Today I have a guest post for you for Chicken Pot Pie from one of the head chef’s at UNA’s Culinary Department. But before I hand over the reins, I’m feeling chatty so I thought I’d spend a few minutes visiting with you if I may…. Y’all know how I am when I get chatty. Not much that can shut me up

I have some great friends and each one seems to have a specialty when it comes to the friendship department. Jyl is good as a sounding board. She lets me do my “brain dumps” and then she helps me put the pieces of the puzzle together until they make sense. Jason is good for talking things out to. When I get a thought in my head that I want to think more on and examine from all angles, Jason is always good for a few other perspectives.

Yesterday, I was working on a story that I’ve had in my head to write for well over a year now and I needed to go meet Jyl in nearby Scottsboro. So I asked Jason if he’d mind going along since I wouldn’t be back home til after dark and …oh yeah, did I mention Jason is a very good driver and used to staying up late at night? Well that’s one of his gifts, too.

We share a Southern heritage and a friendship that started back in high school when he was editor of the literary magazine and I was junior editor. He also fills the role of our “Adopted pitiful bachelor who needs to be fed” in the family. We always had a few of those hanging around my mother’s kitchen growing up and so I’d feel a little empty if my family didn’t have one, too. So you see, Jason is a handy feller.

So we get in the car and I immediately started in (The beauty of good friends is that you can skip the niceties and greetings and just begin your thought waves wherever they are at that given moment)  “Okay, so George Washington. You know what he did, right? He was actually offered the throne of the United States, they offered to make him KING of the US and he turned it down because he felt it was in the best interest of the country…”

He didn’t miss a beat as he adjusted the driver’s seat of my car to accommodate his legs when he replied, “Oh yeah, I know that! And did you also know that he was the one who first introduced the idea of term limits and that they used to be voluntary until it was written into the constitution in 1947″

This is a pretty typical conversation between me and Jason.

From there we somehow took a detour and got into talking about our childhoods and attitudes and the kind of people we look up to, from there we went to our culture and how it has changed in our lifetime.

And that is where he told me the story.

It was in a book he had as a child, a collection of fairy tales and fables that his mother used to read to him. This one had stuck out to him, it had struck a note in his heart that still rang true today. He didn’t know it word for word but he knew the premise enough to tell me and for me to recreate the premise for you now.

There once was a king.

One day this King chose a man and assigned him the task of going out into the kingdom and picking the most beautiful flowers he could find to bring back to him. Another man was dispatched on the same day to pick the most noxious weeds he could find and bring them back.

And so each set about their assigned tasks and at the end of the day they returned, one with a wagon full of beautiful flowers and one with a wagon full of terribly noxious weeds.

The wise king called them before his throne and he asked the one who had brought the flowers “Tell me, did you find any weeds?” The man replied “No my king, I was too busy looking for flowers, I didn’t see any weeds at all.”

The king smiled and turned to the man who had gathered the large load of weeds, which were most assuredly resting amidst the beautiful flowers and asked “Tell me, did you find any flowers?” “No my king, I was too busy looking for noxious weeds. I didn’t see any flowers at all.”

Jason’s point was that more people used to look for flowers. We talked about this a while and he thinks Watergate was a turning point. Now I know full well what Watergate is but I prefer Jason not bring it up because it just makes me want that green goopy salad with marshmallows in it. I’m not sure if Watergate was the turning point but it definitely stands one of those times in which the record skipped, the party stopped, and the lights were turned on.

I guess it doesn’t really matter when or why it started, the end effect is the same. At some point a majority of media outlets (news, tv networks, filmmakers  etc) stopped looking to Little House on the Prairie and started looking to the National Enquirer to set the standard for behavior – and once the pied piper started playing that flute all the rats just followed along behind and ran right off the cliff together. Note: My use of rats here is a pied piper reference, not calling people rats. People are hope and potential filled individuals, regardless.

At that point, they decided that the business of looking for flowers held little appeal in terms of ratings or shock value and instead began the search for noxious weeds.

And after our talk yesterday, I finally understand reality tv.

Today, as I’m writing on my second book (You can purchase my first book by clicking here) Chef Lewis from my Alma Mater has graciously agreed to share with you a simple recipe for Chicken Pot Pie. I asked him specifically to do a guest post on Chicken Pot Pie because I’ve received so many requests for one that I’ve lost count. Why haven’t I ever brought you a recipe for chicken pot pie? The same reason I won’t be bringing you a recipe for seafood. ~giggles~ Take it away, Chef! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi there, I’m Chef Lewis from the University of North Alabama’s Culinary Department in Florence, Al. I was asked to do a guest post to share some of our recipes for the holidays, and I was more than happy to do so. We’re very happy to have Christy as one of our departments alumni’s, and we’re happy that we can share some of our ideas with all of you. This recipe was done by myself and my team Kenny and Devon.

