Buffalo Chicken Bites

My absolute fave: (if you make these you WILL get asked for the recipe…so be prepared!! )  I wish I could remember where I got this recipe…I just have it copied and pasted into a folder…but thank you to whoever created these!!  The seasoning in the cream cheese is what makes them.

Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Jalapenos

 8 ounces softened cream cheese

2 tsp onion powder

2 tsp onion powder

2 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp old bay seasoning

12 jalapenos halved and seeded

24 six inch pieces of bacon uncooked

 Preheat oven to 350

 Combine cream cheese and spices in a small bowl.  Spoon mixture into each pepper half, until level.  Wrap each in bacon and place in on a baking sheet.  Bake for 40-45 minutes.  Remove and enjoy!

(from: the girl who ate everything)

Baked Coconut Shrimp with Pineapple Jalapeno Dip

Ingredients

• 1 Tablespoon lime juice
• 2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh jalapeno pepper
• 1/2 cup pineapple preserves
• 1 pound uncooked large shrimp peeled and deveined
• 2 egg whites
• 2 Tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 cups sweetened flaked coconut

Directions

Combine lime juice, jalapeno pepper, and pineapple preserves in a small bowl and mix well. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

In a small bowl beat egg whites with a hand mixer until soft peaks form.

Place cornstarch and coconut on two separate plates. Hold shrimp by the tail and dip and coat the shrimp with cornstarch. Next, dip the shrimp in the egg whites and finally in the coconut coating well.

Place shrimp on the cookie sheet and bake for 15-17 minutes or until coconut is a golden brown. Make sure to turn it once halfway through (around 8 minutes into cooking time) to make sure both sides brown.

Serve with pineapple dipping sauce.

I haven’t made this recipe before, but I LOVE potato skins and these have more of a twice baked potato vibe to them which I love too!!

Potato Skins with Cheddar, Bacon and Shallots
Makes 8 servings
printable recipe here on The Comfort of Cooking
Ingredients
8 medium baking potatoes, scrubbed
8 strips bacon
3 shallots, finely chopped
3/4 cups milk
3 Tbsp. butter
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 Tbsp. chopped parsley, optional
2 scallions, optional

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Prick the potato skins all over with a fork. Bake in the oven for about 45–50 minutes, until tender.

Meanwhile, cook the bacon in a frying pan over medium-high heat about 4 minutes, until golden. Remove from pan, chop into small pieces and set aside. Add the shallots and cook until they soften, about 1 minute more.

Slice off the top third of each potato, horizontally. Using a spoon, scoop out the flesh into a large bowl. Reserve the hollowed-out skins and place in a lightly oiled baking dish.

Mash the potato with a potato masher. Add the milk and butter, and beat until smooth. Stir in the cheddar, bacon and shallots and parsley. Season with salt and pepper.

Spoon the mixture back into the potato skins and bake for about 20 minutes, or until the filling is heated through and golden on top. Serve hot with extra chopped parsley, cheddar or scallions sprinkled on top, if desired.

I’m definitely making these on mini slider buns…

BBQ Pulled Chicken Sandwiches
Makes 4-8 servings
Ingredients

MARINADE:

Place desired amount of chicken mixture on bottom halves of sandwich rolls and a few tablespoons of sauce. Top each serving with 2 pickle chips and top roll half.

Are you hungry yet??  I’ll also be making my chili dip…no pictures, but it’s super easy!

one can of chili

1 cup cheddar cheese shredded

1 brick of cream cheese

heat and mix together either in a crock pot or the microwave.  Serve with fritos scoops…REALLY healthy!!

AND who can forget the sweets???

The Perfect Lemon Bars

Pizookie in a Jar (I love that you can re-heat these and top with ice cream as people are ready to eat)

Ice Cream Sundae Brownies

Whew…I’m feeling like I need to go to the gym just for writing this post!!!

I hope you have a wonderful Super Bowl Weekend!!

tammy

Aren’t they adorable??  I can’t get enough of them!!   Here’s the good news…you can make these with a few molds from Michaels, some chocolate melts in your chosen color, and a few minutes.  Save up your 40% off coupons.  All you’ll need is a microwave to make them.  The instructions are on the back of the chocolate melts packages.  Happy sucker making!!

Have a great day!
tammy

I had never been able to make my own up until two years ago.  You see, these are special vintage cookie cutters.  My grandma had them, and when my mom was a young mother, she bought sets for my mom and my aunts.  Well, fast forward 30 years and they are a little harder to find!   Two years ago my grandma FOUND the sets again and gave them to me and my cousins.  How cool is that??  So, now we can ll make our own Santa cookies and continue the tradition. 

Good news…I searched high and low and found them for you too!!  If you want a set you can find them here:

Once you have your very own set you can make some of these with them: 

PRINTABLE RECIPE HERE:The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies

Best Ever Rolled Sugar Cookies

Original Recipe Yield 5 dozen

#2 if you have trouble transfering your cookies to your pan after you cut them out, roll out and cut your shapes on parchment paper.  Then remove the excess dough from the paper, transfer the whole sheet of parchment to your pan and bake! 

