Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches

We've all had horrible mornings. Sleep through your alarm. Spill a smoothie on yourself. Have to change. Spill amazing iced coffee on yourself. Have to change again. Hit every red light. Then get stuck in traffic due to an accident. And then show up to work as the bell rings to find out all of your plans have been changed due to someone getting sick. 


Oh, you haven't had a morning like this? Well this was my morning. Thank goodness we had a special day where I was able to get a lot done during the day, and I put dinner in the crock pot before I left. I swear, I would've cried if I had to make dinner after today.


Today's dinner, buffalo chicken sandwiches, was EXTREMELY easy. Like 5 minutes in the morning, 5 minutes at night easy. And it only has 5 ingredients!

Get together the morning ingredients - 3 lb. bag of frozen chicken breasts, ranch packet, and a regular bottle of Frank's Hot Sauce.

Put your chicken in the crock pot. That's right. Put it in there still frozen. For those of you as lazy as I.

Put the sauce on the chicken.

Put the ranch on the chicken.

Put the lid on and walk away. I mean it. Walk away for at least 8 hours.

Come home. Take a deep, deep breath and inhale the delicious scent that fills your kitchen. The hubster said that this is one of his favorite scents of all times. I think if I had chicken wing scented perfume, he would've married me even sooner.

Take the chicken out of the crock pot and shred it all up. Resist eating it now.

Put it all back in the crock pot and mix it together. This way the chicken soaks up all of the flavor in the pot. 

Toast a bun and place a piece of cheese on it. We were feeling spicy tonight, so we went with pepper jack. Any cheese would do!

Pile on your chicken. Add the top bun and enjoy!

Bake Cookies!

I may or may not have spent countless hours at work today. You will never know. But instead of coming home and crashing on the couch, the sane person like me would go home, eat leftover soup, and make cookies. Obviously, that is the most logical thing to do. Especially when you're trying to be healthy. Oops.

I love chocolate chips cookies. They are my favorite type of cookies. Classic. Sweet. Chewy. Perfect.

To be honest, my current favorite cookie recipe is simple. You've all probably had it before. The recipe on the back of the Toll House chocolate chips bag. Its sweet, easy, and delicious. There are no ingredients in it that I don't usually have around the house for those days when the cookie bug strikes. Those days much like today.

First, start by mixing together all of your dry ingredients in a small bowl - flour, salt, and baking powder. Set it aside.

Then, cream the sugars, butter and vanilla until it looks like wet sand. The type of sand you want to make sandcastles out of. The kind of sand that makes you want to go to San Diego. You get it.

Taste now - you'll have to add the eggs next.

Beat the eggs in with the sugar/butter/vanilla mixture and say, "Bye for now" as you aren't supposed to eat any of the dough until the eggs are cooked. That is the rule. But, as a teacher, I know fully well that the rules are rarely followed.

Add an entire bag of chocolate chips. Definitely no less. I will not judge if you add more. I'd be lying if I said I haven't done it before myself.

Stir it all together until it looks perfect and dough-y.

Then, use a tablespoon measuring spoon to scoop out the cookie dough. This helps make sure each cookie is about the same size.

Place 12 on a cookie sheet and bake for 9-11 minutes. My oven always uses the minimum time, so these took exactly 9 minutes.

Take them out of the oven and place them on a cooling rack. Try not to eat until they're out for just a minute or two - it helps keep them together!

Then eat. Eat those bad boys until there are none left. Or until you've decided you probably have to share with the other people in your house because they've been smelling the cookies for many, many minutes now. They will love you. Promise.

What is your favorite cookie?

Mustard Walnut Chicken

We eat a lot of chicken in this tiny home. It's healthy. It's cheap. It's easy to deal with. I like it a lot.


Tonight the hubster and I decided to try a new recipe. So I decided to try a new recipe and he decided he'd eat it. Especially because it contains mustard. I love all things mustard and he is deciding he likes mustard a lot too.


Tonight - mustard-y, nutty, juicy chicken. All things wanted when making dinner on a cold (64 degree) and rainy night.

The starting lineup: chicken breasts, panko, walnuts, lemon zest, dijon mustard, egg, shallot, olive oil, dried mustard, cayenne pepper, black pepper, and salt.

Cut the chicken breasts in half and use a rolling pin to flatten to an even size of 1/2 to 1/4 inch pieces.

