German comfort food: Bacon and cheese spaetzle

My segment this week is centered around German recipes in honor of GermanFest this weekend at the Athenaeum in Indianapolis. I’ve never been to Germany and I’m not German, but I did have a lot of help with these recipes! My mother-in-law’s family is from Germany, and my husband grew up eating many of her delicious German dishes.

One of his favorites was spaetzle.

Spaetzle is best described as a short, chewy egg noodle. The batter is mainly made of flour, eggs, salt, and milk.

The pasta can be used as a blank canvas for whatever you want to serve with it, but the recipe I’m sharing today showcases one of the more traditional ways to serve it: with bacon, cheese, onion, and sauerkraut. It’s everything great comfort food should be!

You can, of course, make your own spaetzle. However, I’m going to be using store-bought spaetzle. My mother-in-law says it’s almost just as good, and I trust her opinion. I got the spaetzle from a local German store called Heidelberg Haus. If you’re in the Indianapolis-area, I highly recommend visiting it! They have a great cafe and bakery with a lot of tasty cakes, strudels, and pastries.

If you don’t live in Indianapolis, you can find spaetzle in the ethnic section of many local grocery stores or online.

Bacon and cheese spaetzle
Ingredients

• 4 slices bacon
• 1 yellow onion, diced (about 8 ounces)
• 1 (9-ounce) box spatezle, cooked (about 600 grams cooked spatezle)
• 8 ounces sauerkraut, drained
• 4 ounces gruyere cheese, grated
• 4 ounces emmantaler cheese, grated
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Parsley for garnish

Directions

1. Heat a skillet to medium-low heat, and cook the bacon until it is crispy, or about 8 minutes total (4 minutes per side).
2. Remove bacon and place on paper-towel lined plate. Cut into thin strips. 
3. Drain all but 2 Tablespoons of bacon grease from the skillet.
4. Add onion to skillet and saute until translucent and caramelized. Remove from heat.
5. Combine bacon, onion, spatezle, sauerkraut, 2 ounces of gruyere cheese, 2 ounces of emmantaler cheese, pepper, and salt.
6. Pour mixture into prepared 8x8-inch casserole dish.
7. Top with remaining cheese and place under broiler for 3-4 minutes or until bubbly.
8. Serve warm with parsley sprinkled on top.

Buffalo Pretzel Thanksgiving Dressing

This is a sponsored post by Challenge Butter, but the text and opinions are all mine. Thank you for supporting brands that make Kylee's Kitchen possible!

Do you all say stuffing or dressing? I usually say stuffing, but then I felt really self-conscious about it because I realized I’m not actually stuffing it into anything. On a whim I decided to call this recipe “dressing,” and now I’m having a little bit of an identity crisis. Regardless, it’s a lot of carbs, and I sure do like carbs.

Everyone has a pretty standard stuffing recipe they gravitate toward, right? That’s why I decided to throw in this while card option. I like pretzel rolls and I like buffalo sauce, so I thought I should combine them, right?! Because why the heck not?! There’s no harm in taking a risk.

Buffalo Pretzel Thanksgiving Dressing
Ingredients

• 10 cups soft pretzel rolls (about one 14.5 ounce bag of rolls)
• 1 cup onion, diced (about 1 small onion)
• 1 cup celery, diced (about 3 stalks)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced 
• 10 tablespoons Challenge butter, divided
• 1 1/4 cups buffalo sauce 
• 2 1/2 cups chicken broth or veggie broth
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoons seasoned salt
• 6 slices bacon, crumbled
• 4 ounces blue cheese, crumbled
• 2 teaspoons fresh parsley, chopped
• 4 green onions, chopped

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Cut the bread into 1-inch cubes. 
3. Place cubes on baking sheet and stick it in the oven for about 8 minutes or until they’re golden brown on the edges.
4. Remove from oven and place in large bowl.
5. Melt 2 Tablespoons of butter on medium heat in a skillet and add onion, celery, and garlic.
6. Sauté until onions and celery are tender, or about 8 minutes.
7. Add parsley and sauté an additional minute. 
8. Remove from heat and pour over pretzel bread.
Melt the remaining 8 tablespoons of butter in the microwave in a medium-sized bowl. Let cool for about 5 minutes before adding buffalo sauce, chicken broth, eggs and seasoned salt. (It’s important to let butter cool so the heat doesn’t scramble the eggs on contact.
9. Whisk to combine before pouring the mixture over the bread cubes. Gently stir until the bread is coated.
10. Transfer mixture to 9x13 baking dish and bake about 45 minutes or until it is just golden on top. 
11. Remove dressing from the oven and top with crumbled bacon, blue cheese, parsley and green onions before serving.

