Buffalo Chicken Dip

Buffalo Chicken Dip is a very popular dip to bring to a party. There are very few people who don’t love chicken wings and this dip mimics that taste so well! The added plus is that you can have all the flavor of chicken wings without the bones! Which for me is a super plus plus because as you all know, I don’t do bones, lol! This whips together quickly with very few ingredients. If you are one of the maybe 5 people on Earth who have not tried this, give this recipe a whirl, you won’t regret it!

Printable Recipe: Buffalo Chicken Dip

Ingredients:

• 8 oz cream cheese, softened

• 2 – 10 oz cans cooked chicken, drained

• 1/2 to 3/4 cup Frank’s Red Hot Sauce (depending on how hot you want it)

• 1 cup ranch dressing

• 2 cups shredded Monterey Jack Cheese

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl combine first 4 ingredients with a hand mixer on medium speed till well combined. Fold in 1 cup of shredded Monterey Jack Cheese.

Place chicken mix in a glass 9×13 casserole dish. Evenly sprinkle 1 cup of Monterey Jack cheese on top.

Bake 30-40 minutes until bubbly. Allow to cool for approximately 10 minutes before serving with tortilla chips.

 

Red, White & Blue Strawberries

Having been born in the Philippines to my Navy father and Filipina mother, I have patriotic blood running deep within. I’ve lived in the Philippines and Japan. Been to Canada and Mexico. When you step off American soil onto foreign land, it is in that moment that you recognize and appreciate what it means to be American. The government of the United States is the result of a revolution in thought. It was founded on the principle that all persons have equal rights, and that government is responsible to, and derives its powers from, a free people. These rights are guaranteed no matter your race, your gender, your religion, your sexual preference, your socioeconomic class or any other psycho-social classification. The right to be educated, more specifically the right to be an educated woman, is the right I cherish the most.

We are in the middle of the long holiday weekend. It is Memorial Day weekend. A time to remember and give thanks to those who guaranteed our American rights. The soldiers in all of our branches along with first responders serving at the local level, the firefighters, EMTs and police officers serve to protect our freedom. Freedom isn’t free. It has been paid for with blood. Let us all remember why we are gathering with family and friends for cookouts over this weekend…this holiday reminds all of us how blessed we are to live and be a part of the great

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

We will be bringing to a cookout some patriotic red, white and blue strawberries! Really easy to make! Rinse and dry off ripe, fresh strawberries. I chose to use short shish kebab sticks and pierced the strawberries through the stem (but not all the way through the tip of the strawberry). You can omit this and just hold the strawberry leaves when dipping. Place blue sanding sugars in a small bowl. Melt down white candy coating (found around chocolate chips used for baking) in a small but deep enough dish that allows you to dip the strawberries 2/3 up to the stem in white candy. Gently shake off the excess. Gently dip the coated strawberry 1/3 the way up in blue sanding sugars. See the photos for how much white candy melt and blue sanding sugar to use. If using shish kebab sticks, place sticks in a styrofoam block until the white candy melt sets. If not using shish kebab sticks, gently lay the dipped strawberry onto wax paper until the white candy melt sets.

We are also taking one of our favorite desserts with us, our Strawberry Pretzel Dessert! Yum, yum, yum! Be safe friends and family and give thanks to those who deserve our respect this memorial weekend!

LPN Graduation Party

I am so proud of my husband! He stuck it out and saw it through! Going back to college in  your 40’s is no walk in the part but he was determined to show our children it is never too late to dream and never too late to learn! With the help of family and friends we threw the biggest surprise graduation party I’ve ever been to! There were around 90 family and friends there to celebrate with us! In 19 years together, I’ve never been able to surprise the hubby. He always figures it out if I’m up to something and often can guess exactly what it is I bought him for his birthday or Christmas…it’s quite annoying! But no more! I got him good and he was so humbled by the show of support and love! Just wanted to share a couple of goodies I had made for his party and also what went into his Thank You baggies!

