French Toast, Chunky Seafood Chowder, Caesar Salad

Recipe: French Toast, Chunky Seafood Chowder, Caesar Salad

It's been 3 months since I moved to the East Coast, so I figure it's a good time to assess how my search for more Happy Places is going. Lord knows there are millions of places to look for Happy Places in the Greater Philadelphia area, which I believe is one of the ways to describe the incredibly large radius that incorporates the Philly, Southern New Jersey, and Northern part of Delaware (basically Wilmington) areas. Since I've been here, I've searched for Happy Places in the clubs of Olde City Philly and Penn's Landing. I've searched for Happy Places at a Phillies baseball game and kickboxing class. I've even searched for my Happy Place at a Polish Festival (where I ironically did not hear Polka music, but did hear really cheesy cover band music). I am pleased to say all of my searches have resulted in wonderful places to have a Happy Place. I think I'll have the ultimate Happy Place search this weekend when I jump out of a plane and take in the Greater Philadelphia area while I float to the ground from 14,000 feet in the air. Yes, I did say jump from a plane. :) I'm going skydiving this weekend! So if there was any doubt that my journey of cooking was an exploration in me finding my courage and becoming more bold...you can doubt no more. I'm pretty sure this qualifies me for a trip to the loony bin, nevermind it definitely qualifies as being courageous. But I'm super excited. I hear it's the experience of a lifetime. Some of the best 6 minutes you can experience...at least with your clothes on. I'm fully confident that I'll have wonderful stories to share and I'll also have 2 functioning arms to type my wonderful stories in my next blog. If there is one thing I'll say for myself, when I say I'm ready to get out of the middle of nowhere and start experiencing life...man, am I not joking! :)

Well even though I've had awesome searches looking for new Happy Places, I still think my ultimate and favorite Happy Place resides right in my kitchen. And since I'm spending a lot more time looking for Happy Places, and less time cooking, I wanted to really spend some time cooking this weekend. Not to mention spending time being lazy, curled up on a couch watching football all weekend. I did a great job accomplishing both. I was even able to share my Happy Place experience with Liz, Zo, and Liz's mom Ms. Betty. Liz and Zo have recently been blessed with the arrival of a beautiful baby girl, and since they are my adopted family (all of my really good friends are) I wanted to do something for them. And what says "Welcome to the World" more than a comfy dish of Chicken Pot Pie??? I unfortunately forgot to photograph my dish before taking it to the house, but you've seen it before. It's the pot pie that sent me searching for ears of corn in 2 different states a few months ago. I'm pleased to report the pie was just as good this time. And since it was pretty much gone before I left that night, I'd say my family agreed with me. I spent the rest of the weekend alternating between nonstop football watching and cooking more awesome recipes. The French Toast had orange zest and nutmeg in it. Since it also had eggs in the mixture that I dipped the sourdough bread in, it almost felt like I was soaking the bread in eggnog. It had an excellent flavor and was very, very yummy. And it provided at least 2 comatose hours on the couch after breakfast. For my dinner, I actually felt too lazy to really invest in a complicated Williams-Sonoma dish, so I pulled out my fave Seafood Chowder recipe from my Taste of Home days. The Seafood Chowder is so easy to make it's embarrassing. It's really a semi-homemade dish that uses Campbell's condensed New England clam chowder and imitation crab. Yes, I admit it's an abomination to use imitation crab while living in the land of abundant fresh seafood, but what can I say. I was feeling really lazy. :) I did peel and cube 3 potatoes, so I guess I put some sweat into the dish. And besides, it's a great chowder recipe. It has a creamy, buttery taste to it that blends really nicely with the potatoes and clam chowder. The Caesar Salad actually was a Williams-Sonoma recipe, and I think it may now also be my favorite salad. I made homemade croutons, which I made by drizzling bread cubes with olive oil, salt, pepper and after they baked, with garlic. OMG. I hate croutons, mind you and I had to stop myself from eating them all before I finished making the salad. The salad dressing was an olive oil based dressing with Worcheshire sauce, Red Wine Vinegar, salt, and more garlic. Talk about the most awesome dinner ever.