Bacon, Egg & Cheese Breakfast Bombs

This is a sponsored post by Challenge butter, but the text and opinions are all mine. Thank you for supporting brands that make Kylee's Kitchen possible!

Do you ever think about how much time you spend worrying about what other people think? I hate to admit it, but it consumes my thoughts for hours every single week.

For example, this week I'm doing a segment on FOX59 about Easter breakfast. I changed my mind about what I was going to make probably 10 times because I was so worried about other people's reactions to it. My parents can attest to this because I'm sure I annoyed the heck out of them asking for their opinion. "Is this unoriginal?" "Do enough people like this?" "Is this festive enough?" "Does this sound good to you?"

I want every recipe I share on my blog to do well, of course. But sometimes this leads me to worry too much about other people's reactions. I forget that the reason people started visiting my blog is to read about my ideas and my opinions.

I'm not going to pretend that I have the magic secret to stop worrying about what other's think, however, I hope this post helps you become more aware of when and why you do it. That's the first step in stopping.



All that being said, I really am excited to share this recipe with you that will be perfect for breakfast or brunch on Easter. I didn't want to make anything sweet because if you're like me you've already eaten at least 2 Reese's Peanut Butter Cup eggs and a handful of jellybeans by the time brunch rolls around.

So I made Bacon, Egg & Cheese Breakfast Bombs! I love this dish because it's unlike anything else I've ever made for breakfast. Family members of all ages will enjoy biting into one of the breakfast bombs. Also, you can easily prep this dish the night before so all you have to do on Easter morning is brush it with Challenge butter and stick it in the oven.

When I make this for Easter, I plan to make it more festive by inserting cupcake toppers into the buns. I also thought about using some Challenge cream cheese to pipe crosses onto the buns so they look like hot cross buns.

Let me know if you try this and what you think about it!



Bacon, Egg & Cheese Breakfast Bombs
Yield: Makes 16 servings
Ingredients

• 6 eggs
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 Tablespoon Challenge butter
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 2 tubes refrigerated biscuit dough (16.3 ounce)
• 1/2 cup cheddar cheese
• 6 slices cooked bacon, cut into small pieces
• 1 jalapeno, finely sliced (optional)
• 4 Tablespoons Challenge butter, melted
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley

Directions

1. Beat eggs and milk together in large bowl until well-blended.
2. Heat butter in large nonstick skillet over medium heat until melted and add eggs to skillet.
3. As soon as the edges begin to set, pull the eggs across the pan with a spatula. Continue until no liquid egg remains.
4. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Prepare 9 inch pie pan with nonstick spray and set aside.
6. Remove biscuit dough from tube and flatten and stretch each biscuit until it's about 3 inches in diameter.
7. Sprinkle 1 Tablespoon cheese, 1 Tablespoon scrambled eggs, 1 Tablespoon bacon, and 1 jalapeno slice over biscuit dough.
8. Pull the edges of the dough together and seal with your fingers. Place into prepared pie pan.
9. Repeat process until all dough is in pie pan.
10. Combine butter, garlic powder, and parsley. Brush butter mixture over dough with pastry brush.
11. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until tops are golden brown.

Recipe adapted from The Slow Roasted Italian

Easy One-Pot Chicken Alfredo

This is a sponsored post by Challenge Butter, but the text and opinions are all mine. Thank you for supporting brands that make Kylee's Kitchen possible!

It’s that time of year again when everyone is busy busy busy with fall activities!

Between work, school, soccer practice, football games, homework, etc. making dinner may seem nearly impossible!

But as well all know, eating out constantly isn’t very good for your health.

So what’s the solution?

This recipe is the solution. Easy One-Pot Chicken Alfredo comes together in minutes. And just like the name states, there is only one pot so that means little cleanup.

I only use premium ingredients in this recipe, like Challenge cream cheese. Challenge doesn't have any preservatives and it's made with real milk and cream for a taste that's unmatched.

And even though alfredos have a bad reputation for being fattening, this version is actually pretty heatlhy, especially if you use low fat milk, low fat cream cheese, and whole-wheat pasta!

Easy One-Pot Chicken Alfredo

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon garlic
• 1 can chicken broth
• 2 cups milk, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 4 cups penne pasta
• 4 ounces Challenge cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 cup parmesan cheese
• 2 cups rotisserie chicken​

 Directions

1. In a large saucepan, add olive oil and garlic and sauté over medium heat for one minute.
2. Add chicken broth, milk, salt, pepper, and uncooked pasta to saucepan.
3. Bring to boil, then cover saucepan and reduce heat to medium.
4. Simmer on medium heat for 12 minutes.
5. Add cream cheese and parmesan cheese and mix until combined.
6. Stir in rotisserie chicken.
7. Remove from heat and serve topped with fresh parsley if desired.

Recipe loosely adapted from No. 2 Pencil.