Exciting Blessed Life of Jenny Lou: Day 7: Saturday cooking

Our Saturday morning started off with a Scavenger hunt for the kids in the house. Oh how they loved it and had so much fun. They worked up a great appetite.

Breakfast:

Breakfast for us was homemade buttermilk biscuits & gravy, and bacon. Like I've said before; everything is better with bacon.
I always start off with all my ingredients out and ready to go, makes the process go a little faster.

Not a whole lot of ingredients; salt, Crisco, flour, butter, baking soda and baking powder, and buttermilk. Next you combine all your dry ingredients together and stir that up real well. Add your shortening and cold butter (make sure to cut them into pieces) and use your pastry cutter thingy and mix it all together real well until you have coarse crumbs.

Then add in your buttermilk.

Using a fork combine everything together until mixed well. The dough will be sticky. So if you need to add a little bit more buttermilk, by all means do so. We want these to turn out good and yummy to our tummy. Once you have your sticky dough place it on a floured surface and then roll it out to the thickness you wish your biscuits to be.

Using a biscuit cutter; if you don't have one you may use a cup, but use that and cut the dough until you have run out of room. Place your raw biscuits onto a greased cookie sheet and bake.
Make sure that if your biscuits are thin you adjust your baking time...I almost burnt mine. I took them out of the oven just in time. I wasn't pleased with the presentation of them, but the taste was really good.

They weren't big and fluffy, but it's ok we all ate them. Breakfast is now served:

After breakfast when my husband is home we always have a toss up of who is going to clean up the mess. By this time we are full and not wanting to even move from the table. But can you guess who won the toss us?

Which of course...I finally got up and helped him. I didn't want him to feel alone.

Dinner:

We kinda really skipped lunch today. Still very full from breakfast. And a yummy dinner ready for us so we had to make sure that we had a big spot in our tummy's.
Chicken spaghetti was the choice for dinner today. I went away from my ritual, cause I didn't get all the ingredients together at one time. I started preparing the chicken cause I knew it would take the longest.
Cleaned it up real good...eww gross. Make sure to wash your hands afterwards. Placed it in my soup pot and filled it up with water.

Stuck it on the stove until the thermometer read 165 degrees. Went ahead and got my onions and bell peppers cut up and the other ingredients ready to go.

Look at that big bag of cheese, don't that look good? Don't worry we won't use the whole thing in this recipe. Now here is where I went a little away from the recipe (Here is the recipe). The recipe calls for pimento's, I did not use those cause of my kids. And you are actually suppose to just put raw onions and bell peppers in it, oh no not me. I don't think raw crunchy things like that in my food. So I went ahead and softened them in some butter.

Now talk about a great smellin' house. I really have tried to find a candle that is called onions and bell peppers. You know Thanksgiving morning that smell in the house....oh that's what it smelt like...love it.

Once your chicken is done take it out and place in a bowl to cool off, once it's cooled off you may de-bone it. Take out 2 cups of the broth and set it aside. Now place your spaghetti in the broth and cook till done. I added a little bit of salt in the broth, but it's not necessary. After your spaghetti is done drain.
Now your onions and bell peppers are done, your spaghetti is done , and your chicken is de-boned. Place your spaghetti, cream of mushroom soup, bell peppers and onions, cheese, chicken, and seasonings in a bowl. Mix together well. Taste. HA HA....this recipe actually tells me to taste. My husband can't make fun of me for testing.

If it's all good...place in a glass dish. Let's add more cheese on the top. Ready to bake. Bake for 35 minutes, just till it's bubbly.
Now time to eat:

This was some really really good chicken spaghetti. It makes so much, so now we have left overs in the freezer for another night. The only thing I would recommend is to not put too much cayenne pepper or black pepper in it. It was a little spicy for my kiddos.

Dessert:

Whoever said that you don't "need" dessert after you eat a great meal like this is CRAZY. For me and my kids it's like we leave this extra space in our bellies for dessert. It's a must in my house. So tonight's dessert will go with tomorrow's dinner as well. YIPPEE....no dessert makin' tomorrow, just dinner. Rest...is that what I'm thinking. Sure is!!!

I made a chocolate sheet cake. Just the word chocolate makes it sound good. Let's see how this goes....

Now these are the ingredients just for the cake. You do use those 2 whole sticks of butter. Why does butter taste so good? Do you know?
Mix your dry ingredients in a bowl real well; Flour, sugar, and salt. In another bowl mix your eggs, buttermilk, vanilla, and baking soda with a fork until combined.

In a sauce pan on the stove melt your butter. Once your butter is melted add your cocoa. After all that is combined and melted well add in 1 cup of boiling water. I know this sounds confusing once you read this recipe it will make more sense to you. After adding the water and letting it boil just a little while then remove from stove and add to your dry ingredients.

Mix well and allow your chocolate to cool down a little bit; while stirring the cool down process should happen. Now add in your egg mixture. If you were to add those egg into that hot chocolate it would turn to scrambled eggs, you don't want that. :) Mix in the eggs real well.

Time to place it into a cookie sheet, A.K.A. jelly roll pan. Funny story about a jelly roll pan. During Christmas time I was at WM searching for a jelly roll pan cause I needed to make a pumpkin roll. And it called for a jelly roll pan. I'm looking and looking. Even reading the shelf labels...jelly roll pan? I wasn't finding one. So I called my mom....hey mom! Where can I find a jelly roll pan at? She replies....at WM by the pans. It's not here I said. She was confused, WM defiantly sells cookie sheets. Well mom I'm not looking for a cookie sheet I'm looking for a jelly roll pan. Jennifer.....she replies.....it's the same thing.

Back to the cake. So you've placed your mixture into your cookie sheet.

Now time to bake, but for only 20 minutes. While your cake is baking you want to prepare your icing. This cake is iced while it's hot. That's the best way!

Getting all the ingredients together...

In a sauce pan on the stove melt butter, once melted, add in your cocoa...just like we did for the cake batter. Once that's melted and mixed well, add in your milk and vanilla. Now time for the powder sugar. I sifted it so it wouldn't clump up...but that's all up to you. Mix in the powder sugar real well. You want it really smooth.

Your cake is now done...Immediately pour the icing over it evenly.

Be careful cause as I was icing the cake the icing was slowly coming out around the sides. It's ok..just use your finger and wipe it off. Then lick your finger...yum!!!

So now the cake is iced and ready to be eaten.

Hey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Where are my corners. Mamaw have you been to my house. Not really!!

Funny story. Whenever my mom makes her Texas Chocolate Cake the corners always end up missing. Usually it's Mamaw taking a corner to test it. So of course here I am testing it just like my Mamaw. Love that woman!!!!

Enjoy this cake with a scoop of ice cream.