Five Days of Cookies — Day 3, Toll House Sammies

Posted on December 10, 2014 by kelleychisholm

Chocolate chip sammies!

Back when I was a broke high school/college student, I used to make Toll House® cookies to give as presents at Christmas. My recipients were always thrilled to say the least! I made sure not to skimp on the ingredients, using Nestle’s Toll House® chocolate chips and real butter. Yes, real butter, never, ever margarine (blasphemy I say, blasphemy!) even on a shoestring budget. I wanted cookie perfection and this tried and true recipe, which was first created in 1936, definitely delivered.

Cool cookies on wire rack

For Day 3 of my Five Days of Cookies, I’m taking awesome Toll House Cookies and making some delightfully sinful ice cream sandwiches with them. I chose Breyer’s vanilla and chocolate ice cream so I could make three types of sammies (vanilla, chocolate and a blend of both), but feel free to use your favorite ice cream flavor(s). Chocolate chip cookies and ice cream in one convenient treat — life is grand!

Yum-o!

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Five Days of Cookies — Day 2, Lemon Icebox Cookies

Posted on December 9, 2014 by kelleychisholm

Lemon icebox cookies with tea

Here on Day 2 of my five days of cookies, I present some crispy, citrusy, crazy-good cookies that are not too sweet and go great with a nice cup of steaming hot tea. This recipe is based on “John Thorne’s Lemon Icebox Crumbles,” a recipe I found in my Classic Home Desserts cookbook by Richard Sax (c1994.) The original recipe calls for just a few drops of water or lemon juice, but I found I needed almost a tablespoon of each to form the dough into a ball.

These cookies are so easy to make, with only 5-6 ingredients. And since I bake them on my Pampered Chef bar pans, I know they will come out great since the temperature is evenly distributed through the pan, preventing the bottoms of the cookies from getting too brown or burning.

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Five Days of Cookies — Day 1, Dark Chocolate Oatmeal Lace Cookies

Posted on December 8, 2014 by kelleychisholm

 Dark Chocolate Oatmeal Lace Cookies

Yes, I’ve been a little bit slack about posting since right before Thanksgiving, so to make up for it I will be blogging cookie recipes for the next 5 days, to give you some ideas for your upcoming holiday baking.

I’m so excited to share this first recipe for Dark Chocolate Oatmeal Lace Cookies, which I found on Gina Homolka’s Skinnytaste blog (http://www.skinnytaste.com/). If you’re not familiar with her site, I recommend you check it out — she has lots of delicious low-fat recipes. These cookies are crisp and chewy, and I love the dark chocolate filling, but you can use milk chocolate if you prefer. The only thing I changed ingredient-wise was that I used 2% milk instead of 1%, and orange blossom honey instead of regular honey. Plus a bit more chocolate, of course.

Also, the original recipe calls for using two baking sheets lined with Silpats or parchment paper, but I used my large Pampered Chef bar pan instead. It was the first time I’ve made cookies on it and it lived up to its reputation for baking the cookies perfectly, without having to worry about the bottoms becoming too brown or burned. Love, love, love! Take a look at these beauties, which look exactly the same on top as on the bottom.

Tops and bottoms

According to the Skinnytaste website, each cookie is only 68 calories, so you won’t have to worry about filling up Santa and weighing down his sleigh!

For you, Santa

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Kel’s Best Brunswick Stew (Well, One Version, Anyway)

Posted on November 14, 2014 by kelleychisholm

 Kel's Brunswick Stew

When’s the last time you enjoyed a great bowl of hearty Brunswick stew? My good friend, Shearin, posted a recipe for it on FB the other day, and I immediately realized it had been way, way, way too long since I had made this awesome dish – one of my favorite stews, especially in the fall. I’m not going to get into the history of Brunswick stew in this post, but if you’re interested, please check out Wikipedia’s article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunswick_stew

My recipe has seen various iterations throughout the years as far as the meats and veggies used, but I always include vinegar, which is what I think makes it stand apart from the rest. Also, corn is a must!

For this batch, I cheated and bought one of those precooked whole chickens (garlic and herb) from Harris Teeter ($4.99 on Sundays.) As far as the pork, you may cheat on this as well – just go to your favorite BBQ place and get some with good old vinegar-based (no mustard, no tomato) sauce. Or do what I did and take three country-style boneless pork ribs, cover them with Scott’s Carolina BBQ sauce and several shakes of Liquid Smoke, and “braise” them at 400 degrees F for about 2 hours. I know, that’s excessive heat for braising, but the pork was tender and had an awesome flavor.

Shredded pork for Kel's Brunswick Stew

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Introducing The Cake Lady: Four Questions Answered

Posted on November 7, 2014 by kelleychisholm

 

 Cake lady cakes

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of having lunch with Jenny Albright, aka The Cake Lady (www.facebook.com/TheCakeLadyNC) and asking her about her business and her delicious cake creations.

Jenny Albright, aka The Cake Lady

Jenny and I briefly worked together earlier this year, and I finally got around to ordering some cupcakes for a breast cancer fundraiser I was having for my friends, Jill and Carter, who were participating in Avon’s 39-mile breast cancer walk in Charlotte in late October. The cupcakes were nice and fluffy with a great vanilla flavor. They tasted great, fit the occasion perfectly and were a big hit!

Breast Cancer Awareness

Here’s a recap of some of my questions and her replies, with some photos of her creations you will love!