First I have to throw up a picture of the 3 loves of my life! When you graduate from nursing school, it is all about the pinning ceremony. It is during this ceremony that someone you choose who is important to you pins you officially making you a nurse. Steve from the beginning wanted our sons to pin him! It brought tears to my eyes seeing my 2 1/2 men on stage! A very proud Pack moment for sure!

No grad party (or any party I have anything to do with, lol) is complete without cake pops! I found these awesome Wilton mini cupcake liners that went perfect with my famous dip and drop cake pops. I made the personalized flags to complete the cake pops!

I had to come up with some centerpieces for the large picnic tables. I try to always make something functional and making the centerpieces edible did the trick! I made thermometer rods! They are pretzel rods dipped in white candy melt with a drizzled red line and drizzled black hash marks. They were so easy to make! Literally took a total of an hour to make over 60 of these! The hardest part was finding 60 intact pretzel rods! I used 3 squeeze bottles (like for ketchup and mustard) to make these. I filled one bottle with the white candy melt discs. Popped the plastic bottle in the microwave for 60 seconds. Then I squeezed the bottle and put it back in for 25 seconds. Although I filled the bottle to the top with the candy melts, once they melted down, it was about 1/2 full. I just put more candy melts inside and gave it another two times in the microwave at 25-30 second increments squeezing the bottle between cycles. Make sure the white candy melt goes all the way to the top! Do not put on the lid. Lay out wax paper. Dip the pretzel rods straight down into the bottle. Gently swirl the rod in a circular motion over the bottle opening to allow the excess candy melt to drip back down. Lay flat on the wax paper. Repeat until all rods are dipped. I had to refill the plastic squeeze bottle one time with candy melt discs and put it back in the microwave. Toward the end, I would dip the rod and gently squeeze the bottle (don’t squeeze so tight that you are touching the rod inside) and the candy melt would come up the rod and cover it. Repeat the same steps in melting the red and black candy melts in their own bottles. Squeeze a dollop of red (to create the bulb) and pull down the length of the white. Repeat until all rods have red bulb/lines (be sure the white is fully set before squeezing on the red). Once the red is fully set, squeeze black hash marks in even increments up the rod). These were so easy to make and so cute. I did wrap each one individually for the party. I used wide mouth canning jars filled lightly with foil shredded paper on the bottom. I was able to get about 5-6 in each mason jar. It was so cute and I received a lot of compliments on them. Be sure to check out my other post on how to turn these thermometers into an awesome Mother’s Day gift HERE.

Lastly, with that many people who attended his party, I knew I wanted to have the Thank You bags ready for guests as they were leaving (saving us time and money sending out Thank You cards in the mail). Also, it gave me the chance to personalize his Thank You gifts with a nurse theme! Enclosed in each bag was a tiny bottle of bubbles found at Dollar Tree (you get 6 for only $1.00). The bottles each had these cute graduation caps on top for the lids! Next there were 2 band-aids, 2 antibiotic packets and a lifesaver inside. I found these awesome thank you cards at Flower Factory. They were only $10.00 for 50 of the cards with envelopes! The inside was blank. I made a tag using Word. If you read the card, the Lifesaver candy really completed the bags! With fancy scissors the tags were cut out and taped down using double-sided tape. I also had a small wallet-size photo of Steve in his scrubs. The red bags themselves were purchased at Flower Factory and were around $3.00 for 12. A total of 48 bags were made and laid out on the end of the gift/card table. The Thank You bags were perfect! Big props going out to Rhonda who was the one who actually put the bags together for me! I couldn’t have done this surprise graduation party without the help of family and friends! Thanks to Beth, Rhonda, Lamira, Tami and Steve’s parents, Ingrid and Chuck, who provided all the food! Grilled Italian chicken breasts, boneless marinated pork, hotdogs and several different salads! What a wonderful memory we will always have!

Congrats Steve, we are really proud of you!

Blessings

craftycreativekathy.wordpress.com

I had a very ulterior motive when I started this blog full of crafts and recipes. With every recipe, I post the directions along with several photos. I am PHighting pulmonary hypertension. It is a battle I will lose one day. Before that happens, I want my children to have our family recipes.

