Salsa chicken and corn pudding

Last night Will came over for dinner (world’s easiest chicken recipe to follow), and we were all sitting around talking stuff. He told us of a prank he pulled on David when they were younger.

Here’s the set up: the boys bedrooms were in the basement. It was about 11pm, and David had been asleep for about an hour. WIll hung a blanket over the basement window so David couldn’t tell what time it was.

Will ran into David’s room, all excited and said “David! David! Get up! There’s doughnuts!”

David immediately came full awake and ran as fast as he could up the stairs, yelling “DOUGHNUTS!” and into a dark and empty kitchen.

Deep disappointment from David, screaming laughter from Will.

See, this is what I love about my boys.

Last night I had a meeting from 6-7. Normally we eat about 6:30, and normally I cook the kind of meal that requires steady attendance in the kitchen right up until we eat. But, I had a meeting. So…I took a chicken idea someone had given me a bit ago and combined it with a recipe I knew needed little tending, and came up with this:

Salsa chicken and corn pudding:

Salsa Chicken
2 pounds of chicken parts (I used boneless breasts cut into strips, you could use anything. Just take off the skin)
About a cup of bottled salsa (your favorite kind)
2 handfuls of shredded co-jack (or cheddar, or whatever) cheese
Put the chicken in a casserole dish, top with the salsa, top with the cheese. Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. If you think of it, remove the foil about 10 minutes before the hour is up. If you don’t, no big deal.
There will be this delicious and cheesy sauce stuff in the dish, and it’s really yummy spooned over the corn pudding.

Corn pudding
1 recipe of your favorite corn bread (I use Martha While Cornbread mix, and buttermilk instead of sweet milk)
an extra egg (the recipe calls for 1 egg, use 2)
1 cup sour cream
1-1/2 cups whole kernel corn (I use unthawed frozen, if you use canned be sure to drain it, and you can just use 1 can)
Mix it all together, pour into a well buttered casserole bowl. Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees.

See how convenient…both bake at the same temp for the same amount of time. You can fix the chicken in a crock pot if you like.
With the corn pudding, make the cornbread like you always do- if you make it from scratch, do that, but use buttermilk and add an extra egg and the sour cream and corn. This makes it softer than regular cornbread. If you use the mix, do the same thing, make it like you always do, only with buttermilk (you don’t have to change the dry mix), the extra egg, sour cream, etc.

IF you don’t have any buttermilk and don’t feel like buying it just for this, you can make your own approximation of it by taking a cup of regular milk and adding a tablespoon of vinegar to it. Let it sit for about 10 minutes before using it. It will thicken up and act just like buttermilk. It doesn’t taste exactly the same, but it’s close.