Bacon Glory

Happy Thursday everyone!

I have a shorter blog today but I REALLY wanted to share this!

The past week has just flown by with work, picking out flooring and other house stuff, and getting the flu.  I’ll be the first to tell you that getting sick that bad…sucks.  There is no better word.  Well….I can think of a few but none are appropriate, whoops!  Oh boy.

So before my 4 day snot-fest and feeling like a semi ran me over, I was perusing Pinterest and saw the most awful for you, delicious looking piece of chicken ever.  So of course I wanted to make it.  The pin didn’t have a link to a recipe but from the picture, you could pretty much figure it out.  

 

Introducing:

CREAM CHEESE BACON

WRAPPED CHICKEN

 

Please take a moment to reread that: CREAM CHEESE BACON WRAPPED CHICKEN

Yes I did die of happiness and the house smelled of bacon heaven. BACON.  Need I say more?  For the sake of the blog I’ll struggle on.  Just look at its glory.

This recipe was fairly easy to recreate.  All you need are chicken breasts, bacon, cream cheese, and shredded cheese if you want to melt a little on top.

I had two large chicken breasts that I thawed and cut in half to make four pieces.  Then I found 2 packages of bacon in the freezer and thawed those beautiful packages out (which I don’t know how those ended up in my freezer because we don’t normally buy bacon, they were probably supposed to be used for fishing bait).  Also, I pulled out a block of cream cheese to warm to room temperature for easier manipulation.  So here is my interpretation to make 4 Cream Cheese Bacon Wrapped Chicken.

Ingredients:

2 Large Chicken Breasts
2 packages of Bacon
1 box of Cream Cheese
Shredded Cheddar Cheese (optional)

Directions:

Preheat Oven to 350 degrees and line a pan with foil.

Slice each chicken breast in half, set aside.  Lay out slices of bacon to wrap the chicken in (see picture) in a cross pattern.  Now, slice 1 or 2 pieces of cream cheese and place in the middle of the bacon cross.  I used 2 slices because I love cream cheese.  Next you choose a piece of chicken and set it on top of your cream cheese.  Once you have everything laid out how you want it, start wrapping the bacon around the chicken one side at a time.    After wrapping your chicken, place it on your pan with the “closed” side down…meaning the side with all the loose bacon ends.  Now that everything is on your pan, place it in the oven for 25 minutes.  Once the 25 minutes is up, flip the chicken so the other side of the bacon can cook for another 25 minutes.  In total, the chicken will be in the oven for 50 minutes.  Take the chicken out of the oven to sit for a few minutes and if you want to sprinkle with shredded cheese, now is the time to do it.  You’re done!

Side note:

For the bacon wrapping, I used 4 slices vertical and 4 slices horizontal on my larger chicken breast cuts and on the smaller ones I used 3 slices vertical and 3 slices horizontal. 



The bacon "cross" (the picture had to be special and not turn)




Pre-Oven tastiness "closed side down"

 

The finished product!

Easter Recap and Birthday Cupcakes!

Hey guys!  I hope everyone had a great Easter. 

I was a little bummed that I couldn’t go home for Easter but I got to spend the weekend with my adoptive family (I adopted them whether they know it or not :D ).  We attempted to dye eggs and ended up dying our hands instead because we can’t follow instructions.  Have you ever tried dying eggs using shaving cream?  In theory it sounds like a terrific idea….with kids ages 4 and under.  …and if you are wearing gloves.  The shaving cream dye just does not dye the eggs successfully; it just makes them a blotchy pastel color, if you’re lucky.  Here is a glimpse of the “before” shaving cream disaster with older kids.

It wasn’t pretty, but we did have fun!  Maybe that is all that should matter.  I wish I would have gotten an "after" shot though.  We also did traditional egg dying and some of the colors turned out beautiful when the girls were patient enough. 

One thing that also happened this month that I want to give a shout out to is Significant Other’s birthday and our friend Wiggy’s birthday.  Wiggy’s wife – Lois – and I got together and decided to throw a “surprise” party.  I use quotes around surprise because both S.O. and Wiggy hate surprises, so we told them we are planning a party and they BETTER act surprised when people show up.  It is amazing what acting skills one can obtain when bribed with cupcakes, fishing equipment, Crown, and guacamole.  ….Those were the best “surprised” faces I’ve ever seen.  Just sayin’.  (raises eyebrow)

For the “Surprise” party, I was excited to be able to make the sweets for the day.  I am branching out into the baking world and I LOVE it.  Preparing meals is ok, but baking lets you be creative and, let’s face it, dessert makes people happy. 

So here I am thinking of all the possibilities for cakes vs. cupcakes vs. other stuff and I start running all my ideas past Samantha, who shows me these cute cupcake toppers Stephanie had just made with the Baylor logos on them.  I jumped on those and asked if Samantha could make more but with Corvettes!  S.O. loves Baylor and graduated from there with a nursing degree and Wiggy fixes up Corvettes and currently has a gorgeous red one.  Let’s just say our stairwell is a Baylor shrine in our apartment. LOOK AT HOW CUTE THESE ARE.

And she still refuses to cash my check, but isn’t the wrapping she sent it in the bees knees (and the picture just REFUSED to flip and look normal -_-)?  I heart twine.  Those cupcake toppers were the inspiration for my themed cupcakes.  For each cupcake (Baylor/Corvette) I did green velvet cupcakes and red velvet cupcakes respectively, with buttercream icing.  All homemade...kinda...ish...ok so it uses a box mix, I just wanted to challenge myself with a new creation and pray I didn’t blow it.  Here are the recipes that I used to make the cupcakes and icing.  In the icing though, I thought the consistency was way too thick for me, so I thinned it out a little at a time with buttermilk (I didn't have regular milk) until I was happy with it.  I also added more food coloring than what was called for due to some of the reviews I read, and I’m glad I did.

RECIPES FOR CUPCAKES AND ICING

 

Cupcake Ingredients

1 package (2-layer size) German chocolate cake mix with pudding
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 bottle McCormick® Green or Red Food Color (I used two for a more true green/red color)
3 eggs
2 teaspoons McCormick® Pure Vanilla Extract

Cupcake Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Beat cake mix, sour cream, water, cocoa powder, oil, food color, eggs and vanilla in large bowl with electric mixer on low speed just until moistened, scraping sides of bowl frequently. Beat on medium speed 2 minutes.
2. Pour batter into 24 paper-lined muffin cups, filling each cup 2/3 full.
3. Bake 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center of cupcake comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes. Remove from pans; cool completely on wire rack.

Once the cupcakes are cool then you can frost them.  I used Buttercream Icing!

Icing Ingredients
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons milk

Icing Directions
In a large bowl, cream together the butter, shortening, and vanilla. Blend in the sugar, one cup at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the milk, and continue mixing until light and fluffy. Keep icing covered until ready to decorate.

 

Tada!

The finished product!  I was so proud of myself I did a dance (and for S.O.’s information, it was NOT a seizure. Take your nursing humor somewhere else then on my happy dance!).

 

So that is it for now!  If you are interested in customized cupcake toppers like the ones that I used, please shoot us an e-mail and we will contact you as soon as possible.  I will post these recipes and a picture to go with them in the RECIPES section of the blog in case you ever want to locate the yumminess ever again or just ogle my goodies (THE CUPCAKES). 

 

Yes, I just did that. 

 

…I won’t judge you too much though ;) SEE YA!