Chicken and noodles

I have torn myself away from a true story that is gripping: Hidden Places by Corrie Ten Boom.  If you haven't read it, and I bet a lot of you have, it is a great book for those, like me, who missed it somehow.

Having stopped with reluctance, I found myself with three rotisserie chickens and a crock pot waiting for broth fixings.  I got the chicken off the bones and the bones and skin with herbs placed in a large crock pot to simmer all day until all the goodness is left in the broth.  I will cut up the chicken and add it at the last minute to the noodles.  Company galore is coming for the weekend and the party on Sunday.  Thirty people at last count, but then sometimes fewer but at other times even more, so I just keep cooking.

I took 2 bags of oyster crackers and jazzed them up with a bit of a kick and they will be just right for the six crock pots holding soups and stews and chicken with noodles.  I used two sticks of butter melted with additions of salt, pepper, herbs, red pepper flakes, a little Hidden Valley powder mix, probably other additions since I cannot leave well enough alone and nothing ever tastes the same way twice. Poured the nutty butter over the oyster crackers, tossed so every one had something to give, and put them on trays in the oven for 12 minutes or until they turned as brown as I like them.

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Doris Lechler
56 mins · 

Jazzed up oyster crackers.





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Company's coming

Thursday the company rolls in from Cincinnati and Florida.  David gets to celebrate his birthday in Ohio this year.  We are thinking of a Korean restaurant on Bethel Road.  My friend told me about it and although it is not pretentious, it is supposed to be really good. I'll see what David thinks.  Joe and Glenda are staying a few days which includes the party on Sunday. Andy is getting the drinks set up and the cards at hand.  David is bringing his dog, so there will be little peace for several days--that dog has separation anxiety because David spoils her so. Our dogs have not killed her yet and SHE thinks she is running the show anyway, so she does not notice the furrowed brows, the squinted eyes and the soft growls, but I do.

I made the prettiest salad today.  Couscous with corn off the cob, red bell peppers, garbanzo beans, and black beans. Oh, celery and green onions too.  Andy has been into it already.  He went to the outdoor market today and got the sweet corn, may it last forever, the peaches, and yellow tomatoes.  I cannot believe we are buying tomatoes, but our garden is gone now and Eric has it roto-tilled and ready for grass seed.  The end of another activity, but I don't like to garden anyway so I won't miss anything except the tomatoes.

The new gas line is stretched from Karl Road through Cooke Rd.  Never mind that we just had a new line put in, now they have to tear up the grass and dig a ditch down by the road, but it spoils the beauty of the property.  You have no say over your own property anymore.  They never asked, they never acknowledged that we just had a new line put in ...they just soldier on.  Do they close the road...NOOOOO. So there is a steady stream of cars starting and stopping on both sides of the road.  You would think people would get the fact that Maize and Cooke Rds. have tons of workers and road work and fuel line work after a day or two.  It's as though they are robots and have a set pattern with no detour. Maize has been closed all summer, one lane at a time and so has Cooke.

Oh well.  Progress marches on and so do we.

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2David J Lechler and Pam Isfort


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Pam Isfort One of my favorites at your house!
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Something new~

There is something new under the August sun.  Andy went to the outdoor market today and found these little cucumbers that look like watermelons.  Tiny little flavorful bites for the top of your salads.  We have guests this weekend and they have already tried them in a salad along with pepperoni mac & cheese and fresh peach slices. Andy is going to try to grow these little cucumbers.  The stall guy said it was easy--so why have we never seen these things before?

I Googled it: Mexican sour Gherkin cucumber.  Amazon sells the seeds and I bought a packet for Andy for next season.

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Oh my gosh...

I posted on Facebook the other day a picture of marinated carrots that I had just made from an old recipe from a cookbook that I did for a give away during one of the conventions we held at our home.  I had made this for years, but forgot about it due to the enormous supply of recipes on the Internet.  I have to say this is wonderful.  Today I took a jar of it out of the fridge and a head of butter lettuce that needed using and put marinated carrots over those soft buttery leaves and went nuts.  It was so good.  (Just standing at the fridge forking a few in a dish is good too.) Once you start eating them (better if left in fridge for 3 or more days) you just can't help yourself.  It is also a beautiful dish.  I asked Andy to get cauliflower and other vegetables at the store today and I am going to make different mixtures for the delicious dressing that they swim in for as long as they last and then the dressing is added to something else--never throw it away! I add the warm carrots to the dressing and they sop up the flavor even better. So: the recipe

2 pounds of carrots sliced or diced or however, you would like
1 can tomato soup undiluted
1 cup of oil--any oil but I wanted to use up my avocado oil and it worked well.  Olive oil would be good, lemon oil...
3/4 cup vinegar (I used rice wine)
1 tablespoon dried mustard (Didn't have any so I used jalapeno mustard--two squirts)
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
dash Worcestershire sauce
Sliced, diced green pepper, sliced onions as many as you like

Cook carrots until crisp-tender, drain
Blend the soup, oil, vinegar, sugar, mustard, salt, pepper, worcestershire in blender (I just stirred these together and did not use a blender.) Put in the drained hot carrots and stir.  This keeps in the refrigerator for weeks...if they last.

