But check out my most recent post on my temporary/maybe permanent cooking blog.

The recipe I’m sharing with you now though is the grilled chicken with dill sauce from my 1988 Southern Living Cookbook. I wanted to grill the chicken, but I haven’t gotten any propane for my grill So instead I baked the chicken. Still tasty. If I do end up doing this on the grill, I’ll post it again. Also, the dill sauce calls only for sour cream and not Greek yogurt like I used. I just wanted something healthier and thicker. I think it was perfect.

Ingredients
chicken thighs
yellow squash
bread crumbs (optional)
Greek yogurt
sour cream
dill weed (fresh would be awesome, but I couldn’t get any)
lemon
salt and pepper

1. Slice squash and coat lightly in bread crumbs. I brushed the squash with a little bit of melted butter, but if you want to be healthy or whatever, then don’t.

2. Place chicken sprinkled with salt and pepper in pan, add squash, then bake at 375 F for 40 minutes. EASY. The original recipe calls for other vegetables to grill, but I just wanted squash.

3. To make dill sauce, combine 3 parts Greek yogurt to 1 part sour cream, juice of 1/2 lemon, and ~2 tablespoons of dill weed. I just guessed with it all until it tasted right to me.

And that’s it! So delicious and healthy and…just…MMMM!

Ingredients
1/4 cup dried mushrooms (I used not-dried mushrooms)
1 cup stoned prunes (i don’t know what “stoned prunes” are, so I got regular prunes?)
8oz lean boneless pork
8oz lean venison (I didn’t use it)
8oz chuck steak
8oz kielbasa (I used some other sausage I found)
2 onions, sliced
2 lb can or jarred sauerkraut
4 tomatoes, peeled and chopped (I was too lazy to peel)
2 1/2 cups stock
flour
oil (I used sunflower – it’s awesome)
4 tbsp dry Madeira (a red wine that I didn’t use)
cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
salt, pepper, dill seeds
1. Pour boiling water to completely cover mushrooms and prunes in a bowl and leave for 30 minutes, then drain. And while that does its thing…

2. Cut meat into cubes and toss in flour. I tried to make meatballs with my ground meat, but they just didn’t stay together well.

3. Fry onions in oil for 10 minutes, remove, then brown meat in same pot. Make sure you’re using a big pot. And if you’re using Madeira, remove the meat and simmer the wine for a couple minutes.

4. Combine rest of ingredients in the big pot, adding the stock and seasonings last. Make sure it’s all mixed up in there!

5. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for 1 1/2-2 hours (uncover for the last 20 minutes to let liquid evaporate). Yum yum yum.

The recipe recommends you serve with boiled potatoes, which I’m sure would’ve been tasty, but I forgot to pick some up. Enjoy!

Anyway, I was skeptical of the squash casserole, but I wanted to give it a try. Plus, I wanted to make a vegetable-based meal for the week. I didn’t take a picture of it, but here’s a picture of all the peppers at the Buford Highway Farmers Market!

Ingredients
2 lbs yellow squash, sliced
2 small onions, minced
2 tbsp butter
1 cup cracker crumbs/bread crumbs
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup bacon bits (I didn’t include these)
1 2oz jar diced pimiento, drained (also didn’t include this)

preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

1. Add squash to pot of water, bring to a boil, then simmer for 10 minutes or until squash was tender. M’kay.

2. Drain well and mash. Fun! Since I got a food processor, I just did that for a few seconds.

3. As the squash boils, saute onions in butter until tender. Use butter, not any other oil because butter is awesome.

4. Combine onions, squash, 3/4 cup bread crumbs, cheese, and remaining ingredients. I also threw in zucchini and broccoli because I wanted it to be like, a super veggie casserole of deliciousness.

5. Spoon/pour into casserole dish, sprinkle remaining bread crumbs on top, and bake for 45 minutes. Simple, yeah?

My family never did casseroles, but this will definitely inspire me to try more. I ate this for lunch and dinner every day last week, including Saturday lunch. Yum yum yum yum yum!!!

