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Peanut Chicken Wings

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Peanut chicken wings with peanuts

I like experimenting with different ways to make chicken wings! You can never go wrong with a classic Buffalo wing, but it’s fun to get creative with wings. The rich, savory taste of peanut sauce goes well with chicken, and that includes chicken wings. Double-baking the wings is a little more work, but it makes them crispy outside and juicy inside without the mess of frying.

This is an easy way to do something different the next time you’re making chicken wings!

Orange Marmalade Chicken Wings

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Servings: 24 wingettes
Ingredients Method

Ingredients
  

  • 12 chicken wings
  • 4 tablespoons orange marmalade
  • 4 tablespoons butter
  • 1 tablespoon sriracha
  • 1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/4 teaspoon lemon juice

Method
 

Prepare the Wings (this can be done up to a day in advance)
  1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
  2. Remove the ends of the wing tips and cut wings in half to create wingettes. You should be able to feel where to cut them by bending the wings in half.
  3. Bake wingettes on a rack over a cookie sheet at 425 for 20 minutes.
  4. Store wings in fridge.
The Finished Product
  1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
  2. Bake wings at 425 for 15 minutes.
  3. While wings are heating, heat butter and marmalade in saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring to combine.
  4. When butter is melted and marmalade is incorporated, add sriracha, Worcestershire, and lemon juice. Stir well to combine.
  5. Remove wings to large bowl.
  6. Toss wings in sauce, adding sauce gradually till wings are covered (you will probably have more sauce than you need, but it’s delicious – feel free to use it all, because it is an excellent dipping sauce).
Peanut chicken wings

Throw a Football Party!

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Hands toasting with beer glasses.

Photo by Yutacar on Unsplash

So, the Patriots and Rams each won their conference, and there’s a Big Game coming up the weekend after next. Many of you will go out to celebrate, but it’s nice to have friends or family over to watch the game.

What to Eat

If you read my post on planning a party menu (https://allybearsden.blog/party-menu-planning-plus-the-easiest-dessert-ever/), you’ve got the basics. Of course, chicken wings are a staple football party menu item, and it’s possible your family or friends have their own traditions (especially if they’re fans of one of the teams), but you can have fun with food for this party. How about making dishes based on the teams playing? This year, it’s New England and Los Angeles, so you could make clam chowder and nachos (I don’t know if I’d eat those at the same time, but it’s a long game, so you could space them out).

Decorating

Another fun way to make the party into a football party is by decorating! Most party stores have special decorations for the game, but if you would rather get something you can use again, you can simply get party goods in the team colors. Whether you go to the party store, the supermarket, or the dollar store, you can probably find plates, forks, napkins, and bowls in the colors of the teams. You can go as simple or as elaborate as you’d like!

There’s no need to buy a special tablecloth that looks like a football field – just get a green plastic tablecloth and a white marker and draw the yard lines and numbers on yourself. You can also do a paper banner with the game logo, the team logos, pictures of footballs, and anything else you find appropriate. If you have kids, having them decorate the banner is a fun way to get them involved.

Snickers football candy bowl

Football desserts!

A fun and yummy idea is to make football themed desserts. With a football-shaped cookie cutter, make sugar cookies (I have a recipe at https://allybearsden.blog/sugar-cookies/). You can decorate them with chocolate sprinkles, or go all out and frost them with chocolate icing. Using a decorating tip with a round opening (look for a “writing” tip), draw laces with white icing. You can also frost cupcakes in the team colors, or use chocolate frosting and white icing to draw footballs on your cupcakes. Some cake decorating stores, crafts stores and party stores sell sugar footballs, which are an easy way to decorate cupcakes or a cake. If you’re not a baker, most party stores have a selection of candy in a variety of colors. Get M&M’s or wrapped candies in team colors and put them in clear bowls.

Football on field

Photo by Ben Hershey on Unsplash

But what about the people who don’t like football?

Don’t forget the non-football fans! If you have more than one TV, it’s nice to set up an area for the people who don’t want to watch the game to hang out and watch what they’d like, and make sure they have snacks there too! If you can’t move the TV, at least make sure you have enough chairs in the kitchen or somewhere else that’s not in front of the TV and something for them to eat and do.

And don’t forget the kids – some may be football fans and some may not, but make sure you have something for them to do. You can find clip art coloring pages with football themes, which are both entertaining and go with the theme. Just be sure you have enough crayons and washable markers to go around!

Have fun!

I’ll be sharing some of my favorite football party recipes over the next week, but hopefully this has given you some ideas to share the Big Game with your friends!

