Buffalo chicken lettuce cups with home made ranch

Ingredients

8-10 Boneless skinless thighs (or 4 chicken breasts)

1 Jar Franks Red Hot

1/2 Stick salted butter

Salt & pepper to taste

1/2 Cup sour cream

1/4 Cup buttermilk (More if you like it thin)

1-2 Tsp Ranch dressing powder

Sliced tomatoes

2 Heads butter lettuce

Directions

Combine chicken, salt & pepper in crockpot. Cook on low for five hours.  Drain all excess oil or fat from crock pot, add at least a half a jar of Franks (more if you are brave) and the butter to the crock pot. Combine and continue cooking for 30 minutes.  Shred chicken with a fork.

While this is happening combine sour cream, buttermilk and ranch powder, refrigerate until you are ready to use it.

Using two leaves of butter lettuce form a bowl.  Add shredded chicken to each bowl. Drizzle with ranch dressing and top with tomatoes. 

Garlic chicken flautas with spicy avocado sauce

 

INGREDIENTS

Chicken filling

8-10 Boneless skinless chicken thighs or breasts

6 Cloves garlic

2 Tsp ground corriander

1 Lime juiced (reserve lime halves)

Salt & Pepper to taste

For building

 10-14 corn tortillas

Vegetable oil for frying

Toothpics

For topping

 Queso Fresco

Lettuce - shredded

Sour cream

Spicy avocado cream sauce (Recipe here)

Tomatoes

In a crock pot combine all ingredients for the chicken.  Cook on low for 5 hours.  Drain off excess grease and shred with a fork.  

Add about 1/2" of oil to pan and heat up over medium low heat.  

Take one tortilla and fill it with about 2 Tbsp of chicken.  Roll it up like a Taquito and stick a toothpick in the end to keep it together.  Once you have about five rolled you can put them in the hot oil, edge side down.  Flip every few minutes or when shell turns golden brown.  While those are cooking, begin rolling the second batch.

Once you have repeated this and all of your flautas are ready you can serve them on a bed of shredded iceberg.  I filled sandwich bags with sour cream and avocado cream sauces and then shipped off the very very end of it to make the fancy design on my flautas.  Top with crumbled queso fresco and tomatoes.  Enjoy

Spicy avocado cream sauce

 This is the least flattering photo ever, but I promise you it is delicious.

Ingredients

1- Ripe avocado

1/4 cup- White onion, cut into pieces

1/2- Juice of lemon

1/2- Juice of lime

3- Tsbp fresh cilantro

1- Red Fresno pepper, chopped (or a jalapeno)

1- Clove of garlic (this will add spice)

2- Tbsp water if necessary to thin out sauce

Sea salt to taste

Combine all ingredients in a blender and purée until smooth. Chill until ready to use.  Goes great over flautas or on a taco salad.

Raspberry chocolate bars

I adapted this recipe from Deliciously Sprinkled.

This is pretty much the best thing I've ever tasted, and it made my house smell so so good.

INGREDENTS

• 1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, softened
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• ½ cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips
• 1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup white chocolate chips
• 1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk (I used nonfat)
• 1 cup fresh raspberries
• 1 Tsp sugar
• 1/2 cup quick cook oats
• 2-3 Tbsp chia seeds (if you want it to be kinda healthy

Preheat oven to 350. In a small bowl mash half of the raspberries with sugar and set aside.  In large bowl combine butter, flour and brown sugar until crumbly.  Set aside 2/3 of mixture.  Add in the oats & chia seeds to remaining mixture and refrigerate until needed.  Line a 9x13 baking sheet with cooking spray and parchment paper.  Press the 2/3 crumble into the pan to form the crust.  Bake for 10-15 minutes depending on your altitude (I had to bake for 15 minutes to get mine golden brown).  While the crust is baking add the condensed milk and dark chocolate chips to a sauce pan over low heat.  Stir until melted.  Pull golden brown crust from the oven and pour melted chocolate over crust.  Using a rubber spatula or offset spatula evenly spread melted chocolate all over crust.  Take remaining crumble and sprinkle it evenly over the top of the chocolate.  Next add the mashed berries evenly on top of crumble.  Sprinkle with mini chocolate chips and white chocolate chips. Finally top with whole raspberries.  Place pan in the oven and bake for another 25-30 minutes until the crumble is golden brown.  Allow to cool for about 3 minutes before cutting into bars.


You can leave the oats and chia seeds out of the recipe as I did above, but I think the oats give it a nice summery light flavor.  I feel like this needs to be served piping hot with vanilla ice cream melted over the top.

