Meme from Blackbird
Two things for you today. First, since I cannot keep a good thing quiet, is the link to a fantastic recipe. It’s a chicken pot pie, and one of the best I’ve ever had.
Second is this meme – I stole it from Blackbird. Let me know if you do it – for some reason, I continue to enjoy doing these. I’d have thought the appeal would wane, but no!
This one is a one word challenge –
Cell phone? Red
Hair? Brown
Mother? Loving
Father? Musical
Favorite Food? Sweet
Dream last night? Wacky
Drink? Water
Dream/Goal? Music
Room you are in? Living
Hobby? Jewelry
Fear? Ferris
Where do you see yourself in 6 years? Mother
Something you are not? Athletic
Favorite Muffins? Cranberry
Wish list item? Shoes!
Where did you grow up? Ohio
What is the last thing you did? Iced
What are you wearing? Pajamas
Favorite TV Show? Office
Pets? None
Friends? Yes
Your life? Blessed
Your mood? Happy
Facebook? Yes
Favorite place to eat? Indian
Missing Someone? No
Your vehicle? Honda
What you aren’t wearing? Earrings
Favorite Store? Gap
Favorite Color? Blue
Last time you laughed? Minutes
Last time you cried? Sunday
Best friend? Spencer
Place you go to over and over? Library
Filed under cooking, meme, randomness | Comments (3)tales of tomatoes i have known…
well due to a auspicious comment left by my muum, i came to realize that my tiny orange tomatoes were actually ripe! what great news! the only thing is, their size left a little to be desired. when i say tiny….well, have a look for yourself:
luckily, they were delicious. also fortunate is the fact that i have a few more still on the plant – they are green, but soon will be ripe! and a little bigger.
then, just a few days later i bought some tomatoes at the store. i was cutting them up for some sauteed vegetables, when look who was looking back at me!?! this evil little grin –
reminded me of caryn’s happy bell pepper. er, that would be ‘The Placid Pepper of Eternal Happiness’. she’s a writer, after all. when she writes a blog entry, it sounds good!
Filed under blogs, cooking, hilarity, randomness | Tags: gardening, tomatoes | Comments (6)a tale of culinary woe.
An act of God was defined as something which no reasonable man could have expected. –A.P. Herbert
that’s right, i am still hoping and praying for a miracle; one of these days i would LOVE to wake up and just have no headache. that’d be stupendous, wouldn’t it? really, i can’t imagine many things i’d like better. if that’s too drastic, i’d settle for finding a pill or treatment that would make the pain manageable. 
onto my tale of woe.
last week i pulled out my favorite cookbook (from Christmas) — martha stewart’s Great Food fast. in it was this recipe for Chicken Chilaquiles. my husband and i, we love mexican food. i adore cilantro, so we were all set. i got cooking. except, of course, i had to half the recipe – there’s only 2 of us (cue ominous music).
you can see where this is going, right?
cooking + migraine = trouble.
if you clicky on over to the recipe, you’ll see that it calls for “2 canned chipotle chilies in adobo, finely chopped (about 1 heaping tablespoon), plus 1 tablespoon adobo sauce (from same can)”
silly me, reading it too quickly, thought it said 2 CANS chipotle chiles…
now you REALLY see where this is going.
so i smartly halved that, and dumped my one WHOLE CAN of chipotle chiles in (plus all the sauce, don’t know what i was thinking there…maybe i wasn’t?)
the picture should’ve clued me in, my dish was a lot brown-er than martha’s. but really, does mine ever look as good as hers? no. so onward and upward we went. to the dinner table!
expecting rave reviews, i serve the meal. i should tell you that my husband is probably the most enthusiastic audience you’ll ever cook for (my mom and sister can attest to this). he just LOVES anything and everything you cook for him. so if he doesn’t *LOVE* it, you have really done something wrong.
…
i had done something wrong.
this dish was WAY too spicy. i mean WAAAAY too spicy. we struggled through, with lots of cheese and sour cream and chips. the whole time, i’m thinking, jeez, martha! why so spicy?
i should’ve known. another case of bad recipe reading by yours truly.
anyone have any tales of culinary disaster to share with me?
edited to add: spencer would like me to point out that he actually he liked it. additionally, he ate both firsts and seconds. duly noted.
