Sweet Suppertime

heavy on the butter and sugar...

Buffalo Wing Perfection — crisp and juicy

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buffalo wings, perfect buffalo wings Since being introduced to this delicious appetizer/main dish I haven’t quite decided if our family likes it as an appetizer or as a main dish.  I think it actually depends on how many wings I make.  If they fill up on wings… it was a main dish.  If they are still hungry after they eat them all then it was definitely only an appetizer.  My family loves buffalo wings and they love them with a myriad of different sauces.  But in the long run they love the wings because they are neither dried out not too rubbery.  That skin can get awfully chewy if you drown it in too much sauce too soon.  So…. this is the way we do wings at our house.

Let’s say here that I love having a meat thermometer.  It makes me feel all safe and secure when I am feeding wings to the masses.  I cook the winglets (love that word) until the center is at 165°.  From there I keep an eye on the skin until I see it at a dark golden brown.  This can be accomplished in the oven, in a deep fryer or,  my newest favorite kitchen appliance, an air fryer.    This is ending up a little backwards but I wanted to get that whole inner chicken temperature out of the way.

I like to buy my winglets fresh.  I’ve done them from a frozen state and they work fine too, I just prefer the fresh winglets.

wings purchased These lucky dudes are about to become delicious.  Take them from the package, give them a rinse to give them a fresh start and them pat them dry with a paper towel.  Lay them out on a plate and give them a shake with your favorite seasoning.  Around here we like to use McCormick’s Montreal Steak Seasoning.    Below my wings are hanging out in the basket of my air fryer.  It’s awesome.  I have to say that whenever I fry large batches of anything–be it fries or wings I usually work outside, so I took my fryer to the garage when the aroma of chicken wings frying could drive my dog insane.

buffalo wings, best wings Okay– if you are going to cook yours in the oven you will want to line a baking sheet with foil, shake on your spices and bake them in a 400° for about 40-45 minutes.  Make sure they aren’t pink or better yet test them with a thermometer.  If you are going to fry them in delicious oil you have choices.  You can deep fry them (which I love to do) or pan fry (which I think gets pretty messy).  Either way you want your oil to heat to about 375° and you are going to fry them for about 12-15 minutes, turning them and watching for that perfect color and doneness.  They will need to be turned in order to achieve an even browning.  Now we have arrived at why I love my air fryer.  I shake those spices on.  I stick them in the fryer and set the timer for about 18 minutes.  I walk away and don’t think about them for another 10 minutes.  I go back and turn them over and forget about them again.  I guess it just depends how interactive you want to be with your wings on any given day.  Make no mistake–I love hanging out by the oil vat in my cute apron wielding a pair of metal tongs and fussing over my wings, but I love the carefree nature of the oil fryer.  I guess it depends on how busy I am at the moment.  I’m so lucky to have choices!  You don’t need an air fryer to make these, they turn out great any way you make them!

However you decide to cook your winglets, when you have them cooled only slightly, toss them in a plastic bag and add 1/4 cup of buffalo sauce or sweet and spicy wing sauce and toss them around to coat them.  I find that 1/4 cup of sauce will easily cover 15-20 wings this way.

buffalo wings Now… this is where I develop an attitude.  About now when I look at my wings they look a little pasty and the skin looks a little, well, flubbery.  I am against flubbery wing and so…. this is where I put them on a baking sheet or back in my air fryer for about 3-4 minutes or until the lightly covered wings have literally had that delicious sauce baked right in to them, no burning.   Don’t throw them in your oil fryer.. I don’t think I need to explain 🙂

This is how they turn out!  Beautifully coated, speckled with seasoning and ready to drench in additional buffalo sauce, ranch dressing, bleu cheese dressing, sweet wing sauce….. it doesn’t matter, they are ready to party!

