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

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”

Russian Chicken!

Let’s see if we can get better with these posts… So the other day we were trying to figure out what to make. Jesse and I are kinda in a slump, we can’t come up with original ideas for dinner – especially something relatively easy, cheap and fast. But, I raided the recipe box I got for one of my bridal showers to find a recipe (Side Note: It was so sweet, the recipe cards were sent out in the invites and all these sweet ladies that are friends of my grandmother’s wrote down some of their favorite recipes, so we have some good Southern ones). Admittedly, this recipe did not come from the shower, but from my mother-in-law Susan. It’s one of Jesse’s favorites from his childhood – Russian Chicken. I’d made it before, but not following Susan’s recipe, so this time I followed hers. Apparently Jesse and I are moving around the world here for food. Tacos, Korean BBQ, and now Russian Chicken. What next? Or moreover, whereto next?

First, though, we had to go to the grocery store. We didn’t have any food at all in the house! So we headed to Ingles by way of Target. But here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

2-4 cooked chicken breasts

1 bottle of Russian dressing

1 package of onion soup mix (dry)

2-3 cups of cooked rice

We almost had a mini-crisis when I realized we hadn’t bought any onion soup mix. But then I looked in the pantry and we had one packet left from the last time I made meatloaf.

So to make this, the first step is to cook the rice. I opted not to cook the chicken first, but to let it cook on top of the rice. Screw Board of Health suggestions… J Oh, and of course I had to preheat the oven. The recipe calls for preheating at 325°, but I chose to set it to 350° since I would be cooking the chicken in the oven. I started by making 3 cups of rice in the rice maker. Or, at least according to the bag of rice, 3 cups. When that was done, I started to put it in the bottom of the lightly greased casserole dish. But then I realized there wasn’t enough rice! Yikes, I had to make MORE rice. Let’s just say this set us back a few minutes… So I then set about to make a whole ‘nother serving of rice (yes, I know that technically ‘nother is not a word. I don’t care so deal with it!). Eventually I was back on track and the rice completely covered the bottom of the casserole dish.

The next step was pretty easy, place chicken on top of the rice. So I did. And just a quick note from the refrigerator of the Wades: we have started only buying non-hormone added, organic chicken. There are too many 12 year olds walking around with boobs bigger than me, and that’s not normal. Sure it happens to some, but a lot of it is because of all this extra crap added to food. I know it’s not just in chicken and that we should try to eat healthier on all things. We’re working on it, one at a time. All I know is that our kids won’t be eating chicken raised with hormones (Booo GMO’s!) in our house. Sorry future daughters. Ok, end rant. Sorry, I’ll step off the soap box and get on with this.

Yeah, so I put the chicken on top of the cooked rice. Then, I mixed together the onion soup mix and the Russian dressing in a large measuring cup. Once those were mixed, I poured that over the chicken and the rice.

I then covered the dish with aluminum foil and put this in the oven for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes I took the foil off and put the chicken in for another 10 minutes. It actually needed to stay in for some extra time, seeing as how the chicken breasts were pretty large (which made me question the hormone-free chicken…).

This wasn’t the only thing we ate, though. We decided to have a green vegetable, a non-starch as it is. Jesse had the brilliant idea to sautée zucchini. We love zucchini at Japanese restaurants, so why have we never eaten it at home? Good question. One for which we have no answer. So we bought two puny looking zucchinis at the store. Sunday afternoon/evenings are never a good time to go grocery shopping. We tend to forget that. Oh well. Then, Jesse did his thing with the zucchini. I’ll let him tell you all about it.

So the hardest part about cooking the zucchini was figuring out if I wanted to cut it up into round disk slices, or if I wanted to cut them in long little wedges likes they do at the Hibachi store. I went with the latter. While I was doing this, I already had a skillet heating on medium heat with some olive oil, oregano, garlic powder, and sea salt. Once the zucchini were cut, the pan was hot enough to add ‘em in.

Now I like my zucchini a little soggy, yet with a little crispness. So really, cook them as long or short as you want. When they were about 50% done, I added some pepper and about 1sb butter and turning the fire up to high for about 3 minutes. After that, I used a slotted spoon and put them in a bowl to cool.

All in all, a pretty easy and tasty meal.

Ratings:

Sarah:

Preparation: 5 out of 5. Seriously, this was really easy to make. Next time I just need to remember to make more rice, that was pretty much the only snafu to this prep. Oh, I also think next time I’ll either buy chicken strips or cut the chicken into smaller pieces. That way it will cook faster and more evenly.

Taste: 4.5 out of 5. The zucchini gets a 5 out of 5. Maybe even a 6 out of 5. It was just that good. Like, amazing. Like, I called Jesse right before he left work today to practically beg him to buy more zucchini on his way home and make some more tonight (it’s true, she totally did. So I did. Like, totally.). The chicken is pretty good too. The Russian dressing adds a nice tangy taste to everything. It’s a change from our usual Asian or Mexican influenced foods. It’s nothing to die for, but it’s still good. Sometimes, on bites where there’s too much dressing, my taste buds feel a little overwhelmed. (Not underwhelmed or just whelmed…) Overall, good meal. Definitely a keeper, too.

Pickiness Factor: 4.5 out of 5. I think this one is a pretty good choice for picky eaters. Maybe not the zucchini. I know for years I didn’t like squash because I didn’t like how watery it was and then how mushy the insides were. But the chicken and rice part is a given. For the longest time I only ever ate things like chicken and rice. And the Russian dressing is a good flavoring to add. So I think this is a pretty good one for the picky eaters in your life.

Jesse:

Preparation: 5 out of 5. Cutting zucchini is super easy! Well, maybe unless you don’t have hands =(

Taste: 4.0 out of 5. I’ve always really liked this, but it’s not something you’d want to have all the time. I’m sure it’s also nostalgia from when my Grandma Price made it when I was little. Adding the zucchini was a nice touch…or any vegetable for that matter too.

Cost: 4 out of 5. Chicken can be expensive. Especially if you are homeless.

Average Ratings: 4.5 out of 5!

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