Skillet Fried Corn

Finally!  Another recipe from The Farmhouse Skillet!

Today I'm going to show you how I make one of my family's favorite veggie dishes - fried corn.  Now, this is a lot different than the recipes you'll find if you Google "Skillet Fried Corn"where they use bacon and bacon grease along with some cream.  Mine might not be the "right" way to do it, I really don't know.  All I know is, this is what I've been doing for years and this is how my family likes it.

Here's what you'll need:

Corn - fresh is better of course, but frozen works good too

Butter - the amount depends on how much corn you're doing, I used 4 Tbl for a half a bag of corn

Salt - to taste

 Sugar - about 1 tsp or so, depending on taste

I always make mine in a cast iron skillet and I let it get nice and hot over medium heat first.  Then I drop my butter in and let it get bubbly and sizzlin.'  Now you want to make sure your skillet is large enough that whatever amount of corn you're frying can spread out into a mostly single layer.  If the skillet gets over crowded you'll end up steaming it and it's just not the same.  (I learned this from experience....at a big family dinner where I wanted perfection.  The Lord knows how to keep me humble.)

If you're using fresh corn, cut it off the cob and scrape off some of the bits and pieces and a lil' cob "juice."  If you're using frozen just dump it in.  Sprinkle your salt and sugar over it and give it a good stir and get it all coated with butter.

Now, just let it fry giving it a stir every once in awhile.  

Previous to this I've always known when it was done just by smell, it'll start to smell like popcorn, but for the sake of you, my lovely readers, I timed it and it took about 15 minutes.

You want it to be nice and golden with bits of brown mixed in.  

You might be tempted to call it done after only 5-6 minutes because at that point it starts smelling all buttery and good and it's even tender by that point, BUT....take your grimy meat hooks off and let it keep cooking.  It might be tender and good but it ain't "fried" yet.  When you start thinkin' you're getting a whiff of popcorn and/or it gets nice and golden with a bit of brown, then you know it's skillet fried!

Hubby came home from work on this particular night and almost swooned (do men swoon?) when he saw 3 of his great loves on the same plate - BBQ pulled pork on homemade hamburger buns, oven fried potatoes, and skillet fried corn.  And sweet tea of course.  No proper Southern meal is complete without it.  So I guess that's actually 4 great loves.

(Recipe for the buns can be found {here}.  I used white bread flour instead of whole wheat.)

As always, if you try it out be sure to come back and let me know what you thought!  

I love to hear feedback.

                                                               

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Fun Friday Finds #16

How many of you have been missing the Fun Friday Finds posts?  Well, today I'm giving you a lil' fix. : )

The other day on the Facebook page I mentioned that I, and a couple of friends, were going thrifting all day.  We were gone for over 12 hours and visited 8 different shops, including another trip to the Goodwill Outlet.  It was a really fun day!  So today I'm sharing my finds with you.

The flan pan caught my eye at a Goodwill store because I've seen a couple of different cute projects done with them.  It's in really good shape and made in Germany!

I loved the patina of the baking pan.  It's the same depth as a loaf pan, but much wider and I thought it would make a cute container for a centerpiece or some such thing.  : )

I also loved the number stamped in the bottom of it.

This vintage picture frame was a Goodwill Outlet find.  It still has the original advertisement style insert in it!  It's just one of those things that weirdly appeals to me.  I can picture it grouped with other vintage things and displayed as artwork.

I was super excited to find this set of metal measuring cups, and for only $1.49!!  I've been transferring some of my pantry baking supplies into big clear glass jars and just the other day I was wishing I had some more of these to put in the canisters.

I was also on the lookout for some non-vintage stuff and was really happy to get stocked up on some jeans in current size and some in future sizes for my lil' guy, as well as some other clothing items for the kiddos.

The basket of wooden blocks were another Outlet find.  They were scattered all over the bottom of a bin so I grabbed a nearby basket and spent 5 minutes collecting them all.  Since the Outlet charges by weight, these weren't super cheap, but at around $6.50 they were still much cheaper than what I would have paid for them new.

My son spotted the little joystick Nintendo style game thing and just had to have it.  (It didn't have anything at all to do with Mommy feeling nostalgic and wanting it too...not one single bit.)

Swimming goggles for my daughter since she'll be starting her swimming lessons again.

And an adorable little wooden Melissa and Doug Mailbox toy.

It is SO cute!  It has all kinds of little letters and "packages" they can mail, and each one has Velcro on it so they can attach the little stamps to them.  They've been having a lot of fun with it and it was well worth it for only 2.99.

