The Joy of Cooking

My office is having a potluck Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow and my department's task is to bring sides. I could have just picked up some Publix potato salad or macaroni casserole or something but in the true spirit of the holiday, I decided to make my Granny's southern style cornbread dressing. This is the dressing I grew up eating my whole life and pretty much the main reason I enjoy the holiday season at all. When people decide to have "alternative" meals for Thanksgiving and Christmas I get offended. How could you pass up all of that warm crumbly moist sagey goodness? This is my first time making it and suprisingly enough, I only had to call my mom once! So here's the rundown. Paula Deen's recipe is in regular font and the instructions that differ in Granny's recipe are in italics.

Ingredients
Olive oil, for baking dish
1 8-inch round cornbread or 6 standard muffins, crumbled (1 9 inch pan is normally good but you have to make the cornbread yourself because if you use a mix it comes out too sweet. NO SUGAR in the cornbread batter.)
7 slices oven-dried white bread, cubed (I only used 4)
1 sleeve saltine crackers, crumbled
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
2 cups chopped celery
1 large onion, chopped
7 cups chicken broth (I used about 4.5)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 teaspoon dried sage (optional) (absolutely NOT optional, season to taste starting with 1 tbsp *before you put the eggs in*)
1 tablespoon poultry seasoning (optional) (sort of optional)
5 large eggs, beaten


Directions
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. and place rack in center. Lightly oil a large baking dish.
2. In a large bowl, combine cornbread, white bread, and crackers; set aside.


3. In a large skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add celery and onion; saute until softened, 5 to 10 minutes. (Many thanks to Mister P for chopping the celery even though there was a football game on.)
P.S. Cutting vegetables is my least amazing activity. I am horrible at it. Note: Onions in above picture should be diced and are definitely NOT diced. Maybe Mister P should have done those bad boys too.

4. Pour over cornbread mixture, add broth and combine well. Stir in salt, pepper, sage, and poultry seasoning (if using). Add eggs and combine well.

According to my mom, this should be a "nice slurry". Soggy, not soupy.

4. Pour stuffing into prepared baking dish and bake until lightly browned, about 45 minutes.

(I cooked about an hour...Although I am a NOTORIOUS undercooker so it actually has turned me into an overcooker because Mister P thinks I'm trying to kill him with pink chicken breasts...(oops). So just cook it until it's golden brown and it should be good.)

Before:
After:

Here's to hoping that my coworkers don't notice mind that I had to taste test a few times to make sure they aren't going to be eating gross eggy batter dressing. Food pictures always turn out weird so it kind of looks like a fruitcake but I can assure you it smells (and tastes) phenomenal. Just like Granny made it.

Sunday Afternoons

Driveway sitting




Marshmallows




Football: the nerf kind


Gotta love fall afternoons.


- Transplant

iPhones are better

I might be back in the blogging word thanks to my new friend iPhone. Mister P graciously decided to get me one for my birthday (because that's what I asked for). We're not really big on surprises around here. So now I can take pics and post and write here about all of the exciting goings on of my life! So here's to you, iPhone (and Mister P of course) for reintroducing me to the interwebs.


- Transplant

Welcome to Summer!

It's concert sesason! Time for hours of standing on your feet, singing at the top of your lungs and making fun of the drunk people. Er, um...people that are more drunk than you are. I guess I'm sort of a concert poser. I only have a couple of bands that I know all of the words to the songs, but Mister P absolutely LOVES going to concerts. He buys tickets months and months AND MONTHS in advance. So his amazing ability for early planning has made for a lot of anticipation and a pretty darn good start to summer '09!

Our first concert of the season was Nickelback. (A little cheesy but they put on a good show!) We got a little flak for going to this concert, but it was super fun...there was a crazy lady dancing like a total nutjob in front of us and every guy in the crowd thought he was Chad Kroeger...for those of you who aren't Nickelback-ites...he's the lead singer. Don't worry, I didn't know either.

But there was more fist pumping than a Journey concert and lots of lace corsets on girls who maybe should have chosen another way to go in the clothing department. This made for interesting people watching to say the least. I chose to wear a sweet pink dress and white semi-gladiator sandals. When I walked in, the lady who was checking purses said, "Be careful in there." Needless to say, no one was harmed in the making of this picture....


This is the only one I have from the concert because I left my computer at home while I'm working today. Mister P is actually quite sober and I am very much less so (he drove, bless his heart), but you'd never know it from this picture.