buffalo winglets, wings, superbowl food

buffalo wings, chicken wings

Buffalo Wing Perfection -- crisp and juicy
 
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The perfect buffalo wing... add a little extra time in the oven after they are cooked and coated with sauce.
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Ingredients
  • Chicken Wings (winglets)
  • McCormick Montreal Steak Seasoning, or your favorite seasoning spice
  • Buffalo Sauce
Instructions
  1. Rinse chicken and pat dry with paper towel.
  2. Sprinkle with McCormick Montreal Steak Seasoning
  3. Fry, or bake according to your preference, until the inside of the chicken reaches 165° and the outside of the wing is a dark golden brown.
  4. Place in a bowl or plastic bag once they have cooled only slightly.
  5. Add ¼ cup your favorite buffalo sauce to the bag of cooked wings and toss to coat. I find that ¼ cup of sauce will cover 15-20 wings the way I want them coated for the second round in the oven.
  6. Lay coated wings on a baking sheet covered with foil.
  7. Bake at 350° for 3-5 minutes until the sauce bakes into the wings.
  8. Remove from the oven and serve with your favorite sauces.

Crushed Peppermint

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crushed peppermint Confession.  I have a unique hobby.  I love to visit my favorite cooking/baking websites and shop.  I fill my cart with all kinds of gadgets and fun baking supplies.  It’s therapeutic for me.  What’s so strange about that you may ask?  Well, I almost never buy the items in my cart.   In the end, as I sit there chewing on my lower lip trying to decide if I should buy all those lovely items… it sometimes seems too expensive or I wonder if I will ever use whatever it is that I have whimsically selected for my cart.  My husband gets the biggest kick out of this part of my personality.    But.. where I might not feel comfortable going to a physical store and browsing for hours without shelling out a dime, I can wander to my hearts content on an online store.

Recently I had crushed peppermint in my virtual cart.  In fact it found it’s way there on several “trips” to my online hangouts.  It looks delicious and fun…and a bit expensive.  As I was putting away the last remnants of Christmas I ran across 2 lonely looking candy canes.    I thought of my often filled and abandoned cart.  I thought about putting those 2 candy canes to good use.  They would be great mixed with cookie dough, sprinkled on ice cream, mixed with hot chocolate or adorning a cupcake.    I put them front and center on the counter so that I would not  forget to crush them.  A little later I went back to crush those canes into submission and my husband had left me a love note:

crushing candy canes To crush your leftover candy canes, locate a clean jar, a plastic bag that seals, a piece of parchment and a mallet of some sort.  Fold a piece of parchment in half and slip it inside the bag.  This will become a double layer so that the bag doesn’t split open when you are taking out your aggression on the candy!  Unwrap your candy canes and break them into a about 3 inch pieces.  Place them in the middle of the folded parchment and place them in the freezer for about half an hour.  This helps the candy become especially brittle.

crushing candy canes Now we get to crush the candy.  There’s no need to get super ambitious here.  Just work a little at a time until you have the consistency that you want.  I personally don’t love huge chunks of crunchy peppermint candy so I worked until I had the consistency of sand with just a few larger pieces interspersed.

crushed candy cane Pretty, pretty, pretty….

crushing candy canes Remove it from the parchment and bag and store it in a small jar with a seal.  Use it to flavor your hot chocolate or sprinkle it about on your baked goods!

crushed candy cane Fun–and now you don’t have to wonder what to do with all those leftover candy canes on your counter!   I think I’ll start warming the milk for the hot chocolate, grab my ipad and do a little light shopping.

If you find you are not up to all that hard work–or if you threw away your candy canes just yesterday–one place you can find crushed peppermint is at King Arthur Flour.

Crushed Peppermint
 
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Wondering how to get the best crush out of those leftover Christmas candy canes?
Author:
Recipe type: Kitchen Tips
Ingredients
  • 2-4 large candy canes
Instructions
  1. Place a piece of parchment, folded in half, inside a seal-able plastic bag.
  2. Unwrap candy canes and break into 3 inch pieces.
  3. Place the candy between the parchment paper and place in the freezer for at least one half hour.
  4. Remove from the freezer and using a mallet, begin hitting the candy until it is the consistency you desire.
  5. Place in a small jar with a lid and store for use with cupcakes, hot chocolate, cookies etc.

