Cake Balls...I Got 'Em

There is a little party happening at my house Saturday evening. The groom is a long time friend of Son2 and his lovely bride is one of those people you meet and feel immediately like you have known her forever. She is absolutely charming and to the groom the only thing I can say is " Well you aimed high and somehow hit the target"

You know how when you are having people in your home you finish up all the loose end projects you mean to get done but just put on the back burner? For the past few days I have been in a flurry of clean, repair, reposition, and renew. It's almost amazing what we will live with everyday, but would hate for someone else to know is our everyday life. I think I should have something at my home each month just to keep all projects in line for completion. Or am I the only one who starts something then doesn't quite finish? Or how about the ideas that you thought were really good until you tried them. When my older sons were little I thought it would be a great idea to wallpaper the walls and ceiling of the stairwell going to there playroom. Not a truly terrible idea until you understand that I thought it would be a good idea to paper it with the insert maps found in old National Geographic magazines. Still think it's not a horrible idea? The old maps were quite thin and not really intended to be used as wallpaper, but never to let a "good idea" die on the vine, I papered the walls and ceilings, then noticed some of the edges did not stick properly. Of course the ultimate solution to solve the problem was the coat the entire surface with polyurethane. No problem until about a year after I created this situation when I got sick and tired of it. We were going to have some people over so I thought it would be a good idea to take down the mess and start over with a fresher approach. I started peeling...no luck. Got a scraper and started scraping...fiercely. if you don't already know let me inform you that polyurethane coated National Geographic maps put up quite a removal battle. In the end I got all the maps removed, but those suckers did not come down without a fight and they absolutely took the hide off the sheetrock. I would up having to put up a repair paper and re wallpaper the entire stairwell/ceiling with legitimate wallpaper, but first I had to put up a special correction wallpaper to cover gouges.

Fortunately I have not done anything really stupid this time, its just a boatload of small unfinished things, like bathroom vanities that have no doors, light fixtures that have not been put up, area rugs that need that foamy waffle looking under pad to keep the rug from moving on the hardwood floors and so forth. I would like to tell you that I slaved away at all those minor repairs, but it would be an out and out lie. Jerry or St. Jerry of Hardware came today to finish up all the loose ends that require nails, screws, hammers and skills. Thank's Jerry. You managed to fix all my procrastinations in a matter of hours, leaving me the time to get a small party need out of the way.

One of the food items for the party is cake balls. If you have never had them let me explain what they are like. Try to imagine a bite sized cake truffle encased in chocolate. There is no real recipe so I am just going to tell you how to form it. Make a cake according to your favorite recipe or the directions on the back of the mix box. Take the baked cooled cake and crumble it up finely. Add 1 cup of icing ( buttercream) in the flavor of your choice. Take all that good and chill for about 1 hour. Using a very small ice cream scoop or melon baller form chilled cake goo into balls. Put them on a lined cookie sheet and pop them in the freezer until they are frozen on the outside, but still unfrozen in the center. Melt some melting chocolate in a tall coffee mug ( it's the best, I promise), and insert a lollipop stick into the center of each goo ball. Holding the stick end, dip them into the melted chocolate to cover. I found sticking them into a styrofoam "brick" was the perfect place for them to dry. Pam was helping me do them
We made yellow cake with butter cream icing coated in white chocolate and devils food cake with chocolate icing and dipped in melted dark chocolate . If you try these be a little more experimental than I was with flavors. Chocolate covered strawberry cake with sour cream icing? White chocolate covered orange cake with vanilla ( dreamsicle flavored ) You are only limited by your imagination.

Pam arranged them in alternating colors stuck into a new styro cone she brought with her. We put the filled cone on top of a tiered cake plate and filled in all of the empty places with paper daisies. ( Ask me another time what you can make with coffee filters and a bright yellow high liter) The result is a really pretty dessert/ centerpiece. A picture will follow, but I had to cover it for now and had to construct some support to hold the cloth i have covering it.

So get your ducks in order, have a party and make cake balls.

