Irish Flag Trifle

Looking for a last minute, easy, and festive St. Patrick's Day dessert?  Look no further.

I made this trifle (the recipe for which I got from my friend Chrissy S.) last year, but back then, I forgot the whiskey!  Oh, the horror!  ;) 

This time I made no such mistake.  Here's the easy process....

You will need:

• One box of white cake mix
• Two packages of banana cream flavored instant pudding
• Milk (to make the pudding with)
• A large tub of Cool Whip
• 6 Heath Bars
• Irish Whiskey (one nip, or approximately two shots)
• Green and orange food coloring (I use red and yellow to make my own orange, since I can't find orange in my market)

First, prepare the cake mix according to the package instructions, but also add as much green food coloring as you need in order to make it your desired shade.  Bake in two separate pans, according to the package directions.

While the cakes are baking, prepare the two packages of pudding, according to the directions on the boxes, but again, add as much orange food coloring as you need to in order to achieve the desired shade.  Also take your cool whip out of the fridge/freezer, so it comes to a more workable texture.  Finally, crush up all the Heath Bars in a plastic zip-top baggie.

When the cakes are done and cooled, it's time build your trifle.  The only non-obvious step that you will need to take is to trim off the sides of the cakes, so that the interior green color can shine through.

Layer it all into your trifle bowl....put in one of the cakes, drizzle it with half the whiskey, then a layer of pudding, then a layer of cool whip, and a layer of crushed Heath Bar.  Repeat the layering one more time, and then you are done.

You want to know the nutritional value on this?  No.  The don't ask, don't tell policy on this has not been repealed.  Just eat it, it's a holiday after all.  =P

Chicken Mole

On Monday, we thawed out two chicken breasts with no plan of how we were going to turn them into dinner.  Unfortunately, Hubby went home from work sick early that day, so we didn't use them.  I ate leftovers.  On Tuesday, we ate other leftovers, because that's a night we go to martial arts class....just no time for real cooking.  I tasked Hubby with figuring out what we would do with the chicken tonight (Wednesday) and he came up with this recipe for chicken mole.  We, as usual, changed it a bit to suit our own tastes.  Here is how we did it....

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 2 boneless chicken breasts
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 pound of fresh tomatoes, seeded and chopped
• 2 teaspoons brown sugar
• 1 cup chicken broth, homemade
• 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Procedure

1.  Heat the vegetable oil in an enameled Dutch oven over medium-high heat.

2.  Cook the chicken pieces (we simply butterflied them - but you can chop if you like) in the hot oil until browned. Remove from the pan and set aside.

3.  Reduce heat to medium, and stir in the bay leaf and other dried spices until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the onion and garlic; cook and stir until the onion has softened and turned translucent, about 5 minutes.

4.  Stir in the tomatoes, brown sugar, and chicken broth, and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Once simmering, stir in the chocolate chips until melted.

5.  Remove the bay leaf, and puree the sauce.  Put the bay leaf back in.

6.  Return the chicken pieces to the pot. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until the chicken is tender and no longer pink, 15 to 20 minutes.

7.  Serve with homemade corn tortillas, and on my plate tonight, mashed peas with butter.  Mmmmm.

Review

This was pretty yummy.  Right before we ate it, though, we decided that it needed....something more, so we added additional chocolate and some salt (why the original recipe didn't ask for salt I am not sure).  I do think that if there was simply a bit more of each spice (especially the cloves) it would have been fantastic.  I also thought it was weird that the original recipe didn't call for the sauce to be blended, and I wonder how it got to be so smooth in the pictures online given the (textures of some of the) ingredients that went into it, so that's why we decided to blend it.  Finally, Hubby doesn't like raisins, so we left them out; I don't know if the final taste would have been better or worse with them.  We will definitely use this recipe again, perhaps making a couple small changes/additions next time.

Bonus

Today is 3/14, so of course we finished dinner with pie.  Get it, Pi (3.14)?  Lol.

Chocolate Cream Pie from our local supermarket.  Very good.