my best fried chicken on record

so, fried chicken. always good, less often spectacular. sometimes really gross. if there's one thing i can't stand (and there are many such things) it's soggy, greasy, or flavorless fried chicken. this has been the foremost reason that i don't make fried chicken that often, although the result tends to be 'okay' it has not been much to write home about. well, no more. i have come across a method which produces crispy, flavorful chicken that is neither greasy, soggy, nor dry. we start with 8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs. combine one egg, 1/4 cup evaporated milk, and one teaspoon dijon mustard. pat the chicken dry and put in a bowl or plastic bag with the egg mixture. mix 1/2 cup all purpose flour with 1/2 cup whole wheat flour season with garlic salt, black pepper, rubbed sage, paprika, and parsley flakes. don't be afraid of the seasonings either, remember this is the seasoning for the whole batch. put the flour mixture into a shallow dish, and dredge each piece carefully patting flour into all the nooks and crannies, then place them on a tray to rest for a minute. heat about 1/2 cup canola oil in a non stick pan (get your nose out of the air and go with me on this one, please) to a medium high heat. pre heat oven to 350, and prep a baking pan with some slightly crumpled heavy duty foil. the purpose of the foil is to create ridges and pockets, to allow the chicken to drain as it finishes in the oven. if you want to mess around cleaning grease and bits of breading off of a cooling rack you could rig something up with a cooling rack in a roasting pan, i leave it to you. now check your chicken, there are probably spots where the egg has soaked through the flour layer leaving sort of soggy places, gently pat a bit more flour on any such soggy spots you come across, with out knocking the flour off the rest of the piece, it's not necessary to re dredge the whole lot. now fry in small batches until brown on both sides (about 3 minutes per side) removing to the foil lined pan. be sure you don't crowd the pan, the pieces of chicken should not touch, and should be surrounded completely by oil. bake at 350 uncovered for about 30 mins to finish the cooking and drain the oil from the breading. even if you have a method of making fried chicken that you love, i encourage you to try this, there's something different and very tasty about the result, maybe from the evap. or maybe from the mustard, either way it's delicious.

English style beef ribs

i have mentioned that every year my husband and i buy a half a beef from some friends of ours who raise them locally, this year in discussing the cutting method with my butcher he asked me if i wanted the short rib strips or the english style short ribs. i was intrigued. he warned that they were slow cookers, not bbqers and that they might be tough. thus faced with a challenge i really had to order them and see what could be done. can such a cut be purchased from your local butcher or meat counter? you'll have to ask. what they look like is thin broad blades of bone, about 4 inches long with a good amount of meat on them, but also quite a bit of membrane and also fat. here's what i did to make them tender and also delicious: heat crock pot to high, salt and pepper the ribs liberally. throw them in with the fattiest side down. peel a head of garlic. no joke. if it's a particularly large bulb, perhaps 2/3 would do, but you need about 12 cloves or so, crush them with the flat of your knife and add them to the pot. add 1 cup strong coffee, and 1 or 2 cups of water. bring to simmer and turn crock down to low, cook for 6 to 8 hours or until falling apart. the juice will be quite fatty, but really delicious from the significant amount of bone, strain it, skim it and make deletable gravy with it. serve with buttered egg noodles and enjoy!

not tuna noodle casserole, tuna pasta

dinner tonight needed to happen fast. my husband left his lunch at home (again) and called on the road to say he was starving. mr. hyde has nothing on my sweet, scholarly, husband when he's hungry. so, pasta it was. and oh, what pasta. when i waitressed at an italian restaurant during my misguided youth this particular pasta was one of my favorites. it also happens to be one of the first things i made for my husband, and consequently, one of the reasons he didn't head for the hills when he got to know me better. it's simple and tasty, just heat olive oil in a pan, before the oil is hot put some red pepper flakes in so they will flavor the oil, which by the way, is the sauce so don't be stingy with it. when the oil is nice and hot add plain ol' canned tuna. if you want to spring for it you can get the stuff packed in olive oil and add it with the oil it came in, if you're like me (cheap) press as much water out as you can before plunking it in the pan, mince a clove or two (for us three) of garlic and put it in at the same time as the tuna. you still want the garlic to be sharp when you serve it, not sweet and browned. salt to taste. give the pan a couple of good shakes and heat the tuna through. squeeze some lemon juice in once it's hot and sprinkle with some dried parsley. could you get cute and use fresh parsley? sure. don't get carried away with the lemon or the parsley though, the star here is the pepper flakes and tuna. pour over the pasta of your choice and serve with grated cheese and fresh lemon slices. if it looks a little dry when you toss it together just add some olive oil on top.

chili verde, the second generation

so the recipe for the chili verde is already out there, it's one of our favorites. usually when i make this, as i believe i stated in the recipe, i use a rather large pork roast, usually butt, cushion, or picnic shoulder. this being the case when i made a batch a few weeks ago i had about a quart of leftovers, which i put in a plastic bag and threw in the freezer. last night i wanted mexican food badly, as only a pregnant lady can, and decided to try something new for the leftovers. i'm going to level with you, mostly i wanted to cut down on the dishes i had to wash. so here's what i did: i warmed about 9 small corn tortillas, i mixed the chili with a hand full of shredded 'taco' cheese and rolled enchiladas in my 8x8 glass casserole dish, nothing fancy. it wasn't greased, there wasn't any extra sauce to layer under it, it just all went into little rolls crammed into the pan, i put a little warm water in the bag the chili had been in and swished it around to get all the sauce out and poured that over the enchiladas. i spooned refried beans right out of the can all over the top, used my scissors to chop some fresh cilantro over the beans, and topped with cheese. cover with foil and bake for about an hour, maybe only forty-five minutes, until heated through. i just served it with chips, a tub of salsa from the store, and a chopped up avocado. yumm!

