Easy & Delicious Chicken

This is a really easy meal, especially when you don't have a lot of time, because it cooks in the crockpot. It's sort of like a chicken stroganoff. I always take this to neighbors when I make dinner for them. Everyone loves it.

6 Chicken Breasts
1 (8 oz.) Bottle Italian Salad Dressing
1 Can Cream of Chicken Soup
1 Cup Chicken Broth
1 (8 oz.) Package Cream Cheese
1/2 Teaspoon Basil, dried
1/2 Teaspoon Thyme, dried
Salt & Pepper, to taste
1 Package Bowtie Pasta

1. In a slow cooker, combine the chicken and italian dressing. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.
2. When chicken is tender, drain most (not all) of the dressing and discard. Shred the chicken and return to slow cooker.
3. In a medium bowl combine the soup, broth, cream cheese, basil, thyme, salt and pepper.
4. Mix well and pour mixture over the chicken in the slow cooker.
5. Cook on low for 1 hour and serve over bowtie pasta (or any kind you like).

Easter Chick Nests

These are a perfect treat to make with the help of your kids. Hailee loved helping me make these. I always like to give credit where credit's due, but I got the idea for this out of a magazine and for the life of me, I can't remember which one. Have you ever heard of "moose poop" (or a more appropriate name is "oatmeal munchies")? Well, it's delicious and here's the recipe:

1/4 Cup Margarine or Butter
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/4 Cup Sugar
2 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
1/4 Cup Milk
2 Tablespoons Baking Cocoa
Dash Salt
1/4 Cup Creamy Peanut Butter
1 1/2 Cups Oats
1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1/4 Cup Flour

1. Mix first 7 ingredients and bring to boil on medium heat. Boil for 1 minute.
2. Remove from heat and add remaining ingredients.
3. Stir until well mixed.
4. Using 2 teaspoons, drop small portions of mixture on cookie sheet lines with waxed paper. Allow to cool in refrigerator before eating.

So instead of dropping them onto a cookie sheet as you normally would, you drop them into muffin tins and form them against the bottom and sides of each tin to make a "nest". Put them in the fridge until you're ready to serve them, then pop them out of the pan and fill them up with robin eggs and top with a Peep! So cute!

This yields about 9 nests.

Easter Bunny Cake

We made some fun treats for Easter. My mom made this one. This is a really easy cake to make. You just cook a cake as you normally would in two round pans. When they're cooked and cooled, do this to one of them:
Then place the round cake in the center of a cookie sheet and use the two side sections from the cut cake for the ears and the middle section for the bowtie. Frost the cake white and the bowtie and center of the ears pink. Put coconut all over the round cake and ears for the fuzz and decorate the face and bowtie however you want. My mom used oreos, frosting and blue gumdrops for the eyes, licorice strings for the whiskers and mouth and gumdrops for the nose and the bowtie. Then she mixed some of the coconut with green food coloring to cover the cookie sheet and it looks like easter grass. (The missing gumdrops are because Hailee & Bryce got to the cake before I could get the picture). Isn't it cute?!

Iron Chef Part II

For dessert we made a fruit pizza. Everyone has a different recipe for this, but ours turned out really good. We used 2 pillsbury sugar cookie dough rolls, rolled them out onto a cookie sheet & cooked according to package directions. We mixed 8 oz. Cool Whip, 8 oz. Cream Cheese & 4 oz. Vanilla Yogurt. After the cookie cooled, we spread the mixture over the top. Then you can use your creativity. Top the entire cookie with an assortment of whatever fruits you like. We used raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, oranges, green apples, grapes, kiwi fruit & apricots. Then to make it shine, we brushed corn syrup thinned with a little lemon juice & juice from the canned apricots all over the fruits. Very pretty!

Iron Chef Part I

On Monday at work, we had a manager's retreat and did Iron Chef. It was so fun. My team was in charge of salad and dessert and the other team was in charge of the main dish and beverage. Our secret ingredient was fruit. The team that cooked at my house came up with this. And here I go with the method again, rather than the recipe.

Mix Mayonnaise with curry powder to taste. Cut up rotisserie chicken and mix with mayonnaise mixture. Serve over a bed of greens and top with coconut, toasted almonds and an assortment of tropical fruits. We used mango, pineapple and grapes (and just a couple strawberries for color). The salad would've been fine for a main dish in itself. It was delicious.

Peanut Butter Fingers

I love these. They remind me of the peanut butter fingers I used to get in elementary school. I think this particular recipe needs to be tweaked just a little bit, because I don't think it's the best it can be. I'm posting it because I do think they're definitely worth trying. However, if you make them and think you have a better recipe or you have found a way to make these a little better, leave a comment or email me at cookinbrooke@gmail.com.

