Spicy Chipotle Chicken Sliders

Disclosure: This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #VivaLaMorena #CollectiveBias

As you may have noticed, it's been pretty quiet around here because... I am moving to Wordpress!  Behind the scenes, I have been doing the usual cooking, crafting, traveling, and eating, plus lots of updating, rewriting, photo editing, and everything else to get the blog over there ASAP.

What that means is that I am super short on time when it comes to just about everything.  So when my mom asked me to whip up a recipe that my dad could use for his game day crowd, I had to think of something that was quick, easy, and still delicious.  Introducing my Spicy Chipotle Chicken Sliders!

First of all, let me tell you have easy these are to make.  There are seven ingredients total, most of which you can keep on hand in case of a last minute shindig.  There is no measuring whatsoever, so you basically can't "mess up" the recipe, and there's less clean-up with zero dirty spoons and cups!

Not to mention that this takes all of maybe 10 minutes to make, 30 if you do it "from scratch."  Like I said, easy peasy!

You might be thinking that if there are only a few ingredients, it is lacking flavor.  Not at all!  I use one of my favorite secret ingredients, La Morena's Chipotle Sauce, to pump up the volume, and it tastes as if I have been slow cooking the chicken for forever.  Add a few other ingredients and the sliders are ready for the partay!

P.S. - If you want to make these with beef or pork, it would be just as delicious.  Also, if you prefer to make these full sized sandwiches, that would be great too!

By the way, how did the crowd like it?  Well, we were practically feeding an army... my dad's soccer team!  Yes, he still plays on a team with a bunch of other "men of a certain age" who are sports fanatics.  When they got to my parent's house, they were hungry and ready for the football games on TV, so we had an antsy crowd on our hands.

I made sure to make my recipe extra spicy with the addition of some La Morena Sliced Jalapeños for my Latino tíos (uncles) on the team.  Otherwise, I know they would be asking for more sabor (flavor)!

But everyone loved the sliders so it was mission accomplished!  I'm sure your football party guests will be happy to eat these too.  :)

Before we get to the recipe, here are a couple of tips to make this super quick.  You can keep most of the ingredients on hand in the pantry, so I always make sure to buy double when I'm at Northgate Market.

To make it even simpler, you can buy a precooked chicken for super easy shredding which will shave off even more time.  Smart!

Spicy Chipotle Chicken Sliders
A Vintage Zest original recipe

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What Makes Your Kid Extraordinary?

As many of you loyal readers know, I spend a lot of time with my niece, who I call my little buddy.  :)  Now that it is summer time, she is off from school and has more free time.  We have lots of fun outings and crafty projects planned, which I cannot wait for!

I wanted to take a moment and acknowledge some of the extraordinary things about my niece and why we have such a strong bond.  Plus, together we put together an easy video that turned out absolutely adorable!

1.  She loves to learn!

The little one just loves to find out about anything she can.  One day, she'll rattle off tons of facts about space that she found out from school, educational shows, books, and everywhere else.  The next day, it will be about the Grand Canyon, or whatever subject she's interested in.  The cutest thing is that her enthusiasm is absolutely infectious, and you can't help but be interested in what she is telling you.

2.  She is the friendliest kid!

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Father's Day DVD Gift Idea!

Disclosure: I am a member of the Collective Bias®  Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper amplification for Collective Bias and its advertiser.

A couple of weeks ago, I shared with you a gift basket for my mom with all of our favorite items.  I know that I left my dad out, but since Father's Day was right around the corner, I knew that I was going to make him a basket of his own!  For my mom, I included some sappy rom-coms, nail polish, and generally girly things.  Since this is for my manly-Superman-of-a-dad with "biceps of iron" (his words, not mine), I wanted to put together his own gift basket!  The inspiration for the gift is centered around the DVD release one of his favorite characters of all time: Jack Ryan!  There is a whole series of books on him and a total of five movies with the character, but I am getting him the newest DVD, coming out on Tuesday (June 10th), so I know he doesn't have it yet!

Here's what's going to be in my dad's gift!

I love filling up a fun basket with my dad's favorite things, and this time I definitely hit them all!

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Exploring L.A.!

Originally, I had zero plans for this weekend, but then my friend and I decided to catch a last minute craft fair and have fun being tourists in our own city!


Precap (jump to):

• Sights:  Echo Park Craft Fair, Echo Park, Carroll Avenue, Grand Park, Walt Disney Concert Hall
• Eats:  Oaxacan Quesadilla Cart, Bouchon Bistro, Lucille's Smokehouse BBQ, Creme de la Crepe

I invited my friend to go to the Echo Park Craft Fair, which was not in my original upcoming events post.  It seemed like it might be cool and had some shops I hadn't seen before, so we met up!