After our big move, Lord willing we plan to add some more youngin's to our brood so I picked up this Eddie Bauer infant travel bed for when the time comes.  : )

The plate things may look weird, but I sure thought they seemed handy enough.  We like to eat outside when the weather is nice, and trying to balance a flimsy paper plate and figure out where to set your cup so it doesn't tip over in the grass is aggravating.  So these little vintage contraptions that hold a plate and a cup seemed mighty useful.

A cute little pair of tennis shoes for my daughter and a pair of boots for me.  I've been wanting a pair of rubber boots (or Wellies as some would call them I guess), not so much for fashion reasons, as just for practical reasons.  Our yard gets SO muddy this time of year and I've been wishing I had a pair.  Plus, once we get settled into our new home we plan to have a farm of sorts so they'll get lots of use.  At only $1.50 I would have bought them if they had been just plain black, the fact that they're super cute is just a huge bonus!

The little wooden box was another Outlet find.  I'm not sure yet what I'll do with it, but I loved the look of it so I'll come up with something.

I was really really excited about the Dresner train case.

The bottom is marked as "Guaranteed Texas Steerhide" and it's in good shape.  I'll be listing this in my Etsy shop.

This last picture of these adorably vintage aqua canisters wasn't from our all day foray, I actually found these the day before at a local thrift shop.  They, too, will be going in the shop.

So that does it for this week's Fun Friday Finds.  Now that the weather is warming up and the sales will be starting again, maybe I'll have some fun things to share again each week (or maybe not every week, since I really should be slowing down on how much I buy since we're moving in 2 months).

If you all have a great thrift store or yard sale find feel free to stop on over and share it on the Facebook page.  I'd love to see it and hear all about it!  And if there's every anything you've been searching for and want me to keep a lookout for you just let me know.  I'm happy to be on the hunt with you.

                                                           

An Update

Hello again!  Did you think I'd dropped off the face of the earth?  : )  Well, I haven't, I'm still here and I thought I'd drop in and give you an update on what's been going on around The Farmhouse lately.

Last time I posted I told you Hubs and I had a trip to Florida coming up.

The trip went great and I survived being away from my kiddos for 7 days, but just barely.  I don't want to do that again anytime soon, I missed them far too much.

Hubs had two really good prospects for a job, he thinks one of them would have hired him on the spot if he had been done with school, so that was encouraging.  We didn't find a house.  We decided we can't buy right away because we just don't know the area well enough, and it's too soon to look for a rental, so....that part of it will have to wait a bit longer.

We did A LOT of exploring of the area, and lemme tell ya...it is horse country down there!  We saw farm after farm just loaded with them.  That's just fine by me.  I've been in love with horses for as long as I can remember.

I saw lots and lots of antique stores throughout the area, one little town had SIX of them in the space of about 1/4 mile!  Towards the end of the week I finally convinced Hubs to pull over and let me peruse a bit.

I snapped a few pictures of neat things I spotted, like this unique Apothecary style cabinet.

I thought this was a really neat industrial style piece, one I've never seen before.  It was a metal filing cabinet on casters, and along the side in raised lettering it said "Greeting Cards."

And the metal plate on the front said, "American Greetings."  I've never seen a filing cabinet made specifically for a greeting card company.  I would love to have such a unique piece, and I think the seller knew it would be a desirable piece since it was priced at $450!

This cabinet made from reclaimed wood caught my eye as well.  I might have to revisit this store later and see if it's still there.  :D

In other happenings around The Farmhouse, I've been making all of our bread for about 2 months now.  I came across a recipe for Amish White Bread and my family loved it, even Hubs who in the past had been kind of "meh" about my other homemade bread attempts.  

At the end of the week, if there's any slices left, I dry them out and run them through the food processor with a bit of Italian seasoning to make my own bread crumbs.

The bread recipe is very versatile and also make delicious cinnamon rolls!

As you can tell, the fam cleaned me out and were wishing for more!  

It also makes pretty decent dinner rolls.

Over the past two years we've slowly been making the transition away from so many processed foods full of preservatives and artificial ingredients and trying to go more homemade (thus the bread).  It's something that started out as just me making the effort, but here lately Hubs has come on board too and has given up his snack cakes, slowed down on the amount of soda he drinks, and drinks more water.  Trust me when I say this is HUGE for him!  The man was practically raised on frozen snacks and Mountain Dew.

My kids eat applesauce 2-3 times a week, so in the effort for more homemade items I tried my hand at making my own.  I used {this recipe}.

It turned out delicious!  The recipe calls for a lemon peel and lemon juice added to the apples, but next time I will probably just do one or the other.  It adds a nice extra layer of flavor, but was just a bit too tart and I had to add in a little extra Stevia to make up for it.

