Chili's Chicken Crispers

These are from Top Secrets Restaurant Recipes. I really love this recipe. I think it's just as good as McDonalds, and I made them at home! It does require a deep fryer.

Ingredients

Batter

1 egg, beaten

1/4 cup whole milk

3/4 cup chicken broth

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

1 cup self-rising flour (I don't have that, so I used all-purpose)

6-10 cups shortening or vegetable oil. (We used oil.)

10 chicken tenderloins (We cut ours up into smaller nuggets)

1/2 cup flour

Heat shortening or oil in fryer to 350 degrees. Combine beaten egg, milk, chicken brother, salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Whisk for about 30 seconds to dissolve salt. Whisk in 1 cup flour. Let batter sit for 5 minutes. When you are ready to fry the chicken, coat each piece with dry flour, then dunk the chicken into the batter. Let a little batter drip off the chicken and lower it into the hot oil and fry for 7 to 9 minutes or until it's golden brown. Depending on the size of your fryer, you should be able to fry 3 or 4 tenderloins at the same time. Drain fried chicken strips on a rack or paper towels for a minute or so.

These were great!

Crispy Fish & Peppers

Here's a recipe from Reader's Digest. I couldn't find it for a while, but I'm glad I did. We've recently made it a few times and enjoy it even more than the first time. It's one of our most successful breading recipes. (You know how some breadings will come off on the pan, etc. This one is great!)

Ingredients

1 lb. fresh small fish filets

3/4 cup buttermilk

1 egg

1 tsp cajun seasoning

1 cup flour

vegetable oil

1-2 miniature sweet peppers

Rinse 1 lb. fish and pat dry. In a shallow dish, combine buttermilk, egg and cajun seasoning. Place 1 cup flour in another dish. Dip fish in buttermilk mixture then flour; repeat. Carefully add fish to hot vegetable oil and cook until golden (3 to 5 minutes per side), working in batches and adding more oil if needed. Drain on paper towels. Pour oil from skillet; wipe clean with paper towel. Add 1 or 2 sliced miniature sweet peppers. Cook 2 minutes. Sprinkle over fish.

The first time we made this, we didn't have cajun seasoning. We have since found this recipe. The breading comes out so great. We also haven't tried it with the mini peppers. But last time we made this, we cut up some bell peppers and fried those. It was a great addition. I'll definitely have to find some of those mini peppers they talk about. One of our new favorites!

Chicken-Vegetable Chowder

This one is a Pillsbury Annual Recipe. I've used a lot of theirs. Mostly they include crescent rolls. But this one doesn't. I made it while in the middle of pregnancy, so I wasn't really digging it. But Aaron said it was good, so I might have to make it again once my gag reflex is in check.

Ingredients

1 lb chicken, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 cup carrots (chopped or baby carrots sliced in half)

1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms (I used canned)

1 medium onion, chopped (about 1/2 cup)

1/2 cup water

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/8 tsp thyme

1 can (14 oz) chicken broth

1 can cream of chicken soup

1/2 cup milk

3 tbsp flour

1 box (9 oz) frozen broccoli

In slow cooker, mix chicken, carrots, mushrooms, onion, water, garlic powder, thyme and broth. Cover; cook on low heat for 7 to 9 hours. About 35 minutes before serving, skim fat from slow cooker. In small bowl, beat soup, milk, and flour with wire whisk until smooth. Add soup mixture and broccoli to chicken mixture. Cover; cook on low heat setting 30 minutes longer or unti broccoli is tender.

I think you could easily adjust this to stovetop cooking if you didn't have time to start it early.

Taco Chili

We found this one online and really liked it. I think it's a pretty mild chili (a bit more kid friendly) but it's really flavorful!

