About Carrie Zinnecker

Posts by Carrie Zinnecker:

Chicken Caesar Club Sandwiches

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My mother-in-law made this sandwich over Christmas when we went home to visit.  Thanks, Kate!  The recipe is an Ina Garten one, so it has no choice but to produce something delicious.  I made a few changes to the recipe last weekend when we had company. Here is the original recipe.

I made 2 of these sandwiches for 3 couples, and we had some leftovers.  If you’re serving 6 ladies, one sandwich would be enough.  If you’re serving 6 gentlemen, I’d go ahead and make two of them.  I doubled the dressing, which is lovely, light and tangy, and I had just enough.  I baked 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, and fried up about a dozen pieces of bacon.  I used spring mix instead of the arugula, and a jar of julienned sun dried tomatoes of which I used about half.

To make putting this together a breeze, cook and slice the chicken a day ahead.  You can also make the dressing a day ahead and keep it in the fridge.  I would fry the bacon right before you assemble the sandwich so that it stays nice and crispy.  We didn’t take this on a picnic, but I think it would be a nice, fancy picnic sandwich.  Enjoy!

Chicken Caesar Club Sandwich

Courtesy of Ina Garten

Ingredients

  • 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
  • olive oil
  • Kosher salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 6 slices bacon, cooked
  • 1 large garlic clove, chopped
  • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
  • 1 teaspoons Dijon mustard
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1/2 cup good mayonnaise
  • 1 large ciabatta bread
  • 4-6 ounces spring mix
  • 12 sun-dried tomatoes, in oil
  • 2 to 3 ounces Parmesan, shaved

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Place the chicken breasts on a sheet pan skin side up. Rub the chicken with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 35 to 40 minutes, until cooked through. Cool slightly, and slice the meat thickly. Set aside.
  3. Place the garlic and parsley in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade and process until minced. Add the mustard, lemon juice, and mayonnaise and process again to make a smooth dressing. (Refrigerate the Caesar dressing if not using it immediately.)
  4. Slice the ciabatta in half horizontally and separate the top from the bottom. Toast the bread in the oven, cut side up, for 5 to 7 minutes; cool slightly. Spread the cut sides of each piece with the Caesar dressing. Place half the spring mix on the bottom piece of bread and then layer in order: the sun-dried tomatoes, shaved Parmesan, crispy pancetta, and sliced chicken. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and finish with another layer of spring mix. Place the top slice of ciabatta on top and cut in thirds crosswise. Serve at room temperature.

Fudgy Chocolate & Peanut Cookies

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There was a time in my life that I would have turned my nose up at a cookie recipe that used a cake mix.  Times have changed.

Like many of my baked goods these days, this one was an attempt to use things I had on hand.  I had a cake mix, a jar of peanuts, and chocolate chips.  So, I made these cookies.  And they are not bad.

These cookies taste like a cake mix, and that’s OK with me.  I happen to like that flavor every now and then.  The mix I had already had some little chips in it, so add a few more chocolate chips if your mix does not.  I used half butter and half margarine since I had half sticks of both in the fridge.  These were crazy delicious while still warm and gooey in the middle.  They weren’t quite as good the next day for some reason.  Just pop one…or two…or five in the microwave for 5-10 seconds to warm them up, and enjoy with a cold glass of milk. Mmmmm…

Switch the chips for whatever you want.  Use different nuts.  Whatever. Enjoy!

Fudgy Chocolate & Peanut Cookies

Ingredients

  • 1 box chocolate cake mi
  • 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter or margarine
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 1/2 cups salted peanuts
  • 1/2 cup chocolate chips
  • 1 cup peanut butter chips

Directions

  1. Beat butter or margarine until smooth.  Beat in cake mix, then oil, eggs and vanilla until smooth.
  2. Stir in peanuts, and chips.
  3. Bake cookies at 350°F for 9-12 minutes.

Trail Mix Cookies

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Trail mix is one of my favorite snacks.  I am not active enough to really need the calories and nutritional value it provides, but it’s still not as bad as chowing down on a bag of potato chips, right?  Right…

Not only is trail mix delicious, but it’s an easy snack to take along with you, and we almost always have a bag (or a few bags) of it in our house.  I was planning to make cookies for a trip we took to Angel Fire this past weekend.  My original plan was oatmeal raisin, but then I thought I’d use the trail mix instead.  Pure genius.

