He's Gone Plaid - Crockpot Corned Beef with Cracked New Potatoes and Maple-Kissed Brussel Sprouts

Tuesday - It's raining.  It's raining because we are heading over to our storage rooms to do some clearing out. I still have more cooking planned, and some baking.  If we ever get home, because this is a big project.

Turns out that we got a lot done, mostly because once James get started on a project like moving boxes, he can't stop. The man goes into superhyperdrive - in other words, he's gone plaid, like Dark Helmet in "Spaceballs" - and sets the pace for the rest of us. Zoom zoom. A truckload of stuff is headed out and will be part of a community yard sale.  Very satisfying; I can safely say we finally unpacked the basement of our Ronkonkoma house, which is an accomplishment only 25 years overdue. Now if only I could do the same with the multitude of boxes still sitting in my bedroom and dining room.

Kraut Sveckle (Hungarian noodles and cabbage)

These recipes are from Monday's cooking frenzy; they are the kind of cooking prep that works well when you are doing a whole lot of other things on the stovetop, or you're spending the day at home watching an entire season's episodes of Game of Thrones or a James Bond marathon. So while I was fussing with chicken and fruit and Hungarian noodles and cabbage, my crockpot took care of the rest.  It was a long day for both of us.

Crockpot Corned Beef with Cracked New Potatoes and Maple-Kissed Brussel Sprouts

1-3 to 3 1/4 pound corned beef (usually in cryovac, with a seasoning packet)

3 whole cloves garlic, peeled

2 small bay leaves

1 Knorr beef bouillon cube, broken up

water

1 1/2 pounds new potatoes, white or gold

olive oil

2 pounds fresh Brussel sprouts, trimmed, loose leaves discarded

Rinse the corned beef under cool water, and place into the crockpot, fat side facing up.  Add the contents of the seasoning packet, garlic, and bay leaves.  Add cool water just to cover, cook on high for 3 hours, then check for doneness. If a long cooking fork can go all the way through, the corned beef is done.  Do not overcook or the meat will shred while you are try to slice it.  Remove the corned beef to a baking pan, cover with foil and let cool to room temperature. Use an electric knife and patience to thinly slice the corned beef against the grain, This particular corned beef was a little tough, so I put the slices in a baking dish, spooned in some of the cooking liquid from the crockpot, covered with foil and put in the oven until the meat is tender.

With a strainer, remove the seasoning and bay leaves from the cooking liquid in the crockpot.  Don't worry if you can't get all of it.  Add the uncut potatoes to the crockpot.  Cover and cook on high for about an hour and a half, until they can be pierced with a fork. Now my potatoes turned out to be a little underdone, so I "cracked" them by pressing against them with a potato masher, and placed them in a baking pan. Drizzle with some olive oil and season with salt, pepper and smoked paprika.  Put into a 425 degree oven and let the potatoes roast until as crispy as you like on both sides.

To the remaining cooking liquid, add 2 tablespoons butter and the Brussel sprouts; cover and cook for another 2 hours. I wasn't thrilled with the result for some reason, so I melted some bacon fat and cooked the chopped onion until softened, and then added the drained sprouts.  I still wasn't thrilled with the taste. I think I was getting overtired, so I drizzled on some maple syrup and cooked in the pan a few minutes longer. Now that's good.

True Confession: Why I Will Never Be The Next Food Network Star - Quick Scotch Eggs and Quicker Chicken Noodle Soup

My father used to say I had two speeds: slow and stop. True dat. I never liked to rush. I have no need for speed. I suppose you could say I was born punctuality-challenged, like Bill Clinton.  I have a problem with time zones, existing neither in Eastern, Atlantic, nor Central Standard. I'm in something I like to call Dawson Standard and we'll just leave it at that.

Now that's not to say I can't move faster, because I can.  Push me into Trial Prep Mode, and watch me rock and roll. I develop hyperdrive and tunnel vision all at once and what has to get done gets done. Then I go home and collapse.

I realize that I cook the way other people engage in their favorite hobby. There is no hurry, just the steady pace of enjoyment, like when I am knitting. It would seem to me that picking the Next Food Network Star should be more about quality and less about running around like the proverbial headless chicken, but on the other hand, watching an old lady leisurely prepare comfort food is probably not Good TV.  

