Homemade Teriyaki Sauce

Trying to find the best teriyaki place? It's most likely that you'll get as many answers as people you ask.  Now you don't have to leave home to get it! This was a sauce originally designed for chicken wings, but I find there isn't much meat on a wing - and their kinda messy.  I used this sauce for chicken legs as well as chicken breasts and both turned out great.  The recipe makes quite a bit and it keeps for a few weeks in your fridge.

Homemade Teriyaki Sauce
1 cup low-sodium soy sauce
1 cup grapefruit juice
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
1/4 cup ketchup
3 T rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/2 fresh, hot red chile, seeded and de-ribbed (use both halves for a spicy sauce!)
5 garlic cloves, halved
2-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and smashed with the side of a large knife
cilantro and sesame seeds to garnish

1.  Roast your chicken in the oven as normal (rub with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake at 350 until thickest part reaches 160 degrees - I'm assuming you're using chicken pieces, not a whole chicken!).

2.  While chicken is cooking, combine the ingredients in a large saucepan. Simmer over low heat until sauce is slightly thickened.

3.  When chicken comes out of the oven, put it in a bowl large enough to cover the chicken with sauce.  Pour enough sauce over the chicken to completely cover all the pieces.  Let the chicken marinate for 5 minutes.  If using chicken breasts, you might want to cut the meat into smaller pieces to get better coverage.  Remove  garlic, pepper and ginger and store remaining sauce in an air-tight container in the refrigerator.

4.  Place pieces of chicken on a platter and sprinkle with cilantro leaves and sesame seeds to garnish.

Enjoy!

Rice Krispie Cake

Ever wonder what you can take to a party that no one else is going to bring - or if someone else does bring the same thing how you can guarantee that yours will be the one that everyone eats?  Well, this is THAT THING. It's fun for kids and delicious for adults. It's quick and easy to make and ready to eat a few minutes later.  It's a classic favorite kicked up with a little sweet and a little salty. It's a party all by its self. It's.... a Rice Krispie Cake!

I made this for my Super Bowl party and it was definitely a favorite on the table - by kids and grownups alike!  While I used a chocolate/butterscotch/peanut theme, you can really use whatever combination of flavors you'd like. The premise is still the basic Rice Krispie, but you add one flavor of cereal, broken pretzel sticks, a baking chip, a candy if you'd like (such as M&Ms) - get creative.  Some combinations could be:

• Captain Crunch, peanut butter chips, M&Ms (plain or peanut) or Reese's Pieces, pretzel sticks

• Fruit Loops, white chocolate chips, mini-marshmallows, pretzel sticks, (drizzle melted semi-sweet chocolate on top!)

Be aware that the baking chips will melt when you mix them in, so if you use chocolate, you'll have brown smudges all throughout (might not look so good!).  Also, if you use a chocolate cereal, be careful if it's chocolate coated for the same reason! Below is the recipe and candy combo that I used (add-ins are flexible, you can increase or decrease to taste).  Another thing that is unique about this Rice Krispie treat is the shape - it's molded in an angel food cake pan. To serve, slice with a sharp knife. Make a double recipe to make a taller 'cake' that is the height of a normal angel food cake.

Rice Krispie Cake
4 cups Rice Krispies cereal
2 cups Cinnamon Toast Crunch
4 T butter
1 whole bag mini marshmallows
1/2 - 3/4 cup butterscotch chips
1 small bag (snack size) regular M&Ms
1 cup Peanut M&Ms
1 cup pretzel sticks, broken in half

1.  Spray an angel food cake pan with Pam or other cooking spray and set aside.

2.  Melt butter in a large pot on the stove on medium heat, add the marshmallows; reduce heat if necessary to prevent marshmallows and butter from burning.  Stir constantly.

3.  When marshmallows are completely melted, remove from heat and add both cereals. Stir quickly to coat cereal evenly.  Add the rest of ingredients and stir until just combined. Careful to not over stir so candies do not melt - otherwise colors will melt and smear on the cereals!

4.  Pour cereal mixture into angel food cake pan and gently pat down into pan to ensure it takes on the shape of the pan. Let cool for a few minutes in the pan, then turn out onto plate for serving. Slice pieces of cake to serve when completely cool.

