No words can explain...... Copycat Recipe David's Chicken and Friends from Wild Wing Cafe

How AMAZING this recipe is! Lol..
Also I should make a mention that on Friday August 20th my husband became a US citizen! After being in the USA for 15 yrs and being married to ME for 5 yrs, he finally became a citizen! WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!

Now on to the important stuff..........


When we lived in SC we used to eat at a restaurant called Wild Wing Cafe. Their wings are sooo good. But I always liked to go to get the Davids Chicken and friends dip. I could eat the whole thing by myself and not eat anything else all day long. When we moved from Charleston... sadly... in 2005 there was no more charlies chicken dip for me.. Boo Hoo~! 

Tonight as I was listening to my children scream, I was thinking about how heavenly that dip was and how much I wanted it again. So i was determined to make it. Its really simple to make. Really Really Simple!  

Here's your recipe! Enjoy!!!!!

I totally should have taken a better picture of this.... but whatever. It was SO GOOD

Copycat of Davids Chicken and Friends

1 chicken breast cooked and cubed

5 slices of bacon, cooked and chopped

1 green onion chopped

1 cup cheddar cheese

1/2 cup home made ranch dressing

1/4 cup mild wing sauce

I made my own home made ranch dressing by using the powdered ranch mix and sour cream along with a small amount of milk to make it a little runny. This tastes way better than salad dressing in a bottle.

Combine Ranch, mild sauce and chicken. Mix it to coat the chicken evenly. Add bacon and the green onion to the mixture. Mix well. Add shredded cheddar cheese  and melt in the microwave or under a broiler. When the cheese is melted take out of the microwave and stir. Indulge with tortilla chips.

serves 2 (my husband got about 2 bites lol... i ate the rest!)

Make your own Hazelnut Chocolate Spread!!

We just recently got hooked on nutella spread. Its so chocolatey and yummy. But its really expensive!

When you buy Nutella at the store the ingredients on the label are

modified palm oil, 13% hazelnuts,  sugar,  cocoa,  skimmed milk,  soy lecithin,  vanillin,  and  reduced mineral whey

When you make it at home the ingredients are

hazelnuts, sweetened condensed milk, chocolate, and optional honey.

 Nutella is very high in calories, and sugars. So tonight I decided to make my own! And WOW did it turn out good. Here's the recipe along with pictures!

fresh piece of toasted bread! YUM!

Chocolate hazelnut Spread

1/3 cup hazelnuts, with skins on

3/4 cup sweetened condensed milk 

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

3 tablespoons honey  (optional)*

 

Toast the Hazelnuts in the oven. When the skins are dark brown take them out and let them cool.

Once cooled put a handful of hazelnuts into a kitchen towel and rub the skins off of the hazelnuts.

I doubled the recipe, that's why there is so many hazelnuts!

Discard the skins

Put the hazelnuts into a food processor and turn it on for 5 minutes. After 2 minutes stop the food processor and scrape the sides of the bowl. The goal is to make the hazelnuts into a paste.

While grinding the hazelnuts, add the chocolate and sweetened condensed milk into a microwave safe bowl. Stick in the microwave for 2 minutes or until the chocolate is melted. Stir the chocolate and sweetened condensed milk together. This is where the honey comes in. Personally It is sweet enough from the Sweetened condensed milk. *Honey really is NOT necessary unless you want it.

Add the chocolate mixture to the hazelnuts and turn the food processor on for 5 minutes.

Stick the mixture into a bowl with a lid and let cool. If it is kept in the fridge it might harden a little more than Nutella does. I keep ours at room temperature. This will last up to a month or so.. if you don't eat it all!!

The finished product!!!

Blueberry Sour Cream Muffins

Blueberry muffins are comfort food for me. Growing up on school mornings and weekends my mom would make blueberry muffins and they were always hot and fresh when we got up. Its such a great memory of my childhood. As my husband and I were talking tonight I realized that my mom never made home made muffins. They were always store bought. But I still love those kind. You know the ones that have the blueberries in the can? So yummy.

I have been on a quest to find a good blueberry muffin recipe so my children dont grow up to tell everyone they only like the blueberry muffins that come out of a box. And i think I might have found a winner!!

My husband didnt like these because he said the blueberries were too "sour"... so sorry hun.. they weren't packed in a sugary syrup!

