What I Ate: Antipasto

The Italian salad ‘antipasto’ itself means before the meal. Well, this was THE meal. I chose some meats, cheeses, and paired them with veggies. I made my own croutons and drizzled a balsamic reduction.
Antipasto Salad
This was a perfect dinner on a hot night. I’m trying to be conscious about adding some easier, less strenuous meals. Sometimes I burn myself out by trying to one-up my own meals

every.
single.
day.

This is really where this What I Ate series came from. Easy things that aren’t worth blogging are good too. I always have a soft spot for an easy meal that can just highlight quality ingredients. I feel like Joey eating Rachel’s trifle/shepard’s pie. Fresh mozzarella? good! gouda? good! english cucumbers? good! pepperoni? good!
Rachel’s Dessert

This is also a great belated tribute to my Dad’s bday. He can’t cook much but his antipasti are out of this world!

Cookies and Cream Popcorn

I love making funky popcorns. I have actually made one since this bacon caramel corn
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and this Cranberry Pecan Caramel Corn
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but it wasn’t quite up to snuff so I didn’t blog it. It was birthday popcorn and it needs a bit of tweaking. I thought of cookies n’ cream popcorn for Ms. L’s bday. It was super easy (and turned out super sweet).

Ingredients:

2 cups air popped popcorn
1 cup white chocolate chips
12 oreos
2 tbs butter

Directions:

Pop the popcorn and crush the oreos (they don’t have to be uniformly crushed)
oreo popcorn
In a double boiler, melt the chips and butter. Stirring regularly.
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Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Mix popcorn and crushed oreos together.
oreo popcorn
Add melted white chocolate mixture together with the popcorn and oreos.
oreo popcorn close up
Spread onto parchment paper or silicone lined baking sheet.
Bake for 10 minutes.
oreo popcorn baked

It was super sweet. Maybe too sweet? I’m not a white chocolate person so that could have something to do with it as well. Next up is some-sort of savory popcorn. Hmmm. I’ll have to get on that one 😉

Restaurant Recreation: Chicken Cordon Bleu Calzone

In my world, there’s nothing better than take-out and DVR Friday nights. I’m old at heart and this is my ideal way to end the week. It feels so right to be lazy and loungy and doesn’t make me feel guilty at all. Saturday & Sunday mornings are a different story. I feel the need to get stuff done…immediately. Plus, in this heat do you really want to be crazy like me and crank your oven?

I don’t usually plan dinners for Friday night and Mr. J gives me a sly grin saying “how ‘bout we order something?”. I am the cheap one so often I’m the one who would eat something weird that I can come up with from the depths of the freezer or pantry rather than going out. Since we moved to the burbs our take-out delivery is slightly more limited. We tend to go with pizza or Chinese.

I got a chicken cordon bleu calzone from a local pizza joint and was stoked. Enough for lunch leftovers over the weekend! Woohoo! It was amazing and I wanted to recreate it.
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I made regular chicken cordon bleu and loved it but this calzone was definitely the easy way out.
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Ingredients:

4 breaded chicken tenders
8 oz shredded Swiss cheese
4 slices deli ham
Pizza dough
2 cups arugula
1 egg + 1 tbs water = eggwash

Directions:

Cook chicken according to directions (or bread and bake your own!)
Spread pizza dough onto a baking sheet.
Chop chicken, ham, and arugula.
Layer the chicken, cheese, ham, and arugula over the pizza dough.
Remember to include fillings almost to the edge and keep layering eventhough it will look like too much filling.
Close pizza dough over to seal shut.
Cut a few slits into the top and brush with eggwash (optional)
Bake 30-40 minutes until golden brown.
Let sit 5 minutes before slicing (or you’ll have an oozer)

Since I can’t pretend I made this idea up, I’m not tooting my own horn saying this was soooo good. I loved the swiss in there. That’s different than most of my calzones. I threw the arugula in since I had it and figured a little green never hurt anyone!
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The pre-made chicken tenders made it super simple. Those suckers are dirt cheap. Maybe that’s why there are so many kids who don’t know chicken in another form. Whatever. I’m not an 8-year-old but having these in the freezer reduced this recipe to purely an assembly project.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The calzone will look like it’s wayyy over stuffed but not enough filling is definitely a rookie mistake.

Cost:

4 breaded chicken tenders $1.14
8 oz shredded Swiss: $2.75
4 slices of ham: $0.75
Refrigerated pizza dough: $1.99
2 cups Arugula: $1.33
Total: $7.96 serves 4 for $1.99 per person
Total at my local pizza joint: small for $9.69 serves 2 for $4.84 per person

It is kind of crazy that I know I can make it for $1.99 per person and as frugal as I am I’ll still pay $4.84 per person for somebody to make it and bring it to me.  Whatever, don’t judge 😉

Sandwich Meal Board

Need a good summer sandwich idea? Ms. A shared her sandwich with me…well, not the actual sandwich but what her sandwich was!

sourdough bread, toasted
sundried tomato pesto
tomato
avocado
swiss cheese

Sandwich IdeaYum!

What are your makings of a good sandwich?

What I Ate: BBQ Ranch

Yup, I’m still trying to rock this what I ate series. Today I’m sharing a quick and easy sandwich with my bounty of the farmer’s market. Tis the season!

I couldn’t NOT buy these English muffins (as in they even brought out a double-negative from me). They were better than any I’d ever had and made good olde Thomas pale in comparison. These were fluffy and doughy and crisped nicely when toasted but still held their shape.
what i ate muffin
Add some grilled chicken, tomatoes, ahhhrugula, and bbq ranch sauce and you’ve got this sandwich!
what I ate sandwich
The BBQ ranch sauce = 2 parts bbq sauce to 1 parts ranch dressing & shake. I put this on both English muffin pieces and even may have spread a bit on the chicken too.
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These were really good on a hot night!