Vanilla Bourbon Dipping Sauce

I have a dirty little secret for you, and I’ll give you just one guess what it’s about. A while ago — a long while ago — I made Peach Bourbon Hand Pies a la Deb (yet another Smitten Kitchen creation). Lately, I’ve been into roasting the living buh-jee-vas out of vegetables. Put ‘em together and whaddaya get? Sweet potato fries with a sinful vanilla bourbon dipping sauce.

Okay, okay. So I didn’t come up with that on my own. Two weeks ago, a friend and I went to Iron Hill brewery for lunch. After two failed attempts at getting our order straight, our cute (but very Jersey Shore) waitress smacked her gum and dropped off a plate of three dipping sauces, on the house. My friend is rather charming, you see. The first one: jalapeno something-or-other. Not impressive. Up next? Smoked Paprika Mayo. Alright, but bland. Finally? A meek, beigey-creamy goo, barely darker than the color of the ramekin. His mouth fell slightly open, the way it does when he sees a painfully attractive woman. “What… What is this? … This… is… delicious!” Between nearly-open-mouthed chewing. The waitress came back. He wanted more. And more. And more. Two days later, we went back. For more.

He wheedled the ingredients out of her, but not the proportions, and I’ve been working on it ever since. This recipe’s a little slap-dash (in the cooking sense), if you know what I mean. It took almost three weeks, but here it is. I hope you enjoy it as much as my friend and I do.

Vanilla Bourbon Dipping Sauce

1/2 cup mayo (make it light, or go halfsies with greek yogurt to make it healthier)

3-4 tbsp prepared bourbon (cook away the alcohol, or add an extra tbsp or two if raw)

1 tbsp maple syrup

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp molasses (maybe a little less…? To taste, lets say.)

A quick sprinkle or two of cinnamon

Dash of sea salt

Prepare the bourbon if you’re going to do that. It tastes best that way.

Mix that stuff together.

Dip!

Sweet Potato Fries

2 small sweet potatoes

1 tbsp olive oil

Salt to taste

Preheat the oven to 400.

Slice the sweet potatoes into chips or fries, just make sure the pieces are approximately uniform, so you won’t have some pieces overcooked and some undercooked.

Toss the pieces in a bowl with the salt and olive oil, and then lay them flat on a baking sheet.

Bake for 15 minutes, flip, and bake another 15 minutes.

Cool for at least one minute before serving. Those boys are hot!

Note: I think this would be absolutely delicious on french toast, pancakes, waffles, toast, fruit… almost anything. 

So Kneady

I have always wanted to make bread. I don’t mean buying a little bag of pizza dough from Trader Joe’s and plopping small pieces into a muffin tin with a little olive oil. That’s just cheating your way to kind of crappy rolls. I mean, I want to mix flour and water and yeast. I want things to rise. I want that delicious smell, first thing in the morning (or right before dinner). I want… I want… I want to make bread.

Luckily, I have a friend at work who is a culinary genius (all natural, all delicious), and she let me take a quick looksie at her bread cook book, and even brought me a little vial of yeast. I copied a cliff notes version of the “Master” recipe, and headed home. The book, worth a mention, is called something like, “Fresh Bread in 5 Minutes a Day” or something — it’s brilliant. The idea is that you make a bunch of dough when you have the time, and then break off hunks and bake them as you need them. Perfect, right?

So yesterday morning, I threw everything together, gave it a quick stir, and let it sit on the counter for two hours — apparently, this is a secret. Shhhhhhh! Then, into the fridge for at least 3 hours, but the longer the better. I had so much to do, so the bread would have to wait until this afternoon. Luckily, the longer the dough stays in the fridge, the more complex the flavor becomes as the yeast… does yeasty things. With that done, I had to take care of some other things that kept me busy until this morning.

Making bread is so easy! It’s ridiculous. sprinkle a little flour on the top of what’s in the bowl, break off a hunk, and let it rest for a little while before popping it into the oven. Then, voila! Fresh, warm, delicious artisan bread. The next adventure: figuring out how to put crap in it.

 

Master Recipe

3 c Lukewarm water

1.5 Tbsp yeast

1.5 Tbsp coarse salt

6.5 c flour

 

 

Mix the water, yeast, and salt.

Add the flour to the mix and mix until it isn’t lumpy. We’re going for homogeneity, here.

Here’s the easy part: Let it sit on the counter for two hours with a lid or saran wrap on it. Be sure that it’s not airtight. Gasses need to move around in there.