Anyways... I thought these muffins were delectable. I ate one whole one by myself which is very rare. I NEVER eat sweets anymore. And if I do it is only a quick taste.  Please try this recipe and let me know.

Blueberry Muffins

1 1/2 cups flour

1/4tsp salt

2 1/ 2 tsp baking bowder

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1/3 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup sour cream

1 cup blueberries

Stir flour, salt, baking powder. In another bowl mix oil, vanilla, egg, milk and sour cream.

Add flour mixture to wet mixture and stir. Fold in blueberries.

Portion into 12 muffin tins. Make sure you grease the muffin tins!!! If desired

use streusel topping.

Streusel Topping

1/3 cup flour

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

2 tbsp butter

mix together and crumble the butter into small pieces. Sprinkle on top of batter and bake

Bake in 350 degree oven for 25 minutes

makes 12 muffins

(i used frozen blueberries if i have them. fresh work well too!)

always double this recipe unless your cooking for one person. You will run out!

Chocolate Syrup

I'm all about making things from the least amount of ingredients as possible. And I also believe if you make things at home from scratch it is way better for you. Less preservatives, less hidden bad fats and such.. And lets mention Bugs or bug residue! Eww.. One time at Culinary school I was in the store room class. So you get orders together for other classes... And i had to grab this brown paper bag of raisins and you have NO CLUE what i found in there????? It was a dead cockroach. It was so gross. If you google it im sure you can find the other products that have traces of bugs in them. Pretty gross...

Anyways... Tonight I thought I would make home made chocolate syrup!

In a bottle of Hersheys Chocolate Syrup there is tons of other un necessary ingredients like High fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, water, sugar, cocoa, contains 2% or less of: potassium sorbate (preservative), salt, mono & digycerides, polysorbate 60 (emulsifier), xanthan gum & vanilla (artificial flavor).

The syrup I made contains cocoa powder, salt, sugar, water and vanilla.

And it is SUPER EASY to make.. and tastes SOOO good!!!

So heres the recipe

1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 cup water
2 cups sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp vanilla

Boil the water and cocoa together until dissolved. Add sugar and stir. Once the sugar dissolves add salt and vanilla. Let cool and pour into a bottle. Stick that bad boy in the fridge and you're good to go! This makes such a nice flavor chocolate milk!  Im not sure how long it will last, but i almost guarantee it will be gone before it expires!

this hasn't been stirred recently lol there is a bit of settling that occured

the remaining chocolate syrup

Mini Burgers-sliders

My husband was working late, so we had a fun dinner. More like lots of snacks lol.

We made sliders. I even went the healthy route and bought the wheat buns!! there were 12 in this package and we still have half of it left!

I bought this pan at 5 below. My new fav store. Its a slider pan!

Don't be fooled.. you have to flip the burgers still!

A little blurry.....

Man did these things splatter with grease! I used 90/10 ground  beef too!

Yummy

why does my hand look like its 80 years old??

My son posing for me. I told him to take a bite so mommy could take a picture.

He kept saying Cheese while he had the burger in his mouth!

Chocolate Muffins

Chocolate Muffins

makes 24 muffins

2 1/2 cups flour

3 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup cocoa

1/2 tsp salt

12 tbsp unsalted butter  softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup milk

1 bag chocolate chips

Mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, cocoa, salt)

Mix butter and sugar. Beat it with a whisk for about  2 minutes

Add eggs one by one to the sugar mix. Whisk it in between each egg.

Mix in vanilla and milk. Add 1/2 the flour mix. Use a spatula to incorperate.

Once mixed add the rest of the flour. Add the chocolate chips and fold into mixture.

Scoop into muffin pans and bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until the centers are cooked.

This part is totally optional. Let cool and then drizzle with chocolate.

They just looked so boring without the chocolate..

Then i decided they needed something else.....

                                                     so i added pink sugar.. aka fairy dust

So it's been awhile...

So sorry for all of you followers or gawkers, or whatever you like to call yourself these days.. I guess creeper could be a good name as well lol.. August is a crazy month for me. My big 5 yr wedding anniversary is this friday!! Friday the 13th!!! And we have a wedding next weekend and the following week I am taking the kids to michigan. Craziness!

