Table Talk - Creamy Chicken & Spinach Casserole

 This time for our dinner group we did a pasta dish.  It turned out really creamy even though it only uses 1% milk. 

I sliced up all the chicken first.  I didn't have an onion or garlic so I decided to use dried onions and garlic powder.  It seemed to work out just fine. 



 

I browned the chicken first.  I didn't worry about cooking it all the way through, since the recipe just says to brown it. 

I used 3/4 cup of dried onion.  I really like onion so this was fine for me, but it was really too much. If I make it again I would only do a half a cup or maybe even just a 1/3... 

After the chicken was brown I dumped the onions in with some more oil. 

After they had softened a bit I added the garlic powder.  The bottle told me how much to add for an equivalent for a clove.  Next I added the 2 tablespoons of flour.  Finally I added the four cups of 1% milk and a bay leaf.

I let it simmer and thicken.

I added the chicken back in at this point.  I cooked it for about a minute to finish cooking it through. 

I added the spinach.  I used a dish towel to "wring" all the moisture out of it. 

I added parmesan and the noodles which I had cooked while the white sauce simmered. 

Loaded the whole think into a 8x8" pan. 

I topped it mozzeralla cheese and baked it for 15 minutes.  All done!

The recipe says it only make 4 servings.  Four servings!!  The square below is a sixth of the recipe, much more my size. 

I worked up the calories for six servings. 

I really like this.  My chicken ended up being dry even though I thought I'd barely cooked it.  I don't know if it was over cooked or if it was just dry chicken...  If you like pasta, you'll like this recipe. 

Check out Jen's blog for the full recipe. 

Homemade Snickers

I found this recipe on How Sweet It Is.  I've had it printed out forever to make.  I'm so glad I finally made it.  This recipe takes some time, since you have to let each layer chill completely before adding the next.  I just put them in the frig after each step and it set up pretty quickly. 

Also, she recommends making these in one of those disposable cake pans you can buy at the grocery store.  But she puts that right at the end of the recipe so I made it in a regular pan.  If you are going to take this to an event or plate this up I would recommend that you follow that advice. 

I used Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips for the two chocolate layers. 

 Layer one - milk chocolate chips and peanut butter. 

I melted the chocolate and peanut butter on the stove.  This only took me a couple of minutes. 

 I poured that in a 13x9" pan that I had sprayed really throughly with no-stick. 

 I put it in the frig and worked on some other things. 

Next I prepped all the ingredients for the nougat. 

 I melted the butter, added in the sugar and the evaporated milk. 

 After I boiled that for 5 minutes I added the peanut butter, marshmallow fluff, peanuts and vanilla. Then I poured/spread this over the firm chocolate. 

 Back into the frig. 

After another break (maybe 30 minutes) I got started on the caramel layer.  I didn't have whipping cream so I just used whole milk. 

 It took a long time for the caramels to melt.  I got restless so I turned it up to medium. 

 It went pretty quick after that.  I poured/spread that over the nougat layer. 

Back into the frig.  The final layer was the same as the first, chocolate and peanut butter. 

 One more trip to the frig.  I let this sit in frig over night. 

The next day I had a piece. 

 It was really yummy!  I really liked the nougat layer.  It wasn't quite the same as a "real" snickers.  I could taste the peanut butter in the chocolate layers.  I think if I had used cream or milk to thin out the chocolate it would have been closer.  Also, the peanuts are a little too small.  I was trying to make sure I didn't have any full halves in there but I think next time I would leave some of the pieces larger.  I also think next time I might use less caramel, just a bit less, to get the ratios closer.

Now the bad part...

This is based on 24 servings, which is reasonable size but ironically it's higher than a full size snickers, which is only 280 calories... 

I'm glad I made them and I think in general I like them better than "real" snickers but given the extra calories - Snickers is good enough.  :-)

Bake 52 Rewind: Week #12 Palmiers

The first time I looked at this recipe I saw that it required puffed pastry dough and sugar.  I saw that I didn't need to buy anything to make it and put it out of my mind.  Then when it was time to make it I read through the puffed pastry recipe.  I've made it before (at least something very similar) and I remembered it was kind of long (not hard) but didn't remember that it takes about 10 hours! 

 

So I didn't have time to make it the weekend I'd originally planned.  I decided I'd see if I could find puff pastry at the grocery store instead of making it.  Last weekend was my week to drive an hour to a "big" city to stock up so I was optimistic that I'd find it. 

 

Sure enough I found a pound of puff pastry at the store.  I thawed it out overnight in the frig and then got ready to make it.  That's when I read the recipe again and found the comment, "Don't substitute store-bought puff pastry here; these cookies depend on the buttery flavor of homemade puff pastry."  I thought to myself, "Crap... I wish I'd read that sooner!"  Since I had a pound of puffed pastry (about half the amount the recipe makes) already thawed and no idea what else I would do with it I decided to go ahead and make the cookies with the store bought dough.   

 

I used my pastry cloth to roll out the dough in the sugar.



I decided to just use the full sugar amount.  About a week ago I was at a Stake Relief Society meeting and they had served palmiers and sherbet for dessert.  Their palmiers were a bit bland to me, definitely not sweet enough for my taste.  I figured it wouldn't hurt to have a bit extra sugar...

There are two sheets of pastry in the 1 pound package.  I decided to press them together to make one long sheet, only one thickeness. 

Then I sprinkled another half cup of sugar over the dough.

Lastly I used my rolling pin to try and press the sugar into the dough both on the top and the bottom. 

Then I carefully rolled it up.  I did one side for a little while and then worked on the other side.  I had noted the half way point on the measurements of my mat so that I wouldn't end up with one side significantly bigger than the other.  As I rolled if I saw sections of the dough that looked a little bare I would scoop up some of the sugar that was left behind on the mat onto that section.

It was awkward but I managed to get the roll wrapped in plastic and on a cookie sheet without it unrolling too much.  It was too long for my cookie sheet but it seemed to work okay. 

After 20 minutes in the freezer I pulled it back out and sliced it up.  I ended up with 25 little cookies.  It wasn't really frozen at all so a couple of them unwrapped a bit. 

After 15 minutes in the oven they looked like this. 

I pulled them out and flipped them.  The underside was already considerably browner.

I put them back in the oven for about 5 more minutes. 

I let them rest for about 20 minutes before I dived in.  To be honest my expectations weren't too high but these are divine! 

They were sugary and flaky and carmalized, so yummy!!

And with the 25 cookies they are only 123 calories a piece!  If you can find puff pastry in the freezer section of your grocery store (it's usually by the cool whip, frozen desserts, etc.) I would strongly recommend trying these cookies.  They were so good Jonathan didn't want me to take any to work.  But I knew I'd eat all of them if there were any left at home Monday night so made him a little plate for Monday and took the rest to work. 

For the "real" recipe check out Bekah's blog.