Brine Sublime!

I am stuffed tonight! I made baked chicken and it was good! I don't brine, I have used brine for a turkey before. I don't know why I don't always do this because it makes all the difference in the world. All it takes is some time. I am sure you can find a lot of different recipes for brine in the Internet and better than the one I used. I used a simple brine of just 1 cup salt to 5 quarts water, that's it. You will need a very tall pot to put everything in. After you have placed the brine and the chicken in the pot, place it in the fridge for 6 to 8 hours.

When it is time to cook, rinse the chicken and place it in a baking dish. I don't think you need to add anymore salt. Just add some garlic, onion, rosemary, lemon or whatever you would like to add to your chicken for added flavor. Then just place it in the oven and when it is ready you will have a very tasty and juicy bird!

Chicken Foot Soup

Well I am cooking something I had never heard of, Chicken Foot Soup! I was visiting one of our church members who had surgery and was not feeling well. Before I left I asked her if there was something she would like for me to bring her to eat. Her response was Chicken Foot Soup, since she lived in Fayetteville she had tried it and liked it. I told her I would as long as I could find the chicken feet. Well I never knew how easy it is to find chicken feet. I called our neighborhood grocery and they said, "yes we have them." Well they keep them in the back, they do not put them in the meat section...wonder why? They diffenately do not look appetizing.

I will take this to her tonight, and I do hope she will enjoy the soup and she will be up and around soon.

Labor Day

Well we spent our Labor Day laboring in the yard and garage. I had garage duty, which I believe is worse than prison work! Just guessing. I am glad we are past that work detail.

Labor day is usually a day that is spent grilling, so we did manage to put some burgers on the grill, grass fed burgers. If you have never thought that you wanted to spend that much money on hamburger, well you have never had grass fed hamburger. I love it and it is especially worth the extra money for special occasions. It is the best meat you have ever put in your mouth. I have tried short ribs and steak but my favorite is the ground hamburger meat. Hamburgers this good deserves homemade buns to go with it. So I made homemade buns which gave me an excuse to get out of the garage for awhile.

Now to go and fold flyers for church. I made some cookies to serve to my helpers. When you have willing workers, it is nice to give them a homemade cookie.

Go Green!

Yes tonight we went green in the kitchen! I know it is Friday date night, football night, movie night and its a holiday weekend, but we are pooped! So we stayed home and I serve Green Rice.

It is a really good dish... really. It may be hard to convince you kids because it does have lots of vegetables. This dish was filled with brown rice, broccoli, celery, and jalapeno peppers. All the green vegetables makes the dish have a green color, so that is why it is called Green Rice. I used hamburger but you could use chicken as well. There plenty of cheese and to top it off I put fresh cilantro on top. All you need to add to is corn on the cob, coleslaw or a tossed salad.

I hope all of you have a great Labor Day weekend and stay safe. We get to celebrate Ian's 3rd birthday this weekend, he told me he would be 16! That will be here before we can turn around.

The Kitchen is Busy!

Well the cat is out of the bag. I'm writing a cook book. Hopefully that will put me at another level of commitment. It will be filled with family recipes, the mountain lore I was brought up on and a lot of southern stuff, I love the southern stuff. Just today when I had to pick up some yeast, the clerk handed me my change and said, "there you go sweetie." Now she is a real southern girl!

So here is what Bob and I were eatin' in the kitchen tonight. We had Oven Beef Stew with brown rice. This is a recipe I have used for several years. It has lots of flavor and it fits into this antique dish my mother in law gave me. This old pot goes into the oven and it is good enough to be placed on the table.

We also had Squash Biscuits. Not so sure if they will make the cook book, I will have to tweak the recipe.

Well now to clean the kitchen and to go back to typing more recipes.

I Created a Super Southwestern Dish

I'm back! It is that time of year when the kitchen starts to get busy. I've been putting up all sorts of vegetables, the freezers is full. Right now I trying to finish my tomatoes before they rot.

Today, I wanted to share what I served for dinner last night, it was so good. I just call it Southwestern Chicken, I know I wasn't too creative with the title but the dish was really good.

I made my recipe for taco seasoning and I made fresh salsa with plenty of fresh cilantro,I love fresh cilantro. I just believe you just can't have too much in a dish. So I began to start thinking how to create a dish for dinner. I began to cook brown rice and when it was almost done I sprinkled the taco seasoning over the rice. I grilled the chicken breast and uses the taco seasoning as a rub on the chicken. I made the fresh salsa as the chicken cooked with lots of cilantro.

Then came the presentation. I put a helping of rice on the plate, then placed a chicken breast on the rice bed. Then I heated up some queso, Tostitos Monterey Jack Queso, and put about three tablespoons over the chicken and topped it with a generous helping of the fresh salsa. Is was so good! All you needed to add, was a tossed salad on the side. It was a great dinner, if I do say so myself!