The trail mix I buy for Ben can be found at Sam’s Club, but when I don’t feel like going to Sam’s just for a bag of the stuff I buy it at Wal Mart.  It is a perfect mix of peanuts, almonds, cashews, raisins and M&M’s.

I used a simple oatmeal raisin cookie base, but instead of the cup of raisins I measured out 1 1/2 cups of trail mix, chopped up the larger almonds and cashews and stirred it in to the dough.  I added a few dark chocolate M&M’s I had left over from Valentine’s Day just to be sure there was enough chocolate in there : )

The combination of peanuts, raisins, M&M’s, almonds and cashews was terrific.  The final product was hearty and delicious.  Enjoy!

Trail Mix Cookies

Ingredients

  • 1 stick butter
  • 1/2 cup shortening
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 1/2 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 3 cups oats
  • 1 1/2 to 2 cups trail mix, larger nuts chopped

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
  2. Beat butter and shortening until smooth, then beat in both sugars, then eggs until light.
  3. Add in vanilla.
  4. Stir in flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.
  5. Stir in oats and trail mix until well combined.
  6. Drop by rounded tablespoons onto cookie sheets.
  7. Bake for 8-10 minutes.

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

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There are no words.  Just salivation.

Baking Bites (link here) does a post called “Bites from Other Blogs” where she  introduces you to new food blogs and recipes.  This one caught my eye, and thanks to always buying more than I need I had a fresh box of OREOS in the pantry!  It was fate, my friends, fate.

The recipe came from picky-palate.com and I will be forever thankful to both blogs for introducing me to this cookie!  Bless you, Jenny!  I am now subscribed to your blog : )

The only change I made was to use part of a bag of chocolate chips, some Heath bar bits, and some chopped semi-sweet chocolate to make the full 10 ounces.  I liked the combination of chips, chunks and bits of toffee.  It makes these cookies even better, in my opinion anyway.  These are so evil.  I recommend bringing somewhere to pawn them off on other people so that you are not tempted to eat them all yourself!

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies
  • 2 sticks softened butter
  • 3/4 Cup packed light brown sugar
  • 1 Cup granulated sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 Tablespoon pure vanilla
  • 3 1/2 Cups all purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 10 oz bag chocolate chips
  • 24 Oreo Cookies
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.   In a stand or electric mixer cream butter and sugars until well combined.  Add in eggs and vanilla until well combined.
  2. In a separate bowl mix the flour, salt and baking soda.  Slowly add to wet ingredients along with chocolate chips until just combined.
  3. Using a cookie scoop take one scoop of cookie dough and place on top of an Oreo Cookie.  Take another scoop of dough and place on bottom of Oreo Cookie.  Seal edges together by pressing and cupping in hand until Oreo Cookie is enclosed with dough.
  4. Place onto a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet and bake cookies 9-13 minutes or until cookies are baked to your liking.
  5. Let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Freezer Pastitsio

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I made this pasta dish back in November to prepare for Carson’s arrival.  We had so many generous people bringing us meals for the first month, then we went home for Christmas, so I hadn’t had an opportunity to make one of my freezer meals until last month.  If I had really been thinking, and if I’d bought more small baking pans, I would have divided this recipe between 2 pans so that we wouldn’t be stuck eating this huge casserole all week!  This pastitsio recipe makes an incredible amount of food.   I think it would feed at least 10 people.  Here is the link to the recipe.

I made some changes, some of which I wish I hadn’t.  Sometimes you can get away with taking liberties with a recipe, but sometimes you can’t.  It’s probably wise to make it the way it’s supposed to be made the first time.  Lesson learned.

When I consider the ingredient list and the way my house smelled while making this dish, I would have expected this to be crazy good.  But Ben and I both found it to be missing something…it was a little bland.  I left out the red wine…mistake.  It would have added some nice flavor.  I skimped on the butter and milk in the pasta mixture, but that didn’t seem to make the pasta less flavorful or too dry.  Since my pan wasn’t big enough, I couldn’t add all of the bechamel sauce…maybe that was part of the problem?  I’d also use Kalamata olives next time.

