Rice Pudding

Today's post comes to you from my sweet tooth. After making more of that amazing chicken and potato curry, we had a LOT of leftover rice! And I absolutely hate reheating rice. It's probably because I just don't know how to do it well, but it always turns out hard and crunchy and gross! So either I try to make only the amount of rice I need, or I end up throwing it out! What a shame, right? So I did some research, and wouldn't you know it, with a little tweaking, I found the most amazing leftover rice pudding I've ever come across!

The Indian Dinner Series: Episode 3 - Chicken and Potato Curry

Yumm!!! Oh my gosh you guys. I know I've been gushing for weeks about how much I love indian food and how NOT sorry I am for giving you guys a month of recipes for it, but this one is just phenomenal. It's not my grandma's, but it's definitely delicious! It's full of savory spices with not too much heat. With a cup of rice, it's just amazing!

The Indian Dinner Series: Episode 2 - Dadi's Samoosas

Oh my goodness, if you made that chutney last week you are going to be SO glad you did! This, my friends, is the best thing in the world. The aroma that moves around your house when you make these, and the way it fills you up but you still want more, is just so good. I made a batch of 10 samoosas, and when I woke up Mr. H from a nap, within the hour they were all gone. Including the really big one I made! The sweetness of the meat, paired with the flaky crust, and the tang of the chutney is just to die for. Of course I have the recipe for entirely from scratch, but if you're like me and a little short on time (or just lazy like me!) of course this a HUGE time saving shortcut that I'll share with you ;)

The Indian Dinner Series: Episode 1 - Dadi's Chutney

You're going to hate me for the next few weeks. Sunday I decided I was REALLY craving desi food! I have been for a really long time, and not being able to be home to go see my grandparents has really put a damper on my Indian food intake. A few weeks ago I called my grandma to get her recipe for Samosas and Chutney.

Claiming My Blog on Bloglovin.com

Go ahead and disregard this, you guys. I just found a cool site and hopefully it'll get me some more traffic!

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Pumpkin Nutella Swirl Cookies

I have been gone for a very long time! It's been a very busy time for me lately as I've been trying to find a second job (I did get one, thanks!), and also trying to write and memorize my speech for an event on ISU campus for sexual and domestic violence. I'm so excited for this speech, it's my first speech as a part of RAINN. The event is Tuesday and I've somehow only managed to memorize half of it! If any of you are in the area and would like to attend, above is a flyer for the event. I'd love to see you all there! The night will consist of a few survivors speaking of their experience, and then I'm told there will be a march around the campus and then some safe spots will be set up if you find anyone that you would like to talk to more about whatever, and then a candlelight vigil. It'll be a fun night, and it'll be very emotional, but it'll be entirely worth it! Hope to see you there :)

Monday Night Chicken Bake

I am absolutely in love. This chicken is just the most amazing thing to fill my tummy in ages, I can't wait to be hungry again just to dig into it one more time! This chicken is lemony with a crispy skin, savory herbs and spices, and provides just the most amazing aroma to fill our little one bedroom apartment! I found this recipe while wondering what exactly I was going to do with my freezer full of bone-in chicken. Mr. H and I love chicken, but for some reason any time one of us tries to cook bone in chicken, it just turns out a disaster! Baking is our only option when it comes to bone in chicken. And on weekends when Mr. H works all day both weekend days and I'm busy cleaning and making recipes for the week to share with you guys, there isn't much time for me to try to cook it a different way. So the key is to find a recipe that doesn't soak chicken in cream of anything soup and bake it in rice. This dish is so super perfect, it cooks so much chicken in such an amazing way at one time that I'll be gladly eating this chicken for the next few nights!

Cinnamon Sugar Donuts

I'm sorry to be gone so long you guys, this week was kind of stressful. But on the bright side, look who finally got her license!

That's right! Yours truly is now firmly planted in 18, drivers license and all. Pretty soon (3-ish weeks) I'll have a car to go along with it (Thanks Dan H.)! I'm so excited, I even got a great picture! How lucky is that? I look half dead in my State ID picture. Anyway, I think this is cause for celebration. And what better to celebrate with, than donuts? I think nothing!

