My Award Winning Chili! Copy Cat of Wendy's Most Delicious Chili

 Have you ever heard of Todd Wilbur? I found out about him years ago while searching for good recipes online. He takes delicious food from popular restaurants and tries and tests different things until he comes up with a recipe to make it yourself at home that actually tastes pretty close to the exact thing. 

He has several recipe books filled with these cloned "top secret" recipes. Fortunately, he has also put many of them on the internet for us to try. When I first found him he would release one or two of them at a time, and it was always fun for me to see what I could try to make next. 

Over time I tried several of his recipes. But, the one that I've made over and over again is his copy cat version of Wendy's Chili. Before coming across this chili recipe I thought that canned chili was decent enough, and wondered why anyone would ever put in a lot of effort to actually make chili when you could just open a can and be fairly satisfied. I didn't even think I liked chili that much at the time, so wasn't especially motivated to change my thinking.

Well, that all changed once I got taste of this chili. It was SO good! And, as you'll see, not a lot harder than just opening up a couple of cans. I love it, AND my kids all love it, definitely a bonus! 

Of course I started making this recipe long before Pinterest was even a thing, but that didn't stop me from finding it again and pinning it on my fabulous food - dinner board. I never want to lose this recipe! 

You can find it here, and check out some of his other fabulous copy cat recipes. 

                                                           Here's the recipe for Todd Wilbur's

                                                   Copy Cat Wendy's Chili (Makes about 12 servings)

Ingredients: 

2 pounds ground beef

one 29-ounce can tomato sauce

one 29-ounce can kidney beans (with liquid)

one 29-ounce can pinto beans (with liquid)

1 cup cups diced onion (one medium onion)
1/2 cup diced green chili (2 chilis)
1/4 cup diced celery (1 stalk)

3 medium tomatoes, chopped

2 tsp cumin

3 Tbsp chili powder

11/2 tsp black pepper

2 tsp salt

2 cups water

Instructions:

*Brown the ground beef and onion in a skillet over medium heat, crumble into bite sized pieces and drain off the fat

*In a large pot combine the beef and everything else

*Bring to a simmer over low heat

*Cook for 2-3 hours, stirring every 15 minutes

**For spicier chili, add 1/2 tsp more black pepper. For much spicier chili, also add a tbsp of cayenne pepper. For even more kick add 5 or 6 sliced jalapeño peppers to the pot.

Top with your choice of cheese, sour cream, green onions, etc.



This chili tastes even better the second day (yeah leftovers!) when the flavors have had even more time to blend. And it can be frozen for up to a couple of months. So don't be afraid to make a big batch!

As usual I have some variations to this recipe. I usually cook it in my crock pot on low for several hours. I pre cook the meat and onions, but everything else I just throw right into the pot. I usually don't add the water in though, it doesn't evaporate away quite enough in the crock pot and leaves the chili too thin. I also usually just throw in canned tomatoes instead of fresh ones also (unless I have extra fresh ones at the time).

Oh, and about the award winning part of this post... not long ago I made it to bring to a party where they had a chili cook off contest. And guess what? Mine came in first place! I even got a snazzy little chili spoon trophy for winning! In full disclosure I should admit that a few of my many kids may or may not have voted for my chili, possibly skewing the results a little... but it really was yummy!!

One Pot Zucchini Mushroom Pasta

When we got home from our vacation we were pleased to find that our garden had grown a ton! It's kind of amazing what ten days can do. It wasn't long before we were enjoying peas and beans right from the garden. And soon we were discovering that our zucchini plants were producing nicely too! 

While we don't have zucchinis coming out of our ears just yet (I'm sure we will soon), we've picked enough that I knew it was time to start collecting all the recipes using zucchini that I could find.

Last night we tried one of the new recipes I came across on Pinterest, and it was delicious! 

Besides being delicious, it was also really easy, and didn't even make a lot of dishes for me to have to clean up. That sounds like the perfect trifecta: easy, less mess, and delicious! 

