Chicken Pot Pie - Dinner for the Big R!

Here we have the purely altruistic dinner since I can't eat it at all but want to!!!

2 lbs frozen chicken breast - Doesn't have to be frozen but mine was
1 bag frozen veggies
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt

Crust recipe
2 cups flour
1 stick of butter cut into tiny pieces
1 Tbs sour cream
1/4 cup ice water
1 egg yolk (save the white)
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat to 375
Cook the breast in a ton of water - and I mean cover the hell out of them and boil away.  Salt if you must but not necessary.  When you know they are done and I mean like almost an hour  - take out the breasts and put them in the freezer in a separate container to cool down - save your water though.  Put your frozen veggies  - I used frozen corn, green beans, wax beans and carrots.  Boil them in the chicken broth water til not frozen.  Strain and mix veggies with soup, salt and garlic powder and your chicken broken up. 

Crust mix flour and butter with a fork or pastry cutter until butter is mixed in - add yolk and sour cream and only enough water to make a tough mix.  It will depend on your climate so not too much water.  Roll half of the dough on parchment paper with flour - put into your pie plate.  Roll the rest on parchment for the top.  Fill your pie plate - on top of crust - with chicken mix - top with crust and cut holes into top crust.  I use a fork or my fingers to seal edges.  I brush with the beaten egg white - gives it a sheen.  This one I cut I <3 U because I do :D Bake for at least 45min.  Enjoy.

Food and Sex

Okay - before you go all 9 1/2 weeks on me - just stop.  I am reading Born Round by Frank Bruni.  Wow.  And I thought I was neurotic!  Okay.  I am.  But, seriously having someone as esteemed as he (is, was?)  in the position of NY Times food editor spill his guts to someone like me (no position no esteem) even if in just book form is a cold wet squirrel in the face!  And very very welcome.  Yes he is gay - oh so very very gay.  And honestly - in the context of this book and his life perfectly in place.  The very second I learned he had bulimia I was thinking "oh he is gay" and then I thought "what a stereotype" and well, sho nuff  - he is.  Slam dunk on this one.

What is it about sex and food that are so inexplicably linked?   I, as someone who survived a sexual abuse - (like what is NOT surviving an abuse - suicide?) messed up as I am and yet going through my life like I do struggle almost everyday with some kind of food related issue.  "I can't eat that it's . . . . "  Okay to my defense a lot is true due to being Gluten Intolerant AND Lactose Intolerant.  SO really I can't eat a lot of food.  BUT still every damn day is a struggle with loving who I am apart from weight and appearance.  But to my credit - I did not read this book to get insider dieting secrets.  Thankfully I am so far beyond that it's yesterday's review - but it still leaves me wondering if it's back to the garden.  I mean THE GARDEN.  The first sin was doubting God and then eating.  And it really hasn't changed in the 6000 years since then.  Doubting God and then eating or doing something outside of what HE has said is coolio for you or me to do.

Frank Bruni's Grandma said - "born round - you don't die square" - I don't usually doubt the old folks - but I'd rather pick "born sinful, you can die perfected!"  I pick perfected every day of the week - it's what picks my head up off of the asphalt when I fall.  and fall, and fall - and fall.and fall and fall   AND fall.  Thank you.

Cravings - or why I make this soup once a week! Thai Coconut Soup.

Just before we left Illinois a good friend took me to lunch at this little Thai restaurant.  The conversation was great, but it was the soup that in many ways changed my life.  Or at the very least what I crave.  I crave this soup.  Don't know why really since it's so very different from anything that I would normally eat.  It's not a flavor of my past nor some other sensory memory thing.  It's just so damn good!  I had to find the recipe and failing to find it on the internet EXACTLY like I wanted I did what I always do.  Experiment.  Tweek.  Mess with the normal and make it my own brand of crazy. 

Here's what cha need to do this -
Grocery list:
1 lb of chicken breast frozen
lemon grass (just the white part - split in half)
Raw Ginger (a peeled piece the size of your thumb)
onion (diced)
Thai chilies (5 of those little redhot buggers)
Fish sauce 2 Tbs
4 cans Chicken broth (or my method if in need)
14.5 oz can of coconut milk(NOT COCONUT CREME)
fresh cilantro (handful chopped)
sliced mushrooms (you pick your poison)
4 limes juiced and the zest from 1 about 1Tbs (buy 5 limes just in case you need more juice)


Slap the chicken into a stock pot and cover it with about 3 quarts of water, cover and let it cook away.  Add more water if it looks low and basically just boil it.  When it is fully cooked (about 20 minutes) remove and hack it apart.  Tiny pieces are great.  Put back into the water and either add more so that you have 3 quarts or add chicken broth to equal about 3 quarts.  This is not super precise since you will be adjusting later.  Add your mushrooms,  2 T of Fish sauce, chilies, lime juice and zest, ginger and lemon grass.  Basically all but the coconut milk and cilantro.  Cook this for about 10 minutes at a good boil but not too crazy.  Reduce the heat to low and add the coconut milk and cilantro.   Turn off the heat and let the flavors get good and friendly with each other and then taste it.  If it needs a bit more fish sauce go for it, but not too much - that stuff is intense!  More lime juice?  Go for it.  Taste and see what you think.

NOW as far as eating it.  You don't eat the big hunks of ginger, lemon grass or chilies although you can. I just wouldn't.  I have actually cut them up into tiny pieces so that they could be eaten but it's a bit of a pain.  Try it both ways and tell me what you think.

