Honey Rosemary Grilled Drumsticks

Given the amount of work that went into this recipe, which was very little, I couldn't believe how tasty these drumsticks were! We somehow ended up with 3 jars of dried rosemary so we've been trying to add it to everything recently, and when drumsticks went on sale for 89 cents a pound, I figured why not?

Ingredients:
5 drumsticks
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Sauce:
 2 T vegetable oil
2 T honey
1 clove garlic, grated

In a small bowl mix together the rosemary, salt and pepper. Sprinkle liberally all over the chicken. Heat a grill pan over medium low heat and brush with oil. Add the chicken and cook for about 3-4 minutes a side. Turn every 3-4 minutes until cooked through. While the chicken is cooking, mix together all the ingredients for the sauce. When the drumsticks reach about 155 degrees, brush the sauce all over and let cook, turning frequently, until the chicken is cooked through.

Ginger Cheesecake with Pear Topping

I got my first spring form pan a few months ago and have been dying to test it out! But since there's only two of us here, I figured I probably shouldn't make a whole cheesecake just for us to eat. So when we had a church activity coming up and they were looking for people to bring desserts, I knew exactly what I wanted to make! Cheesecake! It probably was a little risky to do this in retrospect since I've never made a cheesecake before and since I ended up making my own recipe on top of that. If it hadn't turned out well we would have just picked something up to bring instead. It ended up being really good though! Not exactly where I want it to be, I'll be testing out some tweaks to make to this recipe later, but in the meantime I wanted to get this written down so I know what to go off of.

Crust:
36 crisp gingersnap cookies
2 T sugar
7 T melted butter

Filling:
3 8 oz packages Neufchatel, softened
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c honey
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
2 T candied ginger, chopped very finely

Topping:
1 T butter
2 Bartlett pears, peeled and chopped into bite size pieces
1 T candied ginger, chopped very finely
1/4 c honey or more to taste
1/2 c salted almonds, chopped

Grease a 10-inch spring form pan and wrap the outside of it securely with 2 layers of foil. Heat oven to 325.
For the crust, put cookies in food processor and pulse 7-8 times to break cookies up. Add sugar and mix until cookies are broken into fine crumbs. Drizzle the butter with the food processor running on low. Stop mixing as soon as the mixture resembles wet sand. Press the crumbs into a greased spring form pan in an even layer, and gently press up the sides as well. Set aside.
Beat the Neufchatel until fluffy. Slowly add the honey with the mixer running. Add the sugar and mix until combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add lemon zest, lemon juice, and vanilla. Mix well. Add eggs, one at a time. Mix well. Add candied ginger and stir by hand to combine. Pour into the spring form pan. Place pan into a larger pan and carefully add hot water to the larger pan until it goes about 1 inch up the spring form pan. Bake for 1 1/2-1 3/4 hours. Remove from oven and from water bath. Let cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack and then remove the foil. Cool for 1 hour and then refrigerate over night.
Make the topping while the cheesecake is baking. In a large skillet, melt the butter. Add the pears and cook for just about 1 minute over medium heat, stirring well to coat the pears in the butter. Add the honey and stir well. Add the almonds and the ginger and remove from heat. Let cool over night in the fridge. Serve on the side or top the cheesecake with it.

Roasted Fennel and Sausage Pasta

I have really come to love fennel, or anise as they call it here. It's sweet and fresh and crisp. It's delicious raw and roasted. We're big fans of it now. I also have become a big fan of sausage. I never was a huge fan of pork sausage because it felt so fatty, it always made me feel a little sick. But turkey sausage is another matter. You get the wonderful flavour of sausage, but it's so much leaner! Since sausage has fennel in it, I thought it had to be the perfect thing to pair with roasted fennel. This is one of our favourite pasta dishes now and it's so easy and cheap!

Ingredients:
1 large fennel bulb, tops removed (save the frilly green part, called the fennel fronds) and outside, tough layer of bulb removed
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
12 oz turkey sausage, casings removed
1/4 c chopped sun dried tomatoes packed in oil
1/3 c chicken stock
8 oz Penne pasta
Parmesan cheese to top

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. After the top of the fennel and the outside layer has been removed, cut it through the middle and cut the core out of the bulb on both sides. Chop the remaining fennel and put on a baking sheet. Toss with just enough olive oil to coat the fennel pieces and season to taste with salt and pepper. Roast in the oven for about 20-30 minutes, or until the fennel starts to look golden.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to package directions.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat and add 2 tsp of olive oil. Add the turkey sausage and break up into small pieces. Once sausage is mostly browned and cooked through, add the chopped sun dried tomatoes. Cook for a couple of minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the chicken stock and scrape the bottom of the pan to get all the yummy brown bits off the bottom of the pan. Turn the heat to medium high and cook until all the liquid is evaporated. Add the cooked fennel to the pan and add the cooked, drained pasta. Top with Parmesan cheese and some of the fennel fronds that have been chopped

