A little self-indulgence and a lesson learned all over again

 

Stuffed chicken
It was better than it looks here.
I wasn't able to get neat slices out of that netting.

Tonight, I treated myself to a stuffed chicken breast from Central Market and my favorite salad. The chicken stuffing was a bread/herb/spinach mixture and really good. But to my dismay, the breast was skinless and rolled into that mesh netting which it takes five strong me to remove. And removing it from the hot meat is nearly impossible. I carved off enough to get dinner tonight and put the rest in the fridge. I will say it was a generous portion, and I’ll probably be eating it for days. But I wanted good crisp skin that I could brush with butter.

Because I am always leery of dry chicken or pork, I made a quick sauce—a roux of butter and flour to which I added chicken broth and a good pour of white wine. Pepper but not salt since the broth is sometimes salty. The sauce was delicious and made a big difference, so I’ll file that away.

But lesson learned for another time—and it’s a lesson I keep learning over and over but apparently don’t ever make my own. Do it yourself! I’m perfectly capable of making a good, old-fashioned stuffing and putting it into a boneless, skin-on breast, fastening it with toothpicks, and roasting it.

My favorite salad: chopped tomato (about half a good big Roma), half a nicely ripe avocado, chunked, blue cheese crumbled, a green onion diced. Dress it with a splash of olive oil and a good dose of lemon juice. Pretty acidic, but I love it

And for dessert? Mary Dulle’s OMG pie—chocolate pecan with bourbon. I asked why she and Joe weren’t keeping any of it (she’d done it for a class demonstration), and she said it’s too rich for them. I see why! I’m so stuffed I’m almost somnambulant.

And of course, a dinner like that took a while to prepare and made lots of dirty dishes. I don’t have a dishwasher, so dishes are always a big thing with me. Now all but one pan are done, and it’s soaking. I’ll go back to it if I don’t forget before I go to bed.

Last night I went to a meeting of the Tarrant County Historical Society to hear a program by former Fort Worth Star-Telegram photographer Rodger Mallison. Fascinating. He emphasized that in professional photography timing is everything and brought the point home with a shot of a baseball almost in a catcher’s mitt but not quite. Some of his other photos, particularly the sports photos, were equally dependent on timing. The other thing I hadn’t realized is that photography is a dangerous, scary profession. Rodger had photos taken from atop tall cranes, through the hatch of a plane as a parachutist jumped, in battle zones. He also had human interest photos, including one of a death row inmate who, he said, was a really nice guy. The experiences Rodger had during his forty-some years with the newspaper are amazing, colorful, and varied. Great program.

Not too unusual that I am thinking up projects for myself to divert me from projects that I should be doing. Podcasts seem to be a coming thing, though I am not much attracted to them unless they are video podcasts—and even then, I’m not head over heels. Terrible to say, but I need the visual to keep my mind focused.

But since podcasts seem so popular, I’ve wondered if I should explore further. At first, I thought maybe I should do my blog as a podcast, but the blog is doing really well on its own, and I’m not sure about the one audio book I have (Saving Irene is available in audio with a great narrator). So maybe I don’t have an audio audience. I could simply investigate some podcasts run by others and pitch for a guest appearance, much like trying for a guest blog spot. Lot less work, but sort of a one-time shot.

What about you? Do you list to podcasts? Audio books? I’d love some feedback.

And now, that big dinner has made me sleepy. Night all.

 

Happy days

Big Mac Salad.

Every Tuesday night two of our neighbors come for happy hour with Jordan and me—except this week, we got our schedules all mixed up. I went out to supper on Tuesday, so they came tonight—but Jordan had already made plans to entertain someone from her work for happy hour. But still the three of us sat on the patio and visited for a quick hour. Afterward, Prudence email enthusiastically about how great it was to see everyone so happy.

She was happy  because she has reconciled herself to staying in an online  graduate program with which she is not entirely satisfied because she can finish more quickly and go on to specialized studies. Mary was happy because she felt she finally made progress in “gentling” the feral kitty they’ve been housing for several weeks—she can now do a bit of petting and was rewarded with the first real, deep purr. And I was happy because I’d had that nice dinner out with friends—although I have to say I looked at that picture and realized I can tell (maybe no one else can) that I am still on steroids from the hospital stay. My face is puffy—surely I don’t look that way all the time. Supposedly we are tapering me off them—I thought we did that a while ago, but apparently not.

My “be still my heart” moment of the week: 18-year-old granddaughter Eden texted from Kansas City where she is with friends to say she was eating a salad of hearts of palm, and it made her think of my because she used to eat them out of the jar from my refrigerator. I asked about the salad and she said it also had artichoke hearts and Parmesan—I’m about ready to head to Kansas City just to get that. She also wrote that now she has had covid and recovered—I didn’t know that—she can hug me because she has antibodies and hopes to do so soon.

Good day for me because I took a step to reactivate my study of Helen Corbitt, the diva of food service at Neiman’s in the 1960s, and also explored writing another biographical entry in the Handbook of Texas, this on some people I knew years ago which would make it more fun. More on that later. And there’s a mystery floating around in my mind, though it sure hasn’t surfaced except for stray ideas. Still, it’s nice to have projects on my desk and on my mind.

Balmy days, so much so that we had a salad dinner. Big Mac Salad—all the ingredients of a Big Mac at McDonald’s except in a salad and with homemade Thousand Island dressing—lettuce, tomato, pickle, ground beef, grated cheese. Good and refreshing. Jacob had a golf tournament today which means he got up at 5:30 a.m., so he slept through dinner, and Christian was at a late meeting, so Jordan and I dined together and enjoyed it. She fed them salad later.

