Pinspired Recipes

Cinnamon Pull Apart

Heather Painchaud — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 15:00:00 +0000

In this house, we love anything that includes cinnamon, sugar and bread. So when I saw this pin I knew that a Cinnamon Pull Apart needed to be put at the top of the “to bake” list.

The original pin from Deanna uses an amazing looking homemade dough recipe. As you may have realized already ~ I like to take shortcuts in my cooking adventures. So I grabbed a container of pizza dough and a mixture of cinnamon and sugar.

I rolled our the dough and coated it liberally with cinnamon and sugar.

Then I rolled it all up…

cut it into two inch sections and placed the sections in a medium, greased baking dish.

Then I topped the whole thing with more cinnamon and sugar goodness.

After baking in the oven for 20 minutes at 350 they turned out crispy and golden.

This was a quick, fun take on the cinnamon pull apart recipe. Drizzle with icing sugar and you have the perfect breakfast/dessert/snack?!

Next time I would use homemade dough or maybe biscuit dough? The pizza dough was a bit blah. So I give this recipe three spoons out of five.

The post Cinnamon Pull Apart appeared first on Pinspired Recipes.

Buffalo Caulifower

Heather Painchaud — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 14:00:00 +0000

You have definitely seen this recipe on Pinterest. The buffalo style cauliflower. And we’re all wondering the same thing, “is it really that good?” I was wondering the same thing, so I made it.

It was Halloween weekend. Ty and I had considered going out to a couple of different parties but we were so exhausted from the week (a few too many early mornings) so we decided to chill out at home (read: free drinks and no one explaining their costume to me).

What you need for Buffalo Cauliflower

1 head of cauliflower, cut into florets

1 cup of buttermilk

1 cup all purpose flour

2 tsp garlic salt

1 cup buffalo hot sauce

So when I made this I had to come up with a few substitutions;

1). I don’t have buffalo sauce just kickin’ around. But I found this recipe and used it instead. It was super easy to make and took no time at all!

2). I didn’t have any buttermilk. But I referred to my always handy “America’s Test Kitchen” cookbook (go get this right now-it’s so awesome) and it said I could substitute 1 cup milk mixed with 1 tablespoon white vinegar. Then let it sit to thicken for about 10 minutes. TOTALLY WORKED!

Pre heat the oven to 450*F

Cut up your cauliflower into bite sized bits.

Mix the flour, buttermilk and garlic salt in a large bowl.

Dump the cauliflower pieces into the flour mixture and stir to coat.

Place the cauliflower on a cookie sheet and bake for 15-18 minutes. At 15 minutes my cauliflower wasn’t crispy enough for me. Oh I would also recommend greasing your baking sheet prior to putting the cauliflower on it 🙂 Learned that one the hard way.

While your cauliflower is baking, make your sauce (if you are making your own sauce) If not just chill.

I used a deeper aluminum baking dish, like something you might use for lasagne. This resulted in NOT crispy cauliflower. Even after 20 minutes at 450!?!??! So I threw the cauliflower on a greased baking sheet and put it back in the oven for 7 minutes. TA DA!

Once the 18-ish minutes are up, take the cauliflower out and pour the buffalo sauce over and toss to coat. Stick the buffalo sauce coated cauliflower back in the oven for another 5-8 minutes.

It was yummy. Does this recipe fool me into thinking I’m actually eating Buffalo wings? Not even close (especially the way mine turned out). BUT is it a delicious way to eat cauliflower? YES!

So I give it 3 out of 5 spoons.

NEW INFO: My girlfriend Rachel made this on parchment paper and she told me her’s turned out super crispy-not to mention an easy clean up! So I guess I’m just gonna have to make this again, oh shucks!

The post Buffalo Caulifower appeared first on Pinspired Recipes.

Crockpot Chicken Chili

Heather Painchaud — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:00:00 +0000

Ok, so anyone who reads my blog knows that I am somewhat of a chill aficionado. I also rant and rave about my Dad’s world famous chili – because it’s the best! And I pretty much like any type of chili, so I was quite excited to try this recipe. The picture on Pinterest made me drool – for real. And thankfully the recipe is SOOOOO easy you probably have everything for this in your house right now; and really that’s the best kind of recipe!

What You’ll Need

1 large can of diced tomatoes (with or without chills)

1 medium onion, chopped

1 can kidney beans (drained or rinsed)

1 can black beans (rinsed for sure)

1 can tomato sauce

1 can of corn

taco seasoning (at your discretion)

cumin (I used about 1/2 tbls)

chili powder (at least 1 tbls)

I also used a can of fire roaster green chillies from Trader Joe’s. Any spicy pepper (jalapeño etc) would work.

3-4 chicken breasts (I used 3 and it was PLENTY)

Combine the beans, tomatoes, tomato sauce, corn, onion and spices in the crock pot and stir to ensure everything is well mixed.

