Italian Chicken Sausage Soup

Easter was wonderful this year. I hope everyone got to spend time with the people they love. We got to stay home this year and everyone came to us! It was wonderful. Our church service was awesome in the morning. I can not tell you how blessed we are with this church and church family in our lives.

We were not having our Easter meal until closer to dinner time this year and I don't know about anyone else but when I get out of church around noon I am starving! I decided to make some soup that I had been planning to make the day before, but got way too busy to make, for our lunch on Easter day. Luckily both my husbands parent's and my parent's would be coming early to enjoy lunch. I love feeding people and it was a bonus for the kids to have their Grandparent's to play with while I got things prepared for lunch and then for dinner. I figured soup wouldn't be too terribly filling but we wouldn't be starving until dinner and it's always the easiest, one pot type of thing to whip up. I was running a little behind so I was a little more frantic than normal to get it done since I was starving and so was everyone else. I did also have munchies to put out but still! Actually some of the things I had planned to put out never even went out which means...SCORE! The hubby and I can have a little wine tonight, light the fire pit, have some good munchies, and enjoy some quiet time just the two of us once we tuck the kiddos in to bed tonight.

Just a word of warning on this soup...it makes a TON so if you don't expect to use it all up you can just pop it into freezer safe containers for the next time you want soup with out making it from scratch. Then all you have to do is pull it out of the freezer and put it in a pot on the stove to heat back up. It's that easy. Or even better yet...share some with friends or neighbors. Who doesn't like to get a nice surprise like that?! We have had neighbors stop by with warm zucchini bread right from the oven and warm whole wheat bread. Did I mention how much I love our neighbors? We have the best neighbors where we live.

Italian Chicken Sausage Soup

Ingredients:

• 2 pkgs Sweet Italian Chicken Sausage
• 2 (32 oz) containers of Chicken Broth
• 4 cups (total) of chopped Carrots, Onions, Celery
• 1 (10 oz) pkg Frozen Chopped Spinach
• 1 pkg of Gnocchi **You can substitute pasta.
• 1 large can of Stewed Tomatoes **Break tomatoes into smaller pieces
• 1 Tbsp Salt
• 1 Tbsp Italian Seasoning
• 1 Tbsp Fennel Seeds
• 1 Tbsp Garlic Powder
• Cayenne Pepper (I added this to taste. I like my soup a lil' spicy!)
• Super Secret Ingredient: Aw Shucks Seasoning
  (Again...added to taste. Thanks, Dad for the suggestion!)

Directions:

1. Break sausage up into bite sized pieces and brown up in a little EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil for you non-Rachel Ray watching peeps out there) in the bottom of a pot. Remove and set aside.
2. Add a little more EVOO to the pot and throw all the veggies, except the spinach, in the pot with spices. Cook until onion is translucent scraping up the little browned pieces of sausage as you go.
3. Put sausage, spinach, and liquids back into the pot and bring to a boil.
4. Once boiling, add Gnocchi.
5. Enjoy!  (o;

This soup was a hit and I know it's going to be a staple in our house especially this coming fall and winter. It's getting to the point where it's starting to warm up here in our area and I am just about ready to retire my soups and bust out the salad recipes! That's an exciting this. Can I just say that I don't know about anyone else and I know we are just waiting for the warmer weather and the summer to hit BUT just thinking about the fall coming with all it's warm soups, stews, cool weather, harvest activities, and the smell of crisp air with that wood fire smell in the air gets me all giddy inside! This must be what we will experience after this life. It never gets old. I get excited for each season for it's own joy and excitement it brings and usually way in advance. It's so funny. I hope I am not the only one but something tells me that I'm not!

I hope you have a blessed day! †

·.¸¸.·´´¯`··._.· ஐ Rebecca ·.¸¸.·´´¯`··._.· ஐ

The best Carrot Cake ever! (No, really!)

I made a carrot cake within the last week or so. Yes I am behind on my posts. It's not easy to squeeze time in lately with everything else I have to do in a day plus a first birthday, Easter, and the last of our Truth Project series BUT I needed to post this in case anyone was looking for a great dessert for Easter this year. I know it will be making an appearance at our dessert table.

It turned out super moist and everyone loved it here in the Miller house. I hope you love it, too!

