Anyone that lives in the South has a love/hate with the Chick-Fil-A sandwhich. You love it because it is just about the most delicious thing you’ve ever put in your mouth..and you hate it because you always crave one on Sunday and the entire chain shuts down on Sundays!!!!
So when I found this copy cat recipe on Pinterest last week I quickly got the ingredients to make it. I have visions of my family giving me big hugs an cheers for recreating our favorite sandwhich at home..but it didn’t quit work out that way.
It was good…but not Chick-Fil-A good. But it was good. I’ll make it again…but still …it’s not Chick-Fil-A.
I should note that every single piece of chicken that I painstakingly fried was eating…quickly. But still..it’s not Chick-Fil-A.
Chick-fil-A Copycat Chicken Sandwiches Adapted from a recipe by Food Network Kitchens; Makes 4 sandwiches
Cut the chicken breast in half horizontally, to make 4 thin pieces. Place each piece between heavy plastic, and pound to 1/8 thick with a mallet of skillet. Season the chicken with 1 teaspoon kosher salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and 1/2 teaspoon paprika.
In a shallow baking dish, whisk together egg, milk, and 2 tablespoons water. In another baking dish, whisk together both types of flour, dry milk, powdered sugar, baking soda, dry mustard, and remaining 1/2 teaspoon paprika, and 1 teaspoon each salt and pepper. Meanwhile, heat about two inches of peanut oil to 325 degrees in a heavy-bottomed pot or cast iron skillet. While oil heats, slice pickle, and set aside.
Working in batches, dip chicken in the egg mixture, turning to coat, then dredge in flour mixture and shake off any excess. Fry the chicken in hot oil, using a candy thermometer to monitor oil temperature, until golden brown, about 4 minutes. Drain on paper towels.
Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Spread the cut side of the buns with some butter, and lightly toast in the skillet, buttered-side down. To assemble sandwiches, spread grilled buns with more butter, dip 2 pickle slices in jarred pickle juice to moisten and place on the bottom bun. Top with a piece of fried chicken and the bun top.
This new study came out this week that says most women who considered themselves ‘SuperMoms’…you know the ones who work a full-time job, hit the gym five times a week, shuttle the kids to tball and soccer, clean the house, do the laundry, cook dinners, pack lunches, volunteer at the PTA, and drive themselves NUTS trying to make everything PERFECT.
These women have clean cars and houses, they never run out of clean towels, dinner is always on time and delicious…yeah…I know. This kind of Mom really doesn’t exist.
The experts in the video say that somewhere along the way during the feminist movement we lost our desire to have ‘purpose’ in our lives and now we strive to be ‘perfect’ in our lives. And this brings on depression because we can’t be perfect. It’s a pipe-dream. Unattainable. So why drive yourself nuts???
I’m guilty of it too. There have been times in my life as a mom that picked cleaning the kitchen or doing laundry over sitting down to play a game with my kids. Why is it that we think our home needs to be cleaned and picked up 12 times a day when the kids are just going to get the exact same toys out and throw them all over the house after nap time anyway???
After my second kid was born I had to let go of alot of things that I normally wouldn’t dream of not taking care of right away. For example, don’t ever take a DVD box out of the entertainment center at my house and think you are going to find the correct movie inside. It just doesn’t happen.
So the moral of the story is….give yourself a break. None of us are perfect and everyone’s floor needs to be swept and we all have laundry that needs to be done.
**When your SO makes comments about chores not getting done around the house just smile and say “You are right honey. I do need to clean the windows in the upstairs bedroom.” And, “No I didn’t see all the spiderwebs in the corner of the bathroom. I’ll get right on that, ok?” Then just go back to playing Connect Four with your kid.
My kids are no where near old enough to drive yet, Ugh..I don’t even like to type the words “kids” and “drive” at the same time. Setting your ditzy-hormone-filled-social-butterfly-kids loose in a car is scary enough…add in the fact that almost ALL teens text and drive and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
Admit it, you do it. So why wouldn’t your teen driver do it too? They will. No doubt.
