I woke up this morning with an uncontrollable craving for fried chicken. Maybe because I've spent the week in Louisiana and being in the South has taken over my mind, I don't know. I haven't fried chicken in years, but I decided to roll up my sleeves and fry a little chicken today.

Ingredients:
-- Chicken pieces, I had thighs, but you can pick your favorite pieces
-- About two cups of milk
-- Two eggs
-- 2-3 cups of flour
-- Garlic powder
-- Black pepper and salt
-- Red pepper
-- Oil, I use vegetable but you can easily sub peanut or shortening

For gravy:
-- Three tablespoons flour
-- A can of evaporated milk
-- Water

Tools --
I used a large sized pot, but any pot size will works
A candy/frying thermometer
A meat thermometer

Place all of the chicken in a bowl and cover with milk. Let chicken sit in milk bath for at least an hour. You can let it sit overnight in the fridge if you would like.

Place flour and all seasonings in a ziplock bag. I like lots of garlic, but you can season to taste.

Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.

Remove chicken from milk bath one piece at a time, dipping in milk and then dropping into seasoning bag. I put three pieces in at a time and then shook the bag. Flour all chicken.

Pour oil to pot so there is about 4-5 inches deep but not more than halfway full. It should at least be as deep as the thickness of your chicken pieces.

Attach the candy thermometer to the pot so you can monitor the heat of the oil. Heat the oil to about 275-300 degrees.

Place chicken pieces in pot so that no pieces are on top of one another, but each have a place on the surface.

Cook for about 15-18 minutes for dark meat or about 13-16 for white meat, monitoring the temperature so it remains between 275-300. When done use a meat thermometer to ensure your chicken is 180 degrees.

Let sit about 5 minutes before eating on a cookie sheet lined with paper towels.

I made a white gravy to go with the chicken. Here's how:

Take about 1 cup of the oil used to fry the chicken. I put it into a second smaller pot. Try to get some of the crispy chicken pieces that are good and brown in the bottom of the pot.

Heat the oil and add about 3 tablespoons of flour, if you have left over flour from seasoning, you can use that.

Brown the flour in the oil over medium heat, continuously stirring with a whisk. Begin to add evaporated milk while continuing to stir the gravy. It will get really thick really quick. Keep adding milk until it looks like grits or oatmeal.

Then slowly add water, still stirring, until it is the consistency you want (thin enough to pour but not too thin).

I like to taste mine and then add the same seasonings I used on the chicken if it's not tasty enough.



I served mine with mashed potatoes and cooked some artichokes, that I wasn't 100 percent pleased with.

As we all know, Lent in Louisiana is really just an excuse to eat massive amount of seafood rather than fast or abstain (as if giving up meat is so hard on the Gulf Coast.) I miss good seafood so badly. I definitely grew up spoiled.

Anyway, I had a craving for BBQ shrimp last week, and I found this recipe in my new Cooking Light Complete Book (great cookbook, I totally recommend it) Of course, it's nowhere near as good as what you'd find in New Orleans and because it's light, it's more wine based than butter based. But it's quick to make and most of the ingredients are probably already in your fridge, and you can use frozen shrimp since this recipe seasons the hell out of them, so its a good home-away-from-home recipe for those of us stranded without good seafood.

If you don't have everything the recipe calls for, just mix and match seasonings. Like all good Louisiana cooking, its no exact science. Put the shrimp on french bread for a po-boy or just eat them plain. The leftovers are even better because the sauce intensifys in the fridge.

1/2 cup fat-free Caesar dressing
1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons butter or stick margarine
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon dried rosemary
1 tablespoon dried thyme
1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper
1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
5 bay leaves
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 pounds large shrimp
1/3 cup dry white wine

1. Combine the first 11 ingredients in a large nonstick skillet; bring to a boil.
2. Add shrimp, and cook 7 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Add wine, and cook 1 minute or until shrimp are done.

