Category: MISC

BUFFALO CHICKEN SHEPHERD’S PIE

I have a friend who hates to have her food touch other food. She’s very particular about keeping it all separate on a plate.
I wonder how she’d be with Shepherds Pie?
I think Shepherds Pie is just an excuse to play with your food and throw it all in a pile and eat it. 
It helps that it’s extremely delicious too!
I’ve been on a buffalo kick and I find myself throwing it in just about everything.  I’ve made this Shepherd’s Pie a couple of times and am always amazed at how incredibly tasty it is. 
Buffalo Chicken Shepherds Pie Recipe

Adapted from Once A Month Mom

2 pounds boneless chicken breast
1 tablespoon oil (I used bacon grease)
3 stalks celery, diced (6 oz)
2 carrots, diced (6 oz)
1 large onion, diced (12 oz)
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
2 teaspoons paprika
Salt and pepper
1/4 cup chicken stock
1/4 cup buffalo wing sauce (I used Franks)
1/4 cup ranch dressing, light
4 oz. mozzarella cheese, part skim, shredded
6 potatoes (I used 3 pounds)
1/2 cup sour cream, light

Cook chicken with salt and pepper.  Remove and dice or shred.  In same pan, combine celery, carrots and onion with oil and saute for 6 – 8 minutes. Add garlic. Saute for a couple more minutes.  Add chicken, cherry tomatoes, paprika and more salt and pepper. Add chicken broth and buffalo wing sauce.  Stir to combine.  Reduce heat and simmer. 
Boil potatoes until done.  Mash and combine with 1/2 cup sour cream.  Set aside.
Pour the chicken mixture into the bottom of a 9 x 13 in. pan sprayed with cooking spray.  Add the ranch to the top and the mozzarella cheese. (you can use blue cheese instead of ranch and mozzarella if you like).  Spoon the potatoes on top of chicken mixture.  Bake at 375 for 25 – 30 minutes. 

Total calories = 3699 calories
8 servings = 462 calories per serving

Buffalo Chicken Shepherds Pie = 462 calorie dinner

THE HOLIDAY SEASON

THE HOLIDAY SEASON…

Usually the holiday season is an endless list of tasks and errands.  Christmas Eve is usually at our house and then Christmas Day many times too.  The last several years though since we moved east, the holiday season has been quiet, many times too quiet.  This year in particular was way too quiet and lonely.
Personally, I love the hustle and bustle of the holidays.  I’m a list writer and as a Virgo usually have my presents bought early and the Christmas cards ready to mail by Thanksgiving, many times they are even hand made.  Having all this done and ready made it possible for me to go to the malls, get a nice cup of coffee and just watch other people hustle and bustle.  Then I would go home and cook and bake and then bake some more!  I MISS that here!
I learned much of this from my folks.  My folks would have the majority of their shopping done before Thanksgiving and then because of their hectic schedules dad would sit me down with all the gifts, a card table, wrapping paper, tape, bows and tags on the day after Thanksgiving and that was where I would spend the Thanksgiving weekend watching Christmas movies, eating leftover turkey sandwhiches and wrapping gifts.  When the gifts were done, I would start on the Christmas cards.  Now this wasn’t an abuse of child labor laws, it was how I earned a chunk of money for my own Christmas shopping.  And dad was a generous employer.
Christmas Eve was spent at our house with the immediate extended family (grams and gramps, aunts, uncles and cousins and many times neighbors too). We would do a big buffet and then open all our gifts to each other and have a party.  We’d go to sleep happy and sated while waiting for Santa and then start Christmas day with stockings and brunch.  By afternoon the turkey and ham were smelling great and we were ready to start all over.  Oh it was the same bunch of people, but we would add a great aunt and uncle. Looney Louise, (okay we didn’t call her looney to her face, but it is what made her such fun) made us cornflake wreaths with red hots and fudge!  All us cousins would sit on the front porch waiting for them and for our wreaths!  It wouldn’t have been Christmas without them!
Looney Louise years before she made us our wreaths!
As always I’m looking forward to the next holiday season just after this one ends, but knowing that the next one will be spent around family makes it already more special.

Lisa Wingate – author – believer in hope

Good Hope Road was the story of a town devastated by a tornado and how a young girl from the wrong side of the tracks so to speak was given a chance at things she otherwise wouldn’t have because most considered her white trash.Wingate’s stories are all about compassion, understanding and trying to see each other’s point of view while you realize the grass isn’t always greener, maybe you just need to water your own grass more.