Rounding out the July Sweet as Pie picks was Honey-Plum-Soy Chicken, a hearty braised chicken dish.  I can’t say that this one caught my eye when flipping through the cookbook, but I was pleasantly surprised.  It was really good, gave us some great leftovers, and was pretty easy to make.  Here’s how it came together:

First you marinate the chicken in wine with some bay leaves.

While the chicken marinated, I mixed the sauce.  More wine, an entire bottle of soy sauce (use the low sodium if you can), honey, and plum preserves.  Well, actually Publix failed me on the plum preserves (an unusual occurrence at my favorite grocery), so I just picked something else purple – grape jam.  Jennifer at Redheads Plus One sent out a warning not to use the regular soy sauce in this dish because it made it almost unbearably salty.  Unfortunately, I’d already purchased the ingredients for this one.  But, since I knew the saltiness was going to be an issue going in, I added a little extra honey and some extra wine to help cut the soy sauce.

The sauce, all ready to go.

Next, I browned the chicken in olive oil before adding some minced garlic to the pan.  Look how purple the chicken is from marinating in the wine.  This whole dish was very purple.  I even started humming “Start Wearing Purple” by Gogol Bordello while I was making it.

Add the sauce and some chopped plums to the dish before moving it to the oven to cook for 1.5-2 hours.

Plums always remind me of my grandpa. We use to eat them when we’d visit him in the summers.

The finished product, served over egg noodles and sprinkled with green onion (a must – it really adds to it):Luckily, this dish was not too salty for us and I don’t think the substitution of the grape jam made much of a difference, so no worries if you can’t track down plum preserves either.  We really enjoyed this dish and loved the layers of flavor in the sauce.  And I especially enjoyed how yummy my house smelled while it was cooking!  It was a great way to get some exposure to plums – a fruit we don’t typically keep around here.

We were really looking forward to this dessert from the July Sweet as Pie menu.  Here’s how it came together:

You start with a box of German chocolate cake mix and add some melted butter and some evaporated milk.At this point I was supposed to add pecans, but I don’t like pecans in my brownies, so we went nutless.  We didn’t suffer for it.  Mix this together to form a really thick batter/loose dough.  I divided the dough in half and put it into a greased 8×8 pan.  Now, I really needed a 9×9 pan for this recipe, but I couldn’t find mine (storage unit, maybe?).  The correct size pan really would probably make a difference.  Or maybe doubling the whole recipe and using a 9×13 or other large dish (although I’m not sure you’d even need to double the caramel for that).  Anyway, bake the bottom half of the brownies and let cool while you whip up a caramel sauce.

A bag of caramels and some more evaporated milk melted and mixed together makes a delicious and easy caramel sauce.

Pour the caramel over the bottom brownie layer.

This made plenty, so I didn’t use all the caramel. I might have needed more if I’d been working with the right size pan, but I still think this makes enough to do a double batch.

Sprinkle on some chocolate chips.  Yes, that’s right.  Brownies, caramel, AND chocolate chips.Next you fashion the rest of the brownie dough into a pan-shaped square to be laid on top of the chocolately, caramely gooey goodness.  Don’t even think about trying to dump in the dough and spread it over the top – it’s just too thick.

Pre-baking

These need to cool completely and then be refrigerated a while before cutting.  Technically, I was supposed to dust them with powdered sugar, but I skipped that step because I just didn’t think they’d need it.  And they didn’t.  The finished product:

Despite refrigeration, these brownies were chewy and gooey till the end.

These were easy to make and would be even easier if you could find a way to shortcut the melting of the caramels.  I think I’ll keep them around for party food.  Why party food you ask?  Because they are so good that you really need to share them with other people to prevent yourself from eating all of them.  And they are so rich that they would work great cut into caramel-sized bites I think.  A great pick from Jennifer at Redheads Plus One!

This Sweet as Pie pick was so quick and easy, I only have one picture of it.  We love lemonade and limeade so we were excited to try this one.  Now, I don’t do cherries so I mixed everything except the cherries and then split the mixture between two pitchers.  I added half of the called for cherries and juice into Phillip’s pitcher, but in mine I added some muddled strawberries with their juice.  Delicious!  A cool summer drink that would also work well on the go frozen in water bottles or in the cooler for an afternoon on the boat or beach.  Or made into slushies!

The yummy strawberry version of the limeade.

First up on my cooking to-do list this month was this fun pick from Sweet as Pie, Easy Calzones.  A cool idea and pretty easy to execute.  Here’s how it came together:

First, you start with some frozen bread dough – either rolls or for loaves.  Definitely opt for the rolls if you can find them because they are pre-portioned.  After thawing and rising, the rolls are ready to be rolled.

While the dough was rising, I made the filling.

The basic ingredients.  I used half “hot” and half “regular” sausage.

I browned the sausage with some diced onion and then mixed with the ricotta, parmesan, mozzarella, egg, and seasonings mixture.The filling:Next, I started forming the calzones.  I rolled out each portion of dough as thinly as possible, put a spoonful of filling in the center, and folded the edges together to seal.  Some of them I pressed together with my fingers, and some of them I sealed with my Pampered Chef Cut-N-Seal, a fun gadget I don’t use often enough.After a quick egg wash, these were ready for the oven.

Nice and brown. I served these with some warm marinara on the side for dipping.

These were yummy, made plenty, and I think offer a lot of possibilities for multiple flavor combinations.  Or, even a great way to satisfy a wide range of tastes at once by making custom calzones for everyone.  Next time I’ll probably skip the breakfast sausage and go with a spicier Italian sausage or forget sausage altogether and go with tried and true pepperoni – maybe with mozzarella, onions, and mushrooms!  Either way, can’t go wrong.