Cinny Chums

Do you like Muddy Buddies®? Who am I kidding, you're human. Of course you do.

Well, true to our foodie gumshoe ways, Dish and Spoon decided to use up some Cinnamon Toast Crunch® in a twist on the chocolate-peanut butter classic. The result is a bit like churros–another duh-yes-you-love-those treat.

5 cups Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/4 cup almond butter
2 Tbsp butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup powdered sugar

Measure out cereal in bowl big enough to contain the cereal as you do some aggressive stirring later.

In microwave-safe small bowl, combine chocolate, almond butter, and butter. Microwave on high 30 seconds then stir well. Microwave 15 more seconds and that should be enough to get everything melted when stirred well once more.

Depending on the white chocolate you use, it can melt at various times. The mixture will be a bit thick; another thing white chocolate loves to vary on–when it will over cook. But almond butter is probably the main thickener here. Might try a bit more butter next time to help it be a bit more runny.

Adding the vanilla once mixture is melted helps smooth it a bit. Scrape buttery goodness into the cereal bowl and start stirring. It's almost more of a pressing motion to spread the paste around. Just keep at it; it will spread in time.

Dump all the coated cereal into a gallon zip-top bag. Pour the 1/3 cup powdered sugar into the bag and seal. Shake and massage those goodies. :) Serve and delight.

Shrimp Cocktail Cream Cheese Pizza

With the THIRTY POUNDS of cream cheese my mother no-jokingly gave to me as an early birthday gift, I was inspired to realize what the missing ingredient was for this pizza. I'd wanted to make the delicious appetizer into a pizza version for some time now, but when I don't have time to cook, I don't allow my brain to think along its fantasy path of recipe creation, and so this pizza idea was tossed into the back of the think tank.

But today, the baking bug bit hard and I started itchin' in the kitchen like crazy. I made wholewheat bread, Gooey Butter Cookies from Six Sisters' Stuff (so easy. so yummy.), and this pizza—all in 3 hours!

This pizza was super easy for me to make today because I already had the cocktail sauce made from a previous and somewhat magical shrimp snack. And that was back in February, so wow, this sauce really is kinda magic to last that long. Anyway, it's from the Food Network. Roasted Shrimp Cocktail. I've followed Ina's recipe a couple times now and love it.

I didn't bake the shrimp today the way Ina suggests, however, because the oven has to be at 500 degrees F. for an hour before tossing the pizza in, so first make Ina's sauce recipe, then read today's pizza recipe for the rest of the adventure.

Shrimp Cocktail Cream Cheese Pizza

Needed:
Pizza stone
Parchment paper

Ingredients:
1/2 recipe Best Pizza Dough Eva (I only used half because I knew I was only going to make one pizza, but it's a tricky one to halve, so maybe make the whole recipe and make some salted cheesy bread too!)
1/2 to 3/4 cup prepared Shrimp Cocktail Sauce
15 or so 21/25-count raw shrimp (thaw if frozen, peel, devein, all that jazz)
1 tablespoon oil
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
3 oz cream cheese
Basil flakes

Preheat oven to 500 degrees F. Make sure pizza stone is on bottom rack and in oven for one hour before pizza is ready to bake.

Make the pizza dough not in your food processor like I did. Better to use a standing mixer. Dough will be fairly sticky, even after raising. Set in bowl sprayed with olive oil. Coat top of dough with olive oil spray too. Cover and let raise 20 minutes.

To prepare shrimp, heat oil (I used coconut; any should work) in skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook shrimp about 2 minutes on each side until happily orangey-pink.

Drain any oil and allow shrimp to cool enough to handle. Chop shrimp to a crumble texture like ground sausage, to spread better across pizza. Shrimp is kinda stubborn under the knife. If you don't have a Tupperware Chop 'N Prep Chef, GET ONE. I use it for so many things, it's totally worth its seemingly outrageous price. Trust me. And it's fun. It has a lawnmower-pull string to power the chopping motion. You have to restrain yourself to stop pulling if you want a coarser chop because things get mighty fine mighty quick if you don't. :)

Horrendously blurry, my apologies, but that's my Tupperware-chopped shrimp.