Lay the chicken breasts on top of the bean mixture. I seasoned my chicken breasts with fresh cracked pepper and a little extra taco seasoning.

Cook on high for 6 hours on high or 10 hours on low. Thirty minutes before serving (or whenever) shred the chicken with a fork and mix it back into the chilli.

Cook for the remaining 30 minutes.

Chow down!

It’s deadly delicious.
I double dog dare you to try it.

The post Crockpot Chicken Chili appeared first on Pinspired Recipes.

Chicken Cordon Bleu Casseole

Heather Painchaud — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:00:00 +0000

This time of year always makes me want to bust out the crock pot and the casserole dish for some real hearty meals.

Something about the cooler weather and family gatherings I guess.

This is another recipe pinned from the fabulous girls at Six Sisters Stuff. I am a big fan of Chicken Cordon Bleu and when paired with a casserole dish? Speak no more. I’m sold!

Find the original recipe HERE.

It was a little time consuming to put together as you need to cook the chicken and prepare the stuffing beforehand. But then you just layer a mixture of chicken, ham, cream of chicken soup and broccoli florets with Swiss cheese and stuffing.

This is a meal that looks pretty in a casserole dish. It would be a nice change to take to a potluck or family get together.

The kids ate it! HUGE bonus points for that one. And most of the family said that they would have it again. I wasn’t thrilled with all of the cream of chicken soup. I might half the amount of soup and add mozza cheese instead next time? But other than that, definitely a keeper!

This recipe gets four spoons out of five.

The post Chicken Cordon Bleu Casseole appeared first on Pinspired Recipes.

Gluten Free Pumpkin Cake Bars

Heather Painchaud — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 14:00:00 +0000

My uber talented cousin is here today, sharing her review of these Pumpkin Cake Bars.

I love her style of writing and am excited to have her guest post here. She will also be sharing an “improve your writing” series on Dragonfly Designs in the new year. Please welcome Melissa!

………………………………………..

As someone who lives with a chronic illness my diet is already pretty restricted. So the discovery that I have a sensitivity to wheat wasn’t exactly the best news in the world. I’m slowly learning to adapt, though. I’ve learned that rice pasta doesn’t exactly taste like the pasta I’m used to and I’m currently avoiding bread altogether as gluten-free bread tastes nothing like its wheat cousin.

I’m also an adoptive-parent-in-waiting (read: I’m approved and waiting for a match), so I’m trying to find as many healthy/kid friendly recipes as possible. (Please do not try to pop my fantasy bubble in which I feed my children sugar-free super-healthy food and never bribe them with chocolate pudding and candy. You can tell me “I told you so” later.)

Combine all of the above, and my latest recipe search has me looking for ingredients I can use, that are healthy AND could potentially be kid approved. I think these cake bars could be just that. But don’t take my word for it. Feed these to your kid/s and let me know the verdict.

*A word of caution*
If you’ve never purchased almond flour before be ready for a bit of sticker shock. It’s expensive! In fact, if you don’t have a gluten or wheat intolerance you could probably just use regular old flour in this recipe!

PUMPKIN CAKE BARS WITH HOME MADE APPLE SAUCE RECIPE

1 jar home made apple sauce (or store bought)

The original recipe can be found at

This Chick Cooks.

Ingredients:1/2 cup pumpkin puree (I used canned)
4 tablespoons honey or maple syrup
2 eggs
1/2 cup almond flour
1/2 cup oat flour *
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 8×8 pan well with butter.
Mix pumpkin puree, syrup and egg until well mixed.
Add dry ingredients and mix until thoroughly combined.
Pour the batter into a greased pan and bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes.

Cool cake. Cut into squares.

To serve: top with homemade apple sauce.

* The original recipe uses 1/2 cup of almond flour. I didn’t quite have enough so I used 1/4 almond flour and 1/4 cup oat flour. You can make oat flour yourself by grinding oats in your coffee grinder.

Enjoy!

Melissa

The post Gluten Free Pumpkin Cake Bars appeared first on Pinspired Recipes.

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

Heather Painchaud — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 14:00:00 +0000

With fall comes all sorts of yummy pumpkin recipes.

And I
can’t
seem
to
get
enough.

Did you see the Pumpkin Spice Muffins that Leslie reviewed last week?
YUM.

So when Keri from Shaken Together linked these up to my Inspiring Creativity Linky Party I immediately pinned them and added the ingredients to my shopping list. One problem ~ even though they were pretty simple ingredients I couldn’t find all of them while shopping {maybe it’s a Canadian thing?}. So I improvised with what I could find and have posted my recipe below. Please visit Keri HERE for her {amazing looking} original recipe.

