Buffalo Chicken Sliders

My brother is a college graduate! He can now walk around and say "Trust me, I'm an Engineer." The graduation itself had me wishing I had stayed in bed but it was worth it to see him walk across that stage. My dad actually managed to sleep through a good portion of the ceremony. When we questioned him about it afterwards he justified it by saying he had asked mom for the okay before catching some zzz's. He is one of those people who can sleep anywhere anytime, I think the struggle for him may be remaining awake.

After the graduation we headed to the lake and had a graduation jubilee. My parents rented this jumbo circus looking tent which was perfect for escaping the Alabama heat. Since I moved out of my dorm the day before I wasn't able to assist with the food for a party but it went off without a hitch without me! Mom made some amazing summer salads and desserts and we ordered chicken strips from Guthrie's. Now I was unaware but apparently the chicken is merely a straw for the sauce, which is out of this world.

We had numerous family and friends to celebrate with, but twice as much food. Therefore we were left with leftovers for days. It was a challenge every night to come up with a meal which used a couple of the food items we had left. One that made it to the top of the list was buffalo chicken sliders. I went to the grocery and picked up a roasted chicken (the chicken strips were long gone by this point) some sauces and coleslaw mix to spice up the leftover dinner rolls.

My family already has a slightly unhealthy obsession with Buffalo Chicken Dip so creating something similar to that meant game over. And the sliders are a great size because each person can get the perfect amount. The Frank's hot sauce makes them spicy but the cool ranch coleslaw manages to mellow them out to create a perfectly spiced and flavored slider!

Guaranteed to slide right down.

Coat shredded cabbage coleslaw mix with ranch dressing.

Warm pulled chicken in a pan and add Frank's Hot Sauce.

Cut rolls and brown in a pan.

Enjoy the perfect Summer meal!

Makes 9

Ingredients:

9 mini buns or dinner rolls

3 cups coleslaw mix

1/3 cup ranch

4 cups cooked shredded chicken

1/2 cup franks hot sauce

Tomato slices optional

1. In a medium bowl coat coleslaw mix with ranch dressing, set aside.
2. In a medium pan heat shredded chicken and add hot sauce until warmed.
3. While chicken is heating cut dinner rolls in half and brown in a pan on the stove.
4. To assemble: place a scoop of shredded chicken and then coleslaw on the bottom bun, top with other bun half.

Chocolate Chip Muffins

Mother's Day is near! The day of brunch, flowers, and cards. This Mother's Day we will be in Atlanta celebrating with my grandmother, so I decided to make my moms treat a few days early. Brunch beats breakfast any day in my mind, for more than one reason.

Reason one, its later than breakfast. One thing that makes me the grumpiest is waking up early, if the sun isn't up yet, then neither should I be. If the sun has only been up for four hours, then I still shouldn't be up. Reason two, more indulging. I feel much less guilty about eating breakfast sweets when its later in the day.

Moms love brunch, actually I'm sure they love any meal that they don't have to cook, but brunch must be at the top of the list. And depending on which brunch treat is made, you can enjoy it at any point in the day, like these chocolate chip muffins!

My brother ate one fresh from the oven and declared them "out of this world". He isn't a huge fan of sweets and therefore loved these not-too-sweet treats. He proceeded to eat three before dinner, and one after! The person who I made them for, my lovely mother, saw them and asked when I was putting the frosting on. They're muffins mother! Almost anything may go for brunch, but not cupcakes, but chocolaty muffins are definitely in the clear. Once she had one she realized why my brother loved them, they taste just like chocolate chip cookie dough. I made the mistake of making a small batch, but these muffins are full-batch material! I heard that they froze well, I would love to be able to pull one of these from the freezer at any time. Mother's Day or not, these muffins are our jam.

Lets make everyday Mother's Day!

Make a well in the dry ingredients and add wet ingredients.

Mix until combined.

Mix in chocolate chips and spoon into cupcake liners.

Bake until a tooth pick comes out clean.

Serve on a tray with flours and fruit for the prefect Mother's Day brunch!