Have you heard of one pot meals? Where you cook everything all at once in just one pot? This pin I found for Zucchini Mushroom Pasta was just that kind of recipe. It instructed to put everything, pasta and all, in your pot and cook it.

I was skeptical at first, wondering if I really trusted that cooking it this way would work out, or if we'd end up with mushy vegetables, or not quite cooked enough noodles. But, to my surprise it turned out just right! 

The vegetables were as if they were steamed, not the mush I worried about. And the noodles were just right too. Once again I was mightily pleased with a Pinterest find (don't ask about dessert though... that turned out to b e a pintastrophy, you might hear about it later!).

The other great thing about this recipe is that we got to use veggies right from our garden. Both the zucchini and the peas were freshly picked. I think that made my kids more excited to try this dish.

Normally I couldn't get away with putting mushrooms into a meal like this. But, I chopped them a little extra and most of my kids didn't even know they were there. They all ate it up and loved it! 

I wanted this to be the main dish for dinner, so I added some chopped chicken into it. I started that cooking in the boiling water a few minutes before I added the other ingredients, just to make sure that it was thoroughly cooked. 

Also, when I made this I doubled the amount of pasta (I used Penne Pasta) and water, and also doubled the cream and parmesan cheese. I used almost two whole zucchinis, and a handful of sugar snap peas that my son picked for me from the garden. And I used however many mushrooms I had. I figured exact measurements of the vegetables weren't that important. I didn't have any fresh thyme on hand so I just added a little dried thyme and it seemed to work out fine.

Here's the recipe as I found it, feel free to change it up as you like! 

ONE POT ZUCCHINI MUSHROOM PASTA

(makes six servings)

INGREDIENTS

1 pound spaghetti

1 pound cremini mushrooms, thinly sliced

2 zucchini, thinly sliced and quartered

2/3 cup peas

2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

2 sprigs thyme

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1/3 cup grated Parmesan

1/4 cup heavy cream

INSTRUCTIONS

In a large stockpot or Dutch oven over medium high heat, combine spaghetti, mushrooms, zucchini, peas, garlic, thyme and 4 1/2 cups water; season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until pasta is cooked through and liquid has reduced, about 8-10 minutes. Stir in Parmesan and heavy cream.

Serve immediately.

My Changes: 

I used 2 lbs of penne pasta, 9 cups of water, regular mushrooms, sugar snap peas (including the shells), regular salt, and a few shakes of dried thyme. For the sauce I premixed 1/2 cup of heavy cream with 2/3 cups of parmesan cheese before adding it to the pasta dish. 

This was delish! I'm sure we'll have it again!! It was a great way to incorporate our fresh garden zucchini into our dinner! 

I'm still looking for more recipes using zucchini, what are your favorite zucchini recipes?
 

Crustless Quiche - Quick, Easy, and Delicious!

In my last post I told you about the foolproof and deliciously amazing biscuits I made. Today I'm going to tell you about what we ate them with... deliciously amazing crustless quiche.

We had lots of eggs and some ham to use up the other night, and quiche sounded like a yummy way to do that. So of course I did a Pinterest search for quiche recipes. 

 
It didn't take me long to realize that making a regular quiche wasn't going to be happening - I had no shortening to make a crust!! Since running to the grocery store for shortening wasn't an option that night, I was thrilled when I happened upon this pin for crustless quiche. 

I was a little skeptical about how this recipe would turn out without the crust, but I tried it and was pleasantly surprised... I made two of them, and they turned out so delicious! Not having to make a pie crust for them made them super easy to make.  And since they didn't have a crust the biscuits (here) were the perfect match to go with them. 

(The add-ins I used were cubed ham, chopped tomatoes, diced onion, and diced peppers.) 

