Chicken Haystacks

Another super easy and yet delicious meal--takes only 25 minutes.  My family loves this meal and it is an easy fall back on a busy night, which all we college students have more often than we like to admit.  Instead of jumping to fast food have some of these easy fall back on hand.

Ingredients:
Croissants--I use Pillsbury in the can
Cream Cheese (room temp)
2 Medium Chicken Breasts
Season Salt

1. Boil you chicken until well cooked--allow to cool and then shred with a fork.
2. Place the cream cheese in a large bowl and add the chicken.
3. Season with season salt or your preference of seasonings and mix well
4. You should now have a thick chicken/cream cheese mixture
5. Place two croissants in the shape of a + on your greased cooking sheet
6. Repeat with the rest of the can of croissants
7. Place a half dollar (or more if you like) amount of the chicken mixture in the center of the two croissants and twist the ends together around the chicken.
8. Sprinkle with a little seasoning on the outside of the croissants
9. Preheat the oven to 350 and bake for 15 minutes until they are golden brown

I like to serve these with mashed potatoes and a side salad-- I like to have starches with my starches hahaha.

Enjoy!!

Kait

Sausage Balls

This is another momma's favorite that I really enjoy and it is super easy to make.  It makes about 25 balls and you can save them and eat them for breakfast for a while.

Ingredients:
Sausage of your choice
Bisquick mix

• follow the biscuit recipe on the box

Shredded cheese of your choice

Seriously.  So EASY.

1. Make the biscuit mix fully
2. Empty the sausage in the the mix and knead it all together
3. Knead in your cheese
4. Roll into quarter/half dollar sized balls and put on a cooking sheet
5. Preheat the oven to 350 and cook for 20 minutes

-Kait

Sushi

Been away from the cyber world for a while preparing for student teaching but I've been preparing recipes all break to post, so there are going to be 4 new ones today!  :P

First one today is Sushi.  Take it or leave it--I will ALWAYS take it.  I love sushi and it is so so much cheaper to make it at home then to try and buy it anywhere.

I'm going to show you today how to make a general role the way that is my favorite--tweek it as you will. :)

Ingredients:

Fish (in this case I used smoked salmon)

• Explanation-- Unless you're going to go to Sprout's or something it is really hard and kinda scary to use real raw fish... but real raw fish tastes better.  At the end of this post I'll put up some links on how to choose raw fish for sushi, but if you're going to use it--freeze it first.  It helps kill a LOT of the bacteria and most sushi chefs freeze it at least for a while before they serve it.

2 cups Rice (I use Botan rice)
1/2 cup White Rice Vinegar
3 cups Water
1 tbsp of oil (olive or veggie)
1/4 cup of white sugar
1 tsp of salt
Seaweed Sheets
Crab--imitation or crab snackers. (I uses the snackers--it's a dollar at walmart for enough for several rolls)
Avocado
Jalapeno

The Rice:

1. Place the rice in a strainer and rinse it until the water runs clear.
2. Add the rice and the water in a pot and bring to a boil.
3. Reduce the heat to low and cover the pot for 20 minutes.  Stir sometimes to keep the rice from sticking.
4. Allow to cool so that it can be touched.
5. In another sauce pan mix rice vinegar, sugar, oil, and salt.
6. Cook over medium heat until the sugar dissolves
7. Pour over the rice and mix well, the rice will seem damp
8. Allow to cool again

The Assembly:

This will be the most confusing part and you may suck at it at first.

You will need a bamboo sushi roller.  I got mine at World Market for like 4 bucks... it looks like this. :P

1. Take the cooled rice and spread it over the bamboo roller.  Don't completely cover it, just slightly larger around each edge than the sea weed.
2. Press the sea weed lightly onto the rice until it sticks well.
3. Cut your crab/avocado etc etc, whatever you like inside your sushi and place it down the middle of the seaweed.
4. Make sure you do this in the same direction that the roller rolls.
5. Then take the left side of the roller and begin to roll the sushi into each other until the entire roll is rolled.  Do not roll the roller into the sushi, pull the roller up as you are able to.
6. Squeeze the roll inside the roller gently and keep it rolled for about 2 minutes so that it can maintain its shape.

1. Remove from the roller and place the fish on the top onto the roll.  Place the roller around the roll and squeeze lightly again.

Cut and Serve. :D

-Kait

http://www.sushilinks.com/sushi-recipes/how-to-buy-fish/index.html
http://www.wisegeek.com/how-do-i-choose-the-best-tuna-for-sushi.htm