Catching up

If you've followed my blog for any length of time, you know I'm an Allrecipes Allstar Brand Ambassador (non paid) and I love it!  Each month we have various assignments.   This month my cooking has spotlighted on some recipes featuring Hidden Valley Ranch dressing - both the bottled dressings (regular and light) and the dry packets.  While some recipes I've used are directly from Hidden Valley Ranch, other recipes are not. 

One of my most recent non HVR recipe was for Slow-cooked buffalo chicken sandwiches OMG can I say that you NEED to make these sandwiches for your next at home football fest!  These were super yummy.  I added some white american cheese to my sandwiches and also topped the buffalo chicken w/ a drizzling of light ranch dressing -served on a toasted hoagie bun this sandwich packed some major grindage and a slow burn.  To the side I've got some roasted purple potatoes.  I seriously couldn't believe the entire potato was purple - come to momma b/c I LOVE purple!  Usually when I roast potatoes, I don't ever use recipes.  I just cut the potatoes into quarters, and then drizzle w/ grapeseed oil, and whatever seasonings I feel like.  This time around I used Lawry's seasoning salt, oregano, basil, granulated garlic, and thyme.  I roasted them at 375° for roughly 30 minutes.  Rounding out the meal I used an HVR recipe for Out-of-this-World Pasta Salad granted I couldn't find the romanesco broccoli, which is aka roman cauliflower.  I did the next best thing and improvised w/ regular broccoli.  Would I make it again?  I might, but think I'll play around w/ the ingredients first.

Side note:  You may have leftover buffalo chicken.  Relax, leftovers are a good thing, and there are SO many different ways to use the remainder buffalo chicken - you can make buffalo chicken pizza, buffalo chicken quesadillas, yeah I'm sort of sounding like a spin off of Bubba from Forrest Gump

Another bonus activity was to find a steak recipe. Well naturally I push the edge w/ my cooking and I made  Tequila Steak

I can just see mouths watering, or eyes squinting w/ wrinkles creasing the forehead.  YES!  I said Tequila Steak.   Granted I changed the recipe up - and having made this recipe twice (first the original way, second my way) I'm going to be a food snob and say mine was better.
You don't have to make it my way, but I'll challenge you and say Do It! The original recipe called for

1/3 cup tequila

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon cayenne pepper

2 cloves garlic

8 ounces London broil steak

Okay now that was entirely TOO much cayenne pepper, SO here's the fix.  Reduce the cayenne pepper to 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne.  NEXT add 2 1/2 teaspoons McCormick Montreal Steak seasoning.  Lets talk garlic.  I appreciate that garlic cloves can add depth to many recipes, this is not one of them.  I say that for the factor that you can't regulate the flavour w/ fresh garlic like you can w/ granulated garlic, meaning that 1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic will taste the same each time.  You can't control the size of a garlic clove, thus I suggest using 1 teaspoon granulated garlic instead of the 2 cloves of garlic.  At this point, you marinate the steak overnight in a ziploc bag and let it get nice and happy.  Once it's marinated - crank up the grill and cook that bad boy!