mixture is too thick, you can always add in a splash of milk to thin it out a bit.

Pour the mixture over the cooled gingerbread crust and you're ready to bake. You can bake it in a water bath (wrap you pan in foil and submerge in an inch of boiling water while you bake), place it on a baking sheet, straight on the rack, use bake even strips, wrap a damp dish towel around it, etc. Normally I'd bake in a water bath but today I just went with it on a baking sheet. Bake for about 35 minutes or until there is only an inch of jiggle in the middle. Don't bake until it is completely set as that is too long, the cheesecake will continue to set after you've pulled it out of the oven so you want it to be still firm but jiggly in the center.

I stupidly forgot to take an after picture. I planned to take a picture of a slice yet it was gone before I really could. Guess that's good, huh?

After I let it cool, time to decorate! There are many different ways to decorate:
- Sprinkled some of the remaining gingerbread crumbs (this is what I did)
-Dress it like a gingerbread man with more jelly candies and icing
-Whipped cream
-Thin coating of vanilla pudding

Quick Tasty Food: Naan Pizza

I love naan and find it very versatile. My favorite use is to make pizza with it. One single leaf of naan is perfect for a personal pizza and you can top it with anything a normal pizza has. And naan is much healthier than normal dough and (in my opinion) better quality.

Tonight, for example, I made a BBQ Chicken Naan Pizza. The other day I got a rotisserie chicken to eat throughout the week ($6 is a great deal for all the meat you can get off it, just takes patience to rip it to pieces). Take some chicken, mix it with a bit of sauce (tonight I went with a variety of Sriracha, Sweet BBQ, and Light Blue Cheese Dressing). Chop up some veggies that work with the type you're going with (red onions and celery go perfect with BBQ Chicken). Sprinkle a bit of cheese (Italian Five Cheese was great but I used it up on my last naan pizza, so today I went with slices of Swiss that I chopped up to resemble shredded cheese). Bake it at 400 degrees Fahrenheit until it's as done as you want (I like it crispy but soft). Voila, you have a naan pizza!

Other varieties:
- Reddit user gamergrl1018 suggested a Martguerita naan pizza with olive oil, garlic, thyme, fresh basil, tomato, and mozzarella
- Cincinnati Chili with oyster crackers and cheddar cheese; can add in onions and beans or chopped up hot dogs
- Hawaiian with pineapple chunks and capicola ham/Canadian bacon; can add on onions

Quick Tasty Food: Pumped Up Mac & Cheese

I don't always cook normal food, sometimes I create a tasty dish while I'm cooking one main item. Weird, I know. And a lot of the time the dish looks downright disgusting! Yet I know it's going to be good, I just know it. A very small percentage of the time does the dish end up nasty and most of the time that's when I'm eating it as leftovers.

Tonight I made something that looked bad but tasted fantastic. The ingredients:

• Kraft Garlic & Herb Alfredo Mac & Cheese
• can of French Style Green Beans, drained
• Sriracha Chili Sauce
• bullion  powder (I used low-salt chicken flavor)
• 1 egg
• Blue Cheese Dressing (I used light but you can use regular blue cheese chunks as well)
• Milk

1. Use the Kraft recommended amount of water and put in a bit of the bullion powder.
2. While the water is beginning to boil, I squirted in some Sriracha. You can be the judge of the amount you use based on how spicy you like your dishes. I like it nice and spicy so I did 2 big squirts.
3. After the water has boiled, dump in the macaroni and green beans. Let boil again.
4. After it has come to a boil, crack the egg and drop it straight in the water. No need to cook it ahead of time as the boiling water cooks it for you.
5. After it has cooked for the normal amount of time, strain and put the mixture back in the pot but do not put it on the stove again.
6. Put in the Kraft powder, the milk (follow the directions if you want, I just guestimated the amount), and a tablespoon of blue cheese dressing (or regular blue cheese crumble).
7. Return to the stove and heat on low, if possible you can let it boil again for a little bit. Make sure to continue stirring so everything is mixed together.
8. After a minute or two, you're done. Remove from heat and put in your dish of choice.

Remember, it's going to look nasty but will taste wonderful! You have a good amount of fiber from the green beans, a good amount of protein from the egg and milk. Not saying it's healthy for you, but for something that you literally just throw together it works fine. Plus, it definitely fills you up!

Recipe - Dalek Cupcakes

I'm big Doctor Who fan even though it was only a year ago I found the show on Netflix and quickly devoured all episodes. Every Whovian knows that Daleks are evil. They're so evil they deserve their own effigy, thus Dalek Cupcakes! Then, you're able to EXTERMINATE by devouring them! 

I would like to acknowledge the awesome Tofu Guru who was my inspiration for my version. She creates her version as vegan and...well...I wasn't willing to go to that much effort (aka didn't want to spend money on vegan materials I may never use again) which forced me to create my own. Check out her video, even if it's just to enjoy the music from Chameleon Circuit (a Whovian band that is amazing) or if you just want to look at a cute girl bake, lol.

Each Dalek is assembled with 3 cupcakes, 1 regular and 2 minis. I chose to use Devil's Food Cake since, you know, Daleks are full of hate and evil and all that. I actually decided to model my creation off of Dalek Caan, so instead of 2 mini-cupcakes I instead used 1 mini-cupcake and 1 mini-cheesecake. The cheesecake can be from a simple recipe (8 ounces cream cheese, 1/3 cup sugar, and 1 egg with a splash of vanilla, mixed in that order and not all at once) and represents Caan inside the armored chassis. If you wish to keep it simple, just stick with the 2 mini-cupcakes. 

 One thing to also keep in mind is what type of Dalek you want to create and get an idea of that first. I went with a generic dark colored Dalek so I went with Dark Chocolate Frosting. If you wish to use other colors, you can always go with a Cream Cheese or Vanilla Frosting and use a coloring on it (artificial food colors, icing colors, natural flavors, etc). I wish now that I had used another color so my picture would end up looking clearer, having all dark colors makes the layers difficult to tell.

To assemble, use a dollop of frosting to hold each layer together. An alternative is to go with a single pretzel stick and impale it through the center of all layers, thus ensuring all layers will not move easily. After you have the basic layers, frost the rest of the creation all over except for the very bottom. Now to pimp out your Dalek, starting from top to bottom:
 
-For the dome lights on top, I cut a white Good & Plenty in half and attach each at an angle on either side.
 
-For the eye stalk, I used half a pretzel stick covered in chocolate with a candy button at the end (attach automatically after dipping the stick in chocolate).
 
-For the neck rings, I used licorice strings. Daleks can have different numbers of rings between 3 and 4.
 
-For the Blast Gun, just half a pretzel stick dipped in chocolate and situate it on the left side.
 
-For the Sucker Cup or Plunger, just half a pretzel stick dipped in chocolate with a chocolate chip at the end (attach automatically after dipping the stick in chocolate) and situate it on the right side.
 
-For the hemispheres or sense globes (or, according to Rory, "eggs"), I used Sixlets. I went with 6 columns of 3 each but you can use any combination you want or can fit. Since Sixlets are pretty large, you can go with something smaller instead by using edible pearls/dragees.
 
After that's done, EXTERMINATE the Dalek and enjoy the sugar filled rush that will hit you from eating one of these. You'll act just like 11, giddy and excited ^_^