Coors Contraband Crock Pot Chicken

There's a recipe for crock pot chicken that's spreading like wildfire on Pinterest.   It's basically a few spices, a can of beer and a chicken.   The weather is turning hot again here, so cooking on the porch seems like a good plan for the foreseeable future.

Not being a beer drinker, I don't have a favorite.   Since Coors is the featured beverage from Smokey and the Bandit, Coors it is.   I also opted for Paul Prudhomme's Magic Seasoning Salt since it contained most of the listed spices.   Also, who doesn't like magic?   I added some fresh pepper and put a lid on it.

I cooked it on low for an hour and 45 minutes, but when I estimated the end time, I cranked it up to high and tried to split the difference.

Frozen Ore Ida sweet potato fries and sautéed zucchini with sage from our garden was on the side with blackberries, peaches and vanilla ice cream for dessert.   Actually, we keep snacking on those blackberries, so they may not make it into dessert.

So was the recipe too simple to be true?   No.   It was downright tasty.   The meat was falling off the drumsticks.   It would be a great way to cook chicken in preparation for a pot pie as well.   We cooked a cut up fryer, but you could throw in four breasts instead.

There's also some of that three-bean salad marinating in the fridge that includes the first gypsy pepper from our garden...but that can wait until tomorrow.

For the vegetarians among you, I give you Rufus Thomas and a stadium full of folks getting down with the funky chicken.   This performance is from the documentary Wattstax that showcases the 1972 music festival.   Can you believe that line-up?   And at $1.00 a ticket?!   Do the funky chicken, y'all.

Rising Tide and Picking Strings

I'm about 70 pages into a book on my required reading list.   Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America by John M. Barry is about...well...you guessed it.   So far, Old Muddy has been examined, explored, mapped, bridged and talked about.   Seems the whole question of levees, outlets and/or jetties and so on and so forth began with a couple of men with one who thought he was in a (pardon the expression) pissing contest.   

Andrew Atkinson Humphreys.   Not exactly the kind of engineer you want on the job.  Additionally, I just finished a passage detailing his pitiful leadership qualities during the Civil War. I'm not talking sides here.   I'm just talking about a man who didn't have any regard for the lives of the men he was chosen to lead.   He seemed to have a force field around him on each battlefield that protected no one but his highfalutin' self.   I'm not so sure that I would trust him to build me a box, much less engineer the mighty Mississippi.   Well, maybe he'll grow on me.   But I doubt it.

Anyhow, you can see how I needed a break from everything serious, and Atlanta's Jerry Reed has been on my mind today.   I've been hoping that my road trip doesn't involve old Smokey or contraband, but I wouldn't mind a little Jerry Reed on the radio and a furry Fred riding with us.

Jerry and Elvis got together in Nashville's legendary Studio B prior to the '68 Comeback Special (the one with Elvis in black leather) for some "Guitar Man" sessions.   Here's Elvis singing Jerry's song first.   

Here's Jerry's performance of "Guitar Man."

For some reason, I couldn't get the following video from YouTube to post above, but it's a funky 1977 version of "Guitar Man" where Jerry Reed performs live.  Let his pickin' set you on fire.   Over and out.