No Longer a Holiday Home!

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I finally not only got all the holiday decorations down, but got them all put away! As part of that process, I decided to move things around in the house – I didn’t go as far as to move furniture (which has happened in the past), but I rearranged all my shelves and am very happy about it.

I wanted to share some of that with you, so here goes…more to follow:

The fireplace

I have Lenox in the living room already (note the cross above the fireplace, and I have a wall vase on the other side), but all my small Lenox pieces were in the dining room. I decided to move some of them in and move some of the crystal off the fireplace, especially since I generally decorate the fireplace for every season, and the crystal gets moved anyway.

Shelf unit with decorative items
The new shelves! Wood, glass, and some sentimental items.

Then I re-did the shelves on either side of the TV unit – I took some things from the dining room shelves, and some things from the fireplace and came up with this.

The basket gets a table of its own!

Then I turned to the basket of #stylingthebasket fame. It’s been on our coffee table since I got it, which is nice, but it has to get moved when I take pictures of it, and it actually interferes with changing channels on the TV because it’s in front of the cable box (the joy of small home living!) I moved it to the table next to the couch and moved some things off of that table, and now the basket has a home of its own.

I replaced the basket with a piece of Depression glass my cousin gave me recently – the table looks twice as big!

Coffee table with coasters and Depression glass piece
The wide open spaces of my coffee table!

I also moved things around on all the dining room shelves – I put a basket I’ve had in the living room in there, as well as the relocating the red candles formerly on the mantel to a room where they’ll show up better, and generally putting things in different places.

Shelf unit with decorative items
Shelf unit with decorative items

Hope you’re feeling inspired to make small changes that make a big difference!

Balsamic Sweet Potatoes with Apples

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Sweet potatoes cooked with apples with an apple next to the dish.
A still life about to be eaten

It’s no secret that I love sweet potatoes! Whether baked, mashed, broiled, or in a pie, sweet potatoes are a versatile and delicious side dish to poultry, pork, or beef!

Many sweet potato recipes are sweetened with brown sugar, maple syrup, or even marshmallows. This one is a little different. I add apples and balsamic vinegar to enhance the sweetness of the potatoes, and it makes the finished product really yummy. I made it with a pork tenderloin, and the pork was delicious, but we were all fighting for the last bite of sweet potato!

Balsamic Sweet Potatoes with Apples

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Servings: 4
Ingredients Method

Ingredients
  

  • 4 large sweet potatoes
  • 1 onion
  • 2 apples
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • ground pepper
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1 teaspoon ground thyme
  • 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons water

Method
 

  1. Put a large pot of water on to boil. 
  2. Cut sweet potatoes into 1 inch cubes.
  3. Add sweet potatoes to boiling water and cook for 10 minutes. The sweet potato cubes should not be completely soft. Drain sweet potatoes after 10 minutes.
  4. While sweet potatoes are boiling, dice onion and core and cut apples into 1/2 inch cubes.
  5. Mix together salt, pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground thyme in small bowl.
  6. Heat 2 tablespoons vegetable oil in large frying pan over medium-high heat.
  7. Add drained sweet potatoes, apples, and onion to pan. Sprinkle with about half the spice mixture and stir vigorously.
  8. Sprinkle with the other half of the spice mixture and stir again. You don’t want the spices to clump up on the sweet potatoes or apples, but to be evenly distributed.
  9. Continue to saute for 10 minutes. Add water and balsamic vinegar and mix well.
  10. Remove from heat and serve immediately.

Chicken, Broccoli and Cheese Casserole

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Chicken, broccoli and cheese casserole.
Cheese, please!

Do you like broccoli with cheese sauce? It’s a great side dish, but it’s really amazing how easy it is to turn it into dinner! Using pre-cooked chicken makes it even quicker! This is a delicious way to make a casserole without pasta and without cauliflower (JP has made it clear he’s pretty tired of cauliflower casseroles).

