Saturday, 12/18/2010

Today I need to share about more food than just dinner.  This morning, I made Cream Cheese Clouds, delicious breakfast pastries from the Kraft, Food and Family magazine.

CREAM CHEESE CLOUDS

Ingredients:
1 can (16.3 oz.) refrigerated buttermilk biscuits
1/2 cup  sugar
1 Tbsp. ground cinnamon
1 pkg.  (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, cut into 12 cubes
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, melted

Directions:
1.  Preheat oven to 350°F. Separate dough into 12 biscuits; press or roll each to 1/4-inch thickness.
2.  Mix sugar and cinnamon in shallow dish. Dip cream cheese cubes in melted butter, then roll in the cinnamon sugar. Place 1 cheese cube in center of each dough circle; gather up sides of dough to enclose filling. Press edges of dough together to seal. Place, seam sides up, in lightly greased muffin pan. Drizzle with any remaining butter; sprinkle with any remaining cinnamon sugar.
3.  Bake 15 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm.

Note:

When I couldn't find a package of 12 buttermilk biscuits, I opted for a package of 8 large biscuits with the same overall weight.  Other than cutting the cream cheese into 8 cubes instead of 12, I followed the recipe exactly.  I still used a regular sized muffin pan and baked them for 15 minutes.  If you aren't a big fan of cream cheese, this may not be the best recipe for you.  If you like cream cheese, you are going to be in heaven:)

For lunch at Katie's party, we put out fixings for cold-cut sandwiches, offered a variety of kettle chips, a berry salad, and, of course, cake and ice cream.  

For dinner, we went to the home of our friends, Kurt and Hilary, for our monthly church potluck.  Everyone was asked to bring an appetizer this month.  I decided to try another new recipe, Bacon Appetizer Crescents, also from the Food and Family magazine.  They weren't very pretty, but a big hit.  The recipe was supposed to make enough for 24 servings, 4 crescents each.  We only had a handful left over and there were only 10 adults at the potluck.  I'll definitely be making this one again.

BACON APPETIZER CRESCENTS

Ingredients:
1 pkg. (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
8 slices  OSCAR MAYER Bacon, cooked, crumbled
1/3 cup KRAFT Grated Parmesan Cheese
1/4 cup  finely chopped onions
2 Tbsp. chopped fresh parsley
1 Tbsp.  milk
2 cans (8 oz. each) refrigerated crescent dinner rolls

Directions:
1.  Heat oven to 375°F.
2.  Mix all ingredients except crescent dough.
3.  Separate each can of dough into 8 triangles; cut each triangle lengthwise in half. Spread each dough triangle with 1 generous tsp. cream cheese mixture; roll up, starting at short side of triangle. Place, point-sides down, on baking sheet.
4.  Bake 12 to 15 min. or until golden brown. Serve warm.

Sunday, 7/4/2010

We were invited over to Chris & Larry's house for dinner tonight. They told us they would provide hamburgers and brats with condiments. Everyone else was to bring the sides. Ben's mom made a macaroni salad. Ben and I took chips, beer, and wine. Other than having to go back to Fred Meyer for more beer and wine, our contribution was pretty easy.

Spencer made a jalapeno appetizer. He sliced jalapeno peppers in half, scooped out the seeds, filled each half with cream cheese and wrapped them in bacon. They went onto the grill, cheese side down first, just long enough to cook the bacon. There was quite a range of hotness (taste not temperature) to each pepper. My mom had one that had hardly any heat to the pepper. Ben, on the other hand, had one that was soo hot that he frantically grabbed Katie's sippy cup after one bite, expecting it to have whole milk in it. He was sorely disappointed to find it had water in it. He suffered while the rest of us laughed at him:) Despite Ben's reaction, we all found them quite tasty. I think I will try to make this appetizer someday.

My parents took brownies and mint chocolate chip ice cream. No problem with the ice cream, but the brownies presented a challenge. My dad baked the brownies last night. When he started to cut them up this afternoon, he realized that they were super hard and would not be good to share. Thankfully, he had a 2nd brownie mix. Although our departure was delayed while the brownies baked, we were able to take our annual 4th of July family photo while we waited. A great use of time--if I do say so myself. I must thank Jennifer for suggesting we take a silly photo too. The shots below are priceless!