Chicken Rosemary Kabobs & Whipped Sweet Potatoes (+ Brian’s Buffalo Chicken Dip)

This is usually one of those days you chalk up as a loss food-wise. You will inevitably have extra snacks around work and a pumpkin dessert also goes without saying. So at 10am, my coworker, Brian (token male in the office) brought out the buffalo chicken dip and it was all downhill from there. I requested the recipe to share on The Plate…and to see how sinful it actually is.

Buffalo Chicken Dip

4-5 split chicken breasts - cooked and shredded (3-4 whole chicken breasts)
1 jar Marie's Blue cheese dressing
2 - 8oz packages of cream cheese – softened
4-5 stalks of celery chopped
1 - 12oz bottle Frank's Hot sauce (or to taste)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Bake/grill/sauté chicken until cooked and shred with a fork  Mix all the ingredients and place in a baking dish. (One recipe makes 2-3 pie dishes depending on the size) Top with more shredded cheddar cheese and bake at 350 until hot and bubbly, 20-30 minutes. Serve with tortilla chips and/or celery stalks.

We all popped out at lunchtime to watch the Giants parade. This city’s spirit wear is impressive. So was our spirit wear for that matter…

For a low-key but still festive Halloween night, I made dinner for friends. Our fall menu was as follows:

~Chicken kabobs on rosemary skewers, baked in lemon, garlic and white wine over rice
~Cinnamon, orange mashed sweet potatoes
~Garlic sautéed spinach
~Pumpkin spice cupcakes *Courtesy of Sarah*

When skewering the onion and chicken, I found it a lot easier to thin the rosemary stalks of a lot of their leaves first. The flavor was still incredible.

The white wine bath kept the chicken really moist as it baked and made a great sauce for over the rice. Beforehand I had whipped together mashed sweet potatoes which is inevitably a crowd pleaser and it’s so easy and healthy.

Instructions: microwave 3 sweet potatoes until soft (about 5 minutes each). Peel off skin and place in large bowl. Mash sweet potatoes with fork, adding almond milk (or regular) until smooth. Zest and juice 1 orange into mixture, along with 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon maple syrup, salt and pepper.

Chicken Rosemary Kabobs
Serves 4

2 chicken breasts, cubed
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 lemon, thinly sliced
cherry tomatoes, halved
1 onion, cut into large chunks
4-5 rosemary with strong stalks, thinned out and cut into 4” long sticks
1/2 cup white wine
salt and pepper
1 cup wild rice

Preheat oven to 375. Coat chicken in garlic and olive oil. Alternate chicken and onion on rosemary stalks “skewers.” Arrange in a large baking dish and layer lemon slices on top of skewers. Pour white wine into dish and bake for 20 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through. Prepare wild rice rice per instructions and serve under chicken with pan sauces.

Homemade pumpkin spice cupcakes with cream cheese pumpkin frosting and vanilla ice cream to finish. Happy Halloween, indeed.

Baked Onion Rings & A Healthy Dessert

I never eat onion rings. Literally never. Doesn’t mean I don’t like them, but they’re a lot like French Fries (of which I also never eat) – always deep fried. I don’t know why I haven’t thought to bake them before. This recipe is extremely basic, but downright good. So crunchy and light, but with the same great onion ring taste. And what isn’t good covered in spicy mustard?

*Along with my onion rings, I topped toasted bread with more spicy mustard, an Andouille sausage, sautéed onions and fresh sauerkraut. A nod to my Polish roots.

Baked Onion Rings

1 onion, separated 1/4” sliced rings
1/2 cup flour
1 egg white
1 cup panko bread crumbs
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

Preheat oven to 400. Grease a cookie sheet. Place flour, egg white and bread crumbs plus spices in three separate bowls. Dredge onion rings through flour, then egg white and coat with bread crumb mixture. Lay on cookie sheet and bake for 15-17 minutes, or until lightly brown.

My healthy dessert (healthy as far as desserts go) of choice right now is a brown rice cake topped with chunky peanut butter, (1) chopped date, 1/2 a banana, Greek yogurt and sprinkled with pumpkin pie spice.

Broccoli, Chicken Sausage & Goat Cheese Quiche with Potato Crust

As I’m sure everyone is aware, the Giants are in the middle of the world series and it is taking control of all of our lives. It’s been a marathon of game watching/happy houring/orange wearing for the past two weeks and its making it difficult to lead a productive life. So this Sunday, in spite of the 5:07 start time and a brief cameo appearance at The Brick Yard down the street, I decided I was cooking dinner, dammit.

My roommate, Virginia, was generous enough to provide the groceries in exchange for my culinary skills (JK– this was a cinch). We served it up with green beans sautéed in garlic… in front of the television.

Broccoli, Chicken Sausage & Goat Cheese Quiche with Potato Crust

1 russet potato, very thinly sliced
2-3 tablespoon olive oil
1 head broccoli, diced into small florets
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
1 1/2 chicken sausages, sliced
3 ounces goat cheese, crumbled
2 ounces shredded mozzarella
4 eggs
1 cup almond milk (or regular milk)
salt, pepper, cayenne

Preheat oven to 375. Layer potato slices on bottom of cake pan and drizzle 1 tablespoon olive oil on top, and sprinkle with salt. Toss broccoli and onion in remaining olive oil and layer on sheet pan. Roast both potato and vegetables for 13-15 minutes or until tender. In a small bowl, whisk egg and milk together and sprinkle salt, pepper and cayenne. Spread vegetables and chicken sausage over potato crust, top with cheese and pour egg mixture over top. Press mixture down into the egg and bake for 30-35 minutes or until cooked through.