The ingredients you’ll need for the pot pie are chicken breasts, cream of mushroom soup, cream of chicken soup, corn, peas and carrots, butter, white pepper, diced yellow onion, and buttermilk biscuits.

I will give easy instructions for making a smaller quantity  below as well.

Begin by boiling the chicken breasts in 4 cups of water with ½ of your diced onion until they are fork-tender (this will be around 20 minutes).

Remove the chicken from the water, keeping the water for later. Strain the onion out of the water with a colander or strainer, and let it cool.

Next you’ll brown the other half of your diced onions in the butter until they’re soft (around 8 minutes).

Then you take the cans of mushroom soup, chicken soup, the browned onion, and the white pepper and combine all of that in a big bowl.

Then you add about 1/2 (2 cups) of the chicken broth (the leftover water you boiled the chicken in) to thin out the soup mixture.

After that you open up the can of peas and carrots and the corn, and drain the liquid out of them, then pour that into the soup mix as well.

By now the chicken breasts should have cooled down enough that you can cut them up into bit-sized pieces.

The chicken goes into the soup mix as well. Just stir it all together and make sure it’s evenly mixed up.

All of the soup mix then goes into a deep greased 13×9 inch pan.

For the topping, you take the biscuits out of the can and flatten them out (you can use either a rolling pin or your hands).

Then stick the biscuits on the top of the chicken soup mix, till they’re covered.

Then you just stick it in the oven at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for around 20 minutes, and the top should be golden brown.

Enjoy! 

Today’s quote will likely make most of y’all giggle!

“Any mother could perform the jobs of several air traffic controllers with ease.”

~Lisa Alther

Submitted by Louise. Click here to add your quote to the collection.

]]> http://www.southernplate.com/2012/01/chicken-pot-pie-flowers-vs-weeds.html/feed 41 http://www.southernplate.com/2012/01/monte-cristo-skillet-and-national-cornbread-festival-news.html http://www.southernplate.com/2012/01/monte-cristo-skillet-and-national-cornbread-festival-news.html#comments Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:23:48 +0000 Christy Jordan http://www.southernplate.com/?p=18102 Pin it

This delicious recipe is at the bottom of the post. Hope you get to try it soon!

Be sure and share your special Cast Iron memories in the comments below!

(more details at bottom of post)

Today I’m thrilled to bring you a guest post from the good folks at Martha White, along with a fun announcement! The National Cornbread Festival is coming up! The cornbread festival is held each year in the neat little town of South Pittsburg, Tennessee, and this year Martha White has asked me to be a judge. So I get to participate in the festival AND taste all of the yummy entries, to boot! The festival is a weekend long family event with all sorts of fun activities taking place, including tours of the Lodge Cast Iron Factory. Click the Cornbread Festival logo at the bottom of this post to visit the official homepage and learn more.

I’m really looking forward to meeting more of the Southern Plate Family! We have a page over on Facebook where folks can RSVP that they are coming so if you plan on coming out for the fun this year so click here to head on over there and let me know so I can look forward to seeing your face and keep you posted on times and location of the Southern Plate Family meet and greet.

I’m also hoping some of you will enter the competition. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a member of the Southern Plate family won it? I happen to know that y’all are a group of extremely talented cooks – who cook for the love of family and friends – and I can’t imagine a dish tasting better than one made by one of you. For the official rules of the competition, click here. To go ahead and enter, click here.

This Monte Cristo Skillet was the Grand Prize Winner of the 2006 National Cornbread Festival. It caught my eye because I recently had my very first Monte Cristo Sandwich and absolutely loved it. Southern Living sent me to Charleston to do some presentations for the Taste of Charleston Festival. Have you ever been to Charleston? Oh my goodness gracious, is that a beautiful town! With every sight and sound I became more determined to bring my family back there someday so I could experience it with them (It is hard to enjoy a trip without the folks you want to share it with beside you).

As I’ve started traveling from time to time I’ve taken a queue from my adventurous counterparts at SL and started making it a point to try something new in each place if possible. In Charleston, I had my first Monte Cristo Sandwich and it was right up my alley. I ate it in the cafe of a beautiful hotel right downtown. The flavors were a unique combination for me: Ham, cheese, battered and toasted bread drizzled with a sweet fruit preserves and sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar. It was part lunch, part breakfast, part sandwich, part dessert, and all the way good!

So when Martha White offered to guest post I got to nosing around for what recipe I thought would appeal the most to everyone and as soon as this skillet came before my eyes, my heart just settled on it.

This recipe is quick to throw together and feeds six people. I like strawberry preserves with mine but feel free to use whichever you like best. I also omit the turkey and use additional ham in it’s place. Lunchmeat ham works just fine!

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

Love Your Cast Iron?