Ingredients:

2 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup light-brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2/3 cup milk

1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup chocolate chips (this is on the light side, add more if you really like them chocolaty)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line cupcake pan with liners. In a large bowl stir the flour, sugars, baking powder, and salt together.
2. In a separate bowl stir together the milk, eggs, butter, and vanilla.
3. Form a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients into it. Stir just to combine. Stir in chocolate chips.
4. Spoon batter into cupcake liners and bake for 15-20 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
5. Cool for 5 minutes on wire rack and then remove from tins to finish cooling.

Recipe adapted from here

Homemade Turkey and Spinach Ravioli

You may have noticed a little change to the blog URL (if not, now is your chance to look). JustCallMeMaria is a big-girl site now, happy belated birthday to me! Now that I've got a .com I feel so professional, as if I'm not currently writing this post to delay studying for finals. This is my little fantasy world and I like it.

Other than a URL upgrade, I also got some very Maria-y tools birthday presents. One of which was a ravioli maker, which would also be the perfect size for a batch of homemade pierogies. And what would a ravioli maker be without a pasta maker? Nothing, absolutely nothing, hence another new kitchen tool. Granted, we already had a pasta maker hidden in a closet somewhere downstairs, but it had long ago been contaminated by clay craft projects. 

I must say that the pasta project had a bit of a rocky start. I went to the store and got all the supplies only to realize when I got home that we were out of flour. After a second trip to the store, where a stocked up on a flour supply, I got down to business with a tad bit less enthusiasm. Then once the dough was combined it looked like a lumpy hot mess of a ball. My mom even suggested tossing it and starting over, my hard head wouldn't let myself do that so I just kept kneading until it was smooth and pasta perfect.

Once the dough was done rising my mom and I had a pasta assembly line. She cranked the pasta machine while I fed the dough through the machine, and once it was at the perfect thickness I cut the circles, she filled them, and then I sealed them close. It took some time but definitely wasn't difficult and it was a lot of fun. Just think, by the end not only can you say "we MADE these ravioli" but you also get to eat them!

Now that I've got the tools you can count on more pasta creations in the future!

Crack eggs into the well of the flour mixture in a mixer with a bread hook.

Mix until combined.

Add other ingredients and kneed until a smooth ball forms.

Separate into 4 balls, cover with a moist towel, and let rest. 

In a medium bowl mix filling.

Fold dough into thirds.

Feed through pasta machine.

Cut out ravioli.

Add filling.

Close ravioli.

Place on a tray to dry.

Cook in boiling water 4-6 minutes.

Serve with pasta sauce.

Makes 30 Large Ravioli

Ingredients:

Pasta:

3 cups all purpose flour

½ tsp salt

4 eggs

1 tbs oil

2 tbs water, plus more as needed

Filling:

3/4 cup chopped spinach frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry

2 eggs

1 ½  lb Italian turkey sausage

1 tsp minced garlic

3/4 cup parmesan/mozzarella (mine was a mixture of the two)

3/4 cup Romano cheese

1. On a work surface or in a bowl combine the flower and salt. Made a well in the center and crack the eggs into the well. Using a mixer, or by hand, slowly mix the ingredients.
2. Slowly incorporate the dry ingredients into the eggs, a little at a time. Once the dough is dry and crumbly mix in the olive oil and water and kneed by hand until the dough is smooth and not tacky, at least 5 minutes. If it is too dry add a tad bit more water.
3. Divide the dough into four balls and cover with a damp towel, let rest for 20 minutes. While the dough is resting make the filling. 
4. Remove the Italian turkey sausage from their casings and sauté until cooked through, then add garlic and remove from heat. In a medium bowl add the spinach, cheeses, eggs, and cooled meat (you don’t want the meat to cook the raw eggs!). Cover and set aside. 
5. Taking one ball of dough flatten it slightly into a rectangle on a floured surface, then run it through the pasta machine at its largest setting, take the strip of dough and fold it into thirds and run it back through the machine. Make sure to lightly flour the dough each time it goes through the pasta machine. Do this about 5 times at the largest setting.
6. Then move the pasta maker down one to a more narrow setting. Feed the strip of dough through the machine. Without folding the strip into thirds, re-feed it through the machine at a more narrow setting. Repeat, reducing the thickness setting until you achieve your desired thickness (I did mine to setting 3). Make sure to flour the dough between each run through the pasta machine. If your strip of dough becomes too long to handle cut it in half and continue to feed a half at a time through the pasta machine. 
7. Once the desired thickness is achieved lay the strip of pasta on a lightly floured surface and cut and fill the ravioli with about 1 1/2 tbs of filling (for large ravioli). If the sides of the ravioli are not sticking together dampen the edges with some water. Place the filled ravioli aside and continue the process with the three other dough balls.
8. Let ravioli dry for 30-60 minutes before cooking. To cook, boil the ravioli for 4-6 minutes or until al dente.

