Don’t Say I Never Gave Ya Anything

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appetizers, Chinese, crab Rangoon, General Tso's chicken, Recipes

Once upon a time. . .Oh that’s been done to death!

Well, at the inception of this blog, the plan was to present a diverse blend of politics, religion (you know that always makes friends!), crafting ideas, cooking, and then anything else my extraordinary brain came up with.

In other words, it was to be eclectic, which I am. My interests are unlimited, my decorating ideas run from country artisan to art deco, and that’s a pretty wide chasm. My food delights range from Italian, Mexican, to down home Americana and Chinese. I like cuisine from Egypt and India. About the only thing I don’t care much for is German food.

Anyway, lately, for about the last couple of years, we’ve been fairly limited to politics, with a bit of religious thrown in to keep it honest. Here and there I’ve dropped a recipe, but today, well I just pulled out all the stops. So those of you who could care less, fair warning, this is food oriented.

First up, I told you that we were having General Tso’s Chicken and crab Rangoon. I made them a couple of weeks ago. And they turned out very good indeed, so I thought I’d let you in on the recipe. A word about the Tso’s chicken. There are myriad recipes for this. Basically it’s to be a kind of coated breast meat and on the hot side. So here is how I did that:

General Tso’s Chicken

• 1/2 chicken breast, cut up into bitesize pieces
• 1/3 c flour
• 1 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 4-5 serrano chilis (I added a minced one to the veggies)

Mix together in a bowl and add enough liquid (water or chicken stock) to make it all gooey.

In the wok, heat 1/2 c vegetable oil (give or take–none of this is rocket science).Add 4-5 chilis (the red serrano and let them sizzle until they pop and turn dark.  Add chicken pieces trying to keep them separate and brown on both sides until done. Probably about 2 minutes a side.Remove chicken pieces and continue adding and frying until all are done. Set aside.

Add whatever vegetables you want to the wok. These should have been cut up and bagged earlier.

I added:

• carrots, celery, an onion sliced, broccoli stems sliced,

Stir fry until tender but crisp. Add any sauce you like or cornstarch and chicken stock, with some soy. I  used a Teryaki sauce. Throw the chicken back in, and add three or four sliced green onions. Toss until warmed through and all is coated.

Serve over rice.

Crab Rangoon

• 8 oz fake crab or real as you prefer (I found the fake just fine for this appetizer)
• 4 oz cream cheese at room temperature
• 1 scallion chopped
• 1 medium clove garlic sliced
• pepper
• salt only if using fresh crab
• minced celery if you like
• 1 egg (or egg white) whisked
• 1 package wonton wraps ( you will use about 1/4 of them. I divide the rest into 1/4 packets and wrap in plastic and put in a freezer bag and throw in the freezer. They defrost fine)

Place everything but the egg and wrappers into a food processor and whir up until it is a paste but with visible “pieces. Scrape out into a bowl and sit down with your wrappers and egg wash. Take a wrapper, place a mounded tsp of the crab paste in the middle, with your finger dip in the egg wash and trace along two edges meeting at a tip. Draw the unwashed side over the crab and form a triangle, press out the air gently and press all the edges.

Do this until you have used up all the paste (I had about 30 or so). Place on a jelly roll pan lined with parchment, not touching each other. Place in freezer for a couple of hours until frozen hard. Place them in a freezer bag and you are done.

When you want to use them, remove as many as you wish. Heat some oil in a very small sauce pan (saves a lot of oil that way) and fry for about 1 minute or less one at a time. Golden brown is what you are looking for. Place on paper towel to drain and place in a warm place to hold until your stir fry is done. (You can bake them too, I’m guessing at about 400-425°. I’d check at 10 minutes. Remove when golden brown.

The point is these are as good as most of what you get in a Chinese restaurant and way better than any frozen kind from the grocery story. You only have to make them a couple of times a year, and frankly, its less than an hour’s worth of work anyway.

Okay, so now we move on to a few new tips I’ve managed after 61 years to finally figure out.

Given that in the winter, we shop infrequently, I alway have trouble keeping fresh vegetables fresh. Well I have some ways that finally give them a refrigerator life of a good two weeks. And that’s a lot better than usual. So here is what I learned:

Green onions: clean them within a day, cutting off the root and outer layer and cutting off the green end where you normally would. Take a paper towel and wet it, wringing it out. Wrap this around the root end of the onions and place in a tumbler glass. Cover with one of those light plastic bags you placed them in at the store. Just wrap around. Sit in refrig. Trust me…your onions neither dry out, not become all rotten.

