fried chicken dinner

When life gets too much I can always count on food. Not in the eating because of emotional emptiness way, but in cooking. When I was in high school, and I had a rough week, I used to wake up Saturday morning and go down stairs to the kitchen. Here I would stay all day cooking dishes and forgetting myself. I love that cooking is predictable and instant gratification. If you know the basics you can create numerous meals. I still love how the smells and the sounds and the way food bring people together. Now when I feel like I need a little perk up I call some friends and cook up a good meal that everyone can enjoy. It is important to put thought into several things so that your recipe for a dinner party is a success. For starters you have to decide what kind of dinner party this is going to be. Next decide how many people you are going to cook for. And lastly what to cook. The last dinner party I threw was a small casual dinner for 6. Since it was a week night I knew that I wanted to keep it simple and casual. In honor of my boyfriend’s friend (who is currently serving in the Army and is home in between tours in the mid east) I choose to make a comfort meal. I made friend chicken, buttermilk biscuits and cream gravy. One of my girl friends brought a beautiful salad and another brought a lovely pie with ice cream. Which brings up another point. As much as I love to cook I am not a hostess in the old fashioned sense. I grew up in a house where my mom feed everyone! My brother and I would bring friends home for dinner all the time. Our family of four often had at least twice that many people at the dinner table. For this reason the first time people come to my house they are shown where the glasses, utensils, and dishes are. They are expected to take initiative and help themselves. So back to the dinner. I follow my moms theory and usually people that come to dinner bring something in a potluck like fashion. I find that classics like fried chicken go over really well with a crowd but are often very intimidating to people. I think this is because people get very emotionally dug into the “right” way to cook this or that. I understand that recipes can be emotional and sentimental but I say try things and make them work for you. That said when I make fried chicken I really like to use the breast tenders. I get them in a huge bag at Costco frozen and use them for all kinds of meals.
Fried Chicken
Soak chicken tenders in buttermilk with some meat season spice for a couple hours. You can put all the thawed chicken tenders in a bowl, pour the buttermilk over it. Shake some spice on it stir to combine and put a cover on the bowl and stick it in the fridge in the morning and when you get home in the evening it will be ready to go. Next get your station ready. I use a pie pan and put in flour, salt and pepper and stir. Next to the pan you will cook them in on the stove. On the other side of that I put a plate with paper towels to absorb the excess grease. Of course you will also need a pair of tongs. At this point I also mix together my ingredients for my buttermilk biscuits. Melt Crisco in you pan. I use a cast iron skillet. Once the Crisco is completely melted you can start the frying process. Take a chicken tender or two out of the bowl let the buttermilk drip off for a second. Dip into pie pan with flour, flip, make sure they are coated with flour. Then lay gently into the skillet. Because they are chicken tenders they will only take a few min on each side. Check the bottom of the tender to make sure you have a nice golden crust on the bottom before you turn them over in the pan with your tongs. When the tenders are done take them out and lay them on the plate with paper towels. Until you get the feel of it make sure you cut open the first one to make sure it is done.
Buttermilk Biscuits
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon backing soda
1/3 heaping Cup Crisco
¾ C buttermilk
Mix flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Rub with Crisco until it is like corn meal. mix in butter milk until one ball
On a floured surface knead dough till no longer sticky, roll out and form into biscuits. Cook 8 min (6 min if freezing)
Cream Gravy
Melt Crisco in a pan. Add in equal portion of flour. Stir together and toast making a roux. Add in crumbled sausage. Once sausage is done pour in whole milk and then cook down till it is nice and thick.

Helpful Cooking Tips

Like many people I learned to cook from my mom and my grandmother and my aunts. I also learned things for the internet and the food network and from lots of my friends who are also great cooks. Here are a few I find helpful no matter what you are cooking, because I have found that food taste better when your not stressed out.

1. Make menus. I do this two ways if it is a special meal I take a page of paper and fold it in half length wise. On the left hand side I write the dishes I will make. Then I read through the dishes and on the right hand side write the ingredients I will need to buy so I have a shopping list. I also use this for weekly menus and just list all the days of the week on the left hand side. I further split that up for breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner for each day. This keeps me organized and I can take half an hour to plan my meals each week and shopping takes hardly any time. For crazy weeks where I use a menu mailer from savingdinner.com
2. Prep on shopping day. When you get home from the store wash your veggies and I also take some time to chop up things to have them handy for snacks and quick meals. It is like having a salad bar in your fridge.
3. Be your own prep chef. Before you start to cook the meal get everything chopped up to the size you want and pulled out of the fridge and pantry. That way no last min panic trying to find something.
4. Have a trash bowl or two. Thanks Rachel Ray! I keep one for compost and one for actual trash
5. Clean while you cook. Ok so I have not mastered this yet but hey I’m getting better. I like to have a large bowl of hot soapy water in my sink (I don’t have a double basin) so when I’m cooking I can put the dirty dishes right into the wash bowl making clean up much easier.
6. Spice it up. using herbs (the leaf part of a plant) and spices (the other parts of a plant) are great for cooking. I use to confuse myself on which ones I had already used until I read in I think a romance novel of all places the tip to march your spices across the counter. the ones you have not used on one side of your mixing bowl or dish and the ones you have used on the other side.
   

Feel better chicken soup

I'm not going to claim this will cure you but I will say that when I am sick it has helped me feel better and it seems to do the same for other people. And is a fairly simple dish to make. A good basic with many variations and of course easy to adjust once you have the basic soup down. Though I will say it turns out to be more like a stew. It also makes a ton so you should have it for a week or so depending on how many people eat it.

Take a whole chicken that has been cut into pieces and put it in a stock pot. Cover it with water and simmer until the meat falls off the bone. This can be an hour or two. Take chicken out of water and remove meat from bones. Chop or shred the larger pieces in the more bite size. Put meat aside for a moment. Let the broth continue to simmer.

While the chicken was simmering in a pan on the stove sauté one white onion that has been chopped into smallish pieces ( you can use yellow but I always cook with white. It is a Mexican thing) and several cloves of garlic or a tablespoon from the jar of chopped garlic, which is what I do. Once they start to get soft add some salt and pepper, dried red chili flakes, dried thyme, dried oregano, and some meat or poultry marinade. I use Phipps Country Meat Marinade and it has: Lemon pepper, salt, Garlic, paprika, onion, pepper, oregano, thyme, rosemary and baby leaf. Stir in. then add Chopped carrot and celery. Sauté until the herbs are well mixed in then add mixture to your chicken broth. Add Chicken back in too. Add noodles. When noodles are cooked soup is done.

Some variations to get you started:

If you have an upset tuummy omit the noodles and serve over short grian rice.

Add Green cabbage or other hard vegies with the carrots and celery.

For a more Asian style add 5 spice powder and shitake mushrooms and chow main or undo noodles and add chopped fresh ginger when sautéing the onions and garlic.

Add green beans just at the end

Add lemon zest right at the end. Or on top of the bowl you are serving.