BITES with TheAdams: Buffalo Chicken Dip

So this is the BEST thing you will ever put in your mouth....yep....I'll say it again. THE BEST! It's healthy too! (that part's not true) If there was only one "dip" I was allowed to eat for the rest of my life this would hands down be it. It might even make my top 5 food list. There's no more to say.

Here's the recipe and instructions:

1 12 oz can of chicken

8 oz cream cheese

1 cup of franks red hot (or to taste)

1 cup of blue cheese or ranch dressing (I use blue cheese)

2 cups of shredded cheddar (or whatever you prefer)

In a large skillet on low/medium heat, add the chicken and pull it apart with a couple forks.
(you don't want any big chunks)

Once it is all pretty shredded, put in the softened cream cheese and mix it into the chicken.
(this should take a couple minutes to get all the cream cheese to melt down and mix with the chicken)

Add in theFranks Red Hot and mix it in thouroughly.
(I've tried other hot sauces but I think Franks is the best)

Once the Franks is mixed in, add the blue cheese dressing and mix it in.

Once the dressing is in, I turn up the heat to medium and add the shredded cheese. (sometimes I put a bit more then two cups in) Fold the cheese in until it is all pretty melted.

From here there are two options. I like to put the mixture into a small crockpot to keep it warm. If you decide to do this make sure you stir the dip about every 30 minutes or so, otherwise sometimes the bottom burns.

The other option is to simply put it in a bowl or shallow dish. Take it to a friends and microwave it for about 30 seconds. Stir it up and boom goes the dynamite.

I like to serve it with baguettes or sliced french bread. Triscuits are my second fave. If not though, chips will do.

 Ludwig out!

Chocolate Whiskey Frosting

Last week we made Chocolate Whiskey Ice Cream Balls. Mmm... so good.
Well I told you that I would show you what to do with any leftover filling

 (or maybe you just doubled the recipe so you could make both),

 and today is that day!

If you leave the extra filling out, and let it soften just a bit, it makes an excellent frosting!

We made cupcakes with it. Seriously, delicious.

In fact, maybe even more delicious than Ice Cream Balls.

Maybe.

Anyone ambitious enough that has will try BOTH recipes?

Which did you like better, Ice Cream Balls or Frosting?

DIY Bottle Scarves

Have you guys seen bottle scarves around during your holiday shopping? 

Let me show you what I'm talking about...

The first time I saw one was at Crate and Barrel. Too cute, right? 

And who's bottles don't need scarves around the holidays?  

But I left the store bottle-scarf-less. 

And the more I thought about it, 

the more I regretted that decision. 

So I thought about it for a bit more, and decided I would try to just make it with things we had around. And I must say, I was pretty pleased with the final result. 

So much so, that I wanted to share it with you.

If your bottles need scarves like ours did,  

here's what you need:

some kind of wool (I used old sweaters) or felt would probably work too.

a button

scissors

a needle and thread 

(don't let that needle and thread scare you. My sewing "skills" are so limited, and I made out just fine).

Here's how to do it:

 First cut your material into a 1 3/4" x 11" strip.

 Second, cut fringe. 
Be sure to not cut too small because you can pull a piece of fringe off really easily leaving a big hole.

 Third, wrap it around the bottle you're making it for and see where the button and button hole need to go. Mark this on the material with a pen or marker.

 Fourth, cut a slit into the fabric for the button hole (make sure it is just a bit smaller then the button, I just eye-balled it).

Fifth, sew the button onto the front of the material.

Lastly, try that baby onto the neck of it's new owner (the bottle, not you). 

Button to secure.  

Voila!

Great to adorn a bottle of wine or sparkling cider for a hostess gift, or a fun addition to a stocking stuffer (For instance, I'm sure Kirst would love to find an Izze with a scarf around it in her stocking this year--maybe she'll miss seeing it in this post?).

Now are you convinced your bottle's neck is missing something?

Introducing: "Diet Coke Days"

Our love of Diet Coke is no secret 

but we're pretty sure we haven't exactly been honest about how strong that love truly is. 

