Fun in the Kitchen

January 15, 2010 by Kendra 1 Comment

On Saturday I made homemade whoopie pies. The recipe was in the recent Food Network magazine and looked so nummy I just had to try it. It actually wasn’t very hard. Basically just two chocolate cookies with a kind of vanilla frosting between them. Very rich. Very delish.

Kev and I have actually had lots of luck with food magazine recipes lately. The first recipe I tried was Perfect Hot Chocolate. To call it a recipe is kind of weird since most of us have probably made homemade hot cocoa at one point. I mean, you put unsweetened cocoa (baking cocoa), sugar, milk in a pan and voila! Cocoa! Of course, this recipe suggested adding bittersweet chocolate (I only had semi-sweet and unsweetened so I put an ounce of each in) which really made it special. Add some cinnamon for Mexican cocoa. Yum.

Next we tried hot and crispy chicken wraps. Super tasty, easy, and not really that bad for you, especially if you tweak it a bit. Check out that recipe here http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/hot-and-crunchy-chicken-cones We do it the easy way, but tweak it even more. We happened to get a mango jabanero salsa as a gift. So here’s what we do to make everything easier, and healthier. Mix about 1/4 cup of the mango salso with about 3 cups of coleslaw mix. Then mix in 2 Tbsp of mayo. This is your mango jalapeno slaw. For the chicken: purchase chicken breast tenders at the store. For 2 people you really only need 4 tenders for a reasonably sized meal. More than that and you’re going to stuff yourself silly. Wrap the rest of your tenders up for another dish, another day. Now back to cooking the chicken. Put some flour in a shallow bowl. 1/4 cup milk and 2 eggs in another shallow bowl. Wisk them together very well. In a food processer blend about 1.5 cups cornflakes,  2 Tbsp sugar, 1 Tbsp sesame seeds, 1/2 Tbsp crushed red pepper (or red pepper flakes), 1/2 Tbsp salt. Dump the blended contents into a third shallow bowl. Dredge your chicken strips through the flour, shaking off extra flour. Then dunk the chicken into the egg mixture, then roll the chicken in the cornflake mix. Heat about 1/4 inch of vegetable oil in a large skillet on medium heat. Cook the chicken for about 3 minutes on each side in the oil. Place cooked chicken on a rack, or on paper towels so exceess oil can drip off the chicken. Put your slaw and a piece of chicken ina tortilla, wrap it up, and EAT!

The best tortillas are found in the refrigerated area (by the cheese) in Fred Meyer. We’ve yet to see them at Safeway. These are the only flour tortillas we have found which do not contain hydrogenated, or partially hydrogenated oils.  You will want to cook them before you do the rest of the meal so that it will all get done at the same time.

If you end up making any of these things, let me know! It is always interesting to see what other twists people put into their dishes.

Have fun in the kitchen!