It’s Party Time!

I’m not joking when I tell people “I’m booked solid between now and Christmas”, and I started saying that back the first of October!! Life is literally running full steam ahead at the moment. Last night I received a text message from a friend. She said she was planning the annual Christmas party and knew I was super busy. Before she picked a date for her party she wanted to run a few dates by me. I thought that was really sweet of her! Thankfully of the three dates she sent me I actually had one of them open!! I quickly scribbled her name and the time for the party in my calendar before someone else stole that time from me!

I then looked back over my calendar and realized I had Holiday Gatherings scheduled for December 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th! Five parties in a row!! Five days of party food and party drink! Oh boy! It was one of those moments when you begin to have an internal conversation with yourself. You know how those conversations go.

“I will only eat from the vegetable tray!” or “One cookie! That’s it! I will allow myself one cookie, ok a frosted cookie.” or “I’m only drinking water!”. All of which goes right out the window the minute you stand in front of the crockpot of meatballs, the tray of mini sliders or the bowl full of those Oreo cake balls dipped in chocolate. Then you tell yourself it’s the holidays, it’s once a year, you’re with friends, life is short, enjoy this moment! Which is all well and fine and good if you are only going to one party! But if you’ve got five parties in five days you need a new plan!

I’m not sure when food became so intimately ingrained in our socialization habits. Maybe it stems from our hunter ancestors bringing in a kill for the whole group to feast upon. I imagine life back then was a lot of group food prep, cooking and consuming. I also imagine that they didn’t eat in large quantities like that daily. It was probably less frequent, daily meals were probably boring and much less labor intensive. A few nuts, some dried fish and maybe a squash roasted in the fire. But the hunt, the bringing in of a large kill would have left everyone taking in the much needed calories that would sustain them until the next opportunity they had to eat like that.

Our yearly holiday pilgrimages to a friend or loved ones home, crockpots tucked snuggly into their insulated carriers, bearing even more gifts hidden in brightly color bags with bows and ribbons, being greeted at the door with a warm hug and cheers from those already waiting inside, isn’t much different thousands of years later, except that we have electricity! We still gather to feast, share our food with others and consume vast amounts of calories, that unlike our ancestors, we don’t really need and won’t burn off until at least mid June!

This time of year, as I begin to receive the invites to these wonderful events, they are always followed with the request “You are going to bring your buffalo chicken dip right?” In fact my nephew has a standing order that I cannot even show up at his house unless I have my buffalo chicken dip. Not sure at one point in time I became known for my buffalo chicken dip but apparently I am. There isn’t an event that I get invited to, spring, summer, fall or the holidays, that I’m not asked about it. Most recently I was invited to a Halloween party and I was surprised when the text message started with “Can you bring your buffalo chicken dip?” followed by the date and time of the party. Sometimes I feel like I’m just that woman who gets invited to parties because she will bring her really cool friend as her plus one! Invite Michelle, she’ll bring that buffalo chicken dip!

So what is it about my buffalo chicken dip that makes it so requested? Honestly I don’t know! I have been to other parties and seen buffalo chicken dip on the table, warm and yummy looking there in the crockpot but it’s bright orange. Clearly someone has emptied an entire bottle of Franks Red Hot sauce into that dish! My buffalo chicken dip is not orange, in fact my dip is actually more festive looking with red peppers and green jalapenos.

I need to stop calling it “my” buffalo chicken dip. Even though it seems like it has become mine, I actually got the recipe from someone else thirteen years ago. I was hosting my own Christmas party in 2010 and a friend showed up with two dips that had to be heated up in the oven. One was a crab dip and the other, this buffalo chicken dip. With the first scoop of a tortilla chip into that warm delicious blend of flavors I knew I had to make this dip for myself. I asked her for the recipe and she very happily wrote it down for me. Clearly not understanding that it would become my destiny, my signature dish, I would become known for this buffalo chicken dip.

I make it so often now that I don’t even look at that recipe card anymore. I did change a few things. Her original receipe called for a jar of chopped jalapeños, I prefer to use fresh ones, specifically from my own garden, that I have chopped up and frozen. We are still working through frozen jalapeños from that huge covid garden we planted in 2020! I also remove the seeds. Learned that the hard way one year. Not sure what year it was but we actually left a party with a little bit of dip left in the crockpot. A very rare occurrence for sure! When we got home Craig scooped it out and put it in a container in the fridge. The next day I tried to reheat some for lunch. All those jalapeño seeds sitting there all night had made it so hot that we could not even eat it. After that I decided that on the outside chance we ever came home with any again, I wanted to be able to eat it the next day. So we now have a no seeds rule! I also don’t exactly follow the measurements my friend wrote down that night thirteen Christmases ago. It is more like I just do what feels right. A dash of this and a sprinkle of that, I taste it and then add more until it’s just the way I like it.

All I know is even if I triple the batch, no matter where I take it, it is always the first empty crockpot! Rarely do we have any leftovers anymore. Often times I can’t even make it through the door before someone has taken the crockpot right out of my hands and I never see it again until it’s to late. By the time I make it to the food table the crockpot is scraped clean, a lonely spoon resting on the bottom, an empty bag of chips sitting nearby.

Before I even started this blog today I thought long and hard about if I was willing to share my buffalo chicken dip recipe with the world. Chances are quite a few people out there already make this dip and it’s probably the signature dish for millions of people attending holiday parties, not just me. It was never mine to begin with, so I can’t claim it and feel that it is time to release it out there for others to enjoy. I hope if you are attending any parties this holiday season that you will consider taking this dip with you. Tell them you got the recipe from the lady who wrote that book!

BUFFALO CHICKEN DIP

4 chicken breasts cooked in 2 Tablespoons of olive oil with 1 teaspoon of salt and a pinch of cumin, oregano, and cilantro. (this is the first change I made, I cut my chicken into tiny, and I mean tiny, bite size pieces before I cook it. The size of the chicken pieces should fit easily into a Scoops tortilla chip. And honestly I just dump the spices in. I use way more then a pinch of anything! It’s the cumin that makes it delicious in my opinion!) In a bowl combine 2 packages 8 ounces of cream cheese with 1/2 cup of mayonnaise and 1/2 cup milk. Blend this together real well. When blended add 1/2 of a chopped red pepper and 1/2 a jar of chopped jalapeños (again this is where I use real jalapeños, I use about 6 and remove the seeds.) Mix real well and add Tabasco sauce. (this is where I dump in a few drops of Tabasco sauce, mix it and taste and repeat until it is just right. I like it to be subtly hot. A bit of a kick but not overpowering) Add the cooked chicken pieces to the cream cheese mixture and mix well. Pour into an oven safe dish and back at 350 degrees until the mixture bubbles (this is where I put it in a crockpot on high until it bubbles, mixing the edges in often. Once it’s hot I turn it back to low). Serve with Tostitos Scoops tortilla chips.