3/4 Cup Butter
1/2 Cup Sugar
1 1/3 Cups Brown Sugar
1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
3/4 Cup Creamy Peanut Butter
2 Eggs
2 Cups Flour
2 Cups Oats
3/4 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/8 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Cup Cream Peanut Butter, whipped
Chocolate Frosting

1. Cream together first 6 ingredients, then add next 4 ingredients.
2. Spread into butter jellyroll cookie sheet (12X7). Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes.
3. While hot, spread with 1/2 whipped peanut butter. Cool or freeze to harden the peanut butter.
4. Frost with chocolate frosting.

Share your stuff!

I want all of you to share your recipes with me too and I can post them on here. So if you have a recipe or a cooking tip for me to post (or anything related to food), please email it to me at cookinbrooke@gmail.com. Thanks!

Orange Kisses

These are sooo good and sooo easy! Try them with your next dinner!

12 Frozen White Dinner Rolls (Rhodes Dough)
1/2 Cup Butter, softened
3 Tablespoons Orange Rinds, grated fresh
1 Cup Sugar

1. Allow dough to thaw.
2. Mix orange rind and sugar.
3. Coat each ball with softened butter, then roll in orange-sugar mixture.
4. Place in pan. Let rise until dough doubles, about one hour.
5. Bake at 350 degrees until just golden brown.

Poor Man's Queso

I was thinking that one of the problems for me on this blog is going to be the fact that I really don't have "recipes" for some of the things I come up with on my own. So I had a couple of choices. I was trying to decide if I should make each recipe and pay careful attention to how much I put into it so I can give you an exact recipe or I can just tell you the method and you can make it to your own taste. I liked the second idea better. Sometimes just learning a method rather than following a recipe makes it easier to be flexible and adjust things if you don't have the exact right ingredients. So, here's one of my favorite snacks. My sister-in-law, Trish, came up with the name tonight.

Take a couple of handfuls of whatever kind of cheese you like (I usually use cheddar) and put it in a saucepan over medium-high heat on the stove. Sprinkle in a bit of flour. This helps to both emulsify and thicken it. Pour in a little bit of milk and stir until it's melted. Rachael Ray would tell you it has to be stirred with a figure 8 (I'm not sure why, but I do it because she says so). Keep adding milk until it's at the desired consistency. Then throw in a can of your favorite chili. Mix together and serve with tortilla chips. It's delicious!

Brownie Cutting Tip

Ok, so this is the most helpful hint I've learned in the kitchen for awhile! Our friend Kirk taught us this trick and everyone needs to know it. You know when you cut brownies and the brownies churn up and all the insides come out and it turns into a big, huge mess? This is especially true when you can't wait for them to completely cool, which is certainly a problem of mine. Well, all you need to do is use a plastic, disposable knife to cut them and it cuts them perfectly smooth every time. Try it, it is amazing!

April Fool's

I made this April Fool's Day meal for Hailee. It came from Family Fun Magazine in the April issue, but I made a few changes based on what I had in my pantry.

It's supposed to look like fish sticks, sauce & peas. It is actually graham crackers covered in peanut butter & rolled in crushed up corn flakes, raspberry jam & green apple airheads rolled into little balls.

So certainly not the most healthy meal, but Hailee loved it. It was funny because she wouldn't eat the "peas" and we told her the joke and told her it was candy and she didn't believe us. Ty held them right up to her nose and told her to smell them. She said "It IS candy!?" and gobbled them right up, of course. :)

Dutch Babies

I thought I'd start with a breakfast food. I love these! This is a refreshing change from the typical breakfast foods. These were always my older brother's favorites growing up. Give them a try!

6 Eggs
1 Cup Milk
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1 Cup Flour
1/2 Cup Butter
Lemon, Powdered Sugar & Maple Syrup

1. Combine the eggs, milk & salt in a blender. Blend the batter until fluffy.
2. Tap in the flour a little at a time, beating the ingredients until well blended.
3. Melt the butter in a 9X13 inch baking dish in a 425 degree oven. When the butter is bubbly, pour on the batter.
4. Immediately return the mixture to the oven. Bake at 425 degrees for 25 minutes.

Serve with a squeeze of lemon, a sprinkle of powdered sugar and some maple syrup. Yum!

My New Cookin' Blog

Those of you who know me, know that I have a passion for FOOD! The saying holds true for me that "some people eat to live and some people live to eat!" I wanted to start this blog to share recipes and cooking tips with anyone who wants to hear them. I have lot's of family favorites that have been passed down for generations and I want to always have them and be able to share them with others. I have recipes that I've gotten from others that are just quick and easy. I even have some that I've come up with myself. The recipes will always be pretty simple because I love to eat as fast as possible! So, I hope you all enjoy!