Ingredients:

Cake:

2 c sugar

1 1/4 cup oil

4 large eggs

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 Tbsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

3 c grated carrots

1 c chopped walnuts (Optional)

Frosting:

- 12 oz powdered sugar

- 8 oz. cream cheese room temp

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- 2 Tbsp butter

- 2 Tbsp milk

Directions:

1. In large bowl, beat sugar and oil. Add eggs and beat well.
   
2. Sift together flour, soda, cinnamon, and salt into egg mixture; mix well; fold in carrots and nuts
   
3. Place batter in greased 9x13 pan; bake 30-45 minutes in a 350 oven. (Check center to make sure a toothpick comes out clean. The oven time may vary a little bit)
4. FROSTING: Beat together powdered sugar, cream cheese, vanilla, butter and milk; spread on cooled carrot cake.

This cake is so yummy and I can't wait to make it for Easter this year. Mmmm...carrot cake and a nice big, hot cup of coffee. What more could you want for dessert? I couldn't work chocolate into this one. Sorry! (o; I will however be posting my yummy recipe for Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter icing but that will be left for another post.

I hope you have a blessed day! †

·.¸¸.·´´¯`··._.· ஐ Rebecca ·.¸¸.·´´¯`··._.· ஐ

Chocolate Chip Oreo Truffle Cookie

So I don't know if you have seen these chocolate chip cookies with a whole oreo baked inside of them but they looked WAY to awesome to not try making them. Our church's youth group was holding a coffeehouse Friday night and I had volunteered to make food. You could volunteer to do an act or food. YEAH that's a no brainer! I signed up to make a dip and some cookies. I only knew I wanted to make Buffalo Chicken Dip but the cookies I wasn't sure but I wanted to try something new. I get bored super easy making the same things and I love trying something new. It's always exciting to see how it's going to turn out and if you have a new recipe you can add to the recipe binder. (O:

Well I saw the chocolate chip cookies with the oreo in them. If you want to see that post click here for that. I made some cupcakes for a friend's little boy who just turned 1. I totally forgot to take pics of those but they turned out cute. They were owls and it was just yellow cake mix for the cupcake BUT inside the cupcake was baked an oreo truffle minus dipping it in the chocolate. What a brilliant idea. I had a ton of the oreo truffle mix left and didn't feel like buying another package of oreos for the chocolate chip cookies so...why not! I'll just take the concept of the cookies and cupcakes and experiment.

I made the cookie mix from this recipe which is the one for putting the whole oreo inside. I just made a ball of the oreo truffle and flattened it out a bit. Then I took the cookie dough and made a ravioli type of deal out of it. I made sure that the oreo truffle was covered and in it's new home without escaping. Then popped them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Parchment paper is the best thing ever invented, I don't know how I just found out about this, and it has become my new best friend in the kitchen. Let me just say that these puppies are HUGE. I mean you are wrapping a cookie around an oreo truffle. When they came out of the oven and I saw how BIG they were and they seemed hard, I was not very excited about these anymore. I actually thought about not taking them because everyone would hate them. I actually called them cookie bricks. You could totally build a house out of them and just gnaw your way out. I decided to just take them. Whatever. I tried and if nobody ate them at least they weren't sitting here in the house staring at me.

Chocolate Chip Oreo Truffle Cookies

recipe adapted from Picky Palate's Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks butter, softened
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 10 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
• Oreo Truffle mix (1 package of oreos and one package of softened cream cheese blended together in a food processor. Normally you would finish them off by dipping them in chocolate but I didn't go that far!)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugars. Add in the eggs and vanilla and mix until well combined.
• In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, and salt. Slowly add to the wet mixture and combine thoroughly. Stir in the chocolate chips.
• Chill the dough for 15 minutes to make it easier to work with and to keep the dough from spreading when baking.
• Using a cookie scoop place one scoop of dough on top of an Oreo truffle . Place another single scoop on the bottom of the Oreo truffle to create a sort of cookie ravioli. Seal the edges together to completely close in the truffle .
• Place the balls of cookie dough on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 9-13 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack.

Here is what I ended up with...

The funny thing about this is that everyone seemed to have love them. I had several people tell me they loved them and they were completely gone not even half way through the night. You know what that means. YOU get the recipe. If they weren't good there would be no way I would put you through the misery of getting excited and putting them up here only to have them be terrible.  I apologize for the terrible pictures. It was a very, very full day.

