Holy Cream Cheese

I hope those who see this do not offend easily. If that is the case I apologize in advance, but this post does make a light humorous touch on religion and is all meant in good fun. That being said, I want to introduce you all to what I have dubbed, The Holy Cream Cheese!

At work there is a new associate, and during her first week she brought in this delicious dish that a relative makes. I took a bite and immediately started rewriting the lords prayer in honor of this cream cheese pastry treat. I got the recipe the other day and have made it for myself, altering it slightly. I will post the official recipe, along with the changes I made myself. I will post my cream cheese prayer at the end.

Ingredients:
3x tubes of flaky crescent rolls
3x blocks of cream cheese
1 stick unsalted butter
sugar
vanilla
cinnamon
milk (maybe)

All right, so one of the best things about this is you don't have to measure ANYTHING!

Preheat your oven to 350.

To start you blend together all of the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and some cinnamon. Add all to taste, add a little, try it, and add a little more depending. Because it's all to taste I did it one item at a time. I also replaced regular granulated sugar with powdered sugar. I did this because I happen to make an amazing cream cheese frosting with powdered sugar, so I knew it would be enjoyed.

I actually stopped at the sugar. My boyfriend, Jay dislikes cinnamon, so I saved that for just the top layer, and I was out of vanilla. Once blended I added just a splash of milk not even 1/4 of a cup, just to thin it a little bit and make it more manageable late for spreading.

Okay so once you have your filling all blended to how you like it, its time to put it all together. Spray down your casserole pan with non-stick cooking spray, or coat it in butter or Crisco, whatever you like for a non-stick surface. Then pop your first roll of  crescent rolls, and lay them out on the bottom of your pan.

Take half of the filling and spread it over the rolls. Between the non stick spray, and the thick filling, this part with bee difficult. Just stay patient, and spread it as evenly as you can.

Then pop the next can, and add a new layer of crescent rolls, followed by the rest of your filling. Spreading out the filling this time will be super easy because the first layer of filling will hold the second layer of crescent rolls in place.

Alright, add the third canister of crescent roll, Then in the microwave, (or on the stove if you prefer) melt one stick of unsalted butter. Then drizzle it all over the top and use a spatula to make sure each pastry triangle is covered. It will gather up between the pastry, don't worry about it, just spread it out as evenly as you can.

Next take your granulated sugar and your cinnamon and dust all over the top.

Bake for 35 minuets in your oven preheated to 350 degrees. After 35 minuets, take it out and smell that sweet cinnamon goodness!

LOOK AT THAT! Oh so good. You are able to dig in almost right away, it cuts easily with a spatula and is great both warm and cold.

It is so simple and easy! Give it a try, play around with the ingredients since it's all just however you like it! This is one backed good that is done by heart, not by head!

And now for the prayer that has already set off way too many laughs!

My taste buds who art in Heaven

Cream cheese be thy name

Thy baked good come

Thy sweet will be done

On my tongue as in my stomach

Give us this day our cinnamon topping

Forgive us eating cheese cake

As we forgive those cheesecake against us

Lead us not into vegetable

But delivers us from Greens

For thine is the cream cheese

The cinnamon,

And the crust,

Forever and ever, amen

April's Oreo Balls

Alright this is a wonderful recipe directly from one of our Simple Cooking group members, and one of my best friend's April. They are Oreo Balls. I don't know where she came across this recipe, but Jay and I took one look at it and decided it was a must try. I took pics in hopes it would be yummie enough to be blog worthy and dear lord it really is! So without further ado, the Oreo Balls!

Ingredients:

1 (16 ounce) package of Oreo Cookies, crushed.

1 (8ounce) package of Cream Cheese, softened.

1 (24 ounce) package of Almond Bark (This can be subsituted for White Chocolate Bark too).

1 (24 ounce) package of Chocolate Bark.

Alright, step one is going to be the hardest thing of the whole process. I'm sorry to be the barer of bad news but you need to crush up the entire package of Oreos into a bowl. It's hard I know but I promise it IS worth it!

