2/28/12

Kitchen Therapy


We got back in town from vacation late Sunday night and jumped back into life first thing Monday morning. Yesterday was actually my first day back into regular routine since the miscarriage. It actually went smoother than I expected. I spent the morning do laundry, grocery shopping, and dealing with FAMIS and Medicaid over the phone and through faxes. Surprisingly it went rather smoothly and every one I talked to was very kind and helpful.



In the afternoon I engaged in some serious kitchen therapy. Cooking, baking, bread making, even decorating my Kitchen aide mixer! Nothing soothes me quite like the kitchen. One of the things I made was buffalo chicken hot pockets. I normally use this as a left over re-purpose, but Josh asked for them so I went a head and made the dip and bread solely for this purpose. I've had a couple people ask about it so I thought I would share the recipie here.



Filling

Ingredients:
1 can chicken (large size) (This is the first place you can use left overs. Instead of buying chicken use left over rotisserie chicken or really any left over chicken that doesn't have to strong a flavor and isn't in a sauce)
1 8 oz. brick cream cheese
1/2 c blue cheese dressing (we use ranch since I can't stand blue cheese)
1/4 c cayenne pepper sauce
1 pkg. shredded cheddar cheese. 

Directions: 
Melt cream cheese over medium-low heat. Once creamy, add blue cheese, hot sauce, and chicken.
Remove from heat, fold in 1/2 pkg. of shredded cheese.
Pour into square 8x8 oven-safe dish. Top with remaining cheese. Bake at 350°F until cheese is melted and bubbly. (You can also just dump it all into a crock pot)

Bread
For the bread I use my go to bread recipe which can be found HERE. But you can really use any dinner roll dough.

Assemble
Once your dip is made stick it in the fridge to cool. You want to be sure the dip is pretty solid as it makes it easier to work with. (I often make a double batch of dip and use the left overs for the hot pockets).

Make bread according to directions. Once is has risen once, grab small balls off and flatten into circles. Put a scoop of filling in the middle and wrap dough around it. Make desired amount of pockets. Put in warm place to rise till roughly double. Bake at 350 till top of rolls are brown. (Time will vary depending on size of rolls.)