The pastitsio was good, just not the best.  I would try it again, making a half recipe and being more true to the original ingredients.  If you make a full pan and plan to freeze it, make sure to give the casserole at least a full 24 hours to thaw in the fridge.  Bake at 350 covered for about an hour, and uncovered for 30 minutes.  With a half recipe, I’d still use the long thaw time, and bake a little less.  More freezer meal updates to come!

Frosted Cocoa Brownies

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Oh my.  These are decadent.  I wish I hadn’t made a full recipe because now they’re calling to me from the kitchen, “Carrie, it’s just one more little piece of goodness.  No one will even notice that you ate me…except your jeans!  Mwahaha!”  I hate you evil brownies.

Desserts with which you have a love-hate relationship are usually the best ones.  This brownie recipe will be one that I will make again.  Simple ingredients.  Easy preparation.  Sinfully good.  And while I ate more than one for dessert, a normal person with a healthy relationship with sweets really only needs one to be satisfied.

I found this recipe on Tasty Kitchen, the recipe sharing site from the Pioneer Woman.  Here is the link to the site.  I’ve enjoyed searching through all the recipes, but have yet to submit any of my own.  There are already so many recipes with a pretty great variety that I don’t know if I will.  One of the things I like about sites like these is that real people made the recipes and so they are usually pretty easy and tasty.  Thank you, Tasty Kitchen!

On the site these brownies are called “Are We in Heaven?  No…It’s Just the Brownies.” which is what made me take a second look at this recipe.  I thought it was funny.  Would I say that these brownies are like being in heaven?  No.  Nothing on this earth is going to be that good.  But they are incredibly good.

The brownie is fudgy.  The frosting is pretty sweet, so a thin layer is all you need. (more…)

Pretzel Crusted Chicken

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The idea of covering a chicken breast in a pretzel crust is ingenious!  Add a mustard dill dipping sauce and this becomes an incredibly delicious meal.  This recipe is in the current issue of Fine Cooking, and can also be found here on their website.  Have I said before how much I love this magazine?  It is wonderful.

There isn’t a whole lot to say about this chicken other than that it is super tasty.  It’s simple to prepare.  It uses the same breading process as most breaded chicken recipes; flour, egg, then crust.  While I don’t mind handling raw meat, I do HATE the mess that is unavoidable when breading chicken, and the number of times I find myself washing my hands.

I prepped everything (including breading the chicken) earlier in the day to avoid trying to get it all done right before dinner, which is more of a challenge with a little one who is now requiring an earlier bedtime.  I put the chicken in the fridge for about an hour, then let it sit out for about 20 minutes to avoid putting totally cold chicken into the pan.  I had to cook the chicken in 4 batches, so I kept it warm and the crust nice and crispy in a 200° oven.

I served the chicken with roasted veggies (cauliflower, brussel sprouts, red onion and broccoli) and egg noodles tossed with butter and parmesan cheese.  The dipping sauce, which I served in a seperate bowl along side the chicken, was delicious.  It added a great flavor to the already tasty chicken.

Maybe one day I will get smart about the amount of dinner I prepare for just the two of us.  Sometimes I find great uses for leftovers, and other times I end up throwing food away, which I absolutely hate doing.  I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get Ben to eat the leftover chicken.  The crust would just never be the same!  I ended up making sandwiches using a loaf of Italian flat bread that were pretty good. I used the mustard as a spread on both sides of the bread, topped it with a chicken piece then sprinkled some mozzarella cheese on top.  I wrapped each sandwich in foil and put them in the oven for about 25 minutes.

Enjoy! (more…)

Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day: Loaf 1

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For Christmas I got this book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, from my mother-in-law.  Thanks, Kate!  I have always felt a little negative toward yeast and yeast breads.  I have had some success with yeast doughs, but not enough to make me feel very confident.  This book makes bread baking seem accessible and simple.

After reading through the introduction, tips, ingredients and master recipe I ordered these food storage containers from Amazon.com and once I received them I got started.

The ingredients are simple and you most likely have all of them at this very moment.  Flour, water, yeast and salt.  That’s it.

