Criss Cross Applesauce

Long time no see folks!

Boog and I made applesauce this weekend.  I used this recipe from All Recipes dot com.  It turned out good and Boog liked it, so that's all that really mattered.  It wasn't anything fancy and he had fun mashing the apples lol.

I used a bad of red apples and made it in two different batches.  I didn't have any ground cinnamon, but found some cinnamon sticks.  I simmered those for a while, took the sticks out, added the apples and sugar and let them cook until soft.  Mashing them was super easy after that.  The hardest thing about the whole process was peeling the darn apples!

Finished product

Mashing the apples

Fun at the Fair

This is the male lion that was part of the big cat show at the fair

The white tiger

This shows the white tiger on the left, liger in the middle and the lion on the right

Fun on the merry go round

Fair food!  Corn dog and fries for lunch

Look at that grin!

He got a Transformer name plaque - even the letters have Transformers in them

He tried super hard to stay awake - but we'd been up since 5:30 that morning

Buffalo Chicken Dip

I made Buffalo Chicken Dip tonight, posted a pic or two on Facebook and got a few requests for the recipe...So here it is...

Four boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 12 oz bottle hot sauce
1 16 oz bottle Ranch dressing
2 8oz packages cream cheese

Boil the chicken until thoroughly cooked, let cool and then shred into a pyrex dish.

Once the chicken has been shredded, dump in the full bottle of hot sauce and mix so the chicken is drenched.

Pre heat the oven to 350.  While you are waiting for the oven to heat, mix the cream cheese and Ranch dressing.  You can heat it on the stove or in the microwave to mix better.  Once mixed, pour it on top of the chicken evenly.

Pop it into the oven for about 20 minutes, until the top starts to brown.

Variations - You can use bleu cheese dressing, which I can't stand lol, or add chopped celery, yet another thing I don't like.

The best thing to eat this with is Fritos Scoops since they're a lot more sturdy than most chips.  Something else I've done that was really good was to put the chicken dip on top of a big sturdy roll and top with a slice of Swiss cheese.  And last but not least, mix it into Ramen noodles.

Boogie-sized Pizza

Tonight's dinner was Boogie-sized Pizzas!  Made by my Boogie and me...

1 roll refrigerator biscuits
spaghetti sauce
finely shredded mozzarella cheese

We laid out the individual biscuits and squished them a little, though they probably should've been flattened a little more...Then add spaghetti sauce, just about a tablespoon, maybe a little more, then top with the cheese...the flattening and cheese topping were Boogie's favorite parts, before the eating part anyway lol...


 

 

Preheat the oven to 375, then cook for about 12 minutes.

 

 

And BAM!  Boogie-sized pizzas...

And Boogie-sized pizzas lead to a happy, full bellied Boogie...

The fair's in town!

 We went to the fair last weekend on the last day it was in town.  Boogie got to ride so many rides and even got to ride in a monster truck!

 Who doesn't love fair food, rides, animals, monster trucks and tractors?  We were there for 6 hours and he still wasn't ready to leave then!  But boy was he tired.  The night before he didn't want to go to bed, but that night he was telling me it was time early lol.

Octodogs

I am not crafty or creative in the least bit. So when I can manage to pull something off that's even a little bit of either, I get kinda giddy lol. Tonight I knew I was going to have leftovers for dinner but wasn't sure what to do for Boog.

He hasn't had hotdogs recently, so I figured I'd try to make those octopus hotdogs. So freaking easy. And Boog thought they were pretty nifty. He had to pull the legs off of them to eat them though.

I figured out for next time I'm going to make green mac and cheese for seaweed and put the octodog on top with a side of goldfish crackers. I'm feeling slightly proud of myself here lol.

Day 6 - A whole mess of stuff

Last night I made these for dinner...It's what I had planned for tonight, but hey, Boog saw hot dogs and wanted them last night...I did almost the whole pack of dogs, but held two back, just in case he didn't like them with the cresent rolls on them.

And let me just say that he ate both of them...and said they were yummy...he didn't eat the last bite of the second one, but i think i'm okay with that lol...

It's amazing the things that can be turned into toys!  He thought the empty bottle was awesome...

I got in the shower this morning and there was NO dog in my bed...I come back and there's a big oaf...

Big oaf has claimed the child...

And then woke him up by licking his back...WTF...

Obviously he was not happy about being woken up in such a manner...hell, let's be honest...he wasn't happy about being woken up at all...but he still loves his Big Oaf...

Chicken, vegetable and rice soup

It's been a while since I've posted about food, so I thought I should mention last night's dinner.  I made a pretty thick soup/chowder and everyone seemed to like it...

Here's what I used, though I wish I had used more chicken and maybe added some garlic to the crockpot, along with some pepper at the end...

1 whole onion
4 celery stalks
2 chicken breasts cut into half dollar sized pieces
some leftover frozen carrots and corn - we had more corn than carrots due to a Boog-sized rabbit ;)

I let all that cook in the crockpot with some chicken broth all day.

When I got home at the end of the day, I used this cream base that I found on Allrecipes.com.  We didn't have any pepper apparently, so I couldn't use that...but I did add a tablespoon of minced garlic and let the cream base heat a bit more.

Anyway, once the cream base was done, I added it to the crockpot, including the extra chicken broth, which made it a little less thick - I wasn't sure if it was going to be too thin, but it was actually thicker than I would have liked since I served it over rice for me and The Boy...Boog decided he didn't want rice with his "soupa" but ended up eating a big bowl of it.

My sister and her friend also had some and said it was good...Surprisingly enough, there was enough for all 4 adults, Boog, The Boy had a second bowl and there's some left in the fridge...

Food post: Chicken and dumplings

I have been getting TONS of free books from amazon recently. One of the ones I found was a simple crock pot cook book...it had a recipe for easy chicken and dumplings...i've been sick for a few days so having this cook all day yesterday for dinner was great...

Of course I didn't quite follow the recipe exactly but it was still good...

i used just over a cup of sliced mushrooms - and i cut them a bit smaller...
2 stalks of celery chopped - and i don't like celery but it could have even used more...
an entire chopped up onion...
2 cans of condensed cream of chicken soup - and a half a can of milk would have been good too...
i didn't have the carrots to add and i think that would have made it even better...
the recipe calls for three pounds of chicken but i have no idea the actual weight of what i used...
and a can of refridgerator biscuits...

Throw it all in the crock pot except the biscuits...it says to shred the chicken after 7 hours but i just cut mine into small pieces before i put it in...let it cook on low for 7 hours or so...i think mine ended up being just over 8...cut the biscuits into quarters depending on the size...i ended up cutting mine in half and then into thirds...throw the biscuits in for the last hour and turn up to high...

yuuummmmmy!

Color Me Surprised

I was a little unsure if Boog was going to eat the dinner I made the other night...I knew he'd eat the corn, and I was pretty sure he'd eat the garlic butter rice...But the chicken had me thinking I'd be popping some nuggets in the microwave for him...

I took two chicken breasts and soaked them in Italian dressing all day, then cooked them in the oven with the dressing they'd been soaking in...Something simple and thrown together at the last minute that morning before we left for work...

I made Boog's plate with rice, corn and cut up chicken, grabbed a spoon for him and his juice...He and I sat down to eat, and the first thing he grabbed was a piece of chicken...I asked if he had chicken and he announced that he had "Yummy Chicken!"

I was right about the rice though, he wasn't thrilled with it...he ate all his corn and then started in on mine lol...I had to break out the ketchup to get him to eat the last few pieces of his chicken, but he ate a good dinner for me.