What's for dinner y'all?

I love recipes! The fewer ingredients,the better. First of all I am a big cheapwad..so I try to spend about 80-85 dollars a week on groceries. Some recipes I have found call for $20-$25 in ingredients alone. Those are recipes that I will never try. I am not a gourmet kind of cook. The recipes that I treasure are more..old grandma recipes from a church cookbook kind of cooking. I remember going to family reunions and being so excited for the good looking casseroles, to me that was more tempting than the desserts. Here are some tips I have picked up along the way. 1. If it doesn't taste just right, add a little oil. If you want it to taste better add butter, if you want it taste even better than that add bacon grease. 2. Don't be afraid of the salt shaker. Some of the best food I have ever had only had salt/pepper. 3. Always use real potatoes. Potato flakes will do in a pinch, especially with a little mayonaise or sour cream but potatoes make everything better. 4. If you need help, ask your mama! My mama makes the best fried chicken I have ever had. I really don't think there is anything she can't cook. I never realized the privilege of sitting at her table until I moved away. 5. If you have tried everything and it just didn't turn out right, put some gravy on it and feed it to my Daddy. I could make a pan of gravy with biscuits or toast and he would eat it like a last meal of a man condemned. I am working on posting recipes. It is hard for me because I never measure anything..just a little bit of this and that. If you have any simple recipes you would like to share feel free to send them!

Off to Maryland!

I am off to Maryland tomorrow to visit my best friend. I haven't seen her in about 2 years so I am really excited.

This is a pic of us in our crazier days...ok you got me it was just a few years ago! I'm in the purple, she's in the black. That's my other bff Jennifer in the camo.

She has always been so much fun..I miss hanging out with someone that knows everything about you. I miss being able to be myself.

She has always been able to make uglier faces than me!

Ok maybe not! In any case I know I will have a blast! It will be so good to be around a southern girl again and when I say southern I MEAN southern. She once threw grits on a yankee and proclaimed it to be the second best day of her life!

It is hard leaving Matt and Trey for the weekend but I know I am in for a good time. Please pray that we have a safe trip. Will post new pics soon!

True Story Tuesday

I am trying something new this week, it's called True Story Tuesday hosted by Rachel and Mr Daddy

Heres what you do...Just post your most wacky, funny or outrageous story, link up here and make sure to read all the other True Story Tuesday posts!

Bless her heart, she's so confused!
I know that's what people will say about me when I get older, because I already have my moments!

Did you ever do something so dumb, that on top of it being really funny, you were also really embarrassed? The kind of thing you can't quit laughing about, but you secretly wonder if everyone thinks you are really stupid now? My life is full of those moments. I have a bad habit of not thinking about what I am doing. I am always thinking of the next thing I need to do, or what happened yesterday, etc.

I have always been sort of a silly person, so I don't mind making people laugh, even sometimes laughing at myself. Sometimes people think I'm sort of an air head. A co-worker of mine once asked my mother if I was born laughing. She replied "Y'know i think she was." I do love to laugh, and at times I seem to give myself plenty of things to laugh about.

Everyone that knows me, knows I love shopping at the dollar tree. There is just something about walking in there knowing that you can afford anything in the whole store that you want. I remember the delight I took in taking my son there when he was around three and the way his eyes lit up when i said, "Ok, pick out anything you want!"

One day at the dollar tree I perhaps did-or thought the dumbest thing ever!

I was walking past the cosmetics aisle, when i noticed the large nail files. I used to really enjoy getting my nails done, but now am too cheap to do it anymore. I saw some really cute glue on nails with some decorative pattern. I was going for cocktails with my neighbor that night so I thought it might be fun to do my nails and look extra cute.

I got the nails and got in line, when i noticed that the package only had 12 nails in it. I thought ok, even for the dollar tree that's a rip off! How the heck am I supposed to do my nails with 12 nails?? I became angry, I didn't want to spend another dollar and buy another package. I was so angry that I almost complained to a salesperson ( and I never complain to salespersons).

When i got home, still angry about the nail incident I called my friend to vent. How are you supposed to do your nails with only 12 nails?? She was silent for a few seconds and said "Were you going to do your toes too?" I said "No."  She said "Well, how many fingers do you have, because 12 should be more than enough." At once I figured out my mistake..I must have turned twenty shades of red as i erupted with laughter and so did she. I laughed so hard my stomach hurt, and when i caught my breath, managed to say, "Wow, I guess i thought I had 20 fingers today!" I am soo glad I didn't complain in the store!

makes me laugh

Sometimes my boyfriend looks like Orco from He-man. I can't explain it. When he wears this one particular hoodie I always tell him that.