I’ve been thinking a lot about our family traditions lately since I was asked to be a guest blogger over at The Sand Bucket, and I realized that I have never shared this one here on the blog.  All growing up we have had this tradition and it is really a fun one.  I think it’s a danish tradition if I remember correctly.  My grandma has always tried to incorporate parts of our heritage into our Christmas dinner which is fun.  It’s something fun that even the adults look forward to every year!

Each year for Christmas dessert we have rice pudding.  I have to be honest, it has never been my favorite, but the game made me eat it!!   As I’ve grown my tastes have changed and now I actually like it and I have a yummy recipe to share, so hang on!   Grandma heads to the kitchen…by herself..no peeking allowed!  She fills small dessert cups with the warm pudding then she places ONE white almond into one of the cups.  Since the pudding is white and the almond is white it is nearly impossible to detect it!  She tops all the cups off  with cherries and whipped cream and delivers them on a tray to those of us anxiously waiting in the living room.  Here’s the catch….there’s a prize…usually an entire box of sees candy for the winner…the one who finds the almond in their pudding.  It’s pretty funny to watch the different tactics that everyone uses to find “the lucky cup.”  The room is silent as everyone eats their pudding and hunts for the almond.  They all chew carefully and hope that it’s their lucky day.  It’s even funnier to watch the kids choke it down since several of them don’t particularly care for it, but you have to eat it to win and they are determined to win! 

So, do you want to play this year?  Here’s a yummy rice pudding recipe:

Directions

1. In a medium saucepan, bring 1 1/2 cups water to a boil. Add rice and stir. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
2. In another saucepan, combine 1 1/2 cups cooked rice, 1 1/2 cups milk, sugar and salt. Cook over medium heat until thick and creamy, 15 to 20 minutes. Stir in remaining 1/2 cup milk, beaten egg and raisins. Cook 2 minutes more, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, and stir in butter and vanilla. Serve warm.

I hope your family has as much fun with this tradition as ours does!!  Enjoy!
Have a great day!
tammy

I really want my kids to appreciate Thanksgiving for what it is and understand how important it is.  Most of you have kiddos at home ALL week before Thanksgiving, so I wanted to share with you some fun ideas of things to do with your kids for the week leading up to teach them a little more about this great Holiday.  I LOVE to have a special feast just with the kids.  They think it is just the most fun and look forward to it every year.  Here are a few things to give you ideas of what you can do to re-create this tradition with your own kids…

Have you heard of the “If you were there” books?  They are the BEST for kids!  If you get a chance this week run to the library and check it out…

How many Pilgrim children were at the First Thanksgiving?  Did they have to take baths to get ready for the big celebration?  If you were there, would you have eaten turkey?  What about cranberry sauce?  Pumpkin pie?  This funbook answers all kinds of great questions for curious kids. 

We have fun having the kids prepare for their feast.  One way to do this is to make woven placemats out of paper.  They have fun weaving and decorating them, and then they get to use them the day of the feast!  They also love making their hats and indian vests out of paper bags.

Indian fry bread is a Navajo tradition, so not really traditional Thanksgiving fare…but the kids still think it’s fun and it has to do with Indians, so we’ll do this one day for breakfast:

The day of the feast is all about fun.  But, I also like to have a discussion with them about the things we’ve learned about the pilgrims and indians over the course of the last few days.  One of the things that the kids learn is about how hard life was for the pople that lived at that time and how they had to make everything they needed themselves.  Some fun things to learn and incorporate into your feast are that the pilgrim children had many many chores that they had to complete to help with the meal, and that they were the last to eat… after the adults.  They also couldn’t talk duing the meal, or sit down.  The seats were reserved for the adults.  Also, they had to eat with their hands.  Try adapting some of these rules into your feast so the kids can get a feel for a little bit of what life might have been like for pilgrim kids. 

One of the chores I had the kids do was to make the butter for the cornbread.  This was easy with jars and cream and salt.  They each got a jar and had to shake it until they had butter to use for their meal.  It was hard work doing all that shaking for 10 minutes but it was also a lot of fun.  Here’s an easy how-to: (baby food jars work really well for small batches.)

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Here’s what you’ll need:
mini reeses peanut butter cups
oreos…double stuff are the best
whoppers
candy corn (5 or 6 per turkey)
orange icing (i used candy melts so they would harden faster)
chocolate chips (i melted these down in the microwave and used them to fuse the PB cup and the whopper onto the oreos and the piece of candy corn onto the face so they would harden and stay put…i thought it might work better than icing)
white icing

 I was just winging it from the pictures that I saw online (yes, pun intended…winging it…turkey wing…get it?? lol!! it’s late!)  I was going to make a tutorial for you, but then I was too lazy and found this great video online to help!   Yours will probably turn out better than mine if you watch the video!  