I hope you have a blessed day! †


·.¸¸.·´´¯`··._.· ஐ Rebecca ·.¸¸.·´´¯`··._.· ஐ

Buffalo Chicken Dip

This dip has always been a hit everywhere we go. I love it! A friend asked for the recipe so I thought I would just post it. This is really just the recipe on the Frank's Red Hot website but I have made two key changes that I personally think are genius but that's just me. I put mine in a little crock pot that I won during our White Elephant game one Christmas. That game itself deserves it's own blog post. Hilarious! I also do not use the canned chicken like they call for in the recipe. I stew two boneless chicken breasts for about 4 hours with some special seasonings. It makes the whole house smell AMAZING and you can use that chicken to make the BEST shredded chicken tacos ever. My mom always made the chicken that way growing up so it comforting to have that smell wafting through our home. Thanks, Mom! The dip has a totally different texture when you use the shredded chicken. I just think it's so much better for dipping rather than getting chunks but that's just my personal preference. If you like the canned stuff...go for it! This is just how I make it.

I am going to try making a Barbecue Chicken Dip using barbecue sauce and ranch dressing instead. I might need a second little crock pot. That way I can make BBQ and Buffalo at the same time. That would be cool. 

Here's the recipe and if you want the official Frank's Red Hot recipe you can click here.

This is the picture from the Frank's Red Hot website since I wasn't able to take a picture. There was too much going on Friday to remember everything. I do have to say I think they garnish it with some chives and red pepper. I might add that next time!

Ingredients:

8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened (microwave it straight from the fridge for about 30 seconds)

1/2 cup blue cheese dressing

1/2 cup any flavor Frank's Red Hot Sauce

1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese

2 cups shredded stewed chicken meat

** I take 2 boneless chicken breasts and put them in the crock pot about 4 hours ahead of time with water (about halfway up the chicken), tons of paprika, pepper, and kosher salt. I also quarter an onion for flavor only and drop that in as well. When you take the chicken out from the crock pot you will be able to just easily shred it with a fork. Make sure you keep the shredded meat in the juices from the crock pot or it will dry out. You will see that the chicken will actually soak up that awesome broth and get just super yummy.

 

Directions:
Place all the ingredients into a small (4qt) crock pot and mix really well. I keep it on warm so that each time someone gets dip it's still nice and warm! Yes...it's really that easy.

If you don't have one of these little crock pots you should get one. They are great for dips or doing smaller crock pot meals. I seriously will put two chicken breasts in and then use the shredded chicken with some taco seasoning for shredded chicken tacos and it totally feeds our family of 5 (for now because they are small enough to not eat a whole lot yet) and still have left overs. I found the same one I have here if you are interested in getting one. I love mine. Love it! I even just thought to myself...who needs a fondue pot when you have one of these little guys. Hm...I have a fondue pot and I love that but I'm just sayin. You could totally do fondue recipes in this as well on the cheap. 

I hope you have a blessed day! †


·.¸¸.·´´¯`··._.· ஐ Rebecca ·.¸¸.·´´¯`··._.· ஐ

Italian Pot Roast Recipe & More!

Alright...I have kept you in suspense long enough. The Italian Pot Roast I made for Valentine's Day is the best Pot Roast I have ever had. It instantly makes the house smell amazing. If you want the original recipe you can click here! It is a Giada De Laurentiis recipe. I love her cooking. It's very fresh and very easy. She rarely makes anything I feel like is so challenging that I don't even want to attempt it. This one has a little red wine in it so I just want to preface you preparing this recipe by saying I think it is mandatory while cooking this you have a little glass...you know...just to make sure the wine is good enough to put in the dish! (o;  I will say "You're Welcome" in advance for this one.

The Italian Pot Roast ready to go into the oven for 3 hours and make the family drool while we wait!

 

 

Here's my take on her recipe. WARNING!!!! You need to use a pan that you can use on the stovetop and then pop in the oven. I just want to preface this recipe with that or you could get to the oven part and not be so happy at me. Consider yourselves warned.

Italian Pot Roast

(Adaptation from Giada De Laurentiis - Stracotto with Porcini Mushrooms)

Ingredients

• 1 (5-pound) boneless beef chuck roast
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup olive oil, divided
• 2 onions, chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 cup red wine
• 1 (15-ounce) can low-sodium beef broth
• 1 package of sliced mushrooms
• 1 large sprig fresh rosemary, leaves removed and chopped

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
• Pat the beef dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. 
• In a heavy 6-quart pot or Dutch oven, heat 2 tablespoons of oil over medium-high heat. 
• Add the beef and cook until browned on all sides, about 12 minutes. Remove the beef and set aside.
• Reduce the heat to medium. 
• Add the remaining oil and the onions. Cook, stirring frequently, until tender, about 8 minutes. 
• Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute until aromatic. 
• Add the wine and scrape up the brown bits that cling to the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. 
• Stir in the broth and mushrooms. 
• Return the beef to the pot as well as sprig of Rosemary and bring the liquid to a boil. Cover the pot and transfer to the oven. Cook until the beef is fork-tender, about 3 hours, turning the beef over halfway through and adding more beef broth, as needed.
• Transfer the beef to a cutting board. Tent with foil and let stand for 15 minutes.
• Meanwhile, spoon any excess fat off the top of the pan juices. 
• Puree the pan juices and vegetables in a blender until smooth for a gravy.
• Shred or Cut the beef into 1-inch pieces and place on a platter. Spoon some of the sauce over the meat and serve the remaining sauce on the side. I also try to remove any excess fat from the beef.

I wanted to share another yummy recipe I just made. It is Smore's Brownies. They are so wonderful because you get Smore's AND a brownie all in one bite. The kids loved this recipe and it was so easy to make. I had bought a huge bag of Mini-Marshmallows at our local BJ's for Ian to take to school. They were celebrating the 100th day of school in their Kindergarten class so they were going to be counting lots of different things. The only problem is the day I brought them home his teacher sent an email saying what she still needed. The marshmallows were already covered. Man! Now what am I going to do with ALL these marshmallows? Well I made some Rice Krispy Treats. I love these but I forgot how sticky and messy they are to make. Maybe that would be why my brain conveniently tucks away that recipe. Then I saw this recipe on the side of the box of brownie mix from Duncan Hines for Smore's Brownies.  I like Smore's and I love brownies. Hmmmm.

First you make the brownies according to the box. As soon as you pull them out of the oven and the brownies are still nice and hot put about 4 cups of Mini-Marshmallows and 1 cup of Chocolate Chips spread over the top. Then place it back in the oven for a minute or two. You just want them to get nice and soft but not totally melt all the way. Then pull it out of the oven and while that is hot take 5 graham crackers and break into small pieces. Place these pieces into the top of the mixture and cut when the whole thing has cooled. Here's how mine turned out.

My son was not pleased at coming home from school and smelling these fresh from the oven only to be reminded that they were for after dinner only. I did feel bad about torturing him like that with the smell of them. He did get to eat one then...after dinner!

I still have enough marshmallows for another recipe so I am sure you will be seeing another marshmallow ingredient recipe in the near future.

It's a rainy day here today and I can tell you all I feel like doing this afternoon is sleeping so you know what that means...MORE COFFEE!!!!!  Speaking of coffee can someone tell me how this works? I am drinking coffee with Fat Free Hazelnut Creamer in it and having a piece of the Smore's Brownie. Is that equivalent to eating a burger but having a diet coke from a fast food place? They even themselves out right? I mean the fat free cancels out the fat in the actual brownie, right?! LOL This dabbling in baking is really going to be bad for my waistline. Whatever...it's a Monday...anything goes on Mondays!

I hope you have a blessed day! †

·.¸¸.·´´¯`··._.· ஐ  Rebecca  ·.¸¸.·´´¯`··._.· ஐ

Caramel Mocha Cupcakes...oh my!

This weekend was a fun time! I went to the coolest girls night out party you have ever heard of. It was a "Pity Party". It was hilarious. When you can sit around with some other 'mom' friends with out your children in tow you know it's going to be a glorious time! We played games, shared our 'pity party' stories, and even had a dessert competition. I had the best time getting to know these ladies better. I feel so blessed to be able to call them friends. There are rumors of another one in June so I am really praying this pans out because I had so much fun at this one!

I wanted to share with you what I made for the dessert competition. Never have I ever...made fancy cupcakes and practically had heart palpitations while doing it before now. I know how amazing these ladies are with their cooking and baking skills so I knew I couldn't just make a tray of brownies and be done. Anyone who knows me knows there are certain things that are just me.

1. I do not enjoy baking nor am I good at it. I love to cook. I guess I have never really been a 'sweets' person.
2. I love chocolate.
3. I love coffee.

These are the three things you really have to know about me. Yes I admit them. That's the first step. (o;

Well I found this blog that had this amazing cupcake recipe that sounded like I might be able to pull it off. Caramel Mocha Cupcakes...WHAT?! Coffee AND Chocolate in the same recipe. It didn't even just call for any chocolate. It was dark chocolate. I know. Amazing right?! Ok...I'm making it. Done deal.

Well I was so stressed out about making this since I had to make the icing from scratch and the last several times I tried that, my icing got all drippy. It was not pretty and I was very discouraged. It also called for homemade chocolate ganache to be put on top the cupcake before adding the icing. Oh boy...what did I really get myself into this time. I decided if I was going to do this I was going to do it right and get a decorating kit for the first time in my life so I could make the frosting look some what cute. I don't know if it was all the chocolate covered espresso beans or Dove chocolate caramels I was munching on that was making me shaky all day but holey moley. I kept blaming it on the sugar but I really think it was nerves.