Cucumbers and peppers: I used to wrap them in plastic wrap and they always rotted within days. Then you cut off a chunk of the rotten stuff. You end up losing about 1/2 of each. This works. Buy those cherry tomatoes or raspberries  or whatever in the plastic hard containers with slotted holes in the sides. Save them and place your unwrapped cukes and peppers in them. The cut edges dry out and are perfectly dry and unrotted for up to two weeks. As to the peppers, best to clean out the seeds at the first use.

Mushrooms: Either they became shriveled and hard or yucky slimy. Open the package and use what you need. As to the rest: throw away the plastic wrapper over the little container. Place this in a brown paper bag, close and place in fridge. They were fine two weeks later.

Happy cooking. Today we are having: Beef Stroganoff over noodles, salad and bread.

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In Case You Care

Tags

bechamel sauce, enchiladas, GOP, Mexican food, Ohio, Recipes, unions, wacko right wing

Blitzkrieg literally means “lightning war”. It became the Nazi method of surprise attack with overwhelming force. In American terms, think “shock and awe”.

It seems to me, that the assault on public employee unions is much the same. It seems to have been a plot hatched deep in the bowels of Republican bunkers, unleashed after a favorable 2010 election cycle. Strike while the iron is hot as they say.

Republicans in state after state are facing bills introduced by lock-step following drones of the Party hierarchy, all designed to destroy the union movement in America, and thus attempt to weaken if not utterly destroy the Democratic Party who gets most of its votes.

This is all being done against the wishes of the electorate. Poll after poll, even the deeply flawed and uber right leaning arm of the GOP, the Rasmussen, says that the public is overwhelming in its support of the rights of public workers to unionize. The people are not buying the rhetoric of the right plain and simple.

They are not buying the attempts of Fox and other wacko pundits to paint the union workers as grossly overpaid, and not sharing in the pain of “everyone else.” This from the mouths of jackasses who make millions a year. They are not buying the claims that the demonstrators are largely “paid socialists and commies”. In fact Stephen Colbert caught Fox in another of its deliberate lies. It claimed with appropriate footage that demonstrators were from other states, and were “agitators”. Trouble was the agitators were wearing t-shirts and there were palm trees in the background as they marched. Not exactly Madison I’m thinking.

Nothing is too much to achieve their business currying ends. In Ohio, Republican Senate leadership, removed a fellow GOP committee member and replaced him with another GOPer. Why? Because the sitting Republican was not going to vote for their union killing bill. So they just replaced him with one who would. Yeah, that is the lengths these evil people are prepared to go. No democracy for them. No. Just blatant blitzkrieg, good old shock and awe.

***

Okay, so I try to keep my word, so here is the awesome enchilada recipe I concocted. Well, the new and revised version since I really, really don’t like Velveeta®. It’s not the taste so much, it’s the viscosity that leaves a gluey like lip smackin’ sensation. Not good.

What this recipe is designed to do is to eliminate the issue I have with traditionally baked enchiladas, namely the soggy, disintegration of the tortillas during the baking process. The sauce, just melts them away.

This is how I fixed that problem.

Sherry’s Basically Great Enchiladas

Poach a good-sized bone in chicken breast with the usual onion, celery, salt and pepper, bay leaf, until done. Or buy a roasted chicken and shred, or use some left over chicken you already have.  Set aside, cool, and debone and cube. I’d say around 3-4 cups. (Any other meat or seafood is also acceptable)

Meanwhile, in a microwave-safe bowl, place 4 oz of creamed cheese, 1 tsp each garlic and onion granules or powder, a pinch of salt, 1/3 tsp pepper, 1 Tbsp chili powder, 1 tsp cumin, 2 tables fresh cilantro chopped, 1 chopped jalapeno. Microwave just long enough to make the cream cheese stir-able. 

Add chicken and loosen with a bit of milk if it’s too thick to stir easily.

Take your tortillas, flour or corn as you desire. Heat a burner (I have an electric stove, use a griddle pan if you have gas), lay each tortilla on it until it just begins to smoke, turn over and do the other side. Repeat with remaining tortillas (about 6). This leaves nice burnt bits here and there on the tortillas.

