Brunswick Stew - Super Yums!

Ok, so last week when we had Gumbo, I realized as I was serving it, that what I really wanted was Brunswick Stew. And not just any Brunswick Stew, but my mother-in-law’s. She makes it a lot for Christmas Day, and we’ve had it other times throughout the year. It’s so good, that I just started craving it. So I turned to Jesse and said, “You know what I really need to do? I need to get Courtney’s recipe for Brunswick Stew.” Jesse immediately responded, “Oh, you mean this?” And whipped the recipe out of our recipe box. OMG, we had it all this time!!!!! I couldn’t believe it! (It was a totally awesome reaction, btw) So I immediately resolved that our next blog entry would be about the stew.

We decided to have the stew on Tuesday. Courtney makes it in the crock pot, so at first I was like, I can just do this in the morning before school. Well, I was subbing at Norcross that day, so that meant I was up at 5:30. The night before I was at a dinner and didn’t get home until 11:30. I require about 8-10 hours of sleep to be fully functional. So needless to say, I decided since I would be home by 2:30, I could just make the Brunswick Stew in the crock pot on high, take a nap, and still have everything ready to eat by about 7:00. Of course nothing ever goes that easy for me.

So obviously the first thing I had to do was get together the ingredients. I did that earlier in the week. Here’s the list of ingredients:

• 1 (2 to 3 lb chicken)
• 2 (28 oz) cans of regular crushed tomatoes
• 2 (16 oz) cans of kernel corn
• 1 (16 oz) can of creamed corn
• ¾ can tomato paste
• 1 cup ketchup
• ½ cup BBQ sauce
• 1 chopped onion
• 1 tablespoon liquid smoke
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 2 ½ tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• ¼ teaspoon allspice
• ¼ teaspoon cumin
• ¼ teaspoon cayenne
• salt & pepper
• celery salt

Yum yums!

So when I went to the store, I didn’t put all of the quantities down that I needed. For the can of crushed tomatoes, I wasn’t sure what the normal size was. I could only find the 28 oz size. I wasn’t sure if that was the size I needed, or if it wasn’t, so I just bought one. I also didn’t know which size can of tomato paste to get, so I got the most common one. Last, I couldn’t remember how much vinegar, so I bought a huge jug of it. For one tablespoon. Oops. Haha. I also realized when I got home from the store, that I needed more ketchup. All of that meant more trips to the store. I stopped on my way home from school and picked up the ketchup, still not realized I needed more of the crushed tomatoes. It wasn’t until I was home and getting all of the ingredients out that I saw I needed 2 28 oz cans. Doh! Back to the store. I made a super quick trip back to the store (good thing Ingles is about 2 miles away and no stops through traffic lights). Finally, I was home, had all the ingredients, and was ready to go.

The first step Courtney has is to boil the chicken until it’s falling off the bone and then to reserve the stock. I had no time for that, so instead I bought chicken breasts. I cut the chicken breasts up a little until Jesse said I probably didn’t need to do that, so I stopped. In hindsight, it would have probably been easy to cube the chicken…more on that later. I then cut up the onion, which I’d had in the freezer since the day before, to help cut down on watery eyes. Once those were done, I dumped those into my crock pot.

Next, I emptied out one can of crushed tomatoes, took one look at the crock pot and thought, crap! This thing may be too small. Not a good thought, but I was holding out hope. The recipe says 6-10 servings, and I’ve made 6-10 servings of recipes in the crock pot before. Jesse told me it was too small. But I stubbornly refused to listen and poured in the other can of crushed tomatoes and one can of corn. Yeah, it almost overflowed. Now what do I do??? At this point it was all I could do not to tell Sarah “I told you so” but I think I did anyway…

I called my mom. J She has some crock pots and I couldn’t remember if they were bigger than mine or not, so I asked her if I could run to her house and check them out and maybe borrow one. She said sure. Jesse volunteered to go with me, but when we got there, we noticed they were the same size. But what she does have, are some huge stock pots, so we took one of those instead. When we got home, we transferred the food from the crock pot to the stock pot. I then poured in the rest of the ingredients, we put this on the stove and turned it on to a medium-low temperature.

I had to nap, so Jesse kindly agreed to stir the stew and reduce the heat to low. If you do this on a crock pot, you only need about 2-3 hours on high (if the chicken is not already cooked, less if it is) and 5-6 on low (once again, less if the chicken is cooked). Just cook until the chicken is done. If you feel like it is too thick, add some chicken stock. Pretty soon, it’s done. since it usually shreds better when cooking in the crockpot (since it cooks so long), we now had to worry about the giant pieces of chicken that we had. After it cooked for a while, I fished the chicken chunks/breasts out, manually shredded them with some forks, and put them back in the pot.

When I woke up from my nap, I noticed this very delicious smell. I was super excited. The stew looked yummy, and I couldn’t wait to eat it. So I promptly took a spoon and dipped it in the stew. I did not have the patience to wait for it to cool, and immediately burned my tongue. Oops. Finally Jesse and I served ourselves and sat down to eat. Here’s Jesse’s plate. He has to eat this with saltine crackers. I just had a few yeast rolls.