 

 

Delish Broccoli Salad

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broccoli salad Yesterday as I was wrapping up the photographing of this salad I had a visit from my one and a half year old granddaughter Rebecca.  Needless to say hugs and kisses took over the fading light in my kitchen.   I was holding her and trying to take a shot and picking out little pieces of cubed cheese to feed her.  I didn’t even think to offer her a piece of broccoli or cauliflower.  Grandma’s know better than that.

I traded in my camera for walks up and down the stairs,  looking for the dog, holding her new baby brother Maverick, raiding the white chocolate chip jar, reading stories and watching Dean Martin sing “It’s A Marshmallow World In The Winter”.

She recently moved closer, after being in Indiana, so I am well aware of how lucky I am for each moment I spend with her.    Anyway–grandpa took her for a bit to read The Pokey Little Puppy and I packed  a container of salad for my daughter-in-law to take home for dinner.  I got a phone call late in the evening telling me that Rebecca had eaten loved eating all the little white and green trees from the salad!  I’m not gonna lie–it sorta made my day.

So yes, it is a very yummy salad and the colors that you choose to put into the salad are limited only by the season you are in, what you are craving and your creativity.  The basic recipe is an absolute winner.  I have been making variations of this salad for 20 years.  It’s a wonderful side dish and unique enough to shake things up at a party or event.  I always come home with an empty dish, you will too.

Start with a head of washed and trimmed cauliflower and broccoli.  As I’m trimming these I like to try and keep the proportions of broccoli and cauliflower fairly equal so sometimes I ditch a few florets of cauliflower and save them for lunches.  I try to keep the veggies about the size of my thumb, or bite size.   Not too big, but not too small.  Also–don’t throw away that stalk of broccoli!  Trim off about a half inch of the bottom, peel the stalk and dice or slice it for the salad, it’s crisp and delicious!

Put the trimmed broccoli and cauliflower in a large bowl and add baby tomatoes, halved, 1/2 cup cooked bacon pieces ( I like to buy these in bulk and then I saute them just a bit to crisp them and bring out the flavor), 1/2 cup each of grated or cubed cheddar and mozarella cheese, 1/2 red diced or sliced red onion.    Notice in this photo that extra bowl of broccoli and cauliflower?  Take about 2 cups of your trimmed cauliflower and broccoli and chop in finely.  I put mine in the food processor and pulsed it 4 or 5 times.  This blends well with the dressing and gives the salad a little extra texture.

Bowls of Ingredients Delish Broccoli Salad Sweet Suppertime Add the bacon pieces and finely chopped broccoli and cauliflower.  As I was adding my onions it all of a sudden looked like a lot so I reserved a few.

broccoli salad, summer salad  Give it a toss.  Use your hands, it’s fun!  Isn’t it beautifully colorful?

broccoli salad Time to whip up some dressing for this.  You will need red wine vinegar, sugar and good old mayonnaise.

Dressing Ingredients Delish Broccoli Salad In a small mixing bowl combine 3/4 cup mayonnaise, 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar and 1/4 cup granulated sugar.  Stir this together until the sugar has dissolved.  Now it’s time to pour on your salad.  If you are taking this to a party, add the dressing just before you go.  Remember that adding vinegar means that the vegetables will start to wilt.  Around my house, we don’t mind it much… but if I am taking it somewhere I want to make the best presentation possible. Pour the dressing on the salad and give it a good toss.

broccoli salad To finish it off, sprinkle with 1/4 cup slivered almonds.   This recipe is a good one… try it for dinner soon.  You might get your little ones to eat little white and green trees!  I love you Rebecca… a final shot never looked so good!