Tips:  Buy good quality fish sauce.  It really does matter though the stuff smells like - well - something not very nice.  But what it does in a dish is amazing.  A little goes a long way so you want the good stuff.  That's pretty true about everything huh?

This really will become a flavor you will crave so when you find a good "world market" buy lots of coconut milk and lemon grass and ginger so you can make this often.  I do!

Enjoy!

New Friends

So I got asked to coffee today by a very energetic grandma and reluctant (so it would seem) mom.  It was actually nice - though when nervous I talk a lot - good thing it was coffee and not martinis cuz whoa baby, "somebody stop me" I turn into beyond chatty Cathy!  But well, it was Starbucks and Sweet Suzanne (the gorgeous grandma) was buying!  Suzanne is the grandma to a boy that my son Liam thought was cool and just handed my cell phone number to set up a play day.  Long story short Liam has a friend and I get two!  Sweet!  I like making friends and they want to take me shopping.  I'm good with that.  I think I answered all of the questions right - I hope I get the job!  Friends.  New state - new friends.  I'm really really good with that.  Sigh.  I miss my old one too - though. 

Touch me

I would say, "Get your mind out of the gutter," but frankly I wrote it and had full intent so whatever keep it where you want it.  Touch Me by Muench is a really crazy yarn that I would normally eschew like the plague - NUMBER ONE it's stupid expensive (um 17 bucks a 67 yard skein?) and NUMBER 2 it's Fuzzy Yarn.  Like sort of novelty sort of chenille -- okay more chenille than novelty but really.  AND my final NUMBER 3 Sally Melville made this COAT with it in her book THE KNIT STITCH.  Okay seriously - she used like 15-20 skeins of this stuff.  I'm sorry I don't run a small country that I can spend that much and actually make it myself - I was offended from the start and vowed never to touch the stuff because I was pretty sure if I did I would want some.


And so like a small soft tumor in my brain it festered for some 5 years - until I did some research and found some on the internet for a bit cheaper and did the deed.  Okay, it's pretty cool.  I like working with it - it's very very forgiving for a chenille.  I worked and reworked the first 15 yards and it is no worse for the wear.  I am very happy with the control I had over the worms which tend to like to come out in a chenille.  Worms are bits of the yarn that have too much twist and just kind of pop out at you mid working that are weird and annoying.  If you untwist a lot you will be fine.

I did a very sweet little purple scarf for a friend and then proceeded to order 5 more skeins just for me.  Yeah it was 50 bucks, but really it's pretty sweet stuff and 10 is better than 17 a piece.  I'll eat rice and beans for a week! Oh wait I already do.  LOL!  So Muench Touch Me - get some!

Come Clean

One thing that is very very clear to me is that cleaning is not a learned trait - it is decidedly genetic.  I mean - you can learn HOW to do it - of course.  I could learn HOW to be a golfer but that would not make me think it is not the lamest sport on the planet - second only to curling.  What I am saying is that in my family cleanliness is a generational thing.  My grandmother's house was not just gross - it was frankly a den of disgusting ickiness that my siblings did NOT want to partake in once we were old enough to take the GOOD LOOK AROUND.  Now I know that I will probably get the big old slap from the momma on this one for the disrespect to the ancestors and all.  But really I loved - love and will always love my grandma.  She rocked.  BUT her house was gross.  Period.  NOW flash forward a generation (ok my momma).  My mom's house is clean.  Sanitary, but very very cluttered.  Packrat - are you kidding me you really need that? cluttered.  I love love love my mom, but really seriously she needs a life change.  Okay - again. ANOTHER intervention to tell her she can let go of the crap and be free!!!  Oh really who are we kidding?  She likes her crap and it likes her.  Nuff said.  She will die and my sister and I will have to sort out the stuff and take 47,000 trips to goodwill and she'll be eating pizza with Jesus!  That is just the fact and  I can't change it.

Now on to me and my sister.  We are different ladies - cut from two very different types of cloth.  BUT the same can be said.  We don't like crap and will be happy to get rid of it.  DECLUTTER - is our mantra.  I will go to great lengths to get rid of stuff and she will only buy really expensive things so really they tend to last - or she just goodwills and I go there and then buy her stuff LOL!

But if nothing else rings true here it is this.  Cleaning a new house just feels and looks better than an old crappy dirty one.  Case in point.  I lived in a 100 year (PLUS) farmhouse that when I cleaned it looked like a 100 year (PLUS one) farmhouse that vaguely smelled of pinesol.  It really did not look any cleaner after my 6 hour elbow grease fest - now I knew it was clean it just was not so satisfying to see.  NOW here - in my NEW house - cleaning is like WHEW - it's clean - see - see it's so squeeking clean it's pretty - don't I rock? it's so clean here . .  . Okay you get the point.  Clean is as clean does - but frankly - I like cleaning new.  It makes me happy and really what else is it about other than making me happy right?  :D

It Bites!

My son has a very bad habit - in moments of anxiety (and actually pretty much always) he chews on his fingers.  Not really his nails, just his index finger.  It drives us all mad.  SO I found this stuff at Walmart.com
Let me say - it tastes awful!  In the spirit of "I won't make you do something I would not be willing to do," I put this stuff on.  Well, yup I won't be eating with my hands, licking my fingers or tasting my food for about another day!  This stuff will kill your tastebuds forever!  My daughter decided she wanted to use it too since she does bite her nails - she agreed!  She will NOT bite this stuff!  So I'd say it's a success!  It would be nice if the flavor did not LINGER quite so long but honestly I'd give this stuff a major thumbs up!  Ha!