Is the chicken really this good in pubs?

Most of my grocery shopping these days occurs during twice weekly Gymnastics classes, so I find myself doing just what they tell you not to do - shopping while hungry, just before supper. 

This is not a great idea.  Publix knows this, and has chicken frying in the Deli and nice ladies cooking at their "Aprons" kiosks. 

They sell a lot of fried chicken and Aprons meals ingredients that way.

As I was shopping in Publix a couple of weeks ago, I tried a sample from the Aprons kiosk.  I wandered down the next aisle, taking a bite...and circled back to grab a recipe card.  As I returned, the lady who had gotten a sample along with me was coming back from the other direction!  It is so full of savory-sweet-tangy-spicy-rich flavor that it kinda inspires little moans of yumminess.

It's so good that my husband requested it for his birthday meal.  Check it out:

Pub-Style Chicken and Caramelized Onions With Fresh Spinach

Magic Mason Jar

{edited to add:  now I have tried this and it works great!  I just run the blender on low speed, because somehow those whirring blades and the glass make me kind of nervous.}

I don't have a Magic Bullet or other single-serving-type blender.  But I do have a ca. 1984 Hamilton Beach blender and a selection of Mason jars. actually, I think mine are mostly Ball canning jars.  According to Real Simple I can use my jars on the actual blender! 

This would maybe save a step of clean-up, so I think I will try it soon.  Of course, I will have to think through the entry/exit - I turn the blender upside down?  That save-a-step clean-up may turn into a well-the-whole-kitchen-needed-cleaning-up-anyway scenario!  Whatdya think?

The old blender layered up with ingredients for Russian Tea

What's cookin' at your house?

I've got some country-style ribs cooking up in the slow cooker.  They are simply seasoned - splashed with a little Worcestershire sauce, and sprinkled liberally with black pepper and Soul Food Seasoning.

I first picked this up at Winn Dixie on a whim, and it has since become a family favorite.  It's mostly salt,  red and black pepper, garlic and paprika.  We all love it on pretty much all meats, with vegetables, salads, and with one-dish meals - soups, beans-and-rice, stews, you name it. 

This seasoning makes almost every food taste better.  When I pull it off the shelf, I know I'm going to make whatever I am cooking work better, make it more palatable for my family.   

Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.    

                  Colossians 4:6

The manner in which I use words should be just like that, too.  My communications are often hurried, whiny, harsh, or flavorless.  As I sprinkle the Soul Food Seasoning on tonight, I am thinking I need to remember to sprinkle my language with Soul Food Seasoning, too.

Happy Sunday

Ouch! Ouch! Blueberry!

Sorry...no pretty picture...

Growing up on the farm, we always made jam, jelly, and preserves during the summer.  Blackberries, plums, figs, pears, peaches, and even  watermelon rinds processed their way through the kitchen into jars and jars of homemade treats.  I never remember working with blueberries, though.  In fact, I'm not sure if I ever tasted a fresh blueberry until I was grown.  (I think Mama planted a couple of blueberry bushes once, but if I remember correctly, they came to a sad end before yielding fruit).  Now I find blueberries readily available, and love eating them on cereal, with yogurt, on salads, and in cobblers.

Today for the very first time I made blueberry jam using this recipe for blueberry jam from A Few Shortcuts.  This recipe made 3 half-pints and almost 1 other pint, and it was REALLY, REALLY easy.  (When I used this recipe, just to remind myself, I checked out general canning procedures at "Canning-the Musical" on Southern Plate.)  Now we just have to see if one of the jars refuse to seal.  That's the one we claim for home.  The others can be gifts. 

Yummmmmm. I'm sipping some iced tea to sooth my tongue, 'cause it was SO-ooo good that I burnt my tongue but good tasting it.

Here would be just the place to insert a picture of the little stash of jam, but my camera is AWOL.  I know it 's at the bottom of one of my bags and bins of craft supplies and flotsam left over from gymnastics camp crafts, part 2, which I have not blogged about at the Sm'Arties blog because, well, no pictures.  When I last saw camera, we were at the gym, the camera had escaped its little pouch, and was spotted with Mod Podge and a little paint. 

Comments and Yum

In recent days I have found it impossible to comment on some Blogger blogs.  (Hmm...I wonder if I can comment on my own...).  Amy, I wanted to leave a comment.  Crispy, I tried to say something nice.  You, too, Jennifer. And Alida.

But Blogger has kept me mum.  I understand there were some bigger Blogger issues a few days ago - some folks could not post at all!  I did not learn this firsthand, having neglected both blogs for a few weeks.  But imagine the hairpulling angst - something to say, and no way to blog it!