It was kind of a strange craft show: very crowded, dark, and not conducive to showing off the best of the goods.  Still, I did find some awesome features for Shop Small Saturday Showcase!

However, outside the craft fair was something pretty awesome: the Oaxacan Quesadilla Cart!

The fresh, handmade blue corn tortillas were shaped and formed for a long line of hungry people.  To see the whole process and where to find the cart, check out The Episodic Eater!

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Delicious food & Unique LA show!

This was one action packed week!  We celebrated, ate, shopped, and really had a whirlwind of a time.  Let's get to it!


Precap (jump to):

• Eats:  Forage, Brite Spot, Guisado's, Providence, La Tavolata, 85°C Bakery Cafe
• Sights:  Dad's wine birthday, Unique LA, Banksy in L.A., Driving in L.A., Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel

This week was my dad's birthday, so he decided to open up a ton of his wines.  This is only 1/3 of the bottles, but I know how much fun they had.  My guy was especially excited to try some of these, since he is becoming an amateur connoisseur, following in my father's footsteps.  :)

I was more interested in the pickles, olives, and corks that my father's chef friends brought.  I always have dibs on the corks and I may have pilfered a jar or two.  :)

The next day, my friend and I went to Unique LA!  I loved the holiday show a few months ago, which I recapped here.  :)  I actually think this one was better!

It was held at the California Market Center on the penthouse floor, with a pretty fantastic view all around the L.A. skyline!  By the way, for any of you street art lovers, my friend pointed out the Banksy at the bottom of the photo.  There was a second one that I was unsure about though on the roof.

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Artisanal LA & more!

This weekend was really fun and the start to the craft show season, as I mentioned in last week's post of upcoming events.  Let's get to it!


Precap (jump to):

• Eats:  Casa Inka
• Sights:  Artisanal LA

On Saturday, my guy went to a beer festival with some of his friends and although it would have been fun, I ended up catching up with my friend.   We spent a ton of time chatting about blogging and how to get started.  Sometimes we are crafty and cook together, but it was just a major gabfest!  P.S. - She is the one I mentioned in my Blogging 101 series post yesterday.  :)


Afterwards, we met with my family at Casa Inka and had yet another Peruvian meal!  This time it was much more casual and traditional.  :)  This dish was absolutely fantastic!

And how could you go to a Peruvian restaurant without ordering ceviche!  For more, including the beautiful and tasty fish, chicken, and vegetable dishes that we ordered, visit The Episodic Eater for the full meal and photos!

The next day, my guy and I hit up Artisanal LA.  I was extremely excited to go because this was my first show and I could finally make it!

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Old favorites!

A couple of weeks ago, I tried three new, different restaurants and this week I went back to some old favorites!  It's funny how these weekly wrap-ups somehow have themes.  :)

Let's get started!


Precap (jump to):

• Eats:  California Pizza Kitchen, Katella Deli Restaurant, Katella Deli Bakery
• Sights:  Stuff!

We needed to grab a quick bite, so we headed to one of the few chain restaurants that is an old favorite: California Pizza Kitchen!

Yes, this was an incredible steak, and even though I was skeptical about ordering steak from here, it was really great.  To see more, plus the actual pizzas we ordered, visit The Episodic Eater!

For most of the weekend, I actually ended up doing lots of errands like clearing out the thousands of e-mails from my inbox.  Yessssss!  I usually get about 30 that I save daily plus about 100 more that I clear out periodically throughout the day, so you can imagine how long it took to accumulate over 1000!

I had a father-daughter dinner at Katella Deli Restaurant and Bakery because my mom was out of town and my guy went to a Game of Thrones viewing party that I skipped.  Since we were both free, it was sandwich time!  Yay!

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Earthquake!

This weekend, we took it pretty easy with a few errands, but we definitely had a little bit of excitement to start it off!


Precap:

• Sights:  Earthquake!
• Eats:  Sapporo Sushi & Bistango

If any of you have lived in California for any period of time, you probably have felt a little earthquake here or there.  They never bothered me as a kid, and you just have to know how to react.  Anyways, a couple of weeks ago there was a pretty sharp earthquake that was just like a jolt.  This week's earthquake was way more concerning because it was extremely long!  My guy and I were at my parent's house and they had a guest over.  It was funny how everyone reacted.

My mom was upstairs, so I'm not sure what she did.  However, my dad ran to the front door to open it up (in case it got jammed).  My guy went to the nearest door frame.  Our guest and I kept sitting, hoping to ride it out, but when it went on a bit longer, I stood up to get to a safer place while he kept sitting.  Basically, we represented just about every level of concern from, "Oh crap the house might fall down!"  to "Eh, it will be over soon."  Then we called my sister who didn't feel a thing as she was driving.  No damage at my parents house except in my old room where an old picture frame that fell from a top shelf.  No biggie because it really isn't my style anymore.  :)

After my sister arrived, we watched the news to find out about the earthquake.  By the time we had our fill of information, it was pretty late, so we ended up scrapping our original dinner plans and eating at Sapporo Sushi, which was still open.

