Triple Dog Dare - oops!

So sometimes my big mouth gets me into trouble. This was one of those times. I dared another Allrecipes Ambassador to make this recipe Delicious Fish Smoothies. Well not only did he make it and photograph it, he made a video

 



So then it was my turn .. my dare Thanksgiving Leftover Cupcakes No  one had made this nor reviewed it and frankly, turkey and gravy in a cupcake did not sound all that appetizing.  But I decided to throw caution and my poor stomach to the wind.

 

I made a herb crusted turkey breast today so this first thing I did was chop up the turkey and chopped off the herb crust...



And so it begins

 

The next step was to grind up the turkey meat

 

Pureed Turkey  yummy



 Then I added the rest of the cupcake ingredients: flour, sugar, butter, canola oil, salt, vanilla extract and baking powder because unleavened turkey cupcakes would be gross :P

 

Mess O Ingredients
 

 The recipe didn't says to mix everything up in the food processor, but I am lazy so in it all went 

Ready to mix into yumminess
 

 

 I whirled it up, but it didn't look like anything I could pour.. like batter

 

Crumbly, like cookie batter

So I read the recipe notes and it said it it looked dry, add more oil.. so I did, It looked kinda greasy and then I knew what I needed to add

 

To try and mimic poultry juice

If I had turkey stock I would have used that, but I didn't so  made due :P I whirled it all up again and ta-da... turkey cupcake batter

 

And NO I didn't eat any batter

I baked for 20 minutes at 350 and then we had freshly baked turkey cupcakes

 

They look normal but I know they have baked in weirdness

The next step was to make the glaze/icing. It called for turkey gravy which I didn't have so I made a quick chicken gravy 

 

 

See the pepper flakes.. I made it real!

 

There are the glaze ingredients

 

Yeah  looks good, doesn't it?

I made some into a glaze and some into a thicker frosting

 

gravy frosting.. who woulda thunk?

 

And here are the final cupcakes...

 

 

                            Glazed cupcake

Iced cupcakes

 

Now I am sure you are wondering how did they taste. Well the iced ones were way too sweet from all the sugar to make an icing - yuk.. but the glazed and plain cupcakes were interesting. You definitely can taste something meaty and roasty going on but it wasn't unpleasant. Would I make these again?As a novelty.. sure.. but otherwise, probably not  lol

Waffle Iron Hash Browns

I saw this online and thought I'd give it a try. Really happy about how it turned out

Lunch today with scrambled eggs

 

All I did was defrost some frozen hash browns, season them with salt and pepper, spray the hot waffle iron with cooking spray, and then add the hash browns. I checked it when the light came on that indicates the waffle is done, but it wasn't brown yet. I probably let it cook for about twice as long as a waffle.  Next time I'd going to try adding onions and maybe even some eggs and ham

Happy Karo Halloween

Happy Halloween! Today was the holiday party at work so that is always a nice diversion from the usual stress and pressure of the work week. This month one of my Allrecipes assignments was to make a recipe from Karo and bring it to a Halloween party. Luckily my work was having one, so I didn't have to scrounge up an invite someplace

I decided to make Caramel Corn Treat Bags to take to work to share with everyone. The caramel corn was very easy to make and it really tasted good. I used the dark Karo syrup to give it a darker flavor and added a wee bit more salt.  I set out bowls of the following add-ins for the corn: dry roasted peanuts, plain M&M candies, candy corn, gummy worms and gummy body parts and some little hard candy bones and skulls

One of the kitchens at work

Karo Treats



Cauldron of Caramel Corn

Let everyone know about Allrecipes!

Peanuts and Body part gummies



M&Ms and body part gummies

Candy Corn and body part gummies



Sample bowl of caramel corn

 I put everything out pretty early.. like 8am and people got into the treats right away. I was surprised. Usually they wait until a  bit later to get the sugar rush going  so they must have really liked it.

I also made another Karo recipe, not from Allrecipes to take to work because it was so weird I HAD to make it  Richys Exceptional Cheeto Dessert Yup.. candied Cheetos!