Next, make sure your cream cheese is nice and soft, I had to soften mine in the microwave for about 40seconds. Then with a blender or hand mixer, mix the Oreos and cream cheese together well..

Roll the mix into balls, April suggest about the size of a walnut. An ice cream scoop can work wonders for this part, otherwise your hands end up really covered in the stuff. Not that that's a bad thing. You want place the Oreo balls on a cookie sheet and chill in the fridge or freezer for about an hour.

As the hour draws to a close, pull out your double broiler, or whatever you use to melt chocolate, and heat it up. Toss in your almond bark. You want to use at least 3/4 of the package, though I used the entire thing in the end. Melt the bark down and then either with toothpicks in the Oreo balls, or with a tongs, dip the balls into the melted bark and place back on the cookie sheet.

Back into the fridge or freezer for about 20 min. Wash out your pan during this time and rinse well, then go a head and get started on melting your chocolate. When the almond bark is hardened pull the cookie sheet out and drizzle over the Oreo balls with the melted chocolate. Use as much or as little as you like. Chill for another 10 min, and you're ready to eat!!!

These are SO good, delicious, and simple!

Kids will LOVE to make this happy treat. Like the peanut-butter balls, this is a fun messy thing to make, and an easy hand help treat they can march off with the nom on while playing.

ENJOY!!!!

Simple Cooking V-Log One! Baked Ziti and Ceasar Salad!!

Alright everyone, this is it! This is what Jay and I have wanted for Simple Cooking all along. Our ultimate goal has always been to turn Simple Cooking from a a text blog into a V-log. I know it's not the best quality, but this is our very first one and we're SO excited about it! I hope you all enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it, and eating the final results...Jay had some for breakfast this morning as well hahaha!

Also along with posting the V-log here, we ask that you all check out our brand new Simple Cooking Channel on You Tube. So here it is, what everyone's been waiting for! The Simple Cooking V-Log!

I hope you all enjoyed it! Here are the written instructions as promised!

Three Cheese Baked Ziti

Ingredients:

• 1 box ziti noodles
• 2 jars of tomato and basil spaghetti sauce
• shredded mozzarella cheese
• shredded/ground Parmesan cheese
• sliced provolone cheese
• sour cream

Alright so before we really dig in, you want to set a pot of water to boil, make sure it is big enough to cook the entire box of noodles. After that, things move super fast and you really have only about 10 minuets of wait time.Preheat over to 350 degrees Add box of noodles to the boiling pot of water, and cook for about 7-10 minuets until the noodles are al dente (see glossary term at the end of the recipe) Once the noodles are cooked, pour them into a strainer and rinse with cold water until they're luke warm.

Next, get out a baking pan, one you might use for other kinds of casserole, or cakes, etc. and cover the bottom with the cooled noodles.

Add on a layer of sauce, covering the noodles. Place the provolone cheese around the pan on top of the noodles and sauce. Next add on a nice thick layer of sour cream. (Helpful Hint: I like to spread the sour cream on each slice of provolone before putting it into the pan. I learned the hard way what it's like to spread sour cream onto something that is slippery underneath! )
Add another layer of noodles, and another layer of sauce.

The next layer is a nice, thick spread of mozzarella cheese, don't be afraid to cover it all!
Layer on the last of the noodles, and the rest of the sauce once more time. Finally cover the top with the Parmesan, as much or as little as you like, it doesn't matter a whole lot, do it to taste!
When you're all done, put it in the over for 10 minuets, just util it starts to boil at the top a little and the cheese melts. Remove from the oven and serve it up!

Cesar Salad

Ingredients:

• Lettuce
• Parmesan cheese
• Croutons
• Cesar dressing

Break lettuce up wash it up if you choose, fold in Parmesan cheese and croutons, then mix in just enough dressing to coat everything without drowning it all.

There ya go, that's all you need! I hope you all try it and really enjoy it! :)

Cassie's AWESOMESAUCE Feista Chicken Enchiladas

This one is the FIRST!!! recipe that has come to me through our Simple Cooking Group . One of my best friends, Cassie posted this. Now growing up I never liked the way my parents made enchiladas, but when I read Cassie's recipe I just had to give it a try since it was so different from what I am used to. It was so amazing! Its just... all I can say is you can't understand till you try it for yourself! So with a large THANK YOU to Cassie, we dive right in!