By this time I was pretty hungry, so I ordered the "Hungry Roll."  This ridiculously huge plate showed up, which was totally shocking to the whole table.  To see the whole dinner, including a fun bento box, click on over to The Episodic Eater!

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Weekly Wrap-Up: New Food Adventures!

This weekend, we had a bunch of fun things to do and I tried three new restaurants for the first time. Triple fun!


Precap:

• Sights:  Registering for my sister's wedding with a not-so-fun moment
• Eats:  Cucina Enoteca, The Grilled Cheese Spot, Cafe Gratitude

On Saturday, we went to a beautiful restaurant called Cucina Enoteca to meet up with some of my guy's high school friends.  It was very inspiring for the future garden!

We ordered this amazing pizza.  Just delicious!  I seriously can't pick out what the best dish of the day was, and if you want to see the whole meal along with gorgeous tablescape inspiration, click on over to The Episodic Eater!

I was inspired by someone's delicious grilled cheese, so we hit up The Grilled Cheese Spot on the way back.  It was the restaurant that I actually wanted to go to when we went to Izalco a couple of weeks back.  Boy, was it worth the wait!

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Lots of food & celebrating!

This has been a ridiculously busy week with a ton of restaurants, home decisions, and wedding planning!  Let's get to the recap!


Precap (jump to):

• Sights:  Izalco, AnQi Gourmet Bistro & Noodle Bar, Utopia
• Eats:  Woodburning, Picking out home upgrades, Taste of Downtown Long Beach, Make Collectives

I was buying some supplies, and found myself next to Michael's.  I couldn't help but popping in, especially because I had a gift card!  After hemming and hawing, I bought this woodburning tool since I thought it would be an interesting way to decorate my woodworking projects.

My man made this bullseye.  Not bad!

You might remember from this week's announcement that we found a new house!  It was time to pick a few new finishes, but we decided to keep everything pretty standard and DIY projects along the way.  YESSSSSS!  Oh, can you tell that I'm excited?

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Crafting & Crêpes!

This weekend was pretty low-key with lots of crafting!  It was definitely a nice change from all of the furniture window shopping and blog updating that I have been doing in my little bits of free time now that my work has increased by a ton.

Precap:

• Sights:  Crafting with my niece & sneak peek at my latest project!
• Eats:  Crème de la Crêpe

 

During the week, I went to Crème de la Crêpe with my mom for a girl's dinner out.  We had so many goodies: crêpes galore, escargots, paté and baguettes.  Magnifique!  Check it all out on The Episodic Eater!

This weekend, I finally did some crafting.  My niece came over and she helped me with a project that has been on my to do list for forever!  Yay!  I just wanted to share a sneak peek before I have a chance to photograph it with my nice camera.  :)

We had a bit of time left until my cousin showed up, so my niece and I sewed a little bag to match a pouch we made some time ago.  Here is her cute sketch of the design she had in mind!

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Quick Big Game Chili & Our Football Snack Spread!

We love having people over for weekly football parties, but it can definitely be a ton of work and expensive to host everyone!  For this week, I streamlined everything from our shopping to the menu, to make sure that we were spending our time and money wisely.  That meant a late night trip to Smart & Final, so we only had to make one stop for all of our party needs.  For the menu, I needed something quick and hearty, so I bought all of the ingredients for my crowd-pleasing quick big game chili recipe.  Then, we added a bunch of pre-packaged party snacks to complete the spread!

Over the weeks, I have figured out the hits and the misses that our football crowd loves, and I would love to share my tips for putting together a quick game time snack spread with you plus one crowd-pleasing recipe!

Here are just some of supplies that we bought.  All of the Simply Value paper products, tortilla chips, guacamole, fresh veggies, hummus, everything for our chili, and mini waffles for the kids'  chicken & waffle sliders.  After snapping a quick photo, we rounded up the rest of the stuff and were out of there lickety split!  The best part of Smart & Final is that I can buy everything in one store and I can buy both warehouse size & regular size items in one place.  Soooo convenient and budget-friendly!

Right before company comes over, I start the chili and it is a HUGE pot!  Here is my quick chili recipe, so you don't spend the whole day slaving over a hot stove or waiting for the slow cooker.  I use some shortcuts so I can minimize my time chopping veggies.  :)

Quick Big Game Chili
A Vintage Zest original

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Delicious Outings & Sad Farewell to a Friend

It was a roller coaster kind of week, and here is the wrap up of it all.

