ESBS: Buffalo Chicken Panini
PIN IT!I have a confession.
I’m obsessed with buffalo sauce. Before you judge me immensely because you think I ate a piece of bread slathered in only buffalo, let me first tell you that the picture above was a part of a sandwich I made. Although I’m not above eating bread with my favorite spreads and sauces (I’m close to spoon-fooding myself this stuff), I am not crazy enough to eat only buffalo alone. I’m not Adam Richmond here, folks.
Because we have a fancy schmancy panini maker, I decided to put my favorite sauce between two pieces of homemade bread with chicken, blue cheese and a bit of fresh red pepper and grill them to perfection.
It was good, but definitely needed a dipping sauce. Like some chunky blue cheese or buttermilk ranch. But this is a healthy food blog, it would make me kind of a hypocrite if I made that and preached healthy living, right? 🙂 So besides amazing and fresh ingriedients, what is my KEY to a perfect restaurant style panini?
Homemade bread, hands down. The crispy crust with the oh-so-soft inside makes for the most incredible tasting sandwich. If you have a bread maker, try this recipe my husband swears by. Your taste buds will be overcome with joy. Now the real challenge is not eating the entire loaf in one sitting. The smell will make that pretty near impossible.
Adapted from My Recipes.
Buffalo Chicken Paninis
What You’ll Need:
- 1/4 cup buffalo sauce, try this kind
- 1 large chicken breast, cooked and sliced
- 1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese
- 3 tablespoons olive oil mayonnaise
- 4 slices of fresh bread
- 1/2 red pepper, sliced
How to Make It:
- Slice bread into 4 semi-thick slices.
- Combine cheese and mayonnaise. Spread cheese mixture on 2 bread slices.
- On the other 2 bread slices, slather on hot sauce (about 1/4 the mixture).
- Mix chicken in remaining sauce and place on bread with slices of fresh red pepper.
- Heat panini maker to the medium heat seating and coat with cooking spray.
- Arrange 2 sandwiches in pan. Place a cast-iron or heavy skillet on top of sandwiches; press gently. Cook for 3 minutes on each side or until bread is toasted (leave skillet on sandwiches while they cook).
The crunchy bread with the delicious gooey cheese and hot, spicy chicken give this sandwich excellent flavor. Plus, instead of having messy chicken wings when you are watching a game, have one of these instead! You’ll save yourself some clean up time!
Nutritional information per panini: 380 calories, 14 grams of fat, 30 grams of carbohydrates and 32 grams of protein.
ESBS: Mini Strawberry Ice Cream Cakes
Sometimes, a girl just needs some ice cream cake.
Am I right or am I right?
I was lucky enough to enjoy ice cream cake this year for my 25th birthday because my lactose intolerant husband reluctantly graciously bought one for me from Baskin Robbins. It was heaven wrapped in sweet chocolate, vanilla and raspberry.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I ate, probably, 3/4 of this cake myself. Safe to say, I couldn’t eat ice cream cake for a while after that. Fast forward 6 months and I found myself, finally, ready to enjoy this childhood favorite of mine once again. Luckily, my timing was spot on because it has been close to the 100’s almost every day here in Virginia for the past 2 weeks. Ice cream cake never sounded so good.
Except this time, I made them & made them tiny. Because what’s cuter than a tiny little strawberry ice-cream cake in pretty cupcake liners? Not many things, I’ll argue 🙂 Although these are INCREDIBLY cute and INSANELY delicious, I probably won’t make them again unless someone asks me. They are not easy, at all, to assemble.
Recipe adapted from My Recipes.
Mini Strawberry Ice Cream Cakes
What You’ll Need:
- Cooking spray
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup butter, softened
- 2 large eggs
- 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup low-fat buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 cups low-fat strawberry ice cream, softened
- 1 1/2 cups fat-free frozen whipped topping
- Thinly sliced strawberries for garnish
How to Make Them:
- Preheat oven to 350°.
- Coat a 15 x 10-inch jelly-roll pan with cooking spray and then line the bottom of pan with wax paper. Coat wax paper with cooking spray.
- Place sugar and butter in a large bowl and beat until well blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups and combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt with a whisk. Add flour mixture and buttermilk alternately to sugar mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture; mix after each addition.
- Beat in extracts and pour batter into prepared pan.
- Bake at 350° for 20 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes then carefully peel off wax paper and allow the cake to cool completely. Then place cake on a cutting board and refrigerate until cold (about 2 hours).
- Spread ice cream evenly over top of cake; cover with plastic wrap. Freeze until firm (6 hours to overnight).
- Once cake has fully chilled, cut with a 2-inch round cutter into 24 cake rounds. (NOTE: This is the part that was nearly impossible. The cute rounds ended up too difficult to do so I just took a knife and cut them into squares).
- Working quickly so the ice cream doesn’t melt, stack ice cream side up, in a paper muffin cup liner; top with another cake round, ice cream side down. Repeat procedure with remaining cake rounds.
- Once cakes are assembled, place a dollop of whipped topping & a strawberry slice on each cake. Serve and enjoy!
I savored every last one of these little cakes. They make the perfect bite-size dessert or afternoon snack!
