Cooking: Chicken Caesar Salad

I love a rotisserie chicken for what you can do with its leftovers and carcass: enchiladas, tacos, burritos, dog treat or her “wet food”, curry, bone broth and a salad.                      

Like everyone I love a chicken Caesar salad, and for fast dinners this week, it was a delicious one. But the weekend is now upon me, and so I’m wondering what to do with the English peas in my veggie bin. A pea purée I’ve decided, but with what?

Clay and Cooking: Mother's Day Weekend

I suppose in a pandemic, offspring are bringing their mothers breakfast in bed as opposed to taking them out to a restaurant for a sit-down Sunday brunch. I'm not a mother, but I refuse to feel bad for not having that ingrained expectation of becoming a parent. I know myself well enough to know that I would never feel prepared enough to care for a baby, nor of nurturing a child until it entered adulthood. I'm so very ill equipped to deal with poverty, maternity leave, struggling to access the resources or health services to care for a child. And so this past weekend, I mothered and treated myself to Eggs Benedict. The first pic below are the Eggs Benedict featured in a food column of the New York Times, and below that is my attempt. 

This was the first time where I managed to poach my eggs without puncturing them before getting them atop the leftover Christmas ham that had been in my freezer and toasted English muffin. And now I’m craving for any dinner this week poached eggs atop Denver potatoes O’Brien or even just a buttered toasted English muffin.

For Saturday clay, I made two mugs like the ones pictured below--these two mugs are already in the kiln and then made plans to watch my recording of a Great Performances play in the evening. This is the plus for me of being childless. I have time and energy for my own pursuits. Will I miss not having some filial affection in my dotage? Perhaps, but I don't think so. 

Hubs is now able to eat some solid food, and so when he asked what could I cook for a proper dinner, I promptly answered tacos. I made what I would call chicken enchilada tacos. I chopped leftover rotisserie chicken with a bit of canned enchilada sauce.

Finally a meal where I labored with love and fed someone else beside myself though if I were cooking for kids if I had them, I'd be feeding them tacos too at least once a week if not twice. Every. week.

I also happened to catch an episode of Milk Street, where Chris Kimball hosted an episode where he cooked Mexican Stewed Beans with Salsa Fresca, which in turn reminded me that I haven't cooked Frijoles de la Olla in a while. I know I’ve some pinto beans somewhere in my carb drawer.

Cooking: Pescaterian Snacks, Vegetarian Meals and Farm to Tableware

More and more I'm reducing meat consumption not just for health of the body and the planet, but also when you have a vegetable garden, a plant-based diet or meals where animal protein is a condiment rather than the center makes sense. An organic garden is so much labor albeit one of love that it's a sin to let it go to food waste. With the last of the of cauliflower harvest, I sautéed it to eat with leftover mashed potatoes and used the other half in a chicken and cauliflower tikka masala with basmati rice.

I spent this past Saturday also tilling the soil--digging and turning shovels of a product called Pay Dirt and horse manure into areas of dirt that I had just cleared of the cauliflower, kale and Swiss chard. I also trimmed down a rose bush to make this bouquet in a mason jar.

After digging dirt, I also cut down some Swiss chard.

And dug into my cupboard to finally make a sardine sandwich. I think as a kid, I was kind of grossed out by sardines but nevertheless remember my mom mixing sardines in tomato sauce with chopped fresh onion and eating it with rice.

Recently I watched a YouTube video of Sam the Cooking Guy, making and rhapsodizing over a toasted sardine sandwich and decided I was gonna try it too. And oh shit, I forgot the lemon juice, but you know what? You gotta try it because it's pretty darn tasty and nourishing even without the acid. 

Later for dinner, it was time to cook that Swiss chard. Olive oil, chopped garlic and chicken bone broth and a little salt was all that it needed for another delicious meal.

But this time I baked the red potatoes instead of mashing them.

Today is Ceramics Club, and I've got so many pots to load into the kiln like this frost porcelain vase. If I've time, I'd like to finally break into the bag of Coleman porcelain and make a plate.

I think I'll also roll out some slabs of Bmix with grog to start on a slab teapot. And hydrate some frost porcelain scraps to wedge. Really I need to remember to turn the speckled buff clay into colanders like below.

I love 'em and wonder if I can make that foot ring. Maybe roll it out separately and lay under plastic to attach later? it's such a challenge to have both slab forms similar in moistness.