Homemade Chicken Broth

I've putting off an exciting recipe for quite some time now, and it's because I didn't have any chicken broth. And honestly I've known that I can make my own at home for quite some time (if I had enough chicken bones), but I've never been able to acquire the correct amount of bones to do this so it never crossed my mind to actually buy some chicken broth or save my bones in the freezer to try it. Now, as of last night I have about 4 pounds of chicken bones! I think that sounds like enough to make some homemade broth, don't you? Well, Haroon, I'm going to finally make your Ramen tomorrow night!

Peanut Butter Frosting

Hiya everyone! So a few days ago I made the most amazing pumpkin bread, and I hope you all made some because tonight's recipe is a healthy version of a frosting I made to compliment that bread. One slice with a tablespoon of this frosting on top, and you'll be in heaven! I'm really glad that I gave away half of my loaf and frosting because it would have been all gone by now and my body would not be thanking me for it!

Twinkies!

I have to say, Twinkies are the most time consuming, frustrating recipe I've ever done. And I'm not exaggerating when I say "ever'. Combine my entire infuriating 2 weeks of plated dessert in pastry school, with my 3 months of experimenting to fix continuously flat cookies, and my first attempt at making Christmas dinner - voila! You've got my entire night trying to make these Twinkies. I'll tell you the honest to god truth, the only thing my dust collecting Twinkies Bake Set was good for was the official pan to make the shape perfect. I guess I'll take the high heat spoon too :)

Pumpkin Bread

Good morning everyone! I hope everyone is enjoying those pumpkin pie protein balls ;) I have another great breakfast recipe for you today! When I was younger I used to bake a lot with my father. He put my foot in the pastry door with break apart cookies, and I've never looked back. When I got a little older he got more and more into baking and cooking, and he found this recipe for pumpkin bread, and he made it a few times until he got it just right, but when he did, it was the most delicious bread I've ever tasted! Now, I'm not sure which recipe he used, but the one I'm using reminds me of school mornings when there would be pumpkin bread in the house and I would sneak a slice for breakfast before I headed out the door! It's moist, it's dense, it's just scrumptious. Topped with my homemade healthy peanut butter frosting, this treat is the most enjoyable breakfast recipe I've ever made!

Pumpkin Pie Protein Balls

Yay it's fall! That means I can get as many cans of pumpkin as I like for the cheapest price, fill my basket to the brim with pumpkin, and no one will even take a second glance at me! I absolutely love fall, and lately I've been absolutely loving mornings. For the last few days I've been waking up around 7 am (except for this morning, I slept in until 9 ;) ) just to wake up and enjoy the part of the day I normally sleep through. I've found that waking up after exactly 8 hours of sleep gives me the much needed energy I usually lack, so I wake up around 7, shower, make myself a nice cup of coffee and just relax and get myself in order for the rest of the day. There's one thing that I never do though; I never have breakfast. I've never really been a huge breakfast person - my comically large ramekin-mug full of coffee usually suffices as breakfast for me. And halfway through my morning, I'm sluggish and struggling to stay awake (coincidence? I'll shamefully take that as a no...). These little babies are the perfect little thing to have with my morning coffee to keep me going until lunch! Heck, I might even have one or two with lunch to keep me going until dinner ;)

Mom's Chili

If there's one thing I can never get enough of, it's my mom's chili. Since my parents split, chili has always been a staple in our house. It was one of those meals that we only got at mom's house, and we had it quite often, but somehow it never lost the ability to make me feel like everything was right with the world. I remember Mom making chili one time after school and I'd always asked her to show me how and finally she did. We spent a good hour making that chili and every 15 or so minutes we'd check it with a little spoonful to see if it was done. It rarely was, but we just wanted to have some chili ;) Now that I'm older and living on my own, I miss home a lot. Being quite a few miles away from the rest of my family is honestly a little harder than I thought it would be, and I find myself being homesick more often than I'd like. So last night I decided that there was nothing in the world that mom's chili couldn't fix, so why not make a pot? And it definitely helped!