When we designed the new kitchen for this house, it was done with a careful eye to minimize unwanted steps.  Although I have long, unbroken expanses of countertop on which to work, the layout is so efficient that it naturally flows from prep to cooktop or stove. Completely opposite to that are the studio kitchens, where I might as well just strap on a pair of old-fashioned four-wheel roller skates and spin my prayer wheel.  I could never keep up with all the crazy contestants running amok with 14-inch super sharp chef's knives in their sweaty hands, shoving each other out of the way to grab the last pound of butter.

And that, dear blog peeps, is why I will never be the Next Food Network Star. The only reason. Uh huh.

So today is Saturday, and I took my sweet time preparing some chicken noodle soup and finishing the Scotch eggs.  So no new recipes, except I changed what I did the last time.  Big surprise.

For the soup, I sautéed two carrots, one stalk of celery, and a bunch of green onions, in some olive oil. Threw in some dried oregano, dried thyme, a couple of chopped garlic cloves, two small bay leaves, some salt and pepper, and after a little while added the breast of a rotisserie chicken, which I chopped pretty small. Once the carrots were softened, I poured in 6 cups of chicken stock and 2 cups of water, and over medium high heat, brought the soup up to almost a boil. Then I added about a cup of very fine short pasta, the type you find in a small bag in the Hispanic foods section.  They will cook in about 4 minutes.  Shut off the heat and enjoy. I filled up two 1-quart plastic containers, the type in which you get your take-out wonton soup, one for the freezer and one for the fridge. I'm in soup heaven.

The Scotch eggs are basically the same recipe, but I took a few shortcuts which proved to be very successful. First, I bought a bag of hard-boiled eggs.  I like Eggland's Best when I can find them. Then, while I was in Walmart, I bought a package of Italian-style sausage meatballs. Twelve meatballs to a 12 ounce package.  Ha, this is the kind of math I can do!

I used 2 of the sausage meatballs to cover each egg, then set them in one of the ubiquitous aluminum baking pans, and then floured them by shaking Wondra flour over and around each egg.  Next I broke two eggs into a ziploc freezer bag, and informally beat the eggs. In another freezer bag I put the Italian bread crumbs. Finally I heated canola oil in a medium pot, enough to cover two or three eggs at a time.

That freezer bag thing is my newest favorite kitchen hack. First I put two of the floured Scotch eggs into the bag with the eggs, zipped it shut and gently worked the eggs around so they are covered with egg, Next I used a small slotted spoon to move each egg into the bag with the crumbs and gently rolled them around until each egg is neatly and completely covered.  Only then did I use my hand to move them into the hot oil.  Fry, fry, my darlings - NO CLUB HAND! You will break out in a happy dance, I guarantee.

They will need to be fried until the crumbs are a deep dark brown to ensure the sausage is cooked all the way through. Cut them in half to serve, hot, cold, room temp, whatever.  I first enjoyed Scotch eggs accompanied by a big whipped cream topped Irish coffee at the English pub in EPCOT, but these days my drinking is limited to black coffee and Crystal Light. Between the dairy and the booze, an Irish coffee would probably put me into a coma, or at the very least, a painful stupor. Crap. Whoever it was who said that these were the Golden Years needs to be beaten - with my crutch.

Arrivederci, Papa Francisco - Chicken with Yams, Bananas and Prunes

Sunday - Sorry for the out-of-order posts. The blog actually makes more sense this way, as much as anything I write makes sense. We will return to our regularly scheduled programming in a couple of days.   Maybe a few, or several. Stay tuned.

While I am writing this, Shepherd One, the airplane carrying the Holy Father, Pope Francis, is taxiing  for take off from the airport in Philadelphia on its return trip to Rome and Vatican City. Although there were many jokes to be made about "Pope TV" and "The Pope Channel", the concentrated media coverage was a welcome relief from the usual crap of hatred, mayhem, and politics.

I know, I know - the Pope's message was filled with politics, but his delivery was gentle and full of hopeful  prayer.  His airplane is in the air.  Safe trip, Papa Francisco.

FOX News switched back to U.S. politics so fast I bet the Pope hadn't had the time to rip open that little packet of pretzels.  I'm just not ready for that yet. The politics, not the pretzels.

