The Nifty Foodie

Amy

Crispy Oven Fried Fish Fillets

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My fiance decided to surprise me with a healthy meal one night and cooked this wonderful fish recipe that he found online. I LOVED the way this fish came out, and I hope he wants to make it again sometime soon!!

Crispy Oven Fried Fish Fillets
Source: Campbell’s

Ingredients

  • Vegetable cooking spray
  • 1 lb. firm white fish fillet, cut into 4 pieces (he used Louisiana catfish)
  • 1/3 cup milk
  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups Pepperidge Farm® Zesty Italian Croutons, crushed

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 450°F. Spray baking sheet with vegetable cooking spray.
  2. Dip fish into milk. Coat with flour and then dip in milk. Coat with crushed croutons.
  3. Place fish on baking sheet. Spray fish with vegetable cooking spray. Bake for 10 min. or until fish is done. Serve with tartar sauce.

Garlic Fries

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This was a side dish to the oven fried chicken, and another Ellie recipe. OMG…these were fabulous! A little tedious to cut the potatoes into sticks, but wow, super super good!!

Garlic Fries
Source: Ellie Krieger

Ingredients

  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 tablespoons canola oil
  • 3 large baking potatoes, 12 ounces each
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley leaves

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
  2. Heat the garlic and oil in a small saucepan over medium heat for 2 minutes. Strain the garlic from the oil with a small mesh strainer. Set both garlic and oil aside.
  3. Cut the potatoes into 1/4-inch sticks. In a large bowl, toss the oil, potatoes and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray and spread the potatoes onto it in a single layer. Bake until golden and crisp, about 35 minutes.
  4. Remove potatoes from the tray with a metal spatula. Toss with parsley, reserved garlic, and additional salt, to taste. Serve immediately.

Oven Fried Chicken

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My fiance and I are currently changing our lifestyle around to less eating out and more healthy cooking. I recently made this chicken from Food Network’s website that encouraged me to buy Ellie Krieger’s “The Food You Crave”.

This chicken was pretty darn tasty!! 🙂 Here’s the recipe!

Oven Fried Chicken
Source: Ellie Krieger

Ingredients

  • 1/2 sleeve (about 20) whole-grain salted crackers, pulsed in a food processor until fine (about 1/2 cup)
  • 2 1/2 cups corn cereal flakes, pulsed in a food processor to fine crumbs (about 1/2 cup)
  • 2 tablespoons sesame seeds
  • 3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 2 egg whites
  • 1 cup lowfat, plain yogurt
  • 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • Olive oil cooking spray
  • 4 medium sized skinless chicken breasts and 4 skinless chicken thighs, rinsed and patted dry (about 3 1/2 pounds chicken)

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly spray a baking sheet with olive oil.
  2. Combine the crackers and corn cereal crumbs, sesame seeds, cayenne, and garlic powder in a shallow bowl. Reserve.
  3. In a large bowl, combine egg whites, yogurt, Dijon mustard, and salt. Add the chicken pieces and coat thoroughly with the yogurt mixture.
  4. One at a time, dip the chicken pieces in the cracker mixture, packing crumbs onto chicken. Arrange the chicken on a baking sheet and spray lightly with olive oil cooking spray.
  5. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, or until juices run clear when chicken is pierced with a knife.

Cuccidati (Italian Fig Cookies)

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These are my ultimate childhood memory. I love these cookies more than words can say, and I heavily depended on one bakery to give me these cookies 364 days/year.  The other day, March 19, I could depend on a St. Joseph’s altar for these tasty treats. My dad is half Sicilian, so of course, he got me stuck on italian cookies early on.

I decided around Christmas to look up this recipe, because I wanted a challenge in baking. If it didn’t work out, I still had my trusty Italian bakery. If it did, though, there would definitely be a mini-baking victory in order! Let’s just say  there’s a mini-baking victory in order! These cookies came out JUST like the ones I know to love!

Cuccidati
Source: Gourmet through Epicurious

Ingredients

For filling

  • 1 cup packed soft dried Mission figs (8 oz), hard tips discarded
  • 3/4 cup raisins (3 3/4 oz)
  • 3/4 cup mild honey
  • 1/4 cup brandy
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons finely grated fresh orange zest
  • 1 teaspoon finely grated fresh lemon zest (used Meyer Lemon zest)
  • 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves (for next time, this will be omitted.)
  • 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • 3/4 cup whole almonds (4 oz), toasted and coarsely chopped
  • 3/4 cup walnuts (3 oz), toasted and coarsely chopped
    **For the nuts, I toasted and food processed them into a powder, since I never noticed nuts in cuccidati filling before.**

For pastry dough

  • 4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 sticks (1 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
  • 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1/2 cup whole milk
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 1 teaspoon finely grated fresh orange or lemon zest

For icing
(didn’t use this for the recipe. The cuccidati that I’ve eaten have only had nonpareils on them.)

