Chelsea's Excellent Adventure

Wednesday - I got so confused I thought it was Thursday and Jane was graduating on Saturday.  Good thing I ran into her dad at the office, so he could tell me today was Wednesday and Jane was graduating on Friday. Which means I go to see the vampires on Thursday - tomorrow morning - and hopefully will get to chat with my supervisor on Friday morning.  If this makes sense to you, you may be spending far too much time with me and my blog.  Just kidding.

Today Chelsea had an Excellent Adventure - I promised her she could pick out a new collar - and that meant a trip to the new Petsmart near the new Hobby Lobby.  Prime location, yes indeed.  But first James and I consulted regarding the placement of herbs and vegetables.  I pointed, he dug. James is the best.  I still want to pick up a few more plants - maybe lavender, some chives, another tomato plant, another squash.  We'll see. In the middle of everything we are having to readjust the underground sprinklers, which is part of the reason we had to move some of the plants.  It's all good.

Back to Chelsea - of course I couldn't just get her a collar.

Well, I did cook today - bake, actually, in the bread machine.  My favorite white bread, good for sandwiches.  Not that I can eat a sandwich.  Or much of anything else.

Thursday, I went to the vampires and gave more blood.  As I noted on Facebook, I am the Human Pincushion and Marvel should give me my own TV show.  Stan Lee, are you reading this?

Guess not.  Have a good day, folks.

Slow Down, You Move Too Fast (Feeling Snarky)

I know where I am, but nothing looks familiar.  It's been that kind of a day.  I took Chelsea for a ride in the car.  She napped, I tried to clear my head. Score, Chelsea-1, Mommy-0.

Best joke ever - I got a letter today, dated May 21, advising me that my FMLA request has been approved from March 2 to May 22.  Yes, I know today is May 26.  I am still in the middle of lab tests, and my "new" medication is still not giving me the desired relief from depression and anxiety.  My doctor would have to complete a form declaring me fit to return to work.  Not sure how he may feel about that, and quite honestly, he's not the only doctor involved in this mess that I call a life.

I also received a packet containing all the forms I need to begin the disability retirement process.  When I feel okay - which is generally for a couple of hours most days - I think it would be good to go back to work. When the golden moment passes, I think - who the hell am I kidding?

I probably should set a time to meet with my direct supervisor and eventually the managing attorney, to discuss our mutual expectations were I to return, but you know what?  I'm still terrified to walk into that building.

Second best joke ever - (oh Google, how I love thee!)  I found this quote in a candidate's statement to the League of Women Voters: "The courtroom should be free of intimidation, emotional instability, judicial whim, pettiness and ridicule."  Why is this so very funny?  You can figure that out, folks. And that is the other problem I have to consider along with all the symptoms of chronic pain syndrome and depression - the deep, dark kind that reminds you of a Brooklyn blackout cake from Ebinger's, just not as sweet. Depression and I have been sharing a bed since I was around seven years old, and it always steals the covers.  Consequently, we are not on good terms. And depression, like fibromyalgia, always wins.  Damn.

The problem with entering your sixties is that you finally have most of the knowledge and wisdom you thought you were going to get the morning you turned twenty-one, which casts great shadows on decisions you made in your forties and fifties.  So now you are filled with doubts and regrets that will haunt you to the end of your days.  Woulda, shoulda, coulda.

The other problem with entering your sixties is that you reasonably expect a certain degree of respect arising from your (slightly) advanced age, and all that knowledge and wisdom stuff I wrote about in the other sentence. So when someone goes out of their way to be disrespectful, it's bad. Because now you've got doubts, regrets, anger, and righteous indignation.

Add that to the basic fact that while "God makes no mistakes", at least according to Lady Gaga,  He does create us humans for planned obsolescence, so by the time you hit your sixties, you've got aches and pains somewhere, maybe even a couple of somewheres. Which makes you cranky, and grouchy, and pissed off because you are being disrespected by someone who should know better, your back hurts most of the time, and you have no patience for this kind of crap. Fortunately, Karma is a patient dude.

No recipes today, kids.  I want to savor the Cavalier's 4-0 sweep of the Atlanta Hawks.  New Eastern Conference Champions - now I just want to see Golden State finish off the Houston Rockets.  Sorry, Dwight - no, not really.

To quote Walter Cronkite, and that's the way it is.

