Italian Chicken Crescent Braid

Italian Chicken Crescent Braid

I thought I would do a little post about what I'm making for dinner tonight, and I'll actually be able to post the recipe since I made this one up. I'm calling it an italian chicken braid, which sounds fancy, looks fancy, but is really very easy to make. It's so good to, I think I'm a bit addicted to it, of course it's wrapped in crescent rolls so it has to be pretty good. 

Ingredients:

1lb ground chicken

1 tube refrigerated crescent rolls 

1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Sea salt
Black pepper
~1 tsp Garlic powder
Dried oregano
Dried basil 
~1 tsp Chicken bullion granules
Dried parsley flakes
~1Tbs olive oil
Non stick cooking spray
4-5 Ritz butter crackers (optional)

The ingredients aren't quite exact I know, but I've never really measured it out and the flavoring is all kind of to taste. So put a little more or a little less of the ingredients that you like.

To start you want to brown the ground chicken in a pot with a little bit of olive oil over medium heat. Make sure that it all gets broken up into small pieces. Once it's browned turn it down to a low heat and you can start adding the flavors. Add in a couple grinds of sea salt and a few grinds of pepper. I always add more pepper, I'm a little obsessed with pepper. Add about a teaspoon of garlic powder or garlic salt, you may want to use more or less than this depending on your garlic preferences. Add a small shake of oregano, it's powerful a little bit will go a long way, you really don't want to add too much. Add a few shakes of basil, this can be a little strong to, just use your best judgment. Add about a teaspoon of chicken bullion granules, this adds some extra flavor to the chicken, I love adding these granules to lots of things when I'm cooking to get a bit more depth of flavor, but be careful it can add a lot of extra salt. And finally add in some parsley, it gives it a little bit of flavor and some color, you can't really add too much. If you would like to add a bit of extra flavor and a bit of crunch, crush up a few Ritz crackers and mix them into the chicken as well. Make sure all of this is stirred all together well and take a little taste to make sure that you have all of the flavors right. Sometimes chicken needs a lot of extra flavor to help it along. Once it's to your liking set it aside and let it mostly cool.

While it's cooling set your oven to the temperature advised by the crescent roll instructions. I use Pillsbury reduced fat crescents, but use whatever ones you like. Take out a sheet pan and spray it with cooking oil. Now comes the somewhat hard part of setting up the crescent braid. Open the tube and take out the rolls. In pairs, line them up with the small edges together and place them on the pan in a line. You want to squish the rolls together to make sure you get a nice hold and flatten them out a bit to expand the surface area. You will be laying the chicken along the center line so you don't want the chicken falling out. It will look something like this.

Once the chicken is pretty much cooled, you don't want to add it too early and have the heat start cooking the rolls, spoon it onto the rolls. Arrange it in a sort of loaf form along the center line of the rolls, make sure its in an even thickness so the portions will all be the even. 

Next add the cheese on top of the chicken. I said to use a cup but use as much or as little as you'd like, although you don't want too too much or it won't fit and you'll have a lot of oozing cheese. I suggest to use mozzarella but use whatever cheese that you like. I tend to always forget to add the cheese and then I remember and have to un-braid everything, make sure you remember the cheese in the first place, it's so much easier.

Now it's time to braid the rolls over the chicken. Take the top two outside corners and lift and cross them over the chicken and cheese mixture. Continue this with each pair of roll corners. It will look kind of like this, please excuse my rough diagrams, hopefully it'll get you a good enough idea.

Now make sure all the chicken is tucked in and arranged well. Then place it in the oven for the time it says to bake the crescent rolls. You may need just a few more minutes than the tube says, just cook it until the rolls are golden and the cheese is melted. Then take it out and cut it into four servings, or you can make smaller servings if you like.

And there you have it, one fancy looking, easy to do, yummy meal. You can also do this same technique with taco meat instead of seasoned chicken for a different kind of taco.

Now go try it, I hope you like it.
 
 
 

Geeky Weekend

Geeky Weekend

I had a great weekend at the Cincinnati Comic Expo and I thought I would share with you all about my experience. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures but I have several stories to tell about my experience. 

First off though I want to talk about the new movie I saw on Friday, This is Where I Leave You. It was so good, I had expected it would be good from the trailers but it was even better than I expected it to be. The cast was great and portrayed really full characters. It had many sad elements throughout it, with the characters having to deal with a variety of big issues. It also had a lot of funny moments too, which helped make it such a well rounded and enjoyable movie. It's really the kind of movie that while you're watching it it gives you this feeling of how powerful and how wonderful it really is. It's rare to find movies like this, so I highly recommend people to go see this. It's filled with lots of family drama and lots of funny quips. 