A quiet Saturday~

It's a quiet Saturday and Andy and I have been watching Guernsey on Netflix.  It is a good movie and I think you would enjoy it. I  have also been cooking.  Before long Beth will be back and on the same day she arrives home Brooks will be here for a few days. I can feel entertaining gearing up with August well on its way and schools opening.  JD starts his junior year at the University of Florida, and Adam starts his last semester at Pike's Peak.  There are wedding plans being made, although I must say Andy has begun dragging his feet about the one in Italy.  Well, it's well over a year until that wedding, so I will see what can be sorted out.

Andy went to market today and came home with two normal cantaloupes, two dozen ears of corn, and a 1/2 a peck of peaches.  I have turned a dozen ears of corn into corn chowder for company, a batch with seafood and a batch without.  I now have 3 soups at the ready for what is to come.

I have also been reading up a storm.  I must be in my 6 week reading cycle... six weeks reading and six weeks not. I have also discovered WORD on my phone and computer.  I like keeping my mind going forward. Writing that I have to say Andy has signed up for two more classes at OSU and he too starts in two weeks.  He is not the only old classmate.  A woman who is 87 comes on a walker.  OSU picks her up and delivers her to the classroom door.  Can you believe it?

I am happy to report nothing has broken this week and for that the bank account is happy.  Eric and his crew will be coming at odd times to rid the place of a garden.  Nothing grew there because of the wild morning glories and the wild deer.  They had one nice banquet where they gobbled it all up. They are also going to trim the hedges and do all kinds of yard work getting ready for our one and only summer party.  It's been nice, but I do miss the family and look forward to their arrival on the 2nd of September.

  I am over my sad spell that comes at the onset of autumn.  I now look forward to everything except the millions of falling leaves and what to do with them.

E. Dehillerin Paris

I am trying to extend summer but the leaves are starting to fall and tiny acorns keep me from walking barefoot on the bricks.  I know autumn is coming and it is pretty, but it always makes me sad.  I feel this slow dread starting to spread through me and I know the reason. On the other hand, it is the best cooking season.  Soups. Stews.  Roasts. Wow.  I've cheered myself  already and I am happier than I thought.

I found a good cooking site yesterday.  My arteries started clotting after reading the first three recipes and seeing the well done video. It's called Chefclub.  It is on Facebook and there are other ways to get to it as well. Prepare yourself for cream, cheese, and eggs... lots of cheese, lots of pastry.

I am so glad that I got my really big, but light, soup pot out today because I made what may be my best chili ever.  You know from the first sip that you can relax because it is just right.  That's how I feel today.  My Le Creuset pots are killing me.  I can hardly raise my right arm due to hefting these pots.  I am going to have to get rid of them and look for good, light- weight pots.  The one I have the chili in now will be my go-to pot for large soups and stews.  I can still manage the crock pots, so that's a good thing.  I hate to give up my LC because I bought most of them in Paris and they bring back fond memories.  Andy always said I only bought heavy stuff and he was right about that.  He used to go to the park near Dehillerin (the oldest cooking shop in Paris) to take a nap while I bought myBatterie de cuisine. Andy is a plucky guy and it was a good-natured tease, but I bought heavy just the same.

Baked beans and franks

  Let' s face it.  Sometimes you just crave the plain, and today that's what I made.  Baked beans are not what you call a looker.  But, when you get it right it is very satisfying and today I got it right.  Andy thinks they were a bit spicy, but I think his nose was out of joint because when he headed for the catsup, I blocked the fridge. The beans and franks were (are) perfect, just not pretty and catsup would be putting lipstick on a pig.  Bacon and hotdogs and many seasoning additions of things like Grandma's molasses, shiricha...well you get the message; slow baked and good.

Once Andy and I invited a couple from Winchester, VA. to travel with us to London and Paris to shop for antiques.  We knew all the spots to shop and I thought they would be good company, and they were.  Andy and I traveled to their home and spent the night so we could fly out together. So we had two or three meals there and one stuck in my mind as a shocker because I never would have thought to serve it to guests unless there was a grill out and a crowd.  She served us beans and franks before we left for the airport and to this day every time I see the combination I think of her--she was going to be gone for a couple of weeks and that was her favorite dish, so she had to have it before leaving. There was no lack of money there, he was a big banker, but she had to have her beans and franks and they were not even doctored up like mine. Plain. Surprising to this day.  She died in her nineties, so they must have served her well.  Maybe she was pulling an Ina Garten.  Just when you think you are going to get a great meal served to guests depending on your cooking prowess, Ina likes to serve them spaghetti and meatballs--she says they think that's great fun.  I doubt it. Now I like beans and franks, just not before I board a plane for an 8- hour ride across the ocean.

