Tag Archives: Sunday Supper Series

Curried Chicken Salad

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Luke and I treated ourselves to an extra-large, all-you-can-eat, brunch buffet yesterday, so when it came time for dinner I wanted to make something light and refreshing while sticking to the South Beach Diet rules.

A small sandwich shop by my old apartment made the best curry chicken salad that I decided I wanted to attempt to replicate. It includes purple grapes, celery and lots of curried deliciousness.

Because I really can’t stand the taste of plain chicken breast (it’s sooo boring and dry!) I opted for a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store. The meat is so much more flavorful and tender. It broke apart with just a fork.

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I added some diced celery (three stalks) and halved grapes (about 1 cup) to the chicken. There are many things you can add to chicken salad- almonds, raisins, water chestnuts – but I like the simple mixture of the crunchy celery and sweet grapes.

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Finally I added one package of plain yogurt, a half cup of light mayonaise and two generous teaspoons of curry powder to bring it all together. Just stir, season with salt and pepper and it’s all ready to go onto your bread of choice.

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To round out the meal I made some caramel peanut butter dip to go along with some freshly slices apples. This dip is super easy and really yummy.

Just combine 1/2 cup natural peanut butter, 1/2 cup caramel ice cream topping, 1 teaspoon cinnamon and two tablespoons of milk.

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And finally for dessert I concocted a sugar-free parfait that delivered on taste.. I made some sugar-free fudge pudding, added three scoops of sugar-free Cool Whip and smashed up four sugar-free chocolate chip cookies.

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I topped them with some more Cool Whip and a couple more sugar-free cookies. I just can’t go without dessert on Sundays!

All in all, I’d say this was a great meal for a night when we didn’t want to stuff ourselves. Very light but packs a lot of flavor.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Christmas Dinner Menu

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Happy holidays! Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, I hope you all enjoyed the long weekend. I was back home in Ohio spending it with my family.  It was so nice to relax, spend time with my family, gorge on food and sip some yummy wine.

I arrived home on Christmas Eve after a four-hour car ride. Santa apparently came a day early to our house!

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On Christmas morning, I woke up to a house that smelled of baking sweetness. My sister and her husband had made two types of quiche- meat lovers and veggie in addition to fruit and blueberry muffins.

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It was a lovely way to start the holiday off! After breakfast, we gathered in the living room to open presents, lounge around and just spend time together.

My puppy Jazzy got prime lounging location on the couch.

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Later in the day we headed over to my brother and his wife’s new house. They got married this past July 4th! It was a really fun day for a wedding. Immediately after they were married they moved into a new house they built.

They’ve only been there about four months, but the house is already decorated to perfection and they were ready to host their first Christmas ever!

They had soooo much food waiting for us when we got there! I helped out by making a couple appetizers.

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The first were caprese skewers, which is just cherry tomatoes, mozzarella, fresh basil, a little balsamic vinegar, olive oil and salt and pepper.

The other app I made was buffalo chicken dip. There are so many recipes for this awesome dip. Mine includes two packages of cream cheese, two large cans of chicken, 1 cup cheddar cheese, 1 entire large bottle of regular tobasco sauce. I melt it all together in the oven, top with another 1/2 cup cheese and bake until that’s just melted.

The key ingredient to this dip is to get Frito Lay Scoops vs. regular tortilla chips. I don’t know why, but they MAKE this appetizer!

Right before dinner my mom assembled the salads. They were made up of spinach, white cheddar cheese, raspberries, almonds, red onion with a little balsamic vinaigrette.

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For dinner, our hosts offered us two options- creole salmon or filets with caramelized onions. If you haven’t noticed, I’m a total carnivore, so naturally I chose the filet.

My brother grilled the filet’s perfectly (I like mine medium rare). The onions were slightly sweet and salty, which added extra flavor. It was so good that I got halfway through eating before I remembered to take a picture!

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My sister chose the salmon, which was seasoned with creole spices and served with lemon wedges and tartar sauce.