 
Here's the recipe: 

 

One Crustless Quiche

Ingredients:
`

•  6 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup cheese, grated (cheddar, swiss, mozzarella, or your choice)
• 2 tbsp parmesan cheese (optional)
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1 cup optional ingredients (see below)

Optional Ingredients (combine to make about one cup):

• cubed ham or crumbled cooked bacon
• chopped broccoli
• chopped tomatoes
• sliced onions, or green onions
• diced green or red peppers
• chopped spinach
• chopped asparagus
• cooked cubed potato
• other veggies (your choice)

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• Whisk together all the ingredients
• Pour the egg mixture into an pie dish, and bake uncovered for about 45 minutes (until the center is set, and not jiggly)

Next time you want to make quiche but don't have the time or ingredients to make the crust, try this recipe, I think you'll like it too! And don't forget the biscuits!

 

Poutine - Canadian Cuisine at it's best!

Yesterday was Canada Day! I grew up in Canada so of course we had to celebrate! 

Most of my family is still up there. They all got together and celebrated with their traditional backyard barbecue. But since we'll get the barbecue experience on the 4th I had to get a little more creative here! 

I thought a lot about what might be a fun Canadian type of meal. There are many things that I could have done... Kraft Dinner, Fish and Chips, Yorkshire Pudding, ketchup chips, anything with Maple Syrup! I guess I could have gone with any of the meals that I ate while I was a kid and made it work, but I wanted to make at least part of the meal something that is truly Canadian. 

Finally I decided on a couple of things that I love, and that I knew my kids would eat too! Once that was decided I turned to Pinterest to find some recipes. 

First up, Poutine. If you've never had Poutine you are missing out! It's basically french fries covered in cheese curds (or squeaky cheese), and then smothered with gravy. Sooooo Good! This dish originated in Quebec, Canada.

The funny thing about Poutine is that I never actually had it while I was living in Canada, in fact, I don't think I even knew it existed. Maybe because it was more of a French Canadian thing, and living on Canada's west coast we were pretty removed from that. 

My family lived on Vancouver Island and we often travelled back and forth to the mainland on a big ferry boat. As a youth I fell in love with the fries and gravy dish they sold in the cafeteria on the boat. But, it wasn't until I was an adult and took my family home that I learned about Poutine... fries and gravy with gooey melted cheese... maybe not the healthiest of all foods, but I'd say definitely one of the tastiest! 

So, to Pinterest I went, searching for some advice on creating this traditional Canadian dish for my family. I found what looks like an excellent recipe, making everything but the cheese from scratch (here), but I had lots going on yesterday and didn't have the luxury of time to dedicate to going all out on it, so decided to save it for another day and go with an easier cheaters version that I found here. 

This version uses frozen french fries, dry brown gravy mix, and cheese curds. Can't get much easier than that! 

Finding cheese curds can be the hardest part of the process. Cheese curds are a byproduct the comes when making cheese. They are firm like cheese, with a mild flavor, but have kind of a springy, rubbery texture. They can be hard to find here in the western United States. 

When we lived in the midwest there was a little Amish town down the road where we could find cheese curds. Those ones were nice and fresh, and when you'd bite into them they'd squeak! That's why they have the nick name of Squeaky Cheese! 

Somehow I came across cheese curds at a store here in Idaho though! I was excited to use the real thing (even if they didn't squeak since they weren't freshly made). If I couldn't find them here I would have substituted chunks of cheddar or mozzarella cheese in their place.

Of course the frozen fries and brown gravy mix were easy to find.

So, first, all I did was deep fry my fries (they could have been baked in the oven as a healthier alternative, but this time I did it the not so healthy way). I used Peanut oil, and actually deep fried them twice... the second time was for a little extra crispiness right before I put them on our plates. 

Once I had a plateful of crispy fries I added a bunch of cheese curds over the top. The curds I had were quite large so I crumbled them up a little to make sure that they'd melt just right. 

Then I smothered the whole thing in hot gravy... it needed to be hot enough to start to melt the cheese and get it nice and gooey! 

And that was it, bon appetite! The easy cheater version of mouth watering Poutine! 

I served it with a little fried chicken, Canada Dry Ginger Ale, and fresh red cherries. 

Then for dessert we ate another Canadian treat, originating just North of where I grew up... Nanaimo Bars... maybe I'll share that recipe with you sometime too!