Brownie pan

What's broken today?  Not a thing. All is running to plan.

I noticed the copper pan rage has subsided on TV, why?  Because they did not do what they were supposed to do after the first or second use. I must have given 10 or so copper skillets as gifts and I was in a rage when I discovered that they did not work as presented on TV.  All but two: this brownie pan works like a charm and the meatloaf pan with the insert that lifts the loaf up and away from the grease.  I am going to try it for sweet loaves too, once I am in the mood. Strangely, these two pans were not shown on TV to my knowledge.

I recommend both of these and Andy just brought home a second brownie pan which I will give David when he comes home.  It is like an icecube tray.  You pour the batter into the pan and set the divider in on top and bake.  You are then blessed with 18 brownies a bit larger than a good-sized ice cube that slips right off the insert like it's been buttered.  I have never buttered or greased this pan and have made brownies in it at least a half dozen times.  It simply works. Who'd a thought, after so many failures?

On the menu

You can't go wrong with chicken salad in this family.  Just like this, it goes down easily and is well received.  Or, as hot chicken salad with potato chip topping it is equally enjoyed in this family.  I think, too, the spicy panko bread crumbs on top of the hot chicken salad would be good.

What's broken today?  Good question; the second TV went on the blink and Spectrum did not show for the appointment to fix the one in the Lady Cave last night.  So now they have two to contend with and a cranky woman to greet them at the door.  Spectrum, like Time Warner, does not fix the weak signal problem that is in this area.  They are quick to bill on time each month, but the weak signal has never been addressed by either company.  Switch you might suggest, but the same lines are used no matter which company you pay and therein lies the problem.

What am I reading?
An author I have never read is Daniel Silva and no evening TV drove me to The English Girl.  I am nearly finished with it and it is so out of my character to stick to a global spy novel, but nevertheless, I've done it and I am nearly finished with it.

You will never find this old book which is one of my favorites.  I read it at least once a year before moving into this house.  I've picked it up again and am sinking in to comfort just reading it again.  The Country Kitchen by Della T. Lutz (Little Brown, and Company) first put out the year I was born, so it is very relatable for me.  The father was so much like my dad that I have to laugh at his antics... It's as if I had recorded them in my own diary. 

Doris Lechler

Just now · 

On the menu… Chicken salad

Never a dull moment

Once again we were covered with fixers today. The conservatory now has heat in the winter and coolness in the summer.  I bet Beth will turn that room into something beautiful because it has good bones and a lot going for it right now.  Andy, however, is looking forward to gardening out there all winter now and giving up the big garden, leaving it to the animals who dine there morning to night. He is, however, a messy gardener so Beth will have to tame him, I give up.  While the electricians were here, yes, electricians are now my best friends; I asked them to take a look in the library at the tangle of wires to power things up--computer, Ipads, clock... you must have a tangle someplace in your house.  I hate looking at that and trying to cover them up.  These guys drilled a hole in one of the bookshelves, strung the cords through and hooked up (underneath the shelf) a power strip hanging from the bottom of the top shelf. There you are, Bob's your uncle. Now books go in front of the mess and I don't have to look at that.  There is still a tangle by my computer, but that's for another guy to deal with.  THEN, at 4:00 Spectrum comes to put in a new cable box.  My TV in the Lady Cave has frozen on the worst channel, probably because I never go there on purpose, refusing to move, so out Spectrum comes the second time in two weeks.  The more you have the more that breaks!

I've made brownies today with the one copper pan that really works the way they said they all would work.  It's like an ice cube tray and you pour in the batter and place the divider on top and when it bakes you never have to slice the brownies; they come out of the pan like ice cubes but a little larger.

I also made a stir up of corn off the cob, pepper bacon, cabbage and Bob Evans zesty sausage.  It is so good.  The cantaloupe Andy bought at the market, the one that was as big as a large man's head, is delicious.  We were lucky.

Discoveries

Have you tried Spicy Panko?  It's new, I think, and delicious on mac & cheese and on nearly everything that calls for panko.  I bet in a meatloaf would be very good too.

For years I have used my fish poacher that Johnna gave me one Christmas for sweet corn on the cob as well as for salmon.  I can usually get 8 ears in this pan and it steams the corn in minutes to a delicious goodness.  Slather on the butter and salt. Yum.