  • 1 cup confectioners sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
  • Garnish: multicolored nonpareils

Directions:

Make filling:

  • Pulse figs and raisins (and nuts) in a food processor until finely chopped, then stir together with remaining filling ingredients in a bowl. Chill, covered, at least 8 hours.

 

Make dough:

  • Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Add butter and blend with your fingertips or a pastry blender (or pulse in a food processor) just until most of mixture resembles coarse meal with some small (roughly pea-size) butter lumps. Add eggs, milk, vanilla, and zest and stir with a fork until a soft dough forms. Halve dough and gather each half into a ball, then flatten each half into a rough 6- by 4-inch rectangle between sheets of plastic wrap. Chill until firm, at least 8 hours.

Form cookies:

  • Preheat oven to 350°F.
  • Roll out 1 rectangle of dough (keep remaining dough chilled) into a 15- by 14-inch rectangle on a well-floured surface with a floured rolling pin. Trim to a 13- by 10-inch rectangle (chill trimmings), then cut into 4 (10- by 3 1/4-inch) strips. Arrange 1/3 cup filling in a 1-inch-wide log lengthwise down center of each strip, then fold sides of each strip up over filling to enclose it, pinching edges together to seal. Turn rolls seam-sides down and press gently to flatten seams. Cut logs crosswise with a floured knife into 1 1/2-inch-wide slices and arrange 1/2 inch apart on buttered large baking sheets. Make more cookies in same manner with remaining chilled dough, trimmings (reroll once), and filling.

**Just a note. This dough becomes very sticky when room temperature. So roll this dough out as quickly as possible. I did this between wax paper sheets, flipping the dough often. **

  • Bake cookies in batches in middle of oven until golden around edges, 16 to 20 minutes. Transfer cookies to racks and cool until warm, about 10 minutes. Make icing while cookies bake.
  • Whisk together confectioners sugar, vanilla, and enough orange juice to make a pourable icing.
  • Brush icing on warm cookies and decorate with nonpareils (if using), then cool completely.

Notes:

• Filling can be made 1 week ahead and chilled, covered.

• Dough can be chilled, wrapped in plastic wrap and then foil, up to 3 days.

• Cookies keep, layered between sheets of wax paper or parchment paper, in an airtight container at room temperature 1 week.

I’m submitting this post to this month’s Tasty Tools events from Joelen’s Culinary Adventures! Go check out her blog for other fun challenges!!

Foodie Christmas Presents!!

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This Christmas, I decided to give a bunch of homemade presents. I love the thought of gifting something that is homemade. It feels more personal, and who hates food?

For some family members, I gave spice baskets with homemade vanilla extract and sugar. For the extract, I found very reasonably priced bottles (that you didn’t have to buy in bulk or pay a TON for shipping, since they were glass) at American Spice Company, and I simply used mason jars for the vanilla sugar. To give it a cuter touch, I purchased label sheets at Office Depot and designed the labels for them myself.

I also made some homemade peppermint bark to put in the baskets. This is very simple…just place some parchment on a rimmed baking sheet and pour in melted semi-sweet or milk chocolate. Pour melted white chocolate on top (and swirl a little, if you’d like). Then, before the chocolate hardens, sprinkle crushed candy canes on top. Once everything hardens, break the bark off into large chunks and place in bags.

I thought that my family would enjoy some spice mixes, and I decided to give them our favorites from Penzeys: Northwood seasoning and BBQ 3000.

As for our coworkers, I baked sugar cookies using this recipe. I would say this book is a definite read for anyone who is interested in learning to decorate cookies! I adapted it to add almond extract, in addition to the vanilla extract and lemon rind called for in the recipe. It gave the cookies more of a sugar cookie flavor and less of a butter cookie flavor. This was the first homemade sugar cookie recipe that my fiance loved too! I FINALLY ended the search for the perfect recipe! 🙂

This recipe barely spread, allowing the cookies to keep their great crisp shape. It also rolled VERY easily. I never had a sticking problem, which is something I experienced with some previous recipes.

To show how well they hold their shape, the cookies on the left are not cooked, while the ones on right are cooked.