Yes, this blog has been greatly neglected.  I toss a few thoughts or a picture in, but have been slow to complete posts.  I have - gulp  -39 partial posts.  Some will never be posted - they are from long ago, and I have just not cleaned them out.  But at least 10-15 are recent...thinklings. School is finishing up, summer is getting all planned up, travel is coming up, and I just have not finished posts lately.
But just because I want to finish this post and to leave with something good:

Go here for Brownie-covered Oreos.  Serious yum. 

 And I don't even really like Oreos.  But I like these.  And I like Oreo cheescake.

Comfort Food

Even here in the middle of Florida we have seen some cool days and cold nights this winter.  It's a great time for a bowl full of comfort!

Everything is Homemade has a yummy recipe for Un-Chicken Noodle Soup. This is a new favorite for me.  When I made it, I was missing some of the specific herbs and spices, so I just used Italian seasoning and Beau Monde seasoning instead. (We just recently bought our first Beau Monde seasoning, and we have been dumping it on everything!  It's yum on chicken, fish, vegetables, salad, boiled eggs, bread-and-butter, bagels-and-cream cheese...)  And I did not run buy the vegetarian bouillon; I used the chicken bouillon I already had on hand.  We think this would be really good with actual chicken in it, too.  Hmmm...maybe I'll make some more tonight!

I just learned how to spell bouillon.  I thought it was "boullion", but Mr. Spelczek underlined it, so I checked my fave online dictionary. 

We love Southern Plate's Chicken and Dumplings. Hmmm...maybe I'll make this tonight! 

We also love homemade chicken pot pie, topped either with Mama's dumplings, Pillsbury's pie crust, homemade biscuits (for those of you not from the US, these are NOT sweet biscuits/cookies, but Southern quick-bread biscuits), or frozen biscuits.  Maybe I'll make THIS tonight.


The theme here seems to be "chicken and starch."

Some new favorite goodies this holiday season

Homemade peppermint marshmallows  - Who knew? In hot chocolate...ymmmm...Next I may try these. 

Folding little Christmas trees - addictive. 

Caron Simply Soft yarn - Feels so good running through your fingers.  Read the reviews - I am not alone in this opinion.

Loops and Threads Country Loom yarn - I finished two-thirds of an afghan today.  No, not kidding. I may finish the rest tonight.

Chainless foundation  - These tutorials, here and here,  taught me how to make a whole line of single crochets without starting with a long chain stitch.    Therefore, the afghan.

The movie Tangled - The scenes featuring Maximus the horse were worth the price of admission. All over the theater I could hear adults as well as children laughing out loud. (We haven't seen Voyage of the Dawn Treader yet, but I'm sure it will be a favorite, too.)

A simple 4-in-1 cookie recipe that has been in my recipe box for years, but I never made it until this year.  My favorite version: lemon flavoring with dried Craisins. The recipe originated from McCormick.


Did you discover some new favorites this Christmas?

Vanilla Butter Cookies

4 cookies from one recipe

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 egg

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 t salt

Flavorings/spices(see below)

Add-ins(See below)

Preheat 350 degrees.  Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add egg and beat well. Blend in flavorings and spices.  Combine salt with flour; add to creamed mixture. Stir in add-ons.

Drop by rounded teaspoons, or roll into balls.  Flatten slightly with bottom of a glass dipped in flour or powdered sugar. Bake 10-12 minutes until slightly golden.

Flavorings and Add-ons:  

1. Vanilla Butter:  Add 1 T vanilla extract

2. Lemon: Add 2 t lemon extract plus 1-2 t. ground ginger

3. Cranberry Almond: Add 1 t. almond extract.  Stir in 1/2 cup driend cranberries ("Craisin") and 1/2 cup chopped toasted almonds. (Note I skip the almond and almond flavor, and make these lemon-cranberry)

4. Chocolate Mint: Add 1 t. mint extract along with 1 T. vanilla.  Add 1/2 cup cocoa to flour mixture.  Stir in 2/3 cup chocolate chips (I used chocolate mint M&Ms)

Go See What's Cookin'

Check out what's cookin' over at Sm'Arties!

Yummy Beginnings, and a sad ending

Though it still feels like summer outside (inside, too, if the AC wasn't running for all it's worth,) but it can smell like fall!  Saturday I made Crock Pot Apple Butter using this recipe from Southern Plate.  It is easy, spicy, yummy, and smells heavenly.  I made a half-recipe, which yielded 3 pints (well, maybe 3 1/2 before taste testing.)

--and now for the sad ending--
After I looked at this picture on screen, I decided to take another shot at a better angle.  When I picked up the jar and my camera, I dropped the jar and broke it, spilling out all that spicy yumminess onto the hard floor, the carpet, and up against the refrigerator.  Ah, well, that leaves me one partial jar (my third jar went to friends).  I guess I'll need to fire up that crock pot again soon! 