Note: Since this time we made this (first week of April) we have since made it two other times. Halfing the recipe fits perfectly into our crockpot. But it's just as good the other times around. Love it!!!!

Reviews:

Sarah:

Preparation: 5 out of 5. This was easy (once I had all of the ingredients). The hardest thing was chopping up the onion. It would have been even easier if I had been able to make this in the crock pot because then we wouldn’t really have had to stir it too much. Next time we may just make half a serving. Or, if anyone needs any gift ideas, a large crock pot would be awesome!

Taste: 5 out of 5. Seriously, this is soooooooo good. I could have had this for every meal last week. As it is, we had it for leftovers once, and have the rest frozen.

Pickiness Factor: 4 out of 5. I think this is a pretty good one for picky people. Unless your picky person doesn’t like the ingredients. J

Jesse:

Preparation: 5 out of 5. This was super easy….just put it all in the pot and you’re done! Just make sure your pot is large enough, haha—derp.

Taste: 5 out of 5. This dish has definitely evolved over the years. I started to realize how tasty it had gotten and noticed that I, along with Sarah, would look forward to Courtney (My Step-Mother) making it for special family events. She gave me the recipe a few Christmases ago and this was our first attempt at its recreation. I have to say it was amazing. I added Tabasco to mine for some more spice, and served it with a sleeve of saltine crackers. MmMmMmMmm GOOD!

Cost: 4 out of 5. If you don’t have all of the ingredients, it can kinda be a pain—but even so, it’s all still pretty cheap. After you make this, it stores great in the freezer for one of those rainy day meals when you just don’t feel like cooking.

TOTAL: 4.67

Whaddya mean Mardi Gras was a month ago??

So today I attempted Gumbo. First, I must make a HUGE disclaimer: I have never, EVER made Gumbo or Jambalaya, nor have I ever had it that I can remember. So this was a pretty big thing for me…

It all started out with some Cajun seasoning we got from Jesse’s mom from when she and her husband went to New Orleans for their one year anniversary. I looked at it and was like, we should make something Cajun. I figured jambalaya or gumbo could be made in a crock pot, so easy enough, right? I should have known better.

Jesse decided on gumbo, so I set around to searching for some easy-sounding recipes. And while I did that, I started wondering, “What is the difference between gumbo and jambalaya?” So I then decided to look that up. Here’s what I found: Apparently one difference is that gumbo is a soup made with okra and a roux, and jambalaya is not really a soup, and made with rice. I also found how they got their names, and being a French major, I kinda had to slap my hand to my forehead on jambalaya. So gumbo apparently means okra in one of the native African languages slaves spoke back in the day. Maybe Yoruba, I can’t remember. Jambalaya, is ham with rice. I.e. Jambon = ham + à la = of the + ya = rice (once again in a native African language). So Jambalaya actually used to be made with ham, although sausage is pork and ham is pork, so kinda the same (well, sausage usually has pork in it….who knows what else :P). Ok, there’s your linguistics lesson for the day. Sometimes I wish I had also majored in linguistics, but I didn’t realize that until my final semester of college, and I wasn’t going to stay any longer, no matter how much I loved Athens and UGA.

Anyways, back to the topic: Gumbo. I found a recipe for chicken and sausage gumbo that was in the crock pot. The only worrying thing about it was that I would have to make a roux ahead of time. I’ve never made one. I’ve watch both Jesse and my mother make one. I know the basics of making one (stirring nonstop really). But I’ve never made one… I was really hoping I could find some of this at the store. I saw it on a Cajun cooking site where some people from Louisiana said that it’s as good as their Grandma’s. Alas, Ingles doesn’t carry that, so I would have to face my fears.

Once I got home from the store, I then set up a playlist. I have a total of two Cajun songs à grâce de my French classes. I thought I would need at least two more, so I found two from iTunes that didn’t sound entirely the same and bought those. This brought my Cajun playlist to a grand total of 4 songs – one of which is a Christmas song.

• Michel Fugain, Les Acadiens
• Paul Daigle & Robert Elkins, La Veille de Noel
• The Cajun Playboys, T’en a Eu, T’en Au Vas
• Savoy-Ducet Cajun Band, Port Arthur Blues

So, with my playlist cued up, I was ready to go. Here is the recipe I used, mostly pulled from a mix of websites, but the majority from this one:

http://www.ehow.com/how_5211257_make-sausage-gumbo-crock-pot.html

Some of you who know me, may be wondering, “Wait a minute, Sarah doesn’t eat sausage. What is going on here?” And you would be correct. I am one of the pickiest eaters you will ever meet. A sales rep I used to work with called me Sally, as in When Harry Met Sally. I’m honestly not that bad, and I have improved over the years from when Mac & Cheese and Peanut Butter & Jelly were the only things I ate (I’ll take partial credit here ;)). But yeah, still picky over here… And sausage is one thing I really don’t like, and not even because it’s pork. I don’t like the flavor. So turkey or chicken sausage is out. Poor Jesse. I think he was really hoping I would cook it with sausage and just pick it out of my bowl. But no. So no Andouille sausage – which we even already have (incidentally, in reading different posts on different recipes, I learned that this is not always readily available up North. Weird.). So basically these are the ingredients I used:

