{ Kade in the Kitchen: Buffalo Chicken Garbage Bread }

Many moons ago (well, perhaps not that many—just a few months ago, actually…but it feels like many) I happened across a recipe for something called Buffalo Chicken Garbage Bread. Because the name was so awful, I was intrigued. Little did I know, it’d fast become one of my favorite dishes!

It turns out it’s named that because you literally just dump a bunch of ingredients onto bread dough before rolling it up and baking it. In this case, the ingredients make a deliciously cheesy buffalo chicken bread. Now, I shall preface this by saying that I don’t really like buffalo wings—or any wings in general—because I don’t like chicken on the bone or with skin on it, nor do I like spicy sauces. So, this proved to be a great alternative for me because it didn’t require chicken on a bone, nor with skin, and I can control the level of sauce spiciness myself.

First, I’ll give you the basic recipe & instructions, but then I’ll give you some variations and a step-by-step tutorial. Without further adieu, here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

2 Chicken Breasts, chopped into cubes (the breasts need to be medium to large in size; you’ll want 2-4 cups, depending upon how chicken-laden you want the dish)

1 Tube of Refrigerated Pizza Dough (regular crust thickness; avoid using generic store brand, as it does make a difference here)

1/3 C Blue Cheese Dressing, plus extra for dipping (I prefer Marzetti’s Ultimate Blue Cheese Dressing that’s found in the produce area refrigerator)

1/2 C Wing Sauce, divided (I use extra mild, but get whatever spice level you want)

2 C Mozzarella Cheese, shredded

1 C Cheddar Cheese, grated

Instructions:

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Take the dough tube out of the fridge and leave it on a counter, as you’ll want it to come more to room temperature before working with it.

2) Cook the cubed chicken in a large skillet until completely done. Drain, if necessary.

3) When the chicken is completely cooked, add 1/4 C of the wing sauce to the skillet and coat the chicken with it thoroughly. Let cook for 1-2 minutes, long enough for the chicken to start to absorb the sauce a little.

4) While the chicken is cooking, lightly flour your work space. Then, open the refrigerated dough tube and unroll it over the floured area.

5) Using your hands, carefully stretch the dough to be a large rectangle. Having your dough less chilled helps with this. If you find that the dough immediately snaps back to its original shape, it’s too cold to work with. Allow it to warm slightly at room temperature, then try again. In stretching it, you don’t want the dough to be paper thin, but you don’t want it to be really thick either. One trick to helping stretch the dough is to lift a section of the dough along one edge and (using both hands) carefully wave the dough up and down. Repeat around all edges. Close any holes that form.

6) Once the dough is in a rectangle, use the back of a large spoon to spread the blue cheese dressing over the entire surface, right up to the outer edges. Leave about 1/2” of one long end of the dough uncoated so that when you roll the dough, the uncoated edge will adhere to the roll itself and seal it shut. (See picture below for more info.) If you are using a thicker dressing, it may require more than 1/3 C.

7) Pour the remaining 1/4 C of wing sauce over top of the blue cheese. Spread it around evenly as well, right up to the edges (except for your uncoated seal edge).

8) Spoon the coated cooked chicken evenly over top of the sauce. Again, take the chicken to the edges. If you don’t, you’ll have end pieces that are primarily just bread without filling.

9) Evenly sprinkle a layer of each of the cheeses over top of the chicken.

10) Starting at the long end that is coated up to the very edge, carefully roll the dough. Be sure to evenly roll the bread as you move along to the uncoated edge. Once you reach the uncoated edge, fold the edge over top and lightly press it to seal it. Also, fold the dough carefully over both ends of the loaf so that they’re covered.

11) Gently (and swiftly) lift the loaf onto a baking sheet. (Grease the baking sheet if it’s not a non-stick pan.) Re-shape the loaf as necessary. If any holes have torn during the movement, try to close them as best you can, but it’s fine if a couple of small ones exist. Not a lot of filling will escape from them during baking.

12) Place the pan into the pre-heated oven and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the top of the bread has started to brown. Let cool slightly before serving. Serve it with extra dressing on the side for dipping.

Variations:

-If you want more cheddar than mozzarella, just swap the amounts. Be warned that cheddar is a lot more oily, so the loaf ends up much more greasy. But it’s oh-so-delicious.

-Doc & I add about a cup or so of chopped onion to the chicken while it’s cooking. Depending upon your personal tastes, mushrooms or even crumbled bacon could be a tasty addition.

-Not a fan of blue cheese? Switch it out for ranch dressing instead. Or, make the loaf with blue cheese & serve it with ranch dressing for dipping. That’s a particularly tasty combo.