Pumpkin Cake with Apple Cider Glaze – craftycreativekathy.wordpress.com

I want to create a photo book that is a Pack Family Cookbook full of the recipes we love and pictures of each step of the directions. Keeping the recipes all on my blog will make it easy for me to copy the recipes and photos over to a photo book. I plan on putting photos of our family throughout our personal cookbook. I will then make two copies, one for each of our sons. When pulmonary hypertension wins, the kids will have something that will always remind them of their mommy. That was always the plan. One day when they are adults, they can tell their kids that what they are eating for dinner was Grandma’s recipe.

In the process of maintaining my blog, I felt compelled to share our story, our PHight with pulmonary hypertension. The problem with pulmonary hypertension is that it is a rare disease. Not many people know what it is. I am a nurse and didn’t know what pulmonary hypertension was. We all know what hypertension is. Regular (peripheral) hypertension is a common diagnosis. When you put “pulmonary” in front of it though, it turns into a nightmare. I bared all HERE about our PHight because awareness is the key…it is the answer. If awareness increases then funding increases. If the funding increases then the research increases. If the research increases then the treatment options increase. Eventually, we will have a cure for this dreaded disease but it starts with just raising awareness.

My blog is just a tiny part of the enormous World Wide Web. I’m in awe when folks stumble onto my website. I don’t advertise. I don’t have sponsors. I am touched when someone finds my blog and takes the time to read about our PHight. I am humbled when they take the time to leave an uplifting comment. And today, I am speechless because someone who stumbled on my blog, took the time to read our story, found it in their heart to comment, went farther than I have ever imagined.

Ms. Laura Young made a tribute donation in honor of myself to the Pulmonary Hypertension Association. This has never happened to me before. I have not ever met Ms. Laura Young. Our interaction was brief: she left a very kind comment and I responded with an appreciative comment. Yet this one person took the time to make a donation to the very organization that is funding some cutting-edge research on pulmonary hypertension. My goal with sharing our story was to raise awareness…never did I think it would lead to a donation.

Thank you Ms. Laura Young. You’ve touched my heart. The world is full of amazing people and I’m thankful that one of those amazing people stumbled onto my little ol’ blog. Ms. Laura, you have made my day, my month, my year, and my life with your thoughtful gesture.

May God bless you always.

Bouquet of Beer

We celebrated our Papa Jerry’s birthday today! Although Jerry is not my biological father, he has never treated me any less than his own biological daughter. I love Jerry for being the father I didn’t know I needed. My children love him and only know him to be Papa. Papa doesn’t like a lot of fancy things so we wanted to get him something we knew he would use. Who doesn’t like a 6 pack of beer every once in a while? Well, to turn beer into a gift, you have to glam it up some! So I added foam flower petals and ta-dah…he now has a bouquet of beer! To make the petals, buy sheets of foam in the colors of your choice. Using this TEMPLATE, cut out 6 flower shapes (or however much you need). I just googled images for flower petals and found these 3 to be perfect. Ignore the designs inside the flowers, you only want to trace around the outline of the flowers onto your foam sheets. To place the flowers over the bottle caps, cut an “X” in the center of the flower that is large enough for the flower to slip over the bottle cap. Gently push the flower down and then pull back up to just under the bottle cap so that the peaks of the “X” are pointing downward and only the flower surrounds the bottle cap. With the thin long petals (the yellow ones), it is best to cut the “X” and place the petal over the bottle cap before cutting the thin petals. This is a simple gift that any man would appreciate! Just think, Father’s Day is just a couple of months away! Our Bouquet of Beer brought a smile to our Papa Jerry’s face and even a little chuckle. Happy Birthday Papa Jerry, we love you!

