Finger-Lickin' Good

I was invited to attend a cooking class with some ladies and we chose to do the class making southern specialties based on the movie, 'The Help".  This was our menu for the day:

The class was held at The Viking Cooking School at the Allen & Petersen Appliance Center in mid-town Anchorage.  It was a lot of fun ~ I would definitely like to do it again ~ we were able to get 1/2 price on this class so it wasn't too expensive...
They have a really nice prep kitchen for everyone to work and observe, including a camera above the stove that allows you to view the contents of the pots and pans on a t.v. screen...

Jody ready to show off her mad cooking skills

We each got a turn assisting the instructors with the different dishes...

Prepping the chicken

You can't make fried chicken without Crisco, right?

definitely not a low-fat meal, but mmm...mmm...

Brian, one of our instructors, coating the chicken...

Connie pulling out the chicken...lookin' good

Making the biscuits...this was my most favorite item of the day :)

              the spread: cornbread, collard greens, flaky biscuits w/ honey butter, mac & cheese, fried chicken, sweet tea, coke in a glass bottle

dessert was a caramel cake - very tasty

I can vouch for the fact that everything was delicious...but southern cooking is most definitely NOT something I can eat every day...case in point...later that day, the button on my jeans literally popped off as I was walking!!  I guess the diet starts tomorrow, right?!?  :)

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

I'm on a food kick lately, can you tell?  I know it's Spring and soups and stews are not usually on a lot of menus at this time of year, but I recently had the most wonderful homemade chicken noodle soup while taking care of some friends kiddos and wanted to try making it myself.  The urgency to do it now comes because one of the ingredients will not be available to me up in Anchorage :(  but I'm HOPING to find a comparable substitute once I'm there.

Chicken noodle soup is another food item that I am rather particular about eating ~ none of the gross Campbell's version in a can...I want big chunks of chicken and noodles, not little unidentifiable pieces of what I think are supposed to pass as those ingredients.  So I don't typically eat chicken noodle soup very often...until now!

INGREDIENTS:

olive oil

1/2 cup onion, chopped

1-2 stalks celery, chopped

1-2 carrots, chopped

1 quart chicken broth

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup flour

1 cup milk

1 bag Grandma's Noodles, cook/heat according to package directions

1 rotisserie chicken, diced

DIRECTIONS:

1. Saute onion, celery and carrots in olive oil until soft.

2. Add chicken broth, reserve 1/2 to 1 cup of broth.

3. Add chicken and simmer for 30 minutes.

4. In separate bowl, melt butter.  Whisk in flour and then reserved chicken broth.  Slowly whisk in milk.

5. Add #4 to broth and heat to low boil.

6. Add cooked noodles...soup thickens a little more as it cools.

   **Add salt & pepper to taste**

The genius and ease of this recipe comes from using a rotisserie chicken (no pre-cooking of chicken required - I didn't even dice it up - I just pulled it off in chunks and broke it up with my fingers).  The other is the noodles, Grandma's Noodles to be exact...

I'd never heard of these before but they are SOOOO good.  The company's headquarters are actually local here in Arvada, CO.  These noodles can be found in the frozen food section of the grocery store.  There were two different sized noodles (I chose the wide noodles) and two different sized BAGS of noodles - I bought the bigger, "Family-Sized" bag because I like a lot of noodles in my soup.  Sadly...they do not currently distribute their product to Anchorage, so if I want them there, I will have to have them shipped in dry ice...

FINAL RESULT:

Mmmmm....noodle soup...(to quote another "Friends" episode) :)

This recipe is definitely a keeper!!

Mac & Cheese

Do you ever go through phases of craving the same thing over and over again?  I've had an on-again / off-again craving for macaroni & cheese the past few months.  I'm not talking about the kind that comes in a box with the orange powder - I mean GOOOOD mac and cheese...with special cheeses or other extra ingredients besides just the noodles and cheese.

Martha Stewart is known for her mac & cheese recipe(s) - she now has 16 of them listed on her website.  I tried making this one (see below) once...but I didn't love it...

She has some interesting recipe ideas, one involving slow-roasted tomatoes, one involving seafood (blech), and one with butternut squash, just to name a few...

Noodles & Company has a variety of noodle dishes - Asian, Mediterranean and American...in addition to their traditional Wisconsin Mac & Cheese, they are currently offering "Grown-Up Mac & Cheese" options for a short time:

I've tried the Bacon Mac & Cheeseburger, and the SW Chili Mac & Cheese and they were both really good...I'm not a fan of mushrooms but I can imagine the Truffle Mac is just as tasty as the others...but today I stuck with the traditional Wisconsin Mac & Cheese.

I think my current (semi) obsession with Mac & Cheese came from Panera.  I LOOOVE their Mac & Cheese...I first tried it this past winter, breaking from my traditional pattern of ordering one of their soup in a bread bowl offerings...

And I'm so glad I did!  It's SO creamy and gooey and delicious (it's also rather expensive in my opinion) so I don't indulge in it QUITE as often as I'd like.

I've seen some attempts to re-create the recipe for it here in blog land so I may have to give that a try...my cravings and my wallet will thank me!  :)

Of course, I can't talk about Mac & Cheese without mentioning my ALL-TIME favorite Mac & Cheese...for my fellow "Friends" lovers, you know what I mean!  :)

Happy Friday!!