Friday evening is "clean out the refrigerator night." Usually this means figuring out how to consume the balance of the vegetables on hand. I've discovered a pretty good way to do that. I make a chicken-based pasta extravaganza.
- Dust cubed chicken with flour, brown in olive oil and several halved garlic cloves -- I like lots of garlic.
- Add all the leftover uncooked root veggies cut into chunks. This week it was turnips and Jerusalem Artichokes. Add chicken broth, wine, lemon juice, and herb(s) du jour (today it was thyme; I have also used dill, rosemary, tarragon, or basil).
- Reduce the liquid in the pan to make a sauce, scrape in all the stuff on the bottom of the pan, add a dab of sour cream or half and half if it isn't rich enough already, and any leftover cooked veggies.
- At the same time, boil any kind of pasta, just before draining throw in any remaining uncooked greens (chopped): they barely wilt.
- Pour the chicken mixture over the pasta and enjoy a meal in a bowl!
Tonight's version also included sauteed portabellas and green onions. Lots of garlic seems to improve the flavor of greens. The pasta concoction gets topped with freshly grated parmesan, or pine nuts, or bacon bits. Yum.
Ben went to the dance tonight -- his first as far as I can recall. He is a very good dancer -- his drumming experience gives him a great sense of rhythm and his Tae Kwan Do talent informs his dance moves.
Logan stayed home this evening and is psyching himself up for the 5k run tomorrow. He has become quite the jock -- wants to go out for football and basketball. I'm not too keen on football -- pre-season practice clobbers up the summer and takes place when it is just too hot to be running around in all that gear. He has signed up to take French next year -- his first year in Junior High -- he will likely have honors classes for English, Science, Math, and Social Studies, so it will be a heavy load. He pretends to be anti-intellectual, but loves science, math and language. He has decided he wants to be a writer (instead of a chef) when he grows up and he's good at it. He carries a notebook so that he is prepared to scribble when the muse strikes.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Managing Abundance
I retired as a technical writer years ago. Since then I've spent my time reading, writing, rabble-rousing and raising my two orphaned grandsons. Because they are now grown,I still spend time reading, writing, quilting, and in advocacy for many causes. Don't get me started on politics. My day-to-day life is fairly quiet, but my fantasy life is soaring, and I take mental excursions almost as good as the real thing.
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I hope Ben had a fantastic time...
ReplyDeleteIt has been so interesting watching the boys grow up little by little and become such individuals. They are both so intelligent (and will always challenge one another), but also so different. It does strike me a rather hilarious that Logan tries to be so "anti-intellectual" since he is so obviously smart, but that's his thing. =)