Ingredients:

1 small onion, chopped ( or how ever fine you wants it )

1 clove garlic, minced

1 lb chicken breast chopped ( i use 2 breasts from a bag of frozen breasts. we have done strips, corsely and finely chopped. it all depends on the size ou want to bite into )

1 cup salsa, divided  ( THIS  is your real deciding factor of how spicy and the base of the flavor. I probably use about 2 or 3 cups in total. )

4 oz cream cheese ( if you cut it up it melt quicker and spreads nicely )

1 Tablespoon chopped cilantro

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 cup shredded cheese  (what ever you like. i usually use coby jack cheese and probably use about 2 cups.... )

8 tortillas

Alright so this is the list as Cassie posted it. I highlighted the first two in red as I did not use them, since I had plenty of onion and garlic in my salsa. FOR the salsa, I used the fresh from scratch stuff I made in my previous entry. 

Alright so lets start cooking!

1. Preheat the over to 350 degrees
2. In a larger sauce pan heat it up on low with either oil or butter, however you prefer it. Chop up your chicken and toss it in.
3. As the meat starts to slowly cook, add in your onion and garlic. (Like I said I didn't do this due to my salsa.) saute it a bit.
4. Add in a cup of the salsa.
5. If you ought your cream cheese in bar form, it's only half a bar that you need. I cut that up into 8ths so it would melt faster and spread it around the entire pan. 
6. When its about half melted, add in the cilantro, (see previous entry on how to cut up easily) and the cumin. I actually added a ton of the cumin, as I just really really love the flavor. It wasn't too strong just right, mmm yummie!
7. As it all melts down and starts to come together, you'll find it becoming very sauce like all on it's own accord. this is good, we want that. just be sure you're checking your chicken to know it's cooking through all the way. Once the chicken is done, add in your shredded cheese to goo-a-fy!

Alright so now that we're all cooked up, its time for the baking pan. A larger casserole dish is best but I didn't have one so I had to make due.

If you have more salsa, lay it out on the bottom of the dish.

Next, lay out a tortilla. and scoop some of the dish onto it. You can do this one of two ways. You can double the tortilla shells and put the sauce in there with the rest of it. Or you can use one shell and strain the sauce back into the pan. If you use only one tortilla and the sauce it will rip through and it really isn't fun to deal with that. I learned it the hard way. That's when I started to strain out the chicken and sauce.

Wrap it up burrito style or however you like, and lay it seam down in the baking dish. Rinse and repeat, you know how it is, till you baking dish is all filled up.

Alright, so now you should have a lot of leftover sauce with some chicken. Get a spoon or measuring cup or something and drizzle it all over the top of the shells, covering them completely. There may or may not be chicken int he sauce, that's just fine. The more chicken the merrier! After that, if you have any more cheese, just lay it out on top. You can never....NEVER have too much cheese!

Now we bake! Put it in the now hot oven for about 15-20 min. Any longer and the edges of our tortillas will may burn. Mine were only in for 15 and it smelled like they'd burned. Luckily they didn't. Once it's all melty and hot you can take it out of the oven.

Now I actually had to use two spatulas to get these out, they were THAT full, and they still broke up on me! HAHAH! Once you have the enchilada onto the plate, use what's left of the salsa to top it off.

There is SO much food there it's insane! But OH! So mouth watering delicious! I water just thinking about it, this is my new favorite meal, I kid you not.

That's all there is for this super easy!

Who will like this: Adults, especially if you like Mexican food. Children might if you make a smaller one for them, and also if they aren't picky about "foreign objects" I.E.: the weird red or green things. Also depending on the spice level of the salsa that you use, people may not enjoy it if they aren't big on spicy foods. My version in pretty mild, as I didn't make a very spicy salsa for it at all.