The Cincinnati Comic Expo went on all this past weekend, but we went only Saturday. We had a wonderful time looking at the artwork, shopping, and going to the panels. I went fully decked out in an R2-D2 costume, an R2 dress, blue ruffled skirt, grey tights, R2 knit hat, rebel pin, and green light saber earrings. I received lots of compliments on my outfit and several people all day were calling to their friends to look at R2-D2. My husband and my cousin were more boring just wearing super hero T-shirts. There were a lot of great costumes, loads of Harley Quinns and Star Wars bounty hunters. Probably one of my most favorite costumes I saw was a baby dressed up like the white power ranger. Although there was a guy who had built a life sized Dalek and he was pulling it around all day, it was really cool, though would have been better if the guy had actually dressed up as something himself. 

The day started off really exciting because when we were walking down the street to the convention center Henry Winkler came up behind us. So we were a foot away from him and got to cross the street and enter into the building with him, which was pretty awesome. Then we got inside and could tell right away that it would be hard to not spend all of our money at so many of the booths. There were so many things that I wanted from awesome Doctor Who memorabilia to adorable Pokemon T-shirts. There were a lot of great T-shirt places and lots of really good artwork, we decided to give it all a walk through and then go back to buy a few things that we liked the best. I ended up getting an adorable baby Groot shirt that says, "Save the galaxy, plant a Groot". When I saw it I just knew that I had to have it, I'm a little obsessed with baby Groot, as my husband and cousin saw all day as I had to point out every one that I saw. We also ended up getting some awesome hand designed prints, the boys getting some Game of Thrones, Guardians, Doctor Who and Firefly, and I got one that had Groot in the background and baby Groot in the foreground. I also got one that had Hiccup and Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon. The boys found it hard to narrow down to just a few prints, but I knew which ones I wanted the minute we stepped up to the booth. 

While going through the booths I was also looking for Ellen Schreiber who was there signing books, I had a bit of a hard time finding her since she was hidden amongst a couple hundred booths. I did end up finding her and got to meet her and get my copy of the first Vampire Kisses signed, it was so nice to get to meet one of the authors that I like. 

Our afternoon was filled with going to lots of panels. First off was Jewel Staite, who was our whole reason for going to the expo at first. She was amazing and really funny, I just wish we could have sat a little closer because I couldn't see all that well. She gave some awesome insight into behind the scenes of Firefly along with telling us about how obsessed she is with food. She was so cute every time one of the little kids would come up to the mic and ask if they could give her a hug, out of all the panels that we went to she definitely got the most hugs, and I think she had the biggest crowd.

The second panel we went to was with  Jason David Frank, probably better known as the green or white power ranger. He was very entertaining and had a lot to say about inspiration and working towards goals, he was so great to all of the little kids there. What was very entertaining about his panel was that the black ranger decided that he would come in and crash the panel since he hadn't got to see Jason all weekend. So they got up on stage and borrowed someones morphers and did morphing time for all of us, which was so great.

The third panel was Henry Winkler, who was amazing. Still not sure what he has to do with a comic convention, but he's awesome and it was perfectly fine with me that he was there. He talked about his career and the different things that he's done over the years, how he got into acting, what actors he really admires. Which was surprising but great to hear that he thinks Ryan Gosling is one of the greatest actors of the time, and he suggested him for Fonzie if there was ever a Happy Days reboot. He talked about being there for the beginning of Robin Williams' career, which was fantastic to hear him describe. It was also great to hear him say how he wanted to show the real person of Fonzie in the show, not just the tough guy. It was really a great panel to watch. 

The last panel we saw was with Jonathan Rhys Davies and William Kircher, two very fantastic dwarfs. It was so great to hear them speak about their experiences and what it took to become a dwarf for their movies. They were so passionate about the movies, acting, New Zealand, and Peter Jackson. It was really something to hear them talk about these fantastic experiences that they had. Especially since Davies' told of how he didn't think that The Lord of the Rings would ever become successful in the beginning, or even finish filming, so he actually turned the role down at first. But it was clear that he changed his mind very early on once he saw the magnitude of the work going into it and the preparedness of the crew. It's great that he did change his mind and decide to be a part of it because the franchise would not be the same without him. It was great to hear them quote some lines and even do a little singing for us. Hearing Kircher's first red carpet experience was amazing too, how in awe he felt about the recognition and the joy he felt over his work. They had quite the packed panel as well, but we had fairly decent seats, not nearly as well as we had for Frank or Winkler's though. 