After two hours, pop it into the fridge for at least 3 hours. The longer it sits, the more complex the flavor will become.

Then lightly dust the top of the dough that you plan to cut off from the rest to bake, and then cut it off. You want it to be about a pound, or about the size of a grapefruit.

Next, use your thumbs to stretch the top layer of the dough around to the bottom of the loaf, little by little. The bottom of the loaf should look a little pinched when you’re through (this should only take 30-60 seconds). Plop that baby down on a nice layer of flour (either on a bread stone or a tray, doesn’t matter) and let it rest for 40 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 450.

Put an oven-safe container into the oven to warm up. Put it on the bottom rack, with enough space between the top of the container and the rack above, so that you can add some water to it in a minute.

When the dough has rested for 40 minutes, dust the top with flour, give it a quick slash across the top with a sharp knife (to get those neat lines), and stick it into the oven.

Now, add a glass of water to that hot container below the bread. It’ll steam, so be ready. Shut the oven door, trapping the steam. I think it’s the steam that gives the bread that awesome crustiness.

In 30 minutes, take that bread out and enjoy it.

First Frittata

The weather here is torturous — completely and absolutely torturous. No, there’s no snow or ice on the ground. I’m not snowed in. I’m not stranded. My heat is working just fine, and my television hasn’t been cut off (yet). Rather, it’s frigid outside and the wind is beyond blistering. It’s been this way for days and we both know what happens when it gets this cold: I want to eat everything. My poor conservation coworkers have to listen to that mantra over and over and over again. I want to eat everything.

Yesterday, I woke up and decided that it was high time to put one of my favorite Christmas presents to good use: my cast iron frying pan. Of course, on the drive back to Philadelphia, my grandmother admitted to having three of them, each heavily seasoned, which I would have loved so much more than getting my hands on a brand new pan… But don’t take that to mean that I’m ungrateful for the one my brother bought for me. Hardly. I couldn’t wait to use it! Thus, an unwarranted trip to the grocery to pick up some avocados and cottage cheese.

I was knackered after a short walk to the store, lugging home a $50 load of fresh food (how some people can pass over fresh food at its peak absolutely baffles me). I whipped up a batch of guac with the surplus of fresh avocados I purchased (80 cents for six not-quite-rotten fruit), and settled into the couch to go through my hoarded magazines from the past year, ripping out my favorite images, articles, recipes, and advice, so I could pitch the rest. Thus, yesterday was not a good day for making a frittata. It was, however, the perfect day for reading, deep-cleaning the apartment, organizing, tidying, and movie-watching. Passing out in a clean bed with a book in hand around 2 am was most definitely well earned, I think.

But this post isn’t about how lovely and productive I am, is it? Well, not necessarily. I don’t have much to say about this first blind stab at making a frittata, aside from a strong insistence that one use a clean broiler for the last step. All too late, I realized that the previous tenant had never cleaned the shelf in the broiler, where she had made some sort of awful, oily, fish-based thing. There was smoke everywhere, a terrified cat huddled under my desk to watch from a safe distance, and a great deal of mid-morning cursing.

In the end, I managed to wiggle the shelf out and rest the pan on the very bottom of the broiler (the heat source comes from above in this one). It’s a little over-done, but it’s certainly a beginning. Hopefully the frittata planned for next Sunday will go considerably better.

First Freaking Frittata

5 eggs (with yolks)

3 egg whites

1/4 cup cottage cheese

4 spring onions/scallions

6 mushrooms (clean, thinly sliced)

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the broiler and warm the cast iron (or other stove- and oven-safe container) skillet with olive oil on medium heat.

Whisk together eggs, egg whites, and cottage cheese.

Add scallions, mushrooms, salt and pepper, and cook on stove until eggs begin to set (3-5 minutes).

Relocate to broiler, until the frittata appears to cook through and the top begins to brown just a touch (another 3-5 minutes).

Remove from broiler and use a flexible spatula to separate the egg from the edge of the pan. Slice into wedges and serve.

Important Note: If you have a glass-top stove, do not use a cast iron skillet! You will ruin your stove! Use an oven-safe stainless steel pan, or something similar.

Rosemary Gin Fizz

A while ago I promised you a delightful drink that would drive you stark raving mad. Well, maybe not the raving part, and it really was quite a while ago, now that I think of it. This drink is meant to drive you absolutely mad, in the most delightful way possible.