Enjoy!

Personal French Apple Tarts

It has truly been too long since I have last posted a Delectable Cate recipe!  It's not that I haven't tried - I did!  I had one much anticipated recipe over New Years and it was a complete and utter fail.  In fact, I had been so excited and it was such a disappointment that I didn't even really want to cook for a week or two after that.  But, this recipe is such an excitement that I just can't wait for you to try it and tell me what you think!

One of my favorite aspects of this recipe (aside from the deliciousness, of course) is that you can half the recipe and make two tarts when don't want a large dessert with lots of leftovers.  And it's a pretty quick and simple recipe, so you don't have to spend all afternoon in the kitchen preparing dessert.  It's also versatile; you could serve it for a breakfast treat, for afternoon tea, or add a scoop of vanilla ice cream and it's a great dessert in the evening! Voila!

Personal French Apple Tarts
2 Granny Smith Apples, peeled, cored, quartered
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
2 T fresh clementine juice
2 T unsalted butter
1 frozen puff pastry sheet (from a 17 1/4 oz package), thawed
2 T peach or apricot jam

1.  Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Thinly slice apples about 1/16 of an inch or slightly thicker (I prefer them a little thicker rather than thinner, but you may need to have a little extra apple on hand, so be prepared if you slice them too thick!).  Transfer slices into a heat-proof bowl.

2.  Bring water, sugar, clementine juice (may substitute with lemon juice if clementines are out of season), and butter to a boil in a small sauce pan, stirring until sugar is dissolved.  Pour sauce over apples and stir so apples are well-coated.  Let apples sit in sauce until wilted (my slices never wilted, so I let them sit for about a minute). Drain apples in a colander set over a bowl, reserving the liquid

3.  Roll out pastry dough on a lightly floured surface into a 12-inch square and cut into 4 6-inch squares. (If only making two, cut half of the dough, and fold the other half back up in wax paper and re-freeze.)  Place squares onto a lightly buttered baking sheet (emphasis on 'lightly' as too much butter will burn the bottoms of the tarts - you could even try using parchment paper instead of butter!) and top with overlapping apple slices. Bake in the middle of the oven until golden brown, about 20-25 minutes - be careful not to overcook!

4.  Boil reserved liquid in a saucepan along with the 2 tablespoons peach or apricot jam until reduced to about 1/3 cup, then brush or drizzle on the baked tarts.   If serving with ice cream, you might want to double the sauce recipe and use the extra sauce as topping over the ice cream as well.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

These are a recipe I created five or six years ago that have become a regular during the fall and winter months. While pumpkin and chocolate might not naturally come to mind as a combination, they work really well together in a cookie!  Oh, did I mention that they're low-fat?

I came up with the recipe when I purchased some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies from a bakery that I thought were tasty. I said to myself, "Hey, I could make these!"  I'd heard of substituting butter with applesauce in baking to reduce fat, and figured that canned pumpkin was about the same consistency as applesauce so it would probably work the same.  The cookies are a bit more cake-like than a traditional chocolate chip cookie, but equally satisfying and just as hard to stop eating!  To make an even healthier cookie (and still tasty), use your favorite oatmeal cookie recipe but use only 3T of butter and 1 cup of pumpkin puree (and the spices).

Notes: because they are more cake-like and have less fat, they don't store well in air-tight containers; neither do they look as nice when they are a few days old - so don't make well in advance if you're serving them to guests!  Extra pumpkin can be frozen until your next pumpkin recipe!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
3 T butter, softened
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
pinch ground cloves
pinch nutmeg
pinch allspice
12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips

1.  In an electric mixer, combine butter, pumpkin, sugars, eggs and vanilla until well blended.

2.  In another bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking soda and spices and mix together (I use a whisk).  With the mix on low, add the flour mixture to the pumpkin  mixture until just combined.  Add the chocolate chips and mix until chocolate chips are just incorporated.

3.  Spoon cookies onto a cookie sheet and bake at 375 for about 11 minutes.  Be sure to bake until cookies spring to the touch and peaks are just starting to turn golden.  You definitely don't want them to be undercooked since they are cake-like!

Enjoy!