Sour Cream Corn Bread

Do y'all love a good corn bread like I do? 

(Why do I feel the need to use the word y'all when talking about corn bread? haha) 

I've scoured Pinterest for a really good corn bread recipe and I think I finally found it. This corn bread was moist, sweet and crumbly like cake. It wasn't dry and grainy like a couple other recipes I've tried. As soon as I read this one called for sour cream I knew it would be good because I make the best banana bread and it uses sour cream too.

Sour Cream Corn Bread
From All Recipes

1 cup flour
1 cup cornmeal
1/4 sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 cup sour cream
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, melted

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C). Lightly grease an 8-inch square baking dish.          
• Combine flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Mix egg, sour cream, milk, and butter in a small bowl. Fold egg mixture into flour mixture until just moistened; pour into prepared baking dish. 
• Bake in preheated oven until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Serve warm.

Tips/Notes

• I added about 1/4 cup of honey to the batter. I LOVE honey and the flavor it gives the corn bread.
• When I make this next time I'm going to add about 2/3 of a cup of sour cream instead of 1 cup. You could definitely taste the sour cream in the bread and I'd like to see if I could tone it down a bit. Don't get me wrong it was delish!! I'm just curious. Plus it'd be reducing the fat.  ; )

This corn bread was super simple to throw together and was really tasty. We slathered ours with butter and had it with chili. It was the perfect meal for a chilly, snowy night.

Thanks for joining me today!

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Chef In Training
33 Shades of Green 
Serenity Now 
At The Picket Fence

Creamy Potato Soup & Cheesy Biscuits

Today I'm sharing a family favorite of ours. We love it soo much I made this twice last week. After the second time I thought I should probably share it. This soup is simple, easy and delicious. You'll have to bare with me when it comes to the recipe. I do not measure when I cook. When I bake yes, but cooking is a whole other story. Most times I just throw things together. This soup is a good example of that. It's similar to another potato soup recipe I've shared before. I'm also sharing my absolute favorite cheesy biscuit recipe. LOVE them!!

Creamy Potato Soup

• 6 - 8 potatoes
• 1 large carrot or a big handful of baby carrots
• 1 stalk of celery
• 1 yellow onion
• 2 tbs butter
• 6 cups water
• 6 tsp reduced sodium stock mix, or 4 bullion cubes 
• 2 cups milk
• salt & pepper to taste

1. Finely chop carrot, celery and onion or let a food processor do the work for you. 
2. Add veggies to a large pot with butter. Saute over medium heat, about 7 - 10 mins. 
3. While veggies saute chop potatoes into bite size pieces. Add to pot. 
4. Stir in water and stock mix. Bring to a boil. Once it reaches a boil turn heat down to med/low and let simmer at least 20 minutes. (The potatoes should be tender by this point.)
5. After 20 minutes turn heat back up and stir in milk. Once it reaches a boil, turn it down to simmer again. Let simmer as long as you like. The longer the thicker the soup will be.
6. Once you're ready to eat, turn the heat off. Get out a blender and puree one batch at a time. Pour soup back into pot and mix in between batches. Once soups reaches the consistency you like, you're done. Salt and pepper to taste.

Tips

• You can use whatever kind of potatoes you want. Also, you can leave the skin on if you like. I always do with red potatoes.
• Feel free to use tetra packed soup stock. If I have it, I use it.
• Top with cheese, bacon bits, green onion/chives or sour cream. 
• While the soup is simmering start your biscuits. Then they're both ready at the same time! 

Jiffy Cheesy Biscuits
from Company's Coming - Gifts from the Kitchen
Makes 24 biscuits.

• 2 cups flour
• 4 tsp. baking powder
• 4 tsp. sugar
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine
• 2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
• 1 1/3 cups cold water

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. 
2. Combine flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a large bowl. 
3. Cut in butter until crumbly. 
4. Add cheese and water. Mix. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto greased baking sheet. 
5. Bake for 20 minutes until lightly browned. 

Tips

• I've used butter and margarine for these and both work well and taste great.
• Add a teaspoon of parsley flakes for some added color.
• Try parchment paper instead of greasing your pan.

You can have this meal on table in less than an hour. Hope your family likes it as much as mine does! 

Sharing with:
Positively Splendid
Serenity Now
Chef In Training
33 Shade of Green
At The Picket Fence 

Slow Cooker Pineapple Teriyaki Chicken

Happy Monday! Today I have the perfect weeknight recipe for you. This one takes minutes to prepare and the slow cooker does the rest while you're at work or busy at home. Last week I found this recipe on Pinterest. It was one of those spam type pins that doesn't go to the original source, it goes to some social music site. But it has the recipe in the description and that's all I needed.