What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men or Young Women

A young friend of mine sent me this particular link to a website. Instead of calling the formerly lovely young lady Emily, I will forever call her by my new pet name for her, Beelzebub. All you have to do is look at this page and you will understand why I can no longer like her.



http://www.instructables.com/id/Copycat-Candy-Recipes/


Get thee behind me Satan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When in Rome...Eat Out

Ok I did not really go to Rome, but have been out of town for a while. When we finally got home I was so tired from traveling to cook so we had to eat out a few nights. That is really not true but I kinda liked sounding petty . Truth is we went to Boston and New York for a week and obviously did eat out there each meal. We had wonderful trip and were all almost glad to get home to a more normal routine. As for trying something new and different, well I have been just throwing something on the grill and adding a salad each night. Until last night, that is.

I had my book club over for our monthly meeting. This month we read the book Cleopatra A Life by Stacy Schiff. I would love to post with great delight the varied reactions to the book, however, not one of us finished it. That might say something about the quality of the book, but I think it speaks more to the things going on in our lives right now. Everyone is busy with grandchildren, jobs, house construction, travel, animals and the general duties of daily life. My Beloved Sister claims that March is just a contrary month and nothing goes as it is supposed to. Since she hates March so badly, I feel it is my moral obligation to call her each March 15, pitch my voice as low as I can get it and say slowly "Beware the Ides of March". I have been doing it for decades and it still makes us laugh. I guess it eases some of the tensions associated with the month. And speaking of the easing of tensions... my new recipes for the day are all about erasing the cares and worries of the day.

While in NYC we went to a really nice show/birthday party at Birdland. The show part was intention and the birthday party was serendipitous. We were going to listen to a Louis Armstrong cover band and Louis' record producer was celebrating his 92nd birthday in the club. It seems he goes there every year for his party and invites a number of guests. He extends the invitation to those like us who just want to hear some really good music. The show was a 5 pm show and we had just eaten a late lunch at a Chilean restaurant a few blocks over. Even though there is a cover charge they expect you to order something, so we opted for liquid refreshments. They had a drink that is their house speciality so I thought "Why not?". I did ask what was in it, but was only halfway listening so this is my finished concoction. I am sure it is not exactly how they make it, but the taste is very close. Also I don't remember what they named theirs so to keep it simple I am just going to call this :


Key Lime Cocktail

3 cups Lime Aid
2 Tablespoons Nellie and Joe's Key Lime Juice
4 jiggers banana schnapps
4 jiggers Triple Sec
4 jiggers vanilla vodka
4 jiggers coconut vodka
1/4 lime
sugar

Stir together all the liquid ingredients in a pitcher. Pour in prepared glasses ( see below)

Lime the rims of your glasses and sugar them. Add ice , pour and enjoy.

This was enough for 5 of us to have 2 average size drinks each.
( This is made and measured for a crowd. If you want to make it for one, well you do the math)

The verdict from the crowd was more than favorable, with the exception of my Beloved Sister who declared it "OK".

The second part of my NY experience was my attempt to make Momofuko's famous Crack Pie. What is Crack Pie you might wonder. When Momofuko's opened the Milk Bar ( Pastries and flavored milks) they had a pie on the menu known as Milk Pie. After a few days their customers came in and started calling it Crack Pie because once you had eaten it it was like Crack and you wanted more and more.

We made a destination trip to 56th street just to get the pie. Milk (annex store to the original restaurant and pastry shop) is located inside the Chamber's hotel right across the street from the Argentinean embassy just in case you need to make a quick stop there first. ( We didn't but you never know when it might become vital to go there and if you have to be in the embassy, stop by Milk and have some Pie) The Hotel is one of those small boutique places with huge art books in the lobby. I suppose if you are staying there it is required to stroll to the lobby and browse through the books. ( Maybe people just lift them for exercise) You wander through the lobby and follow the sounds of nothing to reach Milk. After spending 8 dollars for a slice of pie you look around and notice there is no where to eat said pie, so you have to go up to the hotel mezzanine to enjoy it or go out and have your snack on the sidewalk. We chose the mezzanine and sat in extremely LOW cushy chairs that tried to devour us. The $8 slice o' pie is in a little folded pie box and comes with no utensil, so we slid it out of its cardboard coffin and held pie perfection in our hands. The entire slice = about 4 bites. The Hub and I shared one piece and declared it to be one of the best things we had ever put in our mouths. I would have liked to have bought an entire pie, but the $44 price seemed a little excessive, so I did the next best thing, I attempted to duplicate it at home.