Pillow Sandies

Many years ago, Steve’s great uncle came to visit from Arkansas. He said he wanted to make dessert and came back from the store with 3 ingredients: milk, pecan sandies and whip cream. What he created was heavenly to say the least. We can’t recall what he actually called his dessert and through the years, Steve and I would refer to this dessert as Pillow Sandies. Because it is literally pecan sandies layered in pillows of whip cream…and it is devilishly delicious! You really have to make this before judging. It is light and airy with a nutty, butter sensation. Yep, it’s that good.

Printable Recipe: Pillow Sandies

Ingredients:

2 – 8oz tubs of whipped cream
1 pkg Keebler’s Pecan Sandies
Milk

Directions:

Pour milk into a short but wide cup. Make sure the milk is deep enough to dunk a whole cookie into.

Dip one cookie at a time into the milk, dunk it all the way in and hold for 3-5 seconds. Spencer loved dipping each of the cookies. Of course I scrubbed the heck out of his hands before the dips! I loved hearing him count to 5 for each dip. You can add more milk as needed to the cup.

Place dipped cookie in a glass round dish. Continue dipping until you have an even layer of cookies. Dollop whipped cream on top and smooth into a 1/2″ layer of whipped cream ensuring all the cookies are covered.

Repeat steps 2-4 until you come down to the last 3-4 cookies.

With remaining cookies, crumble them on top of the last layer of whipped cream.

Cover and place in fridge to chill for at least 2 hours. Spoon out to serve. No it’s not the prettiest of desserts because it does have to be scooped and slopped onto a plate but the flavor really is out of this world. As far as ease, it’s the best. 3 ingredients that is dipped and dolloped into fluffy pillow layers. Yep, it’s that simple and that good!

Original Design Basketball Afghan

Finally finished this season’s basketball afghan! The afghan is raffled off by GMHS basketball parents and 100% of proceeds goes toward the basketball program to help with the end of season banquet. It is completely reversible and super thick. Finished size is approximately 46″ x 46″. This is an original crochet pattern that I designed and I am really happy how well it came together 🙂 I think I’ll call this 5 Man Basketball Block. I wanted to make sure there were 5 basketballs the size of actual basketballs to represent the 5 players on the court. This is a twist on my Grand Slam Baseball afghan pattern that incorporated granny squares. The Grand Slam Baseball afghan pattern is for sale in my Etsy shop and Ravelry shop for only $6.00. If you have that pattern, you just change the stitching of the large balls to single crochet and attach to the large circles to create the Basketball stitching. If looking for a very unique basketball pattern, check out this post on my blog and the Basketball Block pattern is also sold in my Etsy shop and Ravelry Shop for only $6.00. And I might as well throw up a link for the Touchdown Football pattern that also is on sale for $6.00 in my Etsy shop and Ravelry shop. My raffled, crocheted afghans have raised close to $1500.00 altogether for the football, basketball and baseball program. Use your God-given talents and find a way to give back. You can give more than just money (and for some, money is not an option) and nothing is more rewarding than going to a football game and seeing any of the so far 10 afghans I’ve made and donated to be raffled being used in the stands by Cruiser fans. In the end, it’s all about the kids!

Blessed with Friendships

In a few days, I will be another year older. I am reflective by nature and this rings true especially today. When I think of where I came from to where I am at now, it only makes me more hopeful for my future. I am truly blessed with a marriage made in Heaven with the love of my life and my very best friend, Steve, and I am blessed twice over to be the mom of two amazing boys. On top of that, I have the greatest friends. As I leisurely travel down my own memory road, I can see around every corner there is a true friend walking beside me through every stage of my life. Friends who were there for the good times and crying with me during the worst of times…from Vivian who is the oldest friend I have (we’ve been friends since I was 8 years old) to Shawnee who gave me a home when I literally didn’t have one to my friends now who almost a year ago today, literally dropped everything to be my side. Almost a year ago I was told I had three masses in my abdomen, one on my pancreas and two on my ovaries. I could see in the physician’s eyes how bleak this news was as it almost seemed certain I had cancer that metastasized. I was in shock and dazed when my husband picked up the phone and called one of my friends early that morning around 7:00AM. In less than two hours, not one but five of my closest friends were around my hospital bed holding my hand and crying with me. Just like that, they dropped everything and rushed to be at my side and I know that every one of them was at work or on their way to work that morning. With their prayers and the Grace of God, every mass was benign. Each of my friends have fought along side me against pulmonary hypertension. Together, we are beating the odds. To my friends, old and new, close and far this post today is dedicated to you. Thank you for crying with me, lifting me up when I was down, listening to me when I was being unreasonable, ignoring me when I was being cranky, laughing with me till we cried and for loving me not only at my best of times but at my worst of times. People wish for one true friend and I know I am blessed with several. I may not talk to you everyday but it doesn’t matter. Our friendship is etched into my memory and housed in my heart. There are many more than those pictured below. From the very depths of my soul, thank you for being my friend and I only hope I have been as good a friend to you. The photos below are of some of my dearest friends (not all of them) along with quotes about friendship. In a few short days, I will be celebrating another year on Earth and please know, I am celebrating because each of you are an important part of my life. Thanks for making my life so much better. I love you guys.

