Hurricane Sandy and Monday's dinner

Today is Monday, August 29th.  Hurricane Sandy has been blustering and showing off since yesterday.  She has been a naughty girl, that Sandy!  We are safe and dry here in Virginia.  We have not yet lost power (thank you God) and so far even though our canal has turned into a river, we have not had a flooded house or vehicles.

Instead of the usual three teenagers tonight, I had four.  I needed a way to make dinner stretch.  My initial thought was to make scallopped potatoes and fried chicken.  I decided against it as I just did not feel like standing at the stove for a long time.  I had already sliced the potatoes thin.  That is when it came to me to do a variation of the Hobo dinner I made a few weeks ago.

Step one:  slice potatoes thin and put in the bottom of the roasting pan.

Step two:  rough chop an onion and put it on top of the taters.

Step three:  layer chicken breast on top

Step four:  sprinkle liberally with Soul Seasoning and a little bit of Chipoltle chili powder.

Step five:  Add one can of chicken broth

Step six:  Cover with aluminum foil and bake in a 350 degree oven for one hour.

It was very good.  The only problems I encountered with this were the following:

1.  I used very thin cut chicken breasts and an hour in the oven is a little too long for them.  The got a little tough.  I might should have put them under the potatoes?

2.  It was kind of bland.  It needed a little more "oomph".  I wanted to put carrots in it but I did not have any and because of the storm, I could not go to the store.

3.  I think next time I will use regular chicken breasts and not the thin ones.  I might even add some cream of chicken soup or whip up a bechemel cheese sauce for it.

If you have any suggestions, let me know.  I would love some help! 

I pray you are all safe and dry! Take care in this storm and in the everyday of things.
In all things give thanks!!

Hurricane Sandy and my cookie urge!

Hello! I hope everyone out here on the East Coast is staying safe and dry!  We are doing fine although our canal that runs on the side of our house is starting to rise quite high.  I am not nervous because I am confident all will be well.

Since church was cancelled tonight, I got a little crazy and decided to try some new cookie recipes.  The first one I thought I would look for a mocha chocolate chip because I have some real coffee heads in the house.  Here is the link to the recipe I used:

Mocha Chocolate Chip Cookies

One word of caution:  The batter does NOT taste good which is totally weird because the cookies taste GREAT!!  My oldest daughter, and my biggest coffee addict, almost ate the entire batch!!  She loved them.  My sweet husband and the other two kids liked them as well.

The next recipe I tried was for Raspberry Thumbprint cookies.  I am not going to post the recipe as it was rather incomplete.  I got the inspiration off of allrecipes.com.  The basics of the recipe were there.  They forgot to include the temperature they should be baked at and (you know me!) I altered the recipe slightly.

The first batch I did fill with Raspberry jam.  They are light and heavenly.  The second batch I took great liberty with.  I filled a few with peanut butter and mini chocolate chips, a few more I filled with Nutella and finally the rest of them I filled with Strawberry Jam.  I have not tasted the second batch yet.  The first batch were so wonderful.  I was most happy that my husband said they tasted good and reminded him of Italian Christmas Cookies. 

I am taking a small break.  I am not sure if I will venture to a third recipe yet or not.  It was fun and it makes me happy making my family happy.