Fill the tortillas with about 2 Tbsp of the chicken. Place in a foil lined and oiled baking pan. When finished cover the pan with foil and set aside. I do this in the morning and leave them until ready to warm up for dinner. Otherwise place in oven at 275° for 30 minutes or long enough to warm through.

Meanwhile, make a roux of 1 Tbsp butter and 1 Tbsp flour in a pan. when melted and mixed, add 1 C warm milk. Bring to boil until thickened. Add 1 C shredded cheddar, Monterey jack, or other cheese of choice. Add 1 jalapeno diced, 1/3 c of green pepper.  Loosen the mixture with a bit of milk again. You want this to be ladle-able.

Place the enchiladas and cheese sauce on the table, along with sour cream and salsa (home-made if you like –my recipe is on this blog under I think condiments or Tex-Mex) and green onions and ripe olives sliced for garnish, along with thinly sliced shredded cabbage. I know this sounds weird but the crunch is wonderful. (add it to the top of the enchiladas before the cheese sauce.)

That’s it! 

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• Republicans to debate Ohio union bill for weeks (reuters.com)
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Just Think: Ponder THAT!

Tags

Calvin & Hobbes, fear, loneliness, other, philosophy, psychology, Recipes, sociology, turkey, voters, worry

It’s been a dark and gloomy time since yesterday. I think I saw the glint of the sun for about 32.7 seconds at 9:07 am. That was it. Intermittent rain, never very hard, dashed in and out throughout the day and night.

There’s been no more rain yet today, but gloomy it tis. You know the kind I mean. Everything is leafless, grey-brown, boring. A chill wind, wet-damp everywhere. The beasties are all tucked into their lairs awaiting a call to pee or better weather.

I’m snuggled in too, none to excited about making pork chops, mashed taters and gravy and some kind of veggie. But I will. It’s a day for watching football and pondering things.

What kind of things? Dunno, haven’t pondered them yet. But I’ll link up as I find stuff worthy of the word. Trust me. I know you do.

First up I was led to this lovely post by Roger Ebert. Seems he blogs. Thomas from Living Next Door to Alice gets the H/T for this. Ebert’s post is about being an outsider, no matter how defined, and loneliness. It’s a powerful post. He wrote in response to hundreds of comments on an earlier post found here.  I think I’ll pop Mr. Ebert’s blog in my reader. You may want to as well.

***

America, she is a fickle woman. I just read a poll that suggests that voters are already having “buyers remorse” about electing Republicans and giving them the House. We have, as I’ve said, rather short attention spans.

Keeping on a theme of thoughtful ponderful ideas, we offer Big Think (catchy huh and on point!) and an analysis of a worried electorate and how Obama understands it, but has yet to give up on rationality as the key to tapping into the psyche of the average joe.

Actually this piece is a perfect companion to my post Fundamentally Futile, and says it way better than I did.

The real arrogance comes in clinging stubbornly to the belief in the supreme powers of reason. Smart people need to be smart enough to realize that our smarts can only get us so far.

This is well worth your reading.

***

I ran into a blog on cooking. Big deal, tens of thousands of them. I went, I saw, I was convinced. I’ve brined the last two turkeys, and have been thrilled with the results. I now understand that using one of those roasting bags works just the same, and saves all the mess of brining. So, I’m going to try it. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

PS: I searched another blog with the same raves. This person compared a deep-fried turkey to the oven bagged one, and found them equally moist and tasty and the bagged one was hugely easier.

***

I long to be a writer of note. I long to write searingly honest raw gut-wrenching words of who I am inside, deep inside. I offer a glimmer now and then, but then retreat out of fear and perhaps some loathing. Don’t we all loath ourselves just a little? Don’t we all delight in believing that our hidden ugly places are not so bad. That yours are as bad if not worse than mine? That we could share our pain and our arrogance at one and the same time, if only we were courageous enough? I ponder being searingly honest like I imagine Hemingway was or Plath, or Williams, and then I chuckle and figure I’ll be about as honest as Bill Watterson, hiding behind Hobbes. Go figure.

