Pillsbury Crescent Spirals

Crescent rolls are tasty, especially when on sale..the two box tops were also convincing haha..

This time, I simply baked it with ham and cheese, in a spiral form.

Ingredients 

1 can Pillsbury Crescent rolls (8 oz)

thin shaved smoked turkey

cheddar cheese

cream cheese

Cut a sheet of parchment paper to fit a 9x13 baking sheet, lay it down for a work surface.  Unroll the crescent roll onto the paper and pinch all of the perforations together so that you have a solid rectangle. 

Spread on the cream cheese, Philadelphia, of course.

Topped it with smoked turkey and grated cheddar...this part is pretty versatile, you can top it with whatever: bacon, imitation crab, pepper, green onion, garlic, spinach, any cheese, chicken, ham, pepperoni, etc..

Roll up a long side, tightly so nothing falls out.  Put the log in the freezer for a good 30 minutes to firm it up for easy slicing.

Now go preheat your oven to 350°.  Slice the log into 1/2 inch spirals and arrange on your parchment lined baking pan.

Bake until golden, mine were in and out after 16 minutes. Share, it makes 30. Devour, it goes pretty fast.

I Love Lasagna

This is actually my first time making it, pretty easy and definitely comforting.  I'll have leftovers for a while since there's only 3 of us that love cheese.

Recipe from: The Small Things Blog-Kate's Meat Lasagna

I boiled my noodles a bit even though they were "oven-ready" was paranoid about cooking them dry.
I threw in extra parmesan and mozzarella, it's the right thing to do.

bubbly, brown, gooey goodness

GF Brownie Cheesecake

Ingredients:

Brownie Layer:

1 pkg 21 oz Bobs Red Mill GF Brownie Mix

3/4 cup warm water

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

3/4 cup or 1&1/2 stick melted butter

Cheesecake Layer:

4 pkg 8 oz Philadelphia cream cheese, room temp

1/2 cup sour cream

3/4 cup sugar

3 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup chocolate, melted, optional

Used a 9 in. springform pan and 14x17cm dish

Instructions:

Grease the pans and heat oven to 350°. Mix your brownies as directed, pour 2 cups into the springform pan.  Pour the remainder into the dish (I intended to cube these brownies and scatter them around in the cheesecake layer to make a brownie mosaic cheesecake example here) Bake for 10 minutes or until the top is set but still glossy and slightly soft.

While the brownie crust cools, prepare the cheesecake mix.  Beat the cream cheese, sour cream, sugar, and vanilla in an electric mixer. Add each egg one at a time and beat until creamy and smooth.  Gently pour or spoon into each pan unless you'd like to make only one cheesecake.  If you're only going to do one (the 9 in springform), you can either eat the extra brownies or put them in as well.

To make the decorative chocolate swirls, melt some chocolate, pour it on different spots and use a rounded knife, spoon, and/or toothpick to cut through the chocolate and cheesecake batter.

Bake for an hour at 350° or until the top gets brown and set.  If the chocolate swirls begin to crack, you can use a piping bag to fill in where the cracks are and put it in the oven a few minutes to set.

Mr. Fruit Turkey

I confess, I am addicted to Pinterest-where users post/bookmark ideas for future use.  When I get a chance, I'm on there, drooling over as many recipes as I can.

Of course, when I saw the countless fruit turkey arrangements on Pinterest, I wanted to make one for Thanksgiving.  I had to bring something healthy to compensate for all of that pie.

 

Fruity glory ;) disregard the birthday cake and chocolate in back lol...

next year, I'll hopefully have time to post steps.

Make sure that you have a nice big platter, skewers, and toothpicks.
Wash all of your fruit, drain, and cut into appropriate sizes for the skewers.

The fruit used here are:
berries (raspberry & blackberry)
cantaloupe
grapes
pear
pineapple
dried cranberry eyes

Skewer your fruit pieces and set aside.

To make your turkey, lop 1/4 off the bottom of the cantaloupe so it won't roll away.
Reserve the cantaloupe piece.

Attach the pear head with 3 toothpicks.  If you buy a pear with a long neck, turn it upside down so that the  narrow end will resemble a neck and the wide end will resemble a head. Break some toothpicks for the eyes (dried cranberries) and beak (pineapple).

Cut off the leafy crown of the pineapple, trim leaves if you want it to look neater, wash, dry, and cut it in half for each turkey wing.  Affix onto each side of body with 2 toothpicks.  To cover the ugly cut end of the pineapple wings, use the reserved cantaloupe piece, and make little shoulders.  It should blend nicely with the body.  Cut little toes with the leftover cantaloupe.

Stick your skewer tail-feathers in and try to space it as evenly as possible.  Also make sure that there's room between the bottom piece of fruit and body so that it can be grabbed easily.

Leftover fruit can be placed around Mr. Turkey along with some toothpicks for those that just want a small bite.

glimpses of fall...

getting these up before winter blasts its way in.

don't wanna wait too long to catch their colors,

they all fall off too soon!

Fall isn't legit without pie: apple pie,

chicken pot pie, any pie!

The perfect warm-me-up meal for fall, a big ol pot of chili.

It's my favorite time of year.

Pie apples

The dark and dreary days of fall are getting to me! It is so tempting to curl up in bed but I've been doing some baking to combat that laziness.  Baking is always something to look forward to....so we're starting off with an apple pie recipe, à la apple.

Carefully slice off the tops of apples, core, and scoop the insides leaving an outer wall.  Salvage what you can from the inside minus seeds and chop it small.  If you made a big mess carving out the inside, chop up an extra apple or two to make sure you have enough filling. Add brown sugar and cinnamon to the chopped pieces, refill your apples, and top with a pie crust.  Here, I did a lattice top so it would look pretty but the apple / crust ratio tasted off, so next time, I'm just covering the whole top in crust.  Bake until your crust looks golden!

I did a mixture of tart/sweet apples.  The granny smiths held up great after baking. I had a red delicious explode because it was so soft.  Make sure you have firm apples.