Peanutty Buckeye Bars

That very well could have been the longest cliffhanger ever! But now to continue the saga. So my poor Frankenstein leg was stitched up and I was told to have the sutures taken out 10 days later. So ten days roll around and the cut still didn't look completely healed so after some internet research I decided to wait another 4 days. And then I decided that I've seen enough episodes of Grey's Anatomy to classified as a surgeon...

So I bought myself some small scissors and butterfly bandages and got down to business. I started at the shallow end and cut a few out, then by the third stitch it started to reopen. So I held it back together with bandages and called my brother who immediately picked me up and we headed to the hospital. Sadly I had decided to dabble as a doctor at 11 PM, so it was a very long night. More than two hours later we saw a physician with more certification than a TV drama. He took out three more stitches, referred me to a surgeon, and told me that I would be having surgery the next day.

Once calling the surgeons office the next morning I was informed that they would be unable to get me in for 10 more days. With a half gaping/half stitched wound that was not the response I was hoping for, so my parents told me to come back home so we could see our family physician. Our family physician then referred me to a general surgeon where a got an appointment for 5 days later.

After seeing the wound the surgeon took out the remainder of the stitches and said that I would just have to wait for it to heal secondarily, from the inside out. Apparently due to the high risk of infection it shouldn't have been stitched up in the first place, which is why it didn't heal correctly. So my scar with a not so epic story is now a much worse scar-in-the-process, with an even more pathetic story.

Moral of the story: 1) Don't try to climb tall spiked fences 2) question the doctor the the shaky hands before he stitches your gaping wound close 3) listen to your family when they tell you not to take out your own stitches 4) doctors don't notice that it's your birthday when they ask for your date of birth 5) each doctor thinks the previous ones did everything wrong 6) chocolate and peanut butter are the best medicine

Feeling better already!

Ingredients:

Combine brownie batter ingredients.

Press half of the batter into a lightly greased 13x9 pan.

Mix sweetened condensed milk and peanut butter until smooth.

 Pour on top of brownie batter and spread evenly.

Flatten the remaining brownie batter into pieces and place evenly on top. 

Bake until the center is set and the edges are golden brown. 

Let cool, cut, and enjoy!

Layer with waxed or parchment paper before stacking.

 Ingredients:
1 19 1/2 ounce package brownie mix
2 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup chopped peanuts
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup peanut butter

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl stir together brownie mix, eggs, and oil until combined. Then stir in chopped peanuts.
2. Press half of the batter evenly into the bottom of a lightly greased 13x9 pan, set the other half aside.
3. In a medium bowl mix sweetened condensed milk and peanut butter until smooth. Spread evenly over the brownie mixture in the pan. Take the remaining brownie mixture and separate into pieces, flatten them with your fingers into disks and evenly place on top of the peanut butter mixture in the pan.
4. Bake for 28-33 minutes or until the top is set and the edges are lightly browned. Cool completely before cutting into bars.

Recipe from here

Coconut Cream Cupcakes

Once again, I am so sorry for my absence! But it's with good reason. Who's ready for the sad tale of a silly girl?

Let me start off by saying that the whole event was my last moment of teenage foolishness, because I'm 20 now! Happy Birthday to me.

So as all horrific stories begin: it was Spring Break. My friends and I decided it would be easier to just hop over the fence to get to the condos hot tub. Mind you this said fence was taller than me, and topped with giant metal spears. But I was a teenager and invincible! Or so I thought. I got one leg partway over and slipped, falling backwards into a bush. At that point I knew I had hurt myself but was sure it was just a scratch. The boy who had been trying to help me over from the other side saw the injury and quickly proclaimed "I think you need to go to the hospital". (Of course there was boys involved, darn those boy crazed teenage years of my past.)