For the cupcake:

1 pkg carrot cake mix

12 oz pure pumpkin

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

For the whipped topping:

1 pkg instant white chocolate pudding mix

1 cup milk

1 small tub of Cool Whip

Mix the cupcake ingredients together. The consistency will be a bit thicker than traditional cake batter.

Drop 3-4 tbsp fulls into cupcake liners. Smooth out the batter if necessary.

Bake as directed on the cake mix box.

While the cupcakes are baking, mix together the topping. When the cupcakes are cool, pipe on the whipped topping with an icing bag and 1M icing tip.

A little piece of fall heaven.

I give this recipe five spoons out of five!

Really! How can you go wrong with pumpkin and white chocolate?

The post Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes appeared first on Pinspired Recipes.

Spicy Pumpkin Muffins

Heather Painchaud — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Hello Pinspired Recipe Readers!

I’m Leslie and I’m so pleased to be contributing to Pinspired Recipes. Heather and I “met” each other a while ago and bonded over the fact that we’re both Canadian bloggers (a rarity I feel) and even better we live in the same Province! So when I saw that she had started up this blog I emailed her right away ~~begging~~ asking her if I could come join the party.

And since in Canada we are in FULL ON pumpkin mode

I chose to make these Pumpkin Creamcheese Muffins from my “Things To Make” board.

I had a larger can of pumpkin than the recipe called for. So my muffins were a little heavy on the pumpkin side.

I’ll explain a little more later.

This is one of those recipes where you have to mix

the dry and wet separately (read dirtying two bowls).

It’s a nice thick batter that you spoon into the muffin tins.

I like that.

Same with the cream cheese topper. I liked that you didn’t have to skimp on the cream cheese in this recipe. I had plenty of of the second cream cheese batter to put on top of the muffins!

Favourite part? Swirling!

Anything that involves swirling makes it more delicious.

I topped some of the muffins with crushed pecans.

I highly recommend it. Next time I might even candy the pecans first and then put them on top!

So because I was a little heavy with the pumpkin these muffins are quite dense, they almost seem underbaked (they’re not!)

Next time I will definitely use the right amount of pumpkin.

Even so I still give my dense muffins a 4 out of 5 spoons.

The post Spicy Pumpkin Muffins appeared first on Pinspired Recipes.

Apple Turnover

Heather Painchaud — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:00:00 +0000

This recipe?

Amazing!

When I spotted this pin I don’t even think that I went to the original post {until now and found that it linked to a site where I can buy handbags and not apple turnovers}. On my next shopping trip I picked up a container of Pilsbury crescent rolls and I was set.

I simply shaped the rolls into rectangles, placed two tablespoons of applesauce in the center, folded up the edges, rolled them in a cinnamon sugar mixture and baked according to the package directions.

These were

good!

My husband loves apple turnovers so these have been added to the “must make again list”.

This recipe gets FIVE SPOONS!

The post Apple Turnover appeared first on Pinspired Recipes.

Zucchini Bites

Heather Painchaud — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Zucchini has been in abundance this year so I have been on the lookout for fabulous zucchini recipes.

I found this pin for Zucchini Bites and thought that I would give it a try.

The recipe can be found here from Curious Country Cook. Just looking at this pin I knew that it had to contain zucchini, cheese, egg and breadcrumbs. You could experiment with all sorts of combinations yourself… the possibilities are endless!

I used one cup of shredded zucchini, one egg, two tbsp breadcrumbs, one quarter cup of grated cheddar cheese and one tbsp of Parmesan cheese.

I mixed it all up and put it into mini muffin cups as recommended.

Bake for about 20 minutes at 350°.

They were…. interesting. Nothing like tater tots {which the writer and pinners suggested}. They were more like mini zucchini quiches. And while I thought that they tasted good and were a pretty healthy appetizer alternative, the family as a whole turned up their noses.

So this recipes gets two spoons.

Be sure to check out this 20+ Pie Iron Recipe post with lots of ideas!

The post Zucchini Bites appeared first on Pinspired Recipes.

Crock Pot Hawaiian Chicken

Heather Painchaud — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Fall is a great time to start utilizing your crock pot.

Just throw a few ingredients in it and have your entire house smell divine all day.

Here is another recipe from my Diet Shmiet board on Pinterest.

This crock pot Hawaiian chicken recipe was inspired by one from Six Sisters’ Stuff. Don’t you just love their blog? So many gorgeous, talented girls all in one place!

I used 5 frozen chicken breasts, 1 cup of bar-b-que sauce and 1 cup of fresh pineapple chunks.

I set it took cook in the crock pot for 4 hours on high.

Served over rice with stir-fry veggies and it was delicious!

Four spoons out of five.

Definitely a keeper!

The post Crock Pot Hawaiian Chicken appeared first on Pinspired Recipes.