Ta-Da! Let me tell you, I really enjoyed pounding the chicken. Its a great way to take out some frustration. However, I'm not sure the neighbors below us are too fond of it.


Right about now you want to start heating up a skillet with some oil in it. Make sure the skillet is oven safe!

Place the egg in a small bowl.

Add the mustard.

Whisk together.

Put the panko, minced shallot, lemon zest, chopped walnuts, dried mustard, and cayenne pepper in a pie tin. 

Stir it all up.

Dip the chicken in the mustard.

Then dip in the pie tin. It's like Where's Waldo right here - I promise there's chicken in there!

Place those suckers in the skillet for about 2-5 minutes until they're brown.

Flip those suckers over and place it in the oven. The whole darn thing. For about 8 - 10 minutes until the chicken is cooked. 

Take out of the oven and enjoy. Be sure to blow on it before eating the whole thing - this stuff is hot and hard to resist! Gah it's good!

Lemon Garlic Hummus

I heart hummus. I rarely meet a hummus I don't like. (Okay, I rarely meet a food I don't like, but still). It makes quite the perfect snack, a great sandwich spread, and is delicious to dunk stuff in.

All that aside, this hummus is BOMB. Knocks your socks off. Spectacular. You get it - it's good.

I love how fresh the lemon makes it taste and how super easy it is to whip together. 

You need garbanzo beans (chick peas), salt, lemons, garlic, tabasco, and tahini.
You may ask "What on earth is tahini" because I did the same thing. It is like a peanut butter made of sesame seeds. It makes the hummus perfect. We found this at Sunflower Market by our apartment, but Trader Joe's and other healthy or higher end groceries will likely have it by the peanut butter. 


I did a horrible job photographing this recipe. Please forgive me and trust that this is good.


Put the drained garbanzo beans (save that liquid!) into a food processor or blender. Tiny apartment kitchen = no room for a food processor, so I use a blender! I think it works just as well.

Juice those lemons. Make sure there's no seeds.

Throw it all in a blender. Add a few tablespoons of the reserved chickpea liquid to help make it smooooth.

Blend into the night. Or until the top stops moving and you realize that the blender means you have to stop and stir it. Make sure you stir it so you don't have whole chickpeas in your hummus. And make sure you turn the blender off before you stir. Please. Just trust me on this one.

When it's all done, place in a container and store in the fridge. 

When you're ready to eat, make it pretty. Or just scarf it straight from the container. I won't judge.

Crescent Calzones

I love homemade food as much (if not more) than the next guy, but I have no self control when it comes to these bad boys.

I love crescent rolls. I love the buttery flavor. I love how flakey they are. I love that they only take a few minutes to put together. I love how they're shaped. I love that they feel so light. The only thing I don't love is the sound they make when you have to open the can. I will just admit now, I jump/squeal a bit every time I open them. (Is this just me? I'd like to think this is a widespread problem.)

I also love cheese. I once told the hubster "There's no such thing as too much cheese" and he will NEVER let me live it down. I wish I could say I don't believe that and that I'm a classy, self-controlled lady, but I'm not. I love cheese. And dessert.

So, imagine my delight when I came upon this genius idea! It's sheer perfection :)

This is all you need for  a de-lish lunch or quick dinner. Notice the Crescents are already opened. Being the teacher I am, I couldn't resist cutting the box top off that sucker A.S.A.P. If you know a teacher, a school, or a child somewhere - please cut off any box tops you see and give it to them. They raise tons of money for schools! There, done with my school plug.


Open the crescents (or have a loving friend do it for you) and separate them into individual triangles. 


I'm a doofus and forgot to take a picture. Create one in your mind. You can do it. Imagine the crescents...

Arrange five pepperoni on the large end of the crescent roll. I think staggering them like this is pretty.. but it also holds the cheese in place.

Put cheese piece on top. 

Roll baby roll. 

Once you're here, if you have extra on the end, pull it over the opening. If you don't, do not fear. No cheese will melt out - the string cheese just gets soft, not liquid-y melted.

Arrange and bake. Sit patiently. Wash the dishes. Do something to fill your 11 minutes of time. I promise, it goes by faster if your not just standing and staring.

Pull them out of the oven and stare in delight at the miracle pockets of joy that are in front of you. Pizza-Crescents-Cheese = Perfection.