Sewing: Black Lives Matter, Too Quilt and How to Make a Hanging Rod for Quilts

I had started this quilt during the summer of the start of the pandemic when all the protests over the killing of George Floyd and other black lives being subject to police brutality were happening. And then it sat incomplete when I returned to working on campus. But then while the whole nation was awaiting the verdict of Derek Chauvin, I pulled out the quilt, already pin-basted and ready to stitch. Instead of quilting or stitching it all together, I removed the pins because I knew I wanted to embroider text on it as my historical summary of what was happening and my response to it. I had thought to maybe embroider the names of all the black lives lost at the hands of the police, which is overwhelming in and of itself. Too many lives lost and the quilt would never have gotten done.

Protesters were chanting Black Lives Matter while conservatives were making knee jerk statements that blue lives matter or worse, all lives matter. And throughout this sturm and drang of trying to be a more inclusive society, we were seeing the horrifying video of Derek Chauvin, seemingly indifferent to the suffering and helplessness of George Floyd despite his victim's plea to an authority. 

Rightly so, most of us are horrified by a justice system that treats its black and brown people as throwaways. Despite all the reckoning of this one particular killing, George Floyd's death, sadly, did not occur in isolation, and when my colleague, Zan urged me to submit teacher art to our county office of education, I knew I needed to respond in this quilt. The words convey that unfortunately, we've still a long way to go on accountability and true reform of the criminal justice system when it comes to the "othering" of those who are not white.

The quilt also conveys the sad realization that black men, still, are subject to police violence.

If I could, I would’ve added a biblio- and webliography to this quilt. For sure, I would include this Fresh Air interview of what defunding the police might look like as well as present reading of Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019. However, there was still a quilt label to pen with my Micron pen and attach.

And a hanging rod to make for which you need a dowel rod, coping saw, sandpaper, screw eyes, and a drill.

Easy peasy, cut the dowel rod to length with the coping saw (you don't need no stinkin' chop saw)and then use a skinny drill bit to start a hole on each end of the dowel rod in which to twist the screw in by hand (use pliers if it’s a harder wood and not pine).

I used to hang my wall quilts with a dowel strung with twine through holes on each end, and once ordered an expensive hanging rod. But I didn't want to see the dowel or twine on the wall quilts. A cheaper and easier solution needed to be found. Hence, a trip to the hardware store for the tools described above is much less inexpensive.

Cooking: Broccoli Salad

Last week, hubs harvested the last of the broccoli in our garden, and we gave away 6 heads. For the one I kept, I thought I was going to cook it as broccoli cheddar soup. But warmer temperatures were forecasted, and so I made broccoli salad instead.

I also went for a salad because I picked up the Friday $5 special of fried chicken--really I can't cook it better than my Safeway grocery store. Both the broccoli salad and the fried chicken were delicious with the whipped potatoes (also harvested from the garden). 

Cooking for One: Salads and Leftovers

I've only been cooking for myself because hubs has to temporarily be on a clear-liquid diet. And there's really no time to cook because I've been running errands for the hubs, going to the pharmacy or the drugstore or to the grocery store for just boxes of bone broth, gummy bears, Jell-o, popsicles and lollipops. I harvested all that lettuce, and so lots of salad for me. But before the weekend, I decided on one of the $5 Friday specials for my dinner, and so I indulged in tuna sushi and wasabi tuna poke.

I'm so okay with eating leftovers consecutive nights, and so this weekend, I made that hummus bowl for the neighbor's party of which two portions for me are leftover (sorry no pic, but it was beautiful and delicious in my handmade ceramic salad bowl). The boxed broth is too bland for the hubs, and so I boiled it with a couple of chicken bones (because I had poached chicken for dinner later), the tops of leeks, carrots, celery, and onion. I also studied the recipe for making kimchi with that Napa cabbaged I had harvested and the recipe on the box of the seasoning for Chicken Masala.

The kimchi was surprisingly easy and rather fun. I just threw in the last of my chopped scallions into a bowl with the Napa cabbage and liberally salted it with a tablespoon plus a bit. I figured I only had enough cabbage to fill a pint jar, and so I was halving the measurements called for in the recipe. And because I don't have a food processor, nor wanted to dirty up and clean my Vitamix blender, I ground the garlic and ginger and miso paste and sugar in my mortar and pestle. I also added a bit of fish sauce. My neighbor, Cecilia gave me Korean chili powder which I also added. And once the cabbage had wilted after an hour and a half, I put it into a jar with the paste of seasoning. I didn't bother putting salty water into the jar as there really wasn't room for it.