Next up in the Team Us Concert Series was Kings of Leon. We arrived about an hour late to this concert and missed the whole opening show. It was The Walkmen, who I know nothing about so I wasn't too terribly upset. Mister P bought these tickets the day after KOL won best song of the year and we hadn't heard any of the other music on the whole album. I went in knowing the two songs they play on the radio and that's about it.

The crowd was really awesome at this show, mostly young and cool. The show was good, but they kept shining the lights on the crowd instead of the band which was weird. There were two guys in front of us who smoked three joints during the concert and absolutely loved eachother. They were definitely having a bromance, and also having more fun than anyone else at the concert. It was touching.


This is a very professional looking photo taken by Mister P during the show. He's a crazy photo-taker when we go to events like this. A regular paparazzo. The crowd went crazy when they played "Sex on Fire." Fun times.

Ok, now for round three of the amazing concert extravaganza....The Ancient City Crawfish Boil in St. Augustine. This was a two day event with about 15 bands playing throughout the weekend. We took Friday off from work to drive down there and we got to see Corey Smith (who was awesome, as always), Flyleaf..ehh, G Love and the Special Sauce who totally jammed, and then one of the crowning acheivements of my life, SNOOP D-O-DOUBLE-JIZZLE. Yessir, the real deal. Snoop-a-loop. Don't worry, I brought my green hat. Friday was awesome, Mister P works for the Miller/Coors distributer in JacksonVegas and Miller Lite was sponsoring the event so we got to hang out on the awesome Miller bus and drink for free. That was fun. He has a cool job.

Saturday we saw Presidents of the USA, which was definitely my second favorite concert of the weekend, they definitely seem like they enjoy their job and sang a song called, "We're never gonna make it." Which was pretty funny since they've been around so long and they're still kinda underground. Then it was Saving Abel...I was eating crawfish during this show and couldn't be bothered to go around to look at the stage to see them. I only knew one song. Then, Candlebox, Hinder, and 3 Doors Down.

All in all, it was a FUN weekend. I have a really random sunburn where I didn't manage to get sunscreen spread on my shoulder, but it was definitely worth it. Here are the fun pics from the weekend.
Here are me and Mister P chilling listening to my fave Corey Smith. I love this guy, if you haven't heard his music, check him out. It's Georgia country music. Very awesome with great lyrics. My favorite songs are, Next Year and Skin of My Teeth. P.S. That dress I'm wearing looked a lot cuter in the mirror than it does in this picture.

Here's me looking totally awkward and frump-tastic while taking a picture with Hinder. This is one of the cool things we got to do as Miller Lite VIP's. We ended up forgetting our posters that got signed by these guys, but they also signed our tickets so it's all good!

Here's Pres. of the USA. Definitely super nice and kind of weird, but fun. We actually got to talk to these guys which was cool. This is my fave moment from the weekend.

Here's the stage and the crowd from Saturday's shows. It was HOT. Like, whoa my face is going to melt off, hot. Thankfully we had MGD 64 to cool us down. :)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand here he is, Mister Snoop Dogg! We were really far away because I don't like crowds and Mister P has a habit of swinging his elbows around when he dances. I think it's super cute, but normally people standing in close proximity to us don't enjoy it. Snoop played mostly old-school stuff and some of the stuff from the last couple of years. It was very cool.

And my super long blog comes to an end, but the concert season isn't over, we still have Brett Dennen and O.A.R. in August which will be our one year anniversary! And yes, we already have tickets for that show.

Rock On!

The Journey is the Reward

While I am a very avid and devoted blog follower, I am not such a great blogger myself. I tend to feel like I'm to busy to churn out a witty blog that people will want to read or just feel so dadgum tired that I just want to sit and watch Deadliest Catch and Ellen on my DVR.

Today, however, is one of those special days where I feel that little blog spark in my heart, and it's because of This Pretty Lady. She also has a kick-ass food/recipe blog here! I've only had the opportunity to meet and hang out with her one time, but our significant others (my boyfriend and her husband) were fraternity brothers in college. When I met her we hung out, had an awesome grill-out dinner and drank some good beer. She was super nice and let a total stranger spend the night at her house! That parrot head was thought I was cool enough to give me this!
This is the lemonade award. As in, "When life hands you lemons" well.....you know the rest.

Here's da rules...

