Day 19 - Jan. 31, 2012

Today, my group went into the kitchen to cook southern food.  This was something I was really looking forward to.  Growing up, my mom always cooked us our favorite meal on our birthday and my choice was always fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, etc.  Today, we cooked fried chicken, mashed potatoes, string beans, macaroni and cheese, sweet potatoes, biscuits, and peach cobbler (I hope I'm not forgetting anything).  It was delicious.  I helped Josh with the fried chicken.  We cut up 5 whole chickens and also had a few packages of leg quarters.  We soaked the chicken in buttermilk and seasoned our flour.  We used a total of three cast iron dutch ovens, two of Dr. Sloans and one of mine I brought from home.  We heated up canola oil to about 350 degrees and began frying our chicken.  The whole process took right at three hours, which I thought was pretty amazing for the amount of chicken we cooked.  Some of it was a little bit overdone and dry, but we had to make sure everything was cooked thoroughly since we were feeding so many people.  We would rather it have been overdone rather than undercooked and people getting sick.  I thought everything people cooked turned out really well.  We probably should have bought more string beans, but there was plenty of food to go around and I think everyone left full and happy.  This was my favorite day in the kitchen and my favorite meal to eat period.