Delightful Deviled Eggs

Start out by boiling some eggs. Feel free to arrange them any way you'd like. ;-) How you actually boil them is entirely up to you - everyone has their own method.

Cut your perfectly boiled eggs in half and admire their beautiful colors.

Apologize to the egg whites for stealing their sunshine.

This is what you're going to start out with...

...and this is what it'll look like when you're finished mashing those yolks. At least that's what we're hoping.

Here's an ingredient that'll make these deviled eggs unique. Grab the nearest red bell pepper and mince away to your heart's content.

Mustn't forget the chives! Snip away at a bunch of these.

Mix them in well. You wouldn't want any of the deviled eggs to miss out on their fair share of pepper and chives!

Why, yes...Jennifer will take a picture of anything and everything while I'm cooking.

You'll need plenty of dollops to get the mixture nice and creamy. Add just a spoonful or so at a time until you are getting close to the right consistency.

Don't forget the mustard!

Pepper and eggs. Can't have one without the other. Okay, maybe you can...but that's beside the point.

Mix, mix, mix...

You can't add pepper without putting in some salt!

Secret ingredient for a little "kick". Just a few dashes should do.

Fill up yer bag and pipe away! You could do this with simply a spoon, or even a Ziploc bag with the corner snipped off. But then you lose the artistic element, and you wouldn't want to do that, would you?

A few extra sprinkles of chives to top it off. And of course the necessary Paprika. I also snuck in a little Cajun spice to top it off.

The eggs look so much happier now.

You can make these the day ahead and put them in the fridge.

Jessica's Deviled Eggs:

12 Eggs

2T Red Bell Pepper, diced

2T chives, chopped

2t mustard

6-8T mayo

1t salt

1t black pepper

paprika

Boil the eggs. Peel and then slice in half. Scoop out the egg yolks and place them in a boil. Use a fork, spoon, or clean hands to finely crumble the yolks. Add the finely diced red bell pepper and chives. Mix well. Add the mayo, salt, and pepper. Mix and then taste to see what ingredients are lacking and add whatever you find lacking (a little at a time!). Fill your piping bag with the new and improved yolk mixture and pipe it back into the lonely egg whites. Sprinkle the paprika and any additional spices on top. Enjoy immediately, or rub a sheet of plastic wrap lightly with oil and place it on top. I wouldn't make these up more than a day in advance. If nothing else, they wouldn't last that long!

Spanish Braised Chicken

1 T of butter (not pictured)
4 large chicken breast halves
1/2 t salt
1/4 t black pepper
2 cloves chopped garlic
1/2 t dried thyme
3 bell peppers, sliced (I used red and orange)
1 medium yellow onion, sliced in rings
1/2 cup cooking sherry (you could use apple juice)
2 t orange juice
12 large green olives, chopped

Plug in your crockpot and turn it to low. Add the butter to the bottom of the stoneware insert. Add the chicken--my chicken was frozen, but thawed would work, too. Add all of the dried spices to the chicken. Cut the peppers and onion, and chop or mince the garlic, to add to the mix. Top off with the cooking sherry and orange juice. Chop up the green olives, and sprinkle them on top.

Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours.

This recipe for Spanish Braised Chicken comes from A Year of Slow Cooking, my favorite place to find crockpot recipes. I copied and pasted the recipe from the blog, so the comments in the recipe itself are not mine.

This recipe is a crockpot recipe, but I needed a quick meal so I decided to try this on the stove-top. It worked! The exact cooking time is going to depend on the thickness of the meat, but I've used several different pieces of chicken and found them to all cook up quite quickly. To convert this to stovetop, all you do is simply put the ingredients in a frying pan in the order specified. I then turned it on high until the wine started to boil, and then turned the heat down (anything from medium to simmer works).

As for the wine, I had to substitute red cooking wine, as the store was sold out of cooking sherry. Yes, I know that you shouldn't cook with wine you wouldn't drink, and that cooking wine is very inferior. Once my confidence in cooking with wine increases, I promise I will branch out more. ;-)

My alterations were:
1 bag of frozen pepper/onion mix (instead of fresh onions/peppers)
red cooking wine (instead of cooking sherry)
Stovetop cooking (instead of the crockpot)
Different pieces of chicken (I think they were thighs, so just about any chicken would work)

Other possible alterations:
If you end up like me and need dinner ready in fifteen minutes (like I did yesterday!), here is another variation.
One fresh bell pepper (I was out of frozen peppers and fresh green peppers are cheaper than the others)
White cooking wine (discover you used the rest of the red cooking wine last time you made Spanish braised chicken, so you use this as a substitute)
Powdered garlic (a.k.a. forget to put in garlic, so you sprinkle some powered garlic on top after adding the rest of the ingredients).
Chicken tenderloins (they cooked extremely fast).
Omit the orange juice (or forget. Same thing. ;-).

This is some of the most delicious, juicy, tender, moist, flavorful chicken you'll ever taste. Yep, I love it! :-)

The Best Potato Salad Ever

Quite frankly, I have no idea where this potato salad recipe originated from as I learned how to make it from my mother. We've served it for Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas for as long as I can remember. I have never seen or tasted any potato salad like it, but it is certainly the best potato salad I've ever had. Keep in mind the measurements are approximate, so feel free to add more as less as your palate dictates.

Here's what you'll need:

White Potatoes, one 5 lb bag

3 Tablespoons Mayo (plain yogurt can be substituted)
3 Tablespoons Mustard

3 chopped eggs (hard-boiled)

1 cup chopped pickles

1 cup sliced green olives

1/2 cup diced bell pepper (can be green, red, or yellow)

A splash of apple cider vinegar

Bake the potatoes, naked, in the oven at 400 degrees until tender (30-45 minutes). Slice the potatoes in half and scoop the potato out of the skin into a large bowl. (If the potatoes are too hot to handle, then let them cool for several minutes after slicing them in half before scooping out the potato) Add the mustard and mayo. Mix well. The potato mixture should be creamy at this point - if it isn't, add more mustard and mayo until it is. ;-) Throw in the chopped eggs, pickles, green olives, and bell pepper. Mix well, making certain to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. You don't want to get to the bottom of the bowl and discover a mound of empty potato mash! Add a splash or two of apple cider vinegar, and mix well one last time before serving.

Roasted Carrots

Say hello to the best cooked carrots you'll ever taste. The recipe is courtesy of The Pioneer Woman. The dish is so basic you just about don't need a recipe.

What you need:
Carrots (about 12 or so)
Olive Oil
Fresh Thyme (though dried may work)
Salt
Pepper

Slice the carrots in half so that they are approximately the same size. Lay them out in the pan and drizzle with olive oil. Toss to coat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste, then throw a handful or so of thyme on the top. Slide the pan into a 400 degree oven until the carrots are all nice and wrinkly (about thirty minutes or so). Take a picture quickly before they disappear, or you may end up without a trace that you actually made these.