Couples Who Cook Together...Love Blue Cheese

As a newlywed, I am finding many, many aspects of married life that I love, especially getting to use the phrase "my husband"! One of my favorite things to do with my husband is share time in the kitchen. I am fortunate enough to be married to a man who not only is an excellent cook, but who also really enjoys cooking. I will be the first to admit that I can easily get stuck in a rut of favorite dishes, or dishes that are easy to throw together, but Harris is always on the hunt for new things for us to try. While he was not thoroughly impressed with his blue cheese burgers yesterday (note to readers: don't stuff burgers with ooey gooey cheesy goodness, and then cook on a George Foreman grill, designed to strip all the fatty goodness away), I was still very pleased with his flavorful turkey burgers. Additionally, while I am almost famous (at least in my own mind) at crock pot cooking, Harris was the one who stumbled upon the buffalo chicken soup recipe, and encouraged me to make it. I made a few modifications - the original recipe would have made an absolute ton of soup, plus I really hate celery, and only buy it when absolutely necessary. My modifications still made plenty of soup - enough for at least 4 adults for one meal, with probably some leftover. I would definitely recommend serving this alongside a crusty bread!

What You Need:

- 1 pack chicken breasts, cooked and shredded (I used frozen tenderloins, and then shredded after they were cooked through)

- 16 oz fat free half & half

- 1 can cream of chicken soup

- 1/2 cup (or more) buffalo wing sauce

- 1/2 cup sour cream

- 5 small white potatoes, washed, peeled, and sliced

- 3 carrots, washed peeled, and sliced

- Blue cheese

What You'll Do:

- Spray your crock pot, and place chicken in bottom

- Pour in remaining ingredients, except bleu cheese

- Cook on low for 5 hours, or high for 3 hours

- At this point, if you have opted for frozen chicken breasts, shred your chicken in your crock pot

- Mix in blue cheese (I used about 3/4 of a regular container of blue cheese from the deli section)

- Cook another hour, serve hot!

It's about as easy as it gets, folks. While I am not going to chalk this up to my all-time top crock pot recipes, I will say it sufficiently and satisfactorily did its job - which was to provide yet another version of buffalo chicken "fill in the blank". This brings me to a random, yet related thought - when did buffalo chicken become a craze? I mean, first it was the buffalo chicken dip (albeit delicious, I will admit), and now I see everything from this soup to buffalo chicken macaroni and cheese, buffalo chicken quesadillas, and buffalo chicken hashbrown casserole. Don't even get me started on the variations of buffalo potato chips, or all the other things Doritos is up to these days. I guess when we Americans find something we love, we hold on tight, and don't let go...a good practice for marriage too, not just food.