Sugar Free Peach Crostata

Ingredients:
1 sugar free pie crust, unbaked (I just used my favourite pie dough recipe and left out the sugar)
2 large ripe peaches
1-2 T honey
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp lemon juice

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Thinly slice your peaches and put the slices in a medium bowl. Taste one of the slices and add honey based on how sweet your peaches are. If your peaches are tart you'll want 2 T of honey, maybe even more. My peaches were pretty sweet so I only used about 1 T. Add the cinnamon and lemon juice and toss to coat the peaches in everything and set aside. Roll out your pie crust to about 10-11 inches in diameter and move to a baking sheet. Arrange the peach slices in the middle of the pie dough, leaving about an inch border around the edges. Gently fold the pie dough border over the peaches and gently press on to the peaches. It's a rustic dessert so don't worry about it looking perfect. Carefully spoon some of the juices in the bottom of the peach bowl over the peaches in the center. I used all of the juice in mine, it was about 1/4 c of liquid. Bake for 45 minutes or until crust is starting to brown and peaches are cooked through.

Cheap Eats: Chinese Noodles

When you're on a budget like we are, a few good cheap meals in your repertoire can really save your food budget some months. This is a dish my mom made all the time when we were growing up and I never really liked it as a kid. But when we were just in Utah visiting my mom mentioned something about Chinese Noodles and I had totally forgotten about them. I thought I would like them now that I'm an adult so I made them pretty soon after we got back from Utah and I did like them! Easy, cheap and not bad tasting either. Not a gourmet meal by any stretch, but what meal is that costs $1 or so a serving?

Ingredients:
2 c water
2 packages Ichiban (or top ramen), broken into fourths
Olive oil
1/2 white onion, diced
1/2 green pepper, diced
1 tomato, diced
4 eggs, well beaten
2 limes
Lemon pepper

Add water and seasoning packages from Ichiban to a large frying pan and bring to a boil. Meanwhile heat about a tablespoon of olive oil up in another frying pan over medium heat and add the onion. Cook for a minute or two and add the green pepper. Once water is boiling, add Ichiban pieces and cook for about a minute over medium heat. Flip noodles over and cook for another minute. Add the tomato to the onions and peppers. When the water from the noodles is almost all gone, stir in the beaten eggs. Add the veggies and stir to combine. Season to taste with lemon pepper and lime juice.

Raspberry Coconut Overnight Oats

I used this recipe as inspiration for these overnight oats. The best idea was using all fruit jam as the sweetener! I made some changes because we only keep Greek yogurt on hand but I don't really like the tanginess of it (Greg is the one that eats it) but I didn't want to buy regular yogurt just for this so I used less yogurt and swapped the milk for coconut milk to try to mask the tanginess of the yogurt and it's delicious!

Ingredients:
1/2 c full fat plain Greek yogurt
1 1/2 c full fat coconut milk
1/3 c all fruit jam (we have used raspberry but any would be great!)
1 tsp vanilla
1 c rolled oats
2 T chia seeds
2/3 c chopped almonds

In a bowl whisk together the first 4 ingredients. When the jam is all incorporated in, stir in the oats, chia seeds, and half of the almonds. Mix well, cover the bowl, and refrigerate overnight. This makes 4 servings. Use the other half of the almonds to sprinkle on top when you serve it

Cajun Fettuccine

Ingredients:
12 oz dry Fettuccine
1 T olive oil
1 lb peeled and deveined shrimp
Cajun seasoning
Half a small white onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 c chicken stock
1/4 c cream
1 c frozen corn
1/2 c grated Parmesan
Salt and pepper to taste

Cook pasta according to package directions. Meanwhile, sprinkle one side of the shrimp with the Cajun seasoning, just enough to lightly coat the one side. Drizzle the olive oil in a skillet and heat over medium high heat. Add the shrimp once the oil is hot and cook for about 2 minutes per side, or until opaque. Remove the shrimp from the skillet and add the onion. There will should be brown bits on the bottom of the skillet, that is what you want! Don't clean it out! Cook the onion for a couple of minutes until softened and then add the garlic. Stir and let cook for just about 20 seconds so the garlic doesn't burn and quickly add the chicken stock, scraping up all the brown bits in the pan. Add the cream and stir well. Add the corn and Parmesan and season to taste. When the pasta is cooked al dente, remove it from the water and put directly into the sauce. You want some of the water on the pasta to get into your sauce. The starchy pasta water helps pull the sauce together. Toss it together and add the shrimp back in