Finally, a photo that popped up on Facebook - three years ago today.  The last time I saw her.  My childhood friend, my confidante, my conscience.  I thought we would grow old together, but God had other plans.

Some Gave All ... Italian Broccoli and Pepper Jack Chicken Stacks

Monday - Today is Memorial Day.  What can I say that hasn't been said? God bless America, and every service person who gave their lives so that we could continue to live free.

Chelsea having a lavender-scented doggie soak

Sunday was all about shopping for a dish which did not get made, at least not yesterday - and Hoppin' John (what is a nice Jewish girl from Brooklyn doing cooking Hoppin' John?) - and taking care of my little princess, Chelsea Rose, in our never-ending quest to get her some relief from those horrible fleas, and that involved additional shaving and trimming and soaking and bathing and combing, and she's so tiny it hurts to see her go through it.

It's also about watching the Eastern Conference Finals; Cleveland ahead of Atlanta by 2 games, and let's go Cleveland.  Sue me, I like Lebron.

Basil, sweet mint, Gtreek oregano; thyme, Thai basil, sage; Italian oregano, rosemary

And it was about checking on my newly-planted herbs and planning on where was the best place to plant the okra, cucumber, zucchini, Roma tomato, and Japanese eggplant.  This is a brand-new experience for me, and I'm having fun, thanks to my husband, who listened to me talk about an urban garden and ran with it.

Monday is about learning to work with the polenta, and that's where I am now, having overslept dramatically because of the medication I took at 4 AM to give me some relief from a bout of insane itching that almost had me in tears.  This polenta comes all prepared, in a tube, neatly sliceable.  I did some research online and found that this was a product well-thought of by many home cooks, easy to prepare - slice and sauté.

I never had polenta or grits until I moved south.  I'm still not thrilled with grits, but I've had some creamy polenta preparations that were pretty awesome. This solidified polenta is a whole new experience.

But before I even get there - I am having a sad day.  Can't get passed the sadness.  Can't eat, can't swallow liquids easily.  Just a crap day.  And tomorrow I have - wait for it - another lab test.  Nothing to eat after midnight. Well, that shouldn't be a problem for me. And then there's my weekly chat with the therapist.

So to go with the pretty Italian style stacks I just invented, I am making some Italian broccoli.  Mostly my grandmother's recipe.

Italian Broccoli

2-3 tablespoons olive oil (garlic, if you have some)
1 -10 oz. frozen block broccoli spears
lemon zest, to taste
2-4 cloves fresh garlic chopped
fresh Greek oregano, to taste, chopped

Put the ingredients in a small pan in the order given.  Turn the heat on high.  Once you can hear the oil sizzling, lower the heat to medium-low and cover the pan. Check it occasionally and rearrange the broccoli stalks.  Don't do what I did, which is to forget about the broccoli while I was building those stacks.  Broccoli is now overdone but delicious.  However, if you are the kind of person who eats with your eyes first, you will probably pass right by the broccoli - your loss, more for me. <insert smilie face>

Now about those stacks - easy, but time consuming.  They do make a very pretty presentation, but I must warn you, each of these is a big portion.  That pepper jack cheese was spicier than I anticipated, and while Rob loved it, there is no shame in making some of them with regular mozzarella or provolone.

Pepper Jack Chicken Stacks

1-45 oz. jar prepared sauce (I used Ragu chunky vegetable)
10 frozen chicken patties (I used Tyson, but Perdue is also good)
10 frozen eggplant cutlets (I use Michaelangelo brand)
1-16 oz. roll prepared polenta, basil and oregano flavored, cut into 10 slices
Wondra flour
canola oil for cooking

Dust the polenta slices with Wondra flour. In a skillet, heat about 2 tablespoons oil then cook the polenta on each side until golden brown. Set aside. Add a little more oil, and cook the eggplant slices as directed on the package.  Set aside. While cooking the polenta and eggplant, cook the chicken patties in the oven according to package directions.

Combine the ricotta mixture:

1-15 oz. container whole milk ricotta

1 egg yolk

kosher salt and ground black pepper
fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1 cup shredded mozzarella

Construct the stacks:

sauce just to cover bottom of 2 pans
chicken pattie
sauce
ricotta
polenta
sauce
ricotta
eggplant
sauce (be generous)
ricotta
pepper jack sliced cheese

Now add some water to whatever sauce is left in the bottle and shake well.  Carefully pour the diluted sauce around the stacks to keep the bottom of the pan moist.  Probably best to do this just before you put on the pepper jack cheese.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes intil the cheese is melted over the stack.

