Pig in a Pig in a Blanket

Double Pigs in a Blanket

cocktail wienies

croissant dough

bacon

your choice of sliced cheese

(we went with jalapeno cheese)

dipping sauce, optional

(we stuck with our usual favorite, Spicy Garlic)

      Alright, first of all, if you have not read my recipe for bacon wrapped hot dogs please scroll down and check it out.......Ready?...Okay cool. Now you want to replicate that process using your wienies and bacon. Cut each bacon strip in half, or if you have long enough bacon- thirds, and wrap each little mini dog. Place on cooling rack and let bake for until cooked and as crispy as you'd like (20-25 minutes or so?). When you pull them out you need to get your cookie sheet ready by throwing out your original foil and replacing it with new. Spray with cooking spray. Turn down oven temp to 375 F. Start laying out each croissant. Rip cheese slices into small strips and line the dough with them. Place each cooked mini bacon dog on top of cheese at wider end of croissant and roll, tucking in the edges to best you can to close all the sides (small holes are fine but do your best to close the dough all around). Place back in oven for 10-14 minutes or until golden brown. Share them with your family! I served potato and macaroni salad with ours and the meal was a hit :).

Deconstructed Stuffed Peppers

Stuffed Pepper Soup

(serves 4-6)

1 lb ground beef

2 green peppers, diced

1 red pepper, diced

1 jalapeno, diced

1 yellow onion, diced

8-10 cherry tomatoes, halved

1 large can of crushed tomatoes

64 oz tomato juice

3 cups rice (cooked)

1 pod of Homestyle Beef Stock

minced garlic

garlic powder

salt and pepper

little bit of fresh cilantro

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

1-2 tsp hot sauce

     Brown ground beef in skillet. Add all your vegetables. Add 5 tbs minced garlic and a dash of salt and pepper. Make sure you prepare your rice in time for it to done and ready at the same time as your meat. You want to fry the vegetables with the meat for just long enough for them to get warm, too long and they start to get soggy. Add the beef stock to your frying pan and stir for thirty seconds or so before adding just about a 1/4 cup of hot water. Bring to simmer and as soon as the stock is fully dissolved, cut the heat. Pour entire contents of frying pan into a larger pot and add the can of crushed tomatoes, the tomato juice, and rice. Add 3 more tbs minced garlic, a good shake of garlic powder, another dash of salt and pepper, the hot pepper flakes, cilantro, and hot sauce. Stir well. Bring pot to simmer, continuing to stir often. Enjoy! Serves very well with a loaf of French or Italian bread.

     

BACON LOVERS CLICK HERE

(Pinterest Inspired) Bacon Wrapped Hot Dogs

 

 

 

Bacon

Hot Dogs

Your Choice of Hot Dog Toppings

 

(Featured here we have the original and the spicy bacon dog;

the original being, of course, ketchup and mustard,

and the spicy being BW3's Spicy Garlic Sauce

...just one more thing in this recipe that we think could go

on or in just about anything successfully)

 

 

 

    So the other day I was perusing Pinterest (as usual it seems lol) and came across a picture that almost made me drool on my keyboard. Bacon wrapped hot dogs. Healthy? Nah, probably not. Delicious? Umm.. does it have BACON in the title?!?! :D So tonight, with a half pound of bacon left from our chicken bacon taco goodness last night and a 10/$10 package of hot dogs from Meijer that I have been meaning to use, I decided this was the perfect time to try this scrumptious looking concoction. Now, admittedly, I never did read that pin...I just oogled the picture of tasty, greasy bacon, pinned it to my dinner ideas board and just kept right on scrolling. I didn't figure it was that hard to figure out though, so I made the choice to wing it. Here's how I did it:

 

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

 

2.Wrap each hot dog in one piece of bacon. One piece should be plenty to wrap from one end to the other. If not...you should re-evaluate your bacon purchasing (Go get some real bacon lol) You do not need toothpicks or anything, the bacon will adhere to itself as it cooks.

 

3. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and then take a cooling rack and place it on top of the foil. Make sure your cookie sheet has edges that are at least 1/4 inch deep, so that that grease won't drain into your oven and create a nasty, burned, stinky smell in your house or worse yet, a grease fire!

 

4. Place wrapped hot dogs on that cooling rack and place the whole thing in the oven.

 

5. Enjoy the heavenly aroma that fills your house and nose.

 

6. After the first 10-12 minutes, start and keep checking on them every five minutes. Only you know how crispy you like your bacon (that would be very crispy over in this house). You will be able to clearly see when they are done. If you are going for pretty crispy be warned, if your dogs are not completely wrapped and covered end to end they will split wide as the bacon finishes getting to the edibly-cooked stage. I took our second batch out at this point for fear they may explode completely lol.