***

“Isn’t it sad how some people’s grip on their lives is so precarious that they’ll embrace any preposterous delusion rather than face an occasional bleak truth?” (Calvin)
“It’s not denial. I’m just very selective about the reality I accept.” (Calvin)

“History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That’s why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.” (Calvin)

“It’s not the pace of life I mind. It’s the sudden stop at the end.” (Hobbes)

God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things.
Right now I am so far behind that I will never die…(Calvin)

***

Time to ponder. Time to think about starting to work up the menu for Thanksgiving and the list of stuff to shop for. I haven’t decided upon a dessert. I want something easy. I want something insanely good. Any ideas–please let me know. What are your go-to recipes for Thanksgiving? A plus is that I already have enough cornbread in the freezer for the dressing. It’s a weird recipe, with mozzarella cheese and pine nuts. But delicious.

I want to do something with shredded brussel sprouts and then saute them? Any ideas about what herbs or additions? Lemon juice and djohn mustard with parsley? Help me out! Or jalapeno and brown sugar glaze? oooh, I like that idea!

I always carmelize pearl onions. I always make some fancy cranberry sauce with orange segments and pecans or something. I always do green onions and radishes and olives and sweet pickles. I have the rolls already in the freezer from a week ago–bonus!

I have a squash on top of the fridge. I roast that. Mashed taters and gravy. Hmmmm, am I missing anything?

The dessert–come on and tell me what to make!

***

Happy Saturday. Go Iowa! Take a nap. Eat gravy. Have a brownie.

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What’s Up? 06/16/10

Tags

Campaign financing, chicken, Glenn Beck, Iran, lifestyle, racism, Recipes, religious right, Sarah Palin, soccer, Steven King

Ahh, I feel fairly refreshed from getting that rant out of me. All back to my sweet self.

The garden is getting water logged and this is not a good thing. When the plants get too stressed from too much water, they survive, but end up producing a half dozen seeds. They are too pooped to participate in the ritual of procreation. Sad, but true. Climate change. Sad but true. No matter what the wingnuttery right tells ya.

Oh don’t forget that Chris Matthews has a special on tonight 7 ET on the rise of the Tea Party movement. He says it’s done with little commentary, mostly out of their own mouths. This hopefully will motivate everyone to vote, because some of these folks are dangerous, the rest mostly deluded.

One of Lewis Black’s best lines:

I never understand people who come up to me and tell me that George Bush was a great leader. I wonder, what drug do I need to take to get that deluded?”

Deluded will be the word of the day, and I’ll use it regularly. I read yesterday that the dictionary people who worry about these things, say that some words are falling into disuse and will become extinct. So, I’m going to make sure deluded is not one of them. Choose your words wisely, tomorrow they may be as rare as flat earthers at a Star Trek convention.

One of the things that bugs me is that important stuff falls off the radar too quickly because news comes so fast. New crisis, new tragedy. You know the drill. Toyota? Who worries about their Toyota any more? Same thing with the “revolution in Iran.” Who remembers when we saw the glimmer of freedom shine forth? If you are interested in what life is like these days in Tehran, then visit here, thanks to Arts & Letters.

I know we all get Sarah (that woman is an idiot) weary, but Susan Posner is an excellent writer and journalist and she asks the question: Is Sarah Palin the New Leader of the Christian Right? Worth your while. So you won’t get deluded ya know.

Most of us are addicted to reforming some aspect of our lives several times a year, most notably known as New Year’s resolutions. But in any case, we recommit ourselves regularly to fixing us. Atticus has some ideas about taking that leap into the unknown. Take a moment and look.

Have to take a break and do some cooking. I’m making chicken with olives. Oddly, Pioneer Woman had a recipe which I didn’t select, and Rachel Ray had one that I didn’t write down. But I kinda liked the idea and blended some of theirs with my own, and got this:

chicken pieces (as many as ya want) salt, pepper and brown em.

Remove chicken and add onions, green or yellow pepper and chopped tomatoes.

Saute until mostly tender. Add the chicken back and cover tightly and simmer.

45 min. or so.

remove chicken, add fresh herbs (oregano, rosemary and chopped good olives)

simmer hard with lid off until reduced. (add tomato sauce if ya wanna to thicken more) oh idea! When I check mine, it was already pretty thick, so I think I’ll not reduce much but add a touch of cream at the end.

Return chicken, and add fresh chopped parsley.

Ladle over noodles or rice.

Serve with nice rolls and a salad.

Since Beck and company say its positively un American to like soccer, I’ve decided to love the hell out of it. I’ve informed the Contrarian to start looking for the games so I can stand for Socialism. What can I say, I’m deluded.

If ya wanna know why we are where we are, then Propagandee at Urantia Sojourn has the answer, replete with the wisdom of George Castanza, the neuro-cognitive kind I mean. The more I think, the more this makes perfect sense.