Pillsbury's Pepperoni Pizza Bake

Okay Pillsbury, you got me! I want to try every single recipe you've got with your biscuits! And I just might ;) Today's Pillsbury recipe is The Pepperoni Pizza Bake. We love biscuits in this house, and we've done a bunch of things with them (mainly pigs in a blanket style with hot dogs and cheese) but tonight I was just having a HUGE brain fart... To the internet! One quick search brought me to Pillsbury's biscuit recipes section. And I clicked through so many delicious looking recipes, that I've decided: here at Cooking Class Hero, we're going to try them all! They all look so amazing, I just can't wait to show you guys how good they are.

Taco Pasta Skillet

Tonight is one of those nights where I accidentally fell asleep at 4 and slept until 7:30 when I should have had dinner on the table an hour ago! A quick glace around my kitchen says only one thing can be for dinner tonight: Tacos! But.. another look around the kitchen and I have no taco shells... Well, what now? Now we make clean up easy and make dinner in one pan!

No Bake Pumpkin Cheesecake

Talk about a long awaited recipe! It's finally fall, and that only means one thing for the next couple months in food blogs: Pumpkins and Gourds! My favorite :) So let's kick this off right, shall we? Two of my favorite things are cheesecake, and pumpkin - so why not combine them? This was a great idea that I wanted to try and it turned out great!

Fiesta Burger Skillet

Today's recipe comes from The Girl Who Ate Everything. She has a spectacular blog that I personally love to crawl through when I'm having a bad day. Her recipe for Bunless Fiesta Hamburgers sounds amazing! But at the same time, very filling, and when she says good lord, she means good lord! I mean seriously, hamburgers as buns? Mr. H may be borderline body builder, but no one needs THAT much protein! So I decided to scale it down a bit. All the ingredients together sounded delicious to me, so I kept with her ingredients to a tee, but as I'm usually feeding an apartment full of boys, I decided the best way to feed everyone was a skillet. Now, this recipe has absolutely no carbs in it which means it won't stretch very far to feed all of us, and keeping with my quest to always have some sort of family recipe involved, I decided to try to mix this with Ranch Style Hash and put it over rice. Let's see how it turned out!

Nacho Cheese Crusted Chicken and Salsa Macaroni

As promised, today's dinner comes to you under 30 minutes! As much as Mr. H loves cheese, I knew we had to come down this road sooner rather than later. Watching Chopped on the Food Network for the last few weeks has got me thinking about obscure things to pair - every time there's an obscure crunchy item to pair with the meat they're provided, they usually go with a crust on the meat. So I thought hey, why not follow in their footsteps and make the cheesiest dinner I can think of? So I went with Nacho Cheese Doritos crusted chicken strips and Salsa Mac 'n' Cheese! Trying to think of a perfect pairing for the chicken was proving to be difficult, and as it turns out, (as always) I was thinking about it too hard. The simplest thing to serve with cheesy chicken? More cheese! Mr. H asked for mac n cheese with a twist, so I made mac n cheese... with a twist ;) This dish is great because it satisfies the picky teenager in your house, and with defrosted chicken, it takes just about 30 minutes to prepare! Quick and easy, and super cheesy! Let's get started!

Peanut Butter Cheesecake Pudding

Let's be completely honest - at the end of the day, how much time do you have to make dinner? Now how much time do you have left to make the kids happy with a low calorie dessert? Keep that in your head. Now, how long does it take to melt peanut butter? About a minute and a half. And that's all the time you need to make this delicious, rich, and indulgent dessert that will make even the biggest kids (Mr. H) happy! This pudding is great by itself with a sprinkling of chocolate chips, or you could put it into a pie crust and top it with whipped cream! I'll be trying the pie option next week ;)

Chocolate Cake Batter Fudge

Recently my brother went to Mackinac, MI where we spent a couple of our family vacations as kids. Despite the 8 hour drive, this was always one of my favorite trips. Visiting the simplistic island, where no motor vehicles are allowed, always made me feel at ease and incredibly excited. I always loved visiting the island and taking a horse drawn carriage ride to a museum, or to a farm stand, or anywhere on the island to be completely honest! The best part about Mackinac Island, though? Fudge! Every other store is a fudge store, and at least 1 in every 3 shops had an open kitchen where they made, tabled, and shaped the fudge right in front of you! No matter how many different stores we went to, if they were tabling fudge, I was sitting there, mouth agape, watching them work their magic. Never in a million years did I think I'd be able to do that myself! But here we are, 10 years and pastry school later, I can table chocolate and I still love fudge!