I also made candy bark coated pretzels with Christmas M&Ms on top. This was a SUPER easy recipe. Just melt candy melts or bark, spoon into the middle of the store bought pretzels (laid out on wax or parchment paper) and top with 3 M&M’s.

Last, but not least, I made the infamous Oreo Truffles. To make more, I used 1/2 tsp. as a measuring tool for how big the truffles should be. These made a more decent sized truffle, and I made about 80 with the recipe this time.

Then, I put each treat in holiday cellophane bags, as pictured.

These went in cute little holiday take-out boxes that I found at Michael’s for $1 each. I absolutely love how these all came out! They were also well-received, so I’m definitely going to keep making edible gifts for future holidays!

Chocolate Shot Cookies

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The What’s Cooking board recently had a Holiday Treat recipe exchange. Thanks so much to Tara from Smells Like Home for organizing this!! I submitted the cranberry white chocolate pistachio biscotti I recently made, and received this interesting recipe for Chocolate Shot cookies.

The original submitter, The Milkman’s Wife of Milk & Honey mentioned that while these cookies don’t seem like much, they are amazing. I was really surprised! These are thin little cookies with a nice crunch and taste to them. You can’t even tell there is oatmeal in them!!

Chocolate Shot Cookies
Source: The Milkman’s Wife’s mom, Nadine M.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • 1 ½ cups flour
  • ½ tsp. baking soda
  • 1 cup uncooked oatmeal (rolled oats or quick oats – whichever you prefer)
  • Chocolate sprinkles for rolling

Directions:

  1. With electric mixer, cream together butter and sugar, beating until fluffy. Add vanilla and mix until combined.
  2. Stir together the flour and baking soda; add to butter mixture, beat until combined. Stir in oatmeal and mix well. Chill dough for a half hour. Shape dough into log and roll in chocolate sprinkles. (so that when you slice the cookies you have a border of chocolate sprinkles around the edges of every cookie)
  3. Slice cookies about ¼ inch thick and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes, until golden brown. Cool on wire rack.

Beef Daube Provencal

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I was searching for the perfect beef stew recipe, and was pointed out to this recipe by someone on the What’s Cooking board that I frequent. I have to thank her so much for pointing me to this recipe because I would have never made it or known to search for it. 🙂 This was a wonderful recipe! FI went for seconds and he RARELY does that for anything I cook! I guess my skills are growing!

Beef Daube Provencal
Source: Cooking Light

Ingredients:

  • 2  teaspoons  olive oil
  • 12  garlic cloves, crushed
  • 1  (2-pound) boneless chuck roast, trimmed and cut into 2-inch cubes (I used extra lean stew meat)
  • 1 1/2  teaspoons  salt, divided
  • 1/2  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper, divided
  • 1  cup  red wine (I used 12 oz.)
  • 2  cups  chopped carrot
  • 1 1/2  cups  chopped onion
  • 1/2  cup  less-sodium beef broth
  • 1  tablespoon  tomato paste
  • 1  teaspoon  chopped fresh rosemary
  • 1  teaspoon  chopped fresh thyme
  • Dash of ground cloves
  • 1  (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
  • 1  bay leaf
  • 3  cups  hot cooked medium egg noodles (about 4 cups uncooked noodles)
  • Chopped fresh thyme (optional)

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 300°.
  2. Heat olive oil in a small Dutch oven over low heat. Add garlic to pan; cook for 5 minutes or until garlic is fragrant, stirring occasionally. Remove garlic with a slotted spoon; set aside. Increase heat to medium-high. Add beef to pan. Sprinkle beef with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. Cook 5 minutes, browning on all sides. Remove beef from pan. Add wine to pan, and bring to a boil, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. Add garlic, beef, remaining 1 teaspoon salt, remaining 1/4 teaspoon pepper, carrot, and next 8 ingredients (through bay leaf) to pan; bring to a boil.
  3. Cover and bake at 300° for 2 1/2 hours or until beef is tender. Discard bay leaf. Serve over noodles. Garnish with chopped fresh thyme, if desired.

Note: To make in a slow cooker, prepare through Step 2. Place beef mixture in an electric slow cooker. Cover and cook on HIGH for 5 hours.

Serves: 6

POINTS*: 8 (with noodles)

Foil Pack Chicken Fajitas!

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I receive the Kraft Food & Family magazine, which by the way is FREE! If you don’t have a subscription, get one. It’s a great source for easy recipes and ideas!

