From the Hound's Kitchen: Buffalo Chicken Wing Dip

IT'S SUMMER! You may have noticed unless a) you never leave your house or b) you live in the southern hemisphere. To us, summer means parties and cook outs. Parties often mean everyone brings their own dish and everyone gets a little of everything. This dish is Elfie and my go-to dish for parties. Buffalo Chicken Wing Dip. We got it from my parents to put into the family cook book. This is not a dip that your use to dunk chicken wings in; the dip itself is Buffalo wing flavored. IT'S AWESOME. We highly recommend trying it very soon.


Ingredients

2 8oz packages of Cream cheese, room temperature
3/4 cup pepper sauce, such as Franks Red Hot
1 cup ranch-style salad dressing
2 cups diced or shredded cooked chicken
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (unless using crockpot)
2) In a medium bowl, mix together the cream cheese and hot pepper sauce until well blended.
3) Mix in the ranch dressing, chicken and cheddar cheese

Only do the following if baking:
4) Spread into a 9 x 13 inch baking dish
5) Bake for 30 minutes, if oil collects on top, dab it off with a paper towel.

Serve with tortilla chips and/or celery

Notes: We usually cook ours in a crock pot. We recommend leaving yourself enough time to do it low and slow. It will work on high, but runs a greater risk of burning. We also usually make a double batch and freeze any leftovers. Finally, this dip goes great with the "Homemade" Tortilla Chips we've talked about.

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From the Hound's Kitchen: Spicy Dill Pickles

One of the things about participating in a CSA (Community-Supported-Agriculture) share is that there are times you end up with SO MUCH of one thing that you think you could never think of enough different recipes to use it all up. This is made worse when there are some items that you don't like. That is currently happening with us. We have a WHOLE LOT of cucumbers. So with the first batch of the cucumbers we decided to make pickles. We found this recipe for Spicy Refrigerator Dill Pickles, and modified it so that we could can the pickles instead of having to eat them all in a month, also so that we can give them away as gifts (so we've gotten a head start on Christmas of this year! YAY!). So here is the modified recipe that we did, then after that there are notes about changes to make next time.

Spicy Dill pickles

Ingredients:
12 3-4 inch long pickling cucumbers (ok we used whatever cucumbers we had and just modified the brine amount as we went)
2 cups water
1 3/4 cups white vinegar
3/4 cup PA Dutch Dried Dill Weed
1/2 cup white sugar
8 cloves of garlic, minced
1 1/2 tbsp coarse salt
1 tbsp PA Dutch Pickling Spice
1 1/2 tsp PA Dutch Dill Seed
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes, or more if you like more spice
Ball Pickle Crisp Granules - follow directions for amount per jar


Directions:
1) Cut the ends off the cucumbers and cut them down to size if needed. If they are pickling cucumbers you can skip this part if you would like
2) In a large rubbermaid, combine the cucumbers, water, vinegar, dried dill weed, sugar, garlic, salt, pickling spice, dill seed, and red pepper flakes. Stir (or put the lid on tightly and shake), and let stand at room temperature for 2 hours, until salt and sugar dissolve.
3) Remove the cucumbers to 1 1/2 pint wide mouth jars (or whichever jars you have decided to use and cut the cucumbers to fit into). Ladle in the liquid from the bowl to cover the pickles, but don't fill all the way to the top. Add the correct amount of Ball Pickle Crisp Granules - in this case I put 1/8 tsp in each jar.
4) Use a damp paper towel to clean the rims of the jars, seal with canning lids. Bring water to boil in big pot (enough to cover the top of the jars with about 1 inch of water. Using canning tongs place jars into the water and boil for 20 minutes. Pull jars out, set on cloth towels on counter and allow to cool. Repeat with remaining jars.

We let the pickles sit for 10 days before we opened them to try them. They are definitely pickles. Ours have a strong vinegar bite to them, making Elfie pucker up every time! But that is ok.

Notes (aka things we learned to to next time/suggestions)

• This time we did not strain the herbs out of the brine before canning- next time we will since now we have to scrap off the excess dill weed and dill seed to get to the pickles. 
• The pickling crisp is wonderful! Our pickles are nice and crispy!
• Try boiling the brine & letting it cool before adding the cucumbers to sit for the 2 hours. This should help get the flavoring out of the various dill herbs so that the pickles are nice and dill-y even when we strain out the herbs. 
• Next time we will add more pepper flakes- this batch of pickles was not nearly as spicy as we would like- they are very vinegary though! 

From the Hound's Kitchen: Lazy "Shepherd's Pie"

Hey Everyone! Dork_Syd here again. After the house upheaval Sunday, I was thoroughly spent. Not to mention that Mondays are the final days in my school week and I have papers due. That adds up to not wanting to cook. So until they come up with that gizmo from Back to the Future II, we have to settle to  just use really easy recipes. I came up with this recipe awhile back on a day where Shepherd's Pie sounded awesome but I was too lazy to put in that much work. Thus, Lazy Shepherds Pie was created. Now, those well versed in Irish cuisine may want to stop reading now. The impending spike in blood pressure may kill you.

By definition, Shepherds pie uses mutton (lamb). Strike 1: we're using ground beef. This is technically Cottage Pie. However, there are few who know what Cottage Pie is. Also we're going to use instant mashed potatoes instead of peeled and boiled potatoes. Strike 2: Finally, rather than baking this for an hour or so, we're cooking everything simultaneously to cut down on time and mixing it as it's served. Strike 3: I'd imagine if we pulled this in Eire we would be "potatoed "to death. It's like stoning but with potatoes. Anyway, hope you enjoy this easy recipe as much as we do.

Lazy "Shepard's Pie"

1 lb ground turkey (or beef or chicken- whatever you have)
2 - 12 oz bags of frozen mixed veggies
3 cups water
1 pkg beef stew mix
3 cups mashed potatoes (we use instant)

1) Cook the ground meat until cooked through. If you need to drain the meat, drain it once cooked. (feel free to leave a little of the excess liquid for extra flavor)

2) Add the two bags of frozen mixed veggies and a cup of water. Cover and cook until vegetables are heated through, stirring occasionally.
3) Mix the beef stew mix in the remaining 2 cups of water. Add to the meat and vegetable mixture. Bring to a boil and leave uncovered to cook down the liquid.
4) Serve over mashed potatoes.

If you are feeling adventurous, you can make your own gravy! Replace the water with stock (beef, vegetable, chicken, etc) While the vegetables are cooking add about three tbsp of flour and stir constantly. The flour will thicken the stock. Add the meat and vegetable mixture and continue to cook uncovered until desired thickness is reached.