A good southern cooked meal

Last night we had the chance to feed some of the youth in our ward for missionary month. We had lots of fun and I have to say I broadened my southern cooking skills. Actually I don't think that I had any southern cooking skills so it was a learning experience. Brent went on his mission to South Carolina and has always told me he liked chicken and dumplings and biscuits and gravy and all this Southern food and the great wife that I am always thought these foods didn't sound that appetizing so I never bothered trying to cook them. I now admit I was somewhat wrong. I now realized I just had to put forth a little effort and try something outside of my little box. So I had this great idea that I would make a sample of all these things including fried chicken. So here is where my experience started. The chicken and dumplings turned out pretty good and I really actually liked the biscuits and gravy but I have to be honest about the chicken. So here it goes, when I told Tyler we were going to have fried chicken this was his response, "Mom are you cooking it or are you buying it at KFC, because I really like KFC's better." (you gotta love kids honesty). So yup you guessed it, I wimped out and went for the easy way out, KFC all the way. In the end I was really glad Tyler made the suggestion because boy it saved lots of time and stress:) Well now that I have confessed that I somewhat cheated I feel much better but personally I think I made the right decision:) The dinner turned out great and my kids and I had fun trying foods that Brent ate all the time on his mission. I don't think we will be eating biscuits and gravy or grittz every morning for breakfast or anything but it's always fun to try something different.

This did make me realize how sometimes I get into cooking ruts and tend to cook the same things over and over so if any of you have any good recipes (easy and good) feel free to send them my way!!