Ice Box Cake, shredded chicken tutorial, driveway party

It was a GLORIOUS 63 degrees when we got up on Friday morning (9/1). Freya had an exciting time…after her regular morning walk, Michael took her up to the CVS drive-thru in the golf cart…and then all the way out to Pod “V” in the car. We’re trying to get her used to both, so we don’t have to go through what we did with Cookie…who used to go absolutely CRAZY!!!

I made an ice box cake in the morning…I didn’t have any graham crackers, so I used ‘nilla wafers instead (and ran out right in the end…..but it will all taste good…right?):

By then my honey was home and watching Freya, so I headed to the studio and got my blog out before pinning on the backing for my new customer quilt.

I have a lot of dinner recipes that require cooked, shredded chicken….and I don’t always have a rotisserie chicken around to shred….do you want to know the easiest, most hands off method to get lots of shredded chicken? I put 4 pounds of raw chicken breast in the crockpot, and turned it on low:

I didn’t add any liquid, because these days there’s plenty of water inside the breasts already. Cook it until the internal temperature is 165 degrees:

I had 4 pounds of chicken breast in a 3 quart crockpot, and on low, it was done in 4 hours. Let it sit and cool off a bit (as you should with any meat so that some of the juices are re-distributed back into the meat).

Get out your mixer with the flat blade paddle attachment and put 1 – 2 breasts in the bowl with a bit of the juice from the crockpot (maybe a quarter of a cup):

Start slowly (otherwise the entire breast will go whoopsie right out of the bowl…ask me how I know!!) Once it starts breaking up, you can increase the speed if needed and within 45 seconds to a minute – prest-o/change-o – you have perfectly shredded chicken!

You can freeze it in cup portions, or whatever works for you, and then it’s ready at a moment’s notice. I like it to cool down quickly, so I spread it out on a cookie sheet:

and popped it into the fridge. Now it’s ready for my dinner Saturday night.

After that it was back to the studio to continue working. I got the final seam sewn on my strip twist quilt, but didn’t get it pressed before heading outside to set up for our driveway party in the late afternoon:

-Ann Mary and Pete

-Kay and Sandi (new neighbor)

-Evelyn and Phil

-Ginny and Jim

-Ken and Mike

I missed getting pics of Joann and Howard.

We all talked for a couple of hours, and when Michael and I came inside at 7 PM, we had the quintessential summer meal…mater sammiches:

and corn on the cob!

*** I WANT BUNS OF STEEL!!!!!! BUT, I also want buns of cinnamon. ***