thing three update

well, our wonderful OBGYN got us in monday afternoon to talk over the ultra sound. our regular appointment was for wednesday, so it wasn't really that early. after i once again checked out right on target for weight and blood pressure and tummy size the dr came in and cheerfully said, "well, there is nothing else wrong in your ultra sound, so this means nothing. it can be cause for concern, but not to you, you're fine." he did say that he might (might!) send us to a specialist for a detailed ultra sound to track/compare baby's growth in 6 weeks, but that would be after next months appointment. so, after about three more rounds of the "you're fine, your baby is fine" litany he smiled, shook our hands and said, "see you in a month!" our feelings afterward: let down. hunger. we shuffled off to wendy's saying things like, "well it's a relief, of course, but i knew we were fine." and "see i told you, we're all good, the baby was fine all along." because these are the brave things you say after a long weekend of trying not to worry, because worry wont help.

thing three

i may have mentioned before that we are expecting thing three this june, or as it happens, a bit earlier. this was one of those times when one partner says, "hey, you know, we could do that again." (my husband) and the other partner (me) laughs and says "well yes, but let's wait just a bit, shall we?" and then POOF the jig is up. my mother warned me about this, she said one afternoon she and my father had a conversation that went something along the lines of "hey, lets have kids" (my father) "hey, let's have puppies instead" (my mother) and there was my brother. apparently the women in my family are highly susceptible to suggestion. this left me a bit on the ambivalent side when, about 5 months ago, i confirmed that i was expecting, again. already. so soon. thing two had left me with some problems in my back and the joint in my pelvis that only just started feeling better a few months before, and i was terrified of going through all the debilitating pain again. the delivery was a breeze, but at around two and a half months my back went out, my pelvic joint slipped and the bones overlapped into a pinching position, and there they stayed until evan was about six months old. i was working my way to better back health and a slimmer pair of jeans at the gym, and finally starting to progress, and now i'm gaining again. *sigh* fast forward to about 8 weeks ago, i'm warming up to the idea, i really am. then i start bleeding. and i panic, just a bit. i get a sitter for the kids, my husband runs me down to the dr, and the whole time i'm thinking, "i finally get on board and you bail on me? i don't think so. stay in there baby, stop scaring mama." the dr does an ultrasound and everything checks out. the bleeding stops and i have to sit on my butt for a week. we have a follow up, and everything looks fine. great. in the mean time my back is getting worse, but not miserable, and my pelvic joint is getting sore but not nearly as bad. in short, things are looking up. then yesterday we go for the 20 week ultra sound. i'm now 21 weeks, and this is the one where they take forever and check everything twice. so the tech tells us it looks like a boy, we ooh and ahh over little fingers and toes, she finishes up, then says, "um, i'll be right back" then a dr breezes into the room, they goo me up again and she says "yep, see there's only two vessels showing right there, lets just have a look for anomalies" anomalies? like, abnormalities? i'm no english major but i'm pretty sure that's not a good word when it comes to my baby. she then proceeds to mutter things like "oh, good, there's one hand. he's a mover! and ok-ay yes there's the other hand. that's good. and, alright two feet. okay. trisomy 18, mutter mutter. spot on your placenta, oh you bled? okay, well there it is. i'll get this to your dr, soon." okay, we're given our little picks of feet and blurry arms and shuttled out. hmmm. last night i get home and all i can think is trisomy 18, what? turns out pretty horrific. then i look more. most sights say a baby can be fine with a two vessel umbilical cord, but there's a likelihood of the baby not growing as fast inutero due to decreased flow. so, either horrible genetic malformations and congenital problems with a high mortality rate, or a kinda small perfectly healthy baby. wow, i feel great. and gee, friday was a great day to schedule this, because now i get to spend the weekend with this hanging over us. i'll tell you one thing for sure, as i sit here with little (probably) Ian kicking like crazy as i type, i'm off the fence. i'll take a small healthy, somewhat sooner than hoped for baby, thankyou.

cottage reflections

i'm sitting here on the couch with my feet up, listening to my kids play outside, and marguritaville is on the radio. does it get better than this? i propose that it does not. sure, my husband could be home, but he's at work, slaving away because he loves me and these kids and if there's anything better than having him home, that's the one thing. could i have a frosty little drink in my hand? well, yes, but i did make some guava orange passion fruit juice earlier as a treat, and i'm about sugary drinked out. i'm content. i remember two moments in my life very clearly right now: the first, standing in the kitchen of my trailer (not makin' it up folks) experiencing once again the eye of the hurricane that was my life at the time wishing desperately that life could just always be as perfect as standing in the clean kitchen watching the curtains blow in the breeze. it didn't last back then, poor choices and perceived chains kept me from much peace. now i'm blessed to have a life that is almost always curtains in the breeze, so to say. the second, an afternoon bible study where the pastor posed the question "what does 'life abundantly' mean to you?" my answer was to not be hungry in any way. just let me have enough. enough food, enough love, enough warmth, enough friends. there have been more times than i can count when my life was anything but abundant and rather than make me greedy, it has made me humble. i don't need excess, i don't want too much, i'm no glutton. just give me 'that life abundantly' to the point of contentment, then pass the rest to the next guy. so today, the house is not sparkling, the yard is not ready for sunset magazine to show up, the kids are in a somewhat random state of being (dirt on shirts, snot on noses) and i remain adamant that this life, right here in this cottage, right now on this unseasonably warm january day, could not be improved.