How Sweet It Is...

To be loved by you!!!

Let me just start of by saying...I love my friends. Truly and dearly. This past Monday, I was supposed to cook for a guy friend, but somethings came up and we had to reschedule. Meanwhile, I still had to cook...well, because I still have to eat. I had gone back and forth on my Facebook and Twitter pages about what to cook and of course I didn't end up cooking anything close to what I said I was going to make.

My friends, knowing me apparently a little too much, decided to pop on over for dinner. I ended up cooking some stewed chicken breast concoction that I didn't have a recipe for...but it worked out in my favor. And I didn't take a picture of the actual dish...I'm slacking! But it was some thinly sliced chicken breast that had been sauteed with pearl onions, tri-colored bell peppers and baby bella mushrooms with some spices. But it was covered in this gravy that I got from Betty Crocker's website. I didn't follow the chicken instructions, but reserved the oil in the pan and made the gravy. Seriously some good stuff!!

Smothered Chicken and Gravy

2
2

tablespoons vegetable oil

3- to 3 1/2-pound cut-up broiler-fryer chicken

3/4

teaspoon salt

1/2

teaspoon pepper

1/2

medium yellow onion, thinly sliced

3

green onions, cut into 1-inch pieces

3/4

cup Gold Medal® all-purpose flour

1/3

cup soy sauce

3 1/2

cups hot water

1

teaspoon onion powder

1. In deep 12-inch skillet, heat oil over low heat 5 minutes. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper; place in hot skillet. Cover chicken with yellow and green onions. Increase heat to medium. Cook 10 minutes; turn chicken. Cook 10 minutes longer or until golden. Reduce heat to low; cook 5 minutes longer. Turn; cook 5 minutes. Remove chicken from skillet. Place in large pot or Dutch oven; set aside.
2. Continue heating skillet over low heat. In medium bowl, stir flour, soy sauce, 2 cups of the hot water and the onion powder with wire whisk or fork until smooth.
3. In hot skillet, cook flour mixture over medium heat, stirring constantly with wire whisk or fork, until mixture boils and thickens. Gradually stir in remaining 1 1/2 cups hot water until smooth.
4. Pour gravy over chicken in large pot. Heat to boiling; reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer 1 hour, stirring occasionally. (Gravy may stick to pot.)

Makes 4 servings

I served it with some brown rice, fried corn and these little delicious Brazilian Cheese Breads. Recipe found from Simply Recipes

Have I given you guys the recipe for this bread? If not, here it is. I recommend adding some kind of spice to it to jazz it up a bit. But this recipe comes together super fast and everything just goes in the blender to mix...then pour and bake into mini muffin tins.

1 egg-at room temp

1/3 cup olive oil

2/3 cup milk

Scant 1 1/2 cups (170 grams) tapioca flour

1/2 cup (packed, about 66 grams) grated cheese, your preference, though we got the best results from Mexican farmer's cheese - queso fresco

1 teaspoon of salt (or more to taste)

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Grease a mini-muffin tin. Put all of the ingredients into a blender and pulse until smooth. You may need to use a spatula to scrape down the sides of the blender so that everything gets blended well. At this point you can store the batter in the refrigerator for up to a week.

2. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until all puffy and just lightly browned. Remove from oven and let cool on a rack for a few minutes.

Eat while warm or save to reheat later.

Enough batter for 16 mini muffin sized cheese breads.

NEITHER OF THESE WERE THE STAR OF THE NIGHT THOUGH!!!

The star of the night just so happened to be this Chocolate Cream Cheese Pound Cake!!!

This cake was sooo good! I thought I was going to have to melt some chocolate and do the whole double boiler thing and I wasn't in the mood for all that. Then I found this recipe that just uses cocoa powder. This is truly a remarkable cake and it even got me a few kisses! Like me nieces say...So Yummy, So Yummy In My Tummy!

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 3 cups sugar
• 6 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups cake flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 cup cocoa

Directions

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease/spray a 10-inch Bundt pan.
• Cream butter, cream cheese, and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Add vanilla.
• In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and cocoa. Add about half of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat well. Add remaining flour mixture and beat well for about 2 minutes.
• Pour batter into Bundt pan. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until done.

YOU WANT TO MAKE THIS CAKE!!!! I think for the next time I'm going to make it a Salted Caramel Chocolate Cream Cheese Pound Cake...try saying that 5 times!!!


Other than my friends proclaiming to scare off any man that I date, it was a good night. Oh, why would they do that? So they can eat all the food I cook. One of them even offered to pay me for meal services-which I probably will take her up on. So any of you guys that are thinking about me in a romantical way...just know that you will have to occasionally share food. That's all I have to say about that! LOL


If any of you make this cake, please share your thoughts!!


Have a happy weekend everyone!!
RoJo