Easiest, Lightest Dinner Party Dessert

I hate having to make desserts for dinner parties, not because it's not the crowning moment of the evening, but because by the time dessert comes out, everyone is always too full, too tired, or even too drunk! I think I solved the puzzle with the below churro recipe. It takes 5 minutes of prep and it's so simple.

I pair this with a spicy salted chocolate dip. A hit every time!

Ingredients (Churros): 

2 sheets puff pastry, thawed
1 stick butter
1 cup each cinnamon and sugar

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Cut the puff pastry in half width-wise and then into about 4 inch long rectangles. ( I ended up with about 20 per pastry sheet).

Lay the cut pastry on parchment paper and bake for 12 minutes, or until pastry is puffed and golden brown.

Remove from the oven and immediately roll each pastry in the cmelted butter and then cinnamon sugar mixture.

Ingredients (Spicy Salted Chocolate Sauce)

12 ounces good quality milk chocolate
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tsp sea salt (to start)
Generous pinch of cayenne pepper

Directions:

Heat the chocolate in a heavy-bottomed pan until melted. Add the cream and stir until very smooth.

To the chocolate mixture, add the salt and cayenne to taste. I always end up adding a lot of salt, which people like because they don't expect it, but be very sure to add it slowly and taste as you go along so you don't make it too salty or spicy!

Buffalo Blue Cheese Turkey Meatballs

The weather is getting cooler, fall boots are on display--that means football season is right around the corner! I'm not a huge sports fan, but I am a huge fan of tailgate fare!! Here's a really quick and easy way to do meatballs-buffalo style!

I liked that there was no need to pan fry the meatballs (which is a complete pain and the sole reason I don't make meatballs more often), and the taste of the fresh parsley added a different note of flavor to the meat.

Ingredients:

1 pound ground turkey (you can probably use any meat) 
1 small onion, grated
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 bunch scallions, thinly sliced, divided in half
1 c. crumbled blue cheese, divided  
Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling 
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup hot sauce (such as Frank’s)

Directions: 

Preheat oven to 400ºF.

Combine the first six ingredients in a bowl and gently mix. Once the mixture has come together, add about 3/4 cup of the blue cheese and gently incorporate.  (Overworking the mix leads to really tough meatballs!)

Roll the meat mixture into balls. (I had about 30 small ones.)

Arrange the meatballs in a nonstick skillet (I used a 16") and drizzle them with just a little bit of olive oil. Place in the oven and bake until the meatballs are cooked through and golden brown, about 12-15 minutes. 

While the meatballs are baking, melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the hot sauce and whisk to combine. Toss the baked meatballs in the hot sauce to coat.Add additional blue cheese and scallions to garnish. Serve with celery and blue cheese dressing.

Recipe adapted from: http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/food/recipes/buffalo-chicken-meatballs/

Don't Faint, BUT...

I don't want any of my dear readers to faint when they read this, so I'll just tell you right away. Boyfriend made me dinner the other night.

Hello? Are you there? Did you faint? No? Good. Read on!

A few months ago, his employer paid for a culinary "team building" event, and since then, he's wanted to recreate the dish for me. On a lazy Saturday, we did a complete role reversal: I laid around on the couch watching cooking shows, and he slaved away in the kitchen! It was glorious! He made a delicious chicken saltimbocca with roasted garlic potatoes. I just had to post this as proof!

Shrimp Scampi Recipe > Worst Blogger Ever

We can talk about how I am the worst blog updater ever (whoopsies!), or we can talk about the fabulous shrimp scampi I made this weekend. (Woo hoo- crossed another item off of my 52 weeks of new foods list!)

I had a small fear of cooking shrimp. Okay, I'm still a little scared of those suckers. Usually I bake it so it's perfectly cooked and delicious, but when I first started really cooking a few years ago, I got cocky and served basically completely raw shrimp in a salad. Awesome.

For this recipe, I lightly sauteed the shrimp in good olive oil and took them off the heat when they pinked up. This food actually tells you when it's done! (Be careful of reheating this recipe though- shrimp gets gummy and disgusting.) Not that you will have leftovers...

I wanted a simple, healthy fresh and classic dish for a cozy dinner party and went straight to my "Cooking 101" aka America's Test Kitchen 547985835483 page cookbook. I found this recipe, made a few tweaks and it came out pretty great! I believe Boyfriend gave this a 9/10. I was sort of pushing for a 10, but diva informed me he "doesn't give those out so easily."

I served this with Parmesan shavings, Celebrity Chef Obsession Ree Drummond (aka The Pioneer Woman's) Spinach Salad (amazing!! Ree's food is always so much prettier than mine!) and crusty garlic bread with whole roasted garlic cloves to soak up the lemony sauce.


Hope you enjoy!

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pound shrimp, shelled and deveined (I used fairly large shrimp at 21-25 per pound)
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 Tbsp olive oil 
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
• 4 cloves minced garlic
• 3 Tbsp. dry white vermouth
• Juice of 3 lemons (mine were small when I tried this recipe, though! Put them in the microwave for 15 seconds before you squeeze- they juice better!)
• Finely chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves (for garnish) 
• Grated lemon zest (careful! This is strong!)
• Cayenne pepper to taste

Directions

Rinse and pat the shrimp dry. Arrange them in one layer on a serving platter or cookie tray and season both sides with salt and pepper. 

Heat  1 Tbsp of the olive oil over medium high heat. When the olive oil is shimmery, add half of the shrimp and sautee with a soft spatula and tongs until the shrimp pink up. Remove to a large bowl and repeat with the second half of the shrimp.

When the shrimp are done, squeeze a bit of lemon juice over the shrimp and cover with aluminum foil to keep warm. (Don't make the shrimp in advance. This recipe works best fresh!)

**NOTE: If you plan to serve the shrimp over pasta, double the ingredients in this next section. Pasta soaks up the sauce quickly! Nobody likes a dry scampi!**

In a large pan over medium heat, melt 3 Tbsp of butter (yes; not a health dish, friends). Add the garlic to the melted butter (you can do this off the heat if you tend to burn your garlic) and cook until fragrant. OFF THE HEAT, but to the hot pan, add the vermouth and remaining lemon juice and scape the flavor-packed brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Let the mix come to a boil and season with salt, pepper and cayenne to taste. 

Add the shrimp back into the pan to ensure shrimp are heated through. Add fresh parsley and lemon zest.

Serve over angel hair pasta (to which I add the last Tbsp of butter!) to make it extra delicious.