Clay. How can I possibly grow delicious and nutritious food in clay? Whenever I have time and money, I will build a garden box with good soil. The bugs were also an issue, but moreso with the sunflowers. They’ve been fighting to survive, and one has finally successfully blossomed!

this sunflower says "screw you, bugs! i do what i want!"

So those are my gardening adventures. I learned about the importance of dirt, and hope to make a beautiful garden full of yummy vegetables another time.

a mountain of cheese grits topped with heavenly goodness amongst a field of greens? yummm.

And this is a picture of my breakfast for dinner: bacon, scrambled eggs, cheese grits, and grilled broccoli for some healthy greens:

breakfast. it's what's for dinner.

Ingredients
1 lb shrimp, uncooked
4-8 strips bacon
1 cup/.5 lb mushrooms, chopped
1/2 large onion, diced (cut up, whatever)
1 garlic clove
1 lemon (for juice)
flour
oil
salt, pepper
hot sauce (I used Sriracha)

1. Clean and peel shrimp. For those of you who have only seen cooked shrimp (which is pink), uncooked shrimp will be gray. Most groceries will sell the shrimp already cleaned, but you’ll want to rinse them off anyway and make sure there’s no poop in them (the brownish black stringy stuff on the back). Also, nifty trick for removing the tail: pinch the tail where it barely meets the shrimp meat and pull. The tail should slide right off.

2. Combine flour, salt, and pepper in bowl and bread shrimp in mixture. Pretty simple.

3. Cook bacon in the same pan you’ll cook the shrimp in and set strips aside. If you have a problem cooking with bacon fat, then please leave my blog and never come back.

**At this point, you may want to start cooking the grits. I got my recipe from Biscuits n’ Such, but you can cook them however you like. (Obviously.)

4. Add shrimp to pan, then onions, then mushrooms, then lemon juice, then garlic, then oil if needed and hot sauce if desired. Other recipes I’ve found cooked the onions and mushrooms before the shrimp, but on Diners, Drive Ins, And Dives, the chef started cooking the shrimp first. I also can’t remember if I added hot sauce to my shrimp as well as the grits, or just the grits. Either way, delicious I’m sure.

Serve shrimp over grits and a side of whatever veggies you like! Enjoy!

I wish I had a picture of it, but I went through it pretty quickly. In other news, my green beans are coming along nicely, but my beets are done for. I think I’ll re-plant them in August or September. We’ll see…

*I used canned chickpeas. If you’re gonna be hardcore about it, follow her instructions.

1. Dress chickpeas in olive oil and sherry vinegar, then add peppers. I bought fresh green and red peppers instead, so I also was a bit more generous with the olive oil.

2. Peel and cut onions, and fry gently in oil for 5-7 minutes until softened. You should be used to this by now. It’s a pretty common cooking procedure.

3. Add spices to onions, then add onions to chickpea mixture. Ok.

4. Drain tuna, cut into smaller chunks, and mix into chickpea mixture. I haven’t had canned tuna in a while. For me, it was a little overwhelming, and I had hoped to find fresh tuna instead. Oh well.

5. Add lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Don’t exclude the lemon juice. Lemons aren’t expensive, and it adds a great flavor. Also, don’t be lazy. This is an easy enough recipe as it is.

I ate my salad by itself, on top of spinach, and in tacos. It’s just delicious, refreshing, and simple. It’s a filling side or main dish that’s great for the summer. Enjoy!

baby green beans! i know that the background is what's in focus, but seriously. how cool is this? super cool.

Unfortunately I didn’t stake them originally. I knew the green beans would be too heavy for the plants, but I was just lazy. I bought some stakes tonight, so hopefully the plants will quickly wrap/grow around them, and the green beans will continue to flourish.

Anyway, this week I was inspired by YumSugar’s Slow Cooked Soy Ginger Chicken, but I don’t have a crock pot. Instead I made a glaze similar to theirs and baked the chicken. It’s pretty delicious, though I wished I could’ve marinated the drumsticks longer. I put it in little tacos, over rice, on salads, and over pasta. So delicious and amazing.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 cup soy sauce
rice vinegar
ground ginger
salt
pepper
1 lb chicken drumsticks

preheat oven to 375 degrees.

1. Combine all ingredients except chicken in a large bowl. If you’re going to marinate the chicken, you may want to add some water or more soy sauce or possibly hoisin sauce.

2. Brush chicken with soy sauce mixture and lay in baking pan. If you don’t have a brush (I didn’t have one for a while), you can use your hands to rub the sauce on it.

3. Bake for 30 minutes or until…cooked. I’d say until juices run clear, but I can never really tell.

That was it! Pretty great, and it fed me all week.

green beans! sooo excited!

And I wanted to share this amazing photograph of an amazing box of amazing mangoes. It seems that most people don’t know of Ataulfo and smaller mangoes, instead of the large colorful mangoes. I got it for $8.99 at the Buford Highway Farmers Market. My manfriend was baffled yet not surprised that I got it.

so many mangoes!

Anyway, onto the recipe…

1. In one bowl, combine soy sauce, lime juice, brown sugar, fish sauce, and salt, and in another, combine garlic, oil, and pepper. I forgot to buy garlic, so I didn’t do that second part, though I’m sure it really adds to the dish. And I forgot to get fish sauce, but I think it’s ok.

2. After seasoning beef with salt and pepper, heat olive oil in a pan over medium-high heat. I used a London broil instead of beef tenderloin because it was cheaper. I thought I’d have to use a dutch oven-type pot/pan, but it cooked fine in a skillet.

3. Brown beef in skillet, then set aside in a bowl. I don’t like my meat too cooked, so I just barely browned the outside of the pieces of meat.

4. Cook onion in skillet until soft, then add garlic mixture, beef, then soy sauce mixture to the pan until sauce thickens slightly. I quickly realized after adding all the onions that it wouldn’t all fit in my skillet, so I heated up my wok and mixed everything into it. I also couldn’t get my sauce to thicken like in the pictures, but it may be because I didn’t really measure all my sauce ingredients.

5. Serve with crushed peanuts and green onions. I used almonds since I’m allergic to peanuts, but I bet it would also be tasty with cashews.

YUM YUM YUM YUM YUUUM!

it may not look appetizing, but have you ever heard cheese bubble and sizzle? it's like the cheese was orgasming.

WARNING: this recipe gets pretty sexy, which should always be expected when massive amounts of cheese are involved.

1. After shredding your cheese and measuring out your spices, heat just the milk and cream in a sauce pan over medium heat. Make sure it doesn’t get too warm or else it’ll curdle. Sick nasty. Also, when I originally went grocery shopping I didn’t get enough milk. But it was OK, because the additional cream and cheese made up for it.

2. In a separate pan, melt the butter, then whisk the flour and make sure there are no clumps, and slowly add the milk mixture. Ooooh yeah.

3. Remove from heat and add the spices and 3/4 of the cheese. Stir the mixture until it makes a smooth, cheesy sauce. That’s right. A cheesy sauce that slowly sticks to the spoon. Sexy, right? Now add some lemon juice…yeahhh.

4. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and cook your pasta for 3-4 minutes so that it’s cooked but still firm. Nice and firm. Can you believe it’s legal to make something this decadent?

5. After draining the pasta, pour into a casserole dish and pour the cheese sauce over it. Does this not turn you on? I’m so turned on by all this cheese sauce.

6. Top with the remaining cheese, and bake for 35 minutes, or until the pasta is tender and the cheese has a nice brown crust. OH MY GOD so delicious. And it keeps pretty well overnight.

Was that not one of the hottest, sexiest cooking experiences you’ve ever had?