 It's time to come clean, 

and in doing so, we have unanimously (unanimously being the two of us) decided that we needed to give it it's own column:

Diet Coke Days.

Some days will be recipes, some days will be uses,

and some days will just be a safe place to share about

the shear joy we get each time we sip that carbonated glimpse of Heaven.

Stay tuned for next week's installment 

(we have grand plans to make diet coke tree adornments 

for the diet coke lovers in your life).

But before we sign off, 

we thought we'd leave you this...

because sometimes, mere words are not enough:

 

 Image via 

From the moment we met

We knew something was there,

From the tips of our toes 

To the ends of our hair,

There's just nothing like you

We can't quite explain

The sheer delight we get 

When you rush through our veins.

Despite others scoffs,

For us it was no joke,

Oh how we love you,

 Sweet, sweet, Diet Coke.

Sip Guru: Jenny from The Southern Institute

So... remember last week when we said "let's celebrate fall with one last drink"? 
Well, we just have one more variation on Caramel Apple Cider. 
We had to share this one for several reasons: 

1. Homemade caramel sauce is great for lots of holiday recipes

2. Let's be fair to apple cider (my last post might have given it a bad rep), it really does carry over into Christmas time.

3. It's from Jenny at thesoutherninstitute.com, there's really no more convincing needed after that.

Jenny's blog is so fun. She has such cute southern style (love these mod podge letters. So fun for bookselves, or baby's rooms), a great blog series called Meals Kids Love, and Kirst always hopes that Piper and her will craft one day like Jenny and Abby.

So... enough from us, here's Jenny:

Hello, everyone!  When my friends at kojo designs asked if I would share a favorite beverage with you all, I thought "Um...".  Literally, that was it.  I wanted to share something, but I had no idea what!  I didn't currently have any drink "recipes" or anything special that I made, so what did I do?  I came up with something, and luckily it worked.

One of my favorite things about it getting colder is hot seasonal beverages.  Starbucks happens to have many of them... the Pumpkin Spice Latte, the Salted Caramel Mocha, and the Caramel Apple Cider.  The trouble is that I think they changed their Caramel Apple Cider recipe last year, but whatever they did, I didn't like it.  HUGE disappointment.  Why not try to make one at home from scratch though?  So I have.

Caramel Apple Cider from The Southern Institute

First of all, when you think of a caramel apple cider what do you think of?  The caramel, right?  Of course, it's the most important part of the equation.  I didn't want to use a stale old store bought caramel sauce, so I decided to try to make one from scratch.  Everything I saw online spoke of how easy it was to make homemade caramel sauce.  Well, that may be true if you have a good recipe to follow.  The first recipe I found had beautiful photography and sounded delicious.  Unfortunately it failed.  Twice.  I followed the recipe carefully, but after two failed attempts I decided it must not be me... it must be the recipe.  I did another search and found this recipe from Simply Recipes.  Success on the first try!  And it was gorgeous!

It tastes as beautiful as it looks, believe you me... I've had a lot of tastes.  So with a beautiful caramel sauce I was ready to proceed.  I did not make the cider from scratch.  I bought a gallon of Trader Joe's spiced cider, which is delicious.  Here's what I did:

• Warm 6-8 oz of spiced cider in a microwave safe mug for about one minute.
• Add one HEAPING tablespoon of caramel sauce and stir until dissolved.
• Top with homemade whipped cream.  This is what puts it over the top.
• Drizzle with the caramel sauce.
• ENJOY!

Incase you haven't ever made homemade whipped cream, I'll let you in on a little secret.  It's the easiest thing ever to make, and it tastes sooooooo gooooooood!  All you need is a container of heavy whipping cream and a hand held mixer (and maybe a pinch of sugar too).  Pour about a cup of the cream into a medium bowl and mix, mix, mix.  Start on low then slowly up to medium.  After a while the cream will start to get thicker.  You can turn the mixer to med-high at this point and continue to mix until it thickens up to the consistency of cool whip.  Yum!  

Enjoy the cool weather and your caramel apple cider!  I hope to see you over at The Southern Institute real soon!

See, we told you. Doesn't it looks de-li-cious!