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Viva Girls Night In

My best friend has three boys, bless her heart, and we recently got together with a couple of friends on a Friday night to eat, drink, and do what we do best—talk!

We may or may not have discussed you, your mama, and quite possibly your cousins and second cousins or your high school math teacher who hasn’t changed one lick since they taught you in the mid-1980s and who they are married to, divorced from, and/or dating.

With ten kids between us, ages ranging from 4 to 21, to say we needed a break at the end of the week was an understatement. One friend’s mom had recently had knee surgery, she works full time, and has a son in basic training for the Army. I need a drink just typing that.

Add wine, good conversation and great food, oh and a little more wine, and you can pretty much describe the evening. We all graduated from the same small high school (cue John Mellencamp Small Town) so most of the conversations started like this..

“Do ya’ll remember so and so? You know, so and so? They grew up down the road from me.”

OH YEAH yeah yeah!

…well you’ll never believe it, but…

Noooo!

Just think of it as six degrees of separation hometown style. Everyone knows everybody. Don’t believe me? Just go to any small town Walmart on pay day or better yet (SCANDALOUS) the liquor store. You’ll see your mama, your friend’s mama, or some guy you slow danced with at homecoming 20 years ago. Same thing goes for church on Sunday mornings. You get your weekly dose of small town gossip, and some spiritual guidance for the week. Bonus!

It was fun and a much needed girls’ night in. I hope next time we don’t wait so long to get together.

Gossip may be tacky, but, like wine, in small doses it’s good for the soul.

Here’s a yummy recipe from our girls’ night in. They’re on the spicy side, so be warned. They’re also messy, so make sure you have plenty of paper towels.

Buffalo Chicken Jalapeño Poppers from Rachael Ray

Ingredients
18 – 20 jalapeño peppers
1/3 cup hot sauce, such as Frank’s Red Hot
2 tablespoons butter
2 cups of rotisserie chicken, skin and bones removed, shredded
1 rib celery, finely chopped
1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1/2 cup blue cheese crumbles
Yields: Serves 4 as an appetizer

Preparation
Preheat oven to 425ºF.

Working lengthwise, slice off the top quarter of each jalapeño. Using a small spoon or paring knife, scrape the seeds and ribs out of each jalapeño.

Place a small saucepot over low heat. Add hot sauce and whisk in the butter until melted. In a medium size bowl, combine the pulled chicken, celery, Monterey Jack cheese and half of the blue cheese.

Scoop some of the chicken mixture into each of the peppers, filling them all up. Lightly mound the chicken into each pepper. Place the peppers in a baking dish and top with the remaining blue cheese.

Bake the peppers until tender and heated through, about 15 minutes. Serve.

Have you had a girls’ night in lately?

This post was sponsored by Viva Towels. For fun, fork-free recipes – including videos – and snappy entertaining ideas, get over to the VIVA® Diva Café.)

Drowning Our Sorrows In BBQ Sauce

Viva Ribs Collage

Sunday afternoon the hubby cooked up a mess of boneless pork ribs outdoors on the gas grill and we invited my dad and brother over to chow down and watch the Titans/Patriots game. It was a glorious fall afternoon, the kind that beckons you to fire up the backyard grill because you know these days of crisp blue skies and custom ordered sunshine are fleeting.

It was all perfect, really, until five minutes into the second quarter when the Titans mentally checked out and went to Bora Bora to escape the snow.

Before the girls came along the hubby was the master backyard pork aficionado. We had a couple of backyard beer/barbecue bashes and in college he would dig a pit in the backyard of his rental bachelor pad house and smoke an entire half pig. It wasn’t uncommon for 200 people to show up for these cookouts. This may not be the Rendezvous in Memphis but his mad pork skillz could make Elvis cry for ‘Cilla to bring him more napkins.

If you’re a Titans fan or a Patriots fan or follow the NFL at all you know it wasn’t much of a game to watch considering it was the most lopsided loss in 33 years. But hey, the snow was pretty in HD. We basically spent a few hours watching the Titans getting the holy living sauce kicked out of them repeatedly by the Patriots. It seemed appropriate to have such a messy meal for such a messy game. Thank God for paper towels.

We had two kinds of finger-licking, get all up in your business with sauce, ribs: honey chipotle and Carolina style. For those unfamiliar with Carolina barbecue, it’s a mustard-based sauce, rather than their standard tomato-based rib brethren. We used Sticky Fingers sauce from Charleston, S.C. We also served an amazing chilled fresh black bean salad as a side dish, although we ended up eating quite a bit of it with tortilla chips. All I can say is fresh avocado and cilantro will cure whatever ails you, including a horrific loss, especially if you wash them down with beer.

Here’s the recipe for the black bean salad. The hubby also added a can of hoppin’ john to the black bean salad and he did not add jalapenos. No need in crying any more than we already were over the final score…59 to NOTHING.

Black Bean Salad Recipe

Ingredients
•   3 fresh ears corn
•   3 to 4 tablespoons lime juice
•   2 tablespoons olive oil
•   1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
•   1 teaspoon salt
•   1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
•   2 (15-ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
•   2 large tomatoes, seeded and chopped
•   3 jalapeño peppers, seeded and chopped
•   1 small purple onion, chopped
•   1 avocado, peeled, seeded, and chopped
•   1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Preparation

Cook corn in boiling water to cover 5 minutes; drain and cool. Cut corn from cob. (You can fudge a bit here and add canned corn.)

Whisk together lime juice and next 4 ingredients in a large bowl. Add corn, black beans, and remaining ingredients; toss to coat. Cover and chill 2 hours.

This post was sponsored by Viva Towels. For fun, fork-free recipes – including videos – and snappy entertaining ideas, get over to the VIVA® Diva Café.