Ellipsis Weekend Cooking... Herbed Chicken In Pastry

 

"Chickens... the pet that poops breakfast."

~Unknow

Pepperidge Farm - Herbed Chicken In Pastry - Recipe

This is another recipe I can make in my sleep, as I've been making it at least 25 years! It's easy, it's quick, and it's one of those lovely meals you can make after work, to do something a little nice just for you, or if you are entertaining, it's a pretty great recipe that can easily be made a million different ways and looks way harder to make then it is. Make it you're own. Get creative! Go for it, and if you like, let me know how your version comes out!

Weekend Cooking... Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup

Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup

 From Sally's Baking Addiction

I love Sally's Baking Addiction! The first time I tried making scones, it was from a recipe I tried from this website, and they came out perfect! This was the recipe that started it all, and I have made many different scone recipes ever since. It made me a true believer in them! But I kinda want to try something new, so when I came across this soup recipe, I knew it was for me! I'm going to give it a try this weekend.

Glazed Lemon Blueberry Scones

These are delicious... trust me!

Cooking Lessons

 

"I think every woman should own a blowtorch."

~Julia Childs

My Life In France

I love cooking, but I haven't done a lot of it since, Covid The First (Omicron), back in December of 2021. I stare at my cookbooks, and dream of popping them open and making something sinfully delicious, but I just don't do it. I don't know, I guess I'm stuck. So much has happened that hubby took over duties, and now the kitchen is pretty much his. He even makes me gourmet lurches daily. I keep saying I'll get there, but I never do. I just never do. And it's one of the things that makes me feel stuck in this depression, treatable enough, but it just sits in me, zapping my energy, as if the anemia wasn't doing a good enough job of that all on it's own. Oh well, enough of that, I am always looking for new recipes and daydreaming of the day my body and my mind finally get hungry enough to let me get on with it already and make something fabulous! In my recent travels, I came across this marvelous article in the New York Times, 20 Best Food Scenes In Movies. It's a fun read. Do you have a favorite food scene in the movies? I have many, but my very favorite might have to be the, "I'll have what she's having," scene from, When Harry Met Sally. T opening scene from, Saturday Night Fever, with John Travolta eating pizza, and strutting around Brooklyn is great, but what about the dinner scene later in the film, with his family. How wonderfully Italian it was! 

Dinner and Dessert

Tender. Juicy. Delicious?

"I can throw an orange like a baseball, but I can't eat a baseball like an orange.

Let that be a lesson for you."

~Jarod Kintz

A Zebra Is The Piano Of The Animal Kingdom

First let me start off by saying... ewwwww! And I can't say that LOUD enough or with too much emphasis! Just ewwwwwwwww! I spotted this tasty looking cube steak while out shopping with Alan at a supermarket offshoot of a famous discount store. For discretion purposes I will say the name of the store was "MalWart. I am not using the real name because, conveniently, the name of the supermarket was not on this tasty looking beef. The tags had the beef marked down for quick sale because the expiration date was getting close, but even with the savings of $3.04, I decided I didn't need the cube steak that badly... or any other meat from there for that matter. Too bad, I have a great recipe for Swiss Steak, and that was going to be for dinner. We settled on Spaghetti Marinara, with some delicious zucchini and onions. Sigh. It was good. Really good!

Mood: Disappointed About The Swiss Steak/Happy About The Spaghetti Marinara.

~Me :)

Autumn Sausage And Sweet Potato Soup

"The only courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one moment to the next."

-Mignon McLaughlin

It's a quiet day at our house today. There has been a lot of stress lately, and I am still finding my way around in the dark. If you haven't read my blog for a while, "the dark" is a metaphor for what has been happening in my life lately. Elvis, the state budget, blah, blah, blah. I get so tired of it all. To add to things, Elvis has a new habit, and I wish I knew where it came from. See, for several nights in a row now, Elvis has begun to panic when the lights go out. It happens the same way each night. As soon as we get in bed, and turn the lights out, Elvis comes over to my side of the bed, and sits and stares at me. If I try to ignore him, he will eventually jump up on my side of the bed and begin tapping my nose in a very insistent manner. Like he is trying to tell me something. I have checked his bowls, both are full. He doesn't need his box changed, and he has plenty of toys about. What could it be? I have started keeping a diary, so I can discuss it with Dr. B on Wednesday, when he goes in for his chemotherapy. In the meantime, I am one tired lady.

In an effort to break out of the ickiness I feel, I took a walk around Tilden this morning. It is so lovely there, and I feel like it is my second home. I will really miss my routines up there when they close South Park drive for the winter months, in November. Driving in that part of the park gets treacherous during the icy rainy months, and the only access is quite a bit further up Grizzly Peak. So, I am enjoying it as much as I can for now. It was cold this morning, and my knees where hurting, so I didn't stay long, but to my delight there were signs of autumn everywhere. It won't be long now. I love autumn so much, and I always feel my best as the leaves begin to change. But you already knew that. :)

Last night I made a new recipe I created for dinner. I have been thinking about this soup for a long time, and with the little chill in the air it was a good time to give it a try. I am not sure what I want to call it, but I had apple sausage, sweet potatoes, mixed vegetables, red onion, cinnamon, just a pinch, and chicken and tomato bouillon. It came out really good. Alan ended up eating the whole pot, lol, so I am pretty sure we will be having it again. :) How does "Waiting For Autumn Soup" sound? Nah, that's not quite right, but the flavor did have a bit of Autumn to it, with the cinnamon and the sweet potatoes. Hmmm.


(Autumn Sausage and Sweet Potato Soup)
(Low Fat, Low Calorie)

By Carly Gordon

5 (hot dog sized) links Apple/Cheese Sausage

1 red onion, chopped

1 med. Sweet Potato, cut into medium chunks

2 cans Fat-Free Chicken broth

2 squares Knorr Chicken/Tomato Bouillon cubes

1/2 tsp. Granny Goose dry Green Onion dip mix

1 cup Barilla Orzo

1 cup Frozen mixed vegetables

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Directions

Remove the sausage casing from the sausage, and chop the sausage into small chunks, then brown the meat in a skillet. As you cook the meat, add the cinnamon and continue frying and stirring the meat to coat with the cinnamon. When the meat is cooked through, transfer to a medium sized stove top Dutch oven. Add the canned chicken broth, bouillon cubes, dry dip mix, and 8 cups water, or until the liquid reaches 3/4 to the top of the dutch oven. Bring to a boil.

Let the water come to a full rolling boil, then add the chopped onion and the sweet potato. Continue boiling about a 1/2 hour, or until the sweet potato begins to soften. The time may vary, so check after 20 minutes or so. When the potato just begins to soften, add the orzo, and continue cooking another 10 to 15 minutes. Lastly, add the frozen vegetables and cook until the soup comes back to a boil. Cook for another 15 minutes. Serve with some nice warm French bread.

Makes 6 (1 cup) servings

Note: Sweet potatoes are really good for the blood. 1 medium (4 oz) cooked with the skin, has only 103 calories!

It's so strange, when I was a little girl, and I had a good deep pout on, nothing made me feel better then a hot bowl of soup. Soup. Yeah... that's the ticket! It's funny how much has changed, and how much has stayed the same.

-OndineMonet
"Soup"
Berkeley, California
August 3, 2008
Late Afternoon

My Flippin' Finger

"The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil, because it isn't angry enough."

-Bede Jarrett

Bother! I mean really, no one knows how to hurt themselves the way I do. LOL. Emotionally, physically, it's all good. LOL. Okay, so here's what happened. As you probably know, Alan doesn't like for me to watch the evening news while I eat dinner. We have learned that stress does bad things to my diabetes, and he worries about me, especially since the news sometimes infuriates me, and I get a little, well, emotional. He usually takes my tantrums with a grain of salt, and then there are times when he absolutely agrees with me and joins me in one or two conversations regarding current events, which usually calms me down, and to be fair, sometimes he gets a little passionate as well, especially when it comes to whatever stupid, embarrassing thing George Bush has done next. But last night, well, the emotions were all mine.

I was in the kitchen making dinner. Since Alan has been home on vacation, we have been experimenting with some new recipes we have always wanted to try, and last night it was Vegetable Beef Soup. I was cutting up some leftover pot roast to put into the soup, as ABC World News Tonight reported a story about how the military is having a difficult time recruiting chaplains. I can't believe just how very badly this country has treated it's military, particularly with George Bush in office. I see all these nifty little signs here and there with the slogan, "Support The Troops," which is a call to encourage America at large to to be supportive of their mission, regardless of what it is, and yet the very government that sent America's finest young men and women to war, has let them down at every turn. Everything from body armor... to military chaplains... to proper health care upon their return. It's shameful.

So, as I watched the report, I got madder and madder... and at one point, my emotion really just turned for anger to sorrow. The Bush administration loves to toss about the idea that we must support the troops or risk empowering our enemies. To not support the troops would send the "wrong message." And then they turn right around and justify the shabby way they have treated our own military. By now you know the laundry list of offenses, I won't go into that, but needless to say as my sorrow grew, my attention span waned, and quicker then you can say, "Cheney is an ASS," I cut my finger with a very sharp knife.

I can laugh now, but at the time I really thought I had done myself in. LOL. Blood squirted large and high. It kind of looked a little like that one comedy sketch on Saturday Night Live, where Dan Ackroyd, as Julia Child, cut his hand during a cooking demonstration, and suddenly there is five minutes of deep red blood squirting to infinity and beyond. Funny because of it's exaggeration. That couldn't really happen... could it? Yep, it can! I was watching the blood squirting up to the ceiling, and before I knew it, a long string of thinly masked obscenities came out of my mouth. "*&@@!!^&&**!!!"... and followed by "and the horse he tried to ride in on! The little jerk!" LOL. I knew as soon as those words came from from my mouth, Alan would be coming in to check on me. I hadn't even noticed at that point, that it wasn't any old finger I had just sliced open, it was my "flippin' finger." LOL. Although kind of appropriate I suppose.

Well, just so you know, we got the bleeding under control, so I am pretty sure no stitches are needed, and dinner was wonderful, as was the company. Alan didn't even lecture me about the "Bush Free Zone" agreement we had made, but he did laugh when he realized I had been wounded in the pointer. LOL. He put an Elmo bandage on my boo-boo and we moved on, but I think I have learned my lesson this time. No more evening news, news magazines or YouTube political follies during the dinner hour. Nope. Not me. Nope. I am kind of fond of my appendages. :) Live and learn... right?

"When angry count to four; when very angry... Swear."

-Mark Twain

Somebody's Got To Be There And Tell Them It's OK

-OndineMonet
"ELMO HELPS"
Berkeley, California
October 16th, 2007
Late Afternoon