Snicker Doodle Blondies

Hi all! It's Aleisha here, just whipped up a quick batch of yummy treats and wanted to share. The recipe is quick (about 10 minutes prep time) and easy, and is sure to cure those night-time sweet cravings.




Snickerdoodle Blondies

2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup butter, at room temperature
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons white sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease a 9 x 13 inch pan.

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt and set aside. In large bowl, beat together butter, sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth.

Stir in the flour mixture until well blended. Spread evenly in prepared pan (mixture will be somewhat cookiebatter-ish.) Combine white sugar and cinnamon in a little bowl. Evenly sprinkle cinnamon sugar mixture over the top of the batter.

Bake 25-30 minutes or until surface springs back when gently pressed. Cool slightly. While still warm, cut into bars with a sharp knife.

Mine are still in the oven, and the house smells wonderful. Have a goodnight:)

Love,
Lei

Gourmet Burgers and Fries

Every once in while I find myself craving a big juicy hamburger, but when I go to a restaurant I never get exactly what I want and always end up paying way to much. So I decided to work on my own gourmet burger recipe. Now bear with me because my camera, which has all of the pictures I took to include in this blog, is missing in action, but I want to leave you with a new recipe anyway.

Gourmet Feta Burgers

Ingredients: Makes 6-8 BIG burgers
2 lbs ground beef
8-12 oz feta cheese crumbles ( I am a cheese fiend)
Worcestershire sauce (add liberally)
Garlic salt (3-4 shakes should be good)
1 tbs Butter
Whole onion
1 Container fresh sliced mushrooms


Slice the onion

Sautee the mushrooms and onions in a frying pan with the butter

Mix by hand (eww gross) the ground beef, feta cheese, Worcestershire sauce, and garlic salt in a big bowl.

Separate the mixture into 6-8 sections and form patties

Throw on the grill (I used a George Foreman) and cook them to your liking

Throw burgers on a bun, top with your sauteed goodies and whatever condiments you like, then take a big bite and enjoy :)


Home Made Fries

Ingredients:
8-10 Potatoes
Seasoning salt
Olive oil

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees

Peel and slice your potatoes so that they look like french fries

Place potatoes on cookie sheet

Brush with olive oil

Season to your liking (I used Kirkland brand seasoning salt)

Bake for 20 minutes, check softness, depending on the thickness it may take longer, just keep an eye on them

Hiccup

Hello all! Just wanted to apologize for the lack of new posts. Everyone is hustling and bustling trying to get back into the swing of a new school year and our cooking blog has been put on delay.

I am here to say that the cooking has not ceased, so don't worry, and I currently have new recipes waiting to be typed up. These will be posted by the end of this week with a couple more we will be attempting this week.

So be on the look out for...
Gourmet burgers and homemade french fries
Mexican egg rolls and half baked cup cakes

Alright, my homework break is up. Talk to you real soon!

Love,
Lei

Second Voyage

Well hello again! It's Aleisha speaking... It is the end of cooking night number two and here is what took place in our kitchen...

Chicken Parmesan


Smore Bars





Monday night is a very busy night for all of us. We all have night classes on this day so trying to find time to fit in dinner was a bit of a challenge. Luckily, my class doesn't start until 7 so I was able to get a jump start on not only dinner, but dessert also.

Nobody likes to eat a cold dinner and since our schedules just happened to work out to where I leave before any one else gets home I decided that I could do the majority of the prep work for dinner and put it in the fridge and then the boys, who ever gets home first, can finish it up and pop it in the oven so that we can all have a hot meal (Caleb got home first).

So without further ado here is what it takes to have a dinner similar to what is pictured above...


Chicken Parmesan

Ingredients
2-4 Boneless skinless chicken breasts ( 1 for each person eating)
2-4 Cups of Bread Crumbs
4 Tablespoons of butter
4 Tablespoons of cooking oil (your choice)
1lb of Mozzarella Cheese
I Jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce

Directions
PREHEAT oven to 400 degrees F.

SPREAD the bread crumbs on a plate.



COAT chicken breasts with bread crumbs (press down firmly while coating with bread crumbs).



ON medium-high heat, melt the butter with the olive oil. Sautee the breaded chicken breasts until they are deep golden brown on both sides (they will not be completely cooked, they will finish in the oven). Drain on plate with paper towels so that they don't get soggy.




PLACE 1/2 of the spaghetti sauce in the bottom of a casserole dish large enough to hold the chicken breasts in one layer. Add the chicken breasts to the baking dish; top with the remaining sauce and then top with Mozzerrella cheese to your hearts content.




