Honey Butter

This honey butter has powdered sugar in it so it gets nice and fluffy . . . sort of frosting like. It's so good on the Naughty Cornbread muffins that you'll think you are celebrating your birthday.

From Our Best Bites

Ingredients:

2 cubes real butter

2/3 cup honey

3/4 cup powdered sugar

Directions:

Place butter on counter for 20 minutes to reach room temperature. Don't let it get too soft or you will have a gooey mess. Place butter, honey, and powdered sugar in a bowl. Mix with a hand mixer for about 30 seconds and serve at room temp.

Shrimp, Tortellini, & Spinach

1 pkg. (9 oz.) refrigerated cheese tortellini
1/4 cup KRAFT Roasted Red Pepper Italian with Parmesan Dressing
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 can (14-1/2 oz.) no-salt-added diced tomatoes, undrained
3/4 lb. cooked cleaned medium shrimp
1 bag (6 oz.) baby spinach leaves
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
2 Tbsp. KRAFT Grated Parmesan Cheese
Make It!

COOK pasta in large saucepan as directed on package. Drain in colander; set aside. Heat dressing in same pan on medium-high heat. Add garlic; cook 1 min. Add tomatoes and shrimp; mix well. Bring just to boil. Stir in spinach; cover. Simmer 1 to 2 min. or until spinach is wilted, stirring occasionally.

STIR in pasta and basil; simmer, uncovered, 3 to 4 min. or until sauce is thickened, stirring occasionally.

SERVE topped with cheese.

Ben and I really liked this, although I used chicken instead of shrimp cause it's cheaper! It was really good that way too!

Naughty Cornbread

This is a super simple, super tasty cornbread recipe from Our Best Bites. If you like your cornbread a little sweet and not so crumbly this is the recipe for you. It makes a 13 X 9 pan and 12 regular sized muffins.

Ingredients:

1 yellow cake mix

2 Jiffy cornbread mixes

Oil, milk and eggs according to package directions

Directions:

Preheat oven according to directions on the cake mix box. Combine all three mixes in a large bowl. Add eggs, oil, and milk according to package directions (replace all water with milk). Mix together according to cake mix directions. Bake according to cake mix directions (about 20 minutes for muffins or 30 minutes for a 9 X 13 pan). Freeze the leftovers.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

This is one of my favorite desserts to make. I served it at book club last week and it was a hit. This cake looks beautiful served with a little whipped cream or a light dusting of powdered sugar.

This is what the cake looks like right out of the oven.


The cake puffs up while cooking, but as soon as you take it out of the oven it will begin to fall. That's okay, that's what it's supposed to do! The picture below is from about 30 seconds later, before it fell another inch or more.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 c. swemisweet chocolate chips
6 large egg whites
6 Tbs. unsalted butter, plus more for pan
1/2 c. sugar
6 large egg yolks

Preheat oven to 275 degrees, with rack in center of oven. Butter a 9-inch springform pan. Place butter and chocolate in a large bowl. Microwave in 30-second increments, stirring each time, until melted. Cool slightly. Whisk in egg yolks. In another bowl, beat egg whites to soft peaks. Gradually add sugar, beat until stiff and glossy. Whisk 1/4 of the egg whites into chocolate mixture. Gently fold mixture into remaining whites. Pour into pan, smooth top. Bake until cake pulls away from pan and is just set in the center, about 45-50 minutes. Do not underbake (I usually end up cooking mine 55 minutes.) Cool completely before removing sides of pan.

Triple-Berry Crisp

I recently stumbled upon a food blog that I absolutely love. The blog is called For the Love of Cooking. The blogger takes beautiful pictures of easy-to-make, delicious food. I've already tried several recipes from her site. This is the one I made tonight. It's a mixed-berry crisp - I used fresh strawberries, fresh blackberries, and frozen blueberries.

Rather than just retype the recipe here, I'm just going to be lazy and post a link to the blog. Go check it out! Mixed-Berry Crisp.

Double Chocolate Muffins

Ingredients:
1 C. cocoa
3 1/2 C. flour
2 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 C. buttermilk or milk soured with 1 tbs. vinegar
1/2 C. sour cream
2 tsp. vanilla
1 C. butter
2 C. packed brown sugar
2 eggs
3 tbs. oil
Chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease muffin pans. Cream butter, sugar and eggs. Mix dry ingredients in separate bowel. In another bowel, mix buttermilk, sour cream, vanilla, and oil. Add alternately with drying ingredients to creamed mixture. Add chocolate chips. Bake 25-30 minutes.

Asian Wonton Salad with Sweet Sesame Dressing

I love a loaded salad almost as much as I love loaded ice cream. This salad is good enough to be the entire meal. I love it!

Recipe adapted from Our Best Bites

Asian Wonton Salad

1 1/2 heads of romaine lettuce

3 chicken breasts, cooked and cubed or shredded (I marinated mine in teriyaki first)

cherry tomatoes

1/4 red onion, sliced thinly

1 cucumber sliced

1 can olives, rinsed and drained

3/4 cup cashews

1/2 package wontons

vegetable oil for frying

Heat about 1 inch of oil in a pot on the stove top. Cut wontons into thirds (3 strips). Fry wontons and set on paper towels to dry.

Tear lettuce into chunks and place in a large salad bowl. Top with remaining ingredients. Add Sweet Sesame Dressing. Toss salad together. Add wonton strips and gently toss to combine.

Sweet Sesame Dressing

1/3 cup rice vinegar

1/2 cup canola oil

1 tablespoon sesame oil

2 cloves minced garlic

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons sesame seeds

Place all ingredients into a quart jar and shake vigorously. Don't skip the sesame oil. It gives it the taste you need to make it taste like an Asian salad. Only pour dressing on salad if you plan on eating it immediately in one meal. I just added the dressing to individual bowls of salad and I only used about half of this dressing recipe.