And now, the pictorial tutorial…

When I took these pictures, it was my second batch of Garbage Bread in as many days. No, we’re not THAT big of pigs; I just happened to make a loaf for the neighbors the night before. So, I had pre-cooked the chicken that we used in our own loaf at the same time I cooked the chicken for the neighbor’s loaf & forgot to take pictures while doing so. However, I’m sure you can picture a skillet of cubed chicken cooking, so we’ll just go with what we’ve got…

1) Lightly flour your work area. Make sure you do an area large enough to allow for the large dough rectangle. You do NOT want that sucker sticking to the counter, especially when you go to roll it.

 

2) Unroll the dough. If it tears, piece it together. And then slam it with the palm of your clenched fist to make sure it goes together again. It works. (What also might work is gently massaging it back together, but that’s not how I operate—plus, punching it also serves as an additional outlet for stress release. Dinner AND a centered chi—what’s not to love about that?!)

3) Shape the dough into a rectangle that’s not too thin.

4) Put the dressing onto the dough. I have found that it’s easier to spread the dressing if you do it before pouring on the wing sauce.

5) Use the back of the spoon to spread it around. Don’t try to use a knife. It’s too difficult. And it makes it too easy to cut into the dough accidentally, at which point it’s not so easy to pound it with your fist—after all, who wants to pummel their palm into blue cheese dressing? Not this guy.

6) Spread the dressing all over and right up to the very edge of three of the four sides. You will note that on the right side of the pictured dough there’s about a 1/2”-1” strip left uncovered in dressing. That’s the part that’s going to seal the loaf shut once you roll it up. (Assuming you’re rolling from left to right. Reverse as necessary.)

7) Pour the wing sauce on top of the dressing. It almost looks like a Picasso…almost.

8) Swirl the wing sauce all over, aside from your one edge for sealing.

9) Evenly sprinkle the cooked chicken (and any other toppings) over the wing sauce. Again, take it to the outer edges.

10) Sprinkle the two layers of cheese over that. In this particular batch, we used more cheddar and less mozzarella. (If it weren’t for the fact the base is uncooked dough, I could just go to town and devour the whole thing at this point. But I resist. Because I’m strong like that.)

11) Evenly roll the loaf onto itself, making sure you go in the direction where your uncoated dough edge will be able to seal the loaf. Also, seal the two ends. (I love this step! It means you’re ever-so-close to a plate of deliciousness!)

12) Draw upon every bit of inner strength and faith; say 10 Hail Mary’s; call on the heavens above, or Mother Nature, or Buddha, or Chuck Norris, or Jack Bauer, or whoever it is that can bring you the superhuman abilities required to successfully transfer the loaf from the counter onto the baking sheet. You have to do this in one quick movement, so have your pan right next to the loaf and facing the correct direction BEFORE picking up the loaf. Support the underneath side of the loaf as much as you can.

You may end up wearing dressing and wing sauce in this step. And that’s OK. Take one for the team. Just get that loaf moved over with as minimal damage as possible. (Repair any major holes, but don’t fret over the little ones. In this picture, you can see a couple of spots where the chicken pieces started to poke through the thin spots of the dough. It’s not the end of the world.) And, yes, I could’ve used a beautiful, shiny baking sheet here. But I didn’t. Because I don’t have any. OK, well, I do, but not any that I use. That’s why they’re still beautiful and shiny. My ol’ reliables are beat down and crazy looking. The others just sit there and look pretty.

 

13) And then put your beat-down, reliable pan with it’s unbaked lump of awesomeness into the oven and try not to hyperventilate while waiting for it to be baked. Now would be a good time to remove the dressing and wing sauce from your arms. Oh, you don’t have any on you? That’s fine. No need to judge me. I’m not judging you. (OK, I secretly am, but we’ll pretend like I’m not.)

14) Once it’s browned sufficiently, take it out of the oven. And behold it. Just take a moment to behold the beauty in front of you. It’s so glorious.

Also, you’ll note here that I somehow managed to take the before and after picture at almost the exact same distance and angle. That was not remotely intentional. Hoped for, yes, but not intentional. I suck at taking pictures—let alone consistent ones. So, this was just a nice little surprise in the process.

Now, trust me—I get it. You just want to inhale the whole loaf immediately. Please don’t. It will be VERY hot. Instead, give it a moment to rest. Use this time to set the table for your family. Or, if you’re making this whole thing for yourself, use this time to grab a fork, knife, and napkin. No need to dirty a plate. While you’re at it, don’t forget to grab the dressing to have on the side for dipping. I don’t know what it is about dipping sauces, but I love them. Doc makes fun of me, but if there’s an opportunity to have a dipping sauce (or, even better, a variety of delicious dipping sauce options), I’m all for it. This is one such opportunity.