Sometimes I call him Dookie, like that guy from gummi bears the cartoon.



He hates when I shop in antique stores because he is so afraid I will decorate our home with a picture of "dogs looking off" (in the distance, I guess) I really want to decorate it with a dogs playing poker picture. I have a secret longing for dreamcatchers and wolves also, but I was shut down instantly when I made mention of that to my boyfriend and best friend :(




Last but not least, this is Matt's self portrait. He hates the roads in Louisiana so bad, that he becomes angry when traveling there. He drew this about 5 years ago and i still laugh about every chance i get.

Southern Food

I love cooking and I love eating! My favorite foods are Southern, down-home foods that I grew up eating. My mother always had cornbread with almost every meal, and none of this jiffy sweet yellow cornbread either..it was the real deal! I like fried chicken. collards, black eyed peas, bar-b-q-(yes that is a food not just a way of cooking). I decided to search for some southern cooking websites today, for ideas on this week's menu. It's a little harder than I thought. For all you people out there that want to learn southern cooking, let me give you a list of things generally not found in your recipes.
1. Olive oil- We use butter, Crisco or other type of cooking oil. We tend to use a lot of oil, and it wouldn't be economical to spend 7 or 8 bucks on olive oil for one meal.
2. cooking spray-see above
3. shallots WHAT the hell is a shallot??
4. cilantro, lime and any mixture of things involving those two, or like items. I understand out west this may be acceptable, but then in my opinion it becomes southwest cooking not southern cooking.
5. There is absolutely nothing wrong with bacon grease of fat back used as a flavor enhancer!

All of these things should go without saying, but if you look up southern cooking, you will find all sorts of sites claiming to be just that, with all sorts of yankee-type recipes.

No ifs ands or butts..it's getting colder!

I am so NOT quite acclimated to cold weather here! Being born a Southern girl, and spending so much time in Florida anything below 30 degrees feels like the North Pole! My Southern butt is freezing and I mean that in the literal sense..my butt is perhaps 50 degrees colder than the rest of my body! Normal people would have cold noses, or maybe cold feet, but I really think my butt will soon be in danger of frostbite! Think- the old frostbitten pork roast underneath everything in your freezer you just haven't found time to cook, add 30 pounds to that and that, ladies and gentlemen is = to my bootie! I don't mind so much, but the thing that really bothers me is not being able to wear flip flops all year! I always could in Florida and I could sort of get away with it in Alabama, but here...around January all the sidewalks are frozen over and I would break my neck. You need cleats to walk to the mailbox! All that being said I am sort of looking forward to the snow this year..there is something so magical about being able to put your beer in the snow to keep it cold! Sometimes when I walk out of the local pub..the snow is so pretty reflecting the street lights, it looks like glitter as far as the eye can see. Have good winter everyone..and keeps your butts warm!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It is now 1:00 in the morning on Thanksgiving Day and I just pulled some golden, delicious cornbread out of the oven. There is nothing like good southern cornbread..none of this yellow sweet cornbread, but golden, crisp on the outside cornbread. I plan to crumble it all up up for some good ol' southern dressing-not stuffing tomorrow! Living in the north I am often asked what the difference is between stuffing and dressing. I have only had two kinds of stuffing, one was stove top the other was homemade stuffing and I didn't care for either, dressing on the other hand is something I look forward to all year. Apparently I hold it sacred enough because I won't allow myself to make it unless it is Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter. I'll give my dressing recipe here but I am very bad at recipes, and I don't measure anything..I'm sort of an eyeball kind of cook, so be warned!

Southern Cornbread Dressing

-crumbled southern cornbread-follow recipe on the back of cornmeal
-roll of Jimmy Dean sage sausage
-couple of stalks of celery chopped
-1 egg
-1 onion chopped
-1can cream of chicken soup
-cooked chicken picked off of bone (I use 3-4 chicken thighs) but 2-3 breasts would be fine
-1-2 cans of chicken broth
-poultry seasoning
-salt and pepper

Crumble sausage and cook in skillet, drain fat(you can leave a little). Add to crumbled cornbread mixture, add celery, onion, chicken and raw egg. Add cream of chicken soup, and half a can of chicken broth mix well. Mixture should be sort of soupy, but not so much that it won't form into dressing when you cook it. If you feel you need more add it. You probably won't need more than one can, but some people make dry cornbread. Add poultry seasoning to taste, I think about 2 teaspoons. Salt and pepper to taste, use the salt sparingly as the ingersients are already sort of salty. Cook at 350 for 30-45 mins.

This is my mother's recipe and she is the best cook I know. I hope you will try this recipe and enjoy it like I have over the years!