More Monday Musings, including Giveaway Goodness

Hey y'all, doing my best to type here with my grievously injured finger. "What?!" you say? "Grievously injured?! Oh no!!"

Indeed, grievously injured. Sliced from the tip of my finger right down to the first joint. Sliced on the corner of a packing tape dispenser's cutting thingamabob, so it was nicely serrated and sharp. Yee-OUCH! (Which was decidedly not the word that came out of my mouth at the moment it happened. I was listening to Christmas music at the time and I think I made the reindeer blush brighter than Rudolph's nose with the bomb I dropped in that initial blaze of pain.) It cut deeply, too. Deeply enough that it began bleeding like the proverbial stuck pig and would. not. STOP. I wrapped it in a bandage wound tighter than a tourniquet and tried to get on with my day. Danged if it doesn't turn out that this finger is rather essential to my daily functioning.... I mean, it's on my dominant hand, but still, it isn't like my thumb or index finger. Nope, 'tis my middle finger. So not good. It does come in handy with the whole "enabling me to flip Hubby the bird whilst innocently pointing out my injury" though... When bandage number one fell off as I was shampooing Kiddo's hair, I noticed that it began bleeding again. Dagnabit. I was tempted to treat it with some Krazy Glue (in lieu of that actual liquid bandage stuff, of which we have a bottle but I couldn't find it anywhere) but refrained and re-dressed it with a Cinderella, waterproof bandage instead.

That was just the crowning glory of my later afternoon, mind you. I also had cat hairball barfings, grumpy and overtired Kiddo meltdowns and dirty kitty litter boxes to contend with. So not the way I'd envisioned my day going, I can assure you. Humph.

Annnnnyhoo, I had a craving for some chicken pot pie, so I whipped up a batch for dinner. I have a crazy easy recipe which I feel I must share because it is soooo delicious. Yes, even with my injured, essential-to-maintaining-a-decent-typing-speed finger, I will give you the recipe. THAT is how good this is! Here 'tis:

2 chicken breasts, diced into bite-sized pieces
1 can cream o' chicken soup (I use the reduced fat kind that is 98% fat free)
1 small bag of frozen mixed veggies (I mean, you could use fresh veggies, but I'm giving you the EASY-n-LAZY way to do this)
1 box of cornbread mix (I usually use the Jiffy brand, but you know, any brand will do - cheap is good)

Okay, here's how you do it:

Saute the chicken pieces until cooked. (I do this with a little garlic and onion powder and a dash or two of pepper, plus a tbs or two of olive oil. However you want to season/cook your chicken boobs, go for it.) Nuke the veggies per cooking instructions, if they are slightly underdone that is fine. Heck, I've even done it with them still frozen.

In a glass baking dish (I use the 8x8 square, or double the recipe and do it in a lasagna pan), combine cooked chicken, can of soup and veggies, mixing well.

In a separate bowl, make the cornbread batter, adding a little extra milk (the recipe on the Jiffy box calls for 1/3 cup, I usually add closer to 2/3 cup) so the batter is slightly runnier than usual.

Pour the cornbread batter over the chicken/veggie mixture and bake at 400 deg (or whatever temp the cornbread box calls for) for 20ish minutes - you want the cornbread to be golden brown on the top and cooked all the way through.

Serve it up and it is a one dish meal of deliciousness! You can see where substitutions can be made to the basic recipe, it is quite forgiving that way.

During dinner, we listened to my copy of the giveaway prize for my big giveaway tomorrow. More about that at midnight! Yes, it is a musical prize, and it earned major thumbs up from Kiddo and parents alike!

So, after the delicious dinner, I gently carried my injured finger upstairs to finish up my SITSmas card for tomorrow's big event. I popped over to SITS to see what was up and lo and behold, I found out that the grand prize for tomorrow's big SITSmas event is

a $200 Target gift card!!!

WOO!

Now, I had the giveaway mojo going on strong for a while there, earlier this summer. That's what won me that adorable camera (love it!) and a Target gift card in back-to-back weeks. Then, I lost my mojo. Yes, I offered to pass it on to many of my less-winning SITStas, but when SITS did a big Blogathon back in October, I tried my hardest to conjure up my mojo again so I could win the grand prize that day. You know the prize.... a certain autographed photo of a certain George Clooney..... Yeah, that would be the prize I did NOT win. (sob sob) However, my mojo seems to've returned to me, as I eventually did win George when the Blogathon winner gave the picture away a couple weeks ago. So, now that George is safely home with me, I am hoping to crank up my mojo and win that gift card! I've spent every last penny already in my mind... So, if you haven't joined SITS already, hustle yourself over there and join up so you can participate in the SITSmas event with giveaways every hour tomorrow, all day long! Just don't win the Target card, 'cause that is mine, mmmkay?

Anyhow, I've finished up my SITSmas card and my giveaway post, so they'll be going live at midnight. Now I'm off to nurse my injured birdman with a bowl of ice cream. At least it'll numb my pain... See you in a few hours!