-Sarah

Since I'm more than 1,000 miles away from Louisiana for Mardi Gras this year, I decided to make a king cake and share it with my coworkers. The King Cake newbies seemed a little alarmed by the colored icing, but everyone seemed to enjoy it. It involves a lot of butter and elbow grease (for the stirring) but it's totally worth it. This can definitely be filed under "All I want in life is a Kitchenaid Stand Mixer."

I got the recipe from a Web site, made it once before and decided to make a few changes the second go round.

1/2 c. warm water
2 packages active dry yeast
1/2 c. plus 1 tsp. sugar
About 5 cups of flour, more or less as needed
1 tsp. nutmeg
2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. warm milk
5 large egg yolks
1 stick plus 2 T. butter, cut in slices and softened
1 egg slightly beaten with 1 T. of milk
lots of ground cinnamon (I used about 3-5 tablespoons)
1 tiny plastic doll (you can find the dolls at a party store in the baby shower section)


Optional Cream Cheese Filling all creamed together:

1 8-ounce pkg. cream cheese
1 c. confectioner's sugar
2 T. flour
1 tsp. vanilla extract
a few drops of milk



Cake Directions:

Pour the warm water into a small shallow bowl and sprinkle yeast and 2 teaspoons of sugar into it. Allow the yeast and sugar to rest for several minutes, then mix thoroughly. Set yeast mixture in a warm place for 10 minutes (I put mine in front of a space heater). Combine 3 and 1/2 cups of flour, remaining sugar, nutmeg, a tablespoon of cinnamon and salt in a large mixing bowl. Make sure the ingredients are all mixed up.

Separate center of mixture to form a hole and pour in yeast mixture and milk. Add egg yolks and using a wooden spoon, combine dry ingredients into the yeast and milk mixture. When mixture is smooth, beat in 8 tablespoons butter, 1 tablespoon at a time. Soften the butter in the microwave but be careful not to let it totally melt.

This is the arm work. Keep stirring the mixture for about 5 minutes. It will start to get really elastic. The recipe claims that it will turn into a "medium soft ball" but in neither attempts did this occur until I started mixing in a little more flour.

I used my counter top to knead the dough, cleaning it well ahead of time and cover it in flour. Keep kneading it and adding more flour until it's no longer sticky. Knead for another 10 minutes until "shiny and elastic."

Using a pastry brush, coat the inside of a large bowl evenly with one tablespoon softened butter. Place dough ball in the bowl and rotate until the entire surface is buttered. Cover bowl with a heavier kitchen towel and allow dough to rise in a warm place for about 1 and 1/2 hours or until it doubles in volume.

Coat a large baking sheet with one tablespoon of butter and set aside. After the first rising, place the dough on a floured surface and punch it down with a heavy blow.

On second attempt I decided to split the dough in half and make two cakes. They fit better on the pan, were less doughy (which was kind of not good) and allowed for a filed and plain version.

Beat the dough out into a long rectangle. Sprinkle a good deal of cinnamon over the middle of the rectangle. For the cream cheese filled variety, spread it over the middle. Fold the rectangle in half long ways and twist so it's spiral shaped.

Then bend it around to make an oval, pinching the ends together. Place it on the buttered cookie sheet.

Place the completed ring on the buttered baking sheet, cover it with a towel and allow it to rise for 45 minutes or until it doubles in volume. After the second rising, brush the top and sides of the cake with the egg and milk wash. Bake in a preheated oven at 375 degrees for 25-35 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack and hide the plastic baby inside the cake.

For the cake pictured above, I just used food dye to color store bought icing. But last time I made a really delicious royal icing recipe.

For the icing:

5 tablespoons powdered egg whites (found on the baking aisle of your local grocery store)
6 tablespoons water
1 pound powdered sugar
2 tablespoon vanilla
food dye

Combine all ingredients except vanilla and food coloring. Beat with a hand mixer until they form a stiff peak. I did this once using real egg whites and it took much longer to get to peak.

Stir in vanilla and food dye and spread away.

---- Ginger