Date Night Dinners - A POPover Celebration

1/02/2015 tringel 0 Comments

We have rung in the New Year and are looking forward to 2015; we hope yours was as great as ours. Because date night fell on the New Year we wanted to make it festive, and what better way then by filling up on a deliciously decadent meal before all the dieting resolutions begin.


On New Years Eve Day I was dying to do a New Years craft with Brenden. Remember our snow people, they came out great, or how about our dream catchers? It seems cheesy but we had such a great time crafting together, making cute keeps sakes, I wanted to finish the year doing the same. Well, we searched the internet and found a few crafts but everything required a trip to the store, and going to the store on New Years Eve day just isn't for us. It's a mess.


We thought some more and I came up with a brilliant idea. We would craft NYE poppers. All we really needed for those were paper, toilet paper rolls, glitter and tape; everything I had laying around (I mean who doesn't have excess glitter filling up every drawer). But Brenden was not digging the mess they would make and, more importantly, the clean up we would have to endure after popping the poppers. I thought about it; he was right. So we did away with the craft idea and made other, quite enjoyable plans for the day and night.

But my new years would not go without a popper of some kind. When we found a recipe for bbq chicken and popovers we knew it was the perfect meal for the New Year. And thus my popper craft was transformed into edible popover baking. We were more then excited.

I love crockpoting. It is easy; it is efficient, and it keeps the mess and hassle down. This recipe was even better then most in the sense that it instructed us to cook the chicken on high, cutting down on the cooking time and allowing me to sleep in a bit after our festivities the night before (not that I couldn't have jumped right back into bed after throwing all the ingredients into the crockpot and turning it on). That's how easy it was.

So, we mixed the ingredients into the crockpot, turned it on and waited in anticipation to see how the chicken would turn out. But, the bbq chicken wasn't the star of our night. The popovers we would be making, right before the chicken was ready to eat, would be our main attraction.

Popovers and I go way back. I remember my mom baking them for our family during special dinners. They were always amazing and delicious - the crispy outside and the hollow but doughy inside. To me, there was just something magical about them and I could never get enough. Over the years though, the popovers frequented the menu less and less and we slowly forgot about them. They made an appearance here and there, but it was never quite the same - that is until recently.

A few months ago, my mom started trying to bake her famous popovers when we would have family meals. The only problem was, the secret to getting them to pop was gone, and for the last few meals we have been eating pop-less popovers. Still delicious, but not quite the same. Without popping, you still get a crispy, flaky outside, but the doughy inside is much denser with a lot more dough bunched together.

A few weeks ago, I got an amazing present of a KitchenAid Mixer. With it comes a little recipe book, and among the recipes for cookies and cakes and pies was a recipe for popovers. It is like it was meant to be. The stars aligned and the New Year would come in with a bang...or pop!


After the chicken had been cooking for about five and a half hours Brenden and I began our popover endeavor. We carefully measured out all of the ingredients and placed them into the mixer bowl in the exact order listed on the recipe page. We knew these suckers could be very temperamental, so we took great care. Brenden even timed as I mixed to make sure we followed everything to a "T."

The batter was mixed, the tray was prepared. All we had left to do was stick them in the oven, cross our fingers, and wait in hopes that they would pop. We waited and waited - 15 long minutes. They had popped! Oh my goodness, I couldn't believe it, and was so excited. I knew they would taste amazing and I couldn't wait for Brenden to try his first real popover. I lowered the oven temperature as directed and waited another 25 minutes as they baked some more and I hoped nothing would unexpectedly go wrong in that time. But they only got bigger! I waited for the popovers to look nice and golden brown on the outside before removing them from the oven.

Finally it was time to take them out of the oven; they looked perfect. We wanted to eat them immediately. We each took a popover, opened it up and watched the steam fill the air. We scooped some of our now shredded bbq chicken into the center of the popover and barely waited until it was cool enough to try without burning out tongues. The bbq sauce from the chicken smelled amazing, and mixed with the doughy smell of the popover, well, my mouth is watering still now.


The chicken was cooked perfectly. It fell apart before we even shredded it completely. Covered in the sauce, the chicken was quite decadent, but so good. We wanted to keep eating it but were filled with satisfaction after just one bbq chicken filled popover. It was the perfect meal for to bring in the New Year. And, hopefully this is a sign for our meals and kitchen extravaganzas to follow.

Crockpot Shredded BBQ Chicken with Popovers
Recipe adapted from halfbakedharvest.com, Crockpot BBQ Beer Pulled Chicken & Cheddar Corn Popovers

Ingredients

• BBQ Chicken
• 2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breast
• 2 Tbsp honey
• 1 Tbsp paprika
• 2 tsp chipotle chile powder
• 1 sp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 2 cups Sweet baby Rays Original BBQ sauce
• 1 cup Wegmans Memphis Style BBQ sauce
• 1 cup beer
• Popovers
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 Tbsp butter, melted
• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 tsp salt

Directions

1. BBQ Chicken
1. Place the chicken in the bowl of the crockpot
2. Add the honey, paprika, chipotle chile poder, garlic powder, cinnamon, crushed red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, bbq sauces, and beer to the crockpot, on top of chicken.
3. With your hands (or a spoon if you don't want to get messy) mix all the ingredients together making sure everything is fully combined and all of the chicken is fully coated.
4. Cover the crockpot with the lid and cook on high for 6 hours.
5. After 6 hours, when the chicken if fully cooked, remove it from the sauce and shred with two forks.
6. Once shredded, return the chicken to the sauce and toss.
7. Keep warm until serving.
2. Popovers
1. In the bowl of a mixer add the eggs, milk, butter, flour, and salt.
2. Mix for about 15 seconds, scrape the sides and then mix for another 15 seconds.
3. Prepare a popover pan, coating with cooking spray and then flour..
4. Pour the batter evenly into all six of the popover cups, about halfway full.
5. Place the tray into a cold oven.
6. Heat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit with the popovers inside for 15 minutes.
7. After 15 minutes, turn the oven down to 350 degrees and and bake for another 23-27 minutes.
8. Remove from oven and use a knife around the edges to remove the popovers from the cups.
3. Serve
1. Place warm popover on a plate and cut in half.
2. Fill popover with shredded bbq chicken from the crockpot.
3. Dig in and enjoy!