October 2013 – The Weekday Chef

Potato Salad with Crumbled Bacon

I only have 7 ingredients for my creamy potato salad. And I NEVER put pickles or onions in mine. That’s just wrong!

Weekday Chef’s Creamy Potato Salad with Bacon!

This is one of my kids’ favorite things that I make for BBQ dinners….great for fall picnics too.

My 7 ingredients are: Potatoes, eggs, bacon, celery, mustard, mayo, and Salad Supreme Seasoning. These 7 yummy things makes a great potato salad. But don’t eat it that often because it is very high in calories and the egg yolks aren’t so good for your arteries. But it’s great for a special event.

I like to use either red, new potatoes, or Yukon Gold potatoes. Both just seem creamier to me.

And of course bacon makes everything a little bit better, now doesn’t it?

If I use the red, new potatoes, I don’t peel off the skins, ever. But sometimes I do with the Yukon Gold, if I’m not feeling too lazy. (or if I can get the hubs to peel potatoes for me I’ll do it every time!) haha.

Potato Salad Ingredients List:
13 to 15 small and medium potatoes cut up into bite size chunks so it fills a big salad bowl
7 eggs (boiled with the potatoes, then chopped up)
1 1/4 cups of good quality mayo (Best Foods or Hellmans)
3 Tablespoons regular French’s Mustard
4-5 pieces of bacon cooked and crumbled
3-4 stalks of celery finely sliced (I like that bit of crunch)
5-7 shakes (to taste) of Salad Seasoning (about 2 teaspoons)

Seasoning salt and pepper if you need more flavor. Mix the cooled potatoes in with all the other ingredients and add seasonings. Top with a few shakes of parsley flakes. Refrigerate before serving.

It’s hard to find this stuff sometimes, but it MAKES every single salad better, pasta, potato, spinach…I use it a LOT!

The best potatoes to use are these red, new potatoes. Just leave the skins on!

Yukon Gold also make great potato salads…leave skins on or peel as you please…I peeled mine for this salad.

It’s a great side dish. And it tastes even better the next day when all the seasonings have melded together as leftovers!

THE WEEKDAY CHEF

Football Tailgate Party Snacks

Well, we have the Sunday Night Football going on at my house, and it is going STRONG! My daughter and her husband both have fantasy football teams too. It’s another year of my favorite fall sports.

Are YOU going to ROOT for my team?

This little girl does….Go BYU! GO, FIGHT, WIN!

Over the loudspeaker Friday morning at school our principal played the BYU fight song instead of the school song. It was so funny because it took me a few minutes to realize what song was happening. I thought at first it must be a mistake….. it was pretty funny. There are football rivalries that run high in my community!

So in honor of the rivalry game today, I made my husband some football pancakes for breakfast to go along with his sausage and eggs. Cute right?

HERE is a cute Football Player Printout. that gave me the idea for these cute football outfits the kids made.

I loved this cute football player out of felt. But it could just as easily be construction paper. Here are some of the ones we did last year. The paper legs were just out of newsprint. The kids pictures are inside the helmets. And of course, they did their favorite team’s jerseys and cheer outfits and then wrote about their favorite teams. But HERE are some of my favorite football snack recipes. Gotta love a good pig in a blanket right?

I made this brie cheese baked in a puff pastry last year during the Super Bowl…it’s so easy and yummy!
The recipe is on the Puff Pastry website as well as a video How To Do Puff Pastry.

And you can’t beat a Texas Caviar dip (black bean and corn salsa) . Recipes is HERE.

What is YOUR favorite football team? Cougars? Utes?

Lots of BYU BLUE represented for sure! Rise and Shout the Cougars are OUT!

Make Your Own Wraps are always a great Party Food Option, especially for those health conscious sports fans….and guys always love any kind of mini sandwich on hogie breads. Or you can make them on white dinner rolls.

Or make a homemade pizza or two are always appreciated…YUMM……check it out HERE.

Pizzas are always great for a Football Party Snack. You can’t go wrong! Make your own in your little cast iron fry pans!

The girls had a “pom pom” added to their outfits…..

The boys had a football added to their outfits…… I know, I’m not very PC am I?

Gotta Love some Football chocolate cookies, now don’t ya? Get a tablecloth from the dollar store or a party store. I got a bunch of stuff after the Super Bowl last year on clearance, so I’m set!

Ya just gotta love those “cleats” now dontcha?

A free printable of the FOOTBALL subway art is below. It’s cute at the house for a football party, and it is cute on a bulletin board too! HERE is a Football Printable Football helmet printables football helmet printables HERE

I hope the Utes don’t blow us away! I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Cute Football Player color and cut-out activity great for little kiddos….

One more thing I found that I thought would be a fun thing to do for my grandkids to keep them busy during the games coming up. They love to color and cut out things like paper dolls. So how about a paper football player? Maybe in team colors! Making Friends.com has the download.