Ingredients

1 lb ground turkey or beef (I think we used beef, but I'd totally use turkey)

1/4 cup chopped onion (I probably used at least half an onion)

2-3 cloves minced garlic (again, you can totally sneak in more if you want)

1 1/2 cups celery, chopped

1 15 oz. can tomato sauce

1 small can green chiles

1 15 oz. can stewed or diced tomatoes (You can use 2 cans)

4-16 oz. cans of beans (mix and match. We used kidney and black. And we might not've used 4, but less. Can't remember. You don't need to drain or rinse most. But I would drain and rinse black beans.)

1 pckg taco seasoning

1 pckg ranch dressing mix

2 tsp cumin

16 oz. bag frozen corn

1/2 cup water optional

Brown turkey (or beef), adding onions, garlic, and celery about halfway through. One by one, add the remaining ingredients. Do not drain anything, just dump. The 1/2 cup water is optional. It makes it more soupy and with the addition of more canned tomaotes or even one more can of beans, it's really not needed. Heat through. Simmer for awhile if you'd like.

This recipe is really open. You can use more beans or less. I think we used less because it was looking a little too beany for me. If it's not soupy enough, you can add the extra diced tomatoes, or just water. It's really versatile, and the flavors are great.

Halloween Candied Popcorn

This is an old family favorite. I had never made it before, so I was a little anxious about it. In the end it wasn't really that hard. We used to make it as a treat for any time of year. But since you can color it, I made it orange for Halloween. However, if you want a traditional popcorn ball, you have to mold it right away. Once the candy hardens, the popcorn doesn't stick to itself anymore. So mine weren't traditional popcorn balls (what I was originally shooting for) but were just baggies filled with yummy candied popcorn.

Ingredients

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup butter

4 tbsp water

1/2 tsp almond extract

Food color optional

Boil sugar, butter and water until it drops off a spoon slow. (After it comes to a boil, it takes about 3 minutes. You just have to experiment to know what "slow" is.) Add almond extract and color. Pour and stir over popcorn.



If you do want to make them into balls, I would possible wear a glove, or be prepared for really gross and sticky hands. It will also be a tad warm. As for the "slow" part, I was totally clueless, but just did my best to see it get a tiny bit thicker so it came off the spoon slower than it did in the beginning. If I didn't ruin it, anyone can make it!

Halloween Ice Cubes

I know the picture isn't very good, but it was hard to take a picture of this.  But it's super easy and the older kids loved finding their worms as their ice melted!

Ingredients

ice cube tray

gummy worms

Fill up your ice cube trays. Drop one gummy worm in each ice cube. You could probably even do 2 in each. Then freeze!

When the ice freezes, you can't see the worms, or I would've taken a picture of just the ice. You can see a dark shape on the bottom of this cup. That's the gummy worm. Joseph loved finding his as he drank his punch. We had tons leftover and he enjoyed ever single one of them for the few weeks after Halloween!

Halloween Mini Pizzas

We had a Halloween party for Joseph and his preschool friends. So I racked my brain to come up with Halloweeny treats for them to eat. This was one which I was very excited about. It's super easy, very yummy, and you don't have to save it for Halloween!

Ingredients

1 can Pillsbury Golden Layers refrigerated flaky biscuits
2/3 cup pizza sauce
1 package sliced pepperoni
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
2 tbsp grated parmesan cheese

Separate dough into 10 biscuits. On cookie sheets, press or roll each biscuit to 5-inch rounds, forming ¼ inch rim around outside edge. Spread about 1 tbsp pizza sauce just to rim of each biscuit. Sprinkle with oregano. Top each with pepperoni and cheese (or other toppings if preferred). Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until crust is golden brown and cheese is melted.

To make the bat pepperonis, I just took the pepperoni slices one at a time and folded them in half. Then I used my kitchen scissors to cut a small half circle out of each end. When you unfold them, you have a bat shape! I used to eat bologna this way when I was a kid. Apparently I'm one of the only ones, but that's okay! You can also use large pepperoni slices if you wanted to make this on a grander scale and not have to cut so many small ones. My mom did that and said it worked great.

These are way easy to adapt to your own topping desires. I love the biscuits as pizza dough. I think they're so addicting! I ate more than the kids did.