Chicken and Cookies Challenge

Last week Mr. Wonderful and I took a wonderful journey in slightly-above to slightly below freezing temperatures to Northern Virginia (NOVA) to house sit and tour DC. On Tuesday, December 8, we toured the American History Museum to visit Julia Child's kitchen. Okay... so we were there because we LOVE museums, tours, history... and I have a secret obsession (okay... not so secret) with cooks and crafters I remember seeing on television when I was growing up. Julia Child, Carol Duval, and Martha Stewart... gave me the inspiration and training to do so many wonderful creative things that my family simply lacked the know-how and will power to do. After visiting her kitchen I amazingly talked Bee into renting Julie Julia from a RedBox and Mr. Wonderful into watching it with me! Then he had a challenge for me...

You see, Mr. Wonderful and I have a Friday tradition that started our first Friday night together over two years ago: Chicken and Cookies. Now the chicken could be substitute for chicken. Cookies could be brownies, cakes, or bars. Friday night could fall on a Saturday or Sunday if we were traveling and there was no way we had access to either chicken or cookies. I can only recall a few times when we were traveling overseas and when he was off on a boys weekend.

Now we have a few go-to recipes that we enjoy to no end, but we're ready to try something new. So here is the challenge: 101 different ways to cook chicken and cookies. I am not bound to any book, any genre, any chef. 202 recipes total... 2 new recipes each week... not repeating.

Week One

Chicken:
Crock-pot Taco Chicken
(Given to me by the receptionist at the agency)

4 chicken breasts
1 cup salsa
1/2 cup sour cream
1 package taco seasoning
1 can cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup
*Note: I substituted for low sodium and low fat options for all ingredients where possible

Her Instructions:
Place all ingredients except for sour cream in crock-pot for 6-8 hours and then add sour cream. Serve over tacos, straight up, or on nachos.

What happened:
Place chicken (still frozen because it refused to thaw), salsa, taco seasoning, and soup into crock-pot. (Throw in can of chicken stock because it looks like there is not enough liquid and that makes you nervous...) Cook on low all night (the chicken was frozen remember... and slightly freezer burned). Be amazed the chicken smells good in the morning... though disappointed it looks terrible. Stir, turn on high and go shopping for the next 6 hours. Return home and remove incredible smelling chicken from salsa/soup mixture. Be shocked when the previously frozen, freezer burned chicken flakes apart and is super moist and fabulous looking. Shred chicken and place it back into the crock-pot. Wait until Mr. Wonderful calls and says he is close by (long commute) and add sour cream. Die over how incredible it tastes. Revive yourself and serve family of 8 (4 choose beef option instead) with tacos topped with delicious chicken stuff. Wonder what to call the chicken stuff and how to use leftovers...

Leftover options:

• More tacos
• Nachos
• Straight up
• Sandwiches.... Mr. Wonderful said it is a great faux BBQ and we are all excited to try it.

 Cookies:
Alton Brown's Sugar Cookies (From Food Network website)

I have never made sugar cookies (that I can remember at least) as I cannot really tolerate sugar and they seemed so boring I never really put up the effort. A cookie when removing them from the oven so I tried a bite... meh... I wasn't too impressed. They needed something in the line of flavor... other than: "There's butter, sugar, and flour in me..." and I added some vanilla to it as well...

My grammie said they were bland, though everyone else seemed to enjoy them. After our chicken dinner Papa, Mr. Wonderful and I decorated the cookies here is Mr. Wonderful's present to The Bloggess for sending him a holiday card:

Till next time,
Emme

Post office Closed on Saturday?

What? The one day when I actually have time to get to the post office and it is now closed on Saturdays... what in hell am I supposed to do with these packages I have to mail?

Anyways... Mr. Wonderful and I went to Kings Dominon with his sister, Blue Eyed Educator (Bee for short). Here are some shots of our adventures:

Mr. Wonderful it turns out is almost too tall to ride some rides... he's about one inch away from being too tall.













Some of the rides looked really really scary... maybe Bee could demonstrate the fear better... Bee?













Yep, the rides were pretty scary.










We had some adventures...













There were bears and everything.

Actually it was a beautiful park and they have 13 (seriously) roller coasters... soon to be 14. I'm generally okay with most thrill rides... I mean I take on most of them at Busch Gardens all the time. I do not ride the Big Bad Wolf or the Loch Ness Monster anymore... they shake me up too much. Save for the Volcano and the Stunt Track I was beat up. My ear took a pounding on Mr. Wonderful's shoulder. Not since I was little did I come off of a roller coaster crying. Thank goodness there's no bone in the ear, it is still killing me...

Mr. Wonderful and I have decided to not return to the park until we've forgotton how bad we hurt the day after from such violent rides. Beautiful park... expensive food... no signage anywhere... lots of rollar coasters to choose from, and most of them hurt (11/13... that would be approx. 85% waiting to cause you pain).

Perhaps it would have been cooler if we had children. I mean there were tons of little kid rides, costumed characters, etc for kids to have fun with.

Perhaps it would have been cooler if Mr. Wonderful and clorine got along better.

Perhaps it would have been cooler if it wasn't the start of ragweed season.

Perhaps it would have been cooler if it wasn't 95 out.

Perhaps it would have been cooler if we were all able to fly and could live without sleep for weeks on end so we could actually accomplish everything that we had to accomplish this weekend.

Yeah it was one of those kind of weekends. So... long story short... go to Busch over Kings if you're looking for value of money. You'll have a far more enjoyable time... that is... unless you find this girl:

















Sometimes I wonder what possesses people to wear certain things and decide they look good enough to walk out among the general populous... :)

~Emme