Spoilers - if you haven't seen the series finale of CSI yet, keep scrolling.  Okay, so what if I haven't actually watched CSI for six years? I still loved it, loved the entire franchise, but eventually grew tired of it, as I have grown tired of the NCIS franchise and Bones and Castle. I am still a fan, and last night's finale had everything a true CSI fan wanted to see.  They got the band back together - at least as much of the band as most of us wanted to see (sorry, Morpheus) - and it was good. Best of all, Grissom was back. Although Robert was disappointed, it wasn't Lady Heather that old Gil sailed off with into the sunset - it was his ex-wife Sara, and it was corny but in a good way.

Monday - there is a Big Hole in the middle of my street, and there are several Really Big Trucks out there, trying to do something about the water bubbling up from under the road. So this part of Bryan Street is blocked off at both ends, and my driveway is completely blocked by a mechanical behemoth from the Toho Water Authority. My plans for a trip to Walmart are on hold, and all I can think is that it's a good thing I don't have to get to the office.

Like most Mondays, I am in a cranky, muttering-under-my-breath sort of mood, and even the prospect of all the cooking I have planned is not cheering me up. And I have a lot of cooking planned - I'm cooking ahead, some for the freezer, but more importantly, some to send over to Mom and Dad.

         
Last trip to BJs I picked up a package of chicken breasts - and these must have been some pretty big-bosomed chicken, because 10 breasts added up to almost 8 1/2 pounds - and figured I would do two dishes, but then I decided on three, so here is the first one, which I made up as I went along.  Welcome to my kitchen.

Chicken with Yams, Bananas, and Prunes

1 - 15 oz. can Bruce's Yams (Cut Sweet Potatoes in Syrup), drained, syrup reserved
1 banana, cut into chunks
8-10 whole prunes (dried plums)
2 tablespoons butter
light brown sugar
ground ginger
ground cardamom
kosher salt
black pepper
2 very large boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into large cubes
Cajun seasoning blend, to taste (I used Emeril's)
olive oil
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1/2 cup V-8 fusion peach mango juice
1 tablespoon creme de banana liquor
1/4 cup very cold water
1 tablespoon cornstarch

Set the oven to broil.  Place the butter in a baking pan, and melt in the oven till very lightly browned. Watch carefully so butter doesn't burn. Remove from the oven and add the banan, prunes, and drained sweet potatoes. Sprinkle with the brown sugar, ginger, cardamom, salt, and pepper to taste. Place back under the broiler for just a few minutes to let the brown sugar melt. Remove from the oven and set aside.  Change the oven setting to bake at 350 degrees.

Heat the olive oil in a large deep skillet.  Season the chicken cubes with kosher salt, pepper, and the Cajun seasoning.  Add the chicken to the skillet and saute until the chicken is light brown on both sides.  Don't worry if it is not cooked all the way through, as it will be finished in the oven.  With a slotted spoon, remove the chicken to the baking pan with the fruit.

In the same skillet, add the onion and cook until it starts to brown around the edges.  Pour in the reserved syrup from the sweet potatoes and cook over medium high heat until it is reduced by not more than half.  Add the peach mango juice and the banana liquor and bring to a steady simmer.  Mix the water and cornstarch together and then add that to the simmering sauce.  Stir and continue to simmer until the sauce thickens.  Spoon the sauce and onions over the contents of the baking pan; cover with aluminum foil and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes, until the chicken is done.

Serve with rice or orzo.

Alice Doesn't Work Here Anymore

Sunday - it's another Breakfast with Baker, courtesy of the BBC. Good excuse to get up early. No oversleeping allowed when plans for the day include a final pack-and-go trip to the office.  I have raised procrastination to a high Art.  Everybody should be known for something and I am known for abundant procrastination and a complete lack of punctuality. Now there's a splendid epitaph for my gravestone, if I was going to even have a gravestone, which I'm not. Cremate me, put the ashes in a cute little urn, or perhaps one of those little bear-shaped squeeze bottles that Jimmy Bear's uses for their barbecue sauce, and put me on the shelf next to Ira and Athene.

Oh crap, I overslept anyway. Fortunately it is still mid-morning and time is on my side. Not so much that I can sit down to an hour or two of watching Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor, but we watched a tremendously good "Doctor Who" last night which just goes to show that while Clara Oswald, the Impossible Girl, was born to save the Doctor, Peter Capaldi was born to play the Doctor.

No sense delaying the inevitable.

Everything has its time. And everything ends.

Zen Cats, Karma, and Coloring Books

Friday - Let's get this day started, shall we?

