Mini Weenie Wraps

So, I forgot to blog about the appetizer I made for my Easter meal.

It's a mini version of the thing where you wrap a hotdog with a crescent roll. I've heard them called Weenie Wraps or Crescent Dogs, or Pigs in a Blanket, or whatever. Got it from Recipezaar.

Mini Weenie Wraps

Ingredients:

1 package Little Smokies sausage

1 can refrigerated crescent rolls

parmesan cheese

garlic salt

Directions:

Preheat oven according to directions on crescent roll package.

Unroll but leave intact 2 triangles of crescent rolls.

Pinch seam together and cut lengthwise into 5 strips and then cross-wise to make 10 strips.

Roll each strip around one sausage and place in baking pan that has been sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.

Sprinkle each one with parmesan and garlic salt.

Bake according to crescent roll package directions.

I totally forgot to sprinkle them with parmesan and garlic salt, but they were still good. And so darn cute!

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Double Yolk

Look what I cracked open the other day!  A double-yolked egg!  Neat!

I realized that I had accidentally purchased jumbo eggs instead of my usual large.  I think I was yakking to my mom while I was shopping or something.

Funny thing is, Jim had asked me if I wanted one egg or two.  I couldn't decide at first, then decided one would be fine.  I guess I was meant to have two after all!

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Barbecue Chicken Quesadillas

This is an adaptation of a recipe I saw on bhg.com.

Barbecue Chicken Quesadillas

Ingredients:

Nonstick cooking spray

4 8” flour tortillas

2 cans store-bought cooked chicken

1 cup homemade barbecue sauce

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

¼ cup dairy sour cream

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°. Coat one side of each tortilla with cooking spray. Place, coated sides down, on cutting board or waxed paper. Sprinkle ¼ cup of the cheese over half of each tortilla. Top with barbecue sauce with chicken. Fold tortillas in half, pressing gently.

In a hot 12” skillet cook quesadillas, two at a time, over medium heat for 6 to 8 minutes or until golden brown, turning once. Place quesadillas on a baking sheet. Keep warm in preheated oven for up to 30 minutes. Repeat with remaining quesadillas. Cut each quesadilla into 3 wedges. Serve with sour cream.

Makes 4 servings.

These were great. The original recipe called for store-bought refrigerated barbecue chicken (the kind that comes in a tub), but I just used canned white meat chicken and homemade barbecue sauce. If I had leftover cooked chicken, I would have used that, but I didn't have any and all my chicken was frozen, so the canned was quicker.

The original recipe also says to serve them with salsa. Salsa with barbecue sauce? Ick! That sounds really gross to me. We just used sour cream. Cool and creamy, it is the perfect complement to the warm and tangy barbecue sauce.

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Homemade Barbecue Sauce

I got this from Everyday Food on PBS.

Homemade Barbecue Sauce

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil

1 small onion, finely chopped

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 tbsp mustard powder

1 tsp red pepper flakes

3 tbsp light brown sugar

2 cups ketchup

⅓ cup Worcestershire sauce

⅓ cup cider vinegar

1 tbsp molasses

¼ tsp ground black pepper

Directions:

In a medium saucepan, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and garlic; cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in mustard powder and red pepper flakes; cook 30 seconds.

Reduce heat to medium low; stir in sugar, ketchup, Worcestershire, vinegar, molasses, and black pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until thickened, 5 to 10 minutes.

Makes 3 cups.

It is really good!  I always find bottled barbecue sauce from the store way too sweet.  This has a very nice tang to it.  And a bit of heat too, though not too much.  

I actually didn't make it exactly as written.  I didn't realize it called for so much ketchup and I only had about a cup and a half.  But, since I like it the way it is, I might just keep it that way!  

Sorry if the picture is weird; I wasn't sure how best to photograph a sauce like this.  I didn't think it would show up that well in the jar I stored it in.  I wish the recipe would have stated how long it will keep in the fridge.