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Fun, Fun, Fun at Food Lion’s Frugal Cook-off! (Plus a Major Giveaway!)

Posted on October 30, 2014 by kelleychisholm

 Silly pose!

$15.00 to spend. 20 minutes to plan and shop. 45 minutes to cook. Oh yeah, and one secret ingredient. Those were the contestant guidelines at the Food Lion Frugal Cook-Off, which was held last week in Raleigh, N.C. To be honest, I had not heard of this event, which has been held previously in Baltimore, Roanoke, Charlotte and Charleston (SC), but was quite honored to be invited to be a contestant and jumped at the chance to participate.

Not only was I going to put my cooking skills to the test, but I would meet other area bloggers who were also competing and would be placed into teams. And Food Lion sweetened the pot by offering a bag of Food Lion brand goodies as well as two gift cards to its store, one for each blogger and one for the blogger to give away to her/his readers — at least $100 each for all participants, and $250 each to the lucky winner of the competition (see below for details!)

Bag of Food Lion goodies

And here’s how it all went down.

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Kel’s Bacon-Wrapped Pork Tenderloin with Vermouth Mushroom Sauce

Posted on October 16, 2014 by kelleychisholm

Kel's bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin with vermouth mushroom sauce

This is truly my favorite preparation of pork tenderloin, and what’s not love? The tenderloin is slathered with spicy Dijon mustard and then wrapped in bacon. That alone would be enough for many, but the vermouth mushroom sauce seriously makes this dish stellar.

When I first saw this recipe in Mary Berry and Marlena Spieler’s Classic Home Cooking (c1995), I had no idea that this would become a family favorite. I have tweaked the original recipe a few times since I first made it, and I’m sure it will become a family favorite of yours!

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Kel’s Tasty Taco Salad in Edible Tortilla Bowls

Posted on October 7, 2014 by kelleychisholm

Kel's Cafe individual taco salad

Do you remember that awesome Bud Light “Real Men of Genius” commercial in the late 1990s about taco salads? There were several good lines, my favorite being, “Is your taco salad healthy? Of course it is, it’s a salad isn’t it?” That tune came to mind the other day when I bought these great Chicago Metallic non-stick large tortilla shell pans at one of my favorite cooking stores, Whisk. I had a 20% discount since I had been a cooking assistant that day (check out this fun program at https://www.whiskcarolina.com/class-assistant-program/) and thought the kids would love these. And they did!

Although the Bud Light commercial is funny, I can assure you that this taco salad does not have 12,000 calories, LOL. I lightened up things by using 96% lean ground beef, light sour cream, and reduced fat (2%) cheese. Brad went one step further and eliminated the tortilla since he’s watching his carbs. However, Lexi especially loved the tortilla bowl – she thought it was great by itself!

Lexi loves taco salad

These are so easy to make and yummy, yummy, yummy! And from what I calculated on my Fitbit® one salad should be right around 500 calories, way less than the 12,000 mentioned in that great Bud Light ad.

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Kel’s Crazy-Good Calzones with Pepperoni, Spinach and Four Cheeses (Plus a Give-away!)

Posted on September 30, 2014 by kelleychisholm

This calzone is crazy good

Last week I posted a recipe for flawless flatbread pizza using Krusteaz’s new onion and garlic flatbread mix, and promised I’d share my recipe for these awesome calzones. I used the Italian herb flatbread mix for these bad boys and they came out crazy good. It took me a few tries to make the calzones actually look decent, but once I got the hang of how to work the dough, it was easy as pie.

Dip calzone in Kel's spicy marinara

So the folks at Krusteaz sent me a great little package that included their new line of flatbread mixes (whole wheat, Italian herb, and garlic and onion) as well as a kitchen timer, apron, pizza cutter and coupon for another free box of mix. And guess what — Krusteaz will send one of my lucky readers the exact same package to enjoy. See the end of this post for how to enter this yummy giveaway!

Krusteaz giveaway package

I love spinach and cheese calzones and decided to go with that as my filling. However, since the kids love pepperoni, I added that to half of the calzones to make everyone happy. You can add whatever filling you like — Krusteaz has a great recipe for meatball calzones on its website that you may want to try.

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Kel’s Flawless Flatbread Pizza, with Kudos to Krusteaz

Posted on September 23, 2014 by kelleychisholm

 Out of the oven

Flatbread pizzas have been the rage for a few years now. Store-bought flatbread is readily available at most grocery stores, although sometimes it may not always be as fresh as homemade. If you want to take a little extra time for that wonderful fresh-baked taste and make your own, the folks at Krusteaz now have you covered, with a new line of boxed, yeast-based flatbread mixes that include wheat, Italian herb, and garlic and onion. These are so easy to prepare and the mixes are perfectly seasoned, perfect for the busy cook who wants fresh, homemade taste!

If you follow my blog, you know I’m a big fan of Krusteaz products, but I must make my normal disclaimer that I’m not affiliated in any way with the company. Of course, I was definitely excited when UPS  delivered several flatbread mixes of each flavor on Krusteaz’s dime. So far I have made a flawless flatbread pizza and some killer, killer calzones. I will post that recipe later this week and you will not want to miss it! And, as an added bonus, I will detail how you can win some of this wonderful flatbread mix and a host of other goodies, courtesy of Krusteaz, so please stay tuned.

Krusteaz flatbread mixes

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