When you do a google search for Crack Pie make sure you type the name correctly. My first search led me to instructions for making crack pipes. Though I found the construction of said items interesting it is not something I need or will ever use. A new search led me to several recipes printed online, plus a couple of videos of the actual making process. One was a Martha Stewart show and I forget what the other was ( Today maybe?) I watched them both then compared the recipes I found online. The recipe I am posting the link to seemed to fit what they were doing on the videos best.http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/11/food/la-fo-crackpierec11-2010feb11 This is the link and I am not going to type out the actual recipe. It would take me too much time plus you can obviously use a computer or you wouldn't be reading this, so just copy and paste the link. ( If you want to google it make sure you click on the LA times recipe)

The flavor is almost exactly what I remember, but the consistency is a little different. The original crack pie is gooey but not the least bit runny, in fact it is a very dense goo. I am not sure how they get it that way, but it does not happen baking for 15 minutes at 350 then lowering to 325 for 10. Also the real pie is so smooth. Baking as the recipe called for did not completely liquify all of the sugar. I think they must heat the cream and add the sugars to get total saturation, then cool it before adding the melted butter and the eggs. Not positive though. Also, the cookie crumbs in the original version are very, very fine. I would recommend crumbing it in the food processor to a consistency of graham cracker crumbs, or you can do what I did last night. I just bought 2 Keebler shortbread crusts. Yes it might be blasphemy, but it worked and saved me time I did not have to dedicate to pie making.

The pie is very sweet and rich so small slices are suggested. After all the recipe makes 2 pies so you can always go back for more.

The verdict was more than favorable, with the exception of my Beloved Sister who said it was fine but she didn't know what the big whooey is all about. Keep in mind this is the same person who said the play "Wicked" is allright.

I will do both recipes again, but I won't do the pie in the new future. I figure there are about 4 zillion calories per bite!

And in answer to my young friend Anna, " Yes it is delicious and No you do not have to walk around dark and scary corners to get this particular crack."

Enjoy!

Chicken Pot Pie Ole?

Today I was looking at the food ads then looked at a refrigerator that was literally overflowing. Why on earth would I make a beeline to the store when I had so much to eat already. A few days ago I had cooked some chicken breasts with some Mexican spices. It was tasty the first time around, but I had it for lunch for the past 3 days and I was tired of it. The chicken needed to be eaten today so I kept thinking about what to make. I found nearly an entire pan of corn muffins that were part of a meal I bought at a charity event. I know they were wonderful when I got them, but we forgot to eat them with the meal so they have dried out a tad. So now I had chicken and cornbread. Looking further I found a can of cream of chicken soup I had opened accidentally and stuck in some tupperware. Add soup to the equation! What was I going to do now. I found a half pack of frozen peas and carrots and about a fourth cup of frozen corn niblets... Of course! Chicken Pot Cornbread Pie with a hint of Mexico.

Totally Created from leftovers Chicken Pot Pie Ole?

