Sometimes life works in interesting ways to show you how amazing people really are. With everything that we've been through in the past couple of weeks, the love and care of others is what I'll remember the most.
With having to stay in bed, one of the most wonderful things that happened was that our stellar family and some fabulous friends showed up with amazing meals for us. Thank you to everyone for the delicious dinners--I am forever grateful. We even had wonderful friends show up the night before I started back to work this week with another amazing meal, knowing that it would be a busy first day back to school for me (and this fabulous couple is ready to have a baby any day now!). Thank you Shannon and David!
Since I've had dinner on the brain from all of the wonderful meals that have shown up at our door, I decided that now that we're back to the reality of real life again, I wanted to try a new recipe.
I'm always trying to come up with new dinner ideas (or just figure out what to make each night). Ever since I started back to work after being on mat leave with Mya I've found that I've had to be extra organized with dinner. I like to cook, I like to try new recipes. But it always feels like a rush to get dinner on the table before Mya has to go to bed each night. Most nights I somehow find enough energy at the end of the day to put together a yummy meal...but other nights I'll just pull out a pizza from the freezer and throw it in the oven.
When I was on the search for a new dinner idea I came across a recipe that looked delicious--buffalo chicken sandwiches (which definitely looked like something that my hubby would love). The recipe that I found was from this fab recipe blog and since I'm not into really spicy foods, I decided to switch a few things up. It's usually made with Frank's Red Hot sauce and I knew a whole bottle of that stuff would absolutely kill me, so here is the recipe that I used instead. With a few little changes, I made this the other night and it was delish! I'd say Terry thought it was a hit too since he ate THREE sandwiches that night.
Here is how I did it:
Get together only 4 ingredients: frozen chicken, ranch dip (powered form), a bottle of buffalo sauce (I used the mild kind and I still thought it was a bit hot for me!) and buns.
1) Place a few pieces of frozen chicken in the slow cooker (I threw in 5 pieces and I found out that I could have put more in since there was extra sauce in the end). I always thought you had to thaw chicken before putting it in the slow cooker..but as long as you double check that it's cooked through this recipe works perfectly!
2) Cover chicken with the entire bottle of buffalo sauce.
3) Pour the ranch sauce over top and mix together until chicken is covered.
4) Put slow cooker onto medium for 5hrs (or low for approx 7hrs)
5) Pull chicken out at least 1/2 hr before you're going to eat it and shred it (the best trick in the world is that you can shred chicken in your Kitchen Aid mixer-if you have one. Just go slowly or you'll end up with mushy chicken. But it'll shred it really nicely if you're careful. If you don't have a mixer, just use two forks and pull chicken apart. If it's ready, it'll pull apart easily.
6) Put chicken back into slow cooker for another hour or so (so that the juices can soak into the chicken).
7) Toast up your buns on the stove with a bit of butter until they're a tad crispy, then put chicken on top.
8) Terry liked it with just the chicken, but I threw some thick slices of cheddar cheese on top and it was even more delicious. If you want to get even fancier, you could add lettuce, tomatoes or whatever else you want. If you have leftovers, you can even use the chicken to make quesadillas the next night.
Easy as pie...and so delicious!!
Enjoy!!
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