The bonus recipe for April’s menu was PW’s Olive Cheese Bread.  I’ve made this one before, so I knew enough to look forward to it.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), Phillip doesn’t do olives, so this recipe was just for me.

The recipe calls for green stuffed olives and black pitted olives.

PW chopped hers with a knife, but I just ran mine through my mini chopper. Extra easy and no wayward olives on my floor.

Add some chopped green onion, mayonnaise, butter, and monterey jack cheese.  Stir to combine – and that’s it.  Olive mixture ready to go.Spread some of the mixture on French bread and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes.The finished product:

Olive-y, cheesy goodness.

A very rich, but delicious, mix.  Definitely be conservative when spreading this as it packs a lot of flavor into a little space – use the leftovers for a dip!  This also makes more than enough for a crowd and would be perfect for making a lot of small appetizers.  I just need to find some more people that like olives.

What better to serve with a cool pasta salad, than a spicy pulled pork?  This recipe has popped up all over the PW world, including the cookbook, the blog, and Food Network, so I was excited to try it.  First, the ingredients:

I found the chipotle peppers in the international foods aisle, but did not find the exact size can the recipe called for.  But, since these peppers and sauce are so spicy and the recipe noted how spicy the pork turns out, I figured I would be okay with a slightly smaller can.  The recipe also calls for 24 ounces of Dr. Pepper.  Neither of us care for Dr. Pepper, so we went the “cooler at the checkout” route and took home a 20 oz.  That should be good enough, right?  The pork shoulder was supposed to cook in the oven for about 6 hours, but I needed this to be a weeknight meal.  So, I pulled out my trusty crockpot to do all the work for me.  First, I quartered a couple of onions and scattered them on the bottom of the crockpot.

LOVE crockpot liners.

Seasoned the pork:

Salt, pepper, and some brown sugar.

Dump in the peppers and adobo sauce.

I didn’t have quite enough liquid from my 20 oz. Dr. Pepper, so I also added a partial can of Coke, which we do like and keep on hand.Several hours later…

The pork turned out extremely moist and very tender, only disappointingly mild-flavored.  I’m not sure if it was the cooking method or some of the (what I thought were) minor ingredient adjustments.  I was expecting big, spicy flavor, but ended up with neither.  However, I did get some very versatile pork.  Phillip ate it plain, I made it into nachos, and we could have made sandwiches or tacos.  And, it made plenty, so there were lots of leftovers – a big return for very little work.  I think this also would have been delicious instead of or mixed with the chicken for the White Chicken Enchiladas.  Next time, I’ll go heavier on the seasoning and definitely spring for an extra can of chipotles.  And I’ll probably just stick to good ol’ Coke – no offense Pioneer Woman, but it’s the Dean way.

Next up on the April Sweet as Pie list was Pasta Salad with Tomatoes, Zucchini, and Feta.  Super.  Easy.  This came together so quickly that I barely have photos.

Grape tomatoes, zucchini, and feta cheese.

Throw all of the vegetables into a bowl of bowtie pasta.

Finally, add an entire container of feta cheese, some oil, some fresh lemon juice, and salt and pepper.  This is a good base recipe.  I love the lemon, but if I make it again I’ll switch out the vegetables and step up the seasonings.  I like zucchini, but I’m not wild about it raw, so I think I’d definitely substitute cucumber for an even fresher taste.  As far as seasoning goes, I think this would benefit from a little more flavorful blend, including some garlic.  And the parsley.  In my opinion, parsley is only slightly better than useless.  If it weren’t green and offered a pop of color, it would be completely useless.  Maybe my palette just doesn’t respond well to parsley.  Anyway, my recommendation would be to skip the parsley and go with fresh basil.  Oh, oh, and maybe some of those tiny mozzarella balls (which are apparently called bocconcini)!  See, like I said, a good base recipe.

It’s the middle of April and I’m just now starting on my Sweet as Pie recipes for the month!  I best get cooking!  First up – White Chicken Enchiladas.  Y’all.  These were delicious.  You should make them.  Here’s how they came together:

First, the recipe directed me to grill my peppers until charred all over, and then transfer them to a plastic bag to steam for about 30 minutes.  The steaming really worked – the charred skin peeled right off and the peppers had lost their crunch, which is a good thing in this dish.

I attempted to grill my one bell pepper (instead of the tri-color trio the recipe called for) and my serrano chiles on my grill pan. It was SLOW going.

Diced onion sauteed with a jalapeno.

I’d cooked the chicken that morning, so I saved some prep time with that.  This would be a great recipe for using up any leftover chicken you have in your fridge since there’s really not a magic seasoning blend the chicken takes on.  While the saute was going, I worked on the peppers.

Peeling and seeding the grilled peppers. This dish was not at all spicy, so if you like a little kick, leave in some of the seeds.

In goes the chicken and half of the grilled peppers.

Mixed in some chicken broth and a PW signature ingredient, cream.

While the chicken simmered, I worked on the creamy cheese sauce.

A basic roux with some more chicken broth and cream, and a hefty couple of handfuls of monterey jack cheese. Oh, and the other half of the grilled peppers.

The recipe makes a lot of enchiladas.  I used the small taco-sized tortillas and there were enough to fill a 9×13 dish, as well as another small casserole dish.  Leftovers!After assembling the enchiladas, I poured on the sauce.

Honestly, this sauce would make a great cheese dip for chips. You could skip this whole enchilada business entirely.

The final product, including a cheesy top layer.

Four hungry boys can’t be wrong – these were yummy.  The sauce is very creamy and really makes it all work.  Next time I might try to cut down on some of the prep time by skipping the pepper roasting process and using canned chiles, but otherwise this one doesn’t need much tweaking to suit our tastes.  We’ll definitely make them again.  Another Sweet as Pie success story!

Just under the wire!  For the last Sweet as Pie recipe for March, I whipped up some breakfast burritos.  It actually worked out perfectly since Phillip loves breakfast and this is his official birthday weekend (his actual birthday is tomorrow).  Of course, when I went to the grocery store last Sunday I forgot to get all of the things for the burritos so I made a quick run to Publix this morning.  Let me just say for the record that I LOVE Publix.  And I especially love it before 8:00 a.m. when there are few people and there are Publix employees stocking shelves in every aisle who always say good morning.  Anyway, back to breakfast.  The recipe makes what seems like, appropriately, a cowboy-size number of servings, so we cut it in half.  5 eggs > 10 eggs, in my book.  I started with some hot sausage (Phillip’s preference):

The recipe called for PW’s own breakfast potatoes, but I cheated and used frozen southern-style hashbrowns. 

Then, the aforementioned eggs, as well as some seasonings and cheese.  We used pepper jack for a little something extra.

Another cheat - I used dried chives.

I actually had to turn up the heat on this because the eggs just weren't cooking. And it didn't end up looking anything like PW's pictures in her cookbook. Oh well.

The finished product:

We served them with some salsa for dipping – a must for these burritos.These were really pretty simple to make and I think would be a great option for a traveling or vacationing weekend.  Phillip is excited to see if they reheat well since despite halving the recipe, it still made 8 burritos.  Next time I’ll adjust the seasonings, maybe add some onions and mushrooms for me, and maybe change the cooking method a bit so the eggs scramble a bit better.  And, I might try to do separate shredded hashbrowns so there’s a little crispness in the burrito.  The possibilities are nearly endless!  Happy birthday breakfast, Phillip!