One of my very few complaints about the holidays is the heaviness of it all. I’m almost sure to drag myself back to Philadelphia weighing a few pounds more than I had when I left, and while the food is delicious and the company is fantastic, and while I really do wish I could stay home forever, in this lovely holiday limbo — well, let’s get real. In a desperate attempt to steer myself away from some of the thickest eggnog in the world, and keep a pretty white smile by dodging the liters of mulled wine out there, it doesn’t really leave much in the way of holiday drinks, does it? My friend Amy would argue that Stingers (“An old-timey drink with whiskey and creme de menthe. It’s green!”) might offer one alternative, but I do beg to differ. With this in mind, I poked around in my mom’s fridge today, for some inspiration.

I’m big on smells, if you couldn’t tell from previous posts. No matter how clean a room is, it doesn’t feel clean enough until it smells clean. No matter how warm it is, it doesn’t feel like summer until you can smell your neighbors grilling hamburgers and sausages. A car is never quite as new as it is when that new car smell overwhelms you every time you open the door. It’s the same with Christmas, so in order to make a Christmas drink, it only seems right to use a smell that matches the holiday.

So as you can imagine, when I stumbled upon a recipe for a Rosemary Gin Fizz, I was immediately enthralled. Christmassy look? Check. Christmassy smell? CHECK. Simple, easy to make, something I can’t exactly screw up easily? Check. Delicious? Well…

I must have done something wrong. I cannot believe that it would have gotten such acclaim on other foodie blogs if it weren’t absolutely mind-blowingly delicious. I must have done something wrong. So I made more simple syrup. Remixed. Retried. Candied the rosemary. Cut down on the gin. Added more fizz. Upped the sugar content. Downed another one (with a rather pained expression). I must have done something wrong. I must have done something wrong.

So here, I present to you, the link to the recipe for this drink. Good luck. Measure carefully. And, of course, merry Christmas!

http://www.sassyradish.com/2009/12/rosemary-gin-fizz/

Making Up

Oh hello there. Did you think I forgot about you? Silly you. Let’s play a little catch-up: The end of my first year of grad school was more than welcome by the time it hit, which was — of course — just in time for bolting off to get some archaeological work in abroad. It was such an adventure, I can’t even begin to explain it here. Maybe I should devote a second (often forgotten) webpage to my travels. Ha. From Crete, it was back to the UK for a splendid two weeks with some of my favorite people on earth, and then a mad dash back to Indiana for a few days before zipping up to Canada for my Uncle Bill’s wedding. Honestly, that was the highlight of my summer. Canada itself is wonderful, but I finally got to meet (and remember) all those people that mom and grandma always talked about spending every summer with, matching names to grinning faces. We stayed in a little cabin on a lake (surprise!) for nearly a week, ate sandwiches almost every day (mmm!), and just spent time with the extended family. I can’t think of a better way to end my summer. Then I moved into a new place and spent the rest of August working. 

Whew! Now to make up for lost time. I do have photos of my mini-Thanksgiving coming, since I hosted my immediate family this year! Dad was the photographer, so expect a different style when those photos get thrown up, here. The photos you’re about to view are from this weekend’s baking extravaganza and my crafternoon with a few girls from the department. Last weekend I was lucky enough to have my own Canadian haul a real live Christmas tree up to my apartment (how he wiggled it into my car, I’ll never know), only to realize that I had neither lights nor ornaments. Solution: Crafternoon! 

I don’t want my slave labor to go hungry, so the logical answer was to whip out some Thanksgiving leftovers (It’s more than a week later and I’m still working on the turkey), and bake any and everything that occurs to me, beginning with Cranberry Orange Cookies and Sugar Cookies. As if making an insane number of cookies weren’t enough, I woke up this morning and just had to make (a cheap, shorthand version of) Deb’s Caramelized Onion and Goat Cheese Cornbread (smittenkitchen, folks). Yesterday I was also smacked with the realization that my mom had secreted away several apples and some pears into the crisper of my fridge, so something absolutely must be done with those. What exactly, I’m not yet sure, but you will probably find out later this week. 

 

Allow me to renew my vows, yet again, to post more often. No more 6-month-long silences. I promise. 

 

Cranberry Orange Oatmeal Cookies

1 c (soft) butter

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp orange juice (fresh) or 1 tsp orange extract

1 c packed brown sugar

1/2 c white sugar

3 c oats (rolled is best)

1 1/2 c all-purpose flour

1 c dried cranberries

1 tbsp grated orange zest

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp ground cinnamon

 

Preheat to 350. 

