This recipe is ridiculously easy.

First I was so happy to find some nice looking organic and already cut up chicken wings. Even better, they weren’t hairy when I opened the package! I hate having to singe off the hairs.

I rendered some bacon. I use the nitrate free kind, but you can use whatever suits you.

I rinsed the wings and patted them dry in paper towels. Then, I fried them in a medium high heat oil. I used canola. The oil was probably 350-375 degrees F (I really should get a thermometer). You can use a dutch oven, or any other deep pan you use for frying if you don’t have  a deep fryer, but I wouldn’t fill it any more than half full with oil. You just need the wings to be covered. Cook the wings for about 7 minutes.

Then I tossed the wings in a bowl with 6 Tablespoons of ranch dressing (use your favorite), and the rendered and drained bacon. No, the bacon flavored ranch isn’t the same if you’re thinking about taking a short cut.

Aaron enjoying the soup

I can’t believe I’ve never posted this recipe before. It’s a family favorite, especially in winter when it’s cold, and one of the few things I can make where the whole family eats the same thing. The original recipe calls for all dairy liquids with milk and cream. Since my oldest son and I are lactose intolerant, I have adapted the recipe to be more friendly for our bellies. This is our version, and it’s ever bit as yummy as that restaurant version you may know and love. *A note on the vegetables in this soup, I add as many as I think I can get away with since this is the ONLY way my kids will touch any of these vegetables. They eat them all up in this soup, so I put in as many as I can. Feel free to adjust amounts for your family. I also used Weis Markets brand carrots and baby spinach in this recipe. 

Chicken and Gnocchi Soup

Ingredients:

1lb chicken
1/4 cup olive oil
3 Tablespoons flour
1 carrot – grated
1 cup finely julienned baby spinach
1 stalk of celery
2 Tablespoons garlic powder (I don’t usually have fresh on hand)
1 – 32oz box of chicken stock or broth**
1 package of mini gnocchi (regular size work fine too)
splash of cream
salt
pepper
parmesan cheese

Ingredients according to original recipe. I changed the liquids as I was cooking. The carrots and spinach are Weis brand, and were yummy in the soup.

Directions:

1. Heat oil in the pot you make your soups in over medium high heat. I use a dutch oven.
2. While your oil is heating, cut the chicken into bite sized pieces, and season with salt and pepper.
3. After the chicken is browned, toss in the celery to soften slightly. Add garlic powder.
4. Add the flour and stir in thoroughly. This is what will thicken your soup, so add more or less to soak up your fats as needed.
5. Pour in the chicken stock or broth. Stir, making sure to incorporate all of the flour. Bring up to a simmer.
6. Add carrots and spinach. You can reserve some of the spinach for the end if you also like a fresher taste.
7. Simmer about 10 minutes. Add the gnocchi after about 6-7 minutes.
8. Add a splash of cream to bring it all together and make a creamy soup if you wish. Also add any remaining spinach at this time. Simmer just a minute or so.
9. Serve and top with parmesan cheese if desired.

**The original recipe calls for 2 1/2 cups whole milk, 1 1/2 cups heavy cream, and 3 chicken bouillon cubes if you’d prefer it that way. Just add these instead of the box of stock or broth.

***This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. All opinions are my own. See my picture story on Google+.

Can you look at this product name without laughing like a kid?

I know it’s Winter, and a lot of people rely on a crockpot this time of year. My kitchen is so small I barely have room for our food and dishes, let alone extra appliances. I do have my Cuisinart Multi Cooker that I keep on top of the freezer downstairs. It doesn’t take up too much room when it’s running, because outlets are also a commodity in this old house.

I was searching chicken and rice recipes. Do you know how many of them require a can of condensed soup? A lot. I didn’t want to use soup. Not only did I not have any, but that’s a whole lot of sodium and other additives we just don’t need. I prefer to be more in control of my food. Then I had a brainstorm. I could do Spanish rice and chicken, and instead of pan searing the chicken, just cut it into pieces and do it up in the multi cooker and then add the rice.

Here’s the resulting recipe:

Ingredients:
1lb boneless, skinless chicken breast
Mexican seasoning (or season with cumin, chili powder, pepper to taste if you don’t have a premade seasoning)
2T olive oil
1 onion
1T garlic powder
2T flour
2T tomato sauce
3T parsley (2T while cooking, 1T for end)
2 servings medium or long grain white rice
chicken stock
cheddar cheese

Directions:
1. Pre-heat multi cooker. Add oil.
2. Cut up chicken into bite sized pieces. Season with Mexican seasoning.
3. Brown chicken on quick cook setting.
4. Chop and add onion until translucent.
5. Add rice for 2 servings and brown for a couple minutes.
6. Add flour and stir thoroughly.
7. Add tomato sauce. (You can also use some tomato paste instead of flour and sauce, but I was out)
8. Add stock up to the white rice level 4.
9. Add 2T parsley and garlic powder.
10. Cook on white rice setting.
11. When done, plate, and sprinkle a bit of parsley and shredded cheddar cheese on top and eat.

Have you ever checked the ingredients on your favorite salad dressing? Are they good for you, or do they defeat the purpose of eating a salad in the first place? I think you’ll find that a lot of dressings defeat the purpose of eating the salad in the first place. As an avid label reader, you might be surprised at what you’ll find listed in the ingredients.

I was excited when the opportunity to try the Marzetti Simply Dressed salad dressing presented itself. Here is a line of dressings without high fructose corn syrup (I’m not here to debate it’s merits or not, I’m just avoiding it personally). I was also quite relieved when I looked at the ingredients and found things I could pronounce and knew what they were. Unfortunately, that is becoming a bigger challenge. To find foods with labels that we can pronounce. It was refreshing to see! Another refreshing bonus is that it is gluten free. Not that we follow a gluten free diet, but I know many people that do.

There weren’t too many choices to choose from in my store, but I chose to try the Champagne flavor of the Marzetti Simply Dressed salad dressing. I’m not all that into Ranch (lactose intolerance and all), and I wasn’t sure how I felt about the Pomegranate or Balsamic. Champagne was the winner! I would also be eager to see what other varieties are available, or if my local store will bring different varieties into the store.

I bought the dressing, and also the produce to make salads for my husband and I for dinner. We’ve been on a kick where we’ve been trying to eat one entree salad per week. Do you have anything you try in your weekly meals to eat healthier?

I’m pretty choosy about my salad dressings, so I wasn’t sure how it was going to go straying from the norm. It was pretty much awesome. The Champagne Simply Dressed dressing tasted great! It was like a new take on the Italian dressings I usually choose. I prefer a golden Italian, and this was a great take on that. You know, now that I think about it, there was a Marzetti golden Italian dressing that I really liked that I can’t find anymore. That may explain why I liked the Champagne Simply Dressed so much.

This particular night, I had some sirloin thawed, that I pan seared and put on a bed of lettuce with some veggies like mushrooms, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Since the dressing itself is light, it might even work as a simple meat marinade to enhance the flavor of the steak.

The next time I have this (or any other dressing from Marzetti’s) I might see what it could be paired with. Perhaps a stir fry or wrap? Maybe it could be used as a stand-a-lone dipping choice for vegetable trays. My husband seemed to enjoy it too, which is always a bonus when trying new products. Now if only I could get my other boys to jump on the bandwagon! Do you have Marzetti’s products at your supermarkets? I would love to hear how you like them!

I was one of the bloggers selected by T. Marzetti Company and Clever Girls Collective to host a Marzetti Simply Dressed review. They provided me with product to test myself and compensation for my time. However, my opinions are entirely my own.

Monday Mojo Topic
For this week, we would love for you to share your favourite holiday recipes! I am always looking for new things! (Any holiday will do!)

Welsh cookie

I’d have to say that our favorite holiday recipe, hands down, is Welsh Cookies. It’s a tradition that comes from my husband’s family. His two grandmothers brought their respective family recipes over from Wales. I had never had them until I met my husband. For his family, they are a cookie unique to Christmas. They’re not your typical sweet cookie either. They’re more of what I’d consider a tea sort of cookie. I guess that’s why in his family the kids are allowed to have them for breakfast during the holiday season.

Last year, we had some cookies, from an unknown bakery that were so good. They were soft and moist. I’ve been working to try and replicate that in our cookies. I’ll be honest. I totally threw out his family’s recipes and started from scratch. I found a recipe online at Joy of Baking. Then I was talking with a friend who does way more baking than I do (I cook, but not so much in the baking department). She gave me some suggestions, and this is what I’ve come up with. They are a much lighter cookie, and if cooked right, soft and moist too. Hint: DO NOT BAKE YOUR WELSH COOKIES. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. Just to let you know. I tried that this year too instead of the griddle.

