Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose

Finally attempted chicken pot pie. Mmm tasty

More and more lately, I’ve wanted to quit my job and go to culinary school.

Maybe I should stop watching Food Network?

San Diego Thankgiving 2011 = Great success. I love my friends.

We ate, we drank, we watched Friends, we watched football, and we ate some more.

And I can’t to do this all again in a few days!

The turkey is in the oven….

T-minus ~8 hours until San Diego Thanksgiving.

hanimcooks:

Salad In A Jar.

Salad in a jar recipe - good idea for work. As long as dressing and lettuce do not touch in the jar, they can be made 5 days in advance while staying fresh with the lid screwed tight.

Genius.

“Oh my god Susan, this changes everything!!!” - What I said when I saw this post

My grandma used to make me chicken strips all the time when I was a kid. She never actually taught me how to make them, but I watched her do it so much I eventually picked up the recipe.

And it’s stupidly easy. Here’s how:

Toast a slice of bread to a crisp, but don’t burn it. Break the bread into little pieces and add it to a blender or food processor. Blend/pulse/whatever until it’s in fine pieces. Put in a bowl.
Pour some flour into a different bowl. Crack an egg into a third bowl and whisk it until mixed.
Take your (defrosted) chicken (I’d recommend tenderloins as they’re small and thin) and dip it first into the egg mixture, then the flour mixture, and then lastly the bread crumbs.
Place the chicken in a pan with hot oil. Cook for a few minutes on each side on medium heat.
And presto! Enjoy.

Just made blueberry mini muffins for the first time ever.

I hope they taste as delicious as they smell!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

For the 3rd year in a row, we held a thanksgiving for our friends but this year was exciting cause I got to cook the turkey!

There was 12 of us, so it was a big task but we had a great spread. Morgan and I came up with a timeline this morning while prepping the turkey and stuck to it, which is weird. Started at 9am, ate at 3:15. Woo!

We ate:

-A 12lb turkey, cooked to absolute perfection - I’m shocked at how tender and juicy it was! Everyone freaks about drying out the turkey but I nailed it. I cooked it for 4.5 hours exactly and it was so yummy. Thanks Barefoot Contessa!

-15 lbs of my famous mashed potatoes - okay we didn’t eat all 15lbs (almost all of it though). But I had boiled so many potatoes that Morgan had to go buy me a bigger pot while cooking!

-Cream of mushroom gravy

-Stuffing with sausage, apples, and celery. Mmmm

-Cranberry pomegranate sauce - homemade by Amanda. Fucking delicious

-Green beans with lemon and lots of butter :]

-Corn chowder - as a not so healthy appetizer

-Biscuitsssss

-Pecan pie, Razzleberry pie (the only non-homemade things)

The three of us tagged teamed Thanksgiving and fucking knocked it out of the park! Such a fun day

And we get to do it all over again on Thursday!