Toot! Toot!

If you all know me like I know yall do, yall know that I would never ever Toot my own horn unless it was completely, utterly necessary! Well, today its necessary! :) I made an entree and a dessert today that I have never in my life made before. Jess' great aunt is in town because granny had to have surgery and her and granny's brother are staying with granny until tomorrow. We were over at granny's yesterday after she got out of the hospital to visit and share some of that Pig Cake I made. We were all talking about desserts and this and that when the topic of Dawn's (Jess' great aunt) famous Pumpkin Roll came up. I love those things! I could eat the whole roll of it. When Jess and I were moving into our house and all of my family and Tena and Perry were down helping us get situated we had one over at Tom and Kim's and I know I at least ate 3/4 of the dang thing. Its a scrumptious combination of pumpkin, powdered sugar, cream cheese, cinnamon and vanilla. The actual roll part is basically just pumpkin bread and there is a filling inside that is a mixture of the rest. Perfect around Thanksgiving to have on the table! Anyways Dawn offered to teach me how to make them since she was in town. Of course I didn't refuse because A) I love them and B) I am always up for a sweet treat! And you know what?!? For it to be such a decadent beautiful dessert there is really nothing to it. You cook them at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, pop them off the pan onto a terry cloth towel and then roll them up. After its cooled for about 2 hours you unroll them and then put the filling in. Then roll them up in wax paper and foil, set them in the freezer until the next day or for up to a year if you dont want to eat it anytime soon. Very easy and I am very grateful she took the time to teach me how to make them! Jess doesnt care for anything pumpkin so I will just have to enjoy it by myself!

As for my new entree I was completely blown away! I made a healthy version of Chicken Parmesan. Chicken to me is hard to cook. I mean seriously! I am 23 going on 24 and I barely boiled my first "Hen" this year. When we have chicken Jess is the one who grills it or it is the instant Tyson Chicken from the freezer bag for us! I am just not that good of a judge when it comes to it being done or not and I dont want anyone getting sick on my account! So today was the day that I was taking the "Bull by its Horns" and cooking chicken! It required me to sautee the chicken for 3-4 minutes on both sides after I breaded it with Panko Bread Crumbs. Then pop it in the oven for another 5-10 minutes. Luckily for me after a ton of times of things not being ready when they were supposed to I figured out my oven temperature is off. So I set it at 350 degrees instead of 300 like it said to. All of the chickens came out beautifully except for one. One was still raw! Eww! We only figured this out after my Official Taste Tester took a huge bite out of it and with a look of disgust said "Good flavor but its not done!" Haha! I thought poor thing, he just ate some raw chicken but still tryed to assure me that it was good. He knows me too well! He knew I would have probably cried if he said anything different. Dont worry though Im not that big of a baby, I wouldnt dare cry over a little uncooked chicken! The rest of the chickens were done so I put that one back in for another 5 minutes and after that it was perfect! I served the Chicken Parmesan on top of whole wheat penne pasta with sauteed zucchini and squash. It was definitely a recipe we will be having again! I would like to give a shout out to Steph, she was making chicken fried steak and due to my experimenting with a new recipe Jess and I decided to sit it out and not have a one. Thank you for inviting us and so here is to you Steph! Im sure the chickens fried were amazing! Until next time....
Love,
E