It was so great to see all of these amazing actors, really they were all so good that I couldn't pick a favorite panel. They were all very different but all very informative and inspiring. The personalities really shined through and their passion for acting was very evident. It was really something great to see and I'm so glad that we went. I'm hoping next year they bring in some more great actors that we'll want to see. 

As always, thanks for reading.

 

About My Novel

About My Novel

As I said in my first post, I am working on two novels at the moment. One is pretty close to being done and the other have a fairly significant start to it. I thought that I would take some time to explain more about what my first novel is about. I'll go into more depth explaining the plan for the second one later.

My first novel doesn't have a title yet, mostly because I can't decide on one that's good enough. So a couple of my possible titles for it are Victory! or Omnaria, but both seem just a little too plain so I'm trying to think of something better.  The story has lots of characters throughout it but the few main characters are Victory Storm, Luke Stratton, Harvey, Severianus, Demitri, and Micah. I have a lot of fun with writing stories with naming things. It's a random passion of mine to name things. Most of the names in this book were stolen or inspired by a lot of different books and movies that I love. The main character, Victory I didn't steal from anywhere though, that one just kind of came to me. Her name fits really well into her role in the story later on as well since she helps to win the victory. Luke, I stole from Star Wars of course and his last name I took from one of my favorite book series, Both Sides of Time. Harvey, was from the old movie Harvey about a man who can see an invisible 6 foot tall white rabbit. Severianus, came from Rowling's famous Severus, but I changed it to the Roman spelling to avoid any confusion and too much association with Harry Potter. Demitri, I changed the spelling on because I like this spelling better, but originally it came from the movie Anastasia. Micah, came from the TV show Charmed, from the episode where they travel back to old Salem. I don't purposely look to find these names for my characters, but names that I really like stick with me and as I'm writing they just come to my mind when I'm describing the characters. 

The original characters that influenced the names of my characters do play a little bit into the looks and actions that my characters have. For instance, Severianus is rather reclusive and dark just as Severus is, but by no means do they share all of the same traits. I like it when a name says a lot about a character, weather it's in symbolism, looks, or traits, and a lot of the time I don't even consciously think about the connections of the character's name, things just happen in the story that help make their names more significant and meaningful. 

My story begins with Victory and Luke, they are teenagers going to high school and facing everyday drama. Also Luke just happens to be madly in love with Victory and she barely knows that he exists. So along with Luke trying to get Victory to notice him they go to class, lunch, and drama club. They are putting on a production of Twelfth Night for the school play and Luke and Victory landed the roles of the twins. I just love it when Shakespeare plays randomly pop up in books and movies, though most of the time it happens to be A Midsummer Night's Dream, but Twelfth Night fit so much better in my story. Victory getting to play the brave Viola who has a case of mistaken identity. Even though everything at the school seems to be perfectly normal, one day this random boy Harvey shows up and changes everything. He is mysterious and no one knows where he came from and Victory is beyond fascinated by him, and he appears to be stalking her. Then one day Harvey transports Victory into another realm without any real warning. 

This new realm is the land of Omnaria, which is a beautiful forest land that has been locked in a long battle between the Revalia and Brudeaga armies for years. Severianus is the leader of the Revalia trying to overthrow the oppressive Brudeaga ruling class. The Revalia need Victory to help them but the Brudeaga find out that she arrived and steal her. So Severianus sends his most trusted spy, Demitri to go rescue her. Demitri gets her back and they begin to explain to her why she's there and what thye need her to do. The plan gets set into place and Victory goes and completes her task. 

 All the while through training and such, Victory and Demitri fall in love with each other. This love causes a real problem when it's brought up that Victory has to go back to her own realm. She has to make a choice of what to do, go back to the life she knows, or figure out if there is some way that would allow her to stay. 

The story has a lot of medieval influences all throughout, the main plot is very loosely based on the story of Judith. There is love, friendship, adventure, war, murder, and lots of challenges to face. The beautiful land of Omnaria has many surprises in store. What do you do when the man that you love is from a different realm?

