Laughing+Drinking

These are a few of my favorite things.

[laughinganddrinking-blog]

Adventures in Baking

At 8 years old, I was making my own pie crust and baking my own cherry pies. It didn't seem out of the ordinary with my family; baking was just taught and perfected over time. Any time I would cry to my mother because mine didn't look as pretty as hers, she would tell me "Honey, I've been doing this a lot longer than you have." Then came college. Creatively speaking, there was just no time to sit around and really enjoy cooking; it all became a convinience factor. I spent most of my free time being hungover or driving around with friends which all has its own delights. But recently, I have gotten back into cooking and baking and I had forgotten a few things. It wasn't the recipes; those had be drilled into my head long ago. It was the enjoyment through really working at something. Baking fresh biscuits and home made butter seems like the most delectable treat in the world, but it also can seem so distant. The recipes and ingredients are meant to work together, they're on our side. All we have to do is follow the instructions, have a pinch of common sense, and let the ingredients do the rest. Let's face it though, this isn't Little House on the Prairie. Do we really have time to get out the flour and butter and mess up our kitchens? Not always, I am realistic. However, I want to make the time to mess up my kitchen a little more often. Don't get me wrong, baking can be hard work and labor intensive, but working at something, literally molding together ingredients to create this physical image and having it all come together in under an hour is for me the ultimate pleasure. The next best thing is having coffee with my mother, and buttering a fresh, hot biscuit.

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Delicious Early Fall Chicken Salad

I'm so happy I grew into chicken salad; it's cold, it's light, it's refreshing and it fills you up without making you feel comatose. It's a classic lovely lady dish that I eat when I want to feel like a lovely lady, which is pretty much all of the time. I like all types of chicken salads: the basic celery and mayo, or a saltier version with red bell pepper; but my favorites are the sweet, fruity chicken salads. I copied the ingredients from one of my favorite Dallas restaurants, Hattie's, and created something that ended up being the front runner dish at my cousin, Leigh Ann's, bridal shower.

(add more according to personal taste and amount needed)

For a nice amount for my mother and myself, I boiled 2 chicken breasts until done and let them cool. In the meantime, thinly slice an apple. (I left the peel on for color) To get the pieces really tiny, I cut the apple into thin slices and then chop the slices in the opposite direction so that the apple becomes thinly shredded. Half of an apple will do. I also prefer my chicken to be shredded instead of cubed. To do that, I just use my hands to peel away strips of the chicken until I get it to the texture/length that I like. My mother and I had a debate on whether to use Real Mayonnaise or Miracle whip. I prefer Miracle whip because it is already sweet so I don't have to add sugar. However, use it sparingly! I don't like when chicken salads are over mayonnaisey, it kind of grosses me out. Start off with two small spoon fulls of Miracle Whip and mix. Remember, you can always add but it's harder to take away. I then added my apples, golden raisins, and chopped pecans which I smashed with my palms a time or two more to make sure the pieces weren't too big. I sprinkle the amount of the above ingredients which I prefer, it could be more or less according to taste. Generally it's about 1/4 cup of each. To balance the sweetness, add 1/8 of a teaspoon of salt and 1/4 of a teaspoon of white wine vinegar. For best results, let it sit for a while in the refrigerator if you can. I eat it on crackers, toasted wheat bread, or out of the container late at night. :-) Enjoy!

[laughinganddrinking-blog]

Snooty Cooking

Food snobs. I've been going to enough restaurants now to recognize them by default. The bitchy male waiter who makes you feel insignificant for even eating there, the mixologist who barely acknowledges you because you clearly couldn't begin to understand the drink he is making, the chef who comes out to seemingly greet you and then tells you that you are eating his food the wrong way......It goes on and on. But one thing I noticed when planning my cousin's bridal shower are all of the bad recipes that are out there disguised as something innovative. I always say, if you can read you can cook. I can read and I grew up cooking; the kitchen doesn't intimidate me, but I can't tell you how many recipes I have tried and true followed recently that plain flat out tasted like shit. Cocktail recipes that all were bitter and flavorless because they called for too much soda water, pasta salad dressing that was way too garlicky, a corn custard square that tasted pretty good but had the consistency of something you would find at a cheap buffet; I finally started laughing because everything I made tasted terrible....untillllll I went back to the old southern cook books that my mother has had for years. The fig preserve and pecan cookies were amazing from the start. Long story short, I feel like cooking recently has become all about what people try to fool others into thinking they like. I like to think I have a pretty decent palette; I'll try everything once and I'm not a picky person. Just don't bullshit me. Just because elderflower and basil sound pretty doesn't mean a ton of it taste good in a drink. Homemade bitters, local heirloom tomatoes? Great! So long as I taste the delicious and not the pretentious. I truly appreciate the creative approach people are taking with food these days, I WANT to cook something different, but try your recipes first and don't fool me with the eclectic ingredients because I dearly hate wasting beautiful produce. 

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Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death.

[laughinganddrinking-blog]

There has been something in the air which I think has been affecting everyone negatively; I wanted to cry today because the lady at Potbelly put a ridiculous amount of mayo on my hammie. Maybe there is going to be a full moon soon, but all I know is my sister and I were both in bitch moods when we got off of work and like liquor before beer, we were playing with fire. SO, after a quick anaylsis of the problem, I decided we needed some bread. Here's a simple recipe from this month's bon appetit which I tweaked slightly. I toasted some boule bread in the oven for about 5 minutes and also placed a clove of garlic on the rack to soften. In the mean time I sliced up some fresh avocado and half of a lime. Once the bread felt crunchy, I removed it from the oven, rubbed the garlic on it and then placed the avocado on top. I then sprinkled sea salt, crushed red pepper, fresh oregeno and olive oil on the avocado and popped it back into the oven for a few minutes. Once the oils in the avocado started to secreet, I placed the bread on the platter and then spritzed it quickly with lime. I'm not one of those 'oh is that avocado' people, but I couldn't stop eating so it must mean I did something right.

[laughinganddrinking-blog]

Summer time blues.

For some reason I have been so in love with this July that I don't want it to end. Nothing special has happened to me, in fact I did more things wrong this month than I have right. For one, I day drank too much with my best friend, starting with a bottle of champagne during lunch at Hatties. It then continued with beer for the rest of the day, first Bud heavy and then Alaskan Amber Ale at Acme finished off with an aperitif that gave me a killer headache the next morning. I was a nuissance to the waiter, constantly busting his balls over the one ice cube per glass they gave us (if I'm paying an arm for the meal, you should give me all ice cubes I want. This isn't England for Christ's sake) I've also gone drunk swimming in a lake too often and gathered a nice collection of bruises from beach volleyball which make me look like a heroin addict. Seeing as which being hungover on my days off makes me extremely depressed, I have counteracted my bad behavior with some light cooking; a chess pie, potato salad and an incredible corn and tomato salad from this month's bon appetit. I also made a terrible strawberry Rose' spritzer which I ruined by adding club soda instead of soda water. Mistakes and all, I have been happy except that July, as does all months, has to come to an end bringing on August which holds no symbolism for me now that I am finished with school. My cousin's bridal shower which I am planning is going to be a lovely distraction as I will test out some new recipes which are soon to be posted. Anyway, here's to wishing and hoping it could forever be July...until Christmas at least.

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