One final tip—if you’re the one cutting slices for everyone, cut it such that you end up with the center section. It’s so amazingly gooey and wonderful, with less bread to get in the way of the good stuff. (I personally cut it in the middle, slice off a couple of pieces, and then push the ends back together. It helps keep it from cooling too quickly before you have a chance to go for seconds.)

This is supposed to serve 10. I don’t know who those 10 people are, but Doc said they must be miniature people with anorexia. This loaf serves exactly two grown men with a little bet leftover. Translated: family of four people who aren’t afraid to eat a healthy portion. It is good with salad on the side, as admittedly it is a really decadent dish.

If you make this and come up with any other variations or tips, please share them in the comments section below—I’m all for maximizing the amazingness of any food item!

{ Tutorial: Burlap Bubble Wreaths }

First off, I must make what I fear is going to be one of many apologies for the delay between entries. It has been an absolutely insane couple of weeks!

For those who don’t know me personally & who just happen across this blog, I currently work a FT job in marketing, have a wholesale business featuring dog apparel & accessories, and I have recently launched my Krafty Kade brand with retail space in a local boutique. Life can get a little hectic at times, so it seems that I’m always dropping the ball on something. (In this case, the blog.) Last week, I was out-of-town for team meetings for my FT job, which really threw off my production schedule for the launch of Krafty Kade’s retail space (which happened two days ago). Anything in-between is a blur. But, I’ve gotten in lots of crafting in order to have products in the retail space, so now I’m trying to get blog entries written that cover some of those really fun (and VERY doable!) projects. First up: the burlap bubble wreath. Something that looks like this…

Stay with me here. If you only knew just how easy this really is, you would not feel remotely intimidated. So, come with me through a detailed pictorial tutorial that will leave you with a fantastic wreath that looks so much more impressive than it ought to. And, the best part is that it requires zero unique tools. Just some readily available supplies. So, we’ll start with those…

Supplies

You’re going to need:

1) 6” wide burlap ribbon: about 10 yards if you’re doing a 12” wreath; 20 yards if you’re doing an 18-20” wreath. I think mine is a 20” wreath, based upon my rough measurements. What you see in the picture of the finished wreath at the top of this post is 15 yards of plain burlap, with five yards of chevron-printed burlap. The supplies picture above only includes two rolls of five yards. More on that little mistake later, but it ultimately led to the chevron-printed burlap coming into play.

Burlap ribbon is easily found at Michael’s, Hobby Lobby, etc. If you buy it at Hobby Lobby and aren’t in a rush to get this project done, wait until they put ribbon and notions on sale (usually about every-other-week) so you can get it all for 50% off. Or, pick up a roll at Michael’s & use the 40% off coupon, go back the next day & do the same, etc., until you’ve got as much as you need without paying full price. You can do this for cheap.

2) a wreath frame: select one in the size of your choosing; just remember to buy enough burlap ribbon to accommodate whatever size you decide upon. A 20” wreath is about as large as I’d go for a front door, if that gives you some perspective. Wreath frames are found in the Floral departments, typically, and are a couple of dollars. They’re green metal frames comprised of four circles (giving you three open rows) attached together using equally spaced crossbars.

3) any embellishments (bows, ornaments, flowers, pinecone clusters, etc.) you may want to include. I went with one large burlap flower that had sparkly stuff (technical term, of course) in the middle of it. It was on a pick and I ultimately just used the pick to attach it to the frame—no glue required!

Step 1:

Tie the burlap ribbon onto the wreath frame. Do it such that the tail of the knot points towards what will be the back of the wreath. That way, it won’t ever stick out amongst the forward-facing bubbles. In other words, the exact opposite of this:

I tied this, photographed it, and then realized I tied it on reverse from what I’d ultimately want. But, I forgot to re-photograph it the other way. (You’ll notice the curve of the wreath frame. You want the concaved side to be the back.)

Step 2:

Create your first bubble. What you’re doing is gathering small bunches of the burlap and pulling it through the wreath frame in alternate rows. You don’t have to do any tying or knotting for each bubble. As long as you alternate which row of the wreath frame you’re feeding each bubble through, they will stay just fine. I think the most logical and easiest method is to go in order from top to bottom row when putting in the bubbles. That way, it makes sure there’s even coverage. This is what I mean about gathering the burlap into a bubble (also note that in this picture the knot tail is going the correct direction)--

As you can see, it’s not hard. Just grab a bunch of the burlap. Some people choose to twist the base of the bubble gathering before feeding it through the wreath frame. I tried it both ways and didn’t see a difference. I don’t think one holds any tighter than the other, so do it whichever way you prefer.