 I had a good rant, but Dave Hackel at Huff Po, really does it well with a long laundry list. All the usual suspects are put in their place. Enjoy.

Walid Zafar does a scathing expose` of Steven King (R-IA). His blatant racist rhetoric is shown for what it is, the rantings of a fairly stupid and utterly bigoted piece of flotsam. It is a sad burden that Iowans bear having this man living in our state. His latest is to charge Obama with “naturally” favoring blacks. It’s an old stereotypical statement and a old racist response. No doubt King would have been right at home in the  antebellum South.

There are more things wrong with politics these days than right. One that is so wrong is that someone can invest 91 MILLION dollars of their own to win an election. This is and has been a rich game, and it’s one of the reasons that we have the mess we have. This is simply immoral. And it ain’t democracy.

And that’s a wrap. Don’t be deluded, come back tomorrow for more of something or other. It’s a mystery even to me.

Wiping the Lint From My Brow

Tags

American Idol, bible study, chicken, creationists, dinosaurs, Ellen DeGeneres, fundamentalists, GOP, health care reform, Italian, Joe Wilson, life in the meadow, Obama, sand burrs

I keep turning around and looking behind and below. Surely my stuffing is coming out as I move about my day. So it seems at least, as I’ve suddenly become prone to losing stuff.

I’m a fairly organized person, as you know. I usually know where things are, in general. “It’s somewhere in the house!”  Actually, I’m a bit better than that.

But lately my life has gotten increasingly complicated or scheduled, and I’ve not put in place the filing, organizing plans to insure that all the papers I collect are properly divided and located with others of their kind. Thus today, I find myself unable to locate the minutes of last month’s library committee meeting, and have had to issue a call for someone to bring a copy with them to the meeting today.

It’s disconcerting to be so scatterbrained. I’m not familiar with it. I feel uncomfortable. Kind of like that dream where I’m walking down the school corridor and wearing only my undies. How did I leave without my clothes?

It isn’t like I’ve never been busy before. I used to be really busy, often visiting multiple courts, with twenty or more clients and court appearances a day. Sometime in multiple cities. Often with shopping trips interspersed or after. I seldom screwed up, and lawyers are great at having networks of “stand-ins” for just those scheduling nightmares.

I wouldn’t change things. The Contrarian continues to be highly supportive. I was at my EFM meeting last night. They are different than previous educational experiences I’ve had. Fascinating in its conception, and I’ve already learned things about the Hebrew Testament and canon that I had not known, and so far I’m just at the introduction.

In a couple of weeks I start a month long Adult Formation class that I’m facilitating. We don’t like to use the word “teach.” I’m just  the one who will read the background material and push the conversation. I’m doing the lectionary section on Job, one of my more favorite books of the Old Testament. (I know, I know, that definitely says something weird about me.)  There are concurrent readings I think from Mark. I’ll be interested in how they interplay. The second year EFM students are doing Mark, so perhaps I’ll glean a few insights from them.

I got creative with dinner. Sauteed some chicken breasts, then sauteed onions and fresh tomatoes, garlic and some jalapeno, a bit of wine, salt and pepper. Chopped the chicken roughly and let it sit until a warm up, then add capers and olives. Serve it over spaghetti. My favorite kind of cooking is Italian. I love garlic and onions.

I’ve got the agenda set for the library meeting. Not so easy with no minutes from last month. We are having our re-opening at the end of the month, and we are pretty well set. It’s been an amazingly satisfying job. So many people worked hard. We fairly drooled over the new books added, more than 200, and all top notch biblical and theological works. I could read for years non-stop there now.

I missed the President’s speech last night because of the EFM class, but the Contrarian taped it for me, and we watched it when I got home. Powerful, competent, intelligent. The polls suggest the president hit a home run. Who would have doubted that? Put to rest are all the utter cow dung idiot arguments. Perhaps now we can have an adult discussion now that the hair-brain flights of fancy of the Palin/Gingrich et al contingent have been put to rest. Let us hope we can shush the children with their personal agendas of destruction. We deserve it.

Best moment: Joe Wilson (you lie) resulted in his opponent raising something like $200,000 to date. It was exactly what we hoped would happen. The rational people in America react with disgust, and the Rethug agenda of politics before reform takes a hit.