Remove pizza dough from raising bowl and knead a couple times to deflate and form round ball. Roll out onto parchment paper using rolling pin if desired and spreading out with hands until about 12 inches in diameter and at least a 1/4" or thinner. Spread sauce almost completely to the edge. Sprinkle on shrimp.

I just used my hands to pinch portions of cream cheese and plop them around the pie. If I did a do-over, I might soften the cream cheese until I could drizzle it around because it certainly didn't melt in the oven. I even thought maybe just mixing the sauce and softened cheese might work well, or at least some sauce-plus-cheese mixture would help the cheese get spread around a bit more. That's where you go exploring to make this recipe your own adventure! Sprinkle with basil flakes and you're ready to bake.

Slide pizza into the oven still on the parchment paper. The paper gets kinda brown and crispy during the 8 to 12 minutes the pizza cooks, but it can handle the heat. The cheese didn't ever get bubbly, but it did start browning, so when the crust begins to brown around 8 to 10 minutes, keep a close eye. When crust is stiff to the touch and golden, remove from oven. (If you have a pizza paddle, sweet; if you're unsweet like me and don't have a paddle, any flat, non-melty device is useful. I use an upside-down jellyroll/cookie sheet to help deposit and retrieve the parchment and pizza.)

Allow to set a few minutes, slice, and enjoy!

The Mild Thanksgiving Dinner Disaster

Twas the day after Thanksgiving and all through the home,
food was preparing and the families were come.
The rolls were all snug in the oven raising
and snitching fingers were veggie tray grazing.

The mashed potatoes were mixed to perfection
and ready for later were all the confections.
I stepped out to the garage to check on the turkey with care,
and the absent scent was first to make me aware

that with this bird there was something the matter.
And then to my dismay—oh how my heart did clatter—
I spied that the temperature knob of the roaster oven
had not been set at 325 for the past hours-half-dozen

but at 225 had my bird been comfortably warming
all while the the rest of us were busily swarming
to spread a buffet worthy to support its leading role.
I sighed and glared at the pinkish raw troll,

turned up the heat, slammed the lid down 
and trudged back to the kitchen, my lips in a frown.
I called all the poor turkey meat lovers by name,
"Now Jason and Aaron and Ammon and Dave,

the turkey won't be ready in time for our feast,
but do not dismay, we'll still eat the beast . . .
just probably after dinner, dessert, and cleanup."
We were disappointed, but we didn't give up!

No, not even after the rolls started burning
and the smoke alarm commenced its spurning
that made babies cry and my eyebrow twitch—
I wanted to scream or laugh, I couldn't tell which—

but we salvaged the roll guts and aired out the room
and though it seems like a tale wrought mostly with doom,
a moment of glory I am able to tell,
Spoon and I scrapped up a gravy that turned out quite well.

With the help of gratitude, humor, and deli meat slices
this year's Thanksgiving feast was something priceless.

And after the pie bar, family time, and holiday crafts,
from the garage came our turkey at last.

So if ever your turkey leaves you in a gravy lurch,
remember your potatoes; give your pantry a search
and I bet you'll find all these ingredients in sight.
Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all a good bite!

Emergency Gravy

I didn't take any exact measurements, so get your experimentation cap on and get mixing, to taste.
Ingredients
A can of broth
3 spoonfuls of Better Than Bullion paste (or bullion cubes or pearls)
Enough milk whisked with enough flour to make a thickener
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon dried onion flakes
1 (15 oz) can condensed cream of chicken soup
Poultry Magic seasoning blend, to taste
Salt and pepper to taste

Dump it all together, use your immersion hand blender (I just got the Breville hand blender. I did a little dance.) to emulsify those onion flakes as they soften. The onions, believe it or not, really make the gravy taste like it had anything to do with meat drippings. The butter helps give it a fatty taste and cozy all the ingredients together.

I think I used about 2 cups milk and oh maybe a 1/4 cup flour or more for the thickener. Bring to a boil whisking constantly/blending as needed. Add water to thin if needed. Add whatever you want if your taste tests beg it.

see (bottom right), it totally looks like normalish gravy, right?

And there you have it. A rather tasty emergency gravy. The kids kept dumping it all over their potatoes and dipping their deli meat slices in it, so . . . success. The adults loved it too, don't worry.

Keep those imaginations cookin'!