Friday, December 21, 2012

Spur of the Moment Entertaining

Missy, here. On Monday after school, my daughter called while I was out running errands to ask if she could have some friends over to spend the night to celebrate exempting finals and being done with the semester. I told her that was fine. Then I had to go into emergency prep mode!

I hurried home to clean the kitchen and try to figure out if we had anything I could cook for dinner. Nope. Once I found out she'd invited 7 girls, I headed to the grocery store. I'd been craving spaghetti all day, so I decided that would be an easy one to pull together. Here's my dad's recipe for homemade spaghetti, although I ended up buying a jar of Ragu to hurry things along.

Then I found out a few of the girls would be playing in a basketball game or playing in the band and would arrive late. So I realized I probably needed a substantial snack as well. Oh, and breakfast!



So here's my grocery trip. Sister Schubert's cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Easy, and the kids love them. Hot dog buns for quick garlic toast under the broiler. 
Beef, noodles and sauce for the spaghetti. And I had my daughter look up a recipe for a buffalo chicken dip the girls have been raving about. For that, I bought a can of chicken and block of cream cheese (already had the other ingredients).

Once I got the spaghetti sauce cooking, I tackled the dip. Here's the recipe she found on Pinterest:


1 1/2 cups cooked and shredded chicken or 1 (12 ounce) can chunk chicken, 
drained
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup Ranch dressing
1/2 cup Buffalo wing sauce (such as Frank’s Red Hot, not to be confused with 
their pepper sauce. Start with less if you want and add more to your desired 
hotness.)
3/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese






I went on a hunting expedition and found my tiny slow cooker. I thought it would be perfect for a single recipe of this dip.

And, in a nod to Virginia's favorite word in cooking, I'm calling this part of the recipe a "dump dip." :)

I dumped in the cream cheese and can of chicken.



I let this melt a bit, then added the rest of the ingredients and mixed them in with a fork. A couple of hours later, I was ready for the masses!

BTW, I only used about 1/4 cup Frank's sauce, and it was plenty spicy for me.




Serve with tortilla chips. We used Scoops. A great way to feed a bunch of celebrating, hungry teenage girls!

13 comments:

  1. HAHAHA!

    Ok, let me say, I was completely unconvinced that any of this would turn out edible until that last picture. (I mean, spaghetti and such, yes. The dump dip? No way, Jose.)

    But this looks YUMMMMMMMMYYYYYY.

    The other thought is... oh, for the days of teen metabolism. Do you do know what happen if I had spaghetti, garlic bread, cinnamon rolls and this dip anywhere in the same week? At least five pounds.

    AT LEAST.

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  2. wow you're easy! my mom would've flipped if I'd invited anyone over let alone 7!
    never heard of that dip but if it's good no way a little crockpot would work LOL! my dad took the rotel/sausage/velveeta dip in a BIG crockpot to work and about 5 of them cleaned it out - even rubbed bread along the sides and bottom and it looked like it'd been cleaned when he brought it home! i can't imagine what they'd do to buffalo chicken dip...

    now I"m wanting olive garden darn it...sketti and garlic bread - yum!

    Susanna

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  3. Pass the cinnamon rolls please. :-) You are an awesome mama to add 7 girls to your dinner and breakfast menu -- not to mention the whole 'sleepover' aspect where they never sleep. Did you?

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  4. Love the last minute entertaining! My husband just made this buffalo dip for a Christmas party, but he baked it, we didn't even think about using the crock pot, wonderful idea!

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    1. If I recall, Andrea, didn't he add an entire bottle of wing sauce? That alone kept me away, but Richard loved it!

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  5. Virginia, you're right! I sampled the dip but purposefully stayed away!

    Susanna, I've told her no before. Or to limit the number. But now that they're older (15 and 16), it's not as intimidating. :) They're really a good group of girls. You know, I almost made that sausage dip! But this was even easier. And you're right. They nearly cleaned out that little crockpot in one swoop (with help from my son). I'd suggest doubling or even tripling the recipe and putting in a regular size cooker for a crowd.

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  6. Kav, they used to keep me up when they were younger. But nowadays, I go on to bed. I did hear them one time not long after I fell asleep. But for the most part, they stay pretty quiet--and on the the other side of the house. :)

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  7. I love it when my children had their friends over.

    The last sleep-over was when ten boy scouts descended on us for a 24 hour gaming marathon. It was fabulous! I made a crock pot full of sloppy joes, the boys brought snacks, and my sons made pancakes in the morning.

    There was very little sleeping, though...

    Alas, one of the downfalls of moving is that it takes time to build those kinds of friendships again, and now everyone is old enough that sleepovers are quite a thing of the past.

    My daughter's taking chips and dip for a potluck at work today, so I'll see if she wants to try the dump dip recipe :)

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  8. Genevieve, I bet it would be good baked! You could even melt some cheese on top. Which is always good!

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  9. Jan, I think I'm growing to appreciate these times. They won't last much longer!

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  10. Missy, I'm scheduled to have a house full of drumline tomorrow night. Providing Ryan feels better and sans the drums:-) I bet they'd go nuts over this. Hmmm....

    Okay, back to catching up. Somehow I missed Ruthy's post yesterday.

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    Replies
    1. They'll love it! I'm always amazed at how spicy my kids will go. I'm a little wimpy and will cut back some on the sauce next time. The Frank's sauce that is! ;)

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  11. OH, and I love Sister Schubert's anything!

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