Heavenly Buttermilk Syrup

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 tablespoons corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions

1. In a saucepan, stir together the sugar, buttermilk, butter, corn syrup, and baking soda. Bring to a boil, and cook for 7 minutes. Remove from the heat, and stir in the vanilla.

Zucchini Pie

Ingredients:

1 (8 oz.) package refrigerated crescent rolls (I used the seamless dough sheet again)
1/4 butter
4 cups sliced zucchini
1/4 cup chopped onions
2 T. dried parsley
1/4 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper (I only used 1/4 tsp. since I'm not a big pepper fan)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Unroll crescent rolls and press into a 9 inch pie pan, covering sides and bottom.

Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat, and cook the zucchini and onion until tender. Season with parsley, oregano, salt and pepper. Remove skillet from heat and mix in the eggs and cheese.

Put zucchini mixture in pie pan over crescent dough and bake for 20 minutes, until set. Cool 10 minutes before serving.

Wow... second night in a row trying a new recipe and I loved it. The kids liked it mostly, Isaac and Anna didn't love the zucchini part, but they still ate what I gave them. I like to have some vegetarian dishes in our rotation, I don't know if this is truly vegetarian since it has eggs, but it counts for me.

I might try using some yellow squash with the zucchini next time. It might be fun to mix in some sharp cheddar too, or parmesan...

Oh, and in case you care...
Nutrition info is as follows if you cut it into 8 slices
1 slice has about 257 calories

I think next time I'll try it with light butter, or maybe just use less butter to cut down on the calories and maybe the reduced fat crescent dough. I bet you could also use eggbeaters or something like that for the eggs and cut there too.

Hope you like it as much as I did.

Chicken and Broccoli Braid

Ingredients:

2 cups diced, cooked chicken
1 cup fresh broccoli, chopped
1/2 cup red bell pepper, chopped (I used orange since that is what I had.)
1 clove crushed garlic (I used 1/2 tsp. minced)
1 cup shredded cheddar (I used sharp of course)
1/2 cup mayonnaise (I used light)
1/4 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. slivered almonds
1/4 cup diced onions
2 (8oz.) package refrigerated crescent rolls (I used the new crescent baking sheets, they are the same as the crescent rolls but without the perforation. It's nice because then you don't have to press the perforations together.)
1 egg white, beaten

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. In a large bowl, toss together the chicken, broccoli, pepper, garlic, cheese, mayo, salt, almonds and onion.

3. Unroll crescent roll dough, and arrange flat on a medium baking sheet. Pinch together perforations to form a single sheet of dough (again, I got to skip this step.) Using a knife or scissors, cut 1 inch wide strips down the ling sides. There should be a solid strip in the middle about 3 inches wide, with the cut strips forming a fringe down each side. Spread the chicken mixture along the center. Fold the side strips up over the chicken mixture, alternating strips from each side. Pinch or twist to seal.

4. Brush braided dough with egg white. Bake in the preheated oven for 25-28 minutes, or until golden brown. (Mine only needed 25 minutes.)

This was a new recipe I tried tonight and we liked it. The only thing the kids didn't really like about it was the peppers. I also liked that it wasn't hard to make, but it looked like it was :) Wish I would have had a nice platter to put it on for the picture, but oh well.

Since I'm counting calories I figured the nutrition information out also.
If you cut into 8 servings, it's roughly 340 calories per serving. I'm sure there are ways to cut this down, like using the reduced fat crescent dough, omitting the almonds, using low fat cheese, etc. Anyway, it's not too bad considering that it's your whole meal, you don't really need a lot of sides because it's all in there. I did serve it with nectarine slices, Jello would probably be good with it too.

Anyway, enjoy!