Slow Cooker Pulled Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches

I have another Gameday recipe for you, and you should make it immediately. My husband is a buffalo wing connoisseur and these recieved his stamp of approval. My initial plan was to make these into sliders, but after not being able to find slider buns at 2 different stores I gave up since this would easily work with sandwiches. Where do you buy slider buns anyway?

Since these are made in the slow cooker they are so easy to make,  just throw a few ingredients in the slow cooker and have a finished product 8 hours later. One word of advice I have is do not make these when you'll be home all day. I work from home on Friday's and it was torture smelling the buffalo chicken all day long and having to wait until dinner to gobble it up.

I tried not to make them too spicy since my husband can't handle the heat like I can, he's more of a mild wings type of guy. These still came out spicy, just not too spicy, but please adjust the sauce ingredients to fit your tastes. The blue cheese dip to spread on the sandwiches helped balance out the spice nicely. Since I wanted to mix both light and dark meat this recipe makes way too much chicken for just the two of us, but it would be good for a crowd and I'm excited to find uses for it in other dishes.

Apricot Bourbon Barbecue Chicken

When I saw Ree post this Peach Whiskey Barbecue Chicken it inspired me to break out my jar of Spicy Apricot Bourbon Barbecue Sauce that I had purchased a couple of weeks ago. I know, I've been using a lot of pre-made sauces and marinades lately. They're a great dinner shortcut after a long day of work and trip to the gym, so cut me a break.

Overall the sauce and the recipe were really good, but it definitely was not spicy at all. If you like spice like I do, throw in some chopped chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. I served it with spinach mashed potatoes and a variation of this corn and tomato scramble, it ended up being an unexpected weeknight feast. Keep reading for my version of this recipe.

Hurricane Irene

As you probably know, by the end of last week there was a lot of hype about Hurricane Irene coming up the East Coast and gearing up to hit the NYC area hard. I don't live in NYC, but across the river from downtown Manhattan on the Jersey side. The main concern for the area was flooding and power outages. We live on the 25th floor so clearly flooding wasn't a concern, but a power outage definitely was. So while my husband was making sure we did all of the hurricane 'preparedness' needed, I had some concerns of my own.

Not related to food, I wanted to make sure we had plenty of entertainment for us and our friends in the building if the power went out. I made sure our board games were easy access and downloaded a hurricane playlist for our battery operated ipod speakers. You cannot imagine how many songs are out there relating to hurricanes, storms, wind, rain, etc. They ended up in a pretty good mix in my opinion. Then I of course wanted to make sure we had plenty of cold beer in the cooler. Below was our selection.

It included Anchor Steam, Ithaca Beer Co. Cascazilla, Dogfish Head IPA, Keegan Ales Hurricane Kitty, Stone IPA, and the light choice was Miller Light. Most of these are favorites around our apartment, but the Hurricane Kitty was one we hadn't tried and obviously had to get for the occasion. It was an IPA and surprisingly good considering we only got it because it had Hurricane in the name. We also had plenty of red wine on hand, and we didn't even need to worry about keeping it cold.

Now onto the food, I wanted to bake some snacks up to go along with the other non-perishable food we loaded up on. So I made these peanut butter granola balls from Martha Stewart.

Chicken, Black Bean & Corn Burritos

We had a lot of leftover chicken from our Peruvian Roast Chicken and I had a handful of ideas of what to make with the leftovers; pizza, burritos, over polenta, tortilla soup, lasagna rolls, tostadas, the list could go on. As you already know by the name of this post and the photo I went with the burrito option and made some chicken, black bean, and corn burritos and they were oh so good! According to my husband, they were even better leftover in his lunch today.

I made some guacamole with the heirloom tomatoes I picked up at the farmers market to go with the burritos. Have I mentioned before how awful I am at making guacamole look appetizing? I'm not ashamed, I'll still show you the picture, because  no matter how it looks it always tastes good!

Peruvian Roasted Chicken

My husband has been wanting to roast a whole chicken for awhile, he's mentioned multiple times he wants to be the master of roasting chickens in our house.  After a couple of okay previous attempts, he ended up with a success story on Tuesday night.  He used a Peruvian Roast Chicken recipe from A Bird in the Oven and Then Some. We had the chicken with a salad that I added some Peruvian aji sauce (recipe below) and chipotle creamed corn.

