fast & easy. sign me up.

y'all.

the other day, i made chicken salad, and i always save the broth.

{i always salt the water real good before i boil the chicken}

and i had this random cravin' for egg drop soup.

i googled several recipes, and i left out the corn starch because i don't care about the consistency.

i just care about the taste. 

anyhoo, i just boiled the chicken broth that i already had, threw in some finely diced onions to boil as well {didn't have any green onions on hand}, and slowly stirred in some whisked eggs {i used two egg whites and one whole egg, but you can use whatever you like}

and BAM!

delicious.

this makes me happy because i am all the time wanting something to eat, but not something really carby. this has a little protein too!

win. win.

this may be the shortest post ever.

and maybe y'all don't care.

but, i'm tellin you.

this is easy.

and good.

mmmmmmmmmmm.

baked potato soup

It's been raining here for four days, y'all, with Thursday being the coldest one.

We had two bags of potatoes sitting around, so I figured, why not use some of em up making a delicious potato soup?

This soup is really a traditional potato soup ... the toppings that were added at the end are what give it a 'baked potato' taste ... to me, it was just as good if not better without the toppings, up to you.

Sorry. We still workin' wit cell phone pics up in heah, y'all!

Now, here's where I'm gonna get on y'all's nerves, because I didn't measure anything, but it's still really basic.

I probably used about:

8-10 medium potatoes

2 medium yellow onions

3 garlic cloves

64 oz. chicken broth

1 c. heavy cream

1/2 stick butter

(you can do some substitution among the broth, cream and milk, if you happen to have more of one than the other on hand ... just depends on how rich you want it - mine was mostly broth and it was still plenty rich)

toppings optional:

bacon

cheddar

sour cream

pepper

green onion

The Soup:

So, first thing in the morning, I peeled and diced the potatoes and left them to soak in water for 2 or 3 hours. {I only peel off the bad spots, and leave the rest of the skin on.}

{You don't have to do that, but it keeps all the starchy goo in the potatoes from being part of the soup. I then rinsed them before adding them to the soup later.}

Chop up yellow onions, cut up/mince garlic.

I used a dutch oven and got all the chicken broth hot, and then added the chopped potatoes, yellow onions, and garlic {I minced mine, but you could chop it as fine as you can get it}. 

If you don't have a dutch oven, a stock pot would work just fine, too.

I let these cook together for about an hour, and came back to taste. 

Added some salt. {My broth already had a good bit of salt in it because it was homemade broth from chicken I boiled earlier in the week ... so, just go by taste as far as how much salt to add.}

An hour later, based on taste, I added about a cup of heavy cream and the half stick of butter.

Toppings:

I just cooked some bacon and cut it up to sprinkle on, as well as chopped green onions, shredded cheddar, and Anj ate some sour cream on his, but I didn't.

Oh, and pepper. I added some black pepper. 

And that's it!


Oooooh Wheeee!

This is perfect for fillin' up your belly, so you can lay around in your NC State PJ pants, while readin' your Kindle, and havin' your wife nag the hell out of you so she can have a photo to finish her "blog post".

Enjoy!!

know what's good on this random wednesday?

Y'all.

The other day, I was on Garden & Gun's blog, and I saw this tid bit about Elvis' peanut butter, jelly & bacon sandwich, and I swear, I was juuuuust thinkin' about makin' a pb & j, 

and of course, we had some bacon, so I had to try it.

It did not disappoint.

Here's to hopin' Nita Nikon is on her way to recovery so we can get back to decent food pics

Know what else is good?

Goat cheese grits cooked in chicken broth {I used leftover broth from the chicken salad I made yesterday) ... with just a dab of butter and pepper.

Omygyahh.

And, did y'all see PLL last night? I am so mad at me for gettin hooked on this madness.
I want to smack Mona. And Toby. What is he doin?!? And Paige, she gets on my nerves.
And whattup with Aria's creepy ass dad?
The thing that makes me whack is that they never answer any questions before creating more freakin questions.

Do you watch the show?

What's your theory?

And that's about it on this random-as-hell Wednesday. 

Linking up with Shanna for random Wednesday.

brain dump, inspired mostly by food

Today is going to be one of those odd brain dumps y'all.

Why?
Because my brain is scattered, and I basically have to do a brain dump post every now and then to keep things functioning properly.