I used it to make barbecue chicken for barbecue chicken quesadillas.  

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New Background and a bunch of new posts!

So what do you think of my new background?  It's a notebook!  Neat!  I use The Cutest Blog on the Block for cute backgrounds for my family blog, but never saw anything that would be good for this blog.  They must have recently added this background because I just saw it yesterday and thought it was perfect.  Let me know what you think.  Is it obvious that it goes along with the title "Edesia's Notebook?"

In other news, I had a backlog of stuff to blog about because I had gone so long without posting anything.  Sorry!  I got caught up today.  Here is a list of what I posted today:

From my Easter dinner:

Cranberry Spice Glaze for Ham

Twice-Baked Potatoes

Easter Carrots

Chocolate Nests

Lemon Cream Cake

Mini Weenie Wraps

Two restaurant reviews from our recent trip to Chicago:

Edelweiss German Restaurant

Walker Brothers Pancake House

Check them out and sorry again for not keeping up! 

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Walker Brothers Pancake House

Another great place we ate at on our trip to Chicago.

I found out about the Walker Brothers Pancake House online and read some great reviews about it. I looked at the menu on their website and they offer some really unique dishes. I really like eating at places that go beyond the usual fare and thought this would be a good place to try.

We had breakfast at the Arlington Road location on Monday, April 20th (my birthday :). They have six locations throughout the Chicago area. (Side note: I didn't take the above picture; it's from their website.)

The interior is nice, but nothing too special. They have some pretty chandeliers and other ornate touches. Definitely nicer than an IHOP, but not so nice that you would have to dress up for it.

Now we knew that one of this place's specialties is bacon pancakes. Yes, that's right folks: bacon pancakes. Pancakes with crumbled bacon in the batter. But they had so many other wonderful-sounding dishes that we decided that we would each order whatever we like and then together we would split a side order of the bacon pancakes. Because you can't not try them. Or at least we couldn't.

Here is what I ordered:

VENICIA BENEDICT

Poached Eggs with fresh sautéed spinach, mushrooms and bits of our crisp bacon on a toasted English muffin blanketed with our rich hollandaise sauce, a garnish of pico de gallo.

I love eggs benedict and always like to try different versions of it. I love spinach, mushrooms, and bacon, so I thought this sounded heavenly. I was going to order it without the pico de gallo, because it usually has bell peppers in it and I don't like those. But I forgot.

I was so right about this being heavenly. It was incredible! The egg was perfectly cooked with a nice soft yolk. The hollandaise sauce was really good. It had a lovely tang to it. It definitely tasted freshly made. And the combination of the crispy bacon and the soft mushrooms and spinach was great. All of the flavors really complemented each other perfectly. I didn't regret forgetting to omit the pico de gallo too much; it only had one piece of pepper that was easily picked off and I enjoyed the tomato and onion.

Jim ordered:

CHALLAH FRENCH TOAST

Our special thick-sliced French toast made with freshly baked egg bread, grilled until golden brown. Garnished with fresh strawberries and a light dusting of powdered sugar.

Again, this one is not my picture. My camera batteries died right after I took the pic of my dish and none of my others would work (I really need new rechargeables!). Luckily, they have a pic of this on their menu online. Jim said it was really good. Better than regular french toast because of the challah bread. He offered me a bite, but I was too engrossed in my heavenly benedict to take him up on it.

And we shared:

BACON PANCAKES

Crispy bits of our hickory-smoked bacon in the batter. Served with whipped butter & syrup.

Oh my goodness. These were so good! Well, duh, how could they be bad, right? Actually, it wasn't just because of the bacon that that were awesome. Jim and I both agreed that the pancakes themselves were really good. I don't usually finish a pancake, but I did this one! It was amazing. (Again, not my pic.)