Chicken, broccoli and cheese casserole

Chicken, Broccoli and Cheese Casserole

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Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 35 minutes
Servings: 4 people
Course: Main Course
Ingredients Method

Ingredients
  

  • 1 broccoli crown
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1 tablespoon flour
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 cup shredded cheddar plus extra for topping
  • 2 cups cooked chicken, diced

Method
 

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
  2. Cut chicken into small cubes.
  3. If using fresh broccoli, cut into small pieces.
  4. Steam broccoli for 5 minutes or until crisp-tender (if you’re using microwave broccoli, microwave for a minute less than recommended).
  5. Melt butter in saucepan over medium heat.
  6. Add flour and mix well until completely incorporated into butter.
  7. Add milk, stirring constantly (personally, I use a spoon for the step above and a whisk for this step – it’s one extra thing to wash, but I think it makes getting a nice lump-free sauce easier).
  8. Season with salt and pepper.
  9. When sauce thickens, add 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese and mix well. If desired, add a dash of cayenne pepper. I’ve mentioned it before, but I always add cayenne when cooking with cheese – it doesn’t make the dish hot, but it brings out the cheese flavor.
  10. Combine broccoli, chicken, and cheese sauce in large bowl. This is another step that leads to one extra bowl to wash, but it makes it a lot easier to get everything mixed well.
  11. Turn into casserole dish and top with cheddar cheese.
  12. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until topping is melted and casserole is bubbling.

If you’re a cheese lover like me, it doesn’t get any better than this! And if your family resists vegetable-based casseroles, try this and see what they think!

Chicken, broccoli and cheese casserole

Styling the Basket – January

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Basket with snowflakes and a cardinal on a branch

Do you still have Christmas decorations out? Don’t feel bad! I’m not done putting my “holiday home” away yet either! I wait till after the Epiphany/Three Kings Day/Little Christmas on January 6th anyway, and then this past week has been crazy! I’m hoping by the time you read this, I’ll have it put away, but I’m not promising anything! But I have re-styled the basket for January.

Closeup picture of cardinal on branch

I found this cute cardinal right after Christmas when I went to the dollar store and I knew I was going to use him in the January basket. Then I had an idea to perch him on a branch, and I found a perfect stick for the purpose on the ground while walking the next day! You can see that I painted it with some glitter paint before clipping the cardinal to it. There’s never such a thing as too much glitter, right?

Picture of basket with snowflakes and cardinal on branch.

The snowballs came from last January’s basket, and the garland and snowflakes are actually Christmas decorations! My grandmother made the snowflakes for me many years ago, and I’ve had them on my tree every year since then. I recently read that when you see a cardinal, it means that someone in heaven is praying for you. I always knew seeing a cardinal had something to do with people who have passed – and I’ve had some crazy experiences with that – but I didn’t realize it means someone is praying for you. Knowing that made it even more special to use my grandmother’s snowflakes in this basket with the cardinal!

Picture of basket with snowflakes, snowballs, and cardinal.

Hope you’re having fun getting your home restyled for January!

Butternut Squash Noodles

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Butternut squash noodles with savory spices

I have been enjoying hard squash (butternut, acorn, and some of the unusual varieties like honeynut) a lot lately. I do find that roasting whole squash takes a long time, though. One way to make cooking squash quicker is to make it into noodles. When we were in Jamaica this fall, I had stewed pumpkin that was a little more savory than your average American pumpkin. With that in mind, I tried to pick up some of those spices here.

Butternut Squash Noodles

Quick and easy way to prepare spiced butternut squash “noodles”.
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Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes
Servings: 4 people
Course: Side Dish
Ingredients Method

Ingredients
  

  • 1 butternut squash (;ook for a long thin squash rather than a round one)
  • 3 tbsp butter
  • 1 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp ginger
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp allspice
  • ground pepper
  • 2 dashes cayenne pepper (optional depending on your heat tolerance)

Method
 

Prepare butternut squash noodles:
  1. I tried a spiralizer and a mandoline, and I found the best way to make my squash into noodles was with the peeler!
  2. Peel squash and cut in half. Scoop out seeds and “guts”.
  3. Cut halves into smaller pieces (I cut each half in half). Using a peeler, create inch-wide “noodles”.
Cook and spice:
  1. Heat butter and oil in large pan over medium-high heat.
  2. Combine spices in small bowl.
  3. Add squash to pan with butter and oil. Using tongs, toss squash in butter/oil mixture.
  4. Add about a quarter of the spice mixture and toss to coat evenly.
  5. Keep adding spice mixture and tossing – the goal is to avoid clumping all the spice in any one area.
  6. Cook squash for 15 minutes or until it is “al dente”.
Butternut squash noodles with a margarita glass
All I need is a frozen drink in that glass!

Hope you enjoy squash “noodles”!

New Year, New Look!

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As you can see, I’ve updated my logo (and changed some colors) for 2019! I’ve also started using a new recipe format which should make it easier for everyone to read and print recipes!

I’m still learning a lot, and I want to thank everyone who’s been with me since the beginning! If you like what you see, please…let other people know about Allybear’s Den!