 

7. Put on buns, top and enjoy!!!



 



Heaven-In-Your-Mouth Tacos

Chicken Bacon Ranch Tacos

(serves 4-5)

 

 

 

 

 

 

5-6 chicken breasts, boiled

packet of taco seasoning

ranch dressing

1/2 lb. bacon, diced to small pieces

small diced yellow onion

 

 

 

         In a large skillet, start frying your diced bacon. Cut your boiled chicken breast into bite sized cubes. When the bacons pieces appear to be ALMOST done, add the cubed chicken. (Be careful here...if the bacon is too underdone it will not finish cooking, if it is already too done then it will burn during the rest of the cooking process. I added my chicken when the bacon looked as though it were starting to get crispy but far from burnt.) Now you will add in your diced onion. Fry on medium, stirring often, until your onions start becoming more translucent and soft (this only took 1-2 minutes). Sprinkle in the taco seasoning but DO NOT add water as directed on the. Make sure everything in the pan is fully coated with seasoning. Turn down the heat to low and give it a couple generous squirts of ranch dressing. Mix well. Serve warm on taco shells with your favorite toppings. (Note- I substituted my usual sour cream for the bottle of ranch and only put half as much ranch than I would typically put  sour cream.)

 

 

      

 

 



Asian Pulled Chicken Sandwiches

Crockpot Asian Pulled Chicken

(Serves 3-4)

 

 

4-6 thawed chicken breasts

2 tbsp. minced garlic

1/2 c. soy sauce

1/2 c. honey

1/4 c. ketchup

dash of ginger

couple drops of sesame oil (optional)

 



 

     Put chicken in crockpot and cover with all other ingredients. Turn on high for 2 hours and then switch to low for another 2-3 hours. Chicken should then shred easily with a spoon and fork. Serve on sesame rolls for delicious Asian Pulled Chicken Sandwiches.

 

YES, ITS THAT EASY!! ;)

Hot & Spicy Buffalo Cream Cheese Bites

Buffalo Cream Cheese Bites

(makes 8-10 dinner roll-sized bites)

(served 3 people with no side dishes)

(makes enough filling for a 'leftover' based meal as well!)

4 chicken breasts

1 cup + a couple shakes of hot sauce 

(we prefer Frank's Red Hot)

1/2 cup butter

1 tbs minced garlic

1 pkt ranch dressing seasoning

4 oz (1/2 pkg) of cream cheese

1 roll of ready to bake crescents

     First you will need to boil the chicken breasts until they are able to be pulled/shredded. I used my crock pot for this, which made it very easy because I just put them in (still frozen even) with a couple cups of water and a couple shakes of hot sauce and turned it to low early in the morning and they were ready to go when I was ready to make dinner. The buffalo sauce will need to be started about an hour before you are ready to cook. Put your cup of hot sauce, the butter, and the garlic in a small saucepan (or if you have one, I used my Little Dipper sauce crock pot). Cook over medium heat (or just plug in Little Dipper...there is only one setting...ON, lol), stirring occasionally. After 30 minutes, cut the cream cheese into pieces (easier to melt) and add to the mix. Continue cooking for another 30 minutes, still stirring occasionally. 

    When all of the above steps are complete, shred your chicken and put it in a medium sized mixing bowl. Add to it the packet of ranch seasoning and all of the buffalo sauce you made and mix until all the chicken is thoroughly coated. Your mixture should be pretty thick at this point; if it is not, drain some of the sauce out of your bowl. Line a baking pan with aluminum foil. Begin to roll your crescents, putting a spoonful of your chicken mix inside each and doing your best to close them up at the top however you see fit. (Some of them I rolled like stuffed crescents, others I pulled the edges in and around like a bowl that is pinched together on top. It doesn't really matter how you close them, as long as the chicken mix can be considered 'inside'.) Place your stuffed goodies evenly spaced on the baking sheet. Bake for 12 minutes and they are ready to pop in your now watering mouth. ;) We didn't even need hot sauce or ranch to dip, and that is saying something from our house!!

   After stuffing your crescents you will have about one small to medium sized bowl of chicken mix left. I plan on using mine for some of my household-famous Buffalo Pasta (which should be on here tomorrow lmao, Ryan loves anything buffalo flavored lol), which cut down the cost of grocery bill this week as we are now getting 2 meals from one main product/prep time!

Hope you love 'em! They were super easy and DELICIOUS! :D

Smells Like a Warm and Cozy Fall ...

BAKED APPLE CHIPS

(serves 4)

3 large apples

2 tbs cinnamon

2 shakes of allspice

2 cups sugar

      Preheat your oven to 200 degrees F. Slice your apples into very thin rings and be sure all the seeds are thrown away. (I just cut little holes in the middles of our rings to ensure the whole core was out of the way.) In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Dip each side of each apple ring into the mixture and place side by side on baking sheet lined with PARCHMENT PAPER. (Do not use aluminum foil because then, like me, you will have to spend a great deal of time trying to pry it off your baking sheet after the cinnamon sugar mix melts and gets under it.) Bake for an hour and a half before turning the heat up to 250 degrees F for the last fifteen minutes. Upon taking out of the oven, let cool on baking sheet for maximum of a minute before using a spatula to switch all the chips to a plate. (If you leave them on there they too will stick like crazy, except worse because they harden to the pan!) Serve warm or let cool and store in an air tight container or ziploc bag.