broccoli salad

Delish Broccoli Salad
 
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The shear versatility of this recipe makes it one everyone should have in their repertoire ...
Author:
Recipe type: Salad
Serves: 10 servings
Ingredients
  • 1 medium head broccoli, trimmed into bite size pieces (peel and chop the stalk as well)
  • 1 medium head cauliflower, trimmed into bite size pieces
  • ½ small red onion, sliced or chopped
  • ½ cup bacon pieces
  • ½ cup mozzarella cheese, grated or chopped
  • ½ cup cheddar cheese, grated or chopped
  • ¼ cup sliced almonds for the top
    For the Dressing
  • ¾ cup mayonnaise
  • 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
  • ¼ cup sugar
Instructions
  1. Trim cauliflower and broccoli into bite size pieces.
  2. Peel the stock of the broccoli head and slice or chop it.
  3. Remove 2 cups of trimmed vegetables and place in a food processor and pulse 4-5 times or chop by to a fine consistency by hand.
  4. In a large mixing bowl combine broccoli, cauliflower, onion, bacon and cheese.
  5. Toss.
  6. Prepare dressing
  7. In a small bowl combine red wine vinegar, sugar and mayonnaise.
  8. Mix until sugar has dissolved.
  9. Now, either put these two separate bowls in the refrigerator or if you are ready to eat..
  10. Pour over prepared salad and toss to coat.
  11. Top with sliced almonds.
  12. Serve and get ready to wash your empty bowl and give out your recipe!

 

 

Buffalo Wing Sauce

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Buffalo Sauce We love sauces at our house.   I may have said that before.  It bears repeating.  We love sauces at our house.  In recent years we have become lovers of buffalo sauce.  It originated with an order of wings and graduated to pizza, tacos and dips. Falling in love with any sauce is a dangerous affair.  You taste something, you love it, and you spend a fair amount of time searching for a combination of ingredients that somehow meets the requirements of your memory.

Deciding on the following recipe was a joyous relief.  This is the recipe that the Balser Family loves.  I think you will love it too!

Start with Franks Original Hot Sauce, garlic salt, butter, Worcestershire Sauce and brown sugar.

Buffalo Sauce Ingredients Sweet Suppertime Put all ingredient in a small sauce pan ( you are not making gobs).  Melt the butter over low heat, add hot sauce, garlic salt, Worcestershire sauce and brown sugar.  Bring to a boil, stirring until all your ingredients are nicely incorporated. Serve hot and refrigerate any leftovers in an airtight container.  It’s easy to warm in the microwave as you need it.  I find that when I have a batch of this made up my kids find all kinds of things to put it on!

What are you going to put your Buffalo Sauce on?  We are going to put this on our chicken winglets.  I’ll be posting that next week!  Come on back…

Buffalo Wing Sauce Sweet Suppertime Final

 

Buffalo Wing Sauce
 
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Spice up a myriad of dishes with this sassy hot wing sauce...
Ingredients
  • ½ cup butter
  • ⅔ cup Franks Original Hot Sauce
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce
  • 1 teaspoon garlic salt
Instructions
  1. Melt butter over low heat
  2. Add Franks Hot Sauce, brown sugar, Worcestershire Sauce and garlic salt.
  3. Simmer on low heat for one minute, stirring until all ingredients are nicely incorporated.
  4. Store unused Buffalo Wing Sauce in an airtight container in your refrigerator and see what your family puts it on!

 

 

 

 

Fiesta Dip

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Fiesta Dip Sweet Suppertime Header Ya.  It’s a bean dip. It’s subtle in its difference to other bean dips and specific in requirement.  Don’t use a can of re-fried beans and hope to get the same result as that expensive can of Frito Lay.  Skip the added mayo at your own risk.   These two ingredients along with an abundance of taco seasoning make this dip more of a fiesta that a mere dip.