Sweet Cheetos!!

You really cannot taste the cheese. It just made the candy a little less sweet, gave it a nice texture and was a nice little experiment. Everyone loved this a well, As you can see, I decorated it with gummy eyeballs, a gummy bloody foot and some tiny candy bones

I got almost all the decorations at the Dollar Tree Store The bowls were each  a dollar, bags of body parts a dollar, big bag of spider web and little black spiders were a dollar... for a few bucks it came out really nice. Don't have to spend a lot of money... but make sure you get there early. The closer you get to the holiday, the less neat stuff they have,


So here are a few other pictures of the Halloween fun today

Some goodies brought by another department

These were all over the place

The theme for my floor was zombie.. this group went with the beach zombie theme

Window decorations

Outside the office of senior management - enter if you dare

One of the cool Halloween displays on my floor

They had an old black and white monster movie playing

Tom eating caramel corn. The knife in his head is from him asking me about I phones one too many times

Girl Zombies Nicole and Cheryl eating my Karo treats

Former employee - didn't follow approved company processes :D

I am an Allrecipes Allstar Brand Ambassador (a voluntary position) and I’m not compensated for my work with Allrecipes.com.

Products received from advertiser are only used for experienced-based reviews on AR Foodie Files The reviews, content and opinions expressed in this blog are purely the sole opinions of LindaT. This blog was written in support of Karo ."

Fleischmann's Focaccia

Made this faceless recipe this week... really liked it. I am trying to avoid starchy carbs and get my carbs from veggies instead, so this was right up my alley Low Carb Jambalaya

Of course I negated the whole low carb effect by eating this with some  Easy Italian Herb Focaccia This was one of my allrecipes bonus assignments for the month . It was incredibly easy and I'll make it again. I thought for my taste the dough needed a bit more salt, so I'll increase that next time

My first Karo Assignment and the third one for Fleischmann

Busy busy cooking day today. I had planned  to get more done yesterday but my one and only recipe made on Saturday was such a freaking MESS, it is all I had time for. So I decided I'd make the Karo Spooky Homemade Marshmallows for one of my monthly assignments. Oh this should be fun, I thought. I've never made marshmallows before. Well, there is a reason I've never made them before and never will again. They are a giant pain in the toucas!! I blame myself though, not the recipe.  First problem, I tried to something "fancy" with them and Two, I don't have the right equipment to make these.  You really need a workhorse of a Kitchen Aide mixer or something similar as the  mixture has to be beaten for 10 minutes. I kept having to turn of my cheapo mixer because it was overheating and only could get to 6 minutes of beating time before my mixer was laboring so much I knew I had to stop. And as far as the fancy, well stupid me thought it would be "cute " to put this into molds

Skulls - better than the pumpkins



One of those is a pumpkin.. squint and you can tell

Well first off it was a pain in the ass to get the mixture into the holes and then a pain in the ass to get it out without smashing the shapes. Homemade marshmallows are softer than store bought. I was so annoyed and covered with marshmallow fluffiness, I saved the rest of my cooking for today. So today I started out with my third Fleischmann's assignment Easy Italian Herb Focaccia. It was supremely easy and really good. For my taste, I'd add a tad more salt to the dough... but I am a salt fiend

Can you almost smell it?

I am an Allrecipes Allstar Brand Ambassador (a voluntary position) and I’m not compensated for my work with Allrecipes.com.

Products received from advertiser are only used for experienced-based reviews on AR Foodie Files The reviews, content and opinions expressed in this blog are purely the sole opinions of LindaT. This blog was written in support of Karo and Fleischmann." 

Dinner tonight is Banh Mi Burgers and Roasted Tomato Curry Soup Been wanting to try the burgers for a while. Finally remembered to pick up some super lean ground pork, 140 calories a serving and yummy.

Soup's On!!

