Sunbury Crab Co: Where they may not know your name, but the food tastes good!

As our time in Georgia is drawing to an end, Matt and I are finding ourselves scurrying to visit places and eat at our favorite restaurants before we have to hit the dusty trail.  One of our most beloved local favorites is Sunbury Crab Co.  It didn't take much convincing when Matt suggested we go there for dinner.

I love the laid back decor here, it really makes me feel like I could be on a hammock in the Florida Keys' just relaxing. 

You can walk right out from the parking lot onto the dock/marina.  The food they use is caught right out of the river here.  When I asked, "Is the blue crab fresh?"  I was told "yes m'am, caught it out of the river this week."  You can beat fresh seafood! 

Matt always gets the Landshark when we come here, like I said it def has a distinct Jimmy Buffet vibe, so why not drink the Jimmy beer? 

Matt gets his beer and I get my crab crackers.  I like to get the bucket of blue crab, because you see that bucket right there...yes, it will be filled to the brim with warm seasoned blue crab. 

My favorite time to go is right before sunset, you can watch out to the river, eat, and just enjoy the view.  In the summer time, the restaurant is open air, and you can normally find live local bands serenading you as you dig in to your oysters, crab, shrimp, or whatever the fresh catch of the day is. 

Tonight though they had the plastic over the windows cause it was kind of nippy and the sand gnats can be annoying.

One word=Crunchy

In my vernacular crunch fries are to. die. for. 

 Love eating seafood from the river, on the river.

Gonna miss this place.

Why my husband is quitting the Army and becoming a chef

I am joking, but I definitely think that he could pull it off.  We all know that yesterday was Valentine's Day and for weeks Matt has insisted that he make me dinner.  He planned it all out himself, cooked it himself, and we then cleaned up the kitchen together.  That is what he was busy doing yesterday when I went to get my haircut.  I was instructed to stay out of the house until around 6.  Matt knew he had to keep me out of the house completely or he wouldn't be able to keep me out of the kitchen.  I may or may not have control issues when it comes to let Matt cook.  

When I came home sporting my new do, he immediately told me he liked it, but then had to run back to the kitchen to complete his masterpiece.

Matt's Four Course Valentine's Day Dinner:

Salt and Pepper Cheese Puffs

 Look how the center was hollow, all puffed up just like they should be.

They were so good, I was impressed that he made these from scratch.

A Salad

He even added the Klaussen Pickle spears because I LOVE them and it was a holiday about love after all.

Steak Remoulade Sandwich with Broccoli 

He made the remoulade sauce, grilled the steak, and dressed the sandwich with yellow bell pepper and spinach.

And for dessert

Chocolate Chip Cookies....can't beat em'.

I have absolutely no problem admitting and professing that he did a great job with dinner. He might have actually made a mistake because now that I know he can cook so well, he might have that responsibility more often.  I also will reluctantly admit that knowing he was in the kitchen while I wasn't home wasn't as stressful as I thought.  I really appreciate he hard work and effort!

Nappy No-Mo

Mama's got a brand new do!

Like the old Brady Bunch song...It was time to change, time to re-arrange (my hair)...

Out with the old

In with the new

I had just had enough with the nappy nest o' hair that my head had become.  My wave was not so much a wave anymore and had graduated into the land of limp and lifeless.  I needed something new and fresh for spring, and since my long hair usually ended up in a pony-tail, I just couldn't justify keeping my length.  I mean I love it long, but I never do anything special with it.  I think I lost 5 lbs, just getting rid of all that mess.

Matt loves it, I love it, and even Duece barked his seal of approval.

Smoothie Operator

I had several things in the fruit bowl that just weren't going to make it over the weekend.  We all know how that goes...you buy a bunch of fresh fruit and then the next thing you know, you reach into the bowl to grab a kiwi and you grab mush instead.  Ew!  

Kiwi, Banana, and Strawberries were all on the chopping block.  You may not believe this, but it physically hurts me to throw away food, so I decided to whip out one of my new favorite kitchen gadgets, the Ninja, and made a smoothie.  I also had an avocado but I didn't think a guacamole smoothie sounded too good.    I figured, I would mix it up, put it in the fridge and Matt could have it in the morning.  

Chelle's Smoothie Recipe

2 Banana, cut up

1 cup strawberries, quartered

2 kiwi, peeled and sliced

1/2 cup blueberries

1 Dannon Light and Fit Vanilla yogurt

2 tbsp Milk

Put it in the Ninja, press the button and watch smoothie magic happen!

Someone ended up getting some tonight.

Turns out Duece LOVES smoothies.  I might have to make this a regular treat for him.

Also, today is Matt's 27th Birthday!

Happy Birthday from Me and Duece, we love you!

Boast Chicken

Tonight after a long day of subbing, I came home and made a much more complicated meal than I intended to.  That being said...it was delicious.  I thought I would roast a chicken, and in my mind there wasn't much to it other than putting it in the oven.  But I was nervous.  I usually cook my chicken in the crock pot so I was worried that I was one degree away on my oven from setting the house chicken on fire.  

Even though I just said that it ended up being more complicated than I thought, don't be intimidated by the thought of "roasting a chicken".  Makes sense huh?

Let's get cookin good lookin!

I chopped up some fresh parsley that I had on hand and added in a few shakes of ground sage and thyme.  I mixed in just enough canola oil to "wet" the spices.