· 1/3 Cup of All-Purpose flour

· 1/3 Vegetable Oil

· 2-1/2 Cups of Chicken Broth

· 1 Cup of Vegetable Broth

· 1 onion chopped up

· 2 packages of chicken, cut up

· 1 Green Pepper – de-seeded & chopped up

· a few stalks of celery chopped up

· 1 can of diced tomatoes (may try Ro-Tel next time)

· 2 teaspoons minced garlic

· Okra (lol @ Sarah for buying breaded Okra)

· 1 Tablespoon of Big Kevin’s Bayou Blend Seasoning

So the first thing I did was to cut up the green pepper, onion and celery. I put those in a bowl.

Next, I cut up the chicken into small pieces, then browned those in a pan with a little bit of oil. About a capful of oil. And it’s not like the chicken really browned. More like it just cooked a little on all side. I covered the chicken when I was done and prepared to make the roux.

Then, I tackled the roux, with Cajun music in the background. I followed the recipe from the link I provided above. I mixed 1/3 cup of oil and 1/3 cup of flour in a 2-quart saucepan. Once it was mixed, I turned it on medium-high heat and kept stirring for 4 minutes. Then I turned it down and started stirring, fully prepared to stir for the full 15 minutes. Let me tell you how freaking boring that is. When you have ADD, standing there and having to stir is akin to torture. Not physically painful torture, but mentally painful torture. So I kept stirring. Suddenly I noticed the pasty-white color was starting to change. Which was good because it needed to be a dark brown-reddish color. Then it started to smell like it was burning. And I was thinking, uh-oh, is this supposed to happen? But I kept stirring. Then it set off the smoke alarm and I decided it was dark enough. I threw the smoke alarm on the couch and covered it with a blanket, then opened the kitchen window. Good thing it’s so nice outside. Then I let the roux cool, hoping I hadn’t just destroyed dinner. To me, it seemed like it was the right color. But then Jesse came home and said he thought the color looked burned (it was totally burnt, lol). Too bad because I had already added it to the pot… But anyways, here’s what it looked like.

Remember, this is the first time I have EVER made a roux, so please be kind in your criticisms about how maybe it really was burned and too dark. Please?

Ok, so roux is made and cooling. I was a little impatient but stepped away from the kitchen for a few minutes. Then I decided, I can go on and add the chicken and veggie broth. So I did. Of course, by then, I was really ready to get this stuff in the crock pot and ready to cook since it was already past 2:30. So I added the roux. Maybe it should have cooled longer. In hindsight, it also shouldn’t be burnt, but oh well. Then I added the chicken, veggies, can of diced tomatoes, okra, Cajun seasoning and garlic. I stirred it all up and turned the crock pot on high. If you’re doing this in the morning, low should be good enough. Now I just get to sit and wait and find out if the burnt roux ruined the Gumbo or not.

So now everything’s cooking. Jesse came home from work to check on it and see if the burned roux had done any damage. He tasted it and decided it wasn’t spicy enough and that the roux probably hadn’t damaged it yet. So he started adding a little bit of this and a little bit of that, as seen below.

Finally, it had a kick. So we sat back and let it simmer in the crock pot a few more hours…

And this is what it looked like:

So, the big question is, did I ruin dinner or not?

Sarah Review:

Preparation: 3 out of 5. The roux sucked to make. The rest of it was easy, but the roux is why I gave it a 3. I mean, if we do this again, I may just need to order some of that ready-made roux (or have me make it!). Also, as far as crock pot recipes go, this one is definitely not an easy one. I like the ones where you just dump everything in, turn it on, and go to work, then come home to a yummy smell. This could definitely not have been made in the morning. I am not a morning person and would never get up in time to not only make a roux, but brown chicken…

Taste: 4 out of 5. I thought it was pretty good. It’s not my favorite meal and I won’t be dying to have it again, but it was good enough.

Pickiness Factor: 3 out of 5. Ok, this could turn off picky people on several levels. First, the spicyness. I love spicy foods so this was a good part of the meal. Another thing is the way it looks. It’s so dark brown and kind of an unappealing color. I know, that’s superficial, but sometimes, those kinds of things matter to me. But in this case, it was good, because it disguised what I was eating. I’ve never had okra, and I’m not a big fan on eating onions or green peppers (love the flavoring, not the texture), but the sauce color hid all of that, so I ate it an enjoyed it, without thinking, “ew, that was okra and I don’t know how I feel about okra.” I still don’t know how I feel, but I ate it. And those things also add to the pickiness – green peppers, onions and okra – they’re not the plain veggies picky people usually eat. If this had had sausage, the pickiness factor would have gone to a 1… J

Jesse:

Preparation: 5 out of 5. It was easy for me b/c I didn’t have to do anything! Ha! However if I as the one making it, I’d probably give it a 3/5 or a 4/5….it’s all pretty simple unless you’re not too well versed in roux creation—it just takes a lot of prep time….but that than that you can just set it and forget it!