Well it is the time of year that I being to enjoy cooking. I don't know what it is, other than a yearly cycle. Could it be the fresh vegetables! I'm not sure, but I do know this is a yearly event that last till Christmas.

I have enjoyed putting up a few vegetables that friends have given to me. I have received cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, field peas, and okra. Love it!

Today I made a dish that I have made before. It is a good one because you can use some of your fresh garden vegetables make it. It is called Cajun Chicken with Andouille. It is really good as a winter dish.

Get Your House In Order

Wow, it took me forever to find my cajun seasoning today. So this tells me it is time to get ready for the cooking season. We know it is coming so why not make the preparations for the upcoming cooking season now, while you have time. It is time to get your house in order for the holidays.

Here is my spice shelf. It is in sad shape, I can't find anything! So today I tackled this mess so I can see what I have, what is too old and what I need to get for cooking ahead. I took everything out. put down clean shelf paper, and through away the old.

Then I started putting the spices in alphabetical order or something close. At least now I can find the spices I need. So I am ready to start cooking for the holidays.

Now is the time for us to make preparations for what lies ahead for all of us. Don't want to bring anyone down but we will all have to face death one day. The Bible say in II Kings 20:1 "to get your house in order, for you shall die, you will not recover." This was at a time when Hezekiah became very sick and the prophet Isaiah came and told him to prepare for this event on his life.
It turned out that the Lord gave Hezekiah 15 more years. We may not be able to have more years added so we need to be prepared for death. The way you prepare is to confess your sins and invite Christ into your heart. It is so simple a child can understand and so profound that an intellectual can not comprehend. Now while you are well and in your right mind accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour while there is time.

By the way... I found an old jar of Cheeze Whiz. Come on over with a bag of nacho chips and I will crack the lid on it and we'll clog some arteries together.

Molly Day

This is Molly our scottish terrier. Here she is back from the groomer and she is feeling fine !

Molly is a little unsure of being at the groomers, she knows that it is a day of bathing, cutting and brushing. Not her favorite things.

She was ready to get loaded up and go. She loves car rides! Just did not care for her final destination...the groomer!

This was her before picture. I told her that you would never find a french poodle in such an ungroomed mess. She didn't care, in fact, it did not bother her a bit that I was going to post her picture. She just enjoys people, the neighbors cat Oreo and food.

She is happy and she makes us happy.

Spicy Monday Evening

Everyone has a receipe for enchilada casserole, but this one I created is a little different. It is a good dish to bring some excitment to an otherwise dull Monday evening. Had to have Cheese Jalapeno Biscuits to go with it. This is was what we enjoyed while "eatin in the kitchen" tonight. Just hope all this spice doesn't revisit about 1 o'clock in the morning!

Spicy Enchilada Caserole

2lb. ground beef(all natural) 1 diced tomato and green chili

1 choppped onion 1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 diced jalapeno oepper 1/2 teaspoon salt

1 Green Chili Enchilada sauce 1/2 teaspoon ground garlic

1 cream of mushroom soup 1/4 teaspoon chili powder

1 can cream of chicken 1 package of 9 flour totilias

1 can organic black beans, drained

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 13 by 9 with pam. In a skillet, cook ground beef, chopped onions and diced jalapeno pepper til done, add black beans,drain. In a bowl, add green chili enchilada sauce, mushoom soup, cream of chicken soup and can of tomato and green chili.

Start with a mall portion of enchilada mixture and spread on the bottom of pan. Next tear three flour tortilias into small pieces and place them on top of the sauce. Then take a third of the meat mixture and spread into your dish. Then sprinkle 1/2 cup cheddar cheese. Continue with two more layers.

Bake for 35 min until bubbly.

Cheese Jalapeno Biscuits

2 cuos bread flour 1 tablespoon baking powder

2/3 cold butter 1 teaspoon salt

1 diced jalapeno buttermilk

a pinch of baking soda 1 teaspoon sugar

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

In a bowl add flour, diced jalapeno, cut in butter till it looks like cornmeal. Add baking powder, salt, sugar and a pinch of baking soda. Add cheese and make a well in the flour. Add enough of buttermilk until everythings clings together. Sorry I do it by eyeing it, but somewhere around a cup. As soon as everything sticks together, spoon the dough out onto a floured surface. Remember, touch the dough as little as possible. Cut and place the biscuits on a greased pan. Bake at 425 degrees for about 10-12 minutes.

Yum, What we are Eatin In the Kitchen Tonight!

It is a good thing to use leftovers, after all Jesus made good use of leftovers after feeding the 5,000. Okay your kids may not appreciate them but reinvent your food and they just might. Yesterday we had roast beef and brown rice. Tonight I am using the brown rice from last night, taking the pork from Monday night and we are going to enjoy fried rice tonight with Asian dumplings. Fried rice is one of those dishes that you can put everything but the kitchen sink. I didn't put as much in today simply because I didn't feel like chopping up the vegetables. So here is what you do:

Grab your left over rice. We like brown rice but you can use white rice. I love jasmine rice, after going to Thailand I became quite familiar with jasmine rice. For the time I was there, we ate rice morning, noon and night for over a week, I did not eat it for awhile upon returning home. Since then I really do love Asian rice.