This chicken was soo tender it nearly fell apart when I dished it up. We all loved it! Mr. CC kept raving about how good it was. He probably had three servings and the girls both took leftovers for lunch the next day. I will most definitely be making this again. I served it with rice and caesar salad. Yum!

Slow Cooker Pineapple Teriyaki Chicken

4 chicken breasts, chopped into chunks
1 cup pineapple juice
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
(optional) 1 clove garlic, minced
pepper to taste

• Put chopped chicken into slow cooker. 
• Mix all remaining ingredients together and pour over chicken. 
• Cook on low for 6 - 8 hours or high for 3 - 4 hours. (I cooked mine on low for about 5 hours and it was perfect.)

That's all there is to it. If you'd like to thicken up your sauce mix 1 tablespoon cornstarch with a little bit of soy sauce or pineapple juice until dissolved. Remove chicken from slow cooker, turn temp. to high, if it's not already, and stir mixture into sauce. Cover and let simmer about 10 minutes. Add chicken back to crock and mix to coat.

I guarantee this recipe will not disappoint. Have a great week! 

Sharing with:
33 Shades of Green
Serenity Now 
At The Picket Fence 
Chef In Training

Homemade Cranberry Sauce

Hope you all had a lovely weekend. Up North today is Thanksgiving. We celebrated with turkey dinner on Saturday. It was delicious! I always look forward to all the different side dishes that come along with the turkey. Everyday veggies like peas, carrots or corn are not on my menu. I like to load up my plate with sides we all associate with turkey dinner; sweet potatoes, stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, turnip, etc. And of course there's always cranberry sauce!

 About 5 years ago I wanted to try my hand at making my own cranberry sauce. For some reason I thought it would be hard, I couldn't have been more wrong. It's the easiest part of the meal to make. I'm sure some of you out there have made it before, but for those of you that haven't, here's a little tutorial for ya.

Cranberry Sauce

1 bag fresh cranberries
1 cup water or orange juice (I used orange juice. I like the extra flavor it ads.)
1 cup sugar
*optional - 1/2 tsp cinnamon (This is a guesstimate, I never measure when I add it. Go by taste!)

• Put all ingredients in a medium sauce pan. 
• Bring to a boil. 
• Turn heat down to med/high and let gently boil for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. All the berries will pop open. 
• Now here's the part where you decide if you want a nice smooth sauce or chunky style. If you want yours chunky, pour into a small serving bowl and you're done. 
• If you want a smooth sauce place a mesh colander over/in a small serving bowl and carefully (it's hot!) pour sauce into colander. With the back of a spoon or spatula mash the sauce. Make sure you scrap off the bottom of the colander every few mashes. Do this as long as you want. The more you mash, the more sauce you'll end up with. 
• Cover and chill in fridge until set.  

 Notes -

•  I always add a couple tablespoons of the mashed cranberries to the smooth sauce. 
•  I've found if you use orange juice the sauce will not firm up as much as if you just use water. The consistency will be more of a spread than a gel.
• If you'd like to fancy it up, you could pour the sauce into some sort of mold before you chill it. 

Add this recipe to your Thanksgiving menu. I bet you'll impress them. Even people that don't like the canned kind like mine. 

Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian readers! 

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33 Shades of Green 
Serenity Now 

Back on the Horse

Wow has it been a long time since I was blogging regularly! It seems like I just got things rolling along when I hit a snag nearly a year ago and my computer died. Yes I was using Ms. E's laptop after that, but I swear the thing was possessed and had a mind of its own! Not fun trying to write up a post when the thing decides to unexpectedly shut down. And that was a good day.  >:-(

Last week not only did Mr. CC get us a DSLR camera, he got me my very own laptop and so far so good. Now I need to get back to blogging. It almost feels like I'm starting from scratch. Do I still have any readers out there? Hello - echo, echo, echo...

If you're still with me after all this time, thank you! I promise to get things running again very soon. Is there a cure to get your blogging mojo back? If so, please let me know.  =)  This time around I'd like to be on a better blogging schedule and have regular weekly post, like Frivolous Fashion Friday with a couple new ones thrown in the mix. Maybe a what I wore post? Lots of you mentioned wanting to see what I was wearing. That could be fun.

Anyway be expecting lots of future posts. I'm looking forward to getting back to it!