As I helped my friend come back to the safe side from her perched position on top of the fence I responded "nahh I'm fine!" And then I sat down and took a look at THE GAPING HOLE IN MY CALF. Muscle visible and everything, not a good sign. So we rush to the ER and I crack jokes with the nurses telling them all about the free french fries and green ketchup at Burger King, commenting that the medical field is the only time I approve of crocs, and wondering if I'll be left with a scar because I had really good calves and my calf modeling career had just started to pick up.

Keep in mind that my phone battery was dying on my way to the emergency room, so I shot a text to my sister and mom telling them where I was headed. My sister was up getting ready for work and texted me back telling me to call her immediately (you caught me, the attempted hot tub trip happened in the wee hours). So I called her and claimed that it was "just a scratch". She asked how many stitches, so I asked the doctor as he shakily stitched me up. Once he told me the lucky number I relayed it to my sister, "twenty", and my phone died.

I kid you not. And of course the only other persons number they had was my best friends, and her phone had died thirty minutes before.

A side note: earlier in the night the group of us had hatched the plan to watch the sun raise, and wouldn't you believe it, the sun was coming out as the five of us walked from the hospital. Not quite what we had in mind...

After being jankily patched up, the boys (who felt far too quilty) treated us to an early breakfast. Once finally making it back to the condo we caught some sleep as my phone charged. Once it had some power I called my frantic mother and explained the story. Then we had to make a trip back to the hospital because they forgot my tetanus shot. The next day I had to leave the spring break fun, a day early. Could anything else have gone wrong? (You'll have to wait for my next post to hear all about the answer to that.)

But on a happy note, while I was at home recovering I made these Easter treats! Actually they're year-round treats that can be spruced up with some holiday cheer.

It's a shock I made it to 20.

Scoop a 1/4 cup of the coconut milk solid to set aside.

Spoon graham cracker crumbs into each cupcake liner.

Fill with batter and bake.

 Let cool while mixing frosting.

Pipe an orange chocolate beak onto each chocolate egg.

Toast shredded coconut in a pan.

Top frosted cupcakes with shredded coconut and plain chocolate eggs,

decorated chocolate eggs,

or rim with crushed graham crackers!

Cupcake Ingredients:

1 cup coconut milk 

1 box white cake mix

½ cup sour cream

2 tbs from a cheese cake pudding mix (3.4 oz package)

1/3 cup shredded coconut

1/3 cup vegetable oil

3 egg whites

1/2 cup finely crushed graham crakers

Frosting Ingredients: 

1 (8oz) cream cheese (room temperature)

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter (room temperature)

Remainder of cheese cake pudding mix

¼ cup coconut milk solid

8 cups powdered sugar (almost a 2 lb bag)

1 cup toasted shredded coconut

Optional: 1/4 cup crushed graham crackers 

Easter Topper Ingredients:

Package of chocolate Easter egg candies

1 tbs white chocolate

yellow and red food coloring

1 tbs chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven according to cake mix box
2. Place your can of coconut milk in the refrigerator for some time, or over night. Take it out and keep it in the upright position. Open the can and scoop out 1/4 cup of the thickened coconut milk at the top, set aside for frosting.
3. Mix the remaining coconut milk and measure out a cup and place into a large bowl, add next six cupcake ingredients and mix until completely combined.
4. Place liners in cupcake pan and spoon about a teaspoon of graham cracker crumbs into the bottom of each, then fill 2/3rds full with batter. Bake according to cake box directions or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (the tops should be slightly golden). Take out and let cool completely.
5. As cupcakes cool prepare frosting in a mixing bowl. Begin by creaming butter and cream cheese with an electric mixer. Add remaining pudding mix and mix until combined, then mix in the 1/4 cup of coconut milk solid. Then add powdered sugar, 1/2 cup at at time until proper consistency is achieved. 
6. In a small pan on the stove cook the shredded coconut until golden brown, stirring occasionally, let cool. Ice cooled cupcake with frosting and sprinkle/roll in toasted coconut. Lightly press into frosting to help it stick. Or instead roll iced cupcake edges in crushed graham crackers.
7. For Easter version: Melt white chocolate chips and add a couple drops of yellow food coloring and then a drop of red to achieve orange color. Spoon into a plastic sandwich bag and snip off the very tip. Use to pipe a beak onto each chocolate egg, let harden. Next melt chocolate chips and use a toothpick to dot eyes onto each chocolate egg. Place on top of frosted cupcakes.