Pumpkin Dream Cake with Maple Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

For how much I love all things pumpkin, I have little interest in Halloween. The décor is tacky (you won’t find skulls or spiders in the West Elm catalog), the menu is limited and commercial (Kit Kat or Butterfinger? Take ONE), and the outfits are impractical and misleading (Oh, so you’re not a prostitute? Then why are you dressed like one?) To my luck, my friend Theresa happens to have her birthday right before Halloween, so I’ll tie those two celebrations together in my own way: Pumpkin birthday cake, here we come!

Theresa’s lovely sister, Michaela came over to assist with the baking. Naturally, we had dinner first. I made goat cheese and mushroom mac & cheese (recipe coming soon!) and she brought a salad. It’s important to not bake on an empty stomach to avoid the mishap of eating all of the batter before the cake gets in the oven.

Beware… the number of times you taste as you go can add up and make you feel pretty terrible at the end. Whoops!

The recipe didn’t call for any spices, so we added about 1/4 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice.

Since this recipe actually calls for (3) 8” cake pans but I only had (2) 9” pans, we made a few “taste testers.”

So moist, so flavorful, so fall.

We ended up with a ton of leftover icing, which means I need to find another creative use for it….

Since both of us had chevron iPhone cases, we decided to attempt a chevron cake. With the help of our homemade stencil and Dutch chocolate sprinkles, it actually turned out pretty fabulous.

 

Pumpkin Dream Cake
(Recipe from The Novice Chef)

3 cups flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 (15 oz) can pumpkin
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 cup milk

Maple Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

8 ounce package cream cheese
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons cinnamon
4 cups powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 300°F. Grease 3, 8-inch round cake pans. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl/stand mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla, pumpkin and vegetable oil. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the milk.

Divide batter evenly into prepared pans. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove pans from oven and immediately place in freezer for 45 minutes. (This keeps the cake moist by immediately stopping the baking so the cake does not continue to bake when you remove it form the oven.)

For the frosting: In a large bowl, cream butter and cream cheese until smooth. Beat in maple syrup, vanilla and cinnamon. Add confectioners' sugar and beat on low speed until combined, then on high until frosting is smooth.

Assemble the 3 layers with a thick layer of frosting in between each layer. Then apply a thin crumb coat on the top and sides. Pop back in the freezer to harden the crumb coat for about 10 minutes.

Apply one final thick and even layer around the outside of the cake. Store in the fridge until ready to serve.

Home on the Hill

After almost 5 months without a permanent address, I have moved to my new house in Russian Hill. When you have no furniture to your name, moving can be overwhelming. I needed EVERYTHING.

After the help of my aunt, friends with cars, taxis from Target and Mattress Discounters delivery men, my room is starting to show potential.

But what really makes a house a home is the kitchen. Ours is wonderfully spacious and well lit with great views.

(View from the back door) And for the brave, there is even access to the roof by way of a precariously steep ladder.

To break her in, I whipped together a batch of Tollhouse cookie dough - which I store in the freezer and cut off chunks to bake a cookie whenever my heart desires. This afternoon’s cookie had a spoonful of peanut butter baked into it And if you cant tell… this is the kind of cookie you eat with a spoon, baked just a step above raw dough.

Black Bean Nacho-zza

Using up tortillas is always a struggle for me. Actually, using up bread in general. Since I am now in my last week in my sublet, I am working on using up all of my food. One of my favorite uses of tortillas is to make them into chip-like pizzas – or really flat nachos. In this case, I baked the tortilla by itself briefly to crisp it up, then topped it with black beans, feta, onion and jalapeno and baked it until toasty. I finished it off with diced tomato, avocado, cilantro and hot sauce.

Black Bean Nacho-zza

1 wheat tortilla
1/2 cup black beans
1 tablespoon onions, diced
1 tablespoon jalapeno, diced
2 tablespoons feta, crumbled
1/2 tomato, diced
1/2 avocado, diced
cilantro
hot sauce

Preheat oven to 375. Prick tortilla with fork and bake for 5 minutes until crisp. Remove and crank oven to broil. Top tortilla with beans, onions, jalapeno and feta and place back in the oven for 5 minutes or until toppings are warmed through. Top with remaining ingredients and season with hot sauce, salt and pepper if desired.

Ratatouille Bake & Kale Chips

Kale chips are old news, but they’re still awesome.

Easy, peasy. Rub the kale with a little olive oil and sprinkle salt/pepper/cayenne – whatever you prefer. Bake them at 375 for 6-8 minutes, under close surveillance. Crispy deliciousness.

The actual star of this plate is the ratatouille topping my leftover avocado basil pasta. I couldn’t get enough of it.

Ratatouille Bake

1 eggplant, sliced
1 zucchini, sliced
1/2 red onion, sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 clove garlic
1 cup marinara
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella
2 tablespoons shredded parmesan

Preheat oven to 375. Coat the bottom of a baking dish with olive oil and layer 1/3 of the vegetables. Top with 1/3 cup marinara and sprinkle 1/3 of the mozzarella. Repeat (2) more times and top entire mixture with parmesan. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until vegetables are tender. Serve over pasta or by itself.