I find it humorous that because Obama is an inspirational speaker, he is disdainfully referred to as the Messiah, and we are his followers. Interesting, because most of these brain dead opposers claim to be born again Christians, and shouldn’t the Messiah be followed? But what can you expect from confused thinkers who have long since given up remembering what that thing between their ears is for.

Ellen DeGeneres has been named as the new judge on American Idol. I think it’s probably a good thing. She’s brightly funny. We don’t watch it that much, but Paula was always painful to watch. Ellen just came over to ABC and her daytime show is now at 9 am here. Gone are Regis and Kelly. I don’t know where they went. I liked Kelly but Regis was never my cup of tea.

Back to Wilson, ya see, I’m not all shocked and stuff. I don’t think the dude should resign. It is just symbolic of the general wingnuttery of the Republicans these days. Party of the certifiable. There is a pretty good analysis of this at HuffPo. Read it if you enjoy beating dead horses. I do from time to time. Just ask me about fundamentalists!

I’ve been hooting for a day or more at my re-meeting with creationists and the wacky world of dinosaurs and man kumbaya’ing through the amazon forest. Brings back memories of the Flintstones. Come to think of it, perhaps the creationists took that literally too. Anyhoo, I realized I had another A number 1 reason why evolution must be true:

SAND BURRS, SAND BURRS, SAND BURRS, SAND BURRS, SAND BURRS, SAND BURRS

I mean seriously, no loving God would create such a torture device.  Having no, and I  mean no use whatsoever, except to cripple and maim the unwary, it can only be the product of evolution. I repeat, NO loving God would deliberately dream this up.

My poor pups are limping every day. Fully a block long of the lane has these Inquisition worthy plants scattered around, dropping these lethal barbs in the sand.

It is unsafe to walk indoors without shoes, since both cats and dogs lay down and patiently pull the needle sharp orbs from their feet and hair. You have not lived until you have driven one of these babies into the ball of your foot at full deliberate step. The screams and curses can echo for miles.

Let me get organized, I have a dinner to finish, a meeting to conduct, and more things to lose before day is done.

Short Takes on the Day, 07/19/09

Tags

agnostics, atheists, believers, blogs, book reviewing, fundamentalists, nachos, Recipes, Sarah Palin, tex-mex

I’m layin’ back and enjoying the day, as best as I can, given it’s barely breaking 70 today. Not skipping church, if you were thinking that. I went yesterday, a first time for me. I was obligated to set up for our library book sale, so it obviously made no sense not to go to Saturday evening services. It was different. Not my cup o’ tea as they say. But as our priest said, “now you’ve been to one!”

So, I’m foot loose and fancy free as they say, or don’t as you prefer your metaphor.  I’m not sure what foot loose means, nor fancy free for that matter. Another of those things we take for granted and have no clue where they came from. Probably had something to do with the plague or something. You know that “ring around the rosy” got it’s start there don’t cha?  Yep.

***

Moving right along, I just wanted to announce that I’m a bona fide professional book reviewer. I’m sure you can tell the difference, when I passed through that portal into the rarefied confines of New York publishing heaven. Yes indeed, and the view is quite fine looking down upon the rest of you wannabes.

The proof of my new found status is that I received in the mail, U N S O L I C I T E D, my first book from a publisher. Now I was curious, and somewhat confused to be sure at first. I dutifully looked through my LibraryThing (located to the left down the sidebar), assuming it was one that I had checked off as wanting to review. No such find. I noted that it came from the Hachette  Book Group, which distributes for Little Brown & Co. I noted that the review I just did for “The Evolution of God” came from LB&C. So my interest was piqued.

I finally wrote an email to the distributor, and received a reply rather quickly. Indeed, they had thought I might enjoy the book sent, and would be most pleased should I review it. A cheesy smile encompasses my face, as I am back in the throes of “professional” something or other, albeit, no word of $$$ seemed to cross a lip either way. I’m not sure if money is required to seal the deal, but I’m choosing to revel in my new found glory. I assume of course that you are all suitably impressed and will announce this fact around your neighborhood, family, and professional associations as well.

***

Moving on to the short takes as it were. I was alerted via email by Shannon of a blog I should look at, a post in particular and found myself at “Caught a glimpse of Jesus down by the railroad tracks…”  This in reference to my mini rant of two days about  “What is the Message?”  Said blogger is in discernment for the diaconate in TEC, and runs a homeless shelter. Interesting and compelling reading, so take a look.

***

I ran across this piece and found it highly amusing and well, heck far be it from me to stop beating a dead horse. I say turn it into horseburger! Sarah, well known, for being the most incurious politician in America, unless the curiosity has to do with herself, is almost unintelligible as you well know. Her inability to capture a single thought and expound on it in any rational way are legend. This post from John Lundberg at HuffPo, shows just how easy it is to find the poet in Sarah’s words, if not any sense. Since poetry need not contain sense, well it all makes perfect sense doesn’t it? Enjoy. Few laughs are as cheap as this one.

***

A couple of atheists took me to task for my post last week about atheists and that I found them intellectually wanting. Seems at least one person agrees with me, lumping their “certainty” of no God as about as obnoxious as the “certainty” of fundamentalists. Now I hadn’t thought of that. Just a short piece by worth a gander. As I continued compiling this post, more was generated in comments to the above and so another post ensued. It makes for good reading if you are so inclined in the atheist-vs-agnostic-vs-believer saga.

***

And just cuz it’s been forever since I posted a recipe, I thought I’d do one that makes my mouth water, nachos! Good homemade nachos are priceless in the Tex-Mex inventory, and this one just says, yowie, that’s a spicy nacho! As with all nachos you can add or subtract ingredients here and there as your taste dictates. Let’s hear it for Spicy Chicken Nachos!

I think that next week, we shall be trying some of these! No need to thank me for helping you with menu planning! lol.

***

Okay, go out and enjoy what’s left of Sunday. And bring back the sun and some heat. I’m sick of fall weather in July.

Latin Fling

Tags

Arroz con Pollo, carribean, chicken, Latin, Recipes, rice, tex-mex

Yesterday, I spend the day at a church retreat as a special Lenten kickoff. We had a wonderful time and it was a good beginning to the season. We were blessed to have with us our former diocesan bishop and he offered much wisdom and lots of useful techniques to help us explore our relationship with God in a deeper way.

Following that, I ran off to collect some food for dinner, but was delayed again in arriving home by stopping to help a man who had accidently left a gate open. Two nice quarterhorses were viewing the world from the highway. I was able to be of some minor assistance in collecting them and giving him time to lead them back to their pasture. It was nice to get my hands on a horse again!

So, what that all meant is that I was tired and not at all interested in posting yesterday. So I thought I would post today the recipe for Arroz con Pollo I mentioned the other day. I got the recipe from Cook Magazine’s Test Kitchen show, shown on PBS. It turned out fabulously and we loved it. As there are about as many recipes for chicken and rice as their are chickens, you can feel free to substitute. Many of the photos I found clearly had green peas in them, so you might add that, but I would only do so at the very end, since they really don’t need cooking.

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Traditional recipes start with a whole fryer cut up. This recipe called for only chicken thighs. I think that works better because not all pieces otherwise need the same cooking time.

6 thighs ( trim excess fat, but don’t remove skin yet)

Place in a marinade of:

6 cloves garlic mashed, or minced

1 tsp salt

1/2 oregano

1 tsp white vinegar

1/2 pepper

1/4 tsp red chili flakes

Marinate at room temp for 15 min. If longer, in the fridge.

Meanwhile:

In a oven ready pot:

1-2 TBSP oil

Add 1 lg. onion, 1 green pepper, and 1/4 tsp chili pepper flakes

Cook until softened (omit the extra chili peppers if you don’t like a little spice.

Add Chicken to the pot, skin side down, brown lightly at medium heat, turn and do other side.

When this is complete, add:

1 3/4 c. chicken stock

1/4 c. H20

1 15 oz can tomato sauce

2 TBSP cilantro, chopped

cover, reduce to a low simmer and cook for 20 min.

Add:

3 c rice

1/2 c pimentoed olives

1 TBSP capers, rinsed,

return to a simmer while heating oven to 350.

When ready, put in over for 20 min. Then stir, and if needed add a bit more water, and cook another 10 min.

Remove from oven and removed chicken.

With spoons or forks, remove meat from the bones and place in a separate dish. Discard skin.

Add to this:

1tsp olive oil

2 tsp vinegar

2 TBSP Cilantro chopped

1/4 to 1/2 c roasted peppers chopped roughly.

Mix and then add back to the rice and stir, and let sit a couple of minutes to rewarm.

Serve with tortillas. I’d say it serves about 6 comfortably.

Enjoy!