Precap (jump to):

• Sights:  Mitsuwa marketplace tour, Farewell to a friend
• Eats:  Il Fornaio, Mitsuwa bakery items, Christy's on Broadway

We were still recuperating from New Years Eve when we were invited to go to Il Fornaio.  It looks delicious, doesn't it?

The restaurant itself is gorgeous!  To see all of the delicious food, including the Pappardelle Gialla ai Funghi I ordered, see the post here on The Episodic Eater.

I was in the area, so I went to Mitsuwa Marketplace to do a little shopping!  I have a sweet tooth, so it's pretty hard for me not to stock up.  :)

Also, there are tons of authentic Japanese items and so many options, like these soy sauces.  To see the entire tour, including the most perfect little mochi cake I have ever seen, click here on The Episodic Eater!

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Crafted at the Port of Los Angeles, B-day dinner & X-mas!

It's the last weekly wrap-up of the 2013!  I cannot believe how time flies!  These weekly wrap-ups have totally evolved this past year, but I'll chat about it a bit later.  :)


Precap (jump to):

• Sights:  Crafted at the Port of Los Angeles, Christmas!
• Eats:  FIG & OLIVE

Saturday

I convinced my guy that we should head to Crafted at the Port of Los Angeles for some last minute Christmas shopping!

It is located in San Pedro where the weather is absolutely amazing!  For this weekend, there was a special little Mom and Pop Up shop from the SoCal Etsy Guild for the holidays.

But first, I had to pop in and say hello to my friends at the Artisan Candle Company, who mentioned that I should drop by their permanent store after meeting them at Patchwork Santa Ana.  What a great suggestion!  On Instagram, I shared the candle that I picked out here.  It was a really hard choice!

It was especially a fun time because we were introduced to the Crafted's Executive Director and Leasing Director, who gave us a tour and introduced us around a bit.  Also, they gave us an inside scoop on their current location and their plans to open up a brewery, testing kitchen, and food artisan selling area for the building next door.  It sounds amazing, and I can't wait for that to open up!  By the way, this is all after filming their three separate segments on KTLA and staying up late for the Happy Hour shopping the previous day.  How nice of them, right?

Also, I had a chance to visit more vendors that I can't wait to feature on the Shop Small Saturday Showcase series soon.  I loved so many of the vendors, and my guy enjoyed his beer tasting while I did my rounds.  See, it is perfect for both crafty and non-crafty folks!  :)

Here are a few pictures from the non-vendor areas of Crafted.  A DIY ornament station, a photo booth, a free gift wrapping station, and a 10 foot tall wire baby art piece.  Yep, you read that right!

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Friends & Family Time

So, this isn't quite up to my normal crafting standards, but I had to share it with you good readers.  My guy who is not into crafting or DIY made this little gem while he was bored on our card ride back from Las Vegas last weekend.

When he gave it to me after the end of our road trip, he jokingly said, "If you feature me as your 26th Day of Handmade Gifts, maybe we can have an interview and spend more time together?"

So yes, I am doing just that and spending some well-deserved time with my family and my guy.

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Carnival time in Vegas!

This was a busy, busy week before Christmas!  We had so much fun, and I for one am completely tuckered out.  It's a good thing that the holidays are almost upon us so I can get a bit of a break.  :)

Precap:

• Sights: Road trip to Vegas!
• Eats: Nick's on 2nd, Pamplemousse Le Restaurant, Carnival of Cuisine, Public House, Grimaldi's Pizzeria, Bouchon

Before all of the fun Las Vegas weekend stuff, I had a quick lunch with my mom during the workweek.  We headed to Nick's on 2nd and I had the most delicious dessert... Warm Butter Cake!  If anyone knows a similar recipe, let me know.  :)  To see all of the delicious pictures, head to The Episodic Eater on this post!

Friday

And then we were off to Vegas for the weekend!  Here are a couple pretty pictures of our ride over.  :)

I love this picture of the rainbow sky over the desert mountains.  :)

For dinner, we went to Pamplemousse Le Restaurant and had a nice welcome dinner to Las Vegas.  Check out this incredible crudités platter!  See all of the deliciousness right here.  :)

Saturday

In the morning, my guy and I hit the outlet malls and I may have purchased just a few things...  :)  First, I had some new Kenneth Cole boots (to replace my favorite, worn-out black ones) and an awesome leather jacket also from Kenneth Cole.  Also, I bought a few festive tops, a pretty belt, and a winter jacket from Banana Republic (I heart that store), plus a chambray shirt & statement necklace from J. Crew.  I went all out since I have not bought winter clothing in forever and the deals were too ridiculously good to pass up!


Now, for the reason we were there!  We went to the Carnival of Cuisine, which is an amazing food event.  Tons of restaurants from The Palazzo and The Venetian have tables all around the pool area and you sample so much incredible food.

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