A cafeteria miracle

I worked on Saturday the 4th. And it was a good thing I did. For the only time our cafeteria does what EVERY OTHER PLACE that does Southern Fried Chicken does normally is on the weekends:

I present to you all: Fried Chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, and corn on the cob.

EVERY TUESDAY, our cafeteria has Fried Chicken. And NEVER does it do mashed potatoes with their fried chicken on Tuesdays. NEVER. It's always rice, and some kind of odious potato concoction. But, because I wanted to make some hours up, I got lucky and got what everyone should get whenever they go someplace with fried chicken. /end rant

The chicken was pretty good, the flavor was confined to the skin for the most part. The potatoes were tasty, the gravy great as usual. The corn was merely ok, it had a flavor in there I couldn't really identify, as I was really just expecting corn, butter and salt. It definitely needed more butter, which I didn't think to get at the time and we didn't have any in the office fridge.

On the to Greg's, I stopped off at McD's and grabbed some nuggets and fries. The nuggets were really good and the fries were pretty good. I had to add some salt, as apparently that location was going easy on it.

A Chicken Experiment

Back in high school, I remember that they would have, every so often, a dish that perplexed the heck out of me: Oven Fried Chicken. I decided to try this concoction out for myself. I have no idea if how I went about it was how they did, nor do I really care.

I took two chicken breasts and gave them a thorough dunking / marinating in a seasoned milk dip, then breaded them in a seasoned flour mixture (sea salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, all purpose seasoning and a dash of sage):

Then I tossed them into the oven at 475 degrees for about 20 minutes, then at ... either 325 or 350 (don't remember which now) for an hour. This is how they looked coming out:

Not too bad, I teamed them up with some instant potatoes and some of the (spoiler alert) blandest English peas I've ever had:

The skin of the chicken had a great flavor, it worked its way into the meat just ok, but it was very juicy. The potatoes were pretty good (considering I was out of salt) and the English peas sucked. They had no flavor at all, but I ate them anyway. The chicken was so good, I went back and finished the second breast after the first one, but I didn't finish the potatoes.

Mardi Gras

Not really as in the celebration, but let's face it, the French can make most things sound better in their language than in English. Fat Tuesday begins with a snack for lunch, I had a piece of fried chicken from the cafeteria:

It looks pretty good, but this was in that area I talked about in the other post where it wasn't BAD, but it wasn't really all that Good. Lots of crust, not much flavor in it, nor in the meat, but the meat was cooked really well, nice and juicy.

I had no idea what I was going to do for dinner, and had about given up on the idea. I was almost home, when it struck me, I'd hit up the old Waffle House. So, I did, and got my usual, which is a waffle:

It was pretty tasty, the lady didn't over cook it (I don't like my waffles in the crunchy neighborhood) nor did she undercook it. The other part of my meal was a chicken sandwich and some hashbrowns:

As you can see by the pic, I was so looking forward to it, I dug into it before remembering the picture. So, I did the best I could and turned the munched on bits away, sorry if it's too graphic for you all.

The hashbrowns were ok, I couldn't get them salty enough, but the chicken sandwich was pretty much as good as WH can get it, mostly why I had ate a third of it before the pic was taken.

Fried Chicken and Five Guys

Tuesdays are Fried Chicken days in the cafeteria. Unfortunately, they NEVER have the proper side dish for fried chicken, which here in the South, is mashed potatoes and gravy. They have rice and gravy, and some kind of au gratin potatoes or something else that just doesn't go well with it, so I usually skip the chicken. However, I was fairly hungry on this Tuesday (see the Dump Day post for my lack of a filling dinner), so I went with a white meat portion, which is a breast and wing. All connected like:

It might not look that great in the pic, but they usually do a pretty good job on their chicken. The breading/crust is VERY flavorful and tasty, and if you get there fairly early, you've got about a 70/30 chance of the meat having gotten the flavor into it, where as if you go later in the afternoon it's more of a 30/70 chance. I was on the upper end of luck today, the meat was just about as tasty as the crust.

Not a very nutritious lunch, I know, but I was treating it more like a snack, as I was going to be having a burger and fries from 5 Guys Burgers and Fries for dinner that night. And not only did I plan to, but I actually stuck with it.

You can make an account on their website and then order early and schedule your pickup, and pay for it online, thereby skipping the (sometimes really long) line. They also have an app for both Android and iDevices. I downloaded that bad boy and tested it out, and I'm happy to report that it worked like a champ. Burgers (picked one up for Jesse also) were ready when I got there and just had to wait a minute or two on the fries to get done, which gave me plenty of time to get the drinks ready. And, as I alluded to in the previous post, I forgot to get pictures of the delicious Bacon Burger and fries. But I assure you, it looked good and tasted even better.

Forgetful Friday

Thursday was Mom's birthday, so I took Friday off (as did she) and spent most of it with her. We went to lunch a Sweetpea's Table in Olive Branch, which is a country cooking place. And I forgot to get pictures of the food.

I went with the fried chicken breast, mashed potatoes, fried okra and a roll, while she did hamburger steak, pinto beans and ... I'm not sure what her other veggie was. She enjoyed the place, and said we'd have to come back and bring Dad (which I've been trying to get them to try the place for a while now). After that, I took her to see Dark Shadows (she loved the show growing up) and was curious to see the movie. I can happily say that we both enjoyed the movie. It was not as comedic as the previews made it out to be (more dark with lots of comedic bits as opposed to comedy with a few dark bits).

For dinner that night, I went with some friends to a local sammich / pizza place here in Hernando called Buon Cibo. Not my favorite place, but as I was still mostly full from lunch, I didn't have a problem with it. And I got really lucky, as the soup of the day was their potato soup. First time I got to try it, and it was pretty good, although it had no chunks of potato in it. At least not in the bowl I got. And yes, I forgot to get a pic of it also.