PRINTABLE

Oreo fudge

 

 I have never made fudge before.  Last week while scrolling Pinterest I found a picture that looked similar to what I have pictured above.  My husband loves Oreo's.  He loves Oreos almost as much as he loves me.  I knew I had to make this. The only problem is that every single recipe called for marshmallow fluff and that has eggs in it.  I don't eat eggs, and dangit if I was going to be making something like this I wanted to taste it.  So I altered the recipe using marshmallows and corn syrup. I also increased the portion of Oreo's by a lot, because the online recipes just did not have enough cookie goodness.  This stuff is good you guys.  It is sweet.  Very sweet. But so good. So good I had it for breakfast, and maybe even midmorning snack.  I admit nothing.

• 3 cups granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter or margarine
• 2/3 cup (5 fl.-oz. can)  Evaporated Milk
• 2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) White Morsels (I used 4- 4oz bars Ghiradelli white chocolate)
• 1.5 cups mini marshmallows
• 3 Tbsp light corn syrup
• I package crushed Oreo's
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

LINE 9-inch-square baking pan with foil.

COMBINE sugar, butter and evaporated milk in medium, heavy-duty saucepan. Bring to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Boil, stirring constantly, for 3 minutes. Remove from heat.

STIR in chocolate, marshmallows, corn syrup, crushed cookies (reserve about 1/4 cup to sprinkle on top) and vanilla extract. Pour into prepared pan. Sprinkle remaining crumbled cookies on top. Refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm. Lift from pan; remove foil. Cut into 48 pieces. Store in airtight container in refrigerator.

I left my cookies sort of big.  The online recipe said to finely crush them. I didn't want that, I wanted to cut it up and have pieces of cookie be visible. I wanted you to get that bite that appeared to have a "whole cookie" effect.  I am glad I made this choice.  Fine cookie crumbs would not have been as crunchy and delightful.  If you don't want to use the marshmallows and corn syrup you can substitue that with 1-7 oz jar of Marshmallow fluff. I prefer the taste of actual marshmallows to the fluff though 

One thing I would change about this, is at the end I would drizzle some melted semi sweet chocolate over the top and lightly swirl it in before putting it in the fridge to cool.  White chocolate is very sugary sweet and I think having the semi sweet chocolate in there to cut the sweetness would help.  I'm going to go home tonight and pour some over the top and see what happens.  Maybe...if I don't eat it all before then. 

 

 

Cheesy baked spaghetti squash

Ingredients

• 5 1/2 cups cooked spaghetti squash (from 1 small)
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/8 cup minced onion
• 1/8 cup flour (use 2 tbsp corn starch for gluten free)
• 1.5 cups skim milk
• 1.5 cup vegetarian broth
• 1 cup reduced fat shredded cheddar cheese
• salt and pepper, to taste

Recommended add ins

• 2 cups (about 4 oz) baby spinach
• Pasta sauce (to top it with once it's done baking)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375ºF.

Cut the squash in half lengthwise; remove and discard seeds. Place squash on a baking sheet. Bake until tender, about 1.5 hours. Separate the strands of squash with a fork and place in a medium bowl; discard shells. Maintain the oven temperature.

Heat butter and oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onions and cook about 2 minutes. Stir in flour. Reduce heat to low and cook, stirring continually 3 - 4 minutes. The flour will become lumpy.

Add broth and continue whisking, raising heat to medium and begins to thicken and smooth. Add in milk and continue whisking.  Season with salt and pepper, taste at this point to see if it needs anything else.  If you want to add the spinach now is the time to whisk that in slowly.

Once it becomes thick, remove from heat, add cheddar cheese and mix well until cheese is melted. Add cooked spaghetti squash, and mix with a spoon until well combined.  Pour into a greased baking dish. Bake until bubbly and golden 25 to 30 minutes.

Adapted from this recipe

Pancake, bacon and eggs breakfast bites

I think I've posted this recipe before but I used toast instead of pancakes. Today at the suggestion of a friend I changed it up. You will need the following:

Eggs

Frozen mini pancakes (unless you want to take the time to make some fresh ones before hand)

Precooked bacon

Salt & Pepper

Syrup

I don't list quantities because you will need one of each item for the amount of bites you want to make.  Preheat the oven to 350.  Spray a muffin tin with cooking spray.  Cook your mini pancakes in the microwave for about 35 seconds until soft.  Wrap the bacon around the inside of the pan and then press a pancake into the bottom.  Crack one egg inside the bacon on top of the egg.  Season to taste.  Bake for 13 minutes for soft runny yolk bites and 16 minutes for the yolk to set mostly.  Once the eggs are cooked to your liking remove from the oven and use a knife to go around the edges of the eggs.  They should pop right out into one perfect bite. Serve with syrup for dipping.  This is such a fast, fun weekend breakfast.  My kids really like it.  Sometimes I use a circle of bread at the bottom and add a sprinkle of shredded cheddar cheese to spruce it up.  I was in a hurry this morning so I used freezer pancakes but if you have more time you can make your own fresh pancakes to use.  This tasted and smelled just like those pancake breakfast sandwiches McDonalds sells, only it was home made with farm fresh eggs and way less preservatives.  Try it out sometime you will like it!