Thank you to my dear friends

for leaving your footprints in my heart.

Soft, Iced Oatmeal Cookies

I do believe I have a new favorite cookie! I know, I know, I know…I say that every time I try a new cookie recipe, lol! But I really mean it this time! These Soft, Iced Oatmeal Cookies are AWESOME! Do you remember when you were a kid and your mom brought home those brick hard iced oatmeal cookies? They were cheap and they were literally bricks! Remember…you would dip the cookie in milk for like five minutes to soften it or let it sit on your tongue for like 10 minutes till it broke down just so you could chew them? The funny thing is, as hard as those cookies were, I still loved the flavor. This cookie reminds me of those beloved brick, iced oatmeal cookies however now they are even more flavorful and super soft! I’ve made these twice in the past couple weeks. The first time I took the cookies up to Mom & Dad’s for our annual prime rib family dinner (my absolute favorite meal in the world is Mom’s prime rib). I popped the lid off the container of cookies and I do believe they were pretty much gone before dinner…and we only arrived maybe half an hour before dinner was served, lol! 

The second time, I sent a dozen over to one of the kid’s in the neighborhood that is friends with our oldest son who had an unexpected surgery. I figured some homemade treats would cheer him right up.

Hope you are feeling better Kyle!

The rest of the batch disappeared that night between the kids and our kids’ friends (somehow we ended up having way too many teenage boys hanging out playing xbox, lol). So I’d love to tell you how long you could store these cookies for but I can’t get them to last any longer than a few hours, lol! Make these and your welcome…because I know you will thank me later, lol!

 Printable Recipe: Soft Iced Oatmeal Cookies

 Ingredients:

• 2 cups old-fashioned oats (NOT quick cook oats)
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2-1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 cup softened margarine
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Icing:

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 3-4 tablespoons milk

 Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place parchment paper on top of a cookie sheet.  Spread wax paper out on a counter or table.

In a medium-sized bowl, stir together the oats, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.

You don’t want to use quick-cook oats for this recipe. The old-fashioned oats create that awesome texture that makes these cookies undeniably oatmeal.

In a large bowl, mix together the margarine, brown sugar and sugar with a hand mixer till well combined. What I love most about this recipe is that the dough is completely mixed together with a hand mixer (with the exception of the initial stirring of the dry ingredients). With my pulmonary hypertension, it’s hard for me to hand stir a lot of recipes so I really appreciate the recipes that come together with a mixer!

Add eggs to the large bowl one at a time and mix together until dough is smooth for approximately 2-3 minutes.

When I lay my margarine sticks out on the counter to soften up, I also set out the eggs so that they too warm up to room temperature. I think it helps the dough come together better when the eggs are not so cold. Add vanilla to the large bowl and mix together.

Add half of the dry ingredients and mix scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix, again, scrape down the sides of the bowl. Using a 1-inch cookie scoop, scoop out a level portion onto the parchment paper leaving at least 2 inches between each cookie.