Combine all dry ingredients in a medium mixing bowl (from the brown sugar on down the list).

Give it a quick stir. Trust me. 

Add all of the wet ingredients (from the top on down to the orange juice) and mix well. 

Spoon equal portions onto a wax-papered cookie sheet.

Bake 10-12 minutes per batch. 

Allow to cool for 2 minutes before moving the cookies to a cooling rack or plate. 

Keep going! It took me 4 or 5 rounds in the oven before all of the batter was gone. 

 

 

Deb’s Caramelized Onion and Goat Cheese Cornbread

1 box Jiffy cornbread mix (I cringe to say it, but it saves time and money!)

1 small log chevre (softened)

1 can sweet corn (or fresh corn, if you’re sure-handed with a knife)

1/2 c milk

1 egg

1 large onion

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp sugar

Preheat to 400. 

Melt 2 tbsp butter over medium heat. In the mean time, chop/dice the onion. 

Caramelize the onion over med-low heat (10 minutes, give or take). Set it aside. 

Break up/whip the goat cheese in your mixing bowl. Add the egg and milk, and keep stirring. It’s going to look pretty icky, but just keep going. 

Add the box of cornbread mix (unless you have your own cornbread recipe). Keep mixing. 

Drain the can of corn, and add it to the mixture. Keep mixing. 

Add half of the caramelized onions and 2 tbsp sugar. Keep mixing. 

Dump it all into a greased pan and top with the remaining onions. 

Pop it into the oven for 20-30 minutes, or until the top is golden-brown.

Let that thing cool for at least 5 minutes before you dig in! 

A Little Spring Green

Do you remember that commercial that aired a while ago? The one that started by demeaning people who enjoy coming home to cook, in order to convince the intellectually-starved masses that a frozen, preservative-ful meal was better than anything that could be accomplished with a few minutes of slicing or chopping? Yes, that one. I hate that commercial.

The fact of the matter is, sometimes I need that 20 minutes of chopping while I wait for the water to boil or the oven to warm. I need to balance, hip against the counter, one ankle tucked behind the other (yes, almost flamingo-style), and pick up that danger of a knife my brother gave me, and chop something to bits. Usually garlic falls prey to my careful, almost obsessive chopping. Sometimes it’s the long, relatively slow draw of the blade through a leek that satisfies me. Well folks, tonight, it was both. With my white-and-blue dishrag tossed over one shoulder, I chopped and sliced my way to oblivion.

And wound up with way too much garlic. I suppose that’s the story of my life: too much of a good thing leads to … well, too much garlic. When life gives you too much garlic… make enough food for an entire week’s worth of lunches. Alright, so that doesn’t have quite the same ring as the bit about lemons, but it fits the situation.

Speaking of the situation, I’ve been doing some things lately that I shouldn’t, like ignoring the need to post more. I know this is something I say every month, when I renew my vows to bring you new, delicious meals and show up with another crumble or “crap on” recipe (tick pasta and toast off that list), but I do promise, just as soon as this scholastic sprint to the finishline is over, I will give you seven perfect days of seven perfect posts. We’ll cover the lot of it: breakfast, lunch, a delightful snack, appetizer, dinner, dessert, and a drink to die for. I promise. Hang in there, homies.

Spring Green Pasta

2 servings whole wheat thin spaghetti pasta

1 small clove garlic

1/2 decently sized leek

1 handful of roughly torn fresh basil leaves

1 quick drizzle of olive oil (for the pan)

1 light dusting of parmesan cheese (optional)

Put the water on to boil.

Chop the garlic, slice the leek. Toss ‘em into a pan on medium heat with the olive oil.

Toss in the pasta for 4-5 minutes while you finish sauteeing the leeks and garlic.

Drain the al dente pasta, toss the leeks and garlic on top, then the basil, and dust with parm if you like.

Ideally, you’d be listening to some Iron and Wine and drinking a little wine while executing the tasks above. Mmmm.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble

About this time last year, when we’re all just about at that point of going absolutely stir-crazy, a curious thing happened. Rhubarb appeared. I don’t mean I suddenly saw oodles of it at the farmer’s market or at Reading Terminal. It stormed across nearly every blog I knew, dragging poor little strawberry along in its wake. It dug its heels into tarts and cobblers, burrowed into scones, and slid into jams and compotes. Let’s not forget the famous rhubarb pies, either. Absolutely everywhere, I was seeing something I had never tasted before.

