Saucy Apple Dumplings

So these little bits of happy are my new go to dessert for fall and company. The recipe is modified from the 2002 edition of the New Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book.

Ingredients:
2 cups water
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup butter/margarine (I use Smart Balance)
For each dumpling you wish to make, you will need one apple, 1 Tablespoon of honey, 2 Tablespoons of walnuts, and 1 prepared pie crust
cinnamon and sugar
1 Tablespoon butter/margarine

Directions:

1. For sauce, combine the water, 1 1/4 cups sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon of the cinnamon in a pot. Bring to a boil then reduce heat simmering for 5 minutes. Add 1/4 cup of butter and remove from heat. (If you are making more dumplings than fit in your baking dish, multiple the amount of ingredients by the number of pans.)

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

3. Peel, core, and thinly slice the apples.

4. Roll out the pie crust (make sure that it has reached at least room temp, don’t be like me ) and trim the crust into a square shape. Fill the square with the apples. Mix 1 Tablespoon of honey and 2 Tablespoons of walnuts and spread it on top of the apples. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar (1 Tablespoon sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon each). Top with 1 teaspoon of butter. Fold the pie crust to create an envelope type pocket around the filling. Repeat for the rest of the dumplings.

5. Place dumplings in the baking dish. Return the sauce to a boil. Pour the boiling sauce into the baking dish.

6. Bake for 45 - 50 minutes or until apples are tender and pastry is golden. Spoon sauce over dumplings when serving.

Corn and Jalapeño Chowder

This is a perfect recipe for colder days. It's modified from a recipe I found in Southern Living. We like spice. If you don't want as much spice, change the amounts of jalapeños and ground red pepper. What I have listed below is actually changed from the way I made it because I was sweating while eating it...wonderfully tasty but perspiration is not necessarily desired :) Use the fat free cream cheese. I was wary myself but you don't need the fat, promise!

1 (15-ounce) can cream style corn
1 ½ cups 1% low-fat or fat-free milk
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground red pepper (try 1/8 tsp for milder)
¼ teaspoon chili powder (again, can probably be cut back if desired)
1 ½ Tablespoons of sliced jalapeños (I originally used 3 or more!)
1 ½ cups reduced-sodium, fat-free chicken broth
½ (8-ounce) package fat-free cream cheese, softened

Bring creamed corn and next 4 ingredients to a boil in a 3-quart saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring mixture constantly. Reduce heat to low, and simmer, stirring often, 10 minutes.

Stir 1 1/2 cups chicken broth into mixture. Whisk in softened cream cheese and chopped jalapeño pepper; cook, whisking often, 5 minutes or until cream cheese melts and mixture is thoroughly heated. Serve chowder immediately.



Leftovers are excellent, just note that it gets hotter of course the longer it sits. I did add an additional 1/2 cup of chicken broth and the remaining cream cheese before throwing it in the fridge and that helped cool it down.

Pictured on the side is an impromptu quesadilla...corn tortilla, black beans, mild cheddar, fresh baby spinach and a sprinkle of Garlic and Herb Mrs. Dash. I make them a bit like lasagna...a sprinkle of cheese between each layer. Add a spritz of cooking spray in a medium hot pan, layer on the ingredients, then set a bowl on top to press it down. I took a cookie cutter to some white American cheese to add the stars on top.

Quick Spanish Brown Rice

I came up with this one last night for a nice side dish for some spicy chicken.

Make a pot of brown rice according to package directions. Place a serving of rice on a plate. Add a big tablespoon of salsa and a tablespoon of shredded mild cheddar. Microwave for 30 seconds or until the cheese melts. Stir everything together.

Much better tasting and much better for you than the box stuff and the boy didn't even really know that it was brown rice!

Salmon Tacos

This is an all-time favorite at the Miller Pack house. When we went on the cruise to Alaska for our honeymoon, we had dinner at the Twisted Fish Co. in Juneau. Lesley got the salmon tacos and we searched the internet for a comparable recipe. After a few tweaks, I believe we have it down. You can expect to find this recipe on our table usually once a week. Leftovers the next day are also just as wonderful.



