Dinner in the smoker

I made two different kinds of chicken tonight. I used a suggestion from my nephew and used a cajun rub on six chicken breasts. I wrapped them in bacon and threw them in the smoker.

The other pieces of chicken I used a Mojito Lime seasoning from Grill Mates.

AMAZING!

Dinner is on!

Eating Pantry Staples

My goal this last month of so, has been to eat as much as I can out of my pantry and food storage. I've been stockpiling things on a regular basis, but I've also been forgetting to rotate anything out. One solution for this (although not the best solution granted) is to stop buying groceries for awhile.

Obviously, I have to buy some things, like fresh veggies and dairy here and there, and meat at least once a week. But so far I've been able to pull some decent meals together without having to seriously put myself out on a limb.

Since I'm only feeding 1.5 people, a little can stretch a long way. A pan of cornmeal can be a side at one meal, and be used for a Tex-Mex style casserole the next. We can eat a pound of spaghetti for 3 days straight. And instead of worrying about having to buy expensive fresh red meat every few days, I can supplement it easily with frozen Jimmy Dean Sausage and my leftover Venison from last hunting season.

I'll try to keep you as updated, although I've been pretty bad about keeping up with the blog! Sorry about that!

Homemade Macaroni and Cheese (with bacon!)

This. Was. Amazing.

The recipe looked a bit daunting, but honestly it wasn't that bad as long as you prepped and didn't try to do things half way through. Also, I'm insane about what ingredients I use. The recipe called for whole cream, but the store didn't have any so I had to settle for half and half. But I only use Tillamook sweet cream butter. Period, end of story. If you can't get it in your area, well I'll pray for you. I also generally only use Tillamook Cheese, preferably sharp cheddar.

As I said before, this recipe psyched me out a bit. Not to mention it's from the 1920's and they had a different view then on what was 'easy' cooking. But I made sure to have everything measured out and ready before I started, and it was actually a breeze.

The result was amazingly creamy, but not too rich. I added some ground mustard to the flour mix and a clove of minced garlic to the melted butter, but otherwise followed it to the tee. I added some bacon (because bacon makes everything better!) but forgot to add before throwing it in the oven, so I just plopped it on top, no harm no foul.

This macaroni is really really worth the extra effort, and it fills a 9x13 pan so it'll be good for either a large group, or I'd suggest cutting it down a bit. The Boy and I both ate a fair share, and I gave a large bowl to David and May also.

I'll throw the recipe up in the comments!

Southern-Style Picnic ala Maggy Style

As I said before, Ryan the 3L came up for the weekend and brought along his lady friend. We had a little BBQ on Saturday night, and I decided to make potato salad. Now, one thing I'm horrible about when it comes to cooking/baking is time management. Seems like more often then not I'm nodding off on the couch at 1am waiting for my latest invention to set/bake/cool. I figured the potato salad would take about an hour. I was wrong, and once again I managed to finish it off at 1 am (which seems to be my magic hour). I had planned to send a large chunk of it home with them, but Sunday morning ended up being quite rushed and we all managed to forget.

So I now have a ginormous amount of potato salad in my fridge. I'm guessing about 5 pounds, which may not sound like much but the Boy doesn't seem interested, and I can't humanely eat that much without exploding. I wanted to make a good meal to compliment the potato salad to get rid of some of it without eating only potato salad. Nothing in my usual repertoire sounded very good, so I was struggling along through recipes when my mom called. I mentioned my dilemma and she said simply "Picnic Food". I was a tad confused and she said "What do you take on a picnic in the summer? Potato salad and chicken".

I started thinking and decided that sounded amazing. But I want to do one better and go back to my Louisiana days. Fried Chicken, potato salad and lemon meringue. The funniest part of this is, I've never fried chicken or made a meringue. Ever. I looked up a couple recipes online and found Paula Deen's Fried Chicken and one for a lemon meringue pie. Shockingly I had most the ingredients, I really just needed the chicken and some hot sauce.

I decided to make the meringue first, which was good since it takes hours to set. The filling itself was fairly simple, and I got the done with relative ease. Now comes the topping. Ironically the only time I remember seeing anyone attempt meringue was a good friend of mine's father. That good friend lives in Norway, and so that year was 2000 maybe 2001. In other word's I'm very much lacking in the examples department.

My egg whites just didn't want to puff up. In fact, I pretty much ended up declaring war. Happily, just when I was about to pitch the whole thing and curl up and cry in a corner, it started to peak. I gave it a couple more twirls, then called it good for a 1st attempt. I threw it in the oven, and when I pulled it out I was pleasantly surprised.


I put in the fridge to chill and went to work on my chicken. I had bought both wings and breasts, but since I couldn't con anyone to come over for dinner, I ended up just cutting down the breasts into strips. I figured they would make a good test run, and being white meat they'd cook up a bit faster and I'd have a lesser chance of burning them. I used grapeseed oil (which is pricey but soooo much better for you then other oils) and made sure I had it about 350 degrees. I doused the strips with garlic powder, salt and pepper. Dipped them into an egg and hot sauce mixture, then dredged them with flour, baking soda and a pinch of salt. I tossed them in the oil, and gave them 4-5 minutes a side. They turned out great and I was very proud of myself.

So there it is! Southern-Style picnic food ala Maggy.