Then I prepared a carrot, celery stick, onion, garlic cloves,  and some more parsley to stuff inside of the chicken cavity.  You can really put in whatever you want.  I wanted to use a lemon, but it had sat in my fruit bowl too long...that tends to happen to me a lot.

Next, I minced a few cloves of garlic and mixed it with about 2 tablespoons of butter 

Using the spice mixture and the garlic butter I rub it all over the outside of the chicken skin.  I even like to get up underneath the skin on the breast of the chicken.  I also salt and pepper it at this point.

Personally I hate to touch raw chicken, but it is worth it.  Put it in a glass baking dish or a roasting pan if you have one.  I ended up adding about 1 cup of chicken broth to the bottom of the dish because like I mentioned before I was worried about dinner becoming a fire hazard.

Bake it at 425 for about 85 minutes for a 5 lb chicken or until the juices run clear. 

Totally worth it...see, I told ya!

Doesn't that look good.

And that is the story of how I roasted a chicken and lived to boast about it.

Wordless Wednesday

Cashing in my Christmas Present

This past weekend I was finally able to cash in my Christmas present from Matt.  For years or maybe months I had been dropping hits to Matt about how if he ever had the chance to take me to see Reba McEntire that he better figure out a way to take, even if it meant pawning his golf clubs.  I kid, I kid.  I didn't even know she was going to be in the area, so I was truly surprised when he gave me concert tickets for Christmas.

The weekend started off great!  Thanks to Priceline.com I was able to snag us a really swanky room at the Hyatt Riverfront in Jacksonville.  Since the concert was on a Friday night, we thought it only made since to make it an overnight trip.  Honestly, I kind of felt like we were robbing the hotel, knowing how much I had actually paid for the room.

We decided that before the concert we would go eat the Cheesecake Factory.  Neither of us had ever eaten there before and after someone gave us a book about what foods to eat and not to eat, and the Cheesecake Factory had "bad" food on everyone of the lists detailed in the book, we decided to splurge on our calorie counts.  We were successful in eating SO much that we were miserable.  We didn't even get dessert.

It was at supper that things started to take a turn.  I took my camera out to take a picture and uh oh...I noticed I didn't have my SD card.  How could I take photos without my card?   Matt just rolled his eyes and laughed.  He knows that, because it is true, I am notorious for forgetting to put my SD card back into my camera.  He graciously agreed to stop at CVS so I could buy one.  Let me go on record as saying that CVS in Jacksonville is VERY proud of their SD cards.  I small 2GB card ran me $29.99.  That hurt me a little because unfortunately that wasn't the first time I had to buy a card on the fly.

Off the the concert we go, with camera.  Because how could I go to a concert to see Reba, the queen of country music, and not take my camera to document what I had so long waited for?  Literally, the only thing I had in my bag was my camera.  We get to the door, they scan our tickets, so we can't leave and go to another door because our tickets wouldn't scan again, and THEN they tell me, I am sorry mam we don't allow THOSE kinds of cameras.

"Um, excuse me", I said.  Obviously they didn't know that I had just spent $30 bucks on a new SD card for said camera.  I didn't know what to do.  Like I stated above, we couldn't leave because they had already scanned our tickets.  Seriously...I still can't believe it.  I was being discriminated against because of my snazzy camera.  Appropriate?  I think not.  Matt was not amused.  After coming to grips with the fact that I wasn't going to be documenting this magical night in country music, I started to move on.

Thank you to the very nice cab driver who volunteered to take my camera back to the hotel for me and leave it at the front desk.  Risky?  Absolutely, but she looked nice and I had her number.  Off into the concert we went!

And the above story should explain why I have no pictures of this event.

Still slightly disappointed but mostly excited, we found our seats.  At this point LeeAnn Womack was already singing.  She was really good.  I would have been fine with JUST Reba, because I love her, but Matt was definitely excited to see hear Ms. Womack.  To give credit, she did a great job.  I had forgotten how many good songs see had other than "I Hope You Dance."

The Main Event was TO DIE FOR.  I could go on and on about how good Reba was.  Her show wasn't over the top, there were no fireworks, hovering from the ceiling, or confetti cannons.  It was just good singing and showmanship at its best.  She looked great!  She sounded great!  And she definitely met all of my expectations and more.  I will say she faked me out, her show came to a close and she had forgot to sing "Fancy" I was devastated.  Then Matt consoled me and told me to wait a second, he thought she was coming back for an encore.  Of course she was...an encore!  Then as the lights rose and the video began to play, a taxi cab delivered Reba in a sparkling red dress to the stage to close out the show with the one song I wanted to hear more than anything else.


There was even one endearing moment during her show in which she forgot the words to "The Greatest Man I Ever Knew".  Also, in the middle of her show Melissa Peterman came out and did a little comedy routine with her.  Melissa was Reba's co-star on her TV show appropriately titled "Reba".  So funny and such a nice surprise to see Barbara Jean being her funny self.

For me, the concert could have ended there.  George Strait closed the show, and not to take anything away from George because he is a great musician, but he really doesn't put on a show.  He stands there on the corner of the stage with his guitar and sings.  He sings good, but when it is pushing on 11 o'clock at night, he is better for putting you to sleep than for making you want to dance and sing along.  So we left the concert feeling like we had gotten what we went for.