Cooking . . . It's a Family Thing!

Thanks to a request and great idea from my good friend Joanna Davis, I made some additional comments on the recipe for the Caribbean Chicken Wings. Also, I will try to let you know if there is something I think you can omit or substitute that won't affect the taste of the dish. Case in point, today's lunch. Richard barbecued chicken & wings on the grill last night. He removed all the meat from the whole chicken and bagged it up. The wings he left intact and just stored in a zip lock bag. I just heated up the "pulled" chicken in a skillet with some George's Regular Barbecue Sauce and served. I took about six of the wings out and made a "version" of the sauce I use with the Caribbean Chicken Wings, omitting what I didn't have which meant I used everything but the habanero pepper and green onion and I didn't blend it in a food processor. I was going to leave out the fennel seed but I really like flavor. I just mixed everything together in a small sauce pan for about 10 minutes. Placed the "aleady cooked" wings on a pan lined with parchment paper and brushed them with some sauce and cooked for about 10 minutes on one side at 350 degrees (this temperature cause I was cooking the Twice Baked Potato Casserole at the same time)flipped them over, brushed with more sauce and cooked about 5 minutes more at 400. I did this at Katie's request (she really likes those Caribbean Wings). I'm sure the wings would have been good jsut as they were. Now for the Twice Baked Potato Casserole recipe! Katie actually wanted this so she prepared. We did have to make do with things we had and I will note changes we made today from the original recipe.

TWICE BAKED POTATO CASSEROLE

Ingredients
2 lbs potatoes, unpeeled & cubed (make sure to wash them) & I use Russet
4 oz cream cheese (I always use reduced fat)
1 cup sour cream or 1/2 sour cream and 1/3 ranch dressing (again I use reduced fat)
4-5 slices bacon, diced and cooked and drained on paper towel
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 t black pepper (I like to use fresh ground)
1 t garlic powder
This recipe calls for 1 t salt but I leave it out, the cheese, ranch dressing etc have enough salt.

DIRECTIONS
Boil potatoes until fork-tender. Drain and return to pot. Slightly mash potatoes before adding any other ingredients. Add cream cheese, sour cream (or sour cream & ranch), bacon, 1 cup of cheese and seasonings to the potatoes. Stir until well combined. Transfer potato mixture into a small casserole dish. Cover with remaining cheese. Refrigerate or bake immediately at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

Today when Katie made this we didn't have any bacon or cheddar cheese. We did have some Velveeta and Monterey Jack cheese so we used that. It was just as good!