Meow Monday

Fluffy

Jack

Sherbert

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Boursin Sausage Balls - Football Friday

This is a variation of the Cream Cheese Sausage Balls I posted earlier this season.  My Mom actually inspired this variation.  I was telling her about the Cream Cheese Sausage Balls, and she said that Boursin cheese might be good in them.  Brilliant idea!

The sausage balls were really, really good.  They tasted great dipped in pizza/marinara sauce,  and would even be good added to pasta as the meatballs.  Like the original, these sausage balls were very tender and moist.  They had a lot of great flavor from the Italian sausage and Boursin cheese.  I highly recommend these make an appearance at your next gathering!

Halloween Poke Cake

This is my very first poke cake.  I can't believe that I've never tried this classic cake.  It was so easy to make.  It started with a simple box cake mix a some jell-o. The only change I made to the original recipe was to make my own buttercream frosting.  Don't skip the homemade chocolate buttercream - it is to die for!   The cake was great and very festive!  Chicken Legs sampled a few pieces and I took it the rest of the cake to work.  There were no leftovers!

Peanut Butter Candy Corn Crunchies

It's almost Halloween!  Halloween is one of my favorite holidays.  I love all the pumpkins, ghosts, goblins and treats - especially the treats!  These cookies are one of our favorite Halloween treats.  It combines some of our favorite flavors - peanut butter and candy corn.  Don't skip the almond bark on the bottom; it makes the cookie.  These cookies are a great way to use up any leftover candy corn - if there is such a thing!

Baker's Note - I baked these cookies on parchment lined cookie sheets.  This is an important step.  The candy corn will melt and will stick to your baking pan if you don't use parchment paper.  I had several cookies that the candy corn oozed out of the sides.  Just let it cool a bit and break the melted candy corn off and you will have pretty cookies.

Cinnamon Bones

I am kicking off my Halloween treats with these Cinnamon Bones.   They are easy to make and a lot of fun to eat!  The best part of this recipe? Only one ingredient! You can't beat that! 

I used a can of my favorite orange rolls, but regular cinnamon rolls would be good too.  I unrolled each orange roll, cut it in half and shaped the bones.  I had all the bones ready in the time it took my oven to preheat.  These Cinnamon Bones are the perfect Halloween breakfast treat for your little (or big) goblin!!

Creole/Cajun Seasoning - Secret Recipe Club

It's Secret Recipe Club time again!  This month I was assigned Heidis Verden - a Danish cooking blog.  Heidi has tons of great recipes and mouth-watering photos.  I found so many recipes that I wanted to try, but I finally settled on this Cajun Seasoning.  I am trying to start making my own seasonings, so this was the perfect way to jumpstart that goal.

The seasoning was easy to throw together.  We used it on some grilled chicken and it tasted fantastic!  Chicken Legs couldn't get enough of the chicken.  The flavor was so good.  This will be my new "go-to" seasoning for all my cajun dishes.

Thanks for the great recipe Heidi!!  Make sure you head over to Heidis Verden and check out more of Heidi's delicious recipes!

Meow Monday

Sherbert

Jack

Fluffy

Halloween Treats

Halloween is coming up and I have some ghoulish treats I'll be sharing with you next week!

 Here are some of my favorite Halloween treats from years past....

Monster Munch

Breadstick Bones

Spiderweb Brownies

Candy Corn Cupcakes

Italian Corn Salsa - Football Friday

This is one of Chicken Legs' most requested tailgating dips.  We had this at a tailgate party several years ago, and we both loved it.  I never could track down the recipe, so I finally recreated it myself.   The original recipe had black olives it in.  We are not black olive fans, so we left those out.  Feel free to customize this to your own tastes.  I think this would also be good with some fresh chopped onion and green pepper mixed in.

I always make this the day before we want to serve it and let it marinate overnight in the refrigerator.  This is one of those dips that gets better the longer it sits.  Serve the dip with your favorite chips; we prefer tortilla chips or scoops.

Easy Chicken Pesto Pizza

This might be my new favorite pizza.  It combines all my favorite flavors - chicken, pesto, tomato sauce and cheese.  I used a Boboli crust, and it took longer for the oven to preheat than to put this together.  I never use Boboli crusts, and I'm not sure why.   This was just as easy as a frozen pizza, but tasted a million times better.  It was a great alternative to making pizza dough, and much easier on a weeknight!

Polenta Pizzaiola

We really changed it up for pizza night last week with these polenta pizza bites.  I found this recipe on the Trader Joe's Facebook page.  I had a roll of polenta in the pantry, so we gave it a try.  They were quick and easy, and they tasted fantastic!  