Be sure and pick up this month’s special Cast Iron issue of Taste Of The South. It is filled to the BRIM with delicious recipes for your cast iron skillet, gorgeous food photography,

and those sweet people even put my name on the cover!

I don’t know who is more tickled, me or my mother!

In this issue of Taste of the South, Paula Deen, Myself, Lucy Buffett,

and many others share some of their special Cast Iron cookware memories.

These skillets, pots, and pans aren’t just cookware for us, they’re part of our heritage.

I’d love to hear if you have any heirloom cast iron memories in the comments below!

I’m honored to have been asked to be a judge at this year’s National Cornbread Festival in South Pittsburg, Tennessee! If you’re planning on coming to this fun event, be sure and RSVP on my Facebook page by clicking here  so I can keep you updated on my whereabouts because I’d love to get to meet you!

Christmas and New Years behind us, and most folks are in the middle of winter, snuggling within their quilts and homes, cooking up stews and cobblers. Oh I’m doing the cooking part but not the rest of it, my mind is on other things.  You see, soon as January hits, I get to expecting spring.

I can’t help it, it is my absolute most favorite time of year for a number of reasons but one in particular – I get to see my daffodils. Now before you go to thinking that I’m looking pretty far off you gotta understand that daffodils are usually in bloom here by February and the first sign of yellow, my heart up and declares SPRING!

I go by my own time table with the seasons, I’m just a wild woman that way.  

I love flowers of all sorts, I am female after all. Oh Alright, I’ll confess to not being a huge red rose fan but toss a pink one my way and I’ll throw that sucker in my teeth and do one heck of a tango. Okay, not really. If anyone shouts out requests for a tango at my next speaking engagement I’m afraid you’re gonna be let down. Holler out that you want me to sing instead, I can’t refuse that, of course you might still be let down once you hear me but that wasn’t my point…

When we moved here to Bountiful a few years back, I was delighted to find a well thought out and beautifully planted ring of spring flowers around each tree in our front yard. Tete a tete daffodils, crocus, and hyacinth came up in unison, presenting the perfect blend of spring colors and fragrance. It really warmed my heart to walk around those trees, kneeling by them and lovingly taking in the flowers, knowing that someone had once cared so dearly for this house.

So that very first fall, I ordered more bulbs. King Alfred, tete a tete, orange throat,  every variety I could find (and afford). I ordered around a hundred that year and got out with my little shovel and planted each and every one of them myself. The following spring the beautiful flower rings around my trees were joined by others out and about in the yard. I had planted them as my mother advised, randomly, with no set pattern so they just popped up in the yard like little surprise blooms of sunshine. They were absolutely breathtaking and I dearly love those few weeks of looking out my window and seeing the happy little flowers waving back at me in the breeze.

A few months back I was in Lowe’s and walked by a bag of 100 more bulbs. They hopped in my buggy and came home with me where Katy Rose and I went about planting them, wherever she felt we needed them to be.

My goal is to eventually have an entire yard filled with daffodils for a few weeks out of each year. They’ll slowly spread from the road right up to my front doorstep . After a few decades of this, and with my kids moving out and more cats coming to live with me (isn’t that the natural evolution of things?) no doubt people will start to talk. I’ll begin wearing a hat with a  giant silk daffodil in it and trade in my preferred red shoes for daffodil yellow ones to match. Folks will start calling me the Crazy Daffodil Lady as I walk around town in my finest daffodil yellow regalia. But hey, I can think of worst things to be called.  By then I’ll have so many that I can make large bouquets and deliver them to nursing homes and other spots around town that need brightening and then come back home to a yard still filled to the brim. We all gotta have dreams.

If you’ll excuse me, I found some daffodil bulbs at Wal Mart yesterday and I think I’ll plant a few before the sun goes down. I know that technically this isn’t the time of year to plant daffodils but I like to live life outside the lines. Heck, I even wear my watch on my right hand, even though I’m right handed and my engagement ring is on my finger first, THEN my wedding band (I’ve gotten more emails on this than I can count).

You see, at the end of the day, I’m just a rebel to the core. Oh yeah, I even eat raw cake batter. I do shocking things like that…and I plant daffodil bulbs in December.

And THAT, my friends, is why I’m gonna make a great Crazy Daffodil Lady someday! I hope I can count on your vote

While I am still pretending to be partially sane, let me bring you a casserole today. There are so many variations on this casserole that you could throw a rock at the internet and hit fifty on any given day. This is mine, it’s pretty easy and awfully good. Modify it, play with it, make it your own. Just let me know what time it is served and try to have plenty of tea when I show up, please Or Diet Dr Pepper…Diet Dr pepper is always good, too!

You’ll need: Long Grain and Wild Rice (with seasoning, such as Uncle Ben’s), Cream of Mushroom Soup (can use fat free), French Style Green Beans, Chicken, almonds, and Ritz crackers and a wee bit of butter to pour over the top, which isn’t pictured. 