I also put the jar of kimchi outside because I didn't want the jar exploding inside and making a big mess for me to clean as it fermented. When I get home from work today, I'll open the lid to release some of the gas and put it in the fridge. In the meantime, hubs' bone broth boiled with the vegetables practically all of Sunday, of which I used some for my Indian dinner. And the chicken masala is a new dish in my repertoire of Indian food

My flower garden is looking particularly lovely, but I'm gonna pull up some more withered plants when I deadhead over the weekend.

I'm only cooking once or twice over the weekend and hardly or not at all during the week because I'm partaking of those leftovers for dinner over the work week. I like it as it has freed up time for more making, either in ceramics or quilting. I get now why my mother-in-law said no more cooking when her 5 kids were almost done with being teenagers. Cooking for others entails a lot of time and energy though I've always felt the kitchen was where I was most Zen. Nourishing myself and others makes me feel so present and loving.

Ruminations of a First Generation American Immigrant and Work Week Cooking

Growing up, my dad moonlighted at various fast food restaurants after his day job as cook for the Admiral of the U.S. Coast Guard when we lived in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. I guess military families with stay-at-home moms didn't have a lot of money, and so my dad worked part time jobs to supplement his pay. My siblings and I loved though that our dad came home with buckets of fried chicken from KFC or hamburgers from Gino's or candies from 7-11.

I think about those fast food meals and the immigrant hands that cook them even now when I go to McDonald's for my large decaf and if kinda hungry, a sausage McMuffin too. 

However, my dad also cooked at home from scratch, and his meals have influenced my own garden and kitchen practices. This past week, I helped hubs clear out the garden for his tomato plants by harvesting all the cauliflower and broccoli and uprooting the kale. I had leftovers for dinner and cooked the cruciferous vegetables as my main. I got a cast iron pan searing hot and then just before sautéing the vegetables, coated the bottom with a thin layer of olive oil and laid the cauliflower on to the pan to brown. Once brown, I turned the vegetables over to brown on the other side.

Once the cauliflower was browned on both sides, I sprinkled salt and minced garlic and put a lid on the cast iron in order to steam the vegetables. The bottom of my frying pan was kind of dry, and so I ladled on a bit of bone and vegetable broth before steaming.

Once the cauliflower was tender to my liking (and I detest veggies that are too soft), I served it up.

I love that the purple cauliflower got even darker in hue. Leftover beer battered fish and macaroni and cheese accompanied my vegetables.

And the plate that my meal was served on was acquired by my dad, probably a castoff from Admiral Siler that we used forever. Once a set of four dinner plates is now reduced to one. There's crazing on this plate and once it breaks, I'll mourn the loss of this memento from my childhood.

Hubs is still incapacitated after surgery a couple weeks ago, and so I harvested the lettuce this week as well as the last head of Napa cabbage. Alas we had a hot spell over the weekend which wilted a lot of the cabbage, but hopefully I'll be able to make a small jar of kimchi from it. And oh my gosh, there were so many slugs and worms in the lettuce. I kept filling the sink with water and would then pull the drain to let the bugs wash down. I rinsed each leaf under the running faucet even after filling the sink a couple times and still more bugs. I was amazed by the critters still in the sink after the final wash. Sometimes a bug that I didn't trap will escape from the greens in my fridge. I cleaned a tiny caterpillar recently.

After I spun the lettuces dry, there was enough to fill a giant bread bag.

Whew now time for a drink and putting together leftovers for a mezze.

That was the last of my hummus and baba ghanoush and Greek salad and mint and cilantro chutney. My neighbors are holding a spring cleaning happy hour this weekend as in clean out pantry and refrigerator and serve communally. I was going to make a Broadway pea salad, but I'm obsessed with hummus bowls. I'm going to cook that instead because I've a package of beef gyro strips in my freezer. And bomba or fermented Calabrian chiles. And more whole wheat pita that I'm going to drizzle olive oil and sprinkle dukkah on to dip into the hummus bowl. I'll post a pic.