You can imagine how badly I wanted to try some of it. The weekend after I was absolutely swamped in images of red celery (that’s what I always thought it was. No, seriously.), I trolled through the farmer’s market. No luck. On to general grocery stores. Nothing. Trader Joe’s? Zero, zip, nada. Finally, at this little Asian convenience store in West Philly, I found it. Well, I found one twisted, sad, withered little stalk, almost purple, and certainly bordering on mushy. Foolishly, I pinched a piece off with my thumbnail and stuck it in my mouth.

My eyes just about popped out of my skull. It was all I could do to inconspicuously leave the store before spitting that little bit out. It was far past its prime — that was my first mistake. The second mistake came, I think, in eating it raw. It tasted like moldy week-old mown grass smells. No, I thought to myself. I don’t care how pretty it is, I am never ever ever ever eating this stuff willingly. Never. Ever. And I didn’t. Not until yesterday.

I had seen it at Reading Terminal, bright and frisky, sitting up where only the tall people can reach. If you’re short, you’ll know what I’m talking about — I’ve been asked to reach for things by little ladies more often than I can recall. It hid behind the mound of yellow wax beans, and I probably wouldn’t have spotted it were it not for the fact that I stopped to scoop out about a pound of wax beans. Such a bright reddish-pink, brilliant and stunning in the drab hum-drum of the very last stretch of winter. What better way to welcome spring than to give it a go? Six stalks of rhubarb and two pints of strawberries later, I was zipping through the checkout and on my way to catch the bus.

Let me tell you — the grassy taste didn’t completely leave. I think that bit is seared into the crannies in my brain. But when baked with strawberries and a smattering of sugar, oaty goodness, and just enough flour to make it gooey? That, my friends, is what should usher in spring every year.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble

1 Pint of strawberries, cleaned and sliced

6 Rhubarb stalks, cleaned and sliced

1/2 lemon (juice only)

1 tbsp flour

4 tbsp sugar

light sprinkle of salt

 

Topping:

1/2 c oats

1/2 c flour

4 tbsp chopped walnuts

3 tbsp sugar (I like brown or raw, but all I had was white)

1/2 stick butter, melted

dash of salt

 

Preheat to 400.

Toss all the ingredients except those for the topping together in a bowl. Dump into an oven-safe container.

Mix all the ingredients for the topping except the butter. Mix well, then add the butter and stir until.. well, crumbly. Top the fruit mixture, and slide into the oven.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the top becomes a golden-brown.

Allow to cool for 15-20 minutes.

 

Tip: Delicious with vanilla ice cream!

Belated Chili

Alright, so I’ve had this post in the works for about a month. Maybe a little bit more. Seriously. It’s not really the right time of year for it anymore, and with the weather warming, I doubt you’d want to make this just now unless we all get another cold snap (knock on wood), but here it is anyway. This recipe is too good to not share with you all. I should definitely warn you though, to go a little easy on the spices if you’re not a huge fan of spicy food. With that said, I unveil: Hungry Girl’s 10-Alarm Turkey Chili!

We had just gotten slammed by another winter storm/snowpocalypse when I realized I had everything in the house that could be tipped into a pot and set on simmer for hours and hours to yield a delicious dinner. Even better? It would feel as though I’d done nothing to prepare the dinner itself, since all the work would have been done hours earlier, and the only bit left was to taste and check its progression. Honestly, there must be something about that ripe-tomato smell, sweet mingling with the chipotle and cumin seasonings that doesn’t just make your mouth water, but warms the room. Add a slab of garlicky, crusty bread and you’re in heaven.

It does make me miss my mom, though. The feeling of coming in from a freezing day to see that mom’s got something going in the crock pot, as rare as a crock pot meal is at home, makes it impossible not to smile to yourself while hanging up your coat. Speaking of mom, she’s going to come visit in a couple of weeks, and I just can’t wait to see her. Hopefully we’ll get to cook together, so you’ll have something else to read about. With any luck, it won’t take me two months to get it posted, either!

This makes a huge amount, so unless it’s headed for a Superbowl Sunday (or any other kind of) party, you’ll want to have plenty of containers ready for refrigerating and/or freezing.