Have fun creating!!

tammy

Add a few apple lips and bones to your mummies and you are all set for a spooky lunch!

Have fun creating with your little goblins!

tammy

Fun Halloween treat tins for all those school parties coming up at the end of the week! Tins from Michaels, tag here:
Halloween Cats Tags

Gross looking, but yummy treats for all your parties…
Ok, warning, this is a little gross looking but I thougt it was an AWESOME idea for a little snack at your next party. I found it months agoand have been waiting for the perfect moment to share, i thought it was that funny…

Doesn’t that just look wrong??!! LOVE IT!! Simply take mini marshmallows on the end of white sucker sticks and dip thm in caramel or peanut butter. Yum.

Fun DIY decor for your house:

To make:

1. Print a black and white copy of a portrait on printer paper and cut out. (If you don’t want to use your own portraits I like to find old pictures on flickr, just search for antique or old portraits)

2. TO “age” the picture, brush it lightly with a sponge dipped in a solution of a few drops of black acrylic craft paint and water. Let the paper dry.

3. Cut a piece of cardstock the same size of the photo and glue to the back of the photo to make it a little more sturdy.

4.With an X-Acto knife cut out the eyes of the picture’s subjects piercing through the cardstock and creating holes about 1/4 inch in diameter.

5. Remove the glass from your frames and stick the pictures in there.

6.Insert mini red LED chistmas lights through the back of the eyeholes. It works best to group these frames like in the picture, since you’re dealing with a strand of 25feet of lights! Then you can use more of the lights. Replace the frame’s backing securing with tape if necessary to help hold the lights in place. Drape with cobwebs and you’re done! You can add paper fangs to a few of the pictures if you want to for a little extra fun!

Fun treat cones for those extra special trick or treaters…

I love these treat cones for any holiday…here is a cute halloween version from Country Living Mag.

YOU WILL NEED
-11″ x 14″ card stock
-1 yard each cream and black bookbinding or construction paper
-1 yard each assorted ribbons
-spray glue
-1/4″ hole punch
-stapler
-scissors and pinking shears

Cut 10″ squares of card stock and black and cream Japanese bookbinding paper (source: talasonline.com) or construction paper. Adhere the black paper to the card stock with spray glue. Wind black square into a cone and staple closed. Cut across top to even out the opening.

And of course this years Halloween Subway art! I am LOVING this one this year!

Like usual you can download this printable here:

Halloween Subway Art

you can print it in either 8×10 size from your home computer, or 16×20 size at your local costco for $5.99

I’m doing something fun with the kids for a little halloween lunch today…I’ll be sure to share tomorrow!!

Have a great Monday!

tammy

I am in full swing planning two parties right now…an adorable puppy party 1st birthday for a cute little client of mine this weekend, and a halloween blow-out for the neighborhood next weekend.  I can’t wait to share them both!   When I plan a party I am SUPER crazy about getting absolutely as much for my money as possible.  I want ALL the cuteness for a fraction of the cost..which is why I make so much stuff. :)  I’m also a coupon and sale FANATIC!!   I have been searching for a cute little treat for halloween friends that will be easy, look fun and cost effective.  I love the look of all the cute candy melt covered oreos I’ve been seeing on etsy, but who has that kind of time??   I found these cute little pumpkin joe joes at my local trader joes.  Each one is like an oreo with orange filling, only it has a cute little pumpkin face on it with the eyes and noses cut out so you can actually see the orange filling through them.  So cute!!  There are a bunch of different faces too.  Who would want to cover up those fun faces?? 

I purchased 2 boxes for 5.98.  Tthere are 36 cookies in each box, so I can make a bunch of them (and eat some too if I want!! )  I also purchased sucker sticks and little sucker bags at Michaels with a coupon.  I had ribbon on hand, but you may want to purchase some if you don’t.  You will also need tape.

Simply open up each cookie, insert a stick and close the cookie back up.  Place each pop in a bag, wrap tape around the bottom of the bag to stick it to the stick nice and tight.  Tie a ribbon around it and done!!

My kids LOVE them.  They think they are so fun.  Hopefully yours will ove them too!

Have a great day!
tammy

Apple Cake:

2 C sugar

1/2 C butter

2 eggs

4 C shredded Apples (I use granny smith)

2 C flour

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

Nuts are optional.  I like nuts, but I prefer this without them.

Cream sugar and butter.  Add eggs, then apples.  Stir in dry ingredients.  Add nuts.  Bake 40-45 minutes at 350.

Sauce:

1/2 C butter

1/2 C half and half

1 C sugar

1 1/2 TBS vanilla

1/2 tsp nutmeg

Heat first three ingredients for sauce stirring over low heat 10-15 minutes.  Remove from heat and add vanilla and nutmeg.  Serve warm over cake.  Add a dollop of whipped cream or ice cream for fun!

YUM!!

Enjoy!

tammy