The Family Is Complete Again

After the loss of Coco back in November, I really wanted to be dog-less for awhile but Bev was having none of it and she spent a large part of each day online looking at dogs.  As I reported earlier, we got Romeo in December via someone who had found a stray and I hoped this would satisfy Bev but he did not seem to meet all of her needs and the search continued.

Last week on Craigslist she found a dog that needed a home as the owners could not take it into a new rental home and she fell in love with the picture and told the owners that he was just what she was looking for.  We got Teddy on Jan 22 and he is a mix of Maltese and something that could be poodle and he looks like a smaller, brown version of Bodie

(Madison’s dog who lived with us).

He got his first grooming and cleaned up great.  He is friendly, loving, and gets along well with Romeo and Frankie (Pat’s dog).  So I think the family is now complete and we’ll be about helping them settle in and learn how to live out here in the country.  Here are a few more shots of the three of them playing.

One of Bev's justifications for a second dog was so that Romeo would have a playmate and boy was she successful - Teddy is about all the other two can handle.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

Chicken Pot Pie

Bev had a whole chicken and some refrigerator pie crust that she wanted to use and I’d just seen pictures of a delicious looking version from a blogger buddy, so we opted for pot pie.  While it is usually made with leftover poultry, we decided there was no reason not to start with raw chicken and I found a recipe from Taste of Home that would give use the proportions we needed and included potatoes.  Bev usually makes pot pie without a recipe and it is sometimes too runny or too dry, so I was hopeful a recipe would help with that and we’ve always like recipes from Taste Of Home.

Since the recipe called for three cups of chicken broth and I wanted all of the chicken flavor to end up in the pot pie, I cut up the bird, and added it to a pot along with three cups of water and some S&P– this was in lieu of roasting the chicken and then using a separate broth.

Spinach and Artichoke Skillet Chicken with Sundried Tomatoes

I haven’t made many of Kevin’s recipe’s over the years because they often required more effort than I wanted to expend but when he published his 2016 favorites on his Closet Cooking blog, the Spinach and Artichoke Skillet Chicken with Sundried Tomatoes really jumped out at me, as did a couple others.  His recipe called for four 6 ounce breasts, but since I had 36 ounces of meat, I increased everything by 50% to get this:

Spinach and Artichoke Skillet Chicken with Sundried Tomatoes – Adapted from Closet Cooking

Ingredients:

1½ tablespoon oil

3 (12 ounce) skinless and boneless chicken breasts, jicarded to ½” & halved cross ways

Salt and pepper to taste

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1/3 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)

1½ cup homemade chicken broth

12 ounce cream cheese, room temperature and cut into cubes

6 cups baby spinach (I used the bag full so about 8 cups)

1 (14 ounce) can artichoke hearts, quartered

3/8 cup parmigiano reggiano cheese, grated

3/8 cup sun dried tomatoes, sliced

Handful of grape tomatoes (my addition - they needed to be used).

Directions:

1. Heat the oil in a pan over medium-high heat, season the chicken with salt and pepper, add the chicken to the pan and cook until lightly golden brown on both sides and cooked through, about 5 minutes per side, before setting aside. (I cooked them to an internal temp of 160F then piled them up as the thinner ones got done)

Hoppin John’s For New Year’s Luck

As a person who was born on Friday the 13^th, I’ve never been superstitious but this is a good excuse to make this dish at least once a year and there is no reason to take any chances just in case good luck is involved.

I looked at several online recipes and most include some type of pork, veggies, the black eyed peas, spices, and liquid all cooked together and served over rice.  But when I read Steph’s recipe on her Plain Chicken blog, the idea of cooking the rice with the peas and using a smoked sausage really appealed to me. 

I made half her recipe with a few changes to arrive at this:

Hoppin John's – Adapted from Plain Chicken

½ lb andouille sausage, sliced ¼” thick half-rounds (I used Poche’s) 

2 (15-oz) cans black-eyed peas, undrained

1 (10-oz) Rotel, undrained

1½ cups beef broth

½ cup finely chopped onion

¼ cup diced green bell pepper

¼ cup diced celery

1 tsp Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/8 tsp black pepper

Salt to taste

¾ cup uncooked rice

1. Cook sausage in a large pot until browned, about 5 minutes.

2. Add the onion, green pepper and celery and cook until tender.

3. Add black eyed peas, diced tomatoes and green chiles, beef broth, cajun seasoning, garlic, and black pepper & bring to a boil.

Favorite Meals of 2016

I’ve read several posts about the best recipes of 2016, but since we make very few original recipes (we usually make yours), I decided to do one on the dozen favorite meals I blogged about last year.  Some are from restaurants, some cooked by others, and some cooked by us and all delicious.

Lets begin with the little RV trip we made to Louisiana’s Cajun Country in January.

Over Stuffed Seafood Po Boy from Bon Creole in New Iberia 

Crawfish Bisque given to us by our campground neighbors at Cajun Palms RV Resort