Speaking of running properly, my condolences to you shugpies out there who deal with UTI's on the reg. {Is this TMI for the bloggage? If so, my condolences on that too. We doin' real talk around here, shugs.} Not a good feelin. I'm 29 years old and thankfully to God, have never had to deal with this until now. No bueno. Mine is a happy little perk from having a catheter during surgery. Yayyyy!
Went to the doc on Monday and the antibiotics are doin' their thug thizzle as we speak. And I was told by my acupuncturist and the wise women folk in my family to drink straight up, pure, organic cranberry juice.
Mmk. Easy enough.

Ummm....
Have y'all ever had this shit?
Ohhhhhmyyyyyworrrrrrrrrrrrrd.
You might as well just suck the life out of 18 lemons in a row. Sourrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr ain't even a strong enough word, friends. I woke up with low blood sugar in the middle of the night earlier this week, and thought,' This will be a great time to consume 19g of carbs because since my blood's low anyway, it won't make my blood sugar high.' {I'm diabetic for those of you are wondering what i'm talkin 'bout.}

Y'all.
I seriously felt the heat of my whole body rising to my face as soon as I finished it. i thought, "Oh, shiz. Here it comes. I am going to throw up! Nooooooooo! What can I do?!" {I haaaaaaaaaaate throwin' up. I would rather feel pain. (I think.)} So, I took a swallow of orange juice to attempt to get the taste out of my mouth, and then I quickly woofed down a couple tablespoons of peanut butter.
Shiz is sick, y'all.
So, from then on, I've been putting 1/4 cup with 16-20 oz. of water and it will still turn your mouth inside out. Mess ain't for poohs. On a brighter note, I do think it helped though! {A good thing, at $10/bottle.}

Movin' on.

Ranch.
Do y'all love ranch as much as I do? Sometimes I just crave ranch, so I will open up the fridge and cabinets and think, "What do we have here that I can use to carry the ranch to my mouth?" {I know Alexa gets this because we talked about it the other day.}
My favorite is our homemade pickles. Hubs and I {and sometimes the SIL - remember, she's the one who told me about the Ritz Crookies?} can pickles from Big Silas' cucumbers. I feel like a real deal Holyfield southern chick when I can pickles. But it's so worth the effort when you hear the "pop!" when they seal. I always refrigerate mine after they've sealed and cooled, and don't eat them until a couple months after they've been canned.

Anyhoo. They are magical, out-of-this-world. I wanted to enter them in the State Fair, but do y'all know in NC, they only judge on appearance? They don't even taste the pickles! Seriously?

There is nothing more magical than drizzlin' Ken's Steakhouse Ranch on a vinegary dill pickle. Mmmm- mmmmm!!!
It's all good until I run out of pickles, and then I'm all devastated because I can't just run out and buy more. Oh well, until next year.

We also decided to make some delicious his & hers salads last night.

And I have to tell y'all this:
{Well, first, let me say, if you already know this, don't leave me a "duhh" comment, because I always feel stupid sharing "tips" on here for fear that people already knew that shiz and I'm the only one on the planet who didn't. Anywayyyy ...}

We love some hard boiled eggs on our salads, and I learned {Don't ask me from where. My memory is not that stellar.} that soaking the eggs in colllllllllld water for about 5 minutes after they're done boiling makes them sooooooooooo much easier to peel:

Hey, if it makes life easier, do tell, am I right?

In other news, I still have to finish the hubs' stocking. Do y'all do stockings with y'all's shugpies?
It is my favorite part, but only if there's creative stuff in there. I feel like girls' stockings are so much easier than boys'. If you have any magical ideas, email me or message me on the fb page. {Hubs be checkin' out the bloggage every now and again.}

Oh, one more thing. If you are a non-gluten shugpie like me {except maybe onnnnnnnnce in a while when I can't resist a biscuit or a Ritz crookie}, you should definitely look into makin' you a little breakfast sandwich out of toasted {gf} cornbread with some hot meat inside, friends. My favorites: sausage//cheddar//mustard and ham//provolone//mayo//mustard. omyworrrrd.

Welp, that's all shugs. Thanks for stickin' with me through the world's most boring and random post ever, inspired by food and procrastination.

Happy Thursday!

make these. eat some. nap.

y'all want somethin suuuuper easy to take as a christmas prize for somebody you just love to bits?