And I have one more thing to rave about at Walker Brothers. This is going to sound weird, but it's the grapefruit juice! Yes, the juice! I love grapefruit juice, but a lot of restaurants serve that really crappy, overly sweetened, unnaturally red stuff they call ruby red grapefruit juice. So I always ask before ordering it. No need here! This is freshly squeezed, with little bits of pulp, naturally sweet. THE BEST GRAPEFRUIT JUICE I HAVE EVER TASTED! Jim hates grapefruit juice but I was so sure he had never had any like this that I made him taste it. He liked it! It is so incredibly sweet, but you can tell it's natural and not added sugar. It doesn't have even a hint of bitterness to it at all. It was incredible. Juice seems a silly thing to rave about, but yes, it was that good.

I am convinced that this was the best place in the country I could have picked to have breakfast on my birthday. It was amazing. We left there so stuffed we almost had to roll each other out to the car! :) I highly recommend it and will definitely be making a point to stop by each time I visit or go through or go anywhere near Chicago!

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Edelweiss Restaurant

I haven't done a restaurant review for a long time, but on a recent trip to Chicago we ate at a couple of places that I just had to blog about.

On Sunday evening, April 19th we ate at the Edelweiss Restaurant in Norridge, Illinois.  We were actually on our way to a Polish buffet-style restaurant, but we drove by this one and decided to stop here instead.  I was a bit concerned that I was under dressed in my Cardinals t-shirt and jacket (our baseball game got rained out and that's all I brought with me to wear), Jim said it was fine, so we headed inside.

When you walk in, there is a bar on the left and the dining room on the right.  We walked up to the hostess by the dining room and she just looked at us and asked, "Can I help you?"  She caught me totally off-guard because I had never been asked that by a hostess before.  I stammered, "We want to eat." and she showed us to a table.  What was that about?  It was either that she thought we were horribly under dressed or because she wasn't used to seating people under the age of 60.  There were lots of older people in there.  

So, I was feeling a bit uncomfortable because it was a bit nicer than I was expecting.  It had real cloth tablecloths, real flowers in vases on each table, and pretty nice silverware.  There was a live band playing, which was nice, but it was a bit loud.  

Our waitress wasn't very friendly.  At first I thought it was because we were under dressed.  But then later I started to think that's just how she is.  Not totally sure.  

The menu is all German dishes except for a section called "Best of the World."   We both picked German dishes, though.  Here's what we ordered:

I ordered:

Schweinemedallions (Hohenzollern) 17.99

Juicy pork tenderloin medallions sautéed and

topped with our creamy mushroom cognac sauce.

Jim ordered:

Sauerbraten (Lippe-Schaumburg) 16.95

Braised sirloin marinated in herbs, spices and red wine.

Topped with our own sweet and sour sauce.

The words in parentheses is the region of Germany in which the dish is native.  We both chose the same sides: German fries and spätzle.  

I was a bit surprised by the prices of the entrees, but hey, it was my birthday (the next day) and it probably wasn't any more than we would pay for a hot dog, jumbo pretzel, and soda at the ballpark anyway.  And I have to say it was much better!  My pork was so incredibly tender and moist.  I almost didn't even need a knife to cut it.  And the mushroom sauce was fantastic!  The flavor was just perfect, not too salty and the cognac wasn't overpowering at all.  And it didn't contain inexpensive white button mushrooms either.  I don't know for sure what kind they were, but they were some kind of fancy mushroom.  So delicious!  Jim really enjoyed his sauerbraten too.  I tried a bite.  Sweet and sour isn't something I usually enjoy, so I wasn't too crazy about it.  But he really likes sweet and sour stuff and he said this dish was fantastic.  

I really liked the German fries.  They are basically fried potato slices.  Can't go wrong with that!  They were perfectly seasoned.  Jim really liked the spätzle, but I didn't.  They are like little dough things.  To me they tasted like soggy bready things.  Not a fan.  But that's what spätzle is; it's not that the restaurant's were made poorly or anything.  