To ensure a more round cookie, carefully release the dough from the cookie scoop into a round mound (see photo above). Look at all those delicious cinnamon specks in that dough! Bake for 10 minutes until the edges are golden. Don’t overbake…you really want this to be a soft cookie. Also, since they cool down initially on the cookie sheet, it will continue to cook for a minute or two outside of the oven. The cookies puff up slightly but the centers will flatten out some while the cookies are cooling down.

Allow cookies to cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes. Transfer the cookies to the wax paper previously spread out on the counter or table and allow the cookies to completely cool down before icing. I always use parchment paper whenever I bake cookies. I buy it at GFS and they come in this huge package of pre-cut sheets. Of course, their pre-cut is meant for industrial kitchens that use these oober huge cookie sheets. I just cut their parchment paper in half and it fits perfectly in my large cookie sheets. If I’m using my smaller cookie sheets (around 10 in x 15 in size), I do have to cut the parchment paper a second time in half so that it fits in those cookie sheets. I don’t mind the few minutes it takes to cut the parchment paper (I cut several layers at once) because they are so much cheaper than parchment paper by the roll you would find at the grocery store.

To also save money, I use each sheet of parchment paper at least twice. After I remove the cookies from one side, I flip the paper over and reuse it. These cookies come right off the parchment paper without leaving any crumbs behind so I was actually able to use just two sheets (one for each of the two cookie sheets I used) several times by just flipping them over and then back over again. Obviously reusing parchment paper won’t work for every recipe, especially if it is a wet cookie dough. But if the cookie comes off cleanly from the parchment paper, then save some money and use it again for the next batch of cookies! This recipe made approximately 64 cookies, yep, that’s a mighty fine number of cookies to come from one recipe! I’m thinking this will have to become one of the cookies I make for Christmas from here on out because they look snowy and you can make so many of them at once!

In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the powdered sugar and 3 tablespoons of milk with a hand mixer until the icing is smooth and free of lumps.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. The icing should have a thick consistency (add another tablespoon of milk if too thick), slightly thicker than Mod Podge.

Using a silicone pastry brush, brush icing onto the cookies in a thin, even layer. Don’t cake it on, you want to see the icing go into the nooks and crannies while leaving some peaks exposed. I guess you could use a bristle pastry brush, but it slid off easier from the silicone pastry brush (which by the way is Betty Crocker brand and I bought it at Dollar Tree for a buck).

As the icing dries, the bristle marks seem to melt away and the icing becomes this smooth glaze with a pretty glossy effect.

Spencer was adamant he should ice the cookies. I did convince him to let me ice half of them and he did end up icing the other half.

As you can tell, I’m not sure if he was icing the cookie or his hand? He just kept giggling because the pastry brush tickled his chubby little palms.

After all the cookies were iced (and it took a long time for Spencer to finish icing his half of the cookies, lol) he asked if he could just “paint” his hand…

I thought that’s what he was doing already?

I told him to go for it and then he licked it all off one finger at a time, lol!

Allow the icing to dry for approximately 20-30 minutes before storing in an airtight container.

This is really a yummilicious cookie! Enjoy!

Breast Cancer Awareness Cake Pops

Made some Breast Cancer Awareness Cake Pops for a dear friend of mine. Her daughter, Mimi, is a cheerleader and this week is “Cheer for a Cure” week. The cheerleaders have been raising money and awareness about breast cancer.

Simple design, yet powerful!

We made some solid chocolate Cocoa Stix and donated it to the cheerleader’s bake sale earlier this week. These Cocoa Stix are awesome when stirred into 8 oz of hot milk for a rich hot cocoa. They are also yummy when stirred into a cup of coffee for an instant cafe mocha. We pray everyday that several diseases that devastate a family will soon have a cure…still hoping and praying for a cure for Pulmonary Hypertension. We hope everyone reading this is doing their part to help find cures and better treatment options for breast cancer, heart disease, mental illness, diabetes, pulmonary hypertension and so on. We’ve come a long way in the medical field but still have only scratched the surface when it comes to tackling many different diseases and ailments. So raise money and raise awareness…YOU can make a difference!