Strawberry Cookies and Creme Cookies

I know it’s 2 desserts in a row, and normally I try to space it out and give you guys something sweet then something savory. But my training got the better of me and I was REALLY feeling these cookies today! So here we are again, watching my diet while still trying to sneak a few cookies, and still getting you guys something delicious to try at home J

Much like my last cookie recipe (Funfetti Nutella Cookies), these delicious cookies take less than 20 minutes to make, bake, and devour!

Bread Pudding

Hi guys! Your cooking class hero has been feeling a little homesick lately, so I decided to make something deliciously warm and comforting to cheer myself up!

This bread pudding is so amazing; between the layers of nutella and bread, topped with MORE nutella, some chocolate chips, and a touch of brown sugar that caramelizes to give you a crunch, nothing tops this pudding!
One spoonful of this and my dark cloud was gone! Not that anyone stops at a spoonful ;) Bread pudding is a fairly new dessert to me, but it's quickly become one of my favorites. Though it seems odd, for me, bread pudding is one of those desserts that's for special occasions. I don't mean Christmas, or Eid, or even Birthdays. I mean special occasions where you feel like everything would just be better with a hug but a regular hug just isn't quite cutting it. That's when you make bread pudding and you hug yourself from the inside out :) I was definitely in need of a hug, and I feel so much better after a few scoops of this pudding! Are you ready for some love? Here we go!

Mini Quiche

Tonight's post is brought to you by the phrase "Oh my god!", brought to you by a mouthful of these mini quiches stuffed into Mr. H's mouth :)

How good to these look? If they look as good to you as they tasted to me and Mr. H, you are in for a real treat tonight! Quiche is one of those hit or miss recipes that can taste perfect or absolutely horrible; more often than not, airing on the side of either runny and mushy or overcooked and bland. In a nutshell, quiche is a simple looking recipe with a fairly complicated cooking process that you can't control in a home oven. That's where my mini quiches come in! They completely take the guesswork out of cook times, which leaves you with more time to make dessert. These quiches are light and fluffy, and make a great dinner paired with a yummy green salad, and some mashed potatoes. Don't forget to leave room for dessert!

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Pancakes

Today's post is split into two parts. Read more to see the surprise recipe!

The Pancakes:
A.K.A. The best pancakes in the world! I can hear you all thinking it right now, "Chocolate AND chocolate chips? Hass, you have to be making everyone super fat with your recipes!" And my dear followers, I can assure you, I am not. I thought it might be a good idea to share with you guys the calorie counts for every recipe so you know EXACTLY how much you're eating. Calorie wise, if you eat one serving size of all my recipes, all the meals I make are usually around 500 calories. Sounds crazy, right? All my recipes look super fattening, right? I proudly admit to keeping my calorie counts low, however, if you view your health and diet more in terms of grams of fats and sodium and all that fancy stuff... my recipes are nowhere near healthy :) Of course in the next few weeks I'll be doing my best to make things as healthy as possible around here! But while I work out the kinks in my own and Mr. H's eating habits, bear with me.

Funfetti Cookies

I have one word for you: YUM!

These are one of the most delicious cookies I've ever had the pleasure of putting in my mouth! They are soft, chewy, beautiful, and super easy to make. Now if there's one thing my endless surfing of foodblogs has taught me, it's this: if you've got cake mix... make everything but! I absolutely LOVE making cookies out of cake mix, it's one of my favorite things to do. It looks amazing, they take less than 20 minutes to prepare, and it tastes like you slaved over them all day long.

Spicy Tuna Mac 'n' Cheese

Hi guys! This is my first post, so be gentle please! (Suggestions to make this blog better are always welcome though :) ) So tonight Mr. Hero (a.k.a. Steve; henceforth known as Mr. H) had work and as per the usual, I was trying to figure out what to do for dinner and hopefully have it ready by the time he got home. I thought about it all day; and after flip flopping between this delicious creation and some boring chicken quarters, I thought, "Why the heck not?"