About 2 cups leftover chicken breast chunks
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/4 cup water ( if I had a bottle of dry white wine open I would have used it instead)
1/2 onion in julienne strips
leftover frozen mixed veggies, steamed ( I had about a cup)
leftover frozen corn ( I had about 1/4 cup)
thyme to taste
parsley about 1 teaspoon dried
chili powder about 1/2 teaspoon
black pepper ( 2 shakes)

Cornmeal muffins, crumbed (about 2 cups crumbs)
2 tablespoons squirt margarine
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
about 2 tablespoons water

I lightly steamed the frozen vegetables, but also added one half of an onion sliced in julienne strips. I chopped the leftover chicken in smaller than bite size pieces and put them in a boiler with the cream of chicken soup. I added about 1/4 cup of water, dried thyme, parsley and a little chili powder. While it was heating I crumbled the corn muffins into fine crumbs. I noticed the water made the mixture too thin, so I put about 2 tablespoons of the corn meal crumbs into the pot to thicken the mixture. Smart move on my part. I added the veggies to the pot and let everything get equally warm. it fit into a 9x9 foil pan (the same one the muffins came in). The remaining bread crumbs still felt a little too dry, so I put 2 big squeezes of fake squeeze butter (I can't believe it's not butter) about 1/4 c. Parmesan and tablespoon of water into the crumbs and stirred it well. It made a cornbread dry paste like mix which I dropped all over the top of the chicken mixture. It was not a smooth topping, but it was somewhat even. It baked (350) for about 20 minutes. The result was a delicious topping on a very creamy slightly seasoned pot pie filling. I realize calling this a pot pie is a misnomer but I don't have anything else to call it. The crust was light and crunchy, but had a nice cheese flavor that did not overpower the cornbread taste. This is something I will do again if I have chicken and cornbread leftover again at the same time. And yes I know I could have made some chicken and dressing but I was not in the mood for it at all. When I do it again I think rather than thyme and parsley I might use cilantro and a hint of ground coriander, along with a dash of cumin. It would probably be really good with a green bean, pinto bean mix also. Keeping the corn, onions and adding a little diced chili would be nice also. To bad those weren't leftover or I would have used them. Now I only have one problem. What am I going to do with tonight's leftovers?

The "Little Red" Experience

I live in the south and as we all know when someone is sick or has been taken to the other side, it is our moral obligation to take food to them or their families. I did not make these rules, but my mother does it, my grandmother did and as I understand her mother did it also. It is not because we fear being thought of less if we don't do it, or because we expect something in return. It's just something we do, like saying "Yes Ma'am" automatically to all of my mother's living friends. ( Well , honestly the dead one's aren't much for conversation so a yes or no really isn't required) Friday night I got to take food to my good friend whose husband has just had some really nasty surgery. Technically I know that it was he, not she who had it, but I also know that it can be grueling to be the caregiver. Sometimes it is nice to not have to think about the small details like "What's for dinner?, and concentrate on physical therapy instead.

She asked me to share the recipe, which I would be happy to do if I actually used a recipe. Instead I will just recreate it using guesstimates of the actual ingredients. I found this recipe online a while back and each time I make it i change it a bit, so here is the totally bastardized version of the easily Googled recipe for Romantic Chicken with Artichokes .

Romantic Chicken with Artichokes Somewhere on the Google

4 chicken breast halves, cut in bite size pieces
olive oil
4 or so cloves garlic finely minced
1 onion . I cut it in half then just slice crosswise in in about 1/2 inch slices so there will be nice strips of onion in the dish
1 or 2 cans artichoke hearts in water, drained. Use the smaller artichoke hearts or cut the large ones in quarters
Chicken broth. I generally use homemade only because I tend to buy a hen for boiling a couple of times a month and I freeze
the liquid. I am guessing I use about a cup. Feel free to use canned. I would if I didn't have it on hand.
Thyme ( dried french is the tastiest and I probably use about a teaspoon)
mushrooms ( about a cup) if you have them, but Friday I didn't.
parsley ( about a tablespoon of dried or 2 tablespoons of fresh chopped)
acid of some sort. Friday I used a combination of lemon juice and balsemic vinegar. No idea how much I actually used but you want at least a couple of tablespoons.
salt and pepper to taste
Italian dressing
corn starch

Put olive oil in a large skillet ( decent puddle to swirl around the pan a time or two. I do not use EV in this recipe because I don't want the olive taste to interfere with the taste of the artichokes. Get the pan decently hot and add the chicken pieces, cooking till just browned. Remove from the skillet and add a little more olive oil to the pan. Toss in the onions and cook till wilted then add the minced garlic. It should only take 30 seconds to a minute to wilt the garlic. Add the chicken back to the pan and pour in the chicken broth. Throw in the seasonings, artichoke hearts and mushrooms if you have them. Let it just sit on the stove at a slow simmer for about 15 minutes. Add a couple of tablespoons of Italian dressing ( I use Kraft Fat Free) and stir it thoroughly. Make a slurry of 1 tablespoon of corn starch and 1/4 cup cold water. Stir it into the chicken liquid and cook til thickened a bit. Serve over rice.