Taste: 4 out of 5. This wasn’t the best gumbo that I’ve had, but it was definitely a wonderful first shot (like Mexican food, even bad gumbo is good gumbo, haha). I think more spices would be needed to be added in the beginning. I would also opt for fresh okra that’s not already cut up or breaded…I think the breading dissolved and make the dish a little thicker than it needed to be. Ultimately the dish still felt like it was still missing something…and I’m pretty sure that’s attributed to the lack of Andouille sausage and shrimp. Perhaps next time, it might be better to make this on a weekend in a stockpot instead of a crockpot…and when there’s about an hour left to go, split it into two separate pots and add sausage and shrimp to my portion =D

Cost: 4 out of 5. Fairly average expenses…the bulk of the cost will come from the sausage/chicken/shrimp…so if you want to skimp on any of this, your price will definitely go down. This also keeps extremely well…and would probably even taste better after being able to marry in the fridge/freezer for a few days. Just make some more rice and you’re good to go!

Average Rating: 3.83

Luck o' the Irish!

“May you be poor in misfortune, rich in blessings, slow to make enemies and quick to make friends. And may you know nothing but happiness from this day forward.”

“Where next shall we go?” I asked last blog. Well, to Ireland of course! It’s only fitting that on St. Patrick’s Day, we attempt an Irish-themed meal. I thought back to the meals we had when we visited Ireland last year, and from there came up with this menu:

• Guinness Stew
• Irish Soda Bread
• Mashed Potatoes
• Guinness

It’s pretty much what we had every other day. The next step was to find some recipes I thought I could maybe do. Well, mashed potatoes I can basically make in my sleep. It’s one of the first “complicated” things I learned to cook when I was younger. But more on that later. Anyway, recipes. So here’s what I found:

Guinness Stew: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Beef-and-Irish-Stout-Stew/Detail.aspx

Irish Soda Bread: http://www.irelandseye.com/aarticles/culture/recipes/cooking/soda.shtm

I tackled the Guinness Stew first, since that takes forever! Good thing I was subbing at Norcross, and also for a teacher that has 6B lunch and 7^th period planning. I was home by 1:00. We decided we didn’t need a stew of 6 servings, so using my handy math skills, I calculated the ingredients for 4 servings.

Then, I did the most important thing. I put on my Celtic playlist so I could get in the mood. Some of my favorites are as follows:

“The Ferryman”

“Rare Ould Times”

“St. Patrick’s Day Reels”

“Danny Boy”

And of course, all things Flogging Molly.

I then started to lay out the ingredients. If there is one thing I’ve learned since we began this cooking experience, it is to prepare everything BEFORE mixing it. That way I’m not running around like a chicken without it’s head trying to get things added to mixes before burning, or something like that. So I started first by mixing the flour, salt, pepper and cayenne in a bowl. Then I poured one tablespoon of veggie oil into another bowl. Next I cut the onions and put those in a measuring cup with the garlic. I used minced garlic instead of crushing a clove. I also added a little more garlic than the recipe called for, mostly because we love garlic.

Next, I cut up the carrots and put those into a separate measuring cup. Then I measured out the tomato paste and mixed it with some water. I had no idea how much would dilute it and what diluted tomato paste was, so I added some and stirred it until it was more like tomato sauce… Once I had all of that laid out, I started the prep part.

I dumped the beef into the bowl of oil. I then used my hands to mix it up and make sure all the pieces were coated. After that I moved the beef into the bowl with the coating. I realized a little too late that I didn’t exactly cut the quantity of beef down to 4 servings (more beef is always good…(that’s what she said)) so I really shouldn’t have cut down on the coating quantities. Oops. Once I had the beef all mixed in, I dumped it into the pot with warmed oil. I stirred that around and let it brown up, before adding the onions and garlic. After that I pretty much followed the recipe to a T. The only thing I added was peas. I figured it needed something more than just carrots, and peas are always a good stew veggie.

Once I had everything in the pot and let it simmer, I decided to take a nap. So lay on the couch for about 40 minutes with all the animals and napped. It was a good nap. Almost too good of a nap…

So my nap sadly came to an end. L When I got up I stirred the stew and did some tastings. I decided to add some more salt, pepper and cayenne. I wanted it to have a little kick to it. I also ended up burning my tongue so I may not know how this all really comes out… Next I prepared the potatoes. I washed, peeled and cut them. Then I placed them in a pot and put in water until it just covered the potatoes. Now, a little side note about me and potatoes. I LOVE potatoes. Pretty much anything potato. My dad always said that starch was my favorite food group. In 9^th grade, I had to write a grant proposal for science, so I wrote a grant about studying the benefits of potatoes. Mashed potatoes are one of the first “complicated” things I learned to cook because I always asked for them. So finally one day my dad was like, “Sarah, I’m going to teach you how to make these so you can make them for us.” And it’s really pretty easy.

