Caesar Salad Cups

I have made these cute little appetizers twice now; once for my NYE party, and once for book club.  They were a big hit both times!  Guests really appreciate having something healthy to nibble on.  This recipe has the great parts of a Caesar salad, with the wonton wrapper acting the croutons!

Caesar Salad Cups
Yields 24 Cups

Ingredients:
1 bag romaine lettuce hearts
2 cooked chicken breasts
Shredded parmesan cheese (the real stuff, not the crap in the plastic shaker)
Creamy Caesar salad dressing
1 package wonton wrappers
5 tablespoons butter
Garlic salt

Directions:
Wonton Cups:
1. Preheat oven to 375F.  Spray muffin pan with cooking spray.
2.  Melt butter, and add garlic salt to taste.  Set aside.
3.  Set up a bowl with water and a couple folded paper towels.  We are going to be "rinsing" the wonton wrappers before we put them in the pan.  This is to get rid the yucky flour on the wrappers.
4.  Dunk a wonton wrapper in the water, and shake off the excess. Place wrapper on paper towel, and dab top with another paper towel.
5. Gingerly place wrapper in muffin pan.  Get the wrapper as snug as you can without ripping it.
6. Repeat for the rest on the wrappers.  Make sure to change the water 2 or 3 times.
7. Brush insides of wrappers lightly with butter.
8. Bake for about 10 minutes.  But watch them closely!  These go from golden brown and delicious to brunt to a crisp in the blink of an eye!
9.  Cool completely on wire rack.

Filling:
1.  Chop romaine hearts into small pieces.
2.  Chop cooked chicken into small pieces, (approx 1/8" x1/8" cubes)
3.  Place romaine and chicken in large bowl, add Parmesan and dressing to taste.  Mix well.
4.  Divide filling evenly among 24 wonton cups.


 Notes:
-The cups can be made the day before, but I would not prepare the salad more than a few hours before your party.  Fill the cups right before you put them out.
- I know rinsing the wonton wrappers off seems like an annoying extra step, that is because it is.  But trust me whatever flour they use is nasty!  You want to get it off. 
- I usually bake up all the wrappers in the package.  Then I can pick the prettiest ones to fill up.

Body Worlds & The Cycle of Life

It was recently my birthday, so what better to celebrate that going to look at bodies? Let me say Body Worlds was AWESOME!  (as predicted, way better than the knock-off at Internations Mueseum of Surgical Science.) This is my third time seeing a Body Worlds exhibit, and I am never disappointed.  This time there was a lot of pieces that had two bodies interacting.  They all appeared to by standing on their own accord!  Even my husband, the architect, couldn't easily see the support structure.  There was also an ostrich with it's feathers!  I had no idea they were so big!

The Cycle of Life part was a little bit of a downer though.  There were all these plaques essentially saying that we are all going to die one day.  Like that is big news.  I was also highly entertained at the Museum of Science and Industry employees giving out blatantly wrong anatomical info.  I snickered a lot to myself.

Gunther von Hagens is great and always puts on a good show.  Plus I like his hat.

Here is where you can get tickets to the show at the MSI in Chicago:

http://www.msichicago.org/whats-here/exhibits/body-worlds/

And while your there make to vist the chicks!

Grilled Chicken

Here in Chicago today was the first nice day of Spring!  So in honor of the occasion we grilled some yummy chicken thighs.

It was so easy, I used my absolute favorite chicken spice.  Penzeys is great!  They have few brick and mortar shops, and you can order things online.

All I did was sprinkle the Penzeys poultry seasoning liberally on the chicken.  Then, the most important part, I sent my husband out to the BBQ to grill it up.  It was so juicy, and with a nice crispy skin.

Look how nice our dinner looked!  Don't worry, I will be featuring the Lemon and Dill Potatoes in an upcoming post.

Palmiers

These cookies are so good and so easy!  I love to have them with tea in the morning.  You are sure to impress guests with the yummy after dinner treat, or just make them for a lazy Sunday morning at home.

Palmiers
* adapted from SimplyRecipes.com

Ingredients:
Lots of granulated sugar
Puff pastry, thawed at room temp for about 45 minutes

Directions:
1.  Preheat oven to 400F.  Unfold your puff pastry sheet onto a piece of parchment paper or a Silpat mat.
2.  Sprinkle 1/4 cup sugar over puff pastry sheet.
3.  Fold left and right sides of pastry sheet towards the center as shown.

4.  Lightly brush top of folded sheet with water, then fold in half as shown. Press lightly to seal two sides together.

6.  Sprinkle both sides with sugar.
7.  Slice folded pastry into 1/2 inch thick pieces
8.  Sprinkle both sides with sugar and place on parchment lined baking sheet.
9.  Bake 10-15 minutes, or until sugar has caramelized.  Halfway through baking time, flip palmiers over.
10.  Cool on rack for 10 minutes.