Cooking Thursday: Slow Cooker Salsa Chicken & Easy Buffalo Ranch Chicken Bowls

 

Hello my dear Friends!

I hope you've been having a cozy week so far. 

We've had a few warmer days for the northwoods (sunny and 60's). But the nights still get plenty chilly and we have needed the heat on in the evenings more often than not. We have a lot of windows so during the day the sun heats us up just fine yet. Today, though, it's gray and cloudy and in the 50's and perfect baking weather....and I just so happen to have a banana bread baking away in the oven. So cozy kitchen vibes are vibing here. :) 

I don't really have a craft update. I've just been working on finishing that same embroidery project because I'm getting together with my fellow Fall birthday Besties soon, to celebrate. So I need to finish the 2nd one stat! Lol Here's a quick peek of the progress:

I will share photos when I'm finished with this one and they are both done and framed. 

What is it about this time of year? When it starts to have a chill and blankets become a necessity. When we want to fill our bellies with something warm and comforting...and it often includes things you eat in bowls. I guess because here in the northwoods that often means soup, slow cooker things, and "hot dishes" as we call them around here. Lol There are so many recipes that combine everything in one "bowl" and those are so yummy and comforting too. 

So today I thought I'd share a few slow cooker recipes with you that we enjoyed recently. 

This was another one I found on social media by the account by Kate Fuller. It was easy and so yummy. I love recipes like this where you add whatever toppings you like. I made an easy micro spanish rice...and we served it over that and then added or toppings.  We did protein ranch instead of sour cream, some shredded cheese, taco sauce, and chili cheese fritos as toppings. Delish! But avocado, jalapenos, taco chips etc would also be wonderful as toppings.

slow cook a while

shred chicken and add beans...

and sweet corn..

and a bit of lime juice

and then you're ready to dig in

😋😋😋

The next slow cooker recipe I made I sort made up with what I had on hand. I seasoned some chicken breasts with some s&p, garlic powder, and ranch dressing mix. I put some Franks buffalo sauce on the bottom of the slow cooker and put the seasoned chicken breasts on top. Oh, and I also added a little chicken broth to the bottom of the slow cooker - about 1/2 cup. I let it cook on low about 6 hours. Then shredded it up. We had ours as bowls because I had sweet potato to use up. So I cubed and baked that at 400* for about 30 mins or so. I always season my sweet potatoes with s&p and some cinnamon. We put the roasted sweet potato on the bottom of our bowls. Put the buffalo ranch chicken on top. And then topped them with protein ranch, a little shredded cheese and chili cheese fritos too. We had raw veggies of celery and carrot on the side like they give you with buffalo wings in the restaurant. Again, so easy and so flavorful. 

Are you a soup, stew, or "bowls" kind of a person for warming comfort food this time of year? Do you have a fave go-to comfort dish?

I hope you get to just enjoy some cozy time this coming weekend. Here's a couple of cute pinterest moments that gave me a smile. 

Blessings to you always Friends. 

🍁🎃xoxo🌻🧡

Cooking Thursday: Chicken and Dumplings & some Happy October Fall Finds

 

Hello my Peeps~

Happy October!! 👻🍁🎃🧡

The best month of them all in my opinion. Since Autumn is my favorite season - In my humble opinion, I don't think it gets any better than the northwoods in October. Folks come from all over to travel up our north shore along Lake Superior because it's just so beautiful.😍  

I love the beautiful trees, the weather, soft sweaters, cozy hot drinks, long walks, geese honking, the smell of woodsmoke outside, first evenings in front of the fireplace, heartier meals, fun movies, curling up under a fuzzy blanket, and all the magic that October brings. 

Right now it's sunny and in the 60's and the trees and bay are all shimmering in the breeze. A little pile of leaves is already forming under one of the trees. 

And here are a few pics from our walk a few nights ago:

And it's so fun to see kiddos get excited that it's the month of this:

And since we're talking about Autumn cozy I thought I would share this yummy comforting chicken and dumplings I made the other night. 

I found the recipe in a 50+ Best Soups magazine from a few years ago. I have made a few really good soups from it and I always jot down my notes about them after I make them so I know how I want to tweak for next time. 

I followed the recipe except I didn't have dried rosemary - so I used fresh I still had from my garden. And besides salt and pepper...I seasoned everything with a bit of garlic powder and onion powder. I let my slow cook a little longer than 5 hours because I wanted the potatoes even softer (I think I cut them a little too big). So I layered the veggies, then put the seasoned chicken thigh pieces on top. Poured the broth mixture over all and let it cook.

This is how it looked when it was ready for me to add the dumplings and I added in 1/2 c. of frozen peas I had thawed a little:

 I didn't have bisquick mix so I made my own by sifting 1 cup of flour into a bowl and adding in 1&1/2 tsp of baking powder and 1/4 tsp of salt. I then took 1 Tbsp of butter and blended that into the flour mixture with my pastry blender until it was all blended in. I did add some seasoning to the mixture too (some garlic & onion powder and a little Italian seasoning). And then mixed in some milk. 

Then I dropped the dumplings by rounded tablespoons onto the hot broth:

I covered them and let them cook about 1/2 hour until they were soft and pillowy and a toothpick pushed in the center came out clean.

Here is the recipe. Such perfect comforting Fall food!! I definitely recommend it and Matt & I both said we'd definitely have it again. 

