Crockpot Beer Chicken

I found a recipe on Pinterest I decided to try.  It's a slow cooker recipe using spices and a can of beer.  It had rave reviews.  It sounded intriguing enough that I just had to try it :) Other than a can of beer, the only other ingredients are 1/2 tsp of five different spices...and the recipe said you could use whatever spices you choose. I used 5 boneless breasts and a pack of 6 boneless thighs.  I served it with jasmine rice cooked in chicken broth.

The way everyone was ranting and raving over it, I was expecting fireworks to go off in my mouth when I tasted it :)  To be honest, I wasn't overly impressed.  It was good, but didn't make me ooooh and ahhhhh....however, there was a nice amount of chicken and broth left over; I used a fork and a spoon to shred the remaining chicken, which I proceeded to warm up this evening to use as chicken BBQ.  Now, THAT, I enjoyed ;-)

I can see me making it again; it was a great way to make one meal, plus have chicken left over to make BBQ with for another meal.  And it had much more taste than the way I currently make BBQ (boil some breasts, shred them and add a can of cream of celery soup).

The author of the recipe also mentioned that they've made the same recipe using pork, and then made pulled pork....which sounds like something I may try at some point, too.

Overall, I'll be making this again.  It's easy and was good.  In addition, if I throw in some extra breasts, the shredding part went so quickly, I can easily another meal for another time.

Crockpot Beer Chicken

4-6 chicken breasts, boneless or bone-in...or any combo of chicken
1 can of any kind of beer
1/2 tsp of each:
garlic powder
basil
paprika
black pepper
kosher salt

*You can use whatever spices you prefer

Put all ingredients into slow cooker.
If frozen, cook on high 4-5 hours or low 8-10 hours
If fresh, cook on high 3-4 hours or low 7-8 hours

LOL!

Not even sure what's going on here, but it's too funny :)

Yum! Yum! New England Clam Chowder

I found this recipe in the Northampton Press this week. I've never made New England clam chowder, but it looked pretty easy to make, so I thought I'd give it a shot. We all really liked it :)

Recipe:

1/2 cup butter
1/2 onion, diced
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 stalks celery, diced
1 teaspoon dried thyme (If there's anything you'd cut back on a bit, this'd be it!)
1/2 cup flour
8 (6.5 ounce) cans clams with juice
2 cups cooked diced potatoes
1 quart half-and-half
3 strips bacon, cooked and diced (I used 4 strips)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
3 dashes Tabasco sauce

1.  Melt butter.  Add onion, garlic, celery and thyme.  Saute until onions are transparent.  Add flour; cook, stirring 5 minutes.

2.  Add clams and clam juice.  Cook over medium-low heat 20-30 minutes (do not boil).

3.  Add potatoes and half-and-half; heat on low.  Do not boil or cream may break.

4.  Stir in bacon, salt, pepper and Tabasco.  Makes 2 quarts.

(Now this is the part I didn't look at until after we were done :)  Per 1 cup serving: 448 calories, 24 gms fat, 193 mg chol, 36 gm protein, 26 gm carbs, 1 gm fiber, 1227 mg sodium.  Minor details....)

His Name Shall Be Jesus

Penn State Proud!

I can't even talk about this football team without tearing up. There are so many people who are so proud of these young men and their loyalty to this university. For me, it wasn't about the wins and losses this year; this group of athletes stood together and showed the world the meaning of 'We Are....'

 

Smarty Pants!

When we saw Adam a few weeks ago on our way home from Niagara Falls, he asked me if anyone looked at my blog anymore. I told him I thought people did, but that hardly anyone comments anymore :( I thought that was the end of the story.

Tonight he asks me if I had noticed if there were more hits on my blog.  I noted that I hadn't even looked at the counter.  He proceeds to pull my blog up on his phone and shows me that I have over 200,000 hits.  He said last month, it was just over 47,000 and asked if I knew who was looking at my blog.  I immediately suspected he was up to no good ;)  Which turned out to be the very case!

Here he wrote a computer program and set it up to run the weekend he was at the DM conference and every second of the weekend it registered a 'hit' on my counter!  Smart alec!

Where's Waldo....er, Adam!?!?

Alyssa made a stop at the new Trader Joe's in State College before returning home earlier today. She made just a few purchases :) Here's a smattering:

 (Oh, and by the way, where's Waldo....er, I mean Adam?!!??!)

Penn State Love :)

Adam got Alyssa a ticket for the game today :)

(The top part of the pic below was taken back in 2010 and the bottom half was from today.  Who do you think looks the most changed?  I vote Adam!)

Couldn't Resist :)

Tree B'Gone

DCF Happenings :)

I borrowed all these pics from Facebook :)  

This is the Penn State contingent from the DiscipleMakers Fall Conference that was held last month.

Notice the horsehead in the background :)  This was their Hallowe'en party:

They held a Fall Ball on Saturday evening:

Hurricane Sandy

We woke up to our huge pine tree's branches resting gently on our house last week after Hurricane Sandy's wind and rain came through the Lehigh Valley.  Today the tree was cut down :(  By the time I got home this evening, it was already dark, so I couldn't really get a feel for how bare the area looks, but as Alyssa put it, 'it looks naked.'

Vacation-Last Day!

This was the rustic lodge we stayed at our last night in Watkins Glen:

We visited the International Motor Racing Research Center on our last day before we headed back to PA.  Kurt thought we'd be there about 15 minutes....an hour later....

It was actually kinda neat, we watched a 20 minute video about Watkins Glen Race Course.  We also drove the original 6.6 mile road course on Wednesday afternoon, which was, I'm sure, a highlight of the trip for Kurt :)

We took a detour through Wellsboro, PA and a short drive to the Grand Canyon of PA.  Had we been there about two weeks earlier, I think we would have seen some phenomenal fall colors.  It was still pretty neat, though:

There was a couple standing by us who spotted a bald eagle waaayyyy down in the ravine.  It took me quite a long time until I was able to make this guy out!  This picture was taken with my zoom and you can actually see it much better in the pic than you could in real life:

After a very long drive through much nothing-ness, we came upon my favorite sight in the world-Beaver Stadium:)

And just happened to find these two on the side of the road.  They looked hungry, so we took them to dinner:)  We spent less than two hours in State College, then headed back home to Danielsville.  We had a wonderful time and it was so good to get away for a few days.

Here's our wine purchases: