I found Jesus!

He was on Hollywood Boulevard, in front of the Christ Science center, appropriately enough.

Take that, Scientology!
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Lemon Chicken Packet

Okay, this started off as just regular lemon chicken. But I went grocery shopping today, and -- well, things got out of hand.

First, rediscover your chicken, now thawed through the marvellous magic of putting it in the fridge for 24 hours. Yay! I also discovered that my plan of using the rest of last night's roast vegetables might have a flaw; namely, I've been nibbling on them all day. So there's not much leftovers left. Whoops. Hence the sudden addition of the onion, yellow pepper, zucchini (or "courgette" if you're feeling fancy) and tin foil.

Something in your head is now saying "Wait a second, those flavours don't really go together with sweet potato...." You're right. If you're making this from scratch, then make a cup of rice to replace the roast vegetables. If you're me, damn the torpedos and full speed ahead.

Alors, to the oven! 375 degrees again, please.



Put this together on a cookie sheet, preferably one with a raised edge (I think some people call them "jelly roll tins"). Lay out a piece of tin foil; you're going to be wrapping this around a chicken breast and lot of veg, so make it big. Take your thankfully-thawed chicken breast and slice a pocket in it. Mix half a teaspoon of salt with half a teaspoon of ground pepper, and rub this all over the outside of the chicken breast AND the inside of the pocket. Take an angled slice of lemon and put it in the pocket, and you're done with chicken-wrangling.

Now get busy with the veg. I cut the zucchini and the yellow pepper in strips, but left the onion a little chunkier. Place another slice of lemon right on top of the chicken, and then pile the rest of the vegetables on top. If you're a salt nut, you might want to sprinkle more on at this point, and this could also be pretty good with rosemary or some other herb. But generally, everything in this is pretty clean and bright, so just having lemon and salt and pepper will keep it that way.

The wrapping is a bit tricky, and one of the big reasons I like doing this in foil rather than in parchment. The easiest way is to bring the longest opposing sides up vertically, so it's almost forming a sling, then roll and crimp down towards the chicken. Then crimp the sides up to make it watertight. However you do it, it should sort of look like this.

Why include that photo of the unused bits? Mostly for thinking. Right now, I'm thinking that the yellow pepper half and the onion half would be really good in an omelette. The zucchini's probably the easiest of the bunch, because zucchini grilled or sauteed with garlic or onion or squash is incredibly delicious as a side. The lemon... I don't know. I'm leaning towards using it to make iced tea. Yeah, it's winter, and yeah I could probably use the lemon for drinks OTHER than tea... Hm. Well, I'll think about the lemon. The omelette's totally happening, though. (Chicken, obