Sweet Chicken Bacon Wraps

Joining Lynn at Happier Than A Pig In Mud for her celebrity cook-a-long featuring Paula Deen.

The recipe Lynn chose is one of my favorites that I have been making for years...

  Sweet Chicken Bacon Wraps

Ingredients

· 1 1/4 pounds boneless, skinless, chicken breasts (about 4 breasts)

· 1 (1-pound) package sliced bacon

· 2/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar

· 2 tablespoons chili powder



Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Cut chicken breasts into 1-inch cubes. Cut each bacon slice into thirds. Wrap each chicken cube with bacon and secure with a wooden pick. Stir together brown sugar and chili powder. Dredge wrapped chicken in mixture. Coat a rack and broiler pan with nonstick cooking spray. Place chicken wrap on rack in broiler pan. Bake 350 for 30 to 35 minutes or until bacon is crisp.



You can put these in a crock pot on low to keep them warm during the party!

These are the first to go at any gathering, so make a double batch.  Trust me, everyone will thank-you.

Check out Lynn's blog to link to other recipes from Paula

Thanks For Stopping By....

Middle of the Week Feast...

Not often I have a nice juicy filet in the middle of the week... usually it is for a special occasion.  My sister, Sue, was working up in our area this past week so we met up at another sisters home, Bev, on Wednesday night.  Her hubby grilled the filets to PERFECTION!!

Before I get to the filet photo - I have to share with you an appetizer she made.  Bev had found this in a magazine, but then forgot which one so she put it together from memory.  Puff pastry, a creamy spread topped with shaved deli ham then rolled up with an asparagus spear!!  (They also have there own asparagus patch and I went home with a ziploc bag full) Sounds good, right.... tasted wonderful with the asparagus spears baked to the exact consistency.

BEFORE BAKING....

AFTER.....

She mixed a dipping sauce of Dorothy Lynch French Salad Dressing (no relation) with some Honey Mustard...gave it just the right amount of "pop" to the spears.  Recipe (on what she remembered) below:

On one sheet of thawed puff pastry spread the mixture of:

One packet of Ranch dressing dry mix

1/3 Cup Mayo or Miracle Whip

1/3 Cup sour cream

On top of the spread top with shaved deli ham (thin slices)

Cut into long strips and wrap around a spear of asparagus

Sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top

Place on a foil lined cookie sheet that has been sprayed with PAM

Bake at 400 degrees for approximately 25 minutes..or until pastry is browned

Serve immediately...

Now, the filets !!  Breener (my BIL) grilled them to an internal temp of 140 degrees.  These literally melted in your mouth, you could cut them with a butter knife...

                                   

                                    

Sides of some grilled potatoes topped with onions and the last of her sweet corn from last summer rounded out the mid-week feast!

After all that I definitely think Sue needs to visit more often. and I need to be invited out again!!

While visiting I took the time to snap some photos of her 'blooms' and lush acreage....

I tried to get a "Blue Hour" photo - but missed my 'magical hour' by a bit...

I'm joining Michael for Foodie Friday - Check out Designs by Gollum for some great links...

Thanks for stopping by.....

Delectable Appies for a Jewelry Party….

My DIL started selling Premier Design Jewelry so I offered to host a party for her so she could make her beginning quota… what are MIL’s for!

With a party of any kind you need to have something for your guests to enjoy in the form of FOOD, making it easy to handle and nothing too messy!

One thing I knew I wanted to try was the Amaretto Peach Pecan Sauce over Cream Cheese recipe Suzy from Kitchen Bouquet posted a little while ago.


It tasted wonderful, and like Suzy I added just an extra “pinch” of Amaretto!

The other challenge I tackled was an assortment of mini cheesecakes… can’t go wrong with that decision...



I wanted to try out my Norpro mini cheesecake pan, which was so easy to use and produced such nice cheesecakes. But since you need them to cool awhile in the pan, I also pulled out my mini muffin pans and used those also. My tart tamper from Pampered Chef was a "must" in tampering the crust into the pan.



Now to some of the new recipes I tried. First off was a Peanut Butter-Finger Mini Cheesecake from Picky-Palate. Rich, but OH....OH…OH !!


Knew I had to use chocolate in some little way ..so I did a Key Lime cheesecake with a Raspberry topping drizzled with white chocolate.. Found the base key lime recipe at About.com This one was definitely my favorite. The key lime was very subtle..and I cheated a little and used the bottled key lime juice rather than squeezing fresh key limes.



Followed by an assortment of the basic cheesecake recipe you can find anywhere and used topping of lemon curd, blueberries and cherry pie filling…








This was my first time making mini cheesecakes and I know I need to work on perfecting the looks of them..but as long as they tasted great that was half the battle and the most important!! Will be doing more experimenting as time goes by. Picky- Palate has so many great recipes, one that looked really sinful was the Black Bottomed Mini Caramel Pumpkin Cheesecake !!!!

I have a feeling by the time I get through all the ones I want to make I should have the presentation down to perfection!

BASIC CHEESECAKE RECIPE

Crust:
1/3 c. graham cracker crumbs
1 T. sugar
1 T. melted margarine
combine the crumbs, sugar and margarine and press a tablespoonful into the bottom of each of six muffin cups that are lined with cupcake papers. Bake a 325 degrees for 5 minutes.
Filling:
1 8 ounce package of cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 t. lemon juice
1/2 t. grated lemon peel
1/4 t. vanilla
1 egg
Topping of choice
Combine the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, lemon juice and peel, mixing at medium speed with an electric mixer until well blended. Blend in the egg and pour over crust, filling each cup 3/4 full. Bake at 325 degrees for 25 minutes. Allow to cool before removing from the pan. Chill and top with any topping before serving.
Makes 6 servings.

Almost forgot the best part of the party... I was able to earn $130 in free jewlery! The pieces are gorgeous and I'm pretty sure I will adding more over time!!

Flashback & Foodie Friday

Time for Suzy at Kitchen Bouquet's Flashback Friday and Gollums Foodie Friday...love it when I have a recipe that links the two together...






Don't know where the week went..seems like it should only be Tuesday! Since I need to make an appie for a birthday party Saturday I decided to make one of my favorites that I posted earlier in the year on a now defunct blog.. Sweet Chicken Bacon Wraps. They are really yummy and everyone seems to love them - they never last very long!




Sweet Chicken Bacon Wraps
Ingredients
· 1 1/4 pounds boneless, skinless, chicken breasts (about 4 breasts)
· 1 (1-pound) package sliced bacon
· 2/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
· 2 tablespoons chili powder

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Cut chicken breasts into 1-inch cubes. Cut each bacon slice into thirds. Wrap each chicken cube with bacon and secure with a wooden pick. Stir together brown sugar and chili powder. Dredge wrapped chicken in mixture. Coat a rack and broiler pan with nonstick cooking spray. Place chicken wrap on rack in broiler pan. Bake 350 for 30 to 35 minutes or until bacon is crisp.

You can put these in a crock pot on low to keep them warm during the party!

Just to give you all a HEAD'S UP.... I will be hosting a Mothers Day Event the weekend of May 9th. I would love for all to join in and show us any photos of your mother and grandmothers with some of their favorite recipes you always remember when you think of them! I'll have Mr. Linky posted on the Friday before...maybe, if I can get it figured out!