Sweet Eats

We are getting a little more snow tonight so I am curling up and trying to keep warm. And of course we needed some comfort food. I was craving something sugary so everything I made had slight sweet taste. We had barbeque chicken sandwiches, potatoes, cornbread salad, and okra salad. I know – two salads – but I wanted them both and we are just real lucky that I decided against making potato salad, too (which actually sounded good to me). The recipes are below…




Pulled Chicken

Ok. I cheat. I never have time to smoke a chicken. Especially during the week. I boil it like this:

1 whole chicken
2 boxes of Swanson chicken broth
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
¼ tsp garlic powder

When it is starting to fall off the bone I remove it from the broth, pull it off the bone and shred it with a fork. Then I toss it in Sticky Fingers “Carolina Sweet” barbeque sauce. I use it because it seems a little thinner than other brands and it’s quicker than making my own! It’s pretty good, too :) It also tastes better if you sing "Sweet Caroline...Bah bah bah" while stirring.

Then I serve it on Hawaiian Sweet Rolls

Potatoes. Kinda a mix between Scallop Potatoes and Jackson Potatoes.

Here’s how:

4-6 gold potatoes, sliced very thinly

In a bowl, whisk together:

1 pt whipping cream
½ C sour cream
1 tsp salt
½ tsp coarse pepper
½ tsp garlic powder
1 C cheese (I use marbled cheddar

Lay one layer of potatoes in a greased baking dish and spoon a small amount of liquid. Make sure you get some of the cheese – it tends to sink to the bottom of the bowl. Repeat layering until you are out of potatoes. Then pour whatever is left over of the liquid on top. Cover and bake at 375 degrees for one hour.

Remove the foil after one hour and top with roughly another 1 C of cheese. Let that melt and then finish the dish off by sprinkling Club cracker on top. I chop mine up into a fine powder in the food processor until it is extremely fine. Dust like. And then broil it for a couple of minutes until it is brown.

Cornbread Salad. A whole bunch of whatever I have. This changes a lot depending what kind of vegetables I have. This is one of Derrick’s favorite things I make…Thanks for turning me onto it, Katie!

2 boxes of Jiffy Cornbread (baked as instructed)
½ green pepper, chopped
½ red pepper, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
¼ of one of those enormous red onions, chopped
Mayo, as much as you want, as long as it is Duke’s

And of course sprinkle some bacon on it.

Break the cornbread into large chunks and toss in the peppers, tomatoes and onion. Then coat it all with Duke’s. We personally like a lot. It is very creamy when I make it, but it doesn’t have to be. The cornbread makes it really sweet and the Duke’s compliments it perfectly.

Okra Salad
Oh yes. You can make this one sweet, too.


2 pkgs frozen okra, breaded and fried
2 tomatoes, chopped
3 green onions, chopped

While your okra is cooking you can take

¼ C apple cider vinegar
½ C sugar

Bring these to a slight simmer until it makes a thick syrup. If you let it cool before you use it all it will harden up and it tough to get out of the pan – just reheat it and a splash of vinegar and it will soften again.

After mixing all of you veggies together, drizzle a little syrup on to coat them. This obviously doesn’t reheat well. Once again, sprinkle some bacon on top.

So everything on the menu was sweet…no dessert needed but maybe an appointment with the dentist :)