I also made my own peanut butter!  {recipe}

The texture is different than store bought, just a slight bit grittier and a tad more sticky, but it tastes oh so good!  I wasn't sure what the family would think but Boss Man declared he liked it a lot better than store bought!  (Again, huge people, huge!  This man has come a long way!)  : )

And last but not least, I had a really super duper exciting thing happen!  Earlier this week I got an email from the photo editor at the Chicago Tribune asking permission to use this photo of mine of a vintage Calumet baking powder tin!!  It was a product photo I had done for my Etsy shop months ago, and had already sold it but I guess the picture was still out there in Google Image land.  

They were doing an article about how these tins showed up in the movie The Shining and how, apparently, they'll be in an upcoming movie.  The article was being published the next day so I called him right away, got the details worked out, and the next day he emailed a PDF file of the page.

I know it's not huge, not like having a room featured in a magazine spread or anything, but it was still really fun and exciting to know that one of MY photos was published in the CHICAGO TRIBUNE!!

And did you notice, tucked in down there next to the can was my lil' ol' name.  I asked if I could include a website, but unfortunately I couldn't.  Just a name.  But that's okay, it was all still really neat.

So, there's a bit of what's been happening around here.  Pretty soon I'll be starting the process of getting the house packed up, I hope to have Munchkie's Kindergarten year finished up in about another month, and next up on the "homemade items to try" list are ketchup and Velveeta.  

(If you'd like to follow along with the recipes I come across join me over on my Pinterest boards.)

Slowing Down...or Speeding Up?

I'm sure by now you've noticed that things around the Farmhouse blog have been a little slow here recently, and quite honestly it will probably remain that way for the foreseeable future.  

Right now I have

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We only have 3 more months until Hubs finishes up school and, Lord willing, our big move back to Florida.  So...with such a short amount of time left and boxes and packing tape being on my near horizon, I'm not feeling inspired nor compelled to change anything up around here decor-wise.  For instance, my living room curtains have grown really old and are driving me bonkers, but....with only 3 months left I see no point in changing them now.  (Cue the 80's music...."I will sur-viiiiive!")

Not only that, a week from today my in-laws fly in to take over my house and my kids for a week.  Hubs has his Spring Break and he and I are going to make a frenzied jaunt down to the Sunshine State to do some scouting for a job and a house.  We REALLY REALLY want to buy and get settled down somewhere permanently.  We've moved an average of every 2 years in our 10 years of marriage and we are so sick of the "temporariness" of it all and more than ready for something permanent!  But...trying to find and buy property that meets our expectations (we're kinda picky) halfway across the country borders on miraculous, so most likely we will have to rent....again...for a few months.  Bleck.  

So, this week I have to get everything ready and in order for someone else to take over my household.  (Plus deal with the emotional stress of leaving my kiddos for 6 days.  My in-laws are beyond wonderful and I know for certain they will take excellent care of my sweeties, but I've never been away from them for more than a few hours so it will be a lil' emotional for me.  My eyes are tearing up just thinking about it.)

On top of that, I'm still homeschooling kiddo #1.  I've just been kind of doing this and that with her, not really following any set curriculum, just working our way along as I think she's able.  But...it dawned on me the other day that since I plan to homeschool her for at least one more year, it won't be long before it'll be time to order an actual curriculum for her and I needed to decide if I was going to start her on a Kindergarten one or put her right into 1st grade.  I did some research and decided that I'd be wasting my money if I ordered a Kindergarten curriculum as I think she's too advanced for most of it.  I think, for the most part, she's ready to move right into 1st grade work.  Now, if she's going into 1st grade that means I  need to make sure there are no gaps in her Kindergarten work.  So...with only 2.5 months left in the school year, I'm scrambling to make sure I've got everything covered and that she'll be ready to start a more formal curriculum at a higher grade level.

PLUS...(as if the above 3 paragraphs weren't enough already) I still have oodles of vintage inventory from last year's yard sale adventures that have yet to be listed in my Etsy shop.  Seeing as we won't have room to move it with us (and Hubs has warned me time and time again that if it's not gone by moving time, he's putting it out by the road for the picker's to dig through) I have GOT to get it all photographed, cataloged, and listed and pray that a good bit of it sells before the picker's get their hands on it...'cause Boss Man ain't jokin' y'all!

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So, I'm feeling like this is a bit much for one woman to handle in only 3 months and something had to give and unfortunately the only thing that isn't a "must" at this point is this blog.  I can't afford to spend time and energy stressing over not having a new project to share or worried that everyone will think I've abandoned them.  So, here I am saying that I am NOT abandoning you, I don't plan to give up blogging, but things will be a little slow around here for awhile.  Just bear with me during all of this craziness, and don't abandon me.  I'm sure I'll be posting some tidbits about the progress of everything, and maybe even a small little project here and there, and someday a few months down the road I'll be able to start sharing the transformation of a new "Farmhouse."

If you're not already a fan, be sure to "like" my Facebook page as it'll be easier for me to post updates there than it will be to blog about it.  Though I won't leave my blog readers out in the cold either, I promise.

If you're a praying person, I would covet your prayers for our family over the next few months and all of the changes we have in store for us.  Especially for the week after next as we have 30 hours round trip of driving ahead, and lots of searching to do.

But...

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Crusted Chicken Romano

Today I'm sharing with you what is hands down my family's favorite meal.

 Crusted Chicken Romano

I had something similar at The Cheesecake Factory a few years ago and really enjoyed it.  In trying to replicate it I came up with this recipe and it has become our favorite meal.  I make it about once a month and it's requested for any special occasions like birthdays, Valentine's Day, etc.

Here's what you'll need:

- Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast (learn how to get it for .99/lb HERE)

- milk

- 2 eggs

- grated Parmesan & Romano cheese (about 3/4 cup)

- Italian style bread crumbs (about 1 cup)

- garlic salt (2 tsp, separated)

- olive oil and salt & pepper (I realized too late that I left these out of the picture)

- pasta of your choice (we prefer linguine, fettucini, or spaghetti)

You're going to start by slicing the breasts in half lengthwise so that you end up with two thin breast pieces.

Then you're going to pound them out even thinner.  I like to place them two at a time into a gallon sized Ziplock.  It keeps the mess contained and they don't slide around and get away from you like they do if you place them between two pieces of plastic wrap.  For some reason I don't have a meat tenderizing hammer, so I just pound them with a rolling pin to flatten them out.

You want them pretty thin, but not so thin that they're tearing apart. 

 If I know I'm going to be strapped for time I try to have this done the day before to save myself the extra step.

Now let me just say here that the frying process for these is very quick, so if you're making pasta as a side dish you're going to want to go ahead and start heating the water for that before you start on the breading process, and let that boil while you work on the rest of it.  I've made the mistake of waiting too long into it to start the pasta, and then I end up waiting and waiting for it while the chicken is getting cold.

Once you get them all pounded out you'll want to season them well with salt and pepper so that the meat has flavor underneath the crust.

Next you're going to mix up the 1 cup of the bread crumbs, 3/4 cup of the grated cheeses, and the teaspoon of garlic salt.  Make sure it's blended really well. 

Mix up the eggs and some milk for the breading process.

Then you'll dip the chicken in the breading, patting/pressing it on so that it adheres well.

Dip the chicken into the egg mixture making sure it's well coated, and allow the excess to drip off.  Just like with the Southern Fried Chicken recipe, excess moist coating will cause the 2nd layer of breading to slip off.

After the egg mixture, you'll place your chicken back into the bread crumbs for a 2nd coating, pressing and patting it on.  Repeat this process for all your chicken pieces.

Once you're about half way through the breading process, you can start to heat your skillet.  You'll want a medium heat.  I use setting number 4 on my stove with my cast iron skillet.  You need it to be hot enough to sear the coating, but not so hot that it turns them black before they're cooked.  

I like to let my skillet get nice and hot and then add the olive oil right before I start frying.  I add just enough to cover the bottom of the skillet.  Olive oil heats very quickly so you can add the chicken almost immediately after pouring it into the skillet.

(By this time your pasta should be boiling away.)

Carefully lay your chicken into the sizzling oil.

Now, these are very thin and they will only take 1.5 - 2 minutes on each side of frying time.  

Turn them when they're a nice crispy golden brown.  And same as the fried chicken, in between batches you can keep them hot and crispy by loosely covering with foil and placing in a warm oven (about 200 degrees)...unless you're baking garlic bread to go with it.  Then you'll just want to cover them with foil and leave on your counter.

Also in between batches you may want to use several paper towels and carefully wipe out the old olive oil and add a fresh layer of oil to fry in.

4 chicken breasts cut in half will give you a nice big platter of 8 servings.

(That's my homemade bread rising in the background there...but that will be for another post.)

Your pasta should finish up about the same time as your chicken.  After you drain it, add some olive oil to it and the other teaspoon of garlic salt (or to taste if that's too strong for you).  I also like to add a bit of dried basil to it for an additional flavor, and extra color and interest.  

Pair this dish with a salad, Quick and Easy Garlic Bread or yummy garlic knots, and you've got a full course meal your family will love.

If you try this recipe out I sure hope you'll come back and let me know how it turned out and what you thought of it.  I know my family cleans their plates and asks for seconds every time I make it. 

 It never gets old.  : )

                                                               

                                                                         

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