Smoky Ranch Dip

Ingredients

  • 1 (1-oz.) envelope Ranch dressing mix (we used Hidden Valley)
  • 1 ½ cups light sour cream (we used regular sour cream)
  • 2 tsp. finely chopped canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
  • 1 tsp. adobo sauce from can
  • Potato chips, assorted vegetables (we used Ruffles original chips)

Directions

  1. Take a bowl or container out and mix the first 4 ingredients together in it. Cover the bowl and let it sit in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Serve with the chips and/or vegetables.
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We thought this was a good-tasting dish. While this is tasty we didn’t taste the chipotle nearly as much as we wanted to, so we’ll definitely increase the chipotles next time. We’re curious to see if the flavors get stronger after sitting in the fridge for a couple of days.

We found this recipe in a Southern Living magazine.

We weren’t paid in any form to promote Hidden Valley, Ruffles or Southern Living.

Take care everybody !

Hot Wing Dip

Ingredients

  • 2 cups shredded cooked chicken (we used cooked breast meat from a rotisserie chicken)
  • 1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese, cubed
  • 2 cups (8 oz.) shredded cheddar cheese (we just shredded 8 oz. of cheddar cheese, we didn’t measure it)
  • 1 cup ranch salad dressing (we used Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing)
  • ½ cup Louisiana-style hot sauce (we used Frank’s Original Red Hot Sauce)
  • Tortilla chips and/or celery sticks (we just used tortilla chips)
  • Minced fresh parsley, optional (we didn’t use it)

Directions

  1. Take a 3-qt. slow cooker out and stir the first 5 ingredients together in it. Put a lid on the slow cooker and let it cook on LOW for one hour or until all the cheese has melted (we had to stir our dip around to see if all the cheese had melted). Serve immediately with the chips (and celery sticks if you want). Sprinkle the parsley over the dip if you’re going to use it.
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We thought this was a tasty dip. You get the spice of the hot sauce but you don’t really get the heat so we’ll probably increase the amount of hot sauce next time. The chicken also adds a different texture to the dip.

We got this recipe from a Taste of Home magazine.

We weren’t paid in any form to promote Hidden Valley, Frank’s, or Taste of Home.

Take care everybody !

Mexican Brownies

Ingredients

  • 1 box (1 lb. 2.3 oz.) Betty Crocker fudge brownie mix
  • ¼ cup water
  • 2/3 cup vegetable oil
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon ground red pepper (cayenne)
  • 2 oz. dark or bittersweet baking chocolate, chopped (we used bittersweet chocolate)
  • Coarsely ground sea salt (optional)

Directions

  1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Take a 9-inch square pan (we only had an 8-inch square pan) and grease the inside of the pan with your choice of either shortening or cooking spray (we used cooking spray).
  2. Take a large mixing bowl out and mix the brownie mixture, water, oil, eggs and cayenne pepper together using a spoon just enough to blend everything together. Fold in your chopped chocolate afterwards. Pour the batter into the greased pan, making sure that everything’s spread out evenly afterwards.
  3. Stick the pan in the oven to cook for 35 to 40 minutes (we put ours in for 37 minutes) or until a toothpick that you stick into the brownie 1 inch from the side of the pan comes out looking mostly clean. Take the pan out of the oven and let it cool down for at least 10 minutes before cutting the brownies into 5 rows by 4 rows*. You can enjoy this warm or when it’s cool.

*Because we used a smaller pan we could only get 4 rows by 4 rows.

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We didn’t taste any heat when we initially took a bite but by the end of one whole piece, you could feel the heat ! The sea salt wasn’t something the original recipe suggested but when we tried sprinkling a little over our individual pieces, we enjoyed the brownies that much more !

We found this recipe in a Betty Crocker cookbook.

We weren’t paid in any form to promote Betty Crocker.

Take care everybody !

Pizza-Stuffed Mushrooms

A great handheld snack for any occasion !