If you have a large enough container, you can mix it all up in there with a wooden spoon (less clean up), let it rise for a couple hours, then store it in the fridge for at least 3 hours and up to 2 weeks!

There aren’t many hard and fast rules here.  Temperature of the water, initial rising time, the amount the dough has risen (double, triple, etc) days in the fridge, and the amount of dough for your loaf are all approximate.  The directions and ingredients are clear, you just don’t have to worry about water that is exactly 101.3 degrees or a ball of dough that is exactly 1 pound 2.25 ounces.  This is stress free bread making!

That is the part I really love about this.  If you thought you were going to have time to make baguettes to eat with dinner, but suddenly your 2 month old spits up all over the couch and you, then you don’t have to worry about it.  Flexibility.  Wonderful flexibility.

Here are the pre and post risen dough.  My dough just about doubled in volume after 3 hours at room temperature.  I really like these containers.

The dough rose well, it was easy to form into a “boule”…fancy French term for ball of dough, and while the directions for baking seem a bit tedious they are actually quite easy to pull off.  After 30 minutes of baking my bread wasn’t very dark, and it did not look like the bread on the cover of the book.  BUT, it smelled lovely, it had a nice crisp crust, a chewy interior and a yeasty, and just slightly salty flavor.  I am hopeful that the more bread I bake, the better each loaf will be.  So, here is loaf # 1!

Black Bean Soup

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Photographing dinner is hard for me.  It is almost always dark, and so I almost always have to use flash or deal with the yellow lights in my kitchen.  Pictures of our dinners never look quite right.  That is my excuse for this not so great picture of the black bean soup I made with my mother-in-law.

This recipe is from Lick my Spoon who adapted it from Bon Appetit.  Looking at the Bon Appetit recipe, I think I would have chosen to use the chipotle chiles.  We did not make the cilantro lime yogurt.  Instead I topped the soup with sour cream, cheese, chopped cilantro and a lime wedge.

Canned beans are what I usually find myself using in recipes.  I’d never used dried beans before.  It always seemed too time consuming and daunting.  This recipe called for a bag of dry beans that require soaking and a long cooking time.  My mother-in-law assured me it wasn’t all that bad…and it wasn’t!  The beans had more texture and so the soup tasted much more substantial.  If you’re short on time, canned beans would be a fine short cut.  But if, like me, you’ve always been scared of dried beans I encourage you to face your fears and go for it.

This soup, while not the most attractive one, is quite good.  Paired with a green salad, this makes for a lovely light dinner.  Enjoy!

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Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cake

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On any given day there are dozens of recipes that come into my Google Reader from the food blogs I follow.  It would be impossible for me to read all these posts, and even more impossible for me to try to make even half of them.  If something catches my eye, I’ll open it in another window and let in linger there for a few days, read through it a couple times, and figure out when (or if) I will have the time to make it.  This particular recipe was something I knew I had to make, I just had to find the time to get a few things at the store and a big enough chunk of nap time from Carson to get it done.

Bake or Break posted this recipe which is from a cookbook from Baked in Brooklyn.  I visited Baked last summer when I went to see my sister and her family.  I highly recommend making the effort to go there if you find yourself in New York City.   Here is the link to Bake or Break, and here is the link to the cookbook…which I am seriously considering purchasing.

Due to a lack of time, resources, and the memory to get cream cheese at the grocery store, I did not make the cream cheese frosting.  I instead opted to make a simple glaze of milk, powdered sugar and a little almond extract.  I glazed the cake in the pan after it had cooled.  The glaze is nice on this cake, but I am a huge fan of cream cheese frosting and will probably make this again to see how the two variations compare.

The method of soaking the oats in boiling water and melting the butter with that mixture was something I hadn’t seen or done before.  I think it gave the cake a moister and more delicate texture than if those ingredients were combined separately.  Mixing the chocolate chips with liquor (I used Courviosier…don’t ask me why I have a bottle of that) and then tossing in the flour was supposed to keep them from sinking to the bottom, but most of mine did sunk anyway.  Not a big deal.

I really like this cake.  It’s dense, moist, and has great contrasts in texture with the oats, chocolate chips and glaze.  Skipping the glaze and serving this warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce would be crazy delicious.  Why do I get these great ideas after I make something? (more…)

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