I think we'll have to just eat salads for at least three weeks to make up for last night's dinner, but I would say it was well worth it! 

BLT Ranch Chicken Wraps

Looking for an easy yummy summer lunch idea? These BLT Ranch Chicken Ranch Wraps are both easy and yummy! 

I found the pin linking up the recipe while I was looking for something fun to do with some leftover grilled chicken that we had. The original blog post says to use canned chicken, but I just substituted my grilled chicken. I also added shredded cheese to ours, although not listed in that recipe. Cheese makes everything better, right?

Here's all you need to make these
BLT Ranch Chicken Wraps:

• 2 cooked and shredded/cubed chicken breasts, or two cans shredded chicken (water drained)
• 3/4 cup Ranch dressing
• 6 (12 inch) flour tortillas
• 6 slices cooked bacon
• Shredded lettuce
• Diced tomatoes
• Shredded cheese

And here's what you do: 

• Mix the chicken and ranch together well. 
• Divide the mixture between your tortillas
• Layer on the bacon, lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese
• Wrap up, and enjoy! 

We ate ours with this yummy pasta salad and it was the perfect summer lunch!

Parmesan Roasted Potatoes

We seem to be eating a lot of potatoes lately... Is that a result of moving to Idaho? Who knows?

 

Thanks to Pinterest I found a new method for making the perfect baked potatoes that I love (you can check that out here), but it's nice to do something different with our tubers once in a while. 

 

So I tried these Parmesan Roasted Potatoes the other night to go along with some rotisserie chicken, and they were absolutely delicious!!  

 

I changed this recipe up just a bit. Besides doubling it  I used garlic powder instead of garlic salt (since there was already plenty of salt in the recipe), added some parsley flakes to look pretty, and used bottled parmesan cheese instead of fresh. But besides those few things I mostly did just what the recipe said.

Super easy, and super yummy -- my favorite combination!!

 

              Here it is (already doubled):

          Parmesan Roasted Potatoes

 

6 large potatoes, scrubbed and cubed

6 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp parsley flakes

2 tsp pepper

4 tsp paprika

6 tbsp parmesan cheese



 

 

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees
• Put the cubed potatoes into a greased baking dish (9x14) and toss with the olive oil. Add everything else and stir well.  
• Bake in heated oven for 45 minutes to one hour, stirring well after every 15 minutes
• Sprinkle with a little more parmesan cheese 
• Serve, and enjoy! 

You can use any leftovers for breakfast, I think that they would taste delicious with scrambled eggs. But, I can't tell you for sure, because my family liked these so much that they ate them all up, and we had no leftovers! 

Grilled Chicken Caprese Pasta

Happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there. I'm pretty sure that I have the best dad there is! And my kids are blessed to have a pretty darn good dad also. He does so much for us, it was nice to have a day dedicated especially to spoiling him! 

We wanted to make Father's Day special for my husband this year so my kids and I decided to celebrate with a homemade Italian dinner. Of course, all our recipes came from Pinterest, and fortunately, they all turned out delicious! 

We had Grilled Chicken Caprese Pasta, homemade breadsticks, salad with Little Italy Italian dressing, and Italian soda. Delizioso!!

The fun part of this dinner was having most of the kids help with parts of it. Dad got to relax, and they got to feel like they were contributing to his special day.

Here's the recipe we used for the Grilled Chicken Caprese Pasta. 

(I increased the amounts of everything and made a really big batch, but I will leave it in original portions, which should feed about six).

                      Grilled Chicken Caprese Pasta
            
            Ingredients 

• 2 medium chicken breast halves (about one pound), chopped and grilled
• 9 oz Rigatoni or Penne pasta 
• 2 cups fire roasted tomato pasta sauce (Classico works great)
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/3 cup finely grated Romano Cheese
• 1 clove garlic, finely minced
• Red pepper flakes, to taste (optional, for added heat)
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 pint grape tomatoes, diced into halves or thirds
• 12 oz fresh mozzarella, grated
• 16 fresh Basil leaves, sliced into thin strips

            Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Cook pasta to al dente according to directions listed on package. 

