Secret Subject Swap: You Found that Where?

Welcome to the first Secret Subject Swap of the new year. This month 14 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. Read through mine and at the bottom you’ll find links to all of today’s other Secret Subject Swap participants.

My subject is: Write a post that starts with the line “Where did you find that?”
It was submitted by: Someone Else's Genius.

 “Where did you find that?” I asked. Not for the first time. I’m guessing not for the last time either.

Who did I say it to? Bet you can’t guess.
PurDude? No.
College Boy? Not this time.
Hubs? Nope.
The plumber.
Yes, I said the plumber. And not only did I say it to him, but I had the honor of paying him to get to say it. Great.

When Hubs and I first moved to the Midwest we rented one half of a two family home. We weren’t familiar with the city and decided to rent while we figured out where we wanted to live.

We had spoken with a close friend who happened to have cousins here and one of them was a teacher in one of the multiple school systems. Although we didn’t have children yet, having moved here just weeks after getting married, we knew that we wanted a family. My friend’s cousin gave us a good start figuring out what area we’d be most interested in. It’s the same part of town in which we were renting and it became clear that we were comfortable with the amenities available in the area.

Once we settled on where we wanted to be, we worked out a budget and started to build our with list.

We wanted a decent sized kitchen because, well, you know I head there when stressed. And I didn’t know it yet, but trying to have children was about to cause a whole lot of stress.

Cornbreaded Cranberry Chicken

also known as

Every Day’s Thanksgiving Chicken

We worked with a realtor and eventually found a house with pretty much everything we wanted. The house was owned by a couple with two very young children. They’d already moved out of state and the house was empty, the sellers were motivated.

We agreed on a price and, within months of marrying had bought our first home together.

We moved in, settled in and were happily decorating when, one day, I looked up at the kitchen ceiling and saw a water stain. Worse, it was still wet. It was directly below the upstairs guest bathroom. Crap. Hopefully not literally.

We don’t know anything about plumbing and, unfortunately, didn’t know any local plumbers. We picked one out using the old tried-and-true scientific eeny-meeny-miney-moe method. Everyone knows that works.

The plumber checked out the situation, let me know he had to replace the beeswax seal, quoted me enough to buy the hives, honeycombs and the whole damn bee farm, and got down to business playing in my toilet.

I was in the kitchen wondering how that whole leak happened in the first place when the plumber came down the stairs.

Plumber: “Do you have young kids?”

Me: “No, but we haven’t lived here very long, the previous owners did. Why?”

He reached into his tool box and pulled out a snow globe.

“Where did you find that?” I asked . . .

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup and check them all out. See you there:

Spatulas on Parade

Stacy Sews and Schools

The Bergham's Life Chronicles

Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

Confessions of a part-time working mom

Juicebox Confession

Someone Else's Genius

The Momisodes
Climaxed 
Sparkly Poetic Weirdo 
Cluttered Genius 
Southern Belle Charm 
Evil Joy Speaks 

Cornbreaded Cranberry Chicken

(or “Every Day’s Thanksgiving” Chicken)

                                                                          ©www.BakingInATornado.com
 
Printable Recipe
 
Ingredients:
3 large boneless skinless chicken breasts (OPT: can use chicken cutlets or turkey cutlets)
3 cups bagged cornbread stuffing, processed to bread crumb consistency
1 ½ tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried tarragon
1 can (14 oz) jellied cranberry sauce
½ cup apricot jam
½ cup orange juice
¼ cup chopped toasted pecans
¼ cup dried cranberries
½ stick butter, melted (OPT: can use non-stick spray)
 
Directions:
*Place cranberry sauce, jam and juice in a pan and, over medium heat, bring to a boil stirring occasionally to mostly break up the cranberry sauce. Allow to simmer for 5 minutes, remove from heat.
*Pour ¾ cup of the sauce into a bowl and set aside to cool a little.
*To the remaining sauce, add the pecans and dried cranberries.
*If using chicken breasts and not cutlets, cut each breast into 3 pieces and pound gently so all pieces are approximately the same thickness.
*Mix together the cornbread stuffing, thyme and tarragon in a bowl.
*Spray a 9 X 13 baking dish with nonstick spray. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
*Dip the chicken or turkey pieces into the ¾ cup of sauce you had set aside earlier. Bread the chicken completely with the cornbread breading mixture. Place into prepared baking dish.
*Melt the ½ stick of butter and pour evenly over the chicken in the dish. OPT: you can spray the chicken with non-stick spray.
*Bake the chicken for approximately 45 minutes or until completely cooked. The amount of cooking time will depend on the thickness of the meat.
*The last 10 minutes of cooking, return the rest of the sauce to the stove and heat over medium low until hot.
*Serve the chicken with the sauce drizzled over the top.