Saturdays with Rachael Ray: Sticky Peanut Butter and Jelly Wings

Maybe the title of this week's Saturdays with Rachael Ray recipe has you feeling dubious. Maybe you're feeling skeptical about how well the flavors of peanut butter and jelly go with chicken wings. It's understandable. My husband was unsure about these too. But then he tried them, and he couldn't get enough. I mean that literally; we ran out of wings before he was full.

Peanut butter and jelly are no strangers to savory dishes. Peanut butter is often found in Thai-style pasta sauces (and in one of our favorite dishes at the Chinese buffet, peanut butter chicken), and grape jelly is one of stars in those famous three-ingredient cocktail meatballs. And when you combine the two ingredients in a spicy, tangy, sweet-nutty sauce, the results are out of this world. We all really, really loved these.

I used chicken drummettes, and I did have to broil mine for a couple of minutes to get 'em crispy, but other than that I followed the recipe exactly. Give these a try! I think you'll really like them.

Sticky Peanut Butter and Jelly Wings
source: slightly adapted from Everyday with Rachael Ray, February 2009

1 10-ounce jar grape jelly
1/2 cup natural peanut butter
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
Salt
24 chicken drummettes

1. In a bowl, whisk together the jelly, peanut butter, vinegar, hot sauce and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Add the chicken and refrigerate for 1 hour or up to overnight.

2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Arrange the wings on a greased rack set on a foil-lined baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes. Turn, baste with the pan juices and bake until browned, about 20 minutes more. Broil for a few minutes if needed.

Turkey Pesto Meatballs

I may have mentioned this before, but my son Andrew sometimes has an issue with the texture of certain meats. He's weird about ground meats, especially, so it’s usually difficult to get him to eat things like meat tomato sauce and sloppy joes.

The one way I can get him to get ground meat of any type, however, is to prepare it in meatball form. Like most kids, he loves meatballs. As soon as I saw these pesto turkey meatballs, I knew we would all really like them. We all love pesto, and I loved that these were made with turkey -- a much healthier option than ground beef.

These were a huge hit with all of us, and Andrew ate about six of them all on his own. The pesto gave the meatballs a nice texture and tons of flavor. They were perfect on top of a big pile of spaghetti!

Turkey Pesto Meatballs
source: Weelicious

1 1/4 pounds lean ground turkey

1/4 cup pesto

1/4 cup Italian-style breadcrumbs

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

2 cups marinara sauce

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Place all the ingredients except marinara sauce in a bowl and using your hands, combine until everything is incorporated.

3. Using about 1 tablespoon of the mixture per meatball, roll into balls and place on a plate.

4. Pour the marinara sauce into a 9 x 9 inch baking pan and top with the meatballs.

5. Cover the baking pan with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Serve.

Caramel Brownies

If you were to look at my starred items category in Google Reader, you’d find that I’ve starred more brownie recipes than any other type. But if you look in my blog archives, you’ll see that I really haven’t posted that many different versions of this sweet treat. I have one particular brownie recipe that I consider The Ultimate Brownies, and that’s always my go-to. But then sometimes I see a recipe that I can’t stop thinking about until I make it, and this is one of them. Chocolate and caramel is one of my favorite combinations, and I just knew these brownies were going to be fantastic. And they are.

This recipe uses a boxed cake mix, but the end result really doesn’t taste “boxed” at all. These are gooey, chocolaty, rich, and decadent, and everyone who tried them loved them. I mean, really, how could you not? The hardest part of the recipe was waiting for them to cool before I cut them. Thanks for a great recipe, Natalie!

Caramel Brownies
source: The Sweets Life

1 package German chocolate cake mix
3/4 cup melted butter
2/3 cup evaporated milk, divided
1 bag individually wrapped caramels, unwrapped
1 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 x 13 pan.

2. Combine cake mix, melted butter, and 1/3 cup evaporated milk. Mix well and pour 1/2 the batter into the pan. Bake for 8 minutes and remove from oven.

3. In a saucepan over medium heat, combine caramels and 1/3 cup evaporated milk. Stir until melted and smooth. Remove from heat and pour over cake.

4. Sprinkle chocolate chips over the caramel. Top with spoonfuls of remaining batter and carefully spread to cover caramel. Bake for 20 minutes.

5. Remove from oven and allow to cool at least half an hour before cutting.

Cream Cheese Enchiladas

Yep. Cream cheese again. This time it’s the star ingredient in these creamy, spicy, flavorful chicken enchiladas that Joe has pronounced his new favorite enchiladas, surpassing his previous two favorites by leaps and bounds. And I have to admit that they just may be my new favorite too. I loved them. I mean, of course I did: They have the words “cream cheese” in the title.

I found this recipe on Marci’s wonderful blog. Judging by her archives, it appears that Marci is the queen of enchiladas, and this is one of her favorites too. And I’m sure she’s not as obsessed with cream cheese as I am, so you can totally take her word for it that these are really good.

I’ll be making these again and again. And then? I’ll make them again. Joe will insist on it.

Cream Cheese Chicken Enchiladas
source: slightly adapted from On My Menu

5 ounces cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup sour cream

2 cups prepared salsa

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese, divided
1 cup shredded pepper-jack cheese, divided
2 cups cooked shredded chicken

1 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1/4 teaspoon cumin
Salt and pepper
4 scallions, thinly sliced

8 8-inch flour tortillas

1. Preheat oven 325 degrees.

2. In a medium bowl cream together cream cheese and sour cream. Stir in 1/2 cup salsa. Stir in 1/2 cup of each type of cheese.

3. In a second bowl toss together the chicken, corn, cumin, chili powder, salt, pepper, and half of the scallions. Add the chicken mixture to the cheese mixture and stir to combine.

4. Spread about 1/2 cup salsa in the bottom of a baking dish. Place 1/3 to 1/2 cup filling on a tortilla, roll up and put in dish seam side down. Repeat process for remaining tortillas.

5. Pour remaining salsa over enchiladas, spreading to coat all of them. Sprinkle with remaining cheese.
6. Transfer to preheated oven and bake 20 to 25 minutes until hot and bubbly. Sprinkle with the remaining scallions and serve warm.

Weekly Meal Planning, Week of 7.26.10

This is the last meal plan for the month of July. I know I sound like a broken record, but I really can't believe how quickly this year is going by. Before we know it fall will be here, which is sounding pretty good to me since we have had some of the hottest, most humid, and most uncomfortable summer weather I can remember having for a while. Bring on the cooler temperatures!

Anyway, here's the menu this week. Half of it is made up of some of our favorite meals, and the other half are new dishes I've been dying to try.

Monday: Baked zucchini macaroni and cheese (And yes, I am aware that I’ve put macaroni and cheese on our menu for at least the past three weeks in a row. My son wants to eat it all the time, and instead of resisting his love of mac and cheese, I’m embracing it.) (And plus, Joanne’s recipe looks way too delicious to resist.)

Tuesday: Pork chops with roasted garlic cream sauce, rice pilaf, roasted broccoli

Wednesday: Tuscan-style grilled chicken sandwiches, chips

Thursday: Pineapple and green chile pork tacos

Friday: Leftovers

Saturday: Chicken tortilla casserole

Sunday: BBQ chicken pasta