I have to work myself up to walking downstairs, although it is Friday and my new iPhone is due to be delivered. As with everyone else in the Known Universe, I have things to do, and for reasons known only to the chemicals in my brain, that simple fact rattles my cage. Too many notes, perhaps.

My garden is just about finished for this growing season, sad to say.  The okra plant, which grew to be taller than me, has given its last pods, which I gratefully incorporated into yesterday's briami.  The tomato plants are still chugging along, but slowly, slowly.

I continue to engage in some zen coloring. Ridiculously soothing; no wonder I was so happy in kindergarten (well, except the time I got hold of some scissors and cut a hole in a classmate's dress sleeve.  I got sent to the cloakroom for that.)  Finished one, started another. Ommmmm ....

And now from the "karma is a bitch" department ...

A number of times during the past 6 months, I've made references to the suboptimal courtroom conditions that exacerbated the physical and emotional issues I've had to deal with because of the fibromyalgia. I have alluded to the source of those conditions, but have held back naming names and giving details. Partly because of my innate respect for the Bench, but mostly because I was still employed by DCF and did not want to create any impediments to a proper resolution. So I waited ...

... and that's all I had to do was wait. I promised all would be revealed in the fullness of time, and that time is now. Forgive me if I start to ramble, but I have been holding back for six months and I want to savor these moments.

A little background - I practiced in dependency court, what lay people think of as child abuse court. I practiced juvenile dependency law for over 23 years, 15 of those as an attorney for the state agency (HRS, DCF) and the remainder as a parent's attorney. Over the course of those years, I appeared in Brevard, Orange, Osceola, Seminole, Hillsborough, Polk, and Duval counties. That adds up to a lot of judges, and almost across the board I have had positive experiences. There were four exceptions, two in Orange County (but those were short term appearances, thank the good Lord) and two in Osceola - one was bearable, but one was not. This one. Never in my entire legal career, and that includes my cases in family, criminal, and delinquency court, have I ever had to deal with someone so unreasonable, so disrespectful, so totally convinced of her own rightness, and so completely out of touch with the grim realities of social work.

Side topic - and this is a shout out at all you Circuit Chief Judges - why must you send so many brand new, green-as-grass, never-set-foot-in-dependency-court-before, didn't-study-this-crap-in-law-school,  lives-at-the-complete-opposite-end-of-the-Ninth-Circuit judges to Osceola County? Do you think that little of us and the children we serve that you would saddle us with a terrified, resentful newbie?

Of course, we have occasionally been blessed with a newbie who rises to the occasion, self-educates, sets a professional tone, and leaves us with good memories of his term, but someone like the Honorable Keith Carsten is a rare gift to the judiciary and to all in his courtroom. And then there were those halcyon days - years, actually - when I was privileged to appear before The Best Dependency Judge Ever, the Honorable Daniel Dawson.

I could go on, but let me throw out a couple of links about the judge I consider to be the proximate cause of the 6 months of hell I just barely managed to live through. It's not my nature to be mean, so I am going to erase some of the other stuff I typed and stop here.

Here are the links, duckies - I report, you decide.
Osceola judge faces misconduct charges
Notice of Formal Charges
Fiery judge's campaign riled legal community

As my friend Kevin would say, alRIGHTY then!  Let's see - I saw my office peeps today and it did my heart good.  Lots of hugs and kisses and I was able to deliver those European Union Brownies (big success!) Oh, how I miss them all. Terry had a big bag of homegrown Florida avocados for me, and I even got some good news about some of the kids on my (former) caseload. My office, which is still not completely emptied, still has my name card up and Raquel taped up a picture from a long-ago adoption, when I was a redhead. That story had a tragic start, but a happy ending. I don't think Raquel realized how that case consumed me for five years before we got to the adoption, and is probably the case I am most emotional about. My plan is to go back there this weekend with Rob and finally clear out the shrine. Hard for me, hard for the peeps, but it's time.

The iPhone 6s arrived while I was out and about. So cool, Siri is voice activated now.  Although the AT&T folks did a great job activating and moving data from my terminally ill iPhone 5, it's still going to take a while to download apps and generally fix it up the way I like it. But you know what? I'm retired now and have the time to do it, while wearing flip-flops, no less.

No cooking today.  I started to prepare the Scotch eggs, but after cloaking them in pork sausage and dusting them with flour, I had to leave the frying for another day. Tomorrow is another day.