Sunday Dinner: BBQ Chicken

I'm very much enjoying my weekend right now; mainly because I keep thinking about how I don't have to go to work tomorrow!!! Thanks Pres. Washington and Pres. Lincoln!! 

$6.50 for these drumsticks!

After church today, I decided I wanted to make me a "good ol' fashioned Southern Sunday Dinner". But since I live alone I didn't wanna make TOO much, so I am making a sort of abbreviated Southern Sunday Dinner, I guess: BBQ chicken. And I'm not fryin' or grillin' it, I'm doin' it in the ol' crock. I got what I thought was a good deal on 10 drumsticks(they only cost $6.50) and figured I'd finally try this recipe. The busy crock potting mom over at Slow Cooker Adventures made this recipe with thighs but I prefer drumsticks so that's what I used.

This was also my 1st chance to try out my Butt Rub that I bought ages ago! And I got to use Stubbs Spicy BBQ Sauce and any reason to use that stuff make me all happy and excited haha.

THE GOOD STUFF!!

This meal's cookin in the crock pot as I type this(and it smells absolutely yummy) so I'll finish typing this when it's finished and give it an overall rating. I'm serving the chicken with garlic mashed potatoes and either a side salad or some corn, I can't decide yet.

5-7 chicken drumsticks
 1 bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce--I used STUBBS bc it's DA BOMB!
your preferred meat rub--I used Butt Rub

Pre heat oven to 400. Rub your chicken well with the rub on both sides. Put chicken in the oven for 20 minutes, turning halfway through to really seal your rub into the meat on both sides.

Just rubbed my chicken down.

put your chicken in the crock. Pour sauce all over each piece of meat(I ended up using almost all of my bottle of Stubbs).

Cook on LOW for 5-7 hours, depending on your size of meat.

This turned out very very well. The meat was moist and fell off the bone! The taste was just ok, not as strong as I prefer but I also think I put too much sauce in. Too much sauce let to too much liquid and so it got kinda watery I think. But overall it was good and I had it with mashed potatoes and salad.

OVERALL RATING FOR THIS DISH: GOOD!

Cheesy Spinach+Rice "Casserole"

So as I was perusing the interwebs, I decided i wanted to do a totally new, random recipe. So of course, I went to Supercook.com to find what I was looking for. And I found something super quick, super easy and super TASTY!! This recipe feels like redemption after my ridiculously terrible gluten free cookies.
The recipe for this "casserole" is aboutu as simple as it gets!

I made this a couple weeks ago so the recipe isn't exactly in my brain righ tnow but this is it, give or take a few ounces :)

1 package of frozen spinach cooked and drained
1 or 1-1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 cup 5 minute rice, uncooked(i used uncooked long grain rice--bad idea! cook it!)

Mix ingredients in casserole dish, back at 350 until cheese is melted and bubbly! 

Overall rating for this dish: DELISH!!! :)

Step 1:

my freshly cooked spinach went in the pan first.

 Step 2:

Forgot to take a pic of the rice before I put the cheddar on top! Ooop!!

 Step 3:

Mix it all up and pop it in the oven.

 Finished product:

It' colorful AND scrumptious! Super easy to make too!

Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cookies

Sooo.... I learned something yesterday: I am VERY thankful that the good Lord didn't make me with a gluten allergy. Yikes! I dunno if these cookies were supposed to turn out so badly, but they were totally NOT what I was used to or expecting hahaha! But it' weird because the flavor was yummy, but the texture made me feel dead inside.

Granted, I didn't measure every single thing exactly, but it was pretty darn close. Close enough that I can say that I followed the recipe. Was it exactly the amount of peanut butter I needed? No, but it was pretty close. So I don't think these cookies woulda been good in ANY circumstance.

They're so bad, in fact, that I refuse to even spend more time writing about them.

Rating for this dish: TERRIBLE!!

Super Bowl Poll!

Ok, the big day has arrived and I'm so excited to announce that the dish I'm making for the Big Day is (drum roll please.....)

CHILI CHEESE DIP!

Now I know you may be thinking, "Wait...I thought I clearly saw that Skyline Chili Dip won the Super Bowl Poll?" And you'd be correct in that thought, but there was an unfortunate sequence of events that took place over that last week and as a result of those events, I was not able to buy ingredients for Skyline Dip. My apologies to all 3 of you who voted for it.

The unfortunate event? I was in a car accident. So I gotta pay the deductible and after insurance covers up to $20 a day for my rental I gotta pay the remaining balance for that, too. So I really really had to be tight this week and didn't go to the grocery store. I'm just using what I already have and trying to stretch it out. The only item in the poll that I had all ingredients for was the Chili Cheese Dip, so that's what I ended up doing. And, let's be fair, Skyline Dip's old news...been there, made that like 15 times. I wanna make something NEW & EXCITING! Skyline Dip' the bomb-diggity, nobody will refute that, but I couldn't go shopping so again, one last time, my apologies. Maybe next year.

So here's the info for the dip:

1 15 oz can of chili (w/ or w/o beans, it's up to you. I chose w/ beans)

1 lb of Velveeta, cut into cubes

3 simple ingredients

*optional* I lb of ground beef, cooked and drained

This is where the recipe comes from! Great gift from my uncle!

Pop the chili and the cheese in the crock pot and cook for 2-3 hours on LOW, stirring every 30 min. I chose to use beef so after the 1st 30 minutes, I lifted the lid to stir and at the same time mixed in the meat. It's been in there just over an hour now and the cheese is probably like 85% melted and last time I lifted the lid to stir it smelled yummy!! Serve with corn chips, tortilla chips, whatever! I'm using tortilla chips.

This at 1 hour in. Smelled GREAT.

I'll of course rate it once it's finished. I'm taking it to a Super Bowl party. I'm kinda nervous, but it's a pretty simple recipe so it'll probably be fine. Oh, and if you're wondering who I'm cheering for tonight, the colors of the chili cheese dip above should be a good hint. ;)

After 2 hours, it was perfectly mixed and tasted DELISH!!

My New Normal

This project has changed me in ways I wasn't expecting. For starters, it's made me more thoughtful. Yes, yes, I know, you're probably wondering "how in the heck could this over-analytic woman possibly think any more than she already does?!" But doing all this cooking and creating and trial + error has really helped me to be LESS analytic/critical in my thought process and MORE open, creative and meaningful. If that make any sense.

That Egg+Cheese sammy was GOOD!

It's also made me more proactive. For example, the other day I woke up for work and was starvin' like Marvin. Now, Old Monica would have just stopped at a fast food joint or the Walgreens next to my school and grabbed something. But New Monica didn't even try that crap. Wanna know what New MOnica did? She went into the kitchen and made herself a homemade breakfast sandwich. Yeah, you read that correctly. I made, at 7am, a scrambled egg and cheese sandwich on toasted and buttered bread. That may not seem like much to most, but that is like a HUGE milestone for me!!

I'm not a morning person. I don't like having to make anything in the morning unless it's a bowl of cereal or a container of yogurt. So for me to take time out of my hectic morning to make breakfast instead of spending money on one, really made me happy. And proud. And confident that the more I do this lil cooking project, the more things I'll learn about myself and the more I'll change--for the better.