Nebraska fried chicken recipe

Due to wide demand, my first recipe sharing. Okay, Kara asked. :)

Aunt Gail's Nebraska Fried Chicken

Ingredients: Cut up chicken unless you know how to cut up a frying chicken. I use all thighs because the breasts are too big and I don't like wings. Flour, salt, pepper, Crisco oil, a paper lunch bag or a plastic bag. Do not substitute anything for the Crisco. Must use Crisco for crispiness.

I cut off extra fat and anything I don't like the looks of
Wash chicken with water and set in plate
Pray over bird, give thanks for this meal
Put Crisco in pan, melt it, then heat oil to hot
Pour a lot of flour in your bag
Add a lot of salt
Add some pepper
Close well and shake
Add a few pieces of chicken (one to three at a time)
Close bag and shake

Use pinchers (metal utensil) to pick up chicken parts and place in hot oil
Be careful you don't burn yourself because the hot oil pops
Shake some more of your chicken pieces
Be sure each piece is well floured before placing in oil

Fry on high till it's a medium brown
Turn pieces to other side and fry on high till it's medium brown
Don't let them get too dark because they've still got to cook inside

Now turn heat way down to low
Cook 'em slow, like simmer for 35 to 45 minutes for six pieces in a large frying pan
Turn pieces over a couple times

The secret to crispiness is to brown both sides fast on high, then turning the fire way low to cook the inside. (No one will tell you this except for me. It's the key.)

After you start the chicken, peel, cut and place potatoes in boiling water
Add salt and bring to a boil
Boil on low till done

Put creme corn in a bowl and place in microwave with paper towel on top

Be sure butter and salt are on the table and lots of napkins

Now the coordination part:

Use pinchers to take chicken out of the pan
Place on plate on paper towels
Let cool a few minutes
Turn on micro and cook canned creme corn for two minutes on high
Pour dinner drinks
Make gravy

Put it all on the table.

You're done.

But! Save your chicken grease. Keep in the fridge. The same week you can buy cube steak. Prepare on a paper plate the same as you did the chicken with flour, salt, and pepper. Warm your chicken grease. Fry in chicken grease and it comes out real good. Use leftover chicken gravy on your mashed potatoes. This meal only takes 30 minutes to prepare. The cube steak cooks pretty fast.

Postscript - Fried chicken makes a big mess on your stove. After dinner use Fantastic to clean stove while it's still warm. A screen with a paper towel on it on top of your frying pan greatly decreases oil spatter. Or, you can camp all the time like me and fry outside on the Coleman stove. Fold up the stove and put it away when finished or you'll get coyotes at night. Heh!

Truckers are in-the-know

Nebraska stop 

You know that if truckers eat there it's gotta be good, right? Hahaha! That's an old saying my husband told me.  His dad and brother were both truckers.

What do truckers know? They've been driving all day and night and they're hungry. They'll eat anything.

Animal of the day

What beautiful eyes 

A toad. This photo was taken in Nebraska last week. What little boy hands those are. I love children's hands. I have a ton of photos of our son's little hands from when he was a tot with chubby little fingers.

This is the first time he's seen and picked up a toad. He even witnessed one chowing down on a big bug! We took a walk in the evening and he said, "There's the one I saw before!" I asked him how he could know it was the same one. There were dozens of them in the campground. They all looked alike to me. He said he could tell by its beautiful, sparkly eyes. Is this kid a lover of toads or what.

When he was six he saved a snail from drying out on our driveway. He put it at the side of the house where it was damp and the little snail recovered by late afternoon.

The Snail Story (when we lived in a house)

After dinner our son was all red faced and in tears. I asked him what was wrong and he said he'd gone to check on the snail and it was gone.  It had run away. I tried my hardest not to laugh. He's got a heart of gold. I told him he should be happy that Snailly (yes, this snail was named) got well and returned to his habitat to live out his life free and unfettered.  Be happy for him, I explained.

I told him he had changed the course of that one snail's life and for that he should be glad, and that's got to be one happy snail now. He felt a bit better. 

To this day, he still remembers when the snail "ran away."