Oven fried buttermilk brined chicken & peach cobbler

So tonight we tried a on my mother's (Grandma Jo) oven fried chicken. She tried it the other day and told me about it, so we just had to try it. E just LOVES the oven fried chicken, and this was no exception. Honestly I couldn't tell much difference in it from the brining, but it was good all the same. So here's the scoop...if you want to brine your chicken ahead, follow step one. Otherwise, skip step one and proceed with the rest of the recipe...

You'll need:

For the brine:
3 cups buttermilk
1/3 cup kosher salt
For rest of recipe:
4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 2 pieces each
about 1 cup of all-purpose flour
1-2 tsp paprika
1 tsp garlic powder, optional
2 tsp Italian seasoning, optional
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup of milk or half and half
1/2 stick butter

For brining, combine the buttermilk and kosher salt. Put the cut up chicken breast pieces into the mix and let brine for 4-6 hrs in the fridge. When done brining, dump the brine and drain the chicken. Preheat oven to 350F. Put 1/2 stick butter into a 13x9 or larger glass baking dish and slide into the preheated oven to melt. Meanwhile, combine the flour, paprika, and seasonings in a large ziplock bag. Drop the drained chicken pieces into the flour mixture and shake to coat. If brined, shake the excess flour off and place chicken strips into the preheated pan in the oven. If not brined, dredge the chicken in the milk and then back in the flour to create a thicker coating, then place in preheated pan. Cook for 20 minutes, then flip chicken strips and bake an additional 20 minutes or until golden brown. Serve hot or cold. Great with mashed potatoes!

We also had a quickie peach cobbler tonight with some great fresh peaches. For this, you'll need:

5-6 fresh ripe peaches, peeled, pitted and sliced
1 cup bisquick baking mix
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 tbsp butter

In a 375F oven, melt butter in an 8x8" pan. Meanwhile, mix bisquick, sugar and milk together. Pour into heated and buttered pan and top with peach slices. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar if desired. Bake for approximately 35-45 minutes or until golden brown. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream. YUM!

So that was tonight's dinner. Cooking by the seat of our pants :) At least with the upcoming recipe challenge, we won't have ourselves to blame if something goes wrong, right?

So I was dusting my cookbook shelves the other day and thinking that I really need to start using them, when the idea for this challenge hit me...why not challenge myself to use one new recipe a day from my cookbooks! Then, inspired by Stephanie's blog A Year of Slow Cooking, I thought how much more fun it would be to blog about the experience and challenge others to join me! So won't you come along? Think about all the fun cookbooks on your own shelves, or how much fun it will be to buy new cookbooks to play with! And of course you can always try the recipes that I post here on the blog as we go along. I'll even take suggestions for cookbooks and/or recipes you'd like to see me try, especially if they're already in cookbooks I own! My collection is full of old and new cookbooks, some antiques and some fresh off the presses. It's also varied in style and structure, with books on specific topics and some more general, so this will be a free-for-all in style of cooking. There will be some international dishes along with some "old time comfort foods" I'm sure. It may be that my only recipe trial for a day is a beverage or a mix of some sort to use later, but if it's in one of my books, it's fair game. So I hope you'll join me in this adventure and comment and play along as we go. We'll get underway with the first recipe experiment on July 15th, but I will post a few special recipes and comments leading up to the kick off as well. If you'd like to join in the fun, be sure to post a comment below and leave a link to your blog so I can add you to the players list...Hope to see your comments soon!

Welcome to my newest project!

Inspired by Stephanie O'Dea's blog "A Year of Slow Cooking" and by my flourishing cookbook collection, I will undertake the challenge of attempting one new recipe from at least one of my cookbooks each day for one year beginning on July 15th, 2009. I invite you to read along as I post about my successes and flops, and challenge you to join me on this journey by attempting new recipes from your own cookbook collection or from those I post on this blog as we go along. Come and cook along with me!