Homemaking.......Star Date 22

Too much salt can make your mouth pucker....

Today was pretty epic I went to lunch with my friend Jenn cleaned and set into motion the start of one project and finished another. This blog is pretty important to me it gives me a reason to try things because I have people to try them for. I mean my family is awesome but they do not care about the process only the finished product lol.Today I was very excited and felt very accomplished about getting my dinner and drink project done. I feel just very good about myself and this is exciting for me.

So today I finished off the Cider Brined Fried Chicken and the Winter Sangria. Both of these recipes were from Sunny Anderson of the Food Network. She has a show called Cooking for real. Here in Germany these shows come on early in the morning or late in the afternoon when I am on my way to pick up my son from school. So it is hard for me to get a complete recipe. I searched for about 45 min before I found it and along the way found the Winter Sangria. At the bottom of this page you will find the link to both recipes.

I learned a valuable lesson...can you guess what it was? Yes too much salt can make your lips pucker much like lemons make them pucker. The chicken came out moist and the outside was just beautiful....but I totally forgot that the longer you plan on brining the less salt you need to use. So what I got was salty moist chicken. The chicken was still awesome which tells me that this has to be the best chicken EVER since I was willing to eat it because it tasted so good even with the heavy salt that was totally my fault and not the fault of the recipe. Please please remember to lessen the salt if you will be brining overnight.

Along with the chicken I decided to bake Corn muffins from scratch. I realized too late that I had run out of oil. So I decided to melt butter and use it instead I was very surprised and happy that this turned out to be the lightest muffin I have ever made. It came out very well and I would suggest a butter substitution for the oil in the recipe that I will leave at the bottom of the page.

Winter Sangria was a fun thing I wanted to make because I have been making and baking many different foods but I have not been trying to make drinks. I want to entertain some day and this mean providing more than Soda, water and Juice. So I made a Virgin Winter Sangria because I have to do homework later and must remain alert. Because of where I live and also because technically it is not winter yet some of the fruits I could not find yet but I did use regular pears for the drink. I used Sparkling Red Grape Juice instead of wine. I am sad my drink is virgin but it turned out GREAT!

So last but not least I gotta give big props to my pretty new pitcher from the Martha Stewart collection. I will tell you now that you will see me throw lots of props Martha's way I do it of my own free will cause well she makes things and I want them all and they are pretty :).

I have several projects coming up for the blog. I was given a cook book with popular recipes of different eras. I will be doing a series on that. I will also be still working on organizing my house the next project will be the kitchen cabinets I have begun the work on that and will be attempting to finish that in the next couple of days.

I am having tons of fun and I hope you all had a good weekend.

Live long and salt less

Websites of Note:

Cider Brined Chicken

Winter Sangria

Corn Muffins

Martha Stewart Pitcher