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In all it was a wonderful meal. Major kudos to my brother and his wife for pulling of their first Christmas dinner! I hope you all enjoyed wonderful food with those you love.

Merry Christmas from my family to yours!

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Easy Christmas Cookies

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Yesterday my friends Sam and Becky joined me on a Christmas cookie baking extravaganza. We hit up two grocery stores and spent four hours baking and decorating our little hearts away.

Here’s Sam and Becky elbow deep in all the baking essentials:

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First up were some awesome Peanut Butter Cup cookies I found on Allrecipes.com. These ended up being my favorite tasting out of all the cookies we made. Peanut butter cookie with a smooshed in reeces cup? Yum!

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Then I made some Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti cookies from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe on Food Network. I’ve made these a couple times and they are really good. I add toffee instead of hazelnuts to give them an extra chewy texture.

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Next we moved onto the fun stuff- decorating sugar cookies! We used store-bought dough so we wouldn’t have to go through the hassle of refrigerating it overnight.

I have absolutely no artistic ability, so Sam helped out with a lot of these.

Getting in touch with my new name:

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It looked pretty before being cooked. It looked more like a pair of Batman boobs after they puffed up in the oven!

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Then we decorated some vanilla cupcakes. Since we didn’t have piping bags, we just put the frosting into ziplock baggies and cut a small hole in the corner.

We had one guy helping us decorate. Notice his kindergarten snowflake next to Sam’s amazing snowflake. Lol!

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I enlisted Sam’s help making a special cookie just for my sweetie. In wedding colors no less!

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And last but certainly not least…a cookie for all you South Park Fans!

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Merry Christmas everyone!

Carmelized Chicken Wings

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I live next door to this small (slightly scary) wings joint in Chicago. For months I’ve walked by on my way home and have been hit with the smell of delicious fried chicken wings.

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This prompted a strong craving for wings that I decided to submit to last night for supper. Instead of paying for some fatty (albeit delicious) wings from House of Wing, I opted to bake my own at home.

I started by creating a BBQ sauce from scratch with items most people have in their fridge:

– 3/4 cup ketchup

– 3/4 cup honey

– 1/2 cup soy sauce

– 2 TBSP of hot sauce

– 3 minced garlic cloves

I threw everything into a sauce pan and cooked it on high until boiling.

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Then I reduced the heat and let it simmer for another 3-4 minutes until the sauce was thick. With about 3-5 lbs of chicken wings and drumsticks chicken waiting in the a baking dish, I poured the sauce over the meat making sure it was all covered. Last, I seasoned the chicken with some cracked pepper you don’t need salt, there’s enough in the soy sauce).

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I baked the chicken  for one hour at 375 degrees and this is what I got:

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Holy cow- these wings were so delicious! WAY better than those small, fried wings you’d get at a bar. The sauce was tangy, sweet and sticky the way sauce should be. Check out my messy hands for proof-

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These were so good, that we ditched the side dish I was making (baked sweet potatoes) and made the wings our entire meal. Of course, we DID leave some room for dessert.

I whipped up some quick chocolate covered pretzels, which I gave a healthy upgrade by using whole wheat pretzel rods, dark chocolate and some nuts. These took me about 10 minutes to make one batch, which will last throughout the week.

All you need is two dark chocolate bars (8 oz total), a bag of whole wheat pretzel sticks and a package of nut topping (in the baking aisle).

I melted the chocolate by placing a metal bowl over one inch of boiling water.

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I poured the melted chocolate into a short cup, spread the nut topping onto a small plate and placed the pretzels on a baking sheet. Then I started to dip the pretzels in the chocolate and roll them in the nut topping.

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I let the chocolate dry and was finished! You can also roll the preztels in any topping you like- smashed peppermint, coconut, colored sugar- whatever suits your fancy.

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Let me know what you guys think of the wings if you try them. I think they’re being added to my top 10 favorite recipes.

Happy Monday!