Ingredients

  • ½ pound mild Italian sausage, casings removed (we used hot Italian sausage)
  • ¾ cup chopped pepperoni slices, divided
  • 1/3 cup minced onion
  • 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
  • ½ cup pizza sauce
  • 4 (8-ounce) packages baby portobello mushrooms, stems removed
  • ¾ cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees. Take a rimmed baking sheet out and line it with aluminum foil.
  2. Take a large skillet out and set the heat to medium. Once the skillet’s hot, add in the Italian sausage, ½ cup of the pepperoni, and the minced onion, stirring now and then for 7 minutes or however long it takes for the sausage to be fully cooked and crumbly. Drain off the grease afterwards. Add the cream cheese and pizza sauce to the skillet, stirring until the cream cheese has melted and the mixture looks smooth. Take the skillet off the heat.
  3. Spoon the skillet mixture into the mushroom caps (keeping the filling even with the top of the mushroom or maybe a little over) and place it on the lined baking sheet. After filling the caps, sprinkle the mozzarella cheese and what’s left of the pepperoni over the top and stick the sheet in the oven.
  4. Let the mushrooms cook for 20 minutes or until the cheese looks golden brown (20 minutes worked for us). Serve right away (we found if you let them cool down a little before eating them, they’re a lot more enjoyable).
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If you eat them right after they’re done cooking, you’ll have the water from the mushroom come squirting out and it dilutes the flavors to the point of it just tasting “meh” but if you let the mushrooms cool down a little so the juice doesn’t come bursting out when you take a bite, that’s when you can really taste the flavors of the filling. Using hot Italian sausage adds just a little bit of heat that wouldn’t have been existent in the dish otherwise. The Italian sausage and pepperoni adds some texture to the dish, the cream cheese provides a creamy tanginess and the pizza sauce adds a little sweetness.

We got this recipe from a Cooking with Paula Deen magazine.

We weren’t paid in any form to promote the Paula Deen magazine.

Take care everybody !

Bourbon Chicken

I (Lisa) used to love getting bourbon chicken whenever we went to a shopping mall so when mommy came across this recipe, we had to try it out so we could see if it outdid the mall-version !

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed into 1-inch pieces
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 cup brown sugar (we used 1 packed cup of light brown sugar)
  • ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
  • 2/3 cup soy sauce (we used low-sodium soy sauce)
  • ¼ cup bourbon liquor (we used Jim Beam)
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 tablespoon ginger, minced
  • 1 tablespoon red pepper flakes
  • ¼ cup apple juice (we used Tree Top 3 Apple Blend)
  • 2 tablespoons cornstarch

Directions

  1. Take a large, heavy-bottomed pot out (we used a Dutch oven) and pour the oil in, setting the heat to medium-high. Once the oil’s hot, toss the chicken in and cook until the chicken looks golden* on all sides. Take the chicken out and place it in a bowl for now.
  2. In the same pot you had the chicken in earlier, add in the following ingredients, stirring to combine: water, sugar, vinegar, soy sauce, bourbon, garlic, ginger and pepper flakes. After everything’s mixed together, scrape the bottom so any browned bits get mixed in as well.
  3. Toss the chicken back into the pot and wait for the liquid to come to a boil. Turn the heat down so it’s at a simmer and let the dish cook for 20 to 25 minutes.
  4. Make a smooth slurry by mixing the cornstarch and apple juice together until there’s no clumps of cornstarch remaining. Mix the slurry into the chicken and sauce and let it thicken for a few extra minutes. Serve with white rice.

Serves 4.

*When we added our chicken in, the chicken just turned white, there was no golden appearance on it all. When we saw the chicken was close to, or was fully cooked, we just pulled it out rather than wait to see if it’d get golden at all. Looking back, we think we should’ve added the chicken in batches rather than adding it in all at once to ensure the chicken had a chance of being seared.

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To be honest, it’s been years since having bourbon chicken. Feels like all I can remember was that it tasted really good but nothing specifically about the flavors themselves. So whether or not this is what bourbon chicken from the mall is supposed to taste like, it tastes really good ! There were no leftovers when we made this. It’s definitely got a sweet flavor but there’s also a pleasant level of heat to it. We were expecting it to be a lot spicer since it had a whole tablespoon of red pepper flakes in it but instead, it was just enough to notice, but not so strong that you needed something to drink afterwards.

Recipe source unknown.

We weren’t paid in any form to mention Jim Beam or Tree Top.

Take care everybody !