Pot Luck Yummies

We recently welcomed a new team member to our happy little group.  We are a tight team and I think we might have overwhelmed her with the, um, comfort level that we have with each other. We tend to speak pretty freely in front of each other about any and all subject areas, professionally and personally. Sometimes very personally. Our new teamie is a bit on the shy side and I was afraid she left our first meeting a little shell-shocked. So, we decided to have a little pot-luck lunch on our recent early release day to officially welcome her to the group and spend some good team bonding time together.

Yummy! Between the 10 of us, we pulled together a pretty nice lunch, especially considering we can't have any electrical appliances! Not even crock pots - ugh. Fine, Fire Marshall Bill, we'll comply. But don't expect an invite to our little luncheon.

We also had some pizza and some fantastic pumpkin spiced coffee from Trader Joe's. I have officially fallen in love with that store after my first visit. The closest one to us is about an hour and a half away, but I will be making a trip there to re-stock my pumpkin coffee, pumpkin chai tea latte, spiced apple cider and dark chocolate covered dried cherries soon. Very soon. I might even move there. For real.

All in all, the lunch was a success. We learned a lot more about our new teamie and I think she's going to fit in just fine. She definitely seemed to relax a bit more around us, so yay! We really are nice people who would do anything for each other and we wanted her to see that and feel welcomed into the fold.

So, the point of this post is to share two no-fail recipes for your next pot luck. Do you all do them at your schools? If not, then maybe you can use one for the upcoming holiday season. Any time I'm invited somewhere and ask what to bring, these are the two things that are almost always requested. There's a third one I'll share soon...suspense, my pretties!

The first is Oriental Coleslaw made with ramen noodles, of all things.

The second is Buffalo Chicken Dip. If you like wings you will LOVE this. My hubs is a big fan of this one. I ended up bringing my dip to school with a big scoop missing, but that's ok there was still enough to go around.

If you bring these dishes with you, someone WILL ask for the recipe, I promise. So, just click {HERE} to get a copy of each one to print out and take along with you!


Happy weekend - rest up for every teacher's nightmare favorite day - Halloween!