If you don’t like Cream of mushroom soup, just use Cream of chicken, cream of celery, or cream of whatever-cranks-your-tractor. You can also use fat free or low fat or i-don’t-wanna-get-fat, if you can find it . For those of us already there, just go with the recipe because it tastes so good .

Nowadays Uncle Ben’s make quick cooking long grain and wild rice as well as the traditional featured here. Use whichever you pick up first.

The almonds are optional but I gotta tell you, I love what they do to this dish!

NOTE: You can also add a cup of sour cream to this and it will be wonderful! This is completely optional, but I love it. I’m not including it in this tutorial but I will list it as optional in the recipe below.

Cook chicken until done.

Note: Normally I wouldn’t have used chicken tenders for this because they are a little more expensive. This is a great recipe to use cooked chicken leg quarters (deboned and shredded), leftover chicken, or a whole fryer (cooked, deboned, and shredded) in, but since I did have this chicken on hand and company was a coming (did I mention I like to make this for company) that is what I used.

Dump chicken, cooked rice, green beans, cream soup, and almonds into a big old bowl.

Give it all a stir until it is good and mixed.

Spray baking dish lightly with non stick cooking spray. 

Spoon casserole filling into baking dish. 

Sprinkle crushed crackers all over top.

Drizzle melted butter over the cracker crumb topping.

Bake at 350 for thirty minutes.

Eat up!

“Your family is important. They left your home this morning and spread out to spend a day making new memories, acquiring knowledge, and growing up without you! Make it a priority to sit down to supper tonight with them and find out who they became today.”

~Christy Jordan

Hey Everyone! I’m thrilled to be able to bring you a guest post from one of the head Chefs at my University’s Culinary School today. I told Chef Lewis that we were always on the lookout for quick and easy dishes that could impress, especially at Christmastime and he came through with one that is just beautiful. I know you’re going to love this idea! Special thanks to the culinary department of the University of North Alabama (click here to visit their Facebook page) and  to all of my wonderful teachers who put up with me back in the day

Gratefully, Christy

Hi there, I’m Chef Lewis from the University of North Alabama’s Culinary Department in Florence, Al. I was asked to do a guest post to share some of our recipes for the holidays, and I was more than happy to do so. We’re very happy to have Christy as one of our departments alumni’s, and we’re happy that we can share some of our ideas with all of you.

Today I’m going to show you how to make a quick and easy party entree that your guests are sure to love.

You’ll need:: 3 cheese tri-colored tortellini, olive oil, pesto, spaghetti sauce, salt, skewers or picks.

Note: This tortellini is found in the refrigerator section (usually near the cheese) or in the freezer section of your grocery store.

Bring the water and salt to boil in a pot.

Add the packages of tortellini to the water, and cook about 2-3 minutes.

Drain the pasta with a colander.

Then place the pasta into a second bowl, and coat with 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil (this will keep the pasta from sticking together).

Spread the pasta onto a single layer in a pan, and allow to cool enough that you can handle it comfortably.

You can then use either bamboo skewers or small colorful picks to skewer the pasta.

For using the bamboo skewers, be sure to soak them in a pan of water for about 20 minutes before you put the tortellini on them.

This makes keeps them from splintering when you put the pasta on them.

Place them on the picks in alternating colors, using 6 pieces total for the longer skewers, or 3 pieces on the shorter picks.

This is a shorter pick for a smaller platter.

This is a longer pick, where I used a bamboo skewer, for the larger platter. 

Arrange them on a serving dish to look like a Holiday wreath.

In the center of the wreath, place a small serving bowl filled with either marinara sauce, or pesto, whichever one you personally like better.

This photo shows long skewers arranged in a large wreath pattern with marinara sauce in the center.

And here are our shorter skewers arranged around some store bought pesto sauce.

Dip into sauce and enjoy this easy Holiday treat!

Merry Christmas from Southern Plate and the University of North Alabama Culinary Department!

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land,

or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.

– Helen Keller

Submitted by Denise Flynn. Submit your quote by clicking here.

Goodness gracious almighty! Is it just me or are the holidays coming up on us faster than a freight train? At first I was trying not to mention them on Southern plate because, you know, there are holiday police out there waiting to pounce if we mention the holidays “too early”, but then my mother called this morning and said “You know our Thanksgiving is this coming Sunday” and I just had to blink.

So I’m just gonna come on out with it and tell ya – My house is decorated for Christmas and I’m thrilled to death. I know, some of you are thinking “But Thanksgiving is first! You can’t decorate until after Thanksgiving!” Well that all depends on what you’re giving thanks for. The thing I’m most thankful nowadays is the entire meaning behind Christmas, and I’m thankful for that with every breath I take, so what better to give thanks for at Thanksgiving than the meaning of Christmas? ~grins~ Ya just gotta decorate for that… 

My in laws came to visit this past weekend so they could attend my Holiday Cooking Show (I’ll post a recap of that with photos soon!) and while they were here, we put up all of my Christmas decorations.