Chocolate Cheesecake (and it’s low-sugar)

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Slice of chocolate cheesecake.
Chocolate Cheesecake!

Happy New Year! I know I’ve been a little out of touch lately – I’m still catching up after the holidays! I’m planning a big 2019 (including some big changes) for Allybear’s Den. I’m looking forward to bringing you new ideas and a new look this year! In the meantime, though, I wanted to share this chocolate cheesecake recipe.

This is easy, delicious, and best of all…low-carb! I used a recipe for an almond crust from Mother Thyme (http://www.motherthyme.com/2014/04/low-carb-lemon-cheesecake.html#wprm-recipe-container-13417). The crust is filled with a chocolately sugar-free filling, and topped with sugar-free whipped cream. For a final pretty touch, I added some gold and silver edible glitter to the top. I think it would look and taste great topped with mini chocolate chips or sprinkles too. Of course, if you add any of those, it’s no longer sugar-free, but it’s still delicious and fairly low in sugar.

Chocolate Cheesecake

Low-sugar chocolate cheesecake
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Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Chilling Time 2 hours
Total Time 30 minutes
Servings: 8
Course: Dessert
Ingredients Method

Ingredients
  

Crust
  • 1 1/4 cup almond flour
  • 3 tbsp butter
  • 1 1/2 tbsp stevia or powdered sugar substitute of choice (for crust – 2 tablespoons total)
Filling
  • 8 oz cream cheese, softened
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (for filling – 1 teaspoon total)
  • 1 1/2 cups heavy cream (for filling – 2 1/2 cups total)
  • 6 oz sugar-free chocolate pudding mix
Topping
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 1/2 tbsp stevia
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • edible glitter, chocolate chips, or sprinkles optional

Method
 

Crust
  1. Preheat oven to 350.   
  2. Melt butter and combine with almond flour and 1 and 1/2 tablespoons stevia until well-combined and crumbly (it will look like you don’t possibly have enough butter, but don’t worry).
  3. Spray a springform pan and press flour mixture into bottom of pan, making sure bottom is fairly evenly covered.
  4. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Let cool completely – leave in pan.
Filling
  1. Let cream cheese soften in mixer bowl (this is a great time to do other things around the house).  Fold mixture into springform pan and chill for at least 2 hours.
  2. Once softened, add 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract and 1 and 1/2 cups heavy cream and beat on high using whisk attachment until soft peaks form.
  3. Add pudding mix and combine by hand (I find using the mixer can make the filling too stiff). 
Topping
  1. While the cheesecake is chilling, wash your bowl and whisk attachment and chill in fridge. 
  2. Mix heavy cream, stevia, and vanilla extract until peaks form. 
  3. Chill until ready to serve and cover with whipped cream. 
  4. Add glitter, chips, or sprinkles if desired.
Chocolate cheesecake
Fancy!

There you have it – it takes a little advance planning, but it’s so worthwhile. If you can’t or don’t want to plan that far in advance, you can make the filling on its own, not chill as long, and have a yummy cheesecake pudding! Or you can use it to fill strawberries (see https://allybearsden.blog/low-carb-chocolate-cheesecake-filling/). You’ll have a lot more than you need for the strawberries, but you can save it. It will hold well for a few days.

New Year’s Eve Veggie Platter!

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What are you doing for New Year’s Eve? We’re having a house party, because even when I was younger, I could never see paying twice as much as I normally would for dinner or drinks just to be around a lot of people who go out drinking twice a year.

So if you’re having a house party or even a few people over to pre-game before you go out, you’re probably having a veggie platter. We all feel much better eating dip off a piece of broccoli or a carrot than a chip, don’t we? (By the way, if you need a good dip recipe that goes well with veggies or chips, check out the bacon-ranch-cheese dip at https://allybearsden.blog/office-parties-to-drink-or-not-to-drink-and-a-dip-recipe/). But just because we all have them doesn’t mean you can’t make your NYE veggie platter cute!

Raw veggie tray that looks like a champagne bottle
Doesn’t it look like a champagne bottle?

I used pre-cut broccoli and cauliflower, cut some baby-cut carrots in half, and cut one yellow pepper into strips. Then it’s just a matter of arranging your veggies to look like a champagne bottle. I’m making a backup platter because (a) I want more carrots and cauliflower, and (b) people may not want to pick this apart!

A raw veggie platter that looks like a champagne bottle.
All dressed up with some New Year’s decorations!

Wishing you all a fun New Year’s Eve! Remember, if you drink, don’t drive!

Happy New Year!