Welsh Cookie Dough

Ingredients:
2 cups cake flour (yes, it does need to be cake flour)
1/3 cup sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4-1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (to taste)
1/4-1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (to taste)
1/4 cup cold shortening
1/4 cup cold butter
1/3 cup currants (I find raisins to be too big and icky)
1 large egg
4 tablespoons milk (this may be more or less depending on environment)

To Make Dough:

In a medium bowl, mix dry ingredients. Add shortening and butter, cutting in like making a pie crust. Add currants. Add milk until dough comes together, but don’t over mix. Form dough into a ball and refrigerate for at least 10 minutes (I usually make dough while I’m making dinner, and make cookies the next day).

To Make Cookies:

Take half the dough and roll to 1/4″ thickness. Cut into 2″ circles. Cook on medium heat on a griddle until browned on both sides, much like pancakes. Sprinkle with sugar when they come off the griddle if desired.

From the bottle:

A cheerful creation to warm your heart and enlighten your tongue. Fermented and aged with spciy yeast, this ruby red beer delivers subtle cherries and enticing aromas.

When I asked my husband what his take on the beer was he said “Honey and cherries!” (that’s on the bottle) Yes, I live with a smartass. It obviously tastes good or it wouldn’t be one of the beers he talks about all year long. I guess I should know better than to try to get him to articulate his thoughts during a football game too.

Obviously other people in central PA have the same love for Troegs’ Mad Elf Ale because once it gets around that it’s in stores, it becomes like trying to find a Wii those first couple years they hit stores – very elusive. This is another one of those seasonal beers that we stock up on while it’s available, and then hoard, I mean save it to savor in our basement where it’s cool and dark – perfect for storing beer.

*If you’d like more on Troegs, I made some cupcakes using their Javahead stoudt beer.

Do you have a favorite seasonal beer?

You may be wondering why I made gluten free cupcakes for my son’s birthday. The grandparents all decided to visit this weekend. It was a pleasant and welcome surprise. My stepmom was diagnosed as celiac this year. Since my son also has a peanut allergy, I had some constraints in making these, but it wasn’t as hard as you’d think (mostly because other nuts aren’t off limits).

The chocolate cupcakes are a mix. I’ll get that secret out right now. It’s Bob’s Red Mill chocolate cake mix, and the cupcakes are good and moist. The vanilla cupcakes are from The Gluten Free Goddess. If you eat gluten free and aren’t checking out her recipes, you’re missing out. These cupcakes were GOOD. Of course I made a couple modifications. I didn’t have brown rice flour, so I used almond flour, and I didn’t have tapioca starch, so I used cornstarch. But, OMG. YUM.

The chocolate frosting is a recipe from the Hershey site.

The almond butter icing started as a recipe, and I modified it. It was a peanut butter icing, and I subbed in almond butter for the peanut butter.

Ingredients:
2/3 c. almond butter
3 c. powdered sugar
1/4 c. milk
1/2 c. (1 stick) butter
1 tsp. vanilla
pinch salt

Directions:
I’ll be honest here. I creamed the butter and almond butter together then threw the rest in willy nilly. Adjust the frosting with more or less milk if desired because mine came out runny, and then solidified as it dried.

Have you found any gluten free cupcake recipes you think are yummy?

After begrudgingly submitting to my pumpkin beer experiment (because you know having to taste different beers is so torturous), here is the list of pumpkin beers according to my husband from best to worst. We compared craft brews against the better known commercial breweries.

1. Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale
2. Samuel Adams Harvest Pumpkin Ale
3. Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale
4. Shock Top Pumpkin Wheat
5. Smuttynose Brewing Company Pumpkin Ale

Now, we won’t hold the pumpkin beers against any of these companies. Some might, and some do have other beers that are good. In the seasonal pumpkin beers, Weyerbacher clearly currently holds all the cards.

This is a super easy, but very filling sandwich I threw together on a whim. It’s just some chicken, cheese, mayo, lettuce, and tomato on naan. I heated the chicken (I used one of those pre-cooked packages to make it easier, but regular chicken would work too), put it on the bread with the condiments, then put the whole thing in the pan to heat and soften the bread. Then I ate it.

I tried this as a lunch experiment first to see how I liked it. Since it worked so well, I decided to carry it over as a quick and easy dinner since it was so filling. We didn’t even need a side dish.