Is it too early to decorate? Not for me! I’m in the Christmas spirit 365 days a year so getting to take off my hat and let my elf ears show is always a welcome change. So I had my mother and father in law were here for a whole weekend. I’d been traveling some, under the weather for a while, and kinda feeling snowed over with all the work I had on me and I thought “HEY! They can help me with the Christmas decorations!”

With all of us working together we got the halls decked and trees trimmed in no time flat. I was on a roll so to top it off I even made Christmas cookies and the kids had a wonderful time decorating them with their grandparents. We had a great weekend before the folks had to head back to Georgia and we would have missed out on all of that had I stuck to any one person’s plan or ideal time frame as to when holiday activities should happen.

We even got the lights up on the house, so I can heave a sigh of relief that we got through one more year without my husband falling off the roof – I always worry about that. Now little Teaaspoon (our kitten) is enjoying the wonder of a Christmas tree. We have yet to explain to her that it isn’t her personal chew toy or kitty winter wonderland themed obstacle course. I think we need to post before and after pics of our trees when we have cats…

Speaking of trees, we got a new tree this year. It is somewhat smaller, not as big in girth, but still pretty tall and just fits in our den a little better. I went all over tarnation looking at trees before settling on this one. It came from Hobby Lobby (oh my, they have beautiful trees). The display model was on a revolving base and it was just beautiful. I had every intention of getting that base until I found myself gazing at the tree on my third visit to the store standing next to a sweet lady who said “I sure do love that base, but my cats would have fits”. She had a point ~Watches at Teaspoon eyes a sparkly ornament hanging just out of her reach…~

Artificial tree? Yup, it sure is. I’ve always loved real Christmas trees but the winter before I started college (when I was 23) I was in the midst of a mad dash to make as much money as I could in order to make it through my first semester and took an evening and weekend job at a Christmas tree farm. I worked in a credit union during the day and then headed out to Greenbriar, Alabama to hand out saws and explain the finer points of tree cutting for all of the days leading up to Christmas. I’ve never been so cold for so long in all of my life. Just looking at a live tree now makes me want to find an electric blanket and a few more pairs of socks. As a result, I’m one of the few people whose heart (and toes) feels considerably warmer around an artificial pine

So as we head on into the final stretch before Thanksgiving, I thought I’d bring you a quick and easy skillet supper. This is one of those meals that just makes your stomach feel good when you eat it. I could eat this every day of my life and be happy as a lark so I hope you get to try it soon. My son was feeling under the weather when I made it yesterday and I took him a plate and said “Here baby, try to eat this.” He saw what it was and said “Don’t you worry one bit Ma, I’ll SURE be eating all of that!”

**Note: To make this vegetarian, just use cream of celery soup in place of the cream of chicken and ask your hens to lay off the worms before their “big day”.

Just kidding…:)

~Giggle~

You’ll need: Chicken breasts, a can of cream of chicken soup (I’m using fat free*), a package of ranch dressing mix (dry), a bag of frozen vegetable blend (your choice), and some egg noodles.

You’re also going to need a little bit of milk, just 1/2 a cup.

I forgot to put that in the photo because … well when the day arrives that I only have to think about one thing at a time I’m just sure I’ll remember to put everything in the photo them. Unfortunately that isn’t today and as they say tomorrow isn’t looking good either .

*Occasionally I grab something like fat free soup just to show y’all that you can use it and it won’t make a difference. If fat free makes you happy or if that is what you have on hand, knock yourself out. It’ll be just as good. If you don’t have fat free, please don’t go out buying it just for this recipe. On a normal day (one in which I was just doing whatever I wanted and not trying to prove a point) I’d just use regular cream of chicken soup.

Place a little bit of oil in the bottom of your skillet and heat over medium heat.

Add your chicken breasts and cook over medium heat, turning as needed, until lightly browned on both sides.

Once your chicken breasts are browned on both sides, add in the cream of chicken soup, dry ranch dressing mix…

and milk.

Stir that up a bit as best you can.

Note: Your chicken breasts won’t be done at this point, just browned on the outside. That is okay because we’re fixin’ to finish cooking them.

This is our chicken with our little sauce we made all stirred up.

Now cover and reduce heat to simmer for about ten minutes, or until chicken is cooked through and no longer pink in the center.

After about ten minutes of simmering this is what you’ll have.

That sauce is absolutely delicious and we’re about to toss some veggies into it to make it even better.

I like the California blend of veggies that has carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli in it but you can go with whatever you like here.

Pour your frozen vegetables into the skillet and stir them up a bit to coat them.

Continue cooking this whole shebang until the veggies are tender.

Voila! Dinner is done

Salt and pepper to taste if you like, but I like it just as it is.

