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If you ever are lucky enough to take a trip to the South, you have to make a pit stop at Paula Deen's. Her Lady & Sons restaurant is located in Savannah, Georgia but the sassy entrepreneur smartly opened a second location at the Harrah's Casino in Tunica, Mississippi. Fortunatly, Tunica is not far from my old stomping grounds!

You can't go to Paula's without trying the hoe cakes! Hoe cakes are fried gruel made from yellow or white cornmeal that is mixed with salt and hot water or milk, and sometimes sweetened...I think up here y'all call them Johnnycakes. Hoe cakes in the South come by their name honestly. Field hands often cooked them on a shovel or hoe held to an open flame. Hoes designed for cotton fields were large and flat with a hole for the long handle to slide through; the blade would be removed and placed over a fire much like a griddle.

Before we left Mississippi to move to New York, my girlfriend made us 'hoe cake' kits. She put together all the ingredients in a Mason Jar and attached instructions on how to assemble the goodness. When I'm feeling really homesick, I whip up a batch and I'm good to go.

Here's Paula's recipe if you'd like to try it:

Ingredients
1 cup self-rising flour
1 cup self-rising cornmeal, or from a mix (recommended: Aunt Jemima's)
2 eggs
1 tablespoon sugar
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon water
1/4 cup vegetable oil or bacon grease
Oil, butter, or clarified margarine, for frying

Directions
Mix well all ingredients, except for the frying oil. Heat the frying oil or butter in a medium or large skillet over medium heat. Drop the batter, by full tablespoons, into the hot skillet. Use about 2 tablespoons of batter per hoecake. Fry each hoecake until brown and crisp; turn each hoecake with a spatula, and then brown the other side. With a slotted spoon, remove each hoecake to drain on a paper towel-lined plate. Leftover batter will keep in refrigerator for up to 2 days.

It's an addiction that actually has had some benefits...I've come up with some cute ideas for Chickadee's nursery, found some excellent organizational tools that will hopefully make my life easier and have discovered a treasure trove of recipes that I can actually follow and that my husband will eat.

Pregnancy appetites can be sometimes interesting and I came up with this sandwich the other night after I was inspired by a recipe I found on Pinterest. Check out my grilled avocado, diced pepperoni, Monterrey Jack, cheddar, mozzarella and American cheese sandwich!

If you're on Pinterest, let me know, I'd love to follow you!

My mom has never been much of a cook, but she does crank up her skills twice a year, for Christmas and Thanksgiving. We always have the traditional turkey and all the fixings that go along with it. Guests who come to our house for the holidays always like to bring something and we never say no. So, when Grandma Flanigan showed up with her 'crockpot dressing' we were just tickled pink!

We're spending Thanksgiving with Brett's family in Charlotte, North Carolina, where his mother rules the kitchen! I've learned when you're pregnant, people tend to just give you what you want (what a perk!) and Grandma Flanigan's crockpot dressing is on the menu this year...here's the recipe if you're interested:

Grandma Flanigan's Crockpot Dressing
8" pan of cornbread
8 slices of toasted bread
Onion - 1 cup
Celery - 1 cup
2 tablespoons sage
4 eggs
2 teaspoons salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can cream of celery soup
2 cans chicken broth
2 cups cooked chicken
1 teaspoon chicken bouillon

Stir ingredients together and put in buttered crock pot. Cook 3 hours on high or 170 degrees. You can also fill muffin pans with dressing and place in a 350 degree oven to brown up the edges.

Enjoy y'all!