Almost Guilt Free Game Day Food

Well being an Alabama fan it's really easy to start grinding out all sorts of Tailgate like foods. I am a front page of Yahoo! junkie and I found this Spicy Buffalo Tenders with a Healthier Spin recipe a few days ago so I decided to give it a swing, along with making up my own Spinach and Roasted Corn Ranch Pasta Salad. I also did change up the recipe just to fit my measuring cups and techniques to have minimal dirty dishes, because I hate doing dishes. Overall it was a definite yummy and relatively quick meal that could have fed a lot more than just the 3 of us.


Spicy Blue Cheese Dip
2/3 cup reduced-fat sour cream
2/3 cup crumbled blue cheese
1 Tablespoon distilled white vinegar
1/4 teaspoon Salt
1/4 t Garlic Powder
1/4 t Poppy Seeds
1/4 t Paprika

Directions:
Stir together all ingredients in a small bowl. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

 Buffalo Tenders

3 tablespoons buttermilk
2 tablespoons hot sauce, such as Frank’s RedHot
2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
2 pounds chicken tenders
6 tablespoons whole-wheat flour
6 tablespoons cornmeal
1/2 teaspoon paprika
2 tablespoons oil, I used olive oil
Baby Carrots

Directions
-To prepare tenders: Mix buttermilk, 2 tablespoons hot sauce and 2 tablespoons vinegar in a large freezer bag until combined. Add chicken; toss to coat. Transfer to the refrigerator and let marinate for at least 10 minutes or up to 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

-Meanwhile, mix flour, cornmeal, and paprika in a shallow dish.
-Remove the chicken from the marinade, pat of the excess marinade and roll in the flour mixture until evenly coated. (Discard remaining marinade and flour mixture.)
-Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add half the chicken, placing each piece in a little oil. Cook until golden brown and cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes per side. Transfer to a serving platter. Repeat with the remaining 1 tablespoon oil and chicken, reducing the heat if necessary to prevent burning. Transfer to the platter. Drizzle the chicken with hot sauce to taste. Serve with carrots, celery and Spicy Blue Cheese Dip.

**With your leftovers you can make a spicy chicken dip with the rest of the blue cheese dip, shred the chicken tenders, add some more sour cream, cream cheese, blue cheese, and hot sauce. You can find the recipe on the back of Frank's Hot Sauce.** This dip is now just sitting in our fridge for some snacky food for the rest of the weekend

Spinach and Roasted Corn Ranch Pasta Salad
1 cup uncooked pasta
1 cup washed spinach, chopped
2 cans whole kernal corn
1 cup ranch dressing
1/2 cup cheese

Directions
-Cook pasta as directed, rinse with cold water and set aside
-Roast corn in oven Directions here and add to pasta along with washed and chopped spinach, toss with ranch dress and cheese. I made homemade ranch with the Hidden Valley ranch packet because in my opinion it's the best ranch.

Corn Roasting

-Serve cold and if the salad seems dry you can add more dressing, I just added some reduced fat sour cream and a little more milk

For your "awwwww" moment of the night her is a picture of my little "helper" after I woke her from her sleep to take her picture.

Rebecca