The ranch dressing mix gives it a fantastic, well seasoned flavor and the cream soup and milk join in to make a delicious gravy, perfect for serving over cooked egg noodles.

Like this.

I’m a talkative person, but it’s not a conversation unless I hear back from you!

Please leave a comment below  

Thank you! 

Christmas is not a time or a season but a state of mind.

To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy,

is to have the real spirit of Christmas.

~Calvin Coolidge

Towards the end of the week I’ll be giving away an

ENTIRE Set of Calphalon pots and pans!

Be sure to stay tuned to Facebook and Southern Plate for information on when this great giveaway starts!

]]> http://www.southernplate.com/2011/11/creamy-chicken-skillet.html/feed 102 http://www.southernplate.com/2011/10/14-favorite-soup-and-stew-recipes.html http://www.southernplate.com/2011/10/14-favorite-soup-and-stew-recipes.html#comments Wed, 26 Oct 2011 15:09:16 +0000 Christy Jordan http://www.southernplate.com/?p=17253 Pin it

I returned from Houston last night just in time to sit down to supper with my family! It isn’t really fall there (yet!) but it sure is here in Bama, so I thought I’d share some of my favorite soup and stew recipes with you today.

If you’re on Facebook, I sure would appreciate it if you’d click that little “like” button above! If you’re an email subscriber and received this in your inbox, please forward it to any friends you think might enjoy Southern Plate! Have a wonderful Wednesday
Gratefully,
Christy

BBQ Joint Stew (Commonly Called Brunswick Stew)

At the first sign of chill in the air, BBQ joints around here start cranking out this delicious stew. It helps them use up any leftover shredded pork and chicken that they may have. By mixing in their signature bbq sauce (my No. 5 signature bbq sauce recipe is in my cookbook in case you need one) and whatever vegetables they have on hand they can turn out a flavorful and filling stew unlike any other.

My Favorite Potato Soup 

Includes lots of ideas to customize this classic and make it your own!

Chicken Tortilla Soup 

Full of flavor thanks to the Enchilada sauce, this soup is a cinch to throw together!

Christy’s Slow Cooker Chili

Any southerner worth their salt has a great chili recipe, preferably a signature one. This is mine

Ground Beef Stew (with a secret!) 

Here is a  fuss free, economical, and delicious beef stew to warm you from the inside out. I just love stew weather! To me, this tastes a lot like Cracker Barrel’s Vegetable Beef Stew, but with more goodies inside! 

Our Family’s Chicken Stew Recipe

This stuff is good, you really need to make it!

Simple Tomato Soup 

With a few ingredients and a few minutes, you can have an outstanding tomato soup. Can you say Grilled Cheese?

Shortcut Senate Bean Soup

Oh my goodness is this ever good. Warm, soothing, filling, and with shortcuts to save time!

Tina’s Corn Chowder

This corn chowder is a great meal for vegetarians. Simply substitute the chicken broth with vegetable broth and you’re off to the races!

Chicken Noodle Soup

This soup is the absolute favorite of my son and all of my nephews!

“Free Soup” – Dieter’s Best Friend! 

This recipe is one my mother and I have used for over twenty years, and we still love it. Many diets have “free” vegetables, which are basically vegetables that are allowed without restriction. What this soup does is combine those vegetables in with a richly flavored broth and serves them up as the perfect anytime dish to fight off the munchies, serve as a quick and easy lunch, or a filling side dish with your evening meal.

Tomato-less Rustic Beef Stew

I worked up this recipe especially for my Aunt Sue, who makes the worlds best pound cake but can’t eat tomatoes. How are those two related? Well, beyond me just putting them in a sentence together I reckon that’s about it, but you can get her pound cake recipe in my cookbook ~winks~.

Spaghetti Lover’s Soup 

So if you love Spaghetti…

Taco Soup

World’s Easiest Supper – Nuff Said!

 If you’ve made any of these recipes I’d love to hear about them in the comments below!

Which of these recipes is your family’s favorite?

(I’m trying to decide which one I want to make for supper!)

My Facebook Good Morning Post for the day (I hope you’ll join us on the Southern Plate Facebook Family Page soon!)

‎”We can always be a little nicer. We can smile a little bigger and more often, instead of passing by folks on the street quietly we can greet them with “Good Mornin”. We can be the bigger, nicer person to the persistent grump at work. In time, you’ll be amazed at the people you can soften through the simplest kindnesses but you’ll be even more amazed to find that each little act removes another brick over a huge fountain of joy within you. Eventually, you’ll have a geyser.”  ~Christy
P. S. Good Morning!

Goodness gracious alive, am I ever blessed. As I write this, I have a small suitcase open and waiting for a quick trip to Texas to appear on Great Day Houston. I’ll fly in, do a live tv show (I have so much fun doing tv I feel guilty about it) and then fly back to the great state of Alabama. My kids won’t hardly know I was gone! Don’t forget that I’ll be on Paula Deen’s Best dishes November 5th (Check times in your area). To stay up to date with all of the goings on, join us on Facebook and have a great Monday! 