I made a delicious pretzel bread this weekend Pretzel Bread As much as I love making bread just to make bread, I made this to go with some homemade soup. Not much better than homemade soup and homemade bread for dinner..yumyum.  The other day I was at Trader Joe's and they were giving out samples of minestrone soup. It was good and that made me start craving it. I found this recipe that needed a face so I made this yesterday Sue's Minestrone

I used uber lean ground beef, turkey bacon and left out the oil. I reduced the meat and bacon to half what the recipe called for, sauteed it first and then dumped it all in the crockpot, except the noodles and frozen veggies. Cooked for like 4 hours, added veggies and cooked for another hour. Added the noodles to each serving tonight and used Fiber Gourmet super high fiber noodles. Only thing this needed was a cold rainy night   :)

Pillsbury assignments

For October, I had three assignments with Pillsbury crescent rolls.  There were the three I chose:

Breakfast Quiches to Go  I used regular crescents, fat free cream cheese, reduced fat Mexican cheese and added Canadian Bacon. They tasted pretty good, but I found I was still hungry after eating them. They needed more egg in my opinion if they were going to be served for breakfast. If they were served in mini muffin tins as an appy, they were just fine

Breakfast

The second one I made took me back to my childhood Crescent Dogs I can remember my Mom making these and can remember them from the school cafeteria. I used 45 calorie Hebrew National dogs, rolled a piece of turkey bacon around it, cooked it up in a pan to cook the bacon, rolled it in the crescent dough and used laughing cow blue cheese. Yes it was very salty, but I liked it as a trip  down memory lane.

The third and final one I made was on the sweet end of things Chocolate-Filled Crescents I used super dark chocolate, rolled the crescent dough in ground up black almonds and topped with sea salt. I touch of powdered sugar would have been good but I forgot it.  I liked  these better cold than hot.

I also made a faceless recipe for dinner.. really good and the best thing all weekend .  Chicken Ropa Vieja  I cooked this in the crockpot, then finished on the stove... used more tomato puree, more cumin and lots of S&P. Served with white rice and baked plantain chips

So this is what I did over the weekend

I am an Allrecipes Allstar Brand Ambassador (a voluntary position) and I’m not compensated for my work with Allrecipes.com.

Products received from advertiser are only used for experienced-based reviews on AR Foodie Files The reviews, content and opinions expressed in this blog are purely the sole opinions of LindaT. This blog was written in support of Pillsbury and their  Pillsbury Crescent Roll Products."

Fall-ing in my kitchen

After last week's horridly hot 100+ temps, I am more than ready for some cool weather. I think, I hope it has finally arrived. I love the fall soups and chilis and have been chomping at the bit to make some. I made some cracked wheat and oat bread yesterday which was the perfect compliment for this Gobble Gobble Chili with Chipotle Baja Sauce I used half black and half chili beans, sauted the meat and veggies up on the stovetop and then put everything in the crockpot for  six hours on low



Delish!
 

Got lots of leftovers so some will end up in the freezer I am sure

October assignments for Allrecipes

Today I got a chance to start on some of my monthly assignments for Allrecipes. One of my bonus assignments was to make a recipe from the ARGO®, KARO®, FLEISCHMANN'S® recipe collection. Well since I am making chili ( that picture tomorrow) I wanted to make a hearty bread to have with it. I made this bread Cracked Wheat and Oat Bread and it was yummy. Dummy me had used up all my butter making lemon bars for a church cakewalk the day before so I subbed in canola oil and some Butter Buds.



Fresh from the oven

And yes I had a slice after I took photos

 



I didn't have any rosemary so I didn't add that... dummy me again. I have 50 billions jars of dried spices in my cupboard but no rosemary?  Anyway, it's a nice hearty bread  that will compliment my chili well I am sure. I stashed it away because hot bread gets eaten way too fast, doesn't it?

 

Nicely grilled, good flavor to marinade just by itself

 

Faceless recipe for dinner tonight Tomatillo Chicken Breasts . Tasty sauce. yummy cheese, hard to take good picture of! Only thing about this recipe is when you cut into it, the juice rom the chicken is brown from the marinade so it doesn't look very pretty once you cut into it.