Peachy Chicken

This is one of those recipes that at first glance I thought miight be too weird, but I was intrigued and wanted to give it a try. It was a hit, so we'll be keeping this one too! 

Barbeque Peach Chicken found HERE. 

I made some adjustments, lol. For one thing, when I showed my husband-the-cook the recipe he said that our grill has two temperatures- nuclear hot and almost nuclear hot. I suggested we bake it a while and then grill it at the end? He suggested we bake it and then broil it, so that is what we did. 

I had some leftover peach "jam" that had been made for a dessert. I wasn't sure it would work, and my husband said it didn't quite- the cinnamon and nutmeg didn't quite work with the bbq sauce for him. But everyone else liked it so it worked okay! 

I thawed two huge chicken breasts and cut them into sections of all sizes, lol... I made the marinade as directed: 
 - 1/2 cup peach jam

- 1 tbso apple cider vinegar 

- 1 tbsp ground ginger

- 1/2 tsp salt

- some black pepper

- 3/4 cup bbq sauce (we have Sweet Baby Ray's right now)

- boneless, skinless chicken breasts

I let it marinate in the fridge for about 8 hours. 

I put a cooling rack onto a foil covered baking sheet, and baked it at 350* for 8 minutes, then turned them all over, basting it as I went. Then baked it 8 more minutes. It wasn't very close to temp yet, so I turned and basted again, and baked it another 5 minutes before turning it up to broil. We broiled it 5  minutes on one side, basted again and broiled another 5 or so minutes til it reached about 165*. 

We served this with a quick pasta-roni mix, and vegetables and the whole family enjoyed it! 

Updated Oreo Pie Recipe

Recipe refreshed and updated! Makes two 9-inch pies.

The idea for this pie was the result of my 9 year old self trying to come up with a pie idea for a ward dessert contest. I made it that once and didn't make it again until after I was married to take to Thanksgiving dinner with my in-laws. Since they were all Oreo obsessed, it became a staple of Thanksgiving dinners, some birthdays, and other special occasions. It is a whipped cream (or cool whip) and pudding pie with crushed Oreo cookies sandwiched between the layers and placed on top. I have made it so much throughout the years that I can barely eat a slice. Too much of a good thing.  --Burt

This pie is made with mostly instant stuff that you get at the store, but it could be made completely from scratch if you are feeling adventurous. The only thing that probably would have to stay store-bought is the Oreo cookies. I have never used other Oreo like cookies for this pie and since I usually only make it once or twice a year, I stick with the name brand.

Ingredients

• 2 9-inch pie crusts that have been blind baked 
• You could swap out the pastry pie crusts for a Oreo or chocolate graham cracker crust, but I think a regular crust offsets the overwhelming sweetness inherent to the pie filling.
• 1 3/4 cups Oreo crumbs plus some cookies cut in half to put on the top of the pie for decoration
• You could buy a box of pre-crushed Oreo crumbs, but why? Take 30 cookies and run them through the food processer. Much better and you don't have to have leftover crumbs that you will go stale before you use them again.

Chocolate Layers - Chocolate Dream Pie Filling

• 2 (1 1/3 ounce) envelopes dream whip brand whipped dessert topping mix
• 2 3/4 cups cold milk, divided
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 (3 1/2 ounce) packages of chocolate instant pudding 
• I recommend Hershey's or another really good dark chocolate pudding. I used to use a chocolate mousse pudding mix, but they got hard to find and were never enough mousse to really do a full two layers of chocolate filling.

Whipped Cream Layers

• 1 8 oz block of cream cheese
• 1 1/2 cups of heavy whipping cream
• 1 cup granulated white sugar
• Pinch of salt

Make the Filling Layers and Chill

The chocolate filling is just the dream pie recipe found on the back of the Dream Whip brand whipped topping box. I recommend making the chocolate filling the night before and letting it chill overnight before assembly so it is good and solidly set-up. At a minimum, the chocolate layer has to be chilled for at least 4 hours before it can be used, as per the Dream Whip instructions.

Here are the directions from the box for the Dream Pie filling:

• Beat whipped topping mixes, 1 cup of the milk and vanilla in large bowl with electric mixer on high 6 minutes or until topping thickens and forms peaks.
• Add remaining 1-3/4 cups milk and pudding mixes; beat on low speed until mixed.
• Beat on high speed 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally.
• Divide the filling in half (by weight if you can) into two gallon size freezer zip lock bags.
• Refrigerate at least 4 hours.

