Sunday, July 31, 2011

Buffalo Chicken Salad

My Husband LOVES buffalo anything. Buffalo wings, buffalo chicken wraps, buffalo chicken salad, buffalo chicken pizza, buffalo chicken flavored pretzels. If it has buffalo chicken in the name, he'll eat it. This man has a heat tolerance I've never known before. I can never ask him if something is too spicy, because to him it's not. However, when I take a bite, I feel like my lips will start on fire. There have only been a few things to ever make him sweat from the heat. One of them being my Mom's salsa. Nobody else in my family can manage her salsa, but he loves it!

We had some bags of lettuce to use up so I figured buffalo chicken salad would be a light, yet tasty, meal. I was at the grocery store and was prepared to buy chicken breasts from the meat section but decided that a rotisserie chicken would work just as well and would probably be much easier.

Our salads ended up being HUGE. Seriously. Neither of us could finish our plates! We had plenty for leftovers the next day and it was delicious even on the second day.

The only recipe I have for this is for the hot sauce coating. The rest is up to you. Use whatever lettuce you like and whatever veggies you like. I preferred ranch dressing but my Husband chose bleu cheese for his dressing of choice.

Hot sauce coating
Amy's Kitchen Creations original recipe

2 tablespoons butter
1 cup buffalo sauce
2 tablespoons worchestshire sauce
1 tsp salt
2 tsp pepper

To start, take all of the meat off of the rotisserie chicken and shred it to your desired size. In a small frying pan turned to medium-high heat, add two tablespoons of butter. Let it melt. Add the chicken pieces to the butter. Add the rest of the ingredients and combine. Make sure all of the chicken pieces are coated. Cook until the sauce isn't as thin as it was originally (about 10 minutes or so).

Let cool a bit and then top your salad with the chicken pieces and dressing!

Enjoy!

Alfredo Pasta Bake

When I saw this recipe on Carrie's blog I knew that this dish would be something that I would enjoy as well as my alfredo' lovin Husband. I haven't made it for us yet but I did make it for a friend after she had surgery. She said that her kids loved noodles of all varieties and I knew that her Husband, a meat and potatoes kind of guy, would enjoy this as well.

Because I was making this for kids ranging in ages from 1-8, I didn't use italian sausage because I knew that it could be a little spicy and would make dinnertime more hassle than delicious.

Below is the recipe that I used. Remember, I made this for a friend so I had to alter the way I prepared it a little. I wanted to make sure that it was ready for her to just put in the oven and not worry about it. Carrie has the original recipe on her blog.



Alfredo Sausage Bake
Recipe from: Carrie's Sweet Life

2 jars of Alfredo sauce
2 bags of frozen tortellini, cooked per package directions
2 cups of mozzarella cheese, shredded
1/2 cup of parmesan cheese
1 package of ring bologna, cut into slices

Cook the tortellini per the package directions. While the tortellini is cooking, place the bologna in a frying pan with a little bit of oil. Fry them until they're cooked through. Drain on a paper towel.

When the tortellini and bologna are cooked, combine the tortellini, sauce, bologna, parmesan cheese and 1 cup of mozzarella. Stir until well combined but be careful because the tortellini will be soft and you don't want to break them.

Pour the mixture into a lightly greased 9x13 baking dish. Top with remaining 1 cup of mozzarella cheese.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes until cheese is bubbly and golden brown.

Like I said, I didn't make this myself but the recipient gave rave reviews and everyone loved it. I know that my Husband was bummed that I didn't make two batches, one to keep for ourselves, so I'll have to put this on the menu for us soon. It was super simple to make!