Nutritional Information per cake: 270 calories, 7 grams of fat, 5 grams of protein and 1 gram of fiber.
TGIF!
TGIF!!
This is my “TGIF” face. And my “I’M ON A BOAT” face.
This may just be me, but the sun is always brighter, the sky is always bluer and my coffee is always tastier on Fridays. On Friday’s, I become the commuter everyone hates because I can’t stop smiling or offering a “Why, good morning!” to any passerbys I see. I just can’t help it though, Friday’s are MY jam. They are the bomb.com. And this Friday is even better because we don’t have any real plans this weekend, which means the boxes will finally eradicate themselves from our home and I’ll finally have a chance to unwind, no work stress to plague my mind.
In additional to getting my life in order, I plan on doing the following things:
Kiss my husband, a lot.
Kiss my puppy, a lot.
Lay by the pool and get bronzed (if only the pool I was going to overlooked the Tuscan hills).
and what I plan on eating because it’s too hot to cook…
And I’ll be drinking some of these…
However, I will do a bit of cooking because I found some amazing recipes this week on the blogosphere!
- Bacon wrapped green beans, what could be more delicious?
- Strawberry banana ice cream would be the perfect end to a hot summer day!
- Margarita popsicles? I think I’ve found my new summer treat!
- Grilled calamari salad with lemon and rosemary. Do I need to say more?
- Pulled chicken BBQ sandwich, there is nothing more summer than that!
- Tomatillo Huevos Rancheros, a nice alternative to my normal weekend egg breakfast!
- Sleepy Raspberry Lemon Poppy Seed Smoothies for those awful Monday mornings!
Have a wonderful weekend, folks!
Claire
Tags:happy friday, happy life tip, light recipes, low fat cooking, my realistic life, real life, summer recipes, TGIT, weekend
Sayonara, cow
Have you ever had a horrible reaction to a certain type of food? Where as soon as it hits your digestive track, your stomach starts karate kicking and whipping out the num-chucks? Where the next 3-6 hours of your life are spent no more than 3 feet away from a bathroom? That was me two nights ago. And um, it wasn’t pretty.
Most people have similar reactions when they consume dairy, wheat or spicy food. Me? I have it towards my favorite food in the entire world, steak. Sweet, delicious, amazingly tender steak. And it’s not just steak either, it’s any meat that comes from a cow.
And you know what? This aversion to beef is NEW, as in, just this year new. And it’s not just a little tummy disturbance. It’s a full blown attack that leaves me completely incapacitated.
This means one thing, and one thing alone…no more beef. No more juicy steaks or gourmet hamburgers, no more delicious beef stroganoff or spicy beef kabobs.
I need a moment.
Okay, I’m a little bit better now. It looks like I’ll have to resort to other main sources of protein, like…
turkey
chicken
bacon
fish
and tofu.
I guess things could be worse, no? 🙂
Now, the verdict is still out on lamb, so E and I are going to do a taste test this weekend to see how I react to lamb chops. (That man, bless his heart). Because life without steak, it’s do-able (it sucks, but it’s do-able). But life without this, too?
Well, that’s just a world I’m not quite ready for.
ESBS: His and Her Pizza
My husband and I are complete opposites. He’s a saver, I’m a spender. He loves technology, I loathe it. He’s a runner, I’m a swimmer. He’s allergic to dairy, I LIVE on cheese and ice cream. He has patience, I do not. The list could go on. But the most profound change, the change that *might* just tear us apart. (Kidding, but you get the point of it’s importance).
He hates goat cheese, and I love it.
Gasp. However, we find a way to make it work. (aka, I eat enough goat cheese for two people). So on those days I’m craving a goat cheese pizza, for example, I have to customize it so only half of the pizza is covered in this glorious cheese. And if one little nugget of goat cheese touches E’s side, well, then all hell breaks loose. Safe to say, I’ve gotten really good at making his and her pizzas.
My half has goat cheese, carmelized onions, tomatoes, garlic, basil and mushrooms. His half has mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, carmelized onions and basil. Sort of similar in look but totally different in taste. I would say my half was the best, but I’m partial to goat cheese. (PST. It was the best!)
His and Her Pizza
What You’ll Need:
- 1 large pizza crust
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 3/4 cup of spicy pizza sauce
- 1/2 cup of goat cheese
- 4 slices of fresh mozzarella
- 1/2 cup of sliced mushrooms
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 1 garlic clove, chopped
- Basil leaves for taste
How to Make It:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a small sauce pan, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and cook until soft. Add garlic. Cook onion and garlic until lightly brown and caramelized. Proceed to not eat it by the spoonful.
- Spread sauce on the pizza crust. Add tomatoes, mushrooms, onions and cheese. Add additional basil leaf and bake in preheated oven for about 10 minutes, or until cheese is bubbly.
You honestly can’t go wrong with goat cheese and pizza. NOM.
Nutritional Information per slice (goat cheese): 285 calories, 8 grams of fat, 12 grams of protein and 38 grams of carbohydrates.
Nutritional Information per slice (mozzarella cheese): 295 calories, 7.5 grams of fat, 12 grams of protein and 45 grams of carbohydrates.