Oh, and I forgot to mention the appetizers.  We got bread and butter on the table and each entree came with either soup or salad.  Jim ordered the soup of the day: split pea.  He really liked it.  I took a taste.  Now, I have never had split pea soup before, but it just tasted like pureed peas to me.  Maybe that's how it is supposed to taste; I don't know.  In any case, I was glad I ordered the salad instead.  I ordered it with bleu cheese dressing, and man, did I get bleu cheese dressing!  The salad was served on a plate, and in the middle of the plate was the biggest glob of dressing I have ever seen on a salad!  I really should have taken a picture of it!  It was like a mountain of dressing!  Now, I am a huge fan of salad dressing and usually use more than I should.  But this was too much even for me!  It was really good dressing; it certainly wasn't Kraft.  It had a great flavor and a nice mild tang to it.  It was much better than anything you could buy in the grocery store.  But I could have used half, if not less, of it.  And I was quite surprised to find an extra charge for it on my bill!  I have never seen an extra charge for salad dressing!  Granted, it was only a dollar, but still!  Maybe they wouldn't have to charge extra if they didn't serve an entire jar of it with each salad!  (To the restaurant's credit, it is listed in the menu.  I didn't see it until I saw the menu online after I got home.  I had just asked the waitress for their dressing selections when I ordered the salad.)

We didn't order dessert; we were way too stuffed from our delicious entrees.

So, in the end, even though the service wasn't great and the decor was a bit cliche, and it was filled with loud old people, I would definitely go back just for the food.  It was the best restaurant meal I had eaten in a long time.  Well worth the price, I think.  (The whole tab wasn't bad since we drank water and skipped dessert.)

So if you are in the Chicago area and have some time on your hands, stop by the Edelweiss!

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Lemon Cream Cake

This isn't a recipe, but I wanted to share what we had for dessert with our Easter dinner. My mom knew that our favorite restaurant dessert is the Lemon Cream Cake at Olive Garden. I had noticed that Sam's Club had a knock-off, so she was going to bring that. Well, apparently Sam's has discontinued theirs (grrrr!), so without my knowledge, Mom went out and bought a whole cake from Olive Garden! If you have not tried this dessert, you should. It's really nice because it has nice light flavors and is a nice alternative to a big, heavy chocolate dessert. And with a very light lemon flavor, I thought it would be perfect for our springy-themed Easter dinner (I do not bake, so whenever anyone offers to bring something, I say "Dessert!")

It doesn't come with the bunny and eggs; those are candies Mom made and used them to garnish the cake. Cute! And oh so yummy!

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Chocolate Nests

A simple, fun dessert perfect for Easter. This is adapted from one I found on Recipezaar.

Chocolate Nests

Ingredients:

2 cups chocolate chips

2 tbsp creamy peanut butter

4 cups chow mein noodles

cooking spray

Directions:

Heat water in double boiler over medium heat and add chocolate chips to top portion. When chocolate begins to melt, add peanut butter and continue to stir until creamy. Add chow mein noodles, stirring until completely coated.

On spread-out wax or parchment paper, drop a generous spoonful of the chocolate-covered chow mein noodles for each nest. Garnish with candies (I used M&M eggs) and Peeps.

Makes 10-16, depending on how big you make them)

The original recipe I read said to form the nests inside a muffin tin. I think free-forming them like this looks more realistic.

I was going to put a nest on each person's plate at the table, but before I could, my husband carved up the ham and started putting it on plates. So, I just served them with dessert after the meal.

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Easter Carrots

Okay, so this isn't really a recipe, but I just had to share. I got the cutest carrot-shaped serving dish at Hobby Lobby and served carrots in it. Cute, huh?

I saw someone on TV (Claire Robinson on 5 Ingredient Fix on Food Network) make baby carrots that still had the top attached and I thought they would be perfect for Easter dinner. But I couldn't find the baby kind at the store, so I got these. I just steamed them in a glass dish in the microwave and sprinkled them with salt. Then each person cut them up themselves on their plate.

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