COVER with foil then cook the chicken Parmesan in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until the chicken breasts are cooked thoroughly.


Serve over pasta and voila! You have a fast and yummy home cooked meal.


Now, for those of you with a sweet tooth (sweets are my weakness)...

Smore Bars

Ingredients

• 1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker® sugar cookie mix
• 1 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 1 cup butter or margarine, melted
• 3 cups milk chocolate chips (18 oz)
• 41/2 cups miniature marshmallows

Directions

1. Heat oven to 375°F. In large bowl, stir together cookie mix and crumbs. Stir in melted butter until soft dough forms. Press into ungreased 13×9-inch pan.
2. Bake 18 to 20 minutes or until set. Immediately sprinkle chocolate chips over crust. Let stand 3 to 5 minutes or until chocolate begins to melt.
3. Spread chocolate evenly over crust.
4. Set oven control to broil. Sprinkle marshmallows over melted chocolate.
5. Broil with until marshmallows are toasted. (Watch closely; marshmallows will brown quickly.)
6. Cool 10 minutes. For bars, cut into 6 rows by 4 rows. Serve warm.
7. Store any remaining bars tightly covered.
8. ENJOY!

A Fresh Start

Well hello blog world! It's so good to see you again.

Whilst living in a house containing four college students, it has become fairly common and convenient(though less cost efficient) to find ourselves frequenting local fast food* shops and spending our hard earned $$$. So, after a long/heated/food filled discussion, we decided cooking for one another every night or so could remedy this.

Leading to: TOO MANY COOKS!!!!!!!! YAY! CELEBRATION!
Here's the skinny: We need recipes. All kinds and sorts and variations. And that's where YOU come in. We hope to update this blog, AT THE VERY LEAST, once a week with fresh and tasty dishes that any ol' student with hunger pangs can prepare. This blog is intended for universal use and we are really hoping you use it! If you'd like to contribute to the blog (we really wish you would) shoot us an email/text/instant messsssssssage. Any way you want to contact us really. And we'll send you the log in info for the blog so we can get cookin'!

That being said, here's our first contribution:

We had these tasty morsels earlier this evening. Kind of the inspiration for the blog.

JAPANESE BEEF ROLLS

Ingredients:


4-8 Thinly sliced beef sirloin steaks (one for every person joining you for dinner)
Bottle of your favorite teriyaki sauce
Bottle of Mongolian fire oil (optional, for those of you who like to spice it up)
A bundle or more stalks of asparagus
2 or more Red Peppers (sliced thin and vertical)
2-3 cups sliced white mushrooms (totally your call, less or more is fine)
1-2 cups quartered artichoke hearts (canned is fine)
Stick of butter (cold)
2 or more green chiles (optional, once again for those who like to spice it up)
Skewers (wooden or non)
1-2 Casserole dishes

All of our ingredients were found at Smith's, the local grocery store


Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees

Coat the bottom of your casserole dish with teriyaki sauce and Mongolian fire oil liberally

Vegetable prep- wash and vertically slice red peppers and green chiles, then cut about 1 inch off of the bottom of the asparagus stalks

Meat Prep- take your favorite seasoning salt (we used Kirkland's Seasoning salt) and rub into into both sides of your sirloin

Lay out the meat so that is can be filled and rolled

In each piece of sirloin place 1 asparagus stalk, 1 slice of red pepper, 1 slice of green chile, about 5 slices of mushroom, 2 artichoke hearts, and a thin square of butter (sliced off of the stick) into the center of the sirloin

Take one end of the sirloin and wrap it over the veggies to meet the other end. This should create a roll

Put a skewer through the roll to hold it together and repeat the process until all of your sirloins are filled

Place them side by side in the casserole dish, take any extra veggies and place around the outside of the sirloin rolls and top it all off with teriyaki sauce liberally. Place in the oven to cook for approximately 15-20 minutes or until the sirloin is cooked to your liking.

These rolls are a meal in itself, however it would be nice to serve them over a plate of white rice. Its all up to you.

From start to finish this took us about 45 minutes of work in the kitchen, but if you really know what you're doing I think you could finish this in about 30.



When ours were ready to hit the heat, they looked like this. MMMMMMMM!



Viola! A tasty beefy veggie dish made with love





-Adam, Lei, Caleb, and Jameson

*Jameson does not eat at nor condone any sort of fast food. Ever.