BY THE WAY...this is a little embarrassing or I guess maybe it should be since the hubby cracks up at me each time. He brought to my attention that I pronounce espresso as 'EXpresso'. Whatever! I know what I am talking about. It's not the only thing I mess up. I still have a very difficult time pronouncing 'Psalm' correctly. I pronounce it 'Palm' and that is not correct. It should be pronounced as "Salm" but I am sure you already knew that. Oh well. It gives my husband something to crack up at me about (although there are myriads of things he has the opportunity to laugh about with me in his life). 

Anyway, here is the finished product...

Not too bad, right? I was pretty impressed and felt like I could definitely try and make 'fancy' cupcakes again sometime. I added some chocolate sprinkles and a chocolate covered EXpresso (lol) bean to top them off.

I did not win the competition however the girl who won definitely deserved it. She made a canoli cake creation that was to DIE for. I never heard of or had that before and it was amazing. I am really hoping I can get that recipe. Oh it was heavenly. YUM!

If you want the recipe and full tutorial click here. I am pretty sure you can substitute one of these for your morning coffee. LOL

Maybe I CAN bake after all...but my heart will always belong to cooking.  (o;

I hope you have a blessed day! †

·.¸¸.·´´¯`··._.· ஐ Rebecca ·.¸¸.·´´¯`··._.· ஐ

Candy is Dandy for Christmas time!!!!!!

I love chocolate. I love it. I just love it. I know that God loves me because he blessed us while we are here with coffee and chocolate. Oh there is nothing better than these two things in life. These are the two essentials things in my life. ANYWAY...now that I got that out of my system. I could go on forever.

Here is a SUPER simple recipe for a great little treat over the holidays and let me tell you from my toughest critics that this is truly a hit! My son told me I am a genius (which I think I am so I am glad he is finally on the same page!). I found this recipe the other day on My Computer is My Canvas by Colette but I have seen it elsewhere also. My sister-in-law had made these and I thought they were cute a while back and when I saw it on Colette's blogs I just had to make them. She made them with the peppermint kisses which are great but VERY strong peppermint flavor so I decided to mix it up! Please check out her site. She has the most amazing printable for this that she made. How cool?! Really check it out and you could totally make little bags of these up for neighbors, friends, or even your children to share with classes.

The end product! Yum (o;

Here's what mine look like. I made dark chocolate kisses, milk chocolate kisses, hugs which is the white chocolate with white chocolate inside, and the peppermint ones as well. I found the peppermint at our local grocery store, Giant. JUST A QUICK TIP...the different chocolates have a different melting point which completely did not even pass through this poor little mind of mine. The white chocolate hugs (which by the way I hate calling it chocolate when it is not chocolate whatsoever) melted SUPER fast in comparison to the white and the dark chocolate. I would suggest to always do the white separately since the time is just a bit less for that. You do not want to end up with a mess!

Anyway...it's so easy. Here's what you need...
Baking Tray
Wax or Parchment paper
Bag of Square pretzels (My personal preference is Snyder's and I'm sorry but everytime I look at the bag I just wanna say "OH SNAP!!!!!!")
Hershey's Kisses
Hershey's M&M's
(I live in PA so...GO HERSHEY!)

Square Pretzels & Kisses

M&M's

These are ready to go into the oven. Place one kiss on one square pretzel. Make sure they do not overlap whatsoever!

Put one little M&M on each and push it down slightly. Let these cool in the fridge or anywhere cold. Our enclosed sun porch works WONDERFUL when it's so cold outside.

DONE!

So that's it! My hubby is going to be a happy camper taking these into his Christmas party at work tomorrow. When I was making them he really didn't believe it was as easy as I told him and he couldn't believe how quickly they were done. He did steal some already to test. I am also making some homemade biscotti but these were the easy peasy recipe. Now onto the more time consuming recipe. I hope you get to try these because they are fabulous and especially the dark chocolate kisses. YUM!

On a totally 'me' note, I was listening to music while writing this post and heard the Happy Holiday by Bing Crosby (Beef Wellington Remix) and I thought, "Man...I need to put that on my mix for my blog because I love it!" Yeah...I was listening to the mix on this blog. HELLO?!?!?!?! Sheesh...I am one tired mommy. I need a nap myself. (o;

Have a fabulous day and I pray these little treats will be a blessing to you and yours!

God bless! †