June 2024 Reading Wrap-Up
Category Archives: 2024
Jenn and Donald’s Chicken Pot Pie Stew Over Rice
This wasn’t a planned meal, but we hadn’t made our grocery list yet for the week and were winging it with what we had on hand. What we ended up with was basically a chicken pot pie (minus the pie part) and served it over some jasmine rice.
Ingredients
- 4 Tbsp. butter – we like KerryGold
- 1 c. carrots, diced – I didn’t measure them, just grabbed a bunch of baby carrots until I was tired of dicing them
- 3-7 cloves of garlic, minced – garlic is a variable, add as much as you like
- 3 chicken breasts, grilled then diced into small pieces – you can make the chicken however you want, but it was nice out and Donald likes to grill
- 1/4 c. flour
- 4 c. chicken broth – you might be able to use a cup less, but we were waiting on the rice to finish cooking and kept adding more and cooking it down
- 1/2 tsp. thyme – I mean, I didn’t actually measure it
- 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes – again, imprecise addition, no sense in dirtying another measuring spoon
- Salt and pepper to taste – I use less salt because I don’t use the low-sodium chicken broth
- 1/2 to 3/4 c. heavy cream – we used heavy cream in a recipe earlier in the week, so I just added whatever was leftover
Directions
- Send your significant other outside to grill up the chicken breasts. Donald had decided to marinate them in Italian salad dressing for about 1/2 hour prior to grilling. While this is happening, prep the other ingredients. Donald also measured out the flour and put all the other ingredients on the kitchen counter.
- Set up a cutting board, knife, prep bowl, paper towel, and your iPhone at the table. Watch an enjoyable TV show or YouTube video while dicing the carrots and mincing the garlic. Toss them together into a prep bowl as you go.
- In a large pot (hopefully, one with good handles, as mine does not and I used a potholder to hold it in place, but the potholder was too big and I ended up singeing it), melt the butter, then add the carrots and garlic. Stir for a few minutes.
- Add the diced chicken, then sprinkle the flour and mix until everything has a nice coating. Cook for a couple minutes, then add the chicken broth (we reserved some, but ended up adding in the full 4 cups as we went). Add in the thyme, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper, then stir occasionally as the sauce thickens.
- While the stew cooks, make the rice. Donald used our rice cooker. It took longer than the stew, so I kept adding broth to the stew and cooking it down as we waited. It gave the carrots more time to soften, so it all worked out.
- Once the rice is done (and you don’t have to keep cooking down the stew), add the heavy cream to the stew and stir. Let it thicken for a couple minutes, then take it off the heat.
- Serve the stew over the rice and enjoy! We are currently watching episodes of “How I Met Your Mother” as our dinnertime entertainment.
May 2024 Reading Wrap-Up
New Flowers!
We have had this plan for the front yard planting bed for quite a few months. However, with Michigan weather, you have to wait until sometime in May before the risk of overnight freezing goes away. Our plan was to do this as soon as we returned from our vacation out west, but we unfortunately fell sick and that derailed us just a bit as we rested and recovered.
Thankfully, Mom was bored in the house and in the house bored on Sunday, so she called us looking for something to do while Dad watched his races at home. We invited her over and the three of us headed to Telly’s Greenhouse – a local plant shop that we like.
We had a hard time sticking to just plants for the planting bed, as there were so many pretty and interesting plants, but I think we did a good job with our selections! We wanted to have plants of varying heights, and ended up with some grasses and dahlias for the back, cosmos for the middle layer, and some feathery plants and the little colorful ones (I’d have to look at the tags to see what they were) for the short layer up front.
Donald and my mom go to work weeding out the planting bed and getting the dirt ready. There were some existing plants: a couple hostas and my azalea bush. There were a few baby mums, but we transferred these to some pots and will re-home them to the back yard. They had me come out periodically to help determine plant placement. When they didn’t need me, I was inside playing Animal Crossing. My island had been neglected.
We love our plants! I’m so glad that Donald loves keeping our yard looking great! It was a lot of fun to pick these out together. Disclaimer: Yes, I know the house needs painting. We are going to try and get that done this summer.
These are a few photos of the final result! The flowers will continue to grow and get established, and I’ll try to remember to post some updates later on. Of course, as it happens, it decided to rain pretty hard just an hour or so after we finished planting. We checked on the plants in the morning, and – for the most part – they looked to have survived the deluge pretty well. Just the cosmos flowers were bent over.
Donald quickly stood them back up and packed some dirt around them before we headed over to Mom and Dad’s for a Memorial Day lunch. After getting back home, he used some of the posts we had from our foray into tomato growing to bolster the cosmos a bit until they could get a little stronger.
We think it looks a lot better and the pops of color and cute flowers make us smile whenever we see them!
Love, Jenn and Donald
Incoming Posts!