I use brown rice because we do not eat a lot of refined products.. Years ago when I used to cater I learned a valuable lesson from David Crosby ( Yeah the Stills and Nash guy) Well I learned 2 valuable lessons from him. The first is to treat people with respect so that when you leave they won't think " What waste of a perfectly good kidney transplant" (BTW David if you are reading this: I did cook the blooming ham from scratch and just because one of the kitchen helpers had worked at Honey Bake and knew the secrets of spiral slicing does not mean we bought you a ham there! Oh yeah, and when I woke up the next morning you were a memory. When you woke the next morning you were still a jerk!) The second and valuable lesson I learned is even though a jerk requests short grain brown rice, it does not negate the fact that short grain brown is a better product. So thank you for that. If you cook short grained brown rice commit to the full 45 minutes it takes to make it. There are no shortcuts, but the end result is well worth the time invested. The grains are full and chewy with that wonderful nutty flavor. Nothing is needed but tiny bit of salt to enhance the flavor. As a base for the chicken, well it is nearly perfect.

I also took them some broccoli slaw. It was your basic bagged broccoli slaw, rinsed and drained and dressed with a very special dressing (laughing and giggling as I type this)
1/4 cup mayonnaise
3 or 4 shakes of Beau Monde seasoning
2 teaspoons sugar
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

Mix the aforementioned exotic ingredients and pour over the slaw. Toss to coat and serve.

This meal travels well and really is good. In fact if any of you are under the weather and need a boost from me, most likely this is what you will get.

Have a great day and stay well!

Everybody on Weight Watchers say "Cheeseburger" Kinda

Tonight the guys who call this house home have gone to Tuscaloosa to see either Alabama put a basketball whuppin' on Auburn or Auburn put a whuppin' on Alabama. It means they are having fun and I am home alone. I kept thinking it would be a great night to run up to Mugshots and grab a huge delicious cheeseburger with all the fixin's and then thought " Oh yeah I am doing the Weight Watchers thing. It is not a horrid thing to do, but I had gone off of it last night ( Not really gone off but I had done a ton of point shuffling so I could have the "Hawaiian" at the Diplomat) I knew I had to stick with the program better today, but I wanted a burger badly. I sat down and started thinking of my options... steamed broccoli , have it don't want it. Same goes for cauliflower and asparagus. Dang it!!! I wanted a cheeseburger. I started weighing my options. I could run outside and throw a turkey burger on the grill and eat it on 2 slices of Nature's Own Double Fiber bread. Calculating using all fingers and thought "No that is too many points tonight cause I will probably still want something else besides just a burger" Then I thought of making a salad to go along with the turkey burger. But I really did not want a turkey burger either. I wanted cheese on my burger. Where were the points going to come from I don't mind doing the reduced fat cheese, but I am not going to use the fat free stuff. It looks , tastes and feels like someone cut a sandwich size patch out of an orange beach raft and called it food. Where to steal the points then... I picked up my quick fix Bible otherwise known as the Hungry Girl Cookbook and flipped through the pages thinking something would jump out at me. There on page 45 the angels started to sing and my eyes fell on the Big Chomp Cheeseburger Chop. OK so its not a real cheeseburger, in fact it's not a real burger at all. But it is a perfectly acceptable variation on a theme of cheeseburgerness. A simple process, perfect for doing on a single meal night. Sorry but there is no way I was going to spend any real time fixing supper just for me. I had all the ingredients on hand and was perfectly willing to use the additional points with the reduced fat cheese, which will actually melt, unlike the prefab fat free abomination.