Next time, I may leave out the polenta layer.  It was good; my tasters just aren't sure it added anything to the dish since there was already so much going on.

Last Night I Dreamt of Plumbago - Hoppin' John

Whoo Hoo, Barbecue Pitmasters is back on the air! The official start of summer.

Today is a day for fatigue, and I HATE it.  Muscle weakness - I can't open a package of cheese.  My hands got tired, and I had to give the spray bottle to Rob so he could finish spraying the hibiscus for aphids. Completely washed out. Go upstairs, fall asleep.  Same pattern for most of this week.

Today Rob and I made a trip to Home Depot so I could try to pick up the herbs I hadn't been able to find at Lowe's - Italian parsley and cilantro.  Obviously I want to be growing herbs that I use frequently when I cook, and now I've got them.  I also picked up dill, okra, cucumber, a single Roma tomato plant (gotta try it), zucchini and Japanese eggplant.  Should be interesting to see how they do once they're all planted.

When we were at Lowe's the other day, I learned the identity of the pretty blue flowers that tumble over the fence between our home and our neighbors on Clyde Street.

That's plumbago, my friends, and that left me with a chronic earworm that had actually started while we were on our last cruise, which had included a stop at Belize.

Last night I dreamt of San Pedro
Just like I'd never gone, I knew the song
A young girl with eyes like the desert
It all seems like yesterday, not far away
Tropical the island breeze

All of nature wild and free
This is where I long to be
La isla bonita
And when the samba played
The sun would set so high
Ring through my ears and sting my eyes
Your Spanish lullaby

Every time I look out of my kitchen window, which is fairly often, the ear worm bites. Nice ear worm, though,  Sounds like Madonna. A very young Madonna.

Okay, now about food - no barbecue, sorry.  I do have an idea for an easy stacked entrée that involves minimal work on the part of the cook, namely me.  My first choice for today's activities was to drive to Austin, Texas and eat barbecue at Franklin's.  I was outvoted by the man who would have to drive the 15 hours or so, and then first wait on line at Franklin's for 3 to 5 hours.  Fair enough.  Let's go to BJ's and Publix - I never get tired of that.  No really, I never do.  Besides, I need to pick up the elements for these stacks I'm dreaming about.

The bad news is that my weight went down a bit.  The good news is that I ate breakfast this morning and mirabile dictu, it stayed down. The Lord giveth and The Lord taketh away.  I'm off to buy food.

Just as well we didn't head to Franklin's.  I couldn't have stood on line for 10 minutes, much less 3 hours. Here's the thing about this thing I have to live with - I can start the day feeling normal, no aches or pains, and a reasonable supply of energy to expend on chores and such.  But then all it takes is a ride in the car, a walk through Publix, putting away groceries, petting the cat, watering the herbs - any one of those things can suck the joy out of what I was hoping would be a productive day.  There will be no dreamy stacks today. Too much work, too much pain.  I did, however, manage to make something I suppose is like a Hoppin' John to use up 2 slices of bacon I was loathe to waste.  As you might have figured out, this wasn't one of my grandmother's specialties.  In fact, I never heard of it until I started reading cookbooks. I had a basic idea of what goes into a Hopping John, and then I figured out how I wanted to put it all together.  Very easy, and more important, very tasty.  Totally out of season, as this is traditionally eaten on New Year's Day, and well ...  I didn't get Cinco de Mayo right either.  I am punctuality-challenged, like Bill Clinton.  But I cook better than him.

Hoppin' John

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 slices bacon, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 baby bell red pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
Emeril's Essence
1 can black-eyed peas, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup converted rice (Uncle Ben's)
1 1/3 cup water
chopped fresh herbs, kosher salt, black pepper, cayenne or Raging River

In a skillet, heat the olive oil and add the bacon. After about five minutes, add the onion, red pepper, and garlic.  Sprinkle generously with Emeril's Essence and continue cooking until bacon is done to your liking (it will not be crisp).  Stir in the black-eyed peas and the rice.  Add the water, and seasoning (I used some Raging River and a little chopped parsley and rosemary FROM MY OWN GARDEN! Also salt and a lot of black pepper.)  Bring to a boil, then lower the heat, cover the pan and simmer for 20 minutes.  At the end of 20 minutes, leave the cover on and move the pan off the heat for five more minutes.  Remove the cover and fluff the contents with a fork.