{or maybe coworkers that you only like a little bit?}

yeah?

welp, you're in luck.

all you need is:

box of ritz crackers

3 bags of milk chocolate morsels

peanut butter

{if you can't handle this, you need to get yaself some premade cookies from the grocery stizzle}

1) put some peanut butta on them shugs

2) put another cracker on top

3) heat morsels on the stove.

on lowwww.

not in the microwave.

fail.

instead of lookin like burnt up funk like the pic above,

it should look delicious and creammmmay like the pic below:

4) use some tongs and dunk that whole piece in the magical chocolate goodness

or be ghetto and give up and use your faingahs!

5) lay em out on some aluminum foil to cool down

{if you can, find a way to cool them in the fridge - works better & faster}

6) feed random scraps to husband

7) cheat on your anti-gluten diet because just like santa 'nem, these babies only come around once a year

BAM!

party in ya mouf!

* after you eat 6 or 10 of these, and you are rubbin your food baby, you can thank my SIL, because this recipe was straight stolen from her:



ain't she a doll baby?

know what's good?

Y'all ever wake up in the middle of the night and get to thinkin about somethin RANDOM and it keeps you up for another 30 - 45 minutes?

I woke up low {blood sugar, thanks, diabeetus} at 3-somethin' this mornin and I was thinkin about coffee while I was waitin for my OJ to kick in. Coffee with chocolate. The decaf version.

Even though it is DECEMBER, it has been in the mid-upper 60's here, which obviously feels more like spring is on the way in than winter. So, I've been gettin my coffee and then regretting it because it's hot as hell, and I sweat. :(

If you get some hot coffee that you no longer want because it's way too hot to drink it, just doctor it up with some chocolate milk is what I say.

Allow the coffee to cool down a little bit, then pour it over a glass or shaker FULL of ice, and then IMMEDIATELY pour it back out into your other glass. We wanna cool the coffee down, but we don't want to give the ice a chance to melt and get all funky.

Then, mix the cooled off coffee with some chocolate milk and pour all of it over ice.

Add whip.

 

BAM!

Your grown up hot coffee has now become iced dessert in a cup. And, you don't have a lot of chocolate sludge at the bottom, which is what happens every time I put coffee over hot chocolate mix. I love chocolate. But, I don't love clumps of anything at the bottom of my drink.

You can go for a little walk or somethin to burn it off.

That's what I got for today folks. Mind-blown, I know. But, it is important to have good beverages in your life on the daily. 

xo

know what's good?

some cranberry & ginger ale

i was at bi-lo the other night, and realized they have canada dry diet cranberry ginger ale.

at first, i was really tempted because they never make specialty drinks in a diet version. lame.

however - 

i think that drinks are tastier when they are actually mixed - right there in front of your own eyes.

sooo ... 

 i walked an extra lap to put that shiz back on the lovely canada dry display.

but, this is perfect because:

1) you feel all christmassy and magical when you drink it

2) it's bubbly and has floaty ice cubes

3) you can control the calories and carbs with so many options:

diet cranberry

light cranberry

scraight up cranberry

diet ginger ale

scraight up ginger ale

don't even get me started on your brand preference

and duh, you can add some alkyhol if you feel so inclined

what's not to love?

so many options for everybody. 

no blowin your diet, or your a1c!!

win-win!!

know what's good?

beans. {especially black or pinto} cooked with a hint of garlic and some salt.

  served hot with some fresh diced yellow onion. and corn bread. and a little shredded cheddar.   i think it's key to make sure the beans have at least 6 hours to soak, overnight is best.   the best part? well, actually, there's several: they are good for you! and cheap! and super easy!
soak em, throw in garlic & salt, boil em, reduce to low for about 45 mins.   BAM!   nothin like em on a cold day.   

let's talk about sausage

you know what i am really thankful for?

pigs.

and their bacon.

and their sausage.

doesn't get much better than this:

{with mustard}

how many of these have you had first thing in the mornin, on the way to christmas shop, or go yard salin, or tailgatin at 7:30 a.m.? i mean, there is nothing like a sausage biscuit. no-thing!   mmmmmm. it's one of the hardest parts of bein gluten-free. i LOVE me a biscuit.   but, i found a way to fake it. no, it's not "the same", but it's damn good.      meet sausage "biscuit" via cornbread {sans gluten} with the insides of the cornbread cut out because a) it's too bready and 2) it's too carby    add a lil dab of mustard   BAM!! party in your mouth!  

shiz was goooood.
you should hit a drive through right away. i recommend mcdonald's or hardee's