Spazzmanda

Yesterday I called Jeff and told him to throw some frozen chicken in the crock pot and pour some cream ‘o something on the top- we were having chicken and rice for dinner and I thought a head start would be nice. Now, my man is very smart, but intelligence and spending time in the kitchen with momma and grandmomma aren’t the same thing. This is his first time being exposed to some basic Crockpot cooking, and I’m more than happy to help him through it- he’ll be a pro in no time- nothing like just turning the thing ‘on’ and being done with dinner.

He did say to me “What if there isn’t any Cream of Mushroom Soup in the cabinet?”

(Snigger) Well, honey, in the south, there just always is.

His instructions were to turn the crock pot to low, thunk in the chicken and pour on soup, and no, don’t stir it.

I forgot one minor detail. Do you see it?

How about now?

I neglected to tell him to take the paper off of the back of the boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Oops.

It was still delicious, and we had a good laugh. A very good laugh. A very, very good laugh. There were some tears and knee slapping and I had to call my mom.

I sure do love my mayun- he keeps me entertained.

Monday night I made some beer bread that was inspired by Jenny’s culinary endeavors on the bread making front. I also had some Budweiser I brought back from the beach and we don’t really drink beer.

I made a Whole Wheat, Cheddar-Dill Beer bread from a recipe at Farmgirl Fare.

All the ingredients before the beer:

In the pan:

And a final photo- quick before it gets gobbled up! Oh, and since Jenny put her fancypants beer in her bread photos, I decided I’d honor her and do the same. Nothing classes up a photo like a can of Budweiser, don’t you think?

I love fresh baked bread and use my breadmaker frequently in the winter. I don’t really have the patience for any ‘real‘ bread-making so this recipe was perfect for me. Overall I really liked this bread- it was dense- but I did make the whole wheat version and was slightly unsure as to the freshness of my baking powder- I bought it at the beginning of the summer when I made a tomato pesto pie (also awesomeness from Farmgirl). How long does baking powder stay fresh in a sealed container in the fridge anyways? Not being a beer drinker (except for the occasional Corona) I still really couldn’t taste the beer-ness much- so I’d say if you don’t like beer, the beer flavor in a beer bread isn’t overpowering. Jeff thinks a darker ale would make for some interesting bread, and I’ll definitely give that a shot this winter. The bread went really well with the beef stew I made for dinner (I threw some fresh dill into the crock pot with the stew to tie all the flavors together and that seemed to work nicely.)

And it was really easy and quick- did I mention that?

Last weekend I joined a group of lovely ladies, some old friends and now some new, in an excursion to Decatur to partake in the Chocolate Bar. We first went to Watershed- a spectacular restaurant where I’ve eaten several times – and have NEVER had a bad meal- particularly on fried chicken Tuesdays. I even have the cookbook- Southern Cooking- written by the Executive Chef, Scott Peacock, although I haven’t had the guts to make anything out of it, it makes for very good reading if you are a fan of southern cuisine. I had the salmon croquettes which came with grits, spinach and sliced tomatoes- it was in a word – yummy. But it was a toss-up between that and the basic pimento cheese sammich (which Jenny had.)

This was a Non-Knitting excursion I’ll have you know. It was hard to leave the house without a bag of knitting to take with me, but somehow I managed. We did sneak in a brief peek into Nease’s Needlework- because it was, after all, right THERE! I refrained from buying anything, but mostly because I neglected to use the ladies room before leaving the restaurant and couldn’t “focus” on anything fibery at that particular moment.

Anyhoo, back to the chocolaty goodness. Read the rest of this entry »