Ingredients
salmon fillets
corn tortillas
shredded purple cabbage (or green)

Blackening Spice
2 Tablespoons salt
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 Tablespoon pepper
1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1 Tablespoon oregano

I typically make a larger batch of the spice mix and keep it in a plastic container so it’s easy to throw this together fast on a weeknight...not that mixing the spices takes too long. :)

Brush olive oil and sprinkle blackening spice on both sides of salmon fillets (think 1 oz will make 1 small taco and without a side dish, we can usually eat 3 each). Grill until cooked through (Approximately 10 minutes per inch of thickness). Flake fish with a fork after it has cooled a couple minutes.

Spray small corn tortillas with the olive oil and sprinkle with a little chili powder. Set the oven to broil. Drape the tortillas over two of the oven rack wires and broil for about 4 minutes. This gives them a taco shell shape.

Fill the corn tortilla with the salmon mixture and cabbage.

Optional favorite toppings:
Hot pepper jelly
Hot pepper slices
Light sour cream

For an extra kick: Mix a 12 oz container of light sour cream with 5 splashes of chipotle tabasco sauce and chill until the rest of the meal is ready. If you have extra leftover, be warned that it just keeps getting spicier! :)

Mustard Chicken Tacos

Due to some poor freezing methods: we're celebrating Chicken Week
at our house.

Today was Mustard Chicken Tacos. A favorite that we hadn't had in awhile but now that grill season is in full affect, it's back!

You need:
1 jar of jelly (we like red pepper the best for this but have used cherry and apricot with great results)
1 jar of spicy brown mustard (love love love French's!)
chicken breasts (2 can make about 8 small tacos - think 3 per person as a serving)
corn torillas
chili powder
olive oil spray
taco toppings of choice (today's were low fat sour cream, a little taco cheese mix, canned jalapenos, baby spinach, and shredded red cabbage)

Empty the entire jar of jelly into a flat baking dish. Add mustard...usually about an equal amount...basically add a bit and stir until you get a good combination of sweet and spicy. Place chicken in the dish and get it completely covered in the jelly mustard. Cover and let it marinate in the fridge for a hour or two. (Yes we are so precise with our kitchen experiments...sorry!) Grill the chicken, brushing the mustard mixture over the chicken as it cooks slowly over medium heat.

Spray small corn tortillas with the olive oil and sprinkle with a little chili powder. Set the oven to broil. Drape the tortillas over two of the oven rack wires and broil for about 4 minutes. This gives them a taco shell shape.

Once the chicken is finished grilling, cut into inch sized pieces. Fill the tortillas and chow down!

Eggplant Pasta Salad

I went to lunch at TGI Fridays on Wednesday with one of my favorite people from work. I haven’t been there in awhile so there’s been a lot of new things added to the menu. Lunch then on Saturday became my interpretation of the Caprese Lasagna Salad...a wonderful combination of fresh mozzarella, eggplant, and pasta.

Here’s the rundown:

Ingredients (for 2)

1/4 box of Pasta
1 cup of Grape Tomatoes
Olive Oil
1 medium Eggplant
Italian salad dressing
Italian bread crumbs
Egg
Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb Seasoning
Fresh mozzarella (quarter sized balls if possible)

- Cook pasta to your preference. (We used a 1/4 box of the Barilla Plus Rotini.)

- Drain pasta then rinse with cool water.

- Drain again then pour Italian salad dressing into the pasta to coat it. (I also added some Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb seasoning [so awesome for quick pasta anytime!] because I didn’t shake the dressing up well enough before putting it in the pasta.)

- Cut eggplant into thin circle slices. (I cut part of the peel off to reduce some of the bitterness.)

- Crack egg into a small bowl. Whisk. Pour a small amount of the Italian bread crumbs into another dish.

- Dip eggplant slices into the egg then into the bread crumbs until coated. Add more crumbs to the bowl as needed.

- Warm olive oil in a small frying pan.

- Cut tomatoes in half and place cut side down in the warm olive oil. Cook for 30 seconds then remove.

- Fry the eggplant in the oil. Keep in a warm oven until all of the eggplant slices are cooked.

- Place eggplant slices in a single layer on a plate. Place pasta on top. Toss tomatoes on top of pasta.

- Cut fresh mozzarella in half or small pieces (I threw them in the microwave for 10 seconds to get them a little melty) and throw in the pasta.

One-Pot Salmon with Snap Peas and Rice

I found this recipe in Real Simple magazine and knew that it was right up our alley. One pan, rice, snap peas, salmon, and 25 minutes...fabulous! I did substitute brown rice for the long grain and probably should have cut back on some of the water because of that but it made for a tasty quick dinner. Definitely a keeper!