Comfort food. Pork chops breaded in a delicious crunchy coating served with my MeMe’s ultra creamy mashed potatoes and all of it happily covered in a good coating of milk gravy.

I sure do wish you would have been here last night when we were eating this. I even had an extra pork chop set aside. But alas, we’re screens apart and truth be told my house wasn’t clean enough for company anyway, so you’ll have to make this yourself if you wanna eat it anytime soon.

Now some of you are looking at that plate and thinking to yourselves “There’s nothing green! You’re supposed to have something green!”. Calm down, it’s okay. I kicked the “supposed to” people out of my kitchen a long time ago. There are plenty of restaurants they can eat at on their way back to their house where they do everything they’re supposed to do. If you need something green, head on over and have some of my sweet and sour green beans. I could eat a vat of those every day and still want more. Besides, it’s not like we have to eat the entire food pyramid in one sitting.

If you’re still feeling guilty (Hey, I had that same homeEc teacher in high school, too!) have a salad for lunch. Then you’re good to go

To make the pork chops, you’ll need: Chops, two eggs, and a sleeve of saltine crackers.

Make sure you use the salted crackers because they really give us a great flavor here. This recipe will make four -five pork chops and you can get the thickness you prefer, adjusting cooking time accordingly. I’m using chops that are almost one inch thick so they will take a little longer to cook.

I like to use pie plates for my ingredients to get ready for this.

Crack your eggs into a pie plate or bowl and beat them up with a fork.

In another plate, place your crushed saltines – I crushed the entire sleeve.

Dip both sides of each pork chop into the beaten egg.

and then press each side of each chop into the cracker crumbs.

Place in heated oil and cook over medium heat until browned, then turn and cook to brown on other side, removing when fully cooked and center is no longer pink.

Here is a photo of them just about to come out. It is a bit blurry but so are my kids when they run in and out of the kitchen wanting to know when supper is going to be ready….

so this pic will work just fine because they’re hungry

When your pork chops are completely done, remove them from the skillet and place on a paper towel lined plate.

Now it’s time to make our milk gravy.

There are just a few simple ingredients to making milk gravy and one of them is optional.

Flour, milk, salt and pepper are a must. Bacon grease makes it even better and I’m going to use it in this post but you can leave the grease out entirely if you like, you don’t even have to use oil.

It is entirely possible to make a perfectly good milk gravy with nothing but flour, salt, pepper, and milk. My mother was shocked when I told her this and others probably will be too so lets just keep the whole “greaseless milk gravy” thing to ourselves .

If you are using bacon grease, go ahead and put it in a small skillet and place that over medium heat until melted.

I’ve been storing mine in the refrigerator so it may look a bit more solid than yours.

Now add your flour and give it a gooooood stir. 

If you’re not using grease just put your flour in a dry skillet.

Continue cooking, stirring constantly, over medium to medium low heat until your flour is browned.

Now with bacon grease added the flour is going to quickly become paste-like. Without bacon grease it will just stay dry but it will still brown in a dry skillet. Stir constantly, especially if using a dry skillet, until your flour is good and browned.

You can go ahead and add the salt and pepper before it is done browning.

or whenever you think about adding it  

This is a photo of my browned flour.

Remember, if you aren’t using bacon grease it will be dry instead of pasty but it will still brown.

Pour in milk while stirring.

Cook this over medium low, stirring constantly, until gravy is thickened.

To start with it is going to look like milk with a bunch of brown globs in it. Just hang in there and keep on stirring.

You’ll know it’s thickened when it coats the back of a spoon like this If it gets too thick, just stir in a little more milk. 

Serve pork chops with Meme’s Mashed potatoes and pour gravy over it all. YUM!

P.S. This entire meal is also excellent without the gravy if you have non-gravy lovers.

Come and get it! 

 When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.

~Gilbert Chesterson

I have a little bit of travel coming up over the next two weeks for Southern Living. I’ll be doing television appearances in Atlanta, GA and Houston, TX. The Atlanta segment will be filmed this week and air this Saturday during the 9:00 AM hour on WXIA and then I’ll be live on Great Day Houston during the 9:00 hour on October 25th. I’m so looking forward both of these and hope you’ll be able to tune in if you’re in the area.

As I get ready for a wee bit of travel (The Atlanta filming will only have me away from home seven hours!) I can’t help but think about last year on my book tour and all of that time away from home. Folks often ask me what my favorite meal is and so today I thought I’d show you the things I crave when I’m away from home. You’ll find I’m really a simple gal  

#1.Spaghetti. I LOVE Spaghetti and you just can’t get anything like spaghetti at home when you’re on the road. Everyone wants to dress it up or put some odd meat in it. I just want plain old spaghetti with ground beef. This is the meal I make most on those days I’m home in time for supper.