Step 3:

Feed the gathered bubble through the frame.

Here, I fed it through the wreath frame’s middle row. It doesn’t really matter which row you start in—just remember that you’re alternating each bubble to be fed through different rows each time.

Important note: This is the point at which you need to decide how poufy you want your wreath to be. The bigger you make this first bubble (i.e., how much burlap you pull through), the puffier your overall wreath will be. Each bubble needs to be about the same height to maintain a uniform look, so decide now upon what that height will be. (I think this is about 3-4” high.) Also, keep in mind that the puffier the bubbles, the more burlap ribbon you’ll need.

Step 4:

Feed the next bubble through the wreath frame, using a different row. Here, I fed the second bubble through the outer row:

Another important note: To keep the back of the wreath mostly flat and to keep the bubbles in place best, make sure you are pulling each bubble tight after pulling it through. This will require you to hold onto the previously placed bubble (so that you don’t undo it) while you pull through the new bubble. The end of the ribbon that’s connected to the previous bubble is what you’ll pull tight so that the ribbon is right up against the underneath side of the wreath frame. Like this:

This will take a little bit of practice, but it’s not hard.

As you go along, it will ultimately look like this underneath:

Step 5:

Continue feeding bubbles through the wreath frame in the alternating rows. Be sure to keep pushing the bubbles together as you go along so that they’re in compactly. You will also want to fluff the bubbles a little as you go along so that you can make sure you’re sufficiently covering the wreath frame. You don’t want any of it showing from the front.  It should very quickly start to resemble something like this:

When you get to the end of a roll of the burlap ribbon, knot it onto the wreath frame, like this:

Again, make sure the tail of the knot is pointed towards the back of the wreath frame, like this:

Then, tie the new roll onto the wreath frame & continue just as you have been, ensuring that the bubbles cover up the knots you’ve just tied.

This is what mine looked like after two five-yard rolls:

And that’s when I started to panic. It was apparent that each roll did about one-fourth of the overall wreath, obviously meaning that I would need four rolls. The problem was that I bought three rolls of a darker burlap and five rolls of a lighter color of burlap. I was using the darker burlap to this point and knew it would look insane if I did one-fourth of it in a lighter burlap. I also knew that I was not about to do another two-hour round trip drive back to Hobby Lobby just to get one roll of darker burlap. And I didn’t want to undo all the work I’d just done. So, I kept pondering my options as I worked towards this point:

And then I knew it was decision time. As I slightly perspired over the stress of it all, it dawned on me that I had also bought a couple of rolls of chevron-print burlap ribbon, which I’d intended to use for another purpose. But, sacrifices must be made. And that’s how it ended up like this:

In the end, I decided I really liked having that chevron accent section. I also got positive feedback about it when I took it to the Krafty Kade retail space today. Several people commented on how much they liked the combination of the two, so it turned out to be a good mistake in the end.

Step 6:

Affix your embellishment(s). I don’t have a picture of how I did this, but it’s going to vary anyway depending upon what type of embellishment you go with. You may need to use florist’s wire to attach the object, or maybe hot glue will be best. For me, I just twisted the end of the flower pick through the rows of the wreath frame and it holds it in place perfectly. (Plus, I positioned it such that it covers the knot from the end of the chevron-print burlap and the knot from the beginning of the first roll of burlap.)

In case you’re wondering, the back of the wreath looks like this:

That’s it!  Oh, I guess I did miss one step—hang it wherever your heart desires! I think I’m going to try making some smaller ones next time and may do a trio of them on one wall, each positioned at different heights, hung by wide ribbon. That could look cool. Or, at least it does in my head anyway. Reality could be a whole other story.

I can’t give you a good estimate on how much time this takes to make, but if you’re not stopping every five seconds to take a million pictures in hopes one of them turns out good enough to be used in a blog post, I imagine it’s a pretty speedy process (i.e., 15-30 minutes, depending upon how distracted you get & the size of the wreath). The other great thing about this particular project is that it’s one you can easily walk away from and get back to later, if need be. You don’t need to do it all in one sitting.

At any rate, that is how to make a super-easy burlap bubble wreath. If you make one yourself, please come back and share pictures and any pointers you picked up along the way that I may have overlooked!