Football Subway Art

Martha Stewart had a few “Football Snacks” that looked kinda delicious to serve at your Football Tailgate Party too ! Check them out at Martha Stewart’s website. I love little smokies in a piggy blanket! Yummy. Have fun with the football fanatics at your house!

Halloween Cupcakes and Skeleton Brownies

Halloween Cupcakes; pumpkin cupcakes and vampire cupcakes too!

I played around decorating some cute Halloween Cupcakes for a party I was going to.

I had about 7 different designs on my Halloween Cupcake treats.

It was fun to make the “Purple People Eater” cupcakes with little eyeball superballs.

Halloween brownies made to look like skeletons were made from pretzels

My favorite Halloween treats were these brownie skeletons made from white chocolate disks for the heads and yogurt covered pretzels for the bodies. I had to put chocolate icing on the walnut brownies too.I added pretzels and white chocolate candy melts for the faces. The rest of the body I used just white buttercream icing and made the legs and hands with a pastry bag and a decorator icing tip.

Halloween Cupcakes…the spiderweb cupcakes and pumpkin cupcakes were super easy!

Here is a plate of my finished cupcakes. Love the chocolate vampire cupcakes with M & M eyes and candy corn teeth. The bloody smiles are made from red fruit snacks cut into strips.

I had some spider rings at school I added to the spiderweb cupcakes but forgot to take pics afterwards. The mummy cupcake was super easy with M & M eyes

I added a small box of vanilla pudding, 3/4 cup of sour cream and some butterscotch chips to the batter of the cupcakes. I also added half melted butter, instead of 1/2 the oil. It just tastes better. I hate cupcakes where I can taste the oil! Yuck!

Finished Halloween cupcakes and treats on top. They were very colorful and very yummy too.

Cute Pumpkin Halloween Cupcakes

The easiest Halloween cupcakes were the spiderwebs and pumpkins. Just chocolate chips for the jack-o-lantern faces. I just added chocolate chips for the face and some pretty sprinkles over the orange and green icing.

Creepy Vampire Cupcakes for Halloween….super CUTE!

This vampire cupcake was so cute. I thought it turned out cute with the brown sprinkles for the chocolate iced hair, and the M & M eyes. I made some eyes brown chocolate chip eyes too. I couldn’t decide which one looked better.

Halloween Cupcakes! Lots of mummies, ghouls and spiderwebs!

Notice the 2 colors of spiderweb cupcakes too. I think they both look really pretty. It would be a cute plate to just have the 2 flavors of spiderweb cupcakes for a party.

Gotta love a purple people eater cupcakes!

I also made a pan of brownies too. They were skeleton brownies. I added candy corn to the square brownies.

Skeleton Brownies were my favorite, and super easy too!

Check out all the sweet treat fun! I got a lot of inspiration from looking on Pinterest at cute treat ideas I could try. I love peanut butter cookies. I’d do the pumpkin kisses with peanut butter cookies instead of brownies.

Pumpkin Kiss Brownies at Daily Food Buzz are cute.

At Food.Daily Buzz is the recipe for these cute yummy things.

These Halloween Brownies are super cute. And they were super easy. I love a mint flavoring for the icing and then I would tint the icing mint green. It looks so fun like cute little Frankenstein and jack-o-lantern faces!

Here at Tidymom.net is a bunch of really sweet cookies to decorate for Halloween. I love the Spiderwebs and Candy corn coothe best! But it is the assortment that really makes the white serving plate look special!

Here are my 2 little pirates at the Halloween Party. Argh! Matey! Have a Happy Halloween!

Pineapple Upside Down Cake with Toasted Pecans

Do you like an easy and yummy dessert? Like right now easy? When I want easy I always make this one….it takes a few minutes to put together…and it is soooo worth it!

I LIKE pineapple and marachino cherries….

I love desserts with fruit in them….

And I LOVE Pineapple Upside Down Cake….yum!

I just doctor up a yellow cake mix by adding a cup of sour cream, a small vanilla pudding, and a few other things….

Ingredients and Recipe

1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
1 (5.9 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix
1 cup sour cream
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1/2 cup warm water

Nuts make anything tastier…mmmm…..

Then I spray a cake pan (glass, oval shaped) with Pam and pour 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup melted butter and some chopped walnuts.
Line Pan with…..
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/4 cup butter melted
1/2 cup to 3/4 cups walnuts

Brown sugar and the walnuts…don’t forget to dot them with pieces of butter…..

Then after mixing up the cake mix….I decorate that nutty, sugary pan with the rings of pineapple….

Then dot the insides of the pineapple with marachino cherries. They add the really pretty touch to the dessert. Then pour the cake mix on top and bake for 30 to 35 minutes on 350. It is super easy!

Mixing up the yellow cake mix batter……

Adding the extra oil, sour cream and pudding to the mix……

All those nuts and the brown sugar and butter make it a decadent topping for your yummy pineapple cake!

Bake up that baby!

Here it is just out of the oven….The sour cream and pudding mix make the batter really rich and tasty!

Try to include a ring and a cherry in each serving for a great presentation….
This is one of my husband’s favorite desserts!