Unless….you are the smart and savvy mommy and put one of the new ‘block texting while driving’ apps on their phone. God bless the person that invented this bit of tech coolness. It works like this…you kid picks up his/her phone to text something unnecessary like ‘Where u at?” and if their car is in motion….BAM…NO TEXTING!!!
There is even a way to set it up that you will be alerted when your smart-techy kid jailbreak his/her phone and disables the no text-drive app.
Genius. This is the kind of thing that people who know how write computer viruses and smarty-pants stuff should be doing…use your technically gifted brain for something positive people! Believe me…if my brain worked this way I’d be the most hated mom in America. I’d be disabled teenage crap left and right.
You do what you need to do to keep your goofball teenagers safe.
So the girl turned 1 year old this weekend. It was a beautiful sunny day and our entire family came from far and wide to celebrate our little princess on her special day. We had gorgeous decorations, delicious food, lots of fun in the pool, yummy cupcakes and of course tons of presents. But was baby girl happy? Not so much. She was teething…hard. My normally super chill baby girl picks this one day out of her entire life to be fussy.
Still..I think she had a good time. At least the part she was awake for.
I tried really hard not to go overboard…but as simple as it all looks…I obsessed over every detail as I always do but this time even worse. Because it was my BABY GIRL’S FIRST BIRTHDAY!!!!!! No matter how many times I say it…it doesn’t get any more believable.
Here’s what it ended up looking like after all my fussing….
And this is what she did part of the day…..
And this is what she did the other half of the day…
But while she WAS awake she was like Tiny Dancer cuteness to the MAX:
And when all the last cupcake was eaten and the last toy was unwrapped..she bid us all adieu!
Believe it or not, the recipes featured in the Martha Stewart segment on The Today Show this morning actually were EASY.
I have a love/hate with Martha. I think she is probably a biatch in real life and comes across soooo pretentious to me sometimes that I want to freakin’ slap her in the face.
But then…she really does do everything PERFECTLY. And a tiny part of me wants to do everything perfectly too so she motivates me.
So when I see something she’s done like a delicious looking Chocolate Pecan Pie I get ambitious and try to make it for Thanksgiving and it turns out AWFUL and no one can eat it because the recipe was so freakin’ hard and I am embarrassed and feel inadequate because I am in fact not as perfect as Martha. UGH!
But these recipes she featured on this morning really are easy. One pan and just a few ingredients. The egg/greens/mushroom thing looked like a great breakfast and the Tuscany inspired chicken and olive dish looked so good I wanted to pull it right out of the tv and chop it at 8:30 in the morning! I am a sucker for green olives.
After watching this freakin’ hilarious trailer for Up All Night starring Christina Applegate and Will Arnett I am literally counting down the days on my iPhone calender until it premieres September 14 on NBC.
How refreshing it is for a sit-com to be about what being first time parents is really like. Awesome and crappy at the same time. It’s hilarious to watch these two great comedic actors (and both parents in real life) bring to the small screen the utter and soul filling joy of watching your baby sleep and the sheer and total terror you feel when you realize you have no idea what you are doing and that your little 8 pound bundle is totally in control now. Admit it. It’s a horrifying feeling when you realize everything you’ve learned and accomplished in your life means NOTHING if you can’t get a diaper changed in 20 seconds without getting peed on.
As I was watching this trailer and laughing so hard I was snorting, the girl (who turns one year old next week by the by) was sitting in my lap with her lamb and her paci and looking at her mommy like I was complete moron. If she only knew.
This show is going to be a huge success because it’s real and it looks like they aren’t going to be afraid of talking about the ugly stuff too. But in a funny way.
Watch this video…and if you aren’t doubled over with laughter when Christina screams, “We are trying to help you!”, or when Will says, “Wanna do it real quick?”, or when he realizes how sad his social life is now that a solo trip to the Target snack bar is exciting..then certainly you MUST have laughed at him bumbling around the grocery store unable to find the cheese. See, I’m cracking up again just typing this. Not to mention how sweet and heart melting the tiny pile of socks is…and also a sad representation of what your life will never be again.
Okay mom on aisle nine, from the looks of your quilted Eddie Bauer grocery cart cover, I can tell that like me, you are a first-timer, extra paranoid about germs and guilty of registering for crap you didn’t need. Either that, or your kid gets sick often, which means she probably goes to daycare.