Meanwhile, in a separate medium saucepan over medium low heat, heat pasta sauce, heavy cream, Romano cheese, garlic, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper.

Cook, stirring frequently, until cheese melts.

Drain cooked pasta well, then mix in the chopped chicken, tomatoes, half the cheese, and most of the basil (save some basil to garnish with before serving if desired).

Pour warm sauce over and toss gently to coat. 
Sprinkle with remaining cheese, and cook uncovered for about 25 minutes, until the cheese is golden.

      

I ended up being glad that we made a really huge batch of this because everybody went back for seconds and thirds. It was really so very delicious. 

My husband loved it and appreciated the extra effort we made to serve something he would love for Father's Day dinner!

P.S. We made the breadsticks out of the same recipe we use for our yummy garlic knots (here). Instead of turning the dough into knots, we just rolled it out on a couple of stones and slathered the sauce on before baking it for about 8 minutes (at 500 degrees). These are almost as good as garlic knots, but faster to make!

 

Crock Pot Teriyaki Chicken with Homemade Teriyaki Sauce

 

Have you ever got started making a recipe only to realize half way through that you don't have all of the ingredients? 

That happened to me this week. I had some chicken thighs sitting in my freezer waiting to be used so I decided on trying out a recipe I pinned a while ago for Teriyaki Chicken.  

I quickly looked through the recipe and thought I had everything I needed. But, when it got time to put in the Teriyaki Sauce, none could be found. I'm sure I had a bottle of it in the pantry... who knows what happened to it! 

So, I did what any Pinterest loving person would do and did a quick search for a homemade Teriyaki Sauce recipe and found a great one (here). 

It claimed to be better than  any store bought sauce so I thought is would be a good one to try. It didn't disappoint! It was a very tasty sauce and gave the chicken just the right amount of sweet and tangy to make it absolutely delicious! 

Here's the recipe(s) I used:

     Teriyaki Chicken

     2 -3 lbs chicken 

     2 cup chicken broth 

     I cup teriyaki sauce (see below for recipe)

     2/3 cup brown sugar

     3 minced garlic cloves

Place chicken in crock pot. Pour other ingredients over chicken. Cook on low for about 6 hours. 

The recipe directed to cut the chicken into pieces beforehand, but since I was using frozen thighs I just added them whole to begin with. Once they had cooked for a few hours I broke them apart into pieces easily with a fork and knife. So I think either way would work well.

     Teriyaki Sauce

     1/3 cup soy sauce

     2 tbsp honey

     1 tbsp brown sugar

     1 minced garlic clove

     1/4 tsp paprika

     1/4 tsp nutmeg

     1 tsp apple cider vinegar

     1/3 cup water

     1 tbsp cornstarch

In a saucepan combine and heat soy sauce, honey, sugar, garlic, paprika, nutmeg, and vinegar over medium heat. Stir frequently.

Dissolve the cornstarch into the water in a separate bowl and then add to saucepan. Mix well. Cook on medium heat for 6-8 minutes, until sauce thickens up.

We ate our Teriyaki Chicken over rice, and added some pineapple and sesame seeds on top. All of my family loved it. While they were gobbling it down my daughter exclaimed "This is Pin-tastic!" I guess that means I'll be making this meal again! 

Crock Pot Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes and Ham Casserole

We made a ham for dinner the other day, a big ham... so we've had lots of leftovers. I've been trying to be creative with the dinners I've made with this week, so that we don't get too sick of ham! Of course, that means turning to Pinterest to see what ham pin-spiration I can find. Luckily there are several different recipes pinned for using leftover ham, so I did a quick search and scrolled through the pictures till I found some dishes that looked tasty! 

Since yesterday was going to be busy I decided that something in the crock pot would be a good option, that helped narrow down my search. I came across several recipes for crock pot scalloped potatos and ham. After a bit of searching I found one that called for ingredients that I had on hand, so the ham-using up began! 