1. Put the logo on your blog or post

2. Nominate at least 5 blogs that show an attitude of gratitude <---I'm with you Breann, I don't know 10 ppl I would nominate! I'm changing the rule to five, but I'm only doing 4. ;)

3. Link to your nominees within your post

4. Comment on their blogs to let them know they've received this award

5. Share the love and link to this post and the person who nominated you for the award.

6. Tell us how you've come to have an attitude of gratitude

I certainly appreciate this award because I felt like for a while there I being pelted with lemons. Not just regular ones, but the old, hard rotten ones. Ok so here goes.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And the award goes to: Mrs. Hibit- A beautiful girl with a wonderful attitude about life and an even better name. :) We not only share a name, but have shared a similar life situation over the last couple of months. Hang in there girl, you're doing great!

StrayBlog- This guy is an awesome friend of mine from college, a Kanuk who decided to pack up and move to Korea to teach English knowing not one word of Korean. (Brave!) He's managed to make the best of it. Way to go!

E's Mom- Home girl is a wife and a mom and an artist and an author and a blogger and an awesome Montessori teacher to boot! She's rockin' it, and I admire her and love reading her blog!

Cynthia- I met Cynthia at a church camp we both worked at in high school (but I think we didn't actually work the same summer, you'll have to verify that, Cynthia) She has a super cute blog, husband and son and is now living and working on the Ranch we used to work at when we were kids. Living in the desert (sort of) and still managing to look as cute as she does, now that's lemonade out of lemons!

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My lemon story is a short, but hard one. First, my best friend and roommate moved far far away to Albuquerque and then I got laid off from my job with a very large, nationwide nonprofit who raises lots of money for cancer research. I had poured my heart and soul into the organization, I was a volunteer for two years before I got hired as a staff member when I graduated college.

Long story short, donations were scarce and a lot of people got laid off all over the country. My feelings were hurt and I took it very personally, but after a month long (forced) vacation I'm now back to work for a company that I absolutely love and couldn't be happier!

When I got laid off, people told me "everything happens for a reason" and I couldn't believe how anything good could come from all that bad stuff, but I am so lucky work where I'm working now.

The journey is the reward!

Green With Envy

Yesterday was kind of a down day, so my sweet sister brought my nephews came by the apartment and brought me some really cute potted plants and frozen yogurt from Yogaberry. It really cheered me up, and when Mister P came home from work we went for a walk on the beach and had a couple of beers at Sneakers. The day ended really really well after a pretty rocky start. So, today I decided to plant my little guys' flowers. I bought two hanging planters and one SUPER cute one that looks like a gigantic coffee cup! I don't even drink coffee, but I love this planter. Here's how it went down...

Big W gave me the red flowers and little W gave me the purple ones. I have the best nephews ever.

It took quite a bit of Miracle Gro to fill that huge cup! (I'm hoping the Miracle Gro will overshadow my serious lack of a green thumb. Lets pray I don't kill these plants.)

The light is kinda bad, but there's the red one planted on the right, and a fern that The Roomate left when she moved to Albuquerque. It's managed to stay alive despite the fact that I completely forgot it even existed until today. Low maintenance, that's my type of plant.

Here are the purple flowers in the coffee cup. I am in love with this thing. There's a little wilty Basil plant hiding behind it that I'm trying to resuscitate, I managed to almost kill that one in about 2 days. I'm pretty awesome.

Lets hope this works out!

Sunday Funday

Here I am at work, sleeping keeping JacksonVegas safe with my all knowing traffic cameras. Here's a little taste of what's going on today...absolutely nothing. It's nice when there's no traffic, no problems, no crazy people wrecking all over the place...but it lends itself to me doing a lot of YouTube searching and blog reading. I was over at Cake Wrecks (which might be my 100% fave blog in the world) and there was a cake about being Rickrolled. Apparently I'm an old lady because I had no idea about this phenomenon. And I'm better now for knowing. Thank you internets. Here's the cake that started the search...

And now, the explanation for those of you as out of the loop as I am. According to Wikipedia (the most accurate fact-checker in existence, duh)

Wiki: Rickrolling is an Internet meme typically involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up". The meme is a bait and switch: a person provides a web link that he or she claims is relevant to the topic at hand, but the link actually takes the user to the Astley video. The URL can be masked or obfuscated in some manner so that the user cannot determine the true destination of the link without clicking. When a person clicks on the link and is led to the web page, he or she is said to have been "Rickrolled" (also spelled Rickroll'd).

I haven't personally been "Rickrolled" unfortunately, but I wish I had been.

Now that you have the backstory, here's the real reason for this post. My new favorite YouTube video.



And here's the one that I've loved for a long time, similar, but comes in a close second.



Ok, enough useless videos for one day. Back to keeping the city safe!

Happy Sunday (Bloody) Sunday!