I started making Lemoncello about a week ago.. It involves peeling 40 lemons. Putting them in an air tight container and adding  2 bottles of vodka!! Then you let it sit for 2 weeks and take the lemon peels out and add sugar water and 2 more bottles of vodka. Im pretty excited about this. I've only opened the container ONE time to smell it. And its heavenly!

My goal was to sit down and relax after the kids go to bed and just blog for a while and maybe stumble for a little while after that. But my nightly routine is anything but relaxing. Im not complaining at all. I love my evenings..

Here is a run down of what goes on at my house from 5pm until i go to bed....
I make dinner, feed the kids, clean up from dinner and about this time my husband is getting home from work. I make him food, or a plate of what the kids ate, sit and talk for a few minutes, bathe kids, pick up the house and try to collect toys to put back into their room. Then i get the kids a snack and get them ready for bed. After the kids are in bed I do dishes, make my husbands breakfast and lunch for the following day, make coffee for iced coffee and then bake for my husbands work. I dont bake every night. But tonight in a two hour span i made chocolate muffins, eggs, bacon, toast, marinated chicken, rice, bubble tea, coffee and part of the kids breakfast.  Then i went on to do dishes and clean my counters and floor while the muffins cooled. Oh wait let me add I made 2 pepperoni rolls for my parents. Then after the kitchen was semi clean and the muffins cooled, i melted chocolate and drizzled it over top of the muffins, let it harden and packed it up for jerry to take to work... And now it is 11:58 pm and I am just sitting down. Well actually I am laying in bed typing this. I feel guilty I havent blogged in a while and I dont want you guys to lose interest in my site.

Look forward to a massive update of recipes in the next few days. I will be adding much much more! Until then....

AMAZING chocolate brownies!

Anyone who knows me well, knows that i don't eat anything sweet. Very rarely do I even taste what I make. Luckily I have people who do that for me lol. They are my husbands co workers. One day when I write a cookbook and make all of you buy it, I will thank all of the people who have tried my creations over the years. Baking is truly my passion. It took 22 years of my life to realize it, but now that I know its all I ever make anymore!!
                                        (a waterfall we went to see this past weekend!)

On monday I made zucchini bread. It was just a recipe out of a regular Better Homes and Garden recipe book. But tuesday I made Brownies that just made my heart melt. This recipe is super simple. I added peanut butter chips in it and when you ate the brownies right outta the oven they were so soft and yummo!

From the time i walked into the kitchen, until I put the brownies in the oven was less than 20 minutes. Anyone can make these! Heres my recipe.. ENJOY!

Amazing Brownies

1 1/4 c sugar

3 eggs

1 cup flour

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt

4 tbsp butter

1/4 cup heavy cream

8 oz chocolate chips (i used peanut butter)

Preheat over to 350. In a large bowl whisk sugar and eggs. In another bowl whisk flour, cocoa and salt. In a microwave bowl melt butter and heavy cream. Add chocolate mixture to sugar mixture and whisk. Fold in flour. (this is where I added the peanut butter chips) Add the chocolate chips.  Pour the batter into a greased pan.  Bake 40 minutes. Serve Warm if possible!

Lemon Yogurt Cake

It's been awhile since I last blogged. I still havent went to the grocery store! I plan on figuring out what i want to make for the next two weeks and write it all down before I head to the store!


Before posting todays recipe I want to start by saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY GINO!!! This cake was actually made for gino. Hope he likes it!

Lemon Yogurt Cake

from Ina Garten's recipes

1 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup plain yogurt

1 1/3 cups sugar

3 eggs

2 tsp lemon zest

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/3 cup fresh lemon juice

For the Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a loaf pan.
Stir flour, baking powder and salt into one bowl.
In another bowl whisk together yogurt, 1 cup sugar, eggs, lemon zest and vanilla.
Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
With a spatula fold the vegetable oil in the batter.
Pour batter into pan and bake 50 minutes.
Meanwhile cook 1/3 cup lemon juice and 1/3 cup sugar. Stir until dissolved. Set Aside
When the cake is done, allow it to cool for 10 minutes
Place on a baking rack over a sheet pan. Pour warm lemon sugar mixture all over. Allow to soak in and cool.
For the glaze, combine powdered sugar and lemon juice mix well. pour over cake.