So now you know how my first 3 months in my new Happy Place has been going. I'm cooking more great dishes that I love, and enjoying more great experiences that I never thought I'd have. To use some of the words from a commercial I saw about 800 times this weekend.....Life is "So S-O, G-Double-O-D Good". :)

French Toast & Sausage

Chunky Seafood Chowder

Caesar Salad

Buttermilk Waffles, Salmon & Corn Chowder, Guacamole & Tortilla Chips, Brownies

Recipe: Buttermilk Waffles, Salmon & Corn Chowder, Guacamole & Tortilla Chips, Brownies

I've whipped through a number of recipes since my last blog. Although I will say, they weren't all at once. This week's blog is a culmination of 2 separate weekends worth of cooking. I made Buttermilk Waffles and Salmon & Corn Chowder over the Labor Day weekend. Which, was an awesome weekend. My OGP's (Original Guinea Pigs) Terraun and Sarah came down for the weekend. After their wedding they relocated from the bustling metropolis of Houston, TX/New Orleans to the even more bustling metropolis of....Towanda, PA!!!! Which is neither bustling nor a metropolis. But it is only 4 hours away from me, so I'm happy. They can use visits to me as an excuse to see some real civilization and I can finally be the person that people come visit to escape the boredom, not the one doing the escaping. And I get to cook for them, so it's a win-win for everyone. My Happy Place has now become a refuge and a pseudo-happy place for others. And what's even better, I have officially added more Guinea Pigs to my project now that I'm here and I'm close to more of my really good friends. So not only did Terraun and Sarah get to be guinea pigs last weekend, but I also got to welcome my friends Liz and Zo to the OGP family (and to the shout-outs in my blog). :) I took the Salmon & Corn Chowder to their house and the 5 of us had a great time hanging out, watching movies, and just overall having a great time. Have I mentioned I love being here????

I was excited about my Salmon & Corn Chowder recipe because I FINALLY got to cut corn kernels off of a corn cob since I missed out with my Chicken Pot Pie recipe. I must say, it was anti-climatic. But at least I didn't drive to 4 different stores in an attempt to find the corn this time. And using fresh kernels from the cob does taste much better than using frozen or canned corn. The Buttermilk Waffles were also very good. Although I had to defer to Sarah's opinion of them to really determine how they tasted. See, I have another Waffle recipe I usually make and whenever Terraun came to visit during his Parkersburg trips, I would make them. The recipe wasn't a fancy Williams-Sonoma recipe, but they were honestly the best waffles I've ever had. No syrup was necessary with my old recipe. Just put some sliced strawberries on the waffles, and I swear you were eating a little piece of heaven with every bite. So you can imagine both Terraun and my disappointment when we took a bite of the Williams-Sonoma waffles...and they were just tasty. Not little slice of heaven tasty, but just really good and tasty. Which in normal circumstances is totally acceptable, just not when you've tasted heaven. So I had to make Sarah the subject matter expert on these waffles. Which she gave 2 thumbs up to, so we're all good.

This weekend I went back over Liz and Zo's. And since I was going, I decided to come bearing food gifts of guacamole, tortilla chips, and brownies which is a really odd combination. But hey, when the random recipe gods come knocking, you open the door and just go with it. I also made buttermilk waffles again this weekend since I still had buttermilk leftover, so I took waffles over their house also. I made my own tortilla chips for the guac and chips recipe. Which did not go very well at first. I put the first batch of tortillas in the oil too soon and once they were fried, they had soaked in oil too long so they were really chewy and not crisp at all. But once I got the hang of it, I started whipping out some really crispy tortilla chips. Unfortunately, the chewy ones were mixed in with the crisp ones so you never really knew which type of chip you'd be eating when you picked one up. Sorry about that Liz and Zo. Sometimes, being my OGP does have its drawbacks. :) I have a feeling I'll get lots of practice making guac and chips though. Both were really easy to make and I love eating both so much, I can easily see myself whipping up a batch every weekend or so and crashing on my couch eating guac and chips and watching football all day. Which brings me to a sidenote: There is some man out there in the universe that is going to be really lucky when he finally meets me....I'm just saying. ;) And I can't forget about my brownies. Nothing special or fancy about them. They had peanut butter chips in them. I think the most exotic thing about this recipe was chopping up the chocolate for the brownies. Yeah, pretty boring. Boring, but good. And easy. So maybe I'll whip up guac, chips, and brownies every weekend. Sure sounds like the staple of a great football weekend to me!

Oh, and in case you were wondering...I did survive my night shift work. But let's just say, I don't think I'll be begging to do that again anytime soon. The night time is not the right time, to stay up all night and try to work at a chemical plant. :)

Buttermilk Waffles, Fried Eggs, and Sausage

Salmon & Corn Chowder

Brownies w/ Peanut Butter Chips

Guacamole & Tortilla Chips