LEFTOVERS!!!! We had tons of left overs. They were really good fresh and cold form the fridge the next morning for breakfast. May sound odd but everything you should have for your first meal is right there wrapped up in a nice shell. It's hard from cold and since you wrap the end up, nothing falls out and you can eat on the go if you need to!

That's all for Simple Cooking tonight, you got two entries for the price of one! Enjoy the Enchiladas and let me and Cassie know exactly what you think of them over at the Simple Cooking Group or right here in the comments for Simple Cooking.

Until next time. I love you all, and remember to love yourselves too!

~Alex~

Three Cheese Baked Ziti

Hello my loves! I know it's been a while since I updated you with so super yummie food, but I promise the wait is well worth it. Today I am giving you Baked Ziti! It's something I've been making for a really long time. This particular version has three different kinds of cheese in it, and is so ooey gooey good I've had friends ask me if I'd make it for them if they bought all the ingredients. So are we ready to rock? Then lets wash our hands and get cookin' !

Ingredients:

1. A box of Ziti noodles (my local stores don't carry it, Mostaccioli works just as well!)
2. 2 jars of your favorite red sauce (I like to use tomato and basil)
3. A package of shredded mozzarella cheese
4. A package of sliced provolone sandwich cheese
5. Parmesan cheese. (You can use shredded but the powdered kind is just fine too!)
6. 16 oz sour cream

Alright so before we really dig in, you want to set a pot of water to boil, make sure it is big enough to cook the entire box of noodles. After that, things move super fast and you really have only about 10 minuets of wait time.

• Preheat over to 350 degrees

• Add box of noodles to the boiling pot of water, and cook for about 7-10 minuets until the noodles are al dente (see glossary term at the end of the recipe)  

• Once the noodles are cooked, pour them into a strainer and rinse with cold water until they're luke warm.

•  Next, get out a baking pan, one you might use for other kinds of casserole, or cakes, etc. and cover the bottom with the cooled noodles.

• Add on a layer of sauce, covering the noodles.
• Place the provolone cheese around the pan on top of the noodles and sauce.
• Next add on a nice thick layer of sour cream. (Helpful Hint: I like to spread the sour cream on each slice of provolone before putting it into the pan. I learned the hard way what it's like to spread sour cream onto something that is slippery underneath! )

• Add another layer of noodles, and another layer of sauce.

• The next layer is a nice, thick spread of mozzarella cheese, don't be afraid to cover it all!

• Layer on the last of the noodles, and the rest of the sauce once more time.
• Finally cover the top with the Parmesan, as much or as little as you like, it doesn't matter a whole lot, do it to taste! 

When you're all done, put it in the over for 10 minuets, just util it starts to boil at the top a little and the cheese melts. Remove from the oven and serve it up! 

As you can see, it DOES NOT come out in a nice layer like a lasagna would, but that's alright, everything still mixes really well together and is still FABULOUS to taste!

LEFTOVERS!!!!: Not only can one box of noodles in this dish feed a few people but there is enough to feed a TON of people! Even when I feed close to seven people on one box (three of which have massive appetites) I still have left overs! This lasts us for a good long while, its wonderful to bring to work or school and its so good cold or hot!

Who will like this:

• People who do not like sour cream!!!: I have a very good friend who loves this meal. I fed this to him several times before I discovered he didn't like sour cream. I asked if he knew I had it in the Baked Ziti and he was floored, he said he couldn't taste it at all. Even now, knowing its in there, he still loves it!
• Children: It's cheesy, ooey, gooey and strings out like mozzarella, so it's really fun. The noodles are small too so that helps kids approach this new dinner idea more easily.

GLOSSARY TERM!!!!! 

For those of you who don't know what "al dente" means. Here is the definition directly from BusyCooks.about.com

Al dente refers to the desired texture of cooked pasta in Italian cooking. It literally means "to the tooth". When the pasta is cooked al dente, there should be a slight resistance in the center when the pasta is chewed.

That is it for tonight, my loves! Cook, and cook for the love of it! Feel free to ask any questions you might have right here OR... on the Simple Cooking Facebook group page! Come join the fun and the conversation! See you all later!

~Alex~