Making this recipe brings back soooo many great memories for me and the fam.  Through the years we have had hordes of teenagers in our home.  We believe that the party should be at our house.  It’s great to know where your kids are and who they are with.  The unexpected benefit to this?  After all the late nights and all the money you spend on food to keep them coming back you end up with kids who stop by to say “hi” even when your kid isn’t home.  Or maybe they stop by to have a nap on your comfy couch.  Better still is when they stop by to visit because they just need a bit of advice.  Doubly good for you is if you are in the middle of bringing home groceries and a few of them pull up and start grabbing bags and putting things in the cupboards and in the fridge because they are that familiar with your home and they really want to help.

I have to say that I have the most awesome kids and they have the most awesome friends.  This dip is one that the kids and their friends request whenever they are planning a party or a game night.  There has been a lot of tortillas sacrificed on the alter of this bean dip over a game of Cataan or in between takes of a teenage movie making or watching night.  Have I mentioned how much I love my kids’ friends?  I do.  These are people who know where I sit at the football game 10 years later and come to find me, give me a hug and show me the latest addition to their family.  Was it all in the dip?  Maybe…..

Spread a can of Frito Lay Bean Dip in an even layer on a platter.  My plate is about one and one-half the size of a regular dinner plate.  Mash a ripe avocado and carefully spread it over the bean dip.  Okay.  I have tried a can of re-fried beans to cut the cost back on this, but the fact it I just love the little can of bean dip.  It comes in a variety of “hot”.  I love them all.   I watch for it to go on sale and I buy several at a time because, well…, it starts this little party.  Frito Lay did not pay me to say that.

Beans and Avocado Sweet Suppertime Fiesta Dip Mix 2 cups sour cream with 3/4 cup of mayonnaise and 2 1/2 to 3 tablespoons of taco seasoning mix.  Blend together well and spread over the avocado and bean layers.  I love what a bit of mayonnaise does to this recipe.  Straight sour cream gets a little tangy for me.  And I love going a bit heavy on the taco seasoning.  It’s the star of this dip to me and it’s what people ultimately start digging around for.  There was a time that I had to sneak the mayo out of the fridge and toss it in because I have a daughter who hates  despises mayonnaise and all of its creaminess.  I have to say that I smothered more than a few snickers ( not the candy bar) when I watched her eat this dip and love it!  Is that mean?

7 layer bean dip, bean dip, fiesta dip Okay, let’s bring it home.  Top your lovely platter of deliciousness with 1/2 cup of cheese,

Cheese Fiesta Dip Sweet Suppertime 3 sliced green onions, one Roma tomato chopped and a handful of black olives sliced.

7 layer bean dip, bean dip, fiesta dip, super bowl dips Now hurry and put this in the fridge to let the flavors blend before your 15 year old runs in and does this to it…

7 layer bean dip, bean dip, fiesta dip just to see if it “tastes good”.  I love you Keven.  Seriously.  It wasn’t anything the other kids haven’t done.

7 layer bean dip, bean dip, super bowl dips Refrigerate for about an hour before serving.  Enjoy and make sure you have plenty of chips!

Fiesta Dip
 
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Making friends has never been so easy...
Author:
Recipe type: Dip
Ingredients
  • 1 can Frito Lay Bean Dip--you decide how spicy.
    I have tried them all and loved them!
  • 1 ripe avocado, smashed
  • 2 cups sour cream
  • 2/4 cup mayonnaise
  • 2½ - 3 tablespoons taco seasoning mix.
  • ½ cup finely grated cheese.
  • 3-4 green onions sliced
  • 1 large Roma tomato, chopped
  • a handful of black olives, sliced
Instructions
  1. On a medium sized platter (mine is about the size of one and one-half dinner plates), spread the bean dip.
  2. Mash avocado and carefully spread on top of the beans.
  3. Mix sour cream, mayonnaise and taco seasoning together.
  4. Spread the sour cream mixture on top of the avocado layer.
  5. Sprinkle with cheese, sliced onions, chopped tomato and sliced black olives.
  6. Refrigerate one hour before serving to allow flavors to blend.
Notes
I go a little heavy on the taco seasoning. That middle part is what everyone is digging for.
I prefer the Mexican Blend cheese.

