Tiramisu Tarts

Anyone who knows me, knows I'm a sucker for desserts, more so if they are small and in individual serving sizes... Anything to get away from the guilt ;) When I came across this fun recipe on the Tre Stelle website, I tweaked it a little for what I had in the cupboards that day and brought it with me to a family party during the long weekend. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and it was very easy to put together that morning.

Tiramisu Tarts

Ingredients:

1 ½ pkg (255 g) frozen sweetened mini tart shells
2 cups (500 ml) Mascarpone cheese
1 ½ tbsp strong brewed coffee or coffee liqueur (Kahlùa or Tia Maria)
3 tbsp (30 mL) brown sugar
100g P.C. dark chocolate, melted
cocoa for garnish, if desired

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375

Bake unfilled tart shells in an oven for 10-12 minutes or until golden.

In a medium bowl combine Mascarpone, coffee liqueur and brown sugar; stir until combined and set aside or refrigerate until ready to use.

Spoon teaspoonfuls of melted chocolate into the bottom of each baked tart shell. Swirl around to ensure a taste of chocolate in every bite.

Place Mascarpone mixture into a Ziploc bag. Close the bag and cut a hole out of one end of the bag. Pipe out mixture into each tart shell. Place in refrigerator until ready to serve.

Sift cocoa over each just before serving.

Makes 18 tarts

Enjoy!

An overnight Crockpot Success..

I needed some chicken for my Buffalo Wing Dip and had a chicken in the fridge that was ready to be used and the herbs in my balcony garden were starting to grow so nicely. I came across this crockpot recipe for a chicken and it was perfect for my dip as the chicken was so tender and just fell off its bones. The rest of the chicken and bones, I used to make some chicken stock and store in the freezer for a later recipe.

Chicken with 40 Cloves Garlic

Ingredients:

2 sprigs fresh thyme
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
2 sprigs fresh sage
2 sprigs fresh Italian parsley
40 cloves garlic, unpeeled
1 onion, chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 whole chicken
2 stalks celery

Directions:

Place sprigs of thyme, rosemary, sage, parsley and half of the garlic in chicken cavity. Place celery in stoneware. Put chicken on top of celery. Add remaining garlic around chicken. Sprinkle salt and pepper over chicken. Cover; cook on Low 8 - 10 hours (High 4 - 6 hours). To serve, place chicken, onions, garlic and celery on serving platter.

Note: You can squeeze roasted garlic out of skins onto toasted French bread slices and spread with knife topped with some crumbled goat cheese and a little rosemary. Yummy!

Enjoy!

A Light of Success in the Valley of Darkness...

...Wow the last couple of weeks have been muddled with many recipes that wouldn't dare make it on to this blog - yes, they were that bad!!! But as always through every long bad streak, there is always some little success that ever so slowly brings you out of those cooking doldrums and for me it was this recipe. I found it on one of my discussion boards tweaked it for a party that I was going to, so here goes:

Buffalo Wing Dip

Ingredients:

1 ½ packages low-fat cream cheese, softened
1 cup P.C. Buffalo Wing sauce, mild
1 cup Ranch dressing
2 cups cooked chicken - shredded or diced
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
2. In a medium bowl, stir together the cream cheese and hot pepper sauce until well blended. Mix in the Ranch dressing and chicken. Spread into a 9x13 inch baking dish. Sprinkle cheddar cheese over it.
3. Bake for 30 minutes in the preheated oven. Serve warm with tortilla chips and celery.

Note: use an already cooked rotisserie chicken from your local grocery store for a quick option to the chicken needed in this recipe.

Enjoy!