So get whatever rice you prefer, chop up green peppers, onions, water chestnuts, celery or whatever you would like to add and set this a side. Fry up some bacon, as many pieces you would like. When cooked set the bacon aside to drain. Then stir fry your chopped vegetables, when they are tender, scramble at least 4 eggs. When eggs are cooked, add your rice, pork or chicken and stir in soy sauce and dinner is ready.

I cooked some store bought dumplings to go with it. All you need to do now is pull up to kitchen table and enjoy! Bob you better hurry home dinner is being served!

Fall is Almost Here!!

Yes it is hard to believe that fall is almost here, but it is. So I have started thinking about decorating the home. Last year I won this pair of silver acorns at Christmas. No doubt they were cleaning out their inventory, but I thought I surely could use them the following fall. So I was wondering how to incorporate the silver acorns into the usual gold, brown and orange colors of fall until I saw and ad for this years Christmas decorations. I thought that's it, perfect for my silver acorns. Sage and silver! So I had bought some pics that happened to have some sage tones and I had some sage candles. So there, I have the center piece for the dining room. Now I have to spread the silver and sage to other parts of the room.

See what you think!

What to do with left over coffee

So you didn't finish the pot of coffee and you hate to waste? Well I have an answer! You can always save it to reheat later, which I really don't like or you can do this.

I am planning a roast beef for dinner so about a 1/2 cup is great to throw in the pot to add extra flavor to your roast beef. Also if your house plants are a little droopy, which mine are always in this state, just add the left over coffee and they perk up the same way you do after having a cup.

Old Fashion Black Walnut Cake

This is one of our favorites and the receipe was given to me by a church member several years ago and she has now passed on. Even if you do not care for black walnuts, this cake is worth making and giving it a taste. Very important...start with a cold oven.



2 sticks of butter
1/2 cup of Crisco (or 1/2 cup butter)
3 cups of sugar
5 eggs
3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon black walnut flavoring (you can find it online)
1 cup black walnuts chopped

Dig out your large mixing bowl and you will first cream your butter, crisco and sugar very well. Then add you eggs one at a time. Mix flour, salt and baking powder together. Then alternate your milk and flour mixture. Add your flavorings and then stir in the nuts. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 15 to 20 minutes.

When it is done...grab a cup of coffee, some whipping cream or a scoop of ice cream and sit at the kitchen table and enjoy!

The Ever Loved Biscuit

I'm servin' up biscuits! There's not too many who can resist a biscuits hot from the oven. When you open it up, steam comes rising up and you proceed to place a good helping of butter right in the middle and immediately it starts to run down the sides. Makes me want to just think about it.


I have heard people say that they cannot make homemade biscuits, well I am hear to help! I think the main thing that people do wrong, is that they handle the dough too much. First rule...try to handle the dough as little as possible. Second rule, make them until you do it right. Sometimes it just take knowing when the dough looks right in order to have a great biscuit.

Here is how I do it:


2 cups bread flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

A pinch of baking soda

about a cup of buttermilk

1/3 cup of butter

Preheat oven to 425 degrees, bake for 10 -12 minutes or until browned on top


1.Mix all dry ingredients and make a well in the flour mixture

2. Add your butter. I have made them with shortening, oil and even with no butter or shortening and they come fine. They are just not as good. Then cut the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles cornmeal.

2.Then pour buttermilk and stir just till it all comes together and all ingredients are moistened.

3. Roll out on a floured board and pat out the dough to about an inch thick.

4. Cut out as many biscuits as possible at one time. Then pick up remaining pieces to cut out more biscuit.

You will get about a dozen depending on the size of your biscuit cutter

By the way, my husband has put in for a few dozen tomorrow morning for his work. The kitchen will be open very early.

Lunch with friends

Well we did some unexpected eatin in the kitchen today. Kay, Lisa and I had been making preparations for the big day at church tomorrow, when we had to come to my house to pick up a tent. I had first offered them something to drink and one thing led to another when we realized it was lunch time. I began to pull out the bread, provolone and colby cheese, natural ham, lettuce and tomato and before we new it we had lunch! I also pulled out the Kraft Sandwich Shop Mayo, Hot & Spicy and Chipotle. My O My, this makes a sandwich good. If you have not tried these you are missing out. We decided that they would make great dips with whatever you would like! Wings would be a good start.

Welcome!

This a new blog that is about our favorite thing...eating! It will be everyday foods, with how to's and practical tips. Please stop by soon and grab a cup of coffee and we will do some eatin' in the kitchen!