Hungry Girl Lisa Lillien

Big Chomp Cheeseburger Chop

3 Cups Chopped Romaine lettuce
1 Original Boca Burger
1 slice fat free cheese ( NO WAY!)
4 pickle slices*
1/3 cup chopped tomatoes
3 tablespoons chopped onions ( 1 slice onion lightly grilled in the Boca pan, pre burger cooking)

100 Island Dressing ( It's so fake I can't bring myself to call it 1000 Island)

Mix equal parts fat-free mayo, low sugar ketchup and Dijonnaise ( I used 1 tablespoon of each) It is a little thicker than I like so I cut it with about a teaspoon of cider vinegar

Prepare Boca according to package directions. ( This means get out your non-stick skillet, give it a quick shot of Pam and cook it until it is hot and sizzles a little) Top patty with cheese slice and microwave about 20 seconds until the cheese melts. ( As I said the fat free crap doesn't melt so I opted for 1 oz. of super thinly sliced reduced fat cheese placed on the patty in the skillet. Guess what? It melts and looks like cheese.) Set aside.

Place the chopped (torn) roamine (mixed leafy greens) in the bottom of a large bowl. Top with pickles, tomatoes and the onion. Additionally, I seared about a half cup of sliced mushrooms in the pan after the onions and the burger cooked, 'cause I like mushrooms on my cheeseburgers. Cut the burger into bite size pieces and put it on the top of the salad. Drizzle the dressing on top of burger and enjoy
* If you like dill slices any kind will work, but if you are a bread and butter pickle junkie Mount Olive makes a pickle sweetened with Splenda rather than sugar. Personally bread an butter pickles on a burger in any form grosses me out, but I know some of you are out there because I have eaten with you and been repulsed by your pickle habits. But seriously who am I to judge?




The verdict? This really does taste like you are eating a cheeseburger that is too sloppy for the bun, so you are reduced to eating it with your fork. The Boca burger does not taste exactly like real meat, but the consistency is fine and the flavor is quite good. ( I admit I can eat a Boca plain so maybe I'm not totally objective) I also like dijon mustard so the dressing is fine with me. It tastes nothing like thousand island dressing but just tastes like mixed hamburger condiments. If you are a purist you might want to use traditional yellow mustard instead. I love the grilled onion. I cooked it to a crisp tender and it's nice and oniony without being as sharp as a raw onion. The mushrooms provide little in the way of actual flavor, they picked up just bit of the onion/burger flavor, but they provide some really nice "chew" . I am a tactile eater and the food has to feel "right" or I won't eat it (hence my banana revulsion) You have to use a really big bowl for this. The one I used is about 8 1/2 inches wide and 3 inches deep. The salad pretty much filled the entire bowl, and you need a little room to mix it up as you eat it so you get bits and pieces of all the components in most bites. I will definitely do this again. I can't imagine how good it would be with fat sun ripened summer tomatoes. I can see how good this would be with a reduced fat swiss and lots more mushrooms and onions. The only thing I am having with this tonight is a cold diet coke and it is all i want. This portion is HUGE! If I had thought of it earlier I might have done some oven baked sweet potato 'fries". I think it would have been a good addition and it's something I will try next time.

This is totally an aside but if any of you have a Kindle or Kindle app on your phone or computer, Hungry Girl 3 is available for pre-order for free from Amazon. So far I am 2 for 2 with the recipes from the original book. I have no idea what this new one will be like, but it is free so it really doesn't matter if it is as good as this one or not ( FYI you can get the Hungry Girl Cookbook at Costco cheaper than anywhere else in the city)

I am off to watch a movie I picked up at Publix. Can't beat a buck rental

Cooking again finally

Over the weekend both of the guys who hang out here and call it home were gone. Friday night Son3 was doing some teen Rave thing while The Hub was in Tuscaloosa doing some charitable business. Saturday night they both went back to Tuscaloosa to a ball game and stayed over to see the reopening and rededication of Fosters Auditorium. ( The fact that my brother-in-law was part of the dedication festivities was a large part of their being there) While they were gone I ate leftover black eyed pea soup and ate it again and ate it one last time. It seems that most of the moms I know just eat whatever is left instead of what they really want. Monday was Valentine's and we scooted out to eat at the opening of Mugshots in Vestavia. Yum! What a delicious burger. If you let me have grilled onions and peppers with swiss on a burger I will be your friend for life.

Tonight The Hub is in Oklahoma so it is just Son3 and me. We are opting for a simple fare done slightly different. Its a glazed chicken on cheese grits. If any of you are reading this and you know Cindy just go ahead and nod your head in agreement and know what I am saying is true. My friend Cindy, is not like most other friends in the world. Most of us have projects on our to-do list like clean the garage, wash the curtains or dust the refrigerator coils. Cindy' s list says things like paint a mural of the French countryside on the walls going down the basement stairs. Not only does it say stuff like that, but she actually does it. Those of us who are her friends never try to top her for 2 main reasons.

1st: We just can't.

and

2nd: If by some weird alignment of the planets we were actually able to do something better than her, she would just add some other oddity to her list: Hammer a dime into a hair thin ribbon of silver and etch "War and Peace" on it using a Barbie screwdriver. So it is just pointless to try. We just enjoy her many talents and call her fondly, "That Cindy"

Now that you understand what she is like it should come as no surprise that she has printed her own cookbook which she shared with several of us. Tonight's meal comes from Cindy's book and, unlike a meal Cindy serves, it will be eaten on plain plates with no centerpiece, candles or multi utensil table setting.

Cindy XXXXd's Favorite Recipes Compiled by Cindy XXXXd (The X's protect her anonymity and keep YOU from becoming her friend)

Spicy Apple Glazed Chicken with Cheese Grits
4 skinned and boned chicken breast halves,sprayed with Pam
1/4 cup apple butter
1/4 cup brown mustard
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon red pepper
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped green onion for garnish
fresh oregano for garnish

Place the chicken between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and flatten to 1/2 inch thick
Put the chicken in a Pam coated pan
Combine the next 5 ingredients and brush over the chicken.
Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
Cut in strips.


Cheese Grits

2 (14 oz.) cans of chicken broth
3/4 cup quick cooking grits
1 cup shredded Muenster cheese
1/3 cup sour cream
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Bring the broth to a boil and gradually add the grits, stirring constantly.
Reduce the heat to low and simmer, covered, for about 5 minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in the remaining ingredients.

Serve the chicken strips over the cheese grits and garnish with the onion and oregano leaves.

What we thought and what I did differently: The flavor of this is very good, but I thought the apple butter glaze was a little thick. Son3 and I both scraped about 1/2 of it off. Of course I did not flatten the chicken breasts so I had a much higher concentrate of it over a smaller area, which would account for the thickness. I did not have any cayenne or ground red pepper so I had to use ground chipotle. It gave it a hint of smokey flavor, which was not bad.

When I made the grits, I had just finished poaching the chicken breast that remained in the pack so instead of just the canned broth I used the poaching liquid. I had a concoction of white wine, broth, bay leaves and thyme that I used. Since I had the savory spices in the poaching liquid I did not put the nutmeg in it. The liquid was substantially darker than canned broth so it did give the grits a little "off" color. The flavor was quite good in spite of the color.

The hunk of cheese I thought was Muenster turned out to be Horseradish White Cheddar so I had to punt quickly. Fortunately the Parmesan Cheese fairy has been hovering around for a few weeks and each time I go grocery shopping she slips more in my cart, so I had a boatload which I used instead. I think the Muenster would have been creamier and tasted better. I had low fat sour cream in the fridge so that is what I used. I don't think it made a difference either way since it did not actually cook, but was just warmed by the hot grits.

I will do this again, but I will flatten the chicken and use clear broth, just to keep the grits color a little prettier.

Thanks Cindy for the inspiration!