I followed the Trader Joe's recipe and just used cheese and sauce, but this can easily be adapted to your taste.  You could add sausage, mushrooms or onions - the possibilities are endless.  We had these as our main dish, but they would also make a great appetizer.  Enjoy!

Crunchy Pecan Chicken Tenders

This recipe is from one of my favorite cookbooks - Southern Living Homestyle Cooking.  I've made several of recipes from this cookbook, and they are all delicious!  This recipe is no exception.  This is one of our "go-to" weeknight meals.  The chicken is so flavorful and crispy.  The original recipe uses chicken breasts, but I like to use chicken tenders since they cook quicker.  This chicken only takes minutes to put together, and the end result looks like you went to a lot of trouble.  Let's just let that be out little secret!

Meow Monday

Fluffy

Sherbert

Jack

Pizza Dip Bites - Football Friday

Pizza dip is one of my favorite appetizers, but it isn't the best dip for tailgating.  It needs to be spread on bread slices and can get really messy.  I really wanted pizza dip for our tailgate party last weekend, so I decided to make little individual pizza dip bites.

I used refrigerated crescent rolls to make mini bread bowls and filled each one with the pizza dip.  It worked great!  I didn't' add any pizza toppings in my pizza dip bites, but I feel free to add your favorite toppings.  I think olives, bell peppers, mushrooms or pepperoni would be great.

Yum Yum Chicken

This recipe is from Plain Chicken reader, Cheryl Ener.  This is her husband's grandmother's chicken casserole recipe.  Cheryl emailed me this recipe back in June, and I am just now posting it (slacker - I know).

I don't have a really good traditional chicken casserole recipe, so I was anxious to try this one out.  I used rotisserie chicken and this came together in minutes.  It was the perfect weeknight meal!  We both really enjoyed this casserole.  We now know why it is called "Yum Yum Chicken" - YUM!  Thank you so much for sharing this treasured family recipe, Cheryl!

Football Hero - Rhodes Guest Post

It's time for my Rhodes Guest Blog Post again!  This time I chose to make the Football Hero Sandwich. 

We are football crazies at our house, so this recipe was perfect for us.  It was a very easy recipe, but it does requires a little planning.  The rolls take 1 -2 hours to thaw, and you will also need 30-45 minutes for the football to rise before baking. 

Head over to the Rhodes Bake-N-Serve Blog and check out the step-by-step recipe!

Secret Ingredient Cheesy Garlic Bread

I found this recipe through The Secret Recipe Club.  It was one of the recipes I found on my first blog assignment - A Tale of One Foodies Culinary Adventures.   It caught my eye because it is cheesy garlic bread that is drizzled with honey.  Honey on garlic bread?  How interesting!  I had to give it a try.

I used a Boboli pizza crust for the base.  I topped it with garlic butter, mozzarella cheese and then drizzled it with a little bit of honey.  It was actually really good!  It was much better than any pizza place's cheese sticks!  We almost ate the entire thing by ourselves.  You must give them a try ASAP!

Quick Tamale Pie

A friend of mine sent me this Quick Tamale Pie recipe.  It was so different than any of the other Mexican casseroles that I've made.  I had a roll of polenta in the pantry, so I decided to give it a try!  This was super fast and delicious!  It took longer for the oven to preheat than it did to throw this together.  I added chicken, but you could leave it out and make this a vegetarian dish.  We both really enjoyed this.  It was a nice change to Mexican night!

Meow Monday

Sherbert

Jack

Fluffy

Prescott Frost - Organic Beef

The nice folks over at Prescott Frost Beef sent us some samples of their organic ground beef and all-beef hot dogs.  Prescott Frost meat is 100% USDA Certified Organic with no hormones or antibiotics.  Their beef is raised in  Nebraska and fed only organic grasses and legumes.  Prescott is the great-grandson of the late poet, Robert Frost.  I thought that was so cool!  I love Robert Frost poetry.

We decided to test out the samples while watching football yesterday.  We made our favorite hamburgers with the ground beef - they were fantastic!  The burgers were extremely juicy and had great flavor.  We both loved them!!

We also grilled up the hotdogs.  They were good, but the casings were a little thicker than we liked and were a bit tough after grilling.  The meat inside the casings was really good.  I think that next time we will boil the hotdogs and see if that helps the casing not be as tough.

Many thanks to Prescott Frost for the yummy meal yesterday!