Save yourself the trouble

(Picture from Cooking with Paula Deen magazine)

My parents threw a party at the end of the summer and asked me to bring something to pass. I thought that a dessert would be a good idea because I assumed no one else would bring a dessert and it would be a good chance for me to try something new.

Instead of going to the usual foodnetwork.com or cooking light magazine for ideas, I went for Cooking with Paula Deen! I found a recipe for white peach crumble. I thought it was going to be like a wonderful sizzling apple cobber - but it wasn't......and it was a lot of work.

White Peach Crumble

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 Tbs brown sugar - I recommended using quite a bit more
2 Tbs cold, unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 Tbs sliced almonds
4 white peaches, peeled, pitted, and sliced - This part is the real problem in this recipe. It takes a lot of patients to peal, pit, and slice a bunch of peaches. It was suggested that I use canned peaches...I think it's worth a try :-) (yes you can substitute with yellow peaches)
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp orange zest
Vanilla ice cream

• In a small bowl combine flour and brown sugar
• Using a pastry blender, cut in butter until mixtures is crumbly
• Stir in almonds
• In a medium saucepan, combine peaches, sugar, and salt
• Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes or until peaches are tender
• Remove from heat and stir in vanilla orange zest
• Pour peach mixture into a small baking dish
• Sprinkle flour mixture evenly over top and bake for 20 min or until crumble is bubbly and browned - it doesn't say how hot, but I had the oven at 350
• Serve warm with vanilla ice cream

This recipe only serves 2 people, so for the party I had to multiply it a few times. I bought enough for about 2 large peaches per person. This ended up being way too much! We ate this peach crumble for days.
One tip though if you do end up making a lot. Keep the dry crumble part in a Ziploc bag and keep the peaches in a Tupperware container. Then, right before you eat dinner you just throw some peaches in a small Pyrex dish, sprinkle some crumble on top, and put it in the oven. By the time you are done with dinner, your dessert will be ready!

Lets just say the food was the best part of the game...

There was a Packer game today and my husband and I decided to make a mini Packer-Party for ourselves. Well, the food turned out great, it just took longer to make than expected.

I made a taco dip and my husband made hot wings!

Cajun Crab Taco Dip
Take a large platter and arrange the following in order.

• Cajun Crab dip - Found it pre-made at Pick N Save
• Taco sauce
• Shredded cheese
• Shredded lettuce
• Chopped tomatoes
• Black olives
• Pickled jalapeños
• Scallions
• Cilantro

Paula Deen's hot wings
This recipe is very good and very simple. They only hard part was we have never deep fried before - so I had my husband experiment with that. We decided to collaborate with Alton Brown for some deep frying techniques because this recipe is lacking in those directions.

You can obviously use a FryDaddy, but we just used a deep pan, some tongs, and a splash guard.

1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup hot red pepper sauce - We used Frank's Red Hot and Smack my ass and call me Santa
12 disjointed chicken wings

• Deep fry hot wings (Good Eats Episode - Fry Hard)
• Mix butter and sauce in pan and heat through
• Toss sauce and wings

Creamy Roquefort Dip

This is basically a substitute for blue cheese dip. I don't like dipping my hot wings in anything, but if you do this is pretty good.

1/2 cup Roquefort cheese, crumbled - We used Danish blue cheese
1 (3-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon wine vinegar
1/2 cup sour cream

• In a medium size bowl, cream the Roquefort and cream cheese until smooth
• Mix in the remaining ingredients and blend well
• Chill for 2 hours - We chilled for about 5 min