Food Friday - Buffalo Chicken Dip

I love food. I love to make it and I love to eat it (but mostly make it). Every Friday I intend to post a new recipe for you to try. I won't post it unless I have tried to make it because I want to know it is good.

For the Super Bowl (which seems like it was years ago now...) we had some delicious food ranging from Bison Burgers, to homemade salsa (from Scott), to buffalo chicken dip.

Oh my lanta this stuff is good! I was actually encouraged to make it by my sweet husband and his friend and I was concerned about making something for the first time and having it available for public criticism. Fortunately It was good. Whew!

Now, for the recipe. You will need:

• 2 (10 ounce) cans chunk chicken, drained
• 2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1 1/4 cup Ranch dressing
• 1 cup pepper sauce (such as Frank's Red Hot®)
• 1 cups shredded Cheddar cheese

For serving:

• 1 bunch celery, cleaned and cut into 4 inch pieces
• 1 Box of those deliciously unhealthy chicken flavored crackers.

Saute chicken and hot sauce in a skillet over medium heat, until the chicken is heated through. 

Stir in cream cheese and ranch dressing and cook until cream cheese is melted and all ingredients are mixed.

Mix in half of the shredded cheese, and transfer the mixture to a small slow cooker. 

Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top, cover, and cook on Low setting until hot and bubbly. Serve with celery sticks and crackers.

This is more productive if you have it plugged into a working outlet. Ha ha... Thanks Brad!

Have a great weekend!

Food Friday - Donuts... Yum.

2 weeks ago, before we were cutting down trees, like the muscular lumberjacks we are, we ate DONUTS! Not the kind that are dunked in sugar and force you into diabetic shock, but the kind that are deliciously amazing, homemade, and from a recipe book that CAME with the doughnut maker!

I only have pictures of the final product so you'll have to use your imagination. By the way, if you doughnut have a doughnut maker (ha ha, get it??), get one of those bad boys! If you want a lower cost alternative (not that they are pricey), a mini-doughnut pan will suffice. If you are using the doughnut maker, these take about 12 minutes to make and you come out with about 15. Worth every second! You might have to do a sample run with the pan...

You will need:

1 1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

9 tbsp butter, melted

3/4 cup milk

1 egg

Preheat doughnut maker and combine all dry ingredients. Make a well in the center and add the rest of the ingredients. Mix all together until you have a smooth batter. Spray maker with non-stick and fill the doughnut ring (bottom). I used a spoon, but the recipe called for a piping bag... spoon worked fine! Close machine and cook for 6 minutes or until golden brown. Move them all to wire racks to cool. Serve and enjoy!

This recipe is SO stinkin' easy, doesn't require ingredients you don't already have, and everyone LOVES them!YAY FOR THE WEEKEND!!

Melissa

Food Friday - Skillet Chicken Parmesan

I love food. I love to make it and I love to eat it (but mostly make it). Every Friday I intend to post a new recipe for you to try. I won't post it unless I have tried to make it because I want to know it is good.

This one is short(er) too... I am on a ROLL!

I mentioned in an earlier post that we had an AWESOME supper not too long ago. I also mentioned (here) that I love to read cookbooks more than I love to read novels. And I love novels. Well, I bought 3 cookbooks when I went to Barnes and Nobel last week: Pillsbury, Hersheys, and best of all, Campbells. Holy smoke stack, folks... I am like a kid in a candy store except for the fact that I am not a kid (physically) and it is not candy that I love.

Well while reading my book with post-it notes in hand, I marked down a couple of pages that I have to try. Ready? Sure you are: Skillet Chicken Parmesan.

You will need: 

• 1-2 tbsp olive oil
• 8 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 jar Prego® Traditional Italian Sauce
• 4-6 skinless, boneless chicken breasts (remember what size pan you're using... I totally underestimated the size of my pan...)
• 1- 1 1/2 cups shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
• 1 lb (small box) of linguine pasta cooked

Now, I will warn you, this is a recipe that almost requires you to improvise. I am estimating with the cheeses, amount of chicken, etc... use what you need.