 

Hungry Girl’s Ten-Alarm Chili

http://www.hungry-girl.com/newsletters/raw/1183

 

Roasted Purple Carrots

Remember that purple potato goop called purple potato and leek soup? I swear it tasted so much better than it looked. Well, I’m on to purple carrots, now. Alright, so they’re not purple all the way through, but that just adds a gorgeous sunburst to the equation. There’s not much to say on this front, except that these are ever so slightly spicy, and ought to have fresh slices of avocado added (oh that green color), but for $3 a pop the last time I saw them, they had to be left out this time.

Hopefully they’ll be cheaper in August, as almost all lovely produce is. For right now though, spring is still yawning and stretching in Philadelphia. It’s all I can do to eat a grapefruit for breakfast — that bright splash of brilliant orangey-pink first thing in the morning, the snappy citrus making a much better wake-up call than coffee could do. It also makes me want to take a shot at a recipe for orange-butter I spotted over at The Kitchen Sink last late-winter-slash-early-spring. The color, the citrus… It just screams hurry up and sprout! to spring. I just can’t wait for the bright green snap peas, the dreamy-purple chive blossoms, and brilliant red rhubarb.

I have to apologize (again, s’more) for the rare posts. I’d love to tell you I’m out living life to the fullest, running from one falling star to another (thanks Kerouac), but I’m holed up, writing presentation papers in every waking moment. I can’t complain, though — already I realize how much I’ve learned about the Bronze Age Aegean during my first year in grad school, and can’t wait for the chance to see the sites in person this summer. Oh, and look at my little daisies coming up!

 

Roasted Carrots

1 lb purple carrots (they can be expensive, so I went half purple and half orange)

1 tbsp olive oil

1 lime

2 sprinkles cumin

1 sprinkle red pepper flakes

salt to taste

 

Preheat the oven to 400.

Peel the carrots and slice them into relatively thick little stumps. 1/2 inch, maybe.

Toss the carrots, olive oil, and spices together in a bowl so the carrots are well-coated, and lay them out on a baking sheet.

Slip the sheet into the oven for 20 minutes or more, until the carrots are tender.

Juice the lime and toss the juice over the carrots. Eat while warm!

 

Tip: If you grab an avocado, slice it up and add it to the top of the just-roasted carrots, then toss on the lime juice.

Panera Chicken Panini

Thank Hungry Girl — no, not me — for this delicious recipe! Panera is one of those 50-buhzillion calorie treats in which mom and I partake when christmas shopping or running a lot of errands when I’m home. Other than then, I really don’t get the chance to eat there. I must confess, however, that I am loyal to their tuna salad sandwich, and will be to the grave, despite the fact that they changed their bread from delicious and crusty to freakin’ white fluffy junk. It’s something about the dijon mustard and the onion…

But we’re not here to talk about tuna sandwiches. I’m here for the chipotle chicken sandwich. Though I’ve never had the “real thing,” this substitute must be at least as good if not better, and it’s super low on the calorie scale (a measly 256 calories!). You got your protein, your (few) carbs, and even a smattering of veggies. What’s not to love? And the best part is, that short of the grilling step, everything can be prepared the night before, and thrown together in the morning for a delicious brown bag lunch.

Panera Chicken Panini

1 1/2 tsp fat free mayo

1/2 tsp chipotle sauce (either the sauce from canned chipotles or from a bottle of the hot sauce, which is easier to find)

2 dashes onion powder

2 dashes garlic powder

1 skim milk cheese stick (Sliced or pulled into pieces)

3 oz boneless skinless chicken breast (I like it pulled into pieces)

1 100-cal flat sandwich bun

2 slices plum tomato

2 thin slices of red onion

1 tbsp roughly chopped fresh basil

 

Cook the chicken well, and prep the other ingredients while you wait: Slice the tomato and onion, pull apart the cheese, chop the basil (or leave it whole, like I did), and mix the sauce.

For the sauce, mix the mayonnaise, chipotle sauce, and onion and garlic powder.

Spread half of the sauce on one open bun face, and save the rest for the chicken.

When the chicken is finished cooking, chop or shred it (or leave it whole, if you like!), and cover it with sauce. Mix it well if you’ve picked apart your chicken.

Pile everything onto your sandwich and plop it onto your panini press thingie, mini george foreman, or your little skillet. If you’re heating it on both sides at once, leave ‘er on there for 3 minutes or so. If you’re not, use a spatula to press down on it for 2 minutes or so, then flip and repeat.