I am so excited to be off of work for Super Bowl weekend!  I don’t claim to know anything about football, when I hear Super Bowl I think snacks.  Seriously, snacks!  Don’t you just love appetizers and finger foods and food in miniature?  Since I don’t get many opportunities to make and eat and revel in snacks, the Super Bowl is one holiday I am always disappointed to miss.  Here are some of my favorite snacks and finger foods for the big game.

1. Pizza Bites

2. Wings

3. Kettle Corn

4. Spinach and Artichoke Dip

5. Salsa Baked Goat Cheese

And since I have hundreds of recipes tagged under “Appetizer” that I haven’t had the chance to make I offer you a few of my snack picks from around the web:

• Tex-Mex Bacon-Wrapped Chicken Nuggets submitted to the kitchn by S.T.
• Lisa’s Antipasto Squares at The Cutting Edge of Ordinary
• Jalapeno Popper Dip at Buns In My Oven
• White Bean Spread with Roasted Garlic at She wears many hats
• Toasted Ravioli at Coconut and Lime
• Sugar Spice Craisin Nuts at One Particular Kitchen
• White Castle Sliders at Big Red Kitchen

Leave links to your favorite super bowl food (or recipes that you’re inspired to try this year!) in the comments so we can all get excited!

Surprisingly when I asked mrChaos if he wanted Chicken and Dumplings for dinner he thought I meant these dumplings, not the dumplings you see above.  What I actually meant was southern-style Chick’n Dumplins, but I asked and mrChaos voted for puffy dumplings over flat.  Both dishes, although very different, are delicious and comforting.  If you like big, fluffy dumplings swimming in your chicken soup this is the chicken and dumplings for you!

This dish can be made with a rotisserie chicken’s worth of meat and store bought chicken stock.  For the very best flavor, though, cook a chicken covered in water in the crockpot the day before or the morning of.

Chicken and Dumplings

• 6 tbsp butter or chicken fat
• 6 tbsp flour
• 5 cups chicken stock
• 2 tbsp heavy cream
• 4 cups cooked chicken meat
• 4 carrots, diced
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 4 celery stalks, diced
• 1 tsp chicken base
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley, minced
• 1 cup buttermilk or milk
• 4 tbsp butter, melted

1. Melt fat in a deep, wide pot (with a lid) over medium heat.
2. Sprinkle with flour and cook, stirring for several minutes, until golden brown.
3. Add chicken stock and cream, stirring until mixture comes up to a simmer.
4. Add chicken and vegetables.  Add chicken base and taste broth.  Season with salt and pepper to your liking.
5. In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and parsley.
6. Add milk and melted butter to the flour mixture and stir just until combined.
7. Keep chicken mixture at a simmer and use two spoons to drop portions of dough into the pot until surface of chicken mixture is covered.
8. Cover pot and cook without disturbing for 15 minutes.
9. Check dumplings with a toothpick for done-ness and serve.

  Thanks again for your comments, it is my great pleasure to bring you these recipes!

Things might be quiet on the homepage for a bit (and in your feed readers if you haven’t stopped by in awhile).  I have been making some of our old family favorites lately and taking the opportunity to update their photos. 

Also, I have been experimenting with posting Nutritional Facts on some of my older recipes as well.  I use these recipes often and am constantly recalculating the nutritional facts for myself, so I decided to just add them to the recipes once and for all so they are available to anyone who is interested.

Unfortunately the labels don’t appear quite right in Internet Explorer.  Since I post recipes on chaos in the kitchen for myself but also for you, what do you think?  Do you like having the Nutrition Facts labels?  Even if they don’t look quite right?  And could you let me know which browser you favor and how they appear on your screen?

Below are two recently update recipes and photos, both with Nutrition Facts labels included. 

My favorite healthy soup: Stuffed Pepper Soup.

And everybody in my house loves this quick meal: Chicken or Pork Stir Fry

Thank you so much to anybody who can help!

We had a birthday barbecue for the littlest kid last weekend.  We ground our own hamburger meat using 50% brisket and 50% top sirloin.  I had intended to cut off the fat and weigh it separately to ensure we got a good 80/20 ratio but, alas, I ran out of time.  Hence the burgers were a little dry.  We also double ground the meat which I don’t think was necessary as they were a little crumbly.  Overall, it was a really fun experiment.  If you have a KitchenAid mixer, the Grinder Attachment is about $40 if you want to try experimenting with different meat grinds.

We will definitely continue this experiment.  Next time I might have to actually visit the butcher to request some brisket fat.

Some tips for anyone interested in grinding your own hamburger meat:

1. Keep everything well chilled.  Keep your grinder in the freezer until ready to grind and consider even placing the meat in the freezer briefly on and off during the grinding process.  You want to keep the fat on the meat from getting to warm and clogging up your grinder.
2. Weigh your meat and fat separately to ensure you have an 80/20 ratio.
3. Give yourself plenty of time, it is not a fast process.  If you overload your grinder or you let everything get too warm, your grinder will clog and you’ll get stringy chunks of meat and fat that aren’t ground.  Then you’ll have to re-grind it which is both time consuming and I think upsets the texture of the burger.