After I cut the potatoes up, I mixed up the dry ingredients for the bread. Then I covered those with plastic wrap, turned off the burner and put the stew in the fridge, and went to pick up Jesse from work. See, when we decided to make this, I forgot we had a 5:00 appointment we couldn’t change. So I had to work around that. When we got back from the appointment though, I set the potatoes to boil, preheated the oven to 450°, and put the stew back on the stove to warm up.

Once the oven was preheated, I added the buttermilk to the dry mixture. Ok, the recipe says lightly flour hands and then gently knead dough. Then make into a ball about the size of your fist. That was crap! It was sooooooo gummy and just stuck to my hands. It was impossible to get to the size of a fist because everything fell apart. I don’t know if I maybe didn’t add enough flour…

When I was measuring it I kind of lost count of how much I put in, so maybe? Anyways, I didn’t have much hope for the soda bread. But with that in the oven and the stew simmering, it was time to check on the potatoes.

It took awhile for the potatoes to boil, then even longer for them to soften up. See, when making mashed potatoes (and I don’t count powdered flakes as mashed potatoes), it’s important you boil the potatoes until they fall apart with a fork. If you do it too early, they get a little grainy. So finally the potatoes were ready. I drained the water, poured in a little milk, and spooned in some butter and sour cream. Actually, it’s crème fraîche our friend made (the label says Cream Cheese, but that’s not what it is, it’s what he had on hand at the time).

Then I used our cool Rasta potato masher to start mashing (Down by da beeeeeach, Mon).

Once I got a feel for things, I added a little more milk, sour cream and butter. Then I tasted it, added some salt and pepper and just a tad more butter. Then, Voilà! Amazing mashed potatoes! I like them just a little lumpy, but not too much. Potatoes are definitely a staple of Irish food. We had potatoes every night. When I lived in England the summer of 2002 we also had potatoes every night. They like potatoes over there. It’s meant to be. I belong there. J As a side note, I also love potatoes.

With the potatoes done, the bread timer went off. It looked like maybe it was done, until Jesse cut into the loaf. Yeah, still have dough…

Back into the oven that went. However, we still proceeded to eat because we were hungry. So we served our stew and mashed potatoes, Jesse poured himself a nice glass of Guinness, and we sat down to eat, continually checking on the status of the bread. Eventually the bread finally finished, but it took awhile. And was maybe still a teensy bit doughy… Oh well. But, I think we have begun a whole new tradition!

Pouring a Guinness:

The finished product:

Jesse sitting all alone eating his food:

Here’s a link to pictures of our food in Ireland. Notice the soda bread, it was in pretty much every meal we had in the country, even breakfast. We also had a lot of apple things (turnovers, pies, pastries, etc.). and the soup…the soups were TO DIE FOR

AWESOME IRISH FOOD CLICKY!

Reviews:

Sarah:

Preparation: 3 out of 5. This prep was not that easy. It wasn’t the hardest thing I’ve made, but definitely time consuming. There were a lot of ingredients and things to add for all three things. But, it was fun, especially listening to some good Irish reels. I wouldn’t let this discourage you, just maybe save it for a weekend or a day off. I was a little disappointed in the bread, because I was really looking forward to that. We had soda bread seriously every day in Ireland. It was so good and I was excited about having some more. But, I will just keep experimenting, and this time not zone out while I’m measuring. I may check out some other recipes as well.

Taste: 4.5 out of 5. This was really good. In my opinion, the potatoes were the best I’ve ever made. I could have eaten the whole pot of potatoes. The stew was also really good. There was only a hint of Guinness flavor left, and none of the alcohol.

Pickiness Factor: 3.5 out of 5. The mashed potatoes I give a 5 out of 5, unless you don’t like potatoes. But the stew, while I liked it, others may not. It did taste a little bit like beer, so if you really don’t like the taste, you probably won’t like this. The other flavors were really good and I would like to experiment with adding some more cayenne to the flour mixture and coating the beef better.

Jesse:

Preparation: 5 out of 5. All I had to do was pour the Guinness in the Glass. Easy Mode!

Taste: 5 out of 5. This was AMAZING. I’ve had the real stuff, and this was just as good if not superior. And Sarah is correct; these are some of the best Mashed Potatoes she’s ever made. NOM NOM NOM NOM. Seconds! Thirds!!!

Cost: 4 out of 5. You could totally make a whole heaping pot of this and survive the entire winter--that’s for sure. Most all of the ingredients are pretty easy to find and cheap too…just make sure you have a good supply of Guinness!

