Dinner without massive prepwork-

I was hungry and wanted dinner. I had a long day but did not feel like spending two hours to get dinner ready. I wanted to make dinner in an hour. I looked through the fridge and here is what I had.

asian rubbed chicken
sage stuffing
garlic minted peas


Quick Asian Rub
3 tablespoons Chinese five-spice powder
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Turned on the stove to 350 degrees and let it come up to temperture (this normally takes 15 minutes).

I cleaned the chicken (in cold water) and patted it dry. I whipped up the spice rub and patted it into the chicken. It was ready to go in the oven as soon as the time told me the oven was ready.

I keep quick stuffing in my pantry - the kind you boil the water and butter, throw in the stuff and pull it off the heat. I found a sage and onion type. I make two cups of dry stuffing mix at a time and it will last me for 3-4 days.

Peas- frozen or canned. A little butter and garlic added after they are prepared gives them the broke and fabulous gourmet taste without breaking the bank.

Once the chicken is in the oven, the water was ready and I made the stuffing.

The peas were already in the fridge from the night before. If I had wanted to make them, I would have done them at this point. I like the frozen steamer peas- $2.50 for 4 days worth of vegetables and if you catch them in sale, they are even cheaper. They are five minutes in the microwave and done. All you need to toss into them when they are done is a dollop of butter and a 1/2 teaspoon of crushed garlic.

Comfort Food-

I really wanted White Castles today. That is me go to thing to relieve stress. Since I wanted the real thing and not the frozen, I decided to eat sopmething else.

I had a big bowl of dip. If I decide one day to put the family recipe out there, I will. If not,it will go to the grave with me like my grandmothers' biscuit recipe did here.

Cherry Soup-


From my catering days, I really like cold fruit soup in the summer. The closet I saw to getting any this year was a cold peach soup at Whole Foods but mother does not the cream based ones. So I went looking in the archives and found one that was the closest to what I had back then.


Ingredients:
2.5 lbs. fresh cherries
3 cups of water
4 oz. of sugar
cinnamon
Juice of 1 lemon
3 tsp starch flour



Wash and pit the cherries. Put cherries in a pot and cover with cold water. Add sugar, a pinch of cinnamon and the juice of the lemon. Bring to a boil once. Dissolve the starch flour in a little cold water and add to the soup stir well. Let the soup cool down. Cover and chill the soup for two hours in the refrigerator.

Weekend find-

I was on my weekly shopping rounds- I found the coral/melon/salmon/peach rosebush I have been looking for since March. It was at Whole Foods for $8!!! Most rosebushes I have been looking at start at $20 but easily go up to $40.

Busted...

Today was not a good day at work. I decided to medicate with food.

I had mache with honey balsamic dressing, saffron risotto and a lamb chops I got at the store that were close to date.

The cost me under $2.00 after the coupon was used. I had the risotto in the cabinet and there was still a serving of mache in the salad bowl.

In the 15 minutes it took to have the oven warm up, I prepped the risotto. After the lamb went in the oven, I lowered the heat on the risotto to simmer.

20 minutes later, the lamb and the risotto where done. Salad was added to the plate and voila - dinner was done and after the first two bites, I felt much more better.

McGyver would be proud-

I needed to cut down ony my food bills (yes I am very much a foodie ;)

I planted basil, fennel, choclate mint and nasturiums (peppery tasting fowers).

I wanted to do a vegetable plot to augment the herb garden but they need more space and I did not want to trench another garden bed. I was at work and some machinery came in wooden crates. Aha, I said to myself, they would make a great raised bed. It took a batch of cookies to get the larger box to my house (it was 4 inches longer than my back seat).

I set the larger one on the smaller one (drainage) and voila, a raised vegetable bed. It took three bags of dirt to fill it but I can walk around it to get into my basement and hopefully it will confuse the vermin.