I wanted to get all the ham off of my bone so I started by putting it in a large pot, and covering it with water. When the water got boiling pretty good I put the lid on, turned down the heat so it would just simmer, and left it for an hour or so. That made the rest of the ham come right off the bone. It shredded nicely when I chopped it up which was nice consistency in this dish. The added bonus to boiling the ham bone was that I could also use the broth in place of the water in the recipe.

Unfortunately this pin was only linked to the picture, not an actual site with directions, etc. But, it did have directions in the comments section. I doubled the recipe for my family, and substituted cream of chicken soup for the cream of mushroom, because some of my family have an adversion to mushroom soup, and I wanted everyone to eat dinner! 

And they did eat! This turned out delicious. The only thing I would do differently next time is add some extra salt, pepper, and garlic powder. We just spiced it up a little more on our own at the table this time, but I'll just throw in the extra in the future. 

We paired this casserole with fresh steamed broccoli and some pineapple slices. Yum! 

             Here's my version of

Crock Pot Scalloped Potatoes and Ham

               (already doubled)

10 medium potatos, peeled and thinly sliced

3 cups shredded or diced cooked ham

2 cups shredded cheese, any kind you want, I used cheddar and mozzarella because that's what I had on hand

Sauce, mix all together:
   2 cans cream of chicken soup
   2 cups ham broth/water
   1/2 cup chopped onion
   2 tsp garlic powder
   1 tsp salt
   1 tsp pepper

Layer all ingredients in your crock pot, starting with 1/3 of the potatoes, followed by 1/3 of the ham and cheese, and then 1/2 the sauce. Repeat the layering, ending with a layer of cheese. Cook for 6-8 hours on low, until the potatoes are tender. Serve, and enjoy!

 

The Perfect Baked Potato... Really?

I'll admit I was skeptical when I first came across a pin to  blog claiming that it held the secret to the perfect baked potato. How hard can baking a potato be? I thought. But I'm always looking for new things to try, and improvement on the way I've always done things is not a bad thing, so I checked it out (here).

I grew up thinking that to properly bake a potato you need to wrap it in foil... not so, says this blogger. In fact, she was quite adamant that you should NOT EVER wrapped your potato in foil to bake it... hmmm... 

So, I followed her directions, and guess what... she was right! These potatoes are so good, so much better than any of the ones I had ever baked before. So, she made a believer out of me, and I will never go back to my old potato baking ways! 

In fact, since first pinning this pin over a year or so ago I've made them several times just like this, and they do always turn out perfect! 

Here's what you can do to also bake a perfect potato!

Start out by scrubbing your potatoes. Scrub them good, so you get all that yucky dirt off. I like to use the really big potatoes, but I've used smaller ones too, and they also turn out yummy. 

After they are thoroughly scrubbed make sure to prick them several times with a fork. This step is really important if you don't want to take the chance of a potato exploding in your oven. My hus... er, someone in my family, didn't believe me about the importance of this, and well, let's just say he had a nice mess to clean up! Not that I'm complaining that I got a clean oven out of it! 

Okay, then slather them with olive oil. The original blogger uses her hands, but I usually don't want my hands all oily, so I just use a pastry brush to help me get them nice and covered. 

Next, just sprinkle sea salt all over them. 

Then they are ready to pop in the oven (preheated to 400 degrees). I always put an old cookie sheet on the rack under them to catch the olive oil drips... I'm trying to NOT have extra reasons to clean my oven! 

Bake them for about an hour. Half way through you can flip them over. 

After I take them out of the oven I usually roll them in my hands to soften up the insides a bit. Use hot pads for this step. Hot potatoes really are hot! Who knew??

When it's time to eat them I put a shallow slice in them across the top (lengthwise), and push the ends together just enough for the fluffy insides to pop up and out of the skin a bit. A little butter and some salt and pepper later, and you'll also have, yes, the perfect baked potato! 

Try it, I think you'll like it too! 

I always make a few extra when I bake potatoes for my family, there are so many ways to use leftover baked potatoes... Here's a peak at what I made with one of those extras for breakfast the next morning! Delish!