I'm having a lot of fun writing this story and it's interesting to see how the traits of people I know end up in my characters. I'm hoping to have it done soon so that I can work on getting it published. I recently found out that it was a good bit under average word count though so I need to add a bit more to it. I'm not sure if I've described this new realm and fascinating characters quiet fully enough. So I'll be working on adding more to it and going through final edits. Then I'll be looking for publishers and hopefully be able to get it into print. I have 52,644 words now and hope to get it up past 70,000 at least, to be able to have a decent sized novel. 

I've got lots of work to do, I'll keep you posted. I'll keep posting about my other projects as well along with my random adventures. This weekend I'm going to a Comic Expo and I get to meet my favorite actress from Firefly, Jewel Staite. I also found out one of the authors I like Ellen Schreiber is going to be there to sign books, so I'm very excited. So I'll be sure to tell you all about my experience next week, and hopefully show you pictures of my awesome R2-D2 costume.

 

Fun With Baking

Fun With Baking

So my cranberry scones I made yesterday turned out great. Which was surprising because I thought I screwed up the batter. They were cinnamon cranberry scones with a lemon glaze. They would have been better with fresh cranberries and a bit more cinnamon though. Fresh cranberries aren't quite in season yet though, so I'll have to wait until the berry harvest to try again. The scones did go very well with my green tea to make a pleasant little tea time.

It was an interesting scone recipe I used because it didn't have any sugar in it apart from the glaze on top. I wasn't sure how they were going to be without the extra sweetness, but they tasted really good, the lemon glaze on top really helped pick up the flavor. It feels like it could be considered somewhat healthy with having no sugar in the actual scones too. The recipe didn't originally call for cinnamon, but I wanted to add it in for some more flavor. I had had cranberry scones at a bookstore a few weeks ago and they were really good, the cinnamon just adds something extra to it. 

I got a little more work done on my Hobbit hole embroidery yesterday too. There's still a long way to go but it's a slow process. I'd say I'm maybe 20% finished with it. I'll be sure to post pictures when I'm done, which could very well be several months. 

My cooking project for today is snicker doodle cookies, at the request of my husband. Though maybe I should say it was more at the demand of my husband, he was pretty set on getting cookies soon when he decided that's what he wanted. He's a little obsessed with snicker doodles, he'd eat the whole batch in one night if he could. Unfortunate for him though I didn't have quite enough eggs to make the full recipe, so I had to half it. So now there's not a full batch, but he's probably better off that way. The cookies are chilling in the fridge right now so they can set and be firm enough to form in a little bit. I'm hoping I have time to bake them before I have to put the pork chops in for dinner. 

It's my Mom's special snicker doodle recipe, everyone is obsessed with these cookies. It's really easy to make, it just takes a bit of time especially with the chilling process. The best trick for cookies that I've learned from my Mom's snicker doodle and sugar cookie recipes, is that to get super light fluffy cookies use cream of tartar in the batter and make sure to chill the cookies. It helps them rise and get good and airy. Though this can cause them to not be super filling cookies and they get very addicting, so you have to be careful not to eat too many.

 

If anyone's interested in the recipes let me know and I'll start posting those. The scone recipe I got from pinterest. Thanks for reading.

First Blog

First Blog 

Kat's Creations

Here's my new blog where I intend to write about all of my different creations from writing to sewing. I'm a writer, cook, and embroideress and here I will showcase all of my progress on my multiple projects. I'll also be giving my commentary on different books and movies as well.

I want to share my many passions and give incite into my novel writing. At the moment I'm working on writing 2 different books, both fantasy. One is about the journey of a girl into another realm where she must help save their people. The second is about the return of King Arthur, the story of how his parents got married and how they prepared for his arrival. Neither have an official title yet, the first one is nearly done and hopefully soon to be sent out to a publisher. 

My sewing project of the moment is an embroidery of a Hobbit hole. It's a little slow coming along but it should be very awesome when it's done. I'm also planning to make some quilted pillows soon featuring Pacman ghosts or a Tardis. Haven't decided yet. Here's a picture of the Chip embroidery I did a little while ago, sewn and beaded all by hand.

If you haven't been able to tell yet, I'm kind of a geek. Big into Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Firefly, and Doctor Who. I'm also very obsessed with the medieval period, the Tudors, Shakespeare, and King Arthur being my main focuses of the time period. 

I recently got married so a lot of my projects have been put on hold lately, but hopefully now I'll have time to get some things done. I'll update you all on my progress as I go.

Thanks for reading. Hopefully I'll have project updates soon. Today I'm planning on making cranberry scones, I'll show how they turn out later.