I don't have an exciting craft update this week. I have progressed more on my second embroidery project - but I thought I would wait until I have more done before I show an update again. And I have started the cute diamond art coasters (see prior Thursday post) - but again, I want to wait until more are complete. So instead I thought I'd show you a few other fun items I found for Fall at Trader Joe's that I had shipped to our home (through amazon - since our closest TJ's is 3 hours away):

You already saw my absolute favorite - this pumpkin spice bark

But I also got this harvest pasta sauce that came highly rated. It's made with pumpkin and butternut squash. I think I'm going to add meatballs or ground beef or turkey that I saute with onion and zucchini and then have it over pasta. 

And I have to say these little pumpkin spice yogurt covered shortbread cookies are really good too! Counting every calorie when I indulge but they are very worth it. Great with a mug of tea!

How is October beginning where you are? Are there any fun activities or foods you're looking forward to? Or maybe something new you plan to try? 

Love the time we share here together always my Friends. Have a great weekend! 

xoxo

Perfect Valentine Brownies & Super Bowl Queso Dip

 

Hello my Friends!

Happy Friday Eve to you. :) 

Do you have any fun weekend plans - particularly any fun Valentine's plans? 

Matt & I are planning to snuggle in as more snow is on the way tomorrow night. But he's going to cook me a steak dinner. Yay me! 💝😋 

We also have some little gifts we plan to exchange together. And I ordered us some special gourmet chocolate covered cherries and a few chocolate truffles that arrived the other day that I'm chilling in the fridge until tomorrow. Isn't it wonderful to have an excuse to celebrate L❤️VE? 

I thought I'd share a couple recipes I had made for our little Super Bowl gathering last weekend. And one of them is for these amazingly decadent and delish blackberry swirl cheesecake brownies! They would be SO perfect as a valentine treat too. 

isn't the swirl so pretty? 

You can see the spread behind us with all the goodies. We watched on the big screen downstairs in our media room (& half of the downstairs is Matt's office as you can see too) 

You can find the full recipe for these brownies on my pinterest board "sweet treats" which you can find if you click here.  But here are parts of the recipe I was able to screen shot (it didn't have a print option which makes it nice and neat). I took a shortcut and made the brownie layer from a Ghiradelli brownie box mix which I highly recommend. So much easier and SO yummy. So I'm only sharing the rest of the recipe for the cheesecake layer and the blackberry swirl. 

*so basically make the boxed mix by the instructions and pour into the bottom of greased 8x8 pan. Then follow the rest of the steps shared here. Doing the boxed mix did add to the overall baking time for me. I think mine took more like 45 minutes or so. I topped them with a drizzle of chocolate sauce and fresh blackberries on top. They were a hit with everyone! 

Some other ideas the recipe gave were:

☀️ serve them in the summer with blackberry sorbet (doesn't that sound amazing?). 

🍂🍁Do an Autumn edition and add a little bit of cinnamon and nutmeg to the brownies. 

🎄❤️💚And even a holiday version by adding some orange zest the cheesecake layer. No matter which way you make them - I just recommend that you do! 

Another yummy snack at our super bowl table was a queso dip. I didn't get a good after pic but this was it looked like in the works melting in the slow cooker. We had done up a nacho bar with different chips, taco meat, and then queso dip and all the fixings - so everyone could build their own nacho plate. This queso was also a hit and wonderful to keep nice and warm in the slow cooker for the whole evening. You can find the recipe under my pinterest board "appetizers" if you click here. But I've also shared it below. 

Enjoy! 

xoxo

Italian Chicken Soup

Hello dear Friends.

Yay, that soup season is here!! Matt is a soup lover just like I am, so we have already made quite a few soups already in this relationship. Lol He makes a mean Zuppa Tuscana type one - that's a bit more waist friendly because he only does 1/2 as many potatoes and adds cauliflower and it's DELISH! 

I recently found this magazine: 

And there are so many wonderful sounding soups and stews in it. So I'm determined to make all the ones that interest us the most over the course of this Winter. Here is the first one I made right before Thanksgiving. I kind of changed a few things to make it simpler and faster and it turned out awesome! We both thought it was a nice light fresh soup with all the fresh herbs. And we liked the Italian twist to it with the tomatoes. 

You'll see in the recipe it calls for using a whole raw chicken. I made it easier on myself and I used a rotisserie chicken. So I took a fully cooked rotisserie chicken and pulled of all the meat from it and cut it up and set it aside in the fridge. I then used the carcass - along with the other ingredients called for (cut up celery, carrot, onion, garlic and rough chopped tomato, seasonings, bay leaf etc) and I let that slow cook all afternoon to flavor our "broth". 

Once the broth was complete I strained everything out of it. I put that broth back in the slow cooker and added some orzo pasta and freshly chopped tomatoes and let that cook until the orzo was done. 

I then finely chopped up the fresh herbs and put them in to cook for the last 5 minutes, along with some lemon juice and the chicken I had cut up earlier. 

I dished up our bowls and topped them each with some parmesean cheese. We had ours with some little ciabatta roll sandwiches and it was delicious. 

Here's the recipe from the magazine. Do you write little notes next to recipes you like too? 😉 

Are you a big soup person? I think living in the north, where we get a lot of cold weather, soup is such a comfort and warms the soul. 😋 

Enjoy! xoxo