All in all, I agree with Prudence. There is happiness—and spring—in the air. We don’t have to find a reason—just enjoy! Hope everyone else feels it.

 

Of birds and dogs and dinner

An angel came to visit me today. I was sitting at my desk, with the door open as always, and suddenly a large male cardinal, in full red glory, landed on the screen—a tricky move, but he hung there just long enough to stare at me a moment, then he flew to the low wall next to the door—and in an instant he was gone. The old saying is that when a cardinal visits you it means someone from heaven is thinking about you, and, of course, I always think it’s my mom

Jordan put a more mundane spin on the story. She says the cardinal landed on the deck, outside the window where she was working, and kind of fell over before righting himself. She got up to see if he was okay—she suspected a wing issue—but he was gone by the time she got outside. So we’re praying that he’s safe and hearty and just came to give us a message.

I was surprised Sophie didn’t react, but she was sleeping in her favorite chair. That’s how she usually spends the mornings—cat naps with periodic forays to patrol the outside. But I think this morning, she was extra tired because she was absolutely hyper yesterday. She chased squirrels all morning, barking in an annoying manner. My attempts to lure her inside were ignored. Last night I mentioned the muddy footprints on the sidewalk, and only then did I learn that she had been “refreshing” herself in the kiddie pool recently vacated by Jacobs bass fish. Jacob found her standing in the muddy water—and I suspect it was only muddy because of dirt she had tracked into it. Thank goodness, she didn’t crawl into my bed.

Last night she refused to go out at ten as she usually does, and this morning she slept until I woke her. I think Sophie, now eight and in doggie middle age, might have learned that she can’t chase squirrels all day as she did at two.

While animals seem to be flourishing in our little compound, so do my desk plants. My patio tomatoes are growing nicely, though I don’t see any blooms on them which might promise fruit. And my basil is growing enough that I soon need to do something with it—probably pesto. I used to have old-fashioned plastic ice cube trays. I’d fill each cube space with pesto, freeze, and then dump into a baggie. I need to do that again. Meanwhile I think I have the only weeping basil I’ve ever seen—it looks like it’s in desperate need of water, but I water it regularly and the leaves and stem are perfectly firm. I just think it’s a weeping variety—if there is such a thing.  Or an aberration.

Monday nights are often salad nights for Jordan and me—a big salad with leaf lettuce and my special blue cheese dressing. So good.

First harvest and a cookie cooperative

I harvested my first crop from my Christmas herb garden today—romaine that had grown long and lanky and kept folding over on itself. So I had a big salad for lunch—mixed a little leftover iceberg in with it, but the dark green leaves in the picture are my home-grown romaine. Added blue cheese, croutons, and my favorite Paul Newman’s vinaigrette dressing. A salad fit for a queen. In place of the romaine in the garden trough, I put a seedling of garden cress. We’ll see. I was tempted to use the mustard in my salad today, but I think it needs a bit more growth—it isn’t what I’d call plentiful yet. If you’ve never used raw mustard greens in a salad, I urge you to try them—peppery and spicy, a wonderful perk in a green salad.

Another cooking day. I seem to have a lot of them lately, not that I’m complaining. Yesterday I made the overnight salad and stashed it in the fridge. Tonight, I made a chicken/green chili casserole, but I fudged with the recipe a bit. Jordan found a recipe she really liked, but it gave no quantities. If you wanted to download the actual recipe you had to allow some program to put something on your computer—not going there. I found an approximate recipe and decided to make it, but the more I studied on it, the more skeptical I got.

The recipe said you could pour the sauce over raw boneless chicken breasts, but I elected to use diced chicken that I had poached yesterday. The sauce called for cream cheese, green chilies, spices, and grated Monterey Jack. I couldn’t see anything that would make it fluid enough to be a sauce. Cream cheese, evens often, is pretty solid. I added sour cream. Then I thought the recipe needed “finishing”—so I put a Ritz-cracker-crumb-and-butter topping on it. Pretty good if I do say so.

I sautéed the rest of the sugar snap peas and asparagus in the refrigerator. At Christian’s request, I splashed soy on them, though I questioned adding soy to a chili-based dish. Oriental and Mexican? My palate was not sure about that, but I went light on the soy, and it was all good.

For dessert, we had molasses cookies. Jacob and I baked them this afternoon. Well, sort of. He was a willing helper when I mentioned it this morning, but his enthusiasm waned when confronted with the task—assembling cookie sheets, greasing them, getting a small dish of sugar for rolling the cookies, etc. We had to do this in the house—I have a miniature jelly roll pan that fits my toaster oven, but I can only do five cookies or five biscuits at a time. We’d have been at it all week. So we went inside, but most of my cookie sheets, like lots of my kitchen stuff, have disappeared.

Like the cookie sheets, Jacob kept disappearing. His phone rang. He’d pet a dog or put on socks, and I’d send him to wash his hands again—he must have washed them five times. Once we got started and he saw what was involved, he decided I should roll the dough into little balls and he’d roll them in sugar. One pan, and he said, “We’re done, aren’t we?” Nope. It’s one of those recipes that makes five dozen. With Jordan’s help, we finally got it done. And I have to say, those are some darn fine cookies. But I’ll think twice before I commit to cookies again. Still….some chocolate chips, made the true old-fashioned way—oh, my so good!