Chicken Paprikash Chili with Goat Cheese & Chive Spaetzle

Chicken Paprikash is so comforting and cozy and proves that paprika isn’t just for plate decoration! This spin on chili takes that classic comfort dish to the next level. Treasure Cave Goat Cheese Crumbles bring tangy richness to the party and it’s all nestled on a bed of highly addictive but shockingly simple homemade Spaetzle! 

Chicken Paprikash Chili with Goat Cheese & Chive Spaetzle

For the Chive Spaetzle

2 eggs

1/3 cup milk

¾ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon white pepper

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

1 Tablespoon chives

1 cup flour

For the Chicken Paprikash Chili

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 large shallot, thinly sliced 

8 ounces chopped mushrooms

1 ½ teaspoons Kosher salt 

¾ teaspoon pepper 

4 cloves garlic, minced 

2 tablespoons Hungarian sweet paprika 

½ teaspoon Hungarian hot paprika

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 

Pinch of sugar 

1 pound ground chicken

1 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth 

1/4 cup sour cream 

1 tablespoon white vinegar 

1 (3.5 ounce) container Treasure Cave Crumbled Goat Cheese

To make the Spaetzle: Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, salt, white pepper, nutmeg and chives. Add in the flour and stir until well combined. If it is too runny, then add a little more flour. If it is too thick, then add a little more milk. You are wanting the consistency of a thick pancake batter.

Pour the batter into the bottom of a spaetzle maker (I made one by poking holes into the bottom of an aluminum pie pan with a chopstick). Using a spatula, press the batter through the holes of the pan. 

Stir the pot and allow the dumplings to cook for about 2 minutes, or until they float. Remove with a slotted spoon and place on a greased small cookie sheet. Set aside to use later.

To make the Chili: Melt 3 tablespoons of the butter, over medium heat, in a small dutch oven. Add the shallot and mushrooms and cook until softened, about 10 minutes. Add the salt, pepper, garlic and both paprikas and cook, stirring, until the paprikas smell toasted, about 2 minutes. Add the flour, sugar and the remaining 1 tablespoon butter and continue to cook for 2 minutes longer. Add the ground chicken and allow it to brown, stirring frequently and scraping the bottom of the pot, for 8 minutes. Stir in the broth and allow the mixture to simmer for 10 minutes. Once the mixture has simmered and thickened, turn the heat off and stir in the sour cream and vinegar. 

To serve, ladle the chili into bowls. Top with a scoop of spaetzle and sprinkle with goat cheese. Serve immediately.

Chili Cheese Spaghetti Squash Bowls

The recipe I'm sharing with you today I am so crazy proud of!! It only calls for 4 ingredients (I don't count salt and pepper), is gluten free, is super simple to put together and is absolutely crave worthy! 

To make this dish I used some leftover chili we had in the fridge and I can almost guarantee you the next time we have chili this will be the way we serve the rest of it BUT your favorite store bought brand is absolutely fine as well! Beans, no beans, leftover, canned; whatever -  it all works!

It's pretty funny how many gluten free recipes I have been creating lately considering no one in my house is actually gluten free. I realize how lucky I am (and how rare that is these days) to say that, but none of us have any dietary restrictions that we have to adhere to. Even so, my husband really is trying to be as low-carb as possible lately and my competitive side comes out when any challenge is given to me in the kitchen. I have enjoyed finding ways to make meals that make him happy all while having my kids cleaning their plates not even noticing a difference. 

 

Chili Cheese Spaghetti Squash Bowls

1 spaghetti squash (about 8 inches long)

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

2 cups chili

2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese

2 Tablespoons thinly sliced green onion

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cut off the stem end of the spaghetti squash with a very sharp knife. Then cut the spaghetti squash into 4 (2-inch-thick) rings.  Scoop out and discard the seeds from the middle and place the rings on a medium sized cookie sheet. Spray the rings on both sides with olive oil spray and sprinkle evenly with salt and pepper. Place in the oven to roast for 40 minutes.

Once the squash rings are roasted, fill each squash ring with chili and sprinkle with cheese. Place back in the oven for 5-7 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and bubbly.

Remove from the oven, sprinkle with green onions and serve immediately.

Are you following me on Instagram yet? If not, please do! 

You can find my latest recipe postings and  updates on Beignet and Roux!

Chili Cheese Dog Egg Rolls

Happy Halloween!! 

I think I did it. I think I made something tempting enough to eliminate the pre- Trick or Treating dinner struggle. If your kids are anything like mine, they are going to be way too excited about Trick or Treating to willingly sit still long enough to eat anything before the bag load of sugar they're about to get tonight. So my plan of attack was to make something so tempting, they won't be able to say no. My Chili Cheese Dog Egg Rolls are crispy, cheesy and absolutely delicious. I've never met a kid that didn't like hot dogs, mine are no exception, but to wrap up all the cheesy meaty goodness in a crispy egg roll wrapper? They're going to gobble them up!
I suggest serving them with mustard, pickles and if you're spicy like me, pickled jalapeno slices!

Chili Cheese Dog Egg Rolls

6 cups vegetable oil
3 all natural, all beef hot dogs
1 ¼ cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
¼ cup finely diced white onion
¾ cup good quality canned or leftover homemade chili
8 Twin Dragon Egg Roll Wrappers
½ cup yellow mustard
½ cup pickles (optional)

In an electric fryer or large high sided skillet fitted with a candy thermometer, bring the oil up to 375 degrees over medium high heat.
Roughly chop the hot dogs into bite sized pieces. Add the chopped hot dogs, cheese, onion and chili to a small mixing bowl and stir to combine.
Lay an egg roll wrapper on a large cutting board with one corner of the wrapper pointing toward you and lightly moisten all 4 edges with water. Place ¼ to 1/3 cup of the filling just below the center of the wrapper.  Fold bottom corner over mixture, fold sides in, and roll up tightly.
Fry egg rolls for 3 minutes, or until golden and crisp.
Serve with mustard for dipping, and pickles if desired
Makes 8 egg rolls

You can follow JSL Foods here, on Facebook and on Twitter

#TwinDragon #ChefYaki

You can purchase JSL Foods Twin Dragon products at Albertsons, Shaw's, Von's, Stater Bros, Lucky's, Food Maxx, Fred Meyer, QFC, Cub Foods, Rainbow Foods, Safeway, Associated Stores, Price Rite, Shop Rite, Winco, Price Chopper and Gelson's!

Founders Day BBQ Cookoff

 This past weekend was Dripping Spring's Founders Day Festival; a 3 day event complete with a parade, carnival, live music, tons of local vendors to shop from and BBQ cookoff right in the heart of town. Last year we had applied to be part of the cookoff but we never got a spot. We applied again and this year and were finally won a space!

We packed and shopped and prepped as much as we could early in the week and drove our gigantic rig out at noon on Friday to begin set up. It really is amazing to see the process of all the teams setting up on a small street in such a short amount of time. Louis built two bar sections to put in front of the pit area, we put some bar stools up and we started unpacking and organizing immediately.

After settling in, we started to chat with the teams on either side of us. Both of them had twice the space that we did and had been competing int his cookoff for 15 and 18 years. Also, each team had matching uniforms and at least 12 people (if not more) in their crew working the whole time. It was definitely intimidating to be sandwiched in between these two, but luckily one of the teams was super friendly, partied the whole time, was serving us drinks and gave me the nickname "NOLA girl"

Before we knew it, the parade was starting and friends were coming by to see the set up and say hi! The first entries to turn in were due at 7:30 for the Margarita round. I made 2 entries; a Pineapple Habanero Margarita with a Sweet and Spicy Sugar Rim (recipe at the bottom) and a Mango Serrano Margarita with a Smoked Salt Rim

After turn in we were able to relax and hang out with friends. It was a blast, but by 11 I was exhausted so we headed home to be ready for the next day 

Louis got back to our spot at 4 am on Saturday to begin the brisket and I met him later with the kids at 6 am. We knew Saturday would be the busiest day for us with Chicken, Ribs and Brisket due at different times of the day. All meat had to be served off the bone (even the ribs) which I thought was strange, but our ribs and chicken came out great!

Turn in time is always stressful!

Luckily, we had awesome friends taking pictures all weekend for us since we were too busy to do it ourselves. Thanks again DJ!!

Although the brisket had a great smoke ring and was seasoned perfectly, it stalled way too long for us to recover from, so it wasn't as tender as we would have liked.

Our other awesome neighbors gave us a huge batch of Smoked Venison Sausage and Cheese and Jalapeno Venison Sausage. We grilled batches of it all weekend long and set it out as samples. Brianna really loved helping with that part. Thanks again Derrick and Amber!

Apparently I make a ton of faces while cooking.... 

Smoke Ring

Ahhh the life of a competition kid

Gotta get a funnel cake at least once!

Sunday morning started bright and early again, this time for Chili and Salsa turn-ins. Me, my mom, Louis and a few friends judged the salsa round which was fun. We tasted and judged 16 salsas. Most of them were good, but some of them were pretty awful

After judging we started on Bloody Marys to share, and the chili

In the end, we made final table for our chicken and ribs and placed 7th overall out of 120 entries for ribs! For our first time, competing against teams that have been doing this for almost 20 years, I guess we didn't do too badly.

I'm sunburned, hoarse and everything we had out there smells like smoke now, but I learned a lot through the process and look forward to doing even better next year!

Pineapple Habanero Margarita with a Sweet and Spicy Sugar Rim

2 cups silver tequila

1 cup fresh pineapple chunks

1/4 - 1/2 habanero pepper 

1 Tablespoon tajin seasoning

1/3 cup turbinado sugar

In a high powered blender puree the tequila, pineapple chunks and depending on how spicy you want it, use 1/4 to 1/2 of the pepper habanero pepper. Strain through a fine mesh strainer. Combine the tajin seasoning and sugar in a shallow dish. Dampen the rim of your glass with some of the strained tequila and dip into the sugar mixture.

2 cups strained infused tequila

1/4 cup agave

1 cup fresh lime juice

1 cup passion fruit juice

In a pitcher stir together the tequila, agave, lime juice and passion fruit juice. Fill the rimmed glasses with ice and margarita mixture. Serve immediately.

New Win in New York!

Remember a while ago when I posted my Mushroom Chicken Marsala Chili for the Bush's Beans Chili Cook-off? Well, guess what? I WON!! I almost fell over when I got the email and probably re-read it a thousand times just to be sure I wasn't dreaming!

I still can't believe it myself. Nothing beats getting those kind of emails. I will never get tired of it!

 So, I got the email that I had won and literally was supposed to be in New York within a week. I was nervous about getting everything squared away with the kids, but I am super lucky that my dad (who lives 8 hours away from me) is retired and dropped everything to drive in and stay at my house to take care of the kids and dogs while Louis and I were whisked away and spoiled in NYC!

We got to the Ace hotel and there was the cutest saying painted right on the wall and the Empire State Building was right outside our window.

The welcome bag was an unexpected nice touch! Bottled water, t-shirts, postcards, snacks and $1,000 in Visa gift cards! They really know how to spoil a person!

Once we dropped off our bags in the room I couldn't wait to get downstairs to eat. Lucky for us, the hotel's restaurant is The Breslin.  I've seen it featured on Food Network and in magazines for years and couldn't wait to try it. I had a glass of prosecco, Louis had an Old Fashioned- perfect way to start our trip and calm my nerves from flying! For an appetizer we split the Seafood Sausage with Beurre Blanc & Chives. It was delicious, and we were both starving, so no picture of that. I peer pressured Louis into getting the Chargrilled Lamb Burger with cumin mayo, feta and thrice cooked chips and I got the BLT with Lamb Bacon, Guajillo, Fermented Green Tomatoes and Gaufrettes. We split both of them, and while they were absolutely delicious, if I had to choose, the BLT was the better.

 That night we had tickets to see The Book of Mormon so we wanted to have an early dinner within walking distance of the theater. We ended up at The Paramount Bar and Grill. The hotel and restaurant is beautiful! We started with the Tuna Poke with Tarro Chips and Avocado. I was still pretty full from lunch so I got the Burrata with Heirloom Tomatoes and Grilled Bread and Louis got the Pan Seared Scallops with Pureed Carrots, Blistered Tomatoes and Crispy Shallots. Everything we tried was absolutely delicious but the service was painfully slow and the few questions I asked the waitress about the menu she just made up answers for so not sure I'd ever go back there.

After dinner we walked to the theater, I got my sippy cup of wine and we had great seats! After the show we went to The John Dory Oyster Bar, had a few snacks and then went to bed. I was exhausted and I knew the next day would be a long one!

Bright and early we headed over to The Daily Meal offices for taping! I was SO nervous. Like can't eat, sweating in 15 degree weather, pacing the floor nervous. The kitchen was gorgeous, and when I got there everything was prepped and ready to go for me. I was excited to meet and cook with Chef Jeffrey Saad and luckily he was such a pleasure to work with! He's just a down to earth friendly guy that really made taping the video easy and fun. I quizzed him all about his experience on The Next Food Network Star and loved picking his brain!

The thing that took us the longest was figuring out how to turn on the burners! 

We taped one shot and all of the production people were really happy with the way it went, so I felt very relieved. They brought in lunch from Mario Batali's Otto- pizzas, salads, brussels sprouts, marinated olives, pasta. They had a ton of food, and since I was too nervous to eat breakfast earlier, I tried almost everything! On the schedule it was planned for me to be there for the taping until 6pm, but I was done by 2. They told us they were happy with what I did and for us to go enjoy the city, so we headed down the street to Eataly. I just love walking through that place! It's like a culinary Ikea- filled with everything you didn't know you needed and very hard to find your way out of. We had a drink at Manzo before walking back to the hotel

For our last night in town we made reservations at Scarpetta

The dining room is so pretty, warmly lit and feels very romantic. We got seated right by the front window and it was nice to watch the world go by outside while we ate. The only downfall was that we felt really rushed while there. We ordered a cocktail to start the night and the 3 course tasting with the wine pairing. Before we could finish anything they were attempting to take our plates away and bringing us the new wine pairings. Other than that, the night was perfect. The bread basket alone is worth going for! Since we were rushed I didn't even get to take as many pictures as I would have liked. For starters I got the Creamy Polenta with a fricassee of truffled mushrooms- totally decadent and delicious, and Louis had the Raw Yellowtail with pickled red onion. As our mains, I had to get the Spaghetti with Tomato and Basil. It's what Scott Conant is known for and it is the most comforting bowl of pasta ever. You can tell it's hand made and I cleaned my plate with no problem! Louis had the Black Cod with braised fennel and concentrated tomato- delicious, but I liked my pasta more. Even though we had ordered the 3 course tasting menu, I had heard so much raving about the Duck and Foie Gras Ravioli with marsala reduction, we ordered that as well. If there is Foie Gras written on a menu, Louis wants it. Unfortunately, he wasn't as thrilled with dish like the rest of yelp is and I thought it was just OK. For dessert, I chose the Coconut Pana Cotta- my least favorite dish of the night and Louis got the Valrhona Chocolate Cake. If you ever get a chance to go to Scarpetta, get the spaghetti and skip the dessert!

As you can see so far, we had an absolutely amazing time through  this whole experience. I didn't realize that once I was home Bush's would have another surprise delivered to me! 

I was totally blown away and I've already used the beans and the Le Creuset!

Now, to end the longest blog post ever, here's the link of the video we shot! I hope you like it!

Mushroom Chicken Marsala Chili

On busy weeknights the best meals are made in one pot, with a manageable list of ingredients while still delivering fabulous flavor. Bonus points for a dish that can be thrown together and then left alone, to simmer on the stove, until everyone is ready to sit down and dig in. I adore classic Chicken Marsala, but on a Tuesday evening I usually don't have time to be breading and browning chicken cutlets while helping two little ones with homework. This delicious chicken chili is the perfect marriage combining the flavors of Chicken Marsala with an easy to throw together, one pot chili. I hope you enjoy it as much as my family did! 

Mushroom Chicken Marsala Chili

4 Tablespoons butter

1 pound ground chicken

1 pound mild Italian sausage

2 large garlic cloves, minced

1 pound baby Portobello (cremini) mushrooms, chopped

¾ cup Marsala wine

2 cans Bush’s Best White Chili Beans in Mild Chili Sauce

2 cups chicken stock

1 teaspoon salt

¾ teaspoon pepper

1 ½ Tablespoons balsamic vinegar

¼ cup parsley, chopped

In a large soup pot, over medium high heat, melt the butter. Add the ground chicken and sausage and cook until lightly browned, about 15 minutes. Add the garlic and mushrooms and sauté about 10 minutes. Once the meat is cooked through and the mushrooms have softened, add the Marsala wine and cook for 3-5 minutes, or until most of the liquid has evaporated from the pot. Add the beans, stock, salt and pepper and allow to simmer for 15 minutes. Stir in the balsamic vinegar, top with chopped parsley and serve. Serves 6-8 people.

This is my entry for Bush's Chili Cookoff! There's still time to enter, so if you'd like to win a trip to New York and star in a video on The Daily Meal, go check it out!