Average Rating: 4.17 out of 5

“And it's all for me grog, me jolly, jolly grog
All for me beer and tobacco
Well I spent all me tin on the lassies drinking gin
Across the western ocean I must wander”

Back by Popular Demand!

Author's Note: This was even more delayed by someone who procrastinated. We're not naming names here... :)

Note #2: And even more delays. My bad.

Alright, sorry for the hiatus. I had 12 weeks of Student Teaching in the fall to which I owed my life to teenagers and Mercer. Then I just got lazy. So, since personally, 2010 ended on a crappy note and 2011 didn’t start much better, I am making February the start of 2011 and thus the start of my New Year’s resolutions. So what are these resolutions and why on earth am I talking about them? I tell you why. Here are my resolutions:

1. Talk to my friends more often (that is a work in progress as I’m horrible with communication)
2. Do more things with my family – that includes extended family.
3. Work out again.
4. Get a job.
5. Start back on the blog – hence the reason I’m talking about all of this.

So tonight we re-start this thing, and in honor of Groundhog Day, we once again are cooking Mexican. This time, though, instead of ground beef I made chicken in the crock pot. So here’s how it started:

At 5:30 this morning (February 2), I got a call from Norcross to sub, so I saidyes. That meant I had to get up immediately so I could start the crock pot. After feeding the animals, I took the chicken out of the fridge and gathered the rest of my ingredients:

• Salsa – 1 cup
• Taco Bell taco seasoning – about ¼ of the packet
• Water – about half a cup
• Chicken (obviously)

So I put everything in the crock pot, turned it on, and went to sub. When I came back, the house smelled super yummy! But it was only 3:30 and way too early to eat. Plus, I needed to get some ingredients for the Mexican Rice. I needed to get some tomato sauce and chicken broth, so after changing I headed back out to the store to pick those up. I came home and cleaned up the kitchen some so we would have a fresh tablet for the Mexican Rice and refried beans.

Finally, it was time to start the rest of the food so we could eat. The only problem was, I FORGOT TO BUY CHEESE!!!!! Anyone who knows me, knows that I cannot eat a taco without cheese. I mean, that’s about the only thing I put on a taco! Other than meat of course. So, as I said, today is Groundhog Day and I found myself retracing some steps and experiencing déjà vu. But we were hungry! And the rice takes about 30 minutes. So Jesse stepped in like the wonderful husband he is and started on the rice while I ran back out to Ingles.

The last time I made the rice, I said that it would have been easier to have already measured out all the different spices and such, so Jesse did just this – which is way smarter. So after the rice puffed in the oil and spices were added, he added the tomato sauce and broth and brought it to a boil.

Then we let it simmer for 20-ish minutes. If you need a reminder as to where you can find this recipe, here you go:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Mexican-Rice-II/Detail.aspx

While the rice simmered, Jesse played some WoW before coming out to start on the refried beans. I forgot to pick up an onion at Ingles, but I was absolutely not going out again to Ingles, so tough luck! If you forgot how the refried beans are made, check out the entry we made for tacos back in July 2010.

Oh, and in the midst of all of this, I was sitting at my computer and heard a noise. I thought itsounded like something boiling over, so I was like, “Oh noes! The rice and oil are boiling over!” So I turned and looked and everything was fine. Except I realized the pantry door was wide open. And there was a cat stretching into the second shelf to get something out of it. Catnip. In a plastic container. And it wasn’t our cat that is addicted to cat nip! So of course I had to get pictures because it was just too funny to see Mozart (who has lost a few pounds, btw) rolling around on the kitchen floor hugging the catnip. He even pawed at Yoda to get away from him once. No one was taking that catnip away from him. No one but his mama!

So anyways, Jesse heated up the refried beans in the skillet, and soon, our food was ready. We even had Mexican Cokes to round out our Mexican meal.

I piled everything onto my taco shell. I think I put a little too much on it. In fact, I ended up finishing it off with a knife and fork… Overall, a pretty decent re-start to our blog.

Oh, and to distract Yoda while we ate, we gave him a tortilla. Whenever he gets treats, he loves to take them to our bedroom and eat them...

But of course, there are the ever important ratings:

Sarah:

Preparation: 4 out of 5 – see last time we made the rice, that’s still a bit time consuming. But crock pot is easy cookin’!

Taste: I give this meal about a 4 out of 5. I always like tacos, and this was yummy. Especially since we crowned it with Mexican Coke. It was yummy, and we’d made it before so we knew what we were getting into – well, except the meat. But I really liked the chicken cooked like this. It is a really salty meal, though, so if you need to cut down on sodium in your diet, I wouldn’t recommend this. I do think we made too much rice. We’re really not going to have time for leftovers… I guess next time we should maybe experiment with cooking half the recipe.

Jesse:

Preparation: 5 out of 5 – super easy since Sarah did all the prep work!