Grilled Balsamic Chicken Salad with Blue Cheese

It was HOT here a couple of weeks ago, and I felt that was a good excuse not to go to the grocery store for awhile. So this salad is what I threw together with some chicken I had in the freezer, the cheese I had on hand (I always have cheese on hand) and the veggies I picked up at the farmer's market outside of my building. Some heirloom cherry tomatoes and sweet jersey corn were the highlights at the farmers market. I was excited because I recently learned that you don't even have to cook the corn, you can just cut it off the cob and throw it in the salad raw. I made a balsamic dijon for the salad dressing and the end result was a refreshing dinner on a hot summer night.  Before I share the recipe, I'd like to tell you that I can never spell balsamic right on my first try. Keep reading for the recipe.

Southwest Chicken Burgers

I have the grinding attachment for my mixer, and I love it when I find the time to actually use it to grind up some meat.  I enjoy playing with combinations of different cuts and combinations. I also like knowing that it gives me control of the quality and cut going into my meatball or burger, rather than just buying a package of ground meat.  This is probably more so for beef than chicken like I ground (I want to say grinded, but Google  tells me it's not actually a real word) up this past weekend, but I had fun with it and made a juicy and delicious chicken burger that was well worth the grinding.

I ground up some chicken thighs and breasts for my burgers, to have a combination of light and dark meat, and added in some chipotle peppers and other spices to come up with my Southwest Chicken Burgers.  I served them with Healthy Crunchy Onion Rings from How Sweet It Is.  Keep reading for the burger recipe, which makes about 6-8 burgers depending on what size patties you prefer.

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms with Blue Cheese

In preparation for my triathlon in a couple of weeks, I went for a long run in the rain Saturday morning. To reward myself (and to keep out of the rain) I cooked up a storm the rest of the weekend; Baked Artichoke Dip, S'mores Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies, Chicken Burgers (with meat from my grinder), Onion Rings, and these Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms.  I don't know if I'm done yet, but my husband uncorked a bottle of wine so I'm pretty sure that means he's done cleaning up my messes for the weekend.  I'm not sure why, but I have been craving stuffed mushrooms for awhile now and these definitely satisfied me.  The recipe for the mushrooms is below and I'll post the other recipes soon.

Chicken and Summer Vegetable Tostadas & Guacamole

MyRecipes Chicken and Summer Vegetable Tostadas

I saw this recipe from Cooking Light and I've had my eye on it for awhile.  I decided not to wait until the summer vegetables were actually ready, so I used a can of corn instead of fresh corn off the cob.  I also used pepper jack cheese in lieu of monterey jack cheese to add a little extra flavor, and as you can see in the picture I probably could have used less cheese.  A lot of the reviews said that the bottom of the tostadas were soggy, so to prevent that I broiled both sides of the tortilla and there were no issues with sogginess.  When I re-heat the leftovers I'm going to add a little tabasco to the chicken and vegetable mixture to add a little spice.  I can't wait to try this one again when summer vegetables are fresh at the farmer's market.

I love my molcajete, it's a completely unnecessary but fun addition to my kitchen.  I make pretty standard guacamole; 2 avocadoes, a handful or two of chopped tomatoes, a handful of chopped onions, 1 chopped jalapeño, some cilantro, and kosher salt.  This Molcajete link on Williams-Sonoma has a helpful video of how to whip up some guacamole with the mortar and pestle.  I've also decided that it's impossible to get an appetizing picture of guacamole.

Pasta With Mascarpone, Chicken, Sun Dried Tomatoes & Spinach

I thawed some chicken and was in the mood for pasta; this recipe from Italian Food Forever hit the spot. I used some whole wheat pasta shells I had on hand and otherwise followed the recipe.  It got a 'will you please make this again' response from my husband who claims he doesn't like sun dried tomatoes.

Thai Style Chicken

MyRecipes Thai Style Chicken

Dinner was Thai Style chicken with a lot of changes based on what I had on hand at home. I doubled the coconut milk, increased Red Curry Paste to 2-3 TB, sliced up the chicken breast, no cliantro, 1 TB of soy sauce instead of fish sauce, and edamame on the side instead of roasted red peppers.

Wine was 2005 Montessa Rioja, it was pretty average.