A New Twist On Apple Crisp

Holy crap this little experiment turned out well. This would be perfect for a potluck! You'll need a package of puff pastry, some apple compote, brown sugar, ground cloves, ground cinnamon & white sugar. Here's what ya do... thaw the puff pastry and unfold it. Mix about a half a cup of brown sugar with a half teaspoon of ground cloves. Sprinkle some of the mixture onto the middle section of the unfolded pastry. Add a layer of apple compote. Fold one of the empty sections of pastry onto the apples. Add another layer of brown sugar mixture and another layer of compote. Fold the last section over. Sprinkle with a cinnamon sugar mixture, bake on a greased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Cut into sections & serve with vanilla ice cream... YUM!

Knock Your Socks Off Chicken, Pesto & Provolone Pasta

I usually don't eat breakfast, because if I don't eat it, I can go till around 1pm before I get too hungry. Today I decided to share a frozen waffle with the kids and was starving by 10am. So I had to figure out what I had in the house to make a meal out of. Payday isn't till tomorrow, so I had to use what I had, which was next to nothing. What I wound up with was nothing short of amazing. I cut 3 chicken breasts into chunks and browned them in a pan with some fresh garlic, dried onion & red pepper. Next I boiled 2 cups of pasta. I had ziti. You can use whatever's handy. When that was done, I drained all but about 10% of the water, and then tossed in about 2 tablespoons of Philadelphia Cream Cheese brand's creamy pesto sauce stuff - it's found next to the cream cheese at the store. Then I tossed in about 1/4 cup heavy cream. I was trying to figure out what else to put into the sauce when I found some bacon that had already been cooked. Bacon is always good. I crumbled a bunch of that up and dumped in way too much. Just kidding. There's no such thing as too much bacon. The sauce was kinda runny, so I went looking for something to thicken it up. I found sliced provolone in the fridge, so I tossed about 4 slices in it. Once that was all gooey and melty, I tossed the chicken into the pot, mixed it all up, and tried a bite. Holy shit that's good stuff! Can't wait to feed it to the family for dinner!

A-Freaking-Mazing Turkey Leftovers Cassarole

Screw turkey sandwiches. This is how I'm handling my thanksgiving leftovers this year. Here's how it started... I have been trying to get more creative with dinner ideas. Ground beef only goes so far really. So this morning at 4am I had a brilliant idea to throw some chicken breasts into my crockpot with a jar of turkey gravy. Yes, I said chicken. But it's only November 9, I haven't cooked my turkey yet. Gimme a break. I knew I wanted to make some sort of stuffing and chicken/turkey cassarole but I had no idea how I was going to do it. After 4 hours on low heat, the chicken & gravy mixture was done. I shredded the chicken, put it back in the crock pot, tossed in some spices, and then let it soak in the gravy for another 20 minutes. In the meantime, I searched the fridge and pantry for ideas. AHA! I had a can of crescent rolls in the fridge, and I suddenly became brillant. Here's how the rest of this went... In a greased 9x9 or 8x8 inch square pan, lay out 4 crescent roll triangles flat on the bottom. They're not going to cover the whole pan by any means. So just lay them in there, spread out is fine. If you have mashed potatoes, spread them on top. I didn't. Sad face. Next, pull the chicken out of the crock pot, but DON'T TOSS THE GRAVY! lay the chicken across the pan on top of the dough. Toss a box of stuffing mix into the crock pot with the leftover gravy stuff. Since the liquid is already hot, the stuffing will fluff right up. Layer it on top of the chicken. Top with the remaining 4 dough triangles. Springle cheese all over the top. Cook at 375 for 20 minutes. Enjoy the taste of absolute heaven. Can you imagine this recipe with your leftover turkey and sides? Oh my....