Taste: 4 out of 5 – everything was really good…but no specific flavors that were “TO DIE FOR” – but the Chicken was a great change up to normal Mexican Ground Beef

Cost: 4 out of 5 – super cheap and inexpensive…and there are normally enough leftovers for lunch the next day!

Average Rating: 4.2!

You Can Call Me Nannerpuss!

Hello. This post is a week overdue, sorry! But we’ve had a lot going on, I had Miss Virgnia for 2 days, we went to Huntsville for 2 days, and basically were lazy for the other days. :)

Last week Jesse and I decided to go on a grand adventure in the cooking world. We invited my parents over for dinner because they are awesome, and we wanted to thank them for being so. We also invited my brother John, his wife Sarah Beth, and their daughter Virginia over. Here’s a picture of our super-cute niece!!!

Last, our good friend Adam is in town from Japan, so he came over as well.

So what was on the menu you ask? We kept it nice and Southern: BBQ chicken sandwiches, snap beans, hushpuppies and banana pudding for dessert! I started out with making the BBQ chicken. That was the easiest one for tonight. Below is the recipe:

6 chicken breasts

1 bottle of BBQ sauce

That morning, I got out the crock pot and put the chicken inside. Then, I dumped in a bottle of the BBQ sauce and turned the crock pot on low. I have come to realize that Carolina BBQ sauce is one of my favorites, and even found this really delicious sauce at our local Ingles: Sticky Fingers. Sticky Fingers also has a few restaurants around the South. It turns out I’ve eaten at their Chattanooga restaurant with my friends Lindsey and Noelle. Here is their website: http://www.stickyfingers.com. They advertise themselves as Memphis BBQ, but their sauce I bought is their Carolina flavor…

Anyways, I let the chicken cook for the whole day, periodically helping the crock pot shred the chicken. That’s Jesse’s favorite part, and since that was his work from home day, he did a lot of the helping along. Below is a picture of the finished chicken:

The next easy thing on the menu for the night was the snap beans. I have fond memories of sitting in my grandmother’s kitchen and helping her or any of my aunts snap beans, so I decided we should actually buy the beans as opposed to cans of beans... It’s supposed to be healthier to do it that way. :) After snapping all the beans – something both Jesse and I took part in, we put them in a pot and covered them with water. We also added a beef bouillon cube or two and let the beans cook. I really wanted to find a hambone and add that and some brown sugar, but since I don’t really eat much pork, there was none to be had. Below are pictures of the progress with the beans:

Snapping them:

T

Ok, so the last two things weren’t as easy as the first two… We made the hushpuppies and banana pudding from scratch.

I started on the hushpuppies first because I could get the dry mix together early in the day. The hardest part was finding a recipe – but I did that a few weeks ago. Jesse and I developed a huge craving for hushpuppies last month when we had some down at the beach. I love sweet hushpuppies, and our favorite restaurant in Atlanta that served great hushpuppies – Dusty’s BBQ – sadly went out of business for multiple reasons. Needless to say, we’ve been feeling deprived of some good hushpuppies, so we resolved to make some. After searching the web for recipes, I settled on Paula Deen’s recipe, because really, who better to follow for a Southern treat then Paula Deen? Her recipe had 5 stars, but the only problem was that there was no sugar in the ingredient list. But, one thing I have learned from online recipes is this: read people’s reviews! They’ll give you tips on what to do to change things around, etc. Fortunately someone mentioned adding sugar to this one, unfortunately, they didn’t say how much. Anyways, here is the link for the recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/hushpuppies-recipe/index.html. Below are the ingredients:

• 6 cups peanut oil
• 1 1/2 cups self-rising cornmeal
• 1/2 cup self-rising flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 egg, lightly beaten

So like I said, I mixed all of the dry ingredients first, and added in 2 tablespoons of sugar. Below is the mix:

Next, we borrowed a rather large pot from my mom so we could appropriately fry these, seeing as how we don’t have a fryer. Then, about an hour before we were to eat, I added in the onion, eggs and buttermilk. Jesse took over from there and formed little balls out of these while the oil heated to 350 degrees. Below are the pre-cooked hushpuppies:

Then, once our handy thermometer (thank you William-Sonoma) said the oil was 350, he dropped those puppies in to be fried.

Then, after a few test runs, we determined when they were done and took them out. They looked like hushpuppies!

And finally, on to the arguably best dessert ever – Banana Pudding. This is arguably once of the best Southern dishes ever. A good banana pudding can make any day a LOT better. And Jesse and I have been DYING to make banana pudding. So this meal seemed like a good time to do so. A year or so ago I found a recipe I wanted to try, so this is what we used. For the life of me, I can’t tell you where I found it, but it is from the internet. Here it is:

Banana Pudding
10 servings

Hands on: 25 minutes
Total time: 1 hour, 25 minutes or more for cooling

Feel free to use the full-fat versions of the sweetened condensed milk, if you prefer. The pudding can also be served in individual 1-cup ramekins.