Filed under cooking | Tags: random marital events | Comments (4)linky goodness
two things that are great:
1) this entry about time management and pain at How to Cope with Pain. if nothing else, read the first two paragraphs. Spot on.
2) this is what we had for dinner tonight. the lasagna was delicious. spencer says it may even have taken over his spot as favorite dish (from the previous #1 which was pot roast). thanks again, pioneer woman!
Filed under cooking, pain | Tags: links | Comments (4)Bread pudding
well i just had to tell you about this: do you all read the Pioneer Woman? because you should.
not only is she hilarious, she’s an amazing photographer and cook. she does photoshop tutorials, which i just ooh and aah over. but the recipes — the recipes i can use!
now if the apple brown betty had been up, i’d have probably made that. because i had all the ingredients for it. but i had *most* of the ingredients for bread pudding, and a real hankering to try bread pudding.
i had wheat bread instead of sourdough bread and no whiskey. hopefully the pioneer woman won’t follow her links back someday and gasp in horror at the sacrilege of what i’ve done to her recipe. the thing is, it is GOOD. it is good even without whiskey and sourdough bread. 
i won’t take a picture, because mine wouldn’t look nearly as good as her pictures do — so go take a look at hers. man it is good.
also, i’m working on very little sleep, please forgive all grammar and spelling nonsense in this post. pleaseandthankyou.
p.s. — i also made these bacon wrapped jalapenos and they were everything i dreamed they would be.
Filed under cooking | Tags: pioneer woman, yumminess | Comments (3)Success!
sadly, this isn’t success in the area of treating my headaches (yet).
first, a bit of history.
i’ve been having difficulty making bread that rises. you’d think this would be fairly straightforward, but for some reason my bread has been…..brick-like. my husband has been very nice about it, still appreciating (and eating) it.
but i’ve been frustrated. why wasn’t this working? i love baking, and baking bread seems like something i’d be good at. but i’d been having a rather bad run lately.
so i was over at my sister’s house the other day, visiting. she started making some pizza dough for dinner later on. so then i remembered my problems and told her all about it. because her bread is always good.
she gave me a few tips. 1st was to use a plastic or glass bowl (instead of metal). she wasn’t sure if this was important for all bread or just sourdough bread, but i figured i’d just go ahead and make the switch.
2nd was to measure the temperature of the water (that i added to the yeast) to make sure it was warm enough but not too warm. i bought a little meat thermometer today for this purpose.
and 3rd was to take the yeast out of the fridge for an hour or two before i make bread, so the temperature difference wasn’t so great.
so i did these 3 things, and voila! bread success. it rose, it was light and delicious! hooray!
thanks, Edge.
success!
well i found a great recipe. and of course i need to tell all my bloggy friends about it. this is from a book called ‘miserly meals’. after the many recent kitchen disasters and nonsense, it was good to have something turn out WELL. and this was good, my friends, as well as cheap.
a few notes: i did not use iceburg lettuce, i used spinach. iceburg lettuce doesn’t really have any nutrients, and i can’t stand to use it wherever something else will work. i got this from my muum. also, i didn’t use mandarin oranges, but i did add some mushrooms and cashews. i also cooked the chicken with a little crushed red pepper. let me know if you tried it!
Chinese Chicken Salad
serves 4
prep time: 20 minutes
¼ c. oil
1 pkg. Chicken flavored ramen noodles
2 T. vinegar
1 T. soy sauce
1 head iceburg lettuce
½ bunch green onions
1 boneless skinless chicken breast, cooked and cubed
In a small saucepan, combine with the oil, flavor packet from the ramen noodles, vinegar, and soy sauce. Mix well and heat until warm. Remove from the heat.
Shred the lettuce into thin strips. Place in a large salad bowl. Thinly slice the green onions, and add them to the salad bowl. Break up the uncooked ramen noodles into the salad bowl. Add the chicken. Toss well. Drizzle the dressing over the salad and toss again. Serve immediately.
Options: also add cashews and/or mandarin oranges.
Filed under cooking | Tags: recipe | Comment (1)