#2.Chicken Planks, Meme’s Mashed Potatoes, and Fried Corn. Okay so when I’m on a book tour, the meal I am thinking about most is the one featured on the bottom right of my book cover, so it only stands to reason that it is the one I am wanting, after spaghetti, of course!

#3.Grandmama’s Fruit Salad – I could eat this every single day for the rest of my life and still not have enough.

So there you have it, my top three things I like to make when I get home from traveling.

I’ve gotten to eat at some pretty nice restaurants over the past few years but I gotta tell ya, I’ve yet to eat a restaurant meal that could hold a candle to anything cooked at home.

Your kitchen beats out any five star restaurant hands down – and the company surely can’t be beat.

For more recipes, hop on over to the Southernplate.com index where I’ve got over 500 recipes, with step by step photos, too!

I’ll be posting links to videos on my television appearances on our Facebook Family Page so be sure and join me. I tend to hang out there throughout the day posting recipe links, quotes or sayings that inspire me, and randomness from my day, so be sure and “Like” our Facebook page if you’d like to visit a little more!

Talk to you soon! I’ve got a brand new recipe I’ll be posting later in the week!

Gratefully,

Christy

What is your favorite meal at home?

Tell me in the comments below!

“I am aware that I am less than some people prefer me to be,

but most people are unaware that I am so much more than what they see.”

– Douglas Pagels

I dearly love this quote. Thank you, Jenny, for submitting it. Everyone is welcome to submit their quote to our page as well. Anything that you find uplifting or inspiring. Please click here. 

It always makes me happy when I can bring you another ground beef recipe because I know a lot of families rely on Ground beef as a staple on their dinner table – mine certainly does!

What makes you happy? I think for most of us, it takes a lot less than we realize. A sunny day, the smell of daffodils or cinnamon or apples. We find tiny little happy moments all day long and all it takes is just that split second to stop and pay attention to them.

I’ve known a lot of people who really hold back on feeling happy though. They save it for something big, pinning their happiness on a huge paycheck sometime in the future, a house as big as their neighbors, or their name in lights. Rather than take delight in the little things, the constant influx of opportunities to be happy that appear before us each day, they hold off and keep joy at a distance, holding it up as something to strive to reach one day when Perfect Plan A comes to fruition and the stars align or some other such nonsense. As my grandmama would say, God love ‘em.

Me, I’ll take happiness and joy over a hundred little things a day rather than one big thing every decade. Today, this recipe makes me happy . I love stuffed bell peppers. I love Ketchup. I love ground beef. This combines them all into a one dish meal – which I also love.

Happy happy, joy joy!

Let’s Eat!

You’ll need: Ground beef, saltine crackers, onion, ketchup, bell pepper, egg, and italian seasoning.

You’ll also need a slow cooker. I’m using my Hamilton Beach Set and Forget .

Now crush your saltines and place them in a  bowl with your egg.

Add your ground beef and mix it up well with your hands.

Shape meat into patties and place in the bottom of your slow cooker.

Take your ketchup and water and add a tablespoon Italian seasoning. mix that up really well in a cup or bowl.

You know, if dry Italian seasoning was the only seasoning I had in my cabinet, I could live happily the rest of my life.

Alright, I would also need some cinnamon, allspice, garlic powder, and cumin. But beyond those, I’m pretty well set. It drives me nigh on bat crazy to see a recipe that calls for 1/8 of a teaspoon each of twenty different spices. As my friend Terri Leverett says, K.I.S.S. = Keep It Simple Sweetie!

Pour your sauce over the patties.

Chop up your onions and bell pepper and add those in.

Cover and cook on low, 7-8 hours, or high 3-4 hours.

When it is done it’ll look like this and your house will smell like stuffed bell peppers deluxe

If you want at this point, you can add a little more ketchup to the mixture to thicken your sauce but I like it just like this.

Serve over rice and enjoy!

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

Now tell me what makes you happy in the comments below!

You might also enjoy 20 Recipes For Ground Beef. 

“What you do makes a difference,

and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

– Jane Goodall

Thank you Jenny for submitting this! Add your quote to our ever growing collection by clicking here. Lift someone up today!

 My Cookbook is One Today! Click here to read about it.

In today’s video I talk about why I LOVE MY SLOW COOKER and offer some great time saving tips on how to use this wonderful appliance.

I’m happy to bring you another Quick Fix Supper Video from Southern Living! Video is below and may take a moment to load. To get this quick and easy recipe, click the red link below the video.

To get this recipe, please click here.

To view more Quick Fix Supper Videos, please click here.

“We do not see the world as it is. We see the world as we are.”

― Talmud

Submitted by June. Submit your quote by clicking here.