Good Press

Six inches of heavy, wet snow is forecast for my corner of West Virginia starting tomorrow morning. Maybe you're heading to the grocery store to stock up and you're wondering what warming comfort food you could make for dinner. When it snowed and stuck around last week, I made this divine and easy Crock-Pot meal: Creamed Chicken Over Biscuits. My business partner at Mountain Mamas Retreats , Shelley Miller, shared the recipe (aka Italian Crock-Pot Chicken) after a scrapbooking crop we held at our retreat house. There, we served it with an equally easy Brussels sprouts dish brought by a guest. The flavors of the main course and the side set each other off perfectly. We had more creamed chicken than we had biscuits so we served it over rice the second time. For dessert at the same meal I served vanilla ice cream with hot fudge cake (also made in a Crock-Pot). That recipe is from Taste of Home. You wouldn't think Italian salad dressing mix would be a key ingredient in this bu...

I thought I broke the cranberry sauce. When cooking, I don't usually work from memory or make things up as I go along. And certainly not when there is a holiday meal at stake. I wanted to make the cranberry sauce today and I couldn't find the magazine with the idea I had read. So I risked spoiling the sauce and struck out on my own, using the recipe on the bag of cranberries as a guide. To the bag of Ocean Spray cranberries, I added 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of water, per the directions. But then I wanted to add 2 cups of frozen mixed berries I had. And I felt like the sauce needed orange juice and cinnamon. So in went 1/2 cup OJ and 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon. I set it to boiling on the stove. It looked like a lot of really runny liquid. I worried for many minutes and tried to calm my fears with the mantra "It'll cook down. It'll cook down." It cooked down. When I poured it out into a bowl to cool, my husband tasted it and pronounced it good. Whew! So it is ch...

Bacon makes everything better. Seriously, bacon is not the only thing that makes this Brussels sprouts dish palatable. Use the "petite" Brussels sprouts that are sweeter and more tender. The cranberries are very "Christmas-y" against the green dish and add more sweetness and nutrition. Lauren Graham of Morgantown brought this as her covered dish today to a scrapbooking crop held at Mountain Mamas Retreats . This is very good and I will serve it to my family soon -- maybe as a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner side dish. BRUSSELS SPROUTS WITH CRANBERRIES & BACON 5 slices bacon 1 14-ounce bag Hanover Steam-in-Bag Petite Brussels Sprouts 1/2 to 3/4 cup chicken broth 1/4 cup dried cranberries Chop and fry bacon. Steam Brussels sprouts according to package directions. Add to bacon. Add cranberries and broth. Cook until the cranberries plump and the broth evaporates/absorbs.