Flower Power - Meshuggah Kugel

I love the flower girl
Oh, I don't know just why
She simply caught my eye
I love the flower girl she seemed so sweet and kind.
She crept into my mind.

Landscaping at Ye Old Homestead:  So, we head over to Lowe's; I point, Rob pays, James does all the heavy lifting.  We have very little property to work with, which is fine with me.  We have no backyard or side yard for that matter.  We do have a rather nice parking lot with a handicapped slot and everything.  Part of the little bit of lawn we do have is devoted to being a ditch for proper water drainage.  Somehow, with all those restrictions we still managed to plan out some pretty planting beds with hibiscus and crotons, my favorite trees, magnolia, kumquat and crape myrtle, a gorgeous bougainvillea, and best of all, an herb and vegetable garden.  It's not done yet, but the herbs are in and I can't wait to go out and clip some rosemary or basil to use in cooking.

One thing I managed to do was organize my refrigerator, and while checking on cooked foods, I realized there were no starchy-type side dishes.  Vegetables, yes. But no potato or pasta or rice or noodle dish.  I watch enough Fox News to know that is neither fair nor balanced.

So I made a kugel.  New recipe, out of my own fevered brain. So very good, and pretty easy.  Not overly sweet, so it works as a dessert or a side dish.  I've made a lot of kugels during the course of my cooking life.  It's one of those things you do if you do Jewish cooking, and God knows I do Jewish cooking.

My grandmother was more likely to make a potato kugel (kugel translates to pudding) than a noodle kugel.  She could make a mean potato kugel, and I learned it directly from her, which was a rare treat.  She was a great cook, but a lousy teacher, so if I wanted to learn how to cook a particular dish, I had to hang out in the kitchen, keep out of her way, and absorb whatever information she chose to share.

Noodle puddings - lukshen kugels in Yiddish - are an entirely different breed of recipe.  Every Jewish cook has her (his) own recipe which they will swear is the best because they got the recipe from their mother, grandmother, or favorite aunt.  I got my noodle kugel recipes from a favorite cookbook, from another cookbook because that recipe sounded exactly like the one prepared by the cook at the kosher catering hall, and another from the back of a box of noodles.  I was supposed to get the recipe for my Aunt Anna's noodle pudding, but unfortunately that didn't happen, I think because I moved to Florida and forgot to follow up with Aunt Anna's daughter, my beloved cousin Marcia.  Then there's my mother-in-law's Hungarian noodle pudding and one of my ex-sisters-in-law's (I have more than one) very rich, very sweet noodle pudding.

My friend Terry would rather have one of my noodle kugels over a regular cake for her birthday.  Now that's a compliment.

Meshuggah Kugel from a Fevered Brain

12 oz. medium egg noodles, cooked according to package directions, drained
8 oz. can pineapple tidbits, drained
11 oz. can Mandarin oranges, drained
14.5 oz. can tart cherries, drained
1 stick butter, softened
4 oz. cream cheese (Philadelphia soft pineapple)
8 oz. large curd cottage cheese
8 oz. dairy sour cream
1/2 cup sugar
5 eggs, separated
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
teaspoon sugar
pinch of salt

Place the butter, cream cheese, cottage cheese and sour cream in a medium mixing bowl and beat for about a minute.  Add the sugar, beat until completely incorporated.  Add the egg yolks and pinch of salt, and beat them into the mixture.  With clean beaters, whip the eggs until peaks form.  Add the teaspoon of sugar about halfway through.

Both the golden brown and white parts of the topping are done. Some of the egg whites have baked up like a proper meringue.    Looks good, tastes good.

In a 9 x 13 aluminum baking dish that has been sprayed with some no-stick stuff, combine the noodles and the drained fruits. Use your fingers to gently combine them so that the noodles don't stick together and the fruit is evenly distributed.  Pour in the beaten egg yolk and dairy mixture and fold into the noodles with a rubber spatula.  Then fold the beaten egg whites in, very gently, to lighten the kugel.  Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 60 minutes.

Watching me, watching you