To make the whipped cream filling do the following:

• In a large bowl combine cream cheese, sugar, salt and vanilla. 
• Beat until smooth, then keep beating for about 2 to 3 more minute. Scrap the bowl about every minute during the process.
• Add heavy cream and whip with whisk until stiff peaks form. Again, scrap the bowl about every minute during the process.
• Divide the filling in half (by weight if you can) into two gallon size freezer zip lock bags.
• Put in the fridge to chill until ready to assemble pies

The cream cheese in the whipped cream keeps it stable. The whipped cream won't deflate for several days so you don't have to worry about making the pies a day or two ahead. Just make sure to keep them cold!

Assembling the Pies

Prep your pie crusts and blind bake them. Whether you make them by hand or buy them frozen from the store, follow the instructions for blind baking the pie shells. You want them completely baked and cooled before assembling the pies. Once the crusts have cooled completely, do the following:

• Put 1/3 cup of the crushed Oreo crumbs into each pie shell. Smooth the crushed cookies out so they are a nice flat layer in the bottom of each pie 
• Take one bag of chocolate filling, snip off a corner of the bag and squeeze the filling into each pie shell in swirl pattern, using half the bag per shell. 
• Use a spatula to smooth out the layer over the crushed Oreos. Be gentle and patient as the crushed cookies make doing this tricky if you try to go too fast. 
• Take out one bag of the whipped cream filling, snip off a corner of the bag and squeeze the whipped cream into each pie shell in swirl pattern, again using half the bag per shell.
• Like before, use a spatula to smooth the whipped cream layer over the chocolate layer.
• Sprinkle another 1/3 cup of crushed cookies per shell onto the whipped cream layer evenly so the crushed cookies makes another smooth cookie layer.
• Use the second bag of the chocolate filling, squeezing out half the bag of filling in each pie in a swirl pattern, and smooth it out into an even layer. Again be patient and gentle when working the chocolate filling over the cookie layer. Gently push down as you smooth if you need to and scrap your spatula against the edge of the pie shell. 
• Use the last bag of the whipped cream filling, squeeze out half a bag per pie, swirl and smooth. If you want, save a couple of dollops of  chocolate filling to swirl in the whipped cream layer as a decoration. The filling should dome up a little over the pie shell, unless your pie shell is deeper than the standard.
• Sprinkle any remaining crushed cookies over the top of the pies and decorate with Oreos cut in half on the top. 
• Chill at least two hours before serving. The moisture in the filling will make the crumbs go all soft and allow the layers to bind together.

Ham & Cheese Crescent Rolls

I saw the pizza calzones while looking for dinner ideas one frustrating afternoon, ha. I tried to think of something I had the ingredients for, and knew I had seen something like this before, and honestly I think many times! ...but on that day I couldn't find anything to tell me if I needed to adjust the baking time or anything. No recipes like this to be found on the whole entire internet that day. What?! Sooo now there is!! 

I had all of these ingredients already in my fridge, so I put them together and it made a great dinner! I actually used two cans of crescent rolls, to make enough food for us.

I rolled out each crescent roll a bit...then laid half a slice of muenster on the edge

then half a slice of ham

and finally half a slice of swiss cheese

and rolled it up! 

When I had four left, I ran out of Swiss cheese slices, so I used a small handful of shredded cheddar instead. It worked great!

I asked a friend if she knew how long to bake it. I really wondered if the meat and cheese affected the baking time! She said to follow the instructions on the can, so I did. It said to bake at 375* for 9-12 minutes. I am pretty sure I broiled them a couple minutes to get some good browning, but everyone liked these! 

a close up of the melty cheddar....!

Calzones

We tried this recipe this week, and it was a good one! It came from HERE. 

I want to keep this one and make it again. 

I don't make bread, other than quick breads, like banana, so I bought two cans of Pillsbury pizza dough. I made "custom" calzones for my family. One wanted black olives, and another wanted olives and green pepper. They all had sauce, pepperoni, mozzarella and parmesan. 

As the instructions say, I cut the dough into six pieces, so I made two sets to feed the five of us. We had some leftover but people ate those too! 

For the sauce, I combined one can of tomato sauce with a little basil, oregano, parsley, garlic powder and olive oil. 

For the calzones, I did in fact roll out one can of pizza dough, and cut it into 6th. I added a small spoonful of sauce, topped that with a little shredded mozzarella, diced pepperoni, shredded parmesan, and then if requested- sliced black olives or diced green pepper. 
I folded them in half (had to pull/stretch most of them), then crimped the edges with a fork. Then I brushed melted butter over all of them an sprinkled them with Italian seasoning, which I mixed myself with oregano, basil and garlic powder. 

Finally I baked them at 400* for about 15 minutes. 

We served it with more of the pizza sauce for dipping, and carrot sticks and raspberries on the side!