I found this recipe for chicken fajitas and decided that I should try to make this happen for my fiance and I. This recipe was great, though I think next time, I’ll sear the chicken before putting it in the foil pack. It’s a definite try and super easy clean-up wise, since the chicken is in the foil!

 

It’s not the most photographic dish, but it’s still pretty good!

Foil Pack Chicken Fajitas
Source: Kraft

Ingredients:

  • 1-1/2 cups instant white rice, uncooked
  • 1-1/2 cups  hot water
  • 1 Tbsp. TACO BELL® HOME ORIGINALS® Taco Seasoning Mix
  • 4 small  boneless skinless chicken breast halves (1 lb.)
  • 1 each: green and red pepper, cut into strips
  • 1/2 cup  TACO BELL® HOME ORIGINALS® Thick ‘N Chunky Salsa
  • 1/2 cup KRAFT Mexican Style Finely Shredded Taco Cheese

Directions:

  • Heat oven to 400ºF. Fold up all sides of each of four 18×12-inch sheets of heavy-duty foil to form 1-inch rim; spray foil with cooking spray. Combine rice, water and taco seasoning; spoon evenly onto centers of foil. Top evenly with remaining ingredients.
  • Bring up foil sides. Double fold top and ends to seal each packet, leaving room for heat circulation inside. Place in 15x10x1-inch baking pan.
  • Bake 30 to 35 min. or until chicken is cooked through (165ºF). Let stand 5 min. Cut slits in foil to release steam before opening packets.

I’m entering this for Joelen’s Tasty Tools event for this month. The tool of the month is Baking sheets, and of course, I used a baking sheet to hold the foil chicken up and to catch anything that leaked out!

Banana Bread

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I ended up noticing while making the Pumpkin cake, that we had some pretty ripe bananas on the counter. So, I forked out a recipe I’ve been eyeing for quite some time and went to work on this!

Banana Bread
Source: Allrecipes

Ingredients:

  • 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2/3 cup white sugar
  • 1/3 cup butter, softened
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup mashed banana
  • 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (omitted)

Directions:

  1.  Grease an 8×4 inch loaf pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
  2. In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar. Add butter, eggs, nuts, and mashed banana. Beat until well blended.
  3. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake about 1 hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean.

This bread was OK, but I think next time, I’m going to look for a recipe using MORE bananas. It had a pretty subtle banana flavor, and I wanted more! I love bananas! 🙂

 

 

Pumpkin Cake with Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting

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My office, before Thanksgiving, had a potluck dinner. We were asked to bring a dish, so of course, I was ready and eager to bake! I found this great pumpkin cake recipe off of Culinary Concoctions by Peabody and went to work!

Pumpkin Cake
Source: Culinary Concoctions by Peabody

Ingredients:

¼ pound unsalted butter (1 stick)
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground cloves
½ tsp ground nutmeg (used 1 1/4 tsp. Penzey’s cake spice)
½ tsp salt
¾ cup 100% natural solid pack pumpkin
½ cup nonfat buttermilk
½ cup tightly packed light brown sugar
½ cup sugar
2 large eggs
½ tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

  • Grease and flour a 9-inch round cake pan. Combine together in a medium bowl flour, baking soda, spices, and salt. Set aside.
  • Place pumpkin and buttermilk in a small bowl and combine thoroughly. Set aside.
  • In a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment cream together the butter and sugars. Beat on medium for 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl .
  • Increase speed to high and beat an additional 2 minutes. Scrape down the bowl. Add the eggs and beat on medium for 30 seconds. Add the vanilla and beat on high for 30 seconds. With mixer on low alternate adding the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients into the mixing bowl.
  • Mix until just combined. Remove the bowl from the mixer and use a rubber spatula to finish mixing the batter, until smooth and thoroughly combined.
  • Immediately pour the cake into the prepared pan, spreading evenly. Bake on the center rack of a preheated 325F oven for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove the cake from the oven and cool in the pan for 15 minutes at room temperature.
  • Invert cake onto a plate or cake circle. Turn the cake upright and refrigerate until needed.

I knew I wanted a cream cheese frosting for my cake. So, I adapted a Cream Cheese frosting recipe I found off of Allrecipes. I added 2 tsp. of Penzey’s cake spice to the frosting and mmm, it was good!

Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting
adapted from: Allrecipes

Ingredients:

2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tsp. cake spice (mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, etc.)

Directions:

In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the confectioners’ sugar. Store in the refrigerator after use.

Overall, this was a very well received cake. Coworkers loved it (as did I, obviously). What? Someone has to taste test the tops!! Mmm…