• Stir about half of the Parmesan cheese into pasta sauce and set aside. 

• Add olive oil to skillet and heat 1 min. Add chicken and cook until browned. Drain.

• While this is cooking, be sure to throw your pasta in a kettle of boiling water. It will take about 15 minutes. Also, be sure to add olive oil to the cooking noodles so they don't stick together!
• Pour pasta sauce/Parmesan mixture over chicken; turn breasts over to coat both sides with sauce. Cover and cook over medium heat 10 min. or until the chicken done. 

• Top with mozzarella cheese and remaining 2 tbsp. Parmesan cheese. Let stand 5 min. or until cheese is melted. 

I also threw on a little parsley and a pinch of garlic. Yummy!

•  Place the chicken and some extra sauce on top of the pasta and serve. This meal goes great with garlic bread and steamed veggies.

This one is D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S! Even the leftovers are wonderful! Be sure to let me know if you tried it and what customizations you made so I can try it your way too! Join in for Food Friday!

Food Friday: Fried Green Beans

I love food. I love to make it and I love to eat it (but mostly make it). Every Friday I intend to post a new recipe for you to try. I won't post it unless I have tried to make it because I want to know it is good.

Well, as most of you know, Tyler and I have been together for a while. A long while. And during that long while, we have developed favorites... then decided on new favorites. For example: our favorite Chinese restaurant was in the mall in the town we went to college. Not it isn't our favorite anymore because we have a new favorite in the mall where we live. One favorite that we still love (even though we don't eat it as much as when we first discovered it) is a lovely/delicious/wonderful appetizer of fried green beans. Yum, yum, yum.

here

Us women go through those stages where we say "I need to eat healthy" or "I need to find some healthy recipes!", you know what I'm talking about, don't deny it. Well while I was on this kick (one of those 939,124,223 times), I bought a cookbook. It is called Hungry Girl and it actually has some VERY creative recipes!!

As you guessed, today I am going to share the recipe with you.

You will need:

2 cups trimmed fresh green beans
3/4 cup original fiber one cereal
1/4 cup fat free liquid egg substitute
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper

Dip:
3 tbsp fat free mayo
2 tbsp peeled and chopped cucumber
1 tbsp fat free sour  cream
1 1/2 tsp dry ranch dip mix
1/4 tsp wasabi paste
Dash of cayenne pepper

Preheat oven to 400*

Combine all of the ingredients for the dip in a food processor and blend until smooth. Cover this and put it in the fridge until you are ready to serve.

Put all of the beans in a large pot of water and boil for 9 minutes. You will want to drain them carefully so they don't fall apart and stick them in some cold water to stop the cooking. Either pat them dry or let them air dry.

Put Fiber One, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper in the food processor and grind till fine. Cover a large baking sheet with foil. Place the egg substitute in a small bowl. Now, the fun part. Place 1/3 of the crumb mixture into a large plastic bag. One by one, dip the beans in the egg and shake them in the bag till covered. Repeat until all of the beans are gone or all of the crumbs are gone.Bake for 15 minutes making sure to flip them about half way through.

Serve with dip and enjoy!!

Your turn! Go ahead and LINK UP with Food Friday! I would love to see what you've got cookin'! I have two new cookbooks so look forward to more (amazing) recipes!!!

I just got home from visiting with Tyler's grandpa at the rehab center (recovering from surgery) and I have to say, sweetest man ever. I intended to just drop in quick and drop off the Christmas picture I put together for his wife to send out, but couldn't help but to stay and chat. He is a rock star and recovering well.

Now I am off to celebrate the much needed weekend. No big plans (other than posting an OUTSTANDING giveaway tomorrow (valued at $38)!!

Have a WONDERFUL weekend!

Melissa