Recipe Box

Somewhere along the way, my Mama picked up a big wood file box that held 4 x 8 cards, and began using it as her recipe box. It was so much more convenient using the bigger cards. When I was still in my 20's, she had the box copied by a woodworker, then she painted it with Pennsylvania Dutch-style decorative painting, and gave it to me. What a treasure!


No, I don't keep the recipe box on the back porch; I just moved where I could take a picture with no flash. Look how much it can hold! Though I love the online recipe sites, there is just something special about recipes in a box.


I have always been partial to pictures of bluebirds, and any other birds that are blue. There is a special name for these stylized birds. Do you know what it is?


Since I am posting about my recipe box, maybe I should post an easy recipe from it. This one may have come originally from a can of Rotel tomatoes.

SANTA FE SALMON or CHICKEN

1 can Rotel tomatoes with chiles, lime & cilantro
1/2 cup mayonnaise
4 salmon fillets or chicken breast fillets

Drain tomatoes, mix with mayo. Salmon - Smear mixture on meat side, saute (or I oven bake) until done (just a few minutes) Chicken - Pre-saute fillets, then smear with mixture and complete cooking. Reserve some sauce for topping.

K-Sue's Kookie Khronicles (cookie, not kooky)

Long post - recipe at the bottom

I gave away my cookie cutters over a decade ago. All of them. The little Christmas tree, the Santa head, the gingerbread people, the stocking, the star -- I kept one round biscuit cutter, because sometimes, you want a neat, round biscuit. Why on earth would I do something so rash, so permanent?

Better to ask, why on earth did I keep trying to do that which did not work? Most Christmases (and it was only Christmas - I did not try to do St. Paddy's Day shamrocks or anything like that) I'd pull out some cookie recipe, mix it up, chill it good, flour my surface, roll it out, and make a big mess of unrecognizable thingies ("Uh, Aunt K-Sue, is this supposed to be a stocking? 'Cause it looks like a tube sock.") (No, they don't really call me Aunt K-Sue; that's just my nom de blog) Anyway, continuing after the back-to-back parenthetical comments...I was a cut-out cookie wash-out. And you know, someone always gave us a little package of pretty cutouts, all decorated, that I could put on our cookie tray along with my little plain drop cookies. So I tossed in the towel, and gave away my cookie cutters, trusting that if the Lord wanted us to have beautifully decorated cut-out cookies, He'd touch someone's heart to give us some, and I'd give them something they like but don't make, like jambalaya. Ah! Sweet liberation!

Then I started doing bar cookies. Then the ones where you make a roll, refrigerate, then slice and bake. Easier and easier! I have never looked back wistfully, wishfully, at the cookie cutter days.

This would probably make a great pre-Christmas post, liberating somebody, but there is a timely message in it for now. Eventually.

Then one day I spied Nestle's Toll House break-and-bake cookie dough. I took a chance on one package and discovered that they delivered! The cookies were as good as the ones I made from the recipe on the back of their package. I declared that I might not ever make cookies from scratch again. And for several years, I didn't. When the Break-and-Bakes would go on 2-fer sale, I'd buy a half-dozen, toss them in the freezer, then pull out as many as I needed to bake cookies for Children's Choir, friends coming over, or, using the toaster oven, a few just for us two (we were just two during those no-scratch-cookie years).

Now, I have baked some scratch cookies since then, though I still lean heavily toward the easy cookies. I really love making Nanny's peanut butter cookies - super easy! But those Break-and-Bakes have remained a staple in this household. In fact, I just stocked up when they went on BOGO sale at Publix. So you can imagine my disappointment when I read that ALL Nestle's Tollhouse refrigerated cookie dough products have been recalled.

They tell us that they are casting a broad recall net as a precaution - good thing, 'cause some of those cookies are already beyond recall. Well, we recall them - "yum, yum - remember those cookies?" Nobody got sick around here. Nevertheless, I packed up the other 6 packages and head back to Publix. After receiving my refund, I went back to the refrigerated cookie dough shelf and looked wistfully at the spot reserved for Nestle's. I bought 3 packages of other cookies (1 Pillsbury and 2 organic I cannot remember the name). But I look forward to Nestle's getting their plant cleaned up and restocking that shelf.

Nanny's Peanut Butter Cookies
1 c. peanut butter (crunchy or creamy - your choice)
1 c. sugar
1 egg
1 t. vanilla extract

Beat peanut butter and sugar until light. Beat in egg and vanilla. Roll into balls, then flatten each slightly with a fork. Bake 350 degrees, 10 minutes.