Baking Adventure

Using Pinterest has piqued my interest in muffin tins and their uses beyond cupcakes and blueberry muffins :)

The other day, Harris Teeter had a "meal deal" that included orange juice, sausage, eggs, and refrigerator biscuit dough for $5 or $6 total.  I decided to try my hand at some breakfast muffin tin magic. 

You need to separate the layers of your biscuit dough about 3/4 of the way down, and then line the muffin tins.  Then, stab with a fork several times.  They'll still rise a lot.  Then I mixed 2 eggs (yes, just 2), 2 T of milk, 2T chopped red bell pepper, 1T chopped parsley and salt and pepper.  In each "cup" I sprinkled in a few pieces of chopped turkey lunchmeat and 1 piece round of cheesestick (they were the right size!) and then topped it off with 1/12th of the egg mixture.  It's not a lot of egg, but both the baked egg and the biscuit fluff up when you bake! These are yummy warm and also reheat nicely in the microwave.  Definitely put a baking sheet underneath, though, because if you fill the cups too much the egg will bake out. 

In Which We Cook Chicken Scampi

I want to cook more.  I've gotten lazy, especially with couponing since it's so tempting to buy prepared items.  They're not good, they're not good for you (ahem, the recipe I'm going to share has 3/4 of a stick of butter, hem), and I love to cook.

To that end, Logan wanted to make "Olive-ah Garden" for his dinner night this week.  Enter, Chicken Scampi.

Olive-ah Garden Salad (Logan is specific about amounts): american mix bagged salad, 5 pepperoncini peppers, 2 thin slices red onion, 10 black olives, 1/2 cup garlic croutons, 2 roma tomatoes sliced, Kraft Zesty Italian (I hear the OG sells their dressing now- must look into this!)

Chicken Scampi- complicated, but delicious, and only 40 minutes WITH 5 year old "helper"!
1 box Angel Hair pasta, cooked

1 package chicken tenderloins
2T flour
Olive oil

2T flour
3/4 stick butter
3/4 cup milk

1 green pepper, sliced
1/2 large red onion, sliced
1/2 red bell pepper, sliced
1/2 yellow bell pepper, sliced

5 T butter
3 T crushed garlic
1/2 t crushed red pepper flakes
3 t italian seasoning
pepper to taste
1 1/2 cups white wine
1 1/4 cups water

10 cloves of garlic


1. Wrap the unpeeled garlic cloves in tin foil or place in a small ceramic baking dish.  Place in oven at 375.
2. Lightly flour and sauté the chicken in a small amount of olive oil (or olive oil and butter...why waste that last teaspoon?) 
3. In the meantime, in another pan melt the butter and add the flour.  Cook for 1 minute to remove pasty flavor, and then slowly whisk in the milk.  Continue whisking until thick.
4. In another pan, melt the 5T butter with the garlic, pepper flakes, italian seasoning and pepper.
5. Remove the cooked chicken from the pan.  Add the 1 and 1/4 cups water to the hot pan to deglaze, scraping up the bottom of the pan as you go.  Add this to the butter/garlic/pepper flake mixture.
6.  In the former chicken pan, add the peppers and onions and cook to desired doneness using a small amount of water or oil to prevent sticking.
7.  Add the wine to the butter/garlic mixture.  Simmer for 8-10 minutes until the raw alcohol flavor has cooked off.  Add a heaping 1/4 cup of the béchamel (flour,butter,milk) mixture from earlier and whisk to combine.  Cook until slightly thickened.
8. Remove the garlic from the oven (should be soft and roasted in 35-40 minutes).  Remove skins and mash slightly into the sauce.  Combine chicken, veggies, and sauce.  Serve over angel hair pasta.  Parmesean optional.

Cute pfaltzgraff dishes optional, but encouraged :) We love this as is, but I read a few recipes that suggest adding cream.  I don't think that would be bad, either!