We’ve been on quite the tour lately! 8 flights, 7 states, 4 National Parks, and 2 National Monuments!
I haven’t had a lot of time to catch up and organize all of our media yet, but I’m working on it! (Also, we’ve been a little sick, but more on that later.)
So, keep watching! We have lots to share!
Love, Jenn & Donald
April 2024 Reading Wrap-Up
March 2024 Reading Wrap-Up
A New Favorite? Sabbath Coffee Roasters
Since we moved away from Tallahassee, we have been searching for a local coffee shop that is comparable to our beloved Lucky Goat. We love Lucky Goat because they have great coffee and make the creamiest lattes that we’ve found anywhere. (Plus, they get some delicious pistachio muffins from a local bakery that are AMAZING, but that’s another story and another quest.) They also are the best foam artists that we’ve found, always giving us our caffeinated delights with a cute image on top.
We have found some good places, like Birmingham Roast and Kahve, but were still seeking out that elusive creaminess. When we went to Kahve, we had initially found both it and Sabbath Coffee Roasters, located quite close to each other on different corners of 14 Mile Rd and Main St. However, at the time, Sabbath had a long line out the door, so we decided to try Kahve first.
Today, after our brunch at Biscuits and Gravy, we decided to give Sabbath another try and grab a coffee to go before Donald had to start work. As soon as we pulled up, we saw a sign on the door alerting customers to continue the line outside – a clear indication that they frequently have more customers than can fit inside the store.
Upon entering, we saw that it was a very small space. You could only fit maybe 3-4 people in line in front of the counter before you hit the front door, and there was no indoor seating for you to enjoy your coffee (although, there was an alley with some outdoor seating available immediately adjacent to the shop). This area looks like it would make a really cute Instagram spot when the twinkle lights are lit at night. It appears to be part of a historical area, with a plaque on the outside of the shop’s building.
Inside, Sabbath is interestingly decorated with a variety of skeletons (including a skeleton dachshund!) and dinosaurs.
They have a small cold case in the lobby area with some Liquid Death water and their own branded Nitro Cold Brew.
We took home with us a bag of coffee beans: Liturgy, which is supposed to have notes of plum, milk chocolate, and açai berry. As for the coffee selections, Donald tried their Hot Pot of Gold and I tried a Honey Cinnamon Latte. They were as creamy as we had been hoping for! We may just have found our new favorite coffee spot! We didn’t take a look at the coffees before we traveled home with them, but even after a car ride, you can still see my heart and Donald’s leaf.
If you have any other great coffee shop recommendations, please send them our way!
— Jenn & Donald
Trying Out a New (To Us) Brunch Spot: Biscuits and Gravy
The white building with the large chicken on the roof is a familiar sight to those who live near Clawson, MI. It has been a few different restaurants, but most recently it has been renovated into a very popular brunch destination called Biscuits and Gravy.
Given that it’s located just steps from downtown, the restaurant’s footprint is a bit small – both inside and out. The parking lot fits almost exactly the number of cars that the dining tables can accommodate, meaning that if there is a wait for a table, you may also encounter a wait for a parking space. That said, the staff does a great job of managing turnover, and we only had to wait a few minutes for a table.
While cozy, the dining area had a light and airy decor, with touches of (fake) greenery throughout. The tables were well-spaced and the seating was more comfortable than most. We were greeted by coffee served in small mugs, which was clearly a deliberate decision meant to keep our coffee fresh and hot at all times. The servers were constantly circulating to refill mugs and replenish our supplies of creamer and sugar, without us having to ask for a thing!
Our eyes were bigger than our stomachs as we ordered the Big Breakfast, Meat Lovers Omelette, and the titular Biscuits and Gravy. The plates came out of the kitchen heaping with deliciousness! The bacon was extra crispy the way we like it, the grits were yummy, and surprisingly, they even managed to elevate the toast, which was light and crispy with the perfect butter taste!
The only, super minor, quibble that I had was, unfortunately, with the biscuits and gravy. It’s one of my favorite comfort breakfast foods, so I order it a lot in various locations. This version fell a bit short in my estimation, in comparison to the robust, seasoned offerings familiar to true Southern kitchens. However, this was just my opinion. Donald, our “true Southern boy,” delighted in their version, praising the biscuits for their homemade, old-fashioned quality akin to cornbread. I have to admit, those were the largest biscuits I’ve ever seen served with an order of biscuits and gravy! For just $1 more, you get two instead of one, so you can’t go wrong with ordering the set and splitting with your table mate!
Overall, we loved our experience at Biscuits and Gravy and plan on making a lot of return visits. We haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of their menu, but our bellies are already excited!
Happy Saturday!
— Jenn & Donald
February 2024 Reading Wrap-Up
Paroxysm of Giggles / Critical Mass 