The mom with amazingly lean biceps at the yogurt store with her toddler in the late afternoon, well, not only is she a stay-at-home mom, her gym has free childcare.
She reads Us Weekly on the treadmill and watches anything on Bravo.
When it comes to baking I sometimes think I have a black thumb…I can’t ever seem to time the cookies just right….my cakes fall in the middle and no matter how hard I try I rarely get special treats to turn out looking they should.
Instead of just admitting that I am a bad baker, I let the kids get involved then my excuse for the mess is, “The boy had so much fun making these and he is so proud of them. Aren’t they beautiful?”
Ever since I went to the Metropolitan Cooking Show I have been dying to try my hand at making some of these trendy, cute cake pops. Then a few weeks ago at the boy’s end of year party one of the fabulous moms made these adorable Panda Pops. I mean really? Have you ever seen anything cuter?
While I was hanging out with my sister and all our kids at Mimi’s earlier this week, we decided on a whim to make some brownie cake pops. Because we had tons of brownie mix and more truthfully, I was having a major chocolate craving that only a dense, thick brownie was going to cure.
Here’s what we used:
2 box of snack sized brownie mix
large container of chocolate icing
candy quick melting chocolate
tons of sprinkles
chocolate marshmallows****
My sister baked the brownies, let them cool then crumbled them up. Then she mixed in the chocolate frosting until we got the brownies to a consistency that would somewhat form into a ball. It’s a little fuzzy now because we were doing this around bedtime but I’m pretty sure she put the entire bowl of brownie/frosting mix in the fridge for a while to cool and get a bit more firm.
(I’ve told ya’ll several times this is a Real Mom Recipe blog…I rarely have formal recipes!)
Then we formed the brownie /frosting mix into balls, stuck craft sticks in each one, and line the kids up. They dipped in melted chocolate and then made a huge mess with the sprinkles. In hindsight it would have looked much prettier to use while chocolate with the sprinkles…but when I’m in the middle of a serious chocolate fit it’s all chocolate all the time in my crowded head.
So, no where near as pretty and cute as the Panda Pops that I fell in love with, but we all had a blast making them. It’s worth the not so pretty result when your kids are being creative and enjoying actually creating something instead of playing video games.
***sidenote***these don’t really work well with brownie mix..it’s too heavy and we had some trouble keeping the bigger ones on the sticks. Also…light colored melted chocolate or frosting would have been much prettier covering the round pops.
***I have no idea why I grabbed the chocolate marshmallows at the store..but everyone had fun dipping these as well. Marshmallows taste surprisingly good when drenched in chocolate.
Lunch – Carb Master Yogurt and granola ***note…I tried to eat a plain grilled chicken sandwhich from McDonalds while running errands with the kids and my nephews today…but I just couldn’t stomach it. So I just chunked it and ate some yogurt when I got home. (280 calories)
Snack – Turkey Pepperoni and Figo String Cheese (140 calories)
Unplanned Second Snack – Graham Cracker Sticks (160 calories) *** really these were baby grahams that the girl was snacking on and I just mindlessly ate with her. Mindless snacking is one of my nutritional downfalls that I am working on.
Dinner – Cheese and Pepperoni Omelette with an apple (330 calories)
Exercise – None today other than running my booty off taking care of a crazy teething baby and her high-strung big brother.
I told you my days weren’t always balanced. Especially a day like today that had me up early at the pediatrician and then running about 11 errands before I finally got back to my home base this week. My menu over the past few days and until later in the week will be repetitive and a bit carb heavy until I get back to my familiar kitchen stock full of the good stuff.
I am totally ADDICTED to Kashi Go Lean Rolls. I usually try to save them for when I have a bad sweet craving and not eat them everyday. They are made by Kashi and the ingredients are a bit healthier than say your average granola bar. But they are still processed and not really a whole food. But, they do in a pinch and they fill me up AND calm my sweet tooth. There are not too many things that do that. But when I’m traveling or just having a super busy SUPER MOM day I stuff one or two in my bag just in case.