1/3 cup all-purpose flour
Dash of salt
2 1/2 cups 1 percent low-fat milk
1 (14-ounce) can fat-free sweetened condensed milk
2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups sliced ripe bananas (about 5 to 6)
45 reduced-fat vanilla wafers
4 egg whites
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Combine flour and salt in medium saucepan. Gradually stir in low-fat and condensed milks and yolks, and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, for 8 minutes or until thickened. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla. Arrange 1 cup banana slices in a 2-quart baking dish. Spoon 1/3 pudding mixture over bananas; top with 15 vanilla wafers. Repeat layers once; top with remaining bananas and pudding. Arrange remaining 15 wafers around inside edge of dish. Gently push wafers into pudding. Beat egg whites at high speed with an electric mixer until foamy. Add sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating until stiff peaks form and sugar is dissolved (2 to 4 minutes) Spread meringue over pudding, sealing to edge of dish. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden. Let cool at least 30 minutes.

Per serving: 334 calories (percent of calories from fat, 16), 9 grams protein, 61 grams carbohydrates, 2 grams fiber, 6 grams fat (2 grams saturated), 45 milligrams cholesterol, 186 milligrams sodium.

So Jesse and I embarked on this dish with anticipation. I started by making the custard on the stove. While I worked on that and kept stirring, Jesse peeled and sliced all of the bananas.

Then he took out the Nilla Wafers (cause let’s face it, anything other than Nabisco is an imposter!). He went on and lined the outside of the casserole dish with Nilla Wafers and then added bananas to the bottom.

Once the custard mixture was done, he spooned that on top.

Really, he followed the recipe as shown above. Next, he made the meringue out of the egg whites I had already separated. He then put the whole dish in the over and we waited for it to cook.

Then, he pulled it out of the oven, and for all intents and purposes, it looked like banana pudding should look!

Finally, our dinner was done, the table was set, chairs were found, and tummies were rumbling. It was time to eat!

Ratings:

Sarah:

Preparation:

BBQ Chicken: 5 out of 5. It’s so easy even a Caveman could do it! Wait, is that trademarked? Let me give a shout out to Geico, I don’t own that phrase, if anyone does, they do.

Snap Beans: 4 out of 5. Snapping the ends off is the only reason it’s not a 5.

Hushpuppies: 2 out of 5. These were fun to make, but not all that easy. Especially the frying part. They definitely take some time.

Banana Pudding: 2 out of 5. It was not easy to make, especially since it was all from scratch. Except the Nilla Wafers. I’ve never made a custard, and I always worry I won’t know how thick is thick enough. Of course, that’s pretty obvious once you’re there… I’ve never made meringue either, and still haven’t because Jesse did that part. I was nervous, but I’m determined to make the meringue next time. Meringue is really yummy!

Overall: 3.25 out of 5

Taste: I give the whole meal a 4.5 out of 5. The hushpuppies were, unfortunately, a little dry and I definitely didn’t add enough sugar. Next time, we’ll add a little more buttermilk and sugar to the mix to see if that works. Or, if anyone has any yummy hushpuppy recipes, send them over. The BBQ was good and the beans good, but what really sealed the deal was the Banana Pudding. It was irresistible. The whole meal could have been awful, but with the banana pudding it would still get a high score. It was so good that there were no leftovers. We all have second servings of it as witnessed by this picture:

Pickiness Factor: Hmmm… I think this deserves a 3.5 out of 5. While I liked this meal, a lot of people don’t like beans. I used to hate green beans when I was little and pretty much ate them under duress. And some people are picky about the type of BBQ sauce used, so if they didn’t like this one, then they wouldn’t have liked the meal. But if someone was picky about banana pudding, I don’t think I should know you. Banana pudding is the BOMB! Especially home-made, warm banana pudding. That instant crap you can buy at restaurants, that have whipped cream and not meringue, well, that’s probably just the Yankees trying to create banana pudding.

Special Yoda Factor: We decided to try out the hushpuppies on Yoda. I threw one at him and told him to HUSH PUPPY! It worked like magic. He gives those a 5 out of 5. Of course, once he was done eating them he decided he wanted more and started begging… My bad. :)

Jesse:

Preparation: I give this a 3 out of 5. It was pretty super easy, just a little time consuming. Snapping the beans probably took the longest, but it was fun. Nothing was too difficult, especially just letting the chicken sit in the crock all day. Easy Peasy!

Taste: I give this a 4 out of 5. The BBQ Chicken and Nanner Puddin’ was epic-ly awesome, too bad the Hush Puppies were a bit dry. And I’ve never been a huge fan of snap beans (but they are fun to make).

Cost: 4 out of 5. The entire meal was pretty much made from scratch. The only ready made portion were the Nilla Wafers, and well, there’s no excuse to not buy those…if you were born in the south, you know exactly what we mean. The total cost was pretty low, and we had left over sandwiches for a while…but unfortunately the Pudding was completely destroyed.

Overall Rating: 3.9