*** Dustin, Blake, Rob, Tom, Tanner, Tanner, Tanner, Andy, Spencer, Dustin, Elvis, Joe, Joe, Levi, Adam, Eddy, Brady, Brandon, Caleb, Josh, Josh, Luke, Harrison, Jake, Eli, Isaiah, Elvis, Jake, Danny, Michael, Keven, Kate, Lacey, Marcus, Rebecca, Maverick, Alta….stop by, I’ve got the fixin’s.

Fudgy Chocolate Cake

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Fudgy Chocolate Cake Header Sweet Suppertime At our house, we have a birthday just a few days after Christmas.  Twenty-Six years ago as we approached the holiday season and my son’s first birthday, my husband and I made a pact.  First, the Christmas tree would come down by the 26th and a birthday tree would go up.  Second, the presents for the birthday boy would be bought long before his Christmas presents so that there was no way that low inventory would affect his birthday.  Said presents would be wrapped and placed under the tree for the days building up to his birthday.  Lastly, there would be no combining of presents.  He would never hear the words, “This is for Christmas and your birthday”.  We wanted his birthday to be individual and unique and something he would look forward to as Christmas Day waned.

Here’s a snippet of the tree.  *Side note: we like to write on our birthday balloons.  We write funny things, serious things and things that make no sense at all.

Birthday Tree Sweet Suppertime We should probably get on to Fudgy Chocolate Cake.  This is such a great chocolate cake recipe.  It’s one that you will use over and over again in a variety of ways.  Today I used it in a simple 9X13 pan and frosted it with white buttercream frosting because, well, that is one of Jake’s favorite things.  This recipe works great in a 9X13 pan, 2 round pans, 2 small square pans or made into cupcakes.  You will love the texture and the density of this chocolate cake.

** If your homemade cake falls a little in the middle, don’t stress!  It means that it is not poofy and crumbly,  it’s deeply chocolatey and most assuredly homemade.  If you start adding a bunch of cake flour, then you are going to end up with a “box” type cake.  Embrace the small divot in the middle of the cake and use it for a reservoir of frosting!  Honestly, this cake doesn’t sink that much, but it is true that a lighter cake doesn’t really sink and a deep fudgy one struggles just a bit to stay well-formed in the middle during the last bit of baking.  Realizing that it might dip in the middle is kind of like that moment of epiphany when you realize that your laundry is never done because you are, at that very moment, wearing the next batch of laundry.  It’s liberating, really.  Go ahead and try recalibrating your oven if you have the patience, mess with the leavening if you want, but in the end just enjoy the fact that your homemade cake tastes completely homemade.

Frosted Fudgy Chocolate Cake Sweet Suppertime

Happy Birthday Jake!  I love you quite a bit!

Fudgy Chocolate Cake
 
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This thick and delicious cake is perfect for any occasion.
Author:
Serves: 20
Ingredients
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups sugar
  • ½ cup baking cocoa
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup vegetable oil
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 1 cup warm water
  • Frosting
  • Sprinkles
  • **This cake can be enhanced if you have 1 tablespoon of espresso powder. Not necessary to make this great cake but you may want to try it on some occasion. I get mine at King Arthur Flour.
Instructions
  1. Prepare baking pans as desired. This recipe works well in a 9X13 pan as well as 8-inch rounds, 8-inch square pans or cupcake tins. If you are going to release the cake for decorating, grease and flour the pans well or use parchment paper for the bottom of the pans, greasing and flouring the sides adequately.
  2. Preheat oven to 350°
  3. In a large bowl or stand mixer, combine all dry ingredients.
  4. Pulse by turning the machine off and on again.
  5. Add oil, buttermilk, eggs and water.
  6. Mix at medium speed for about 2 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary to combine the ingredients smoothly.
  7. Pour into prepared pans and bake at 350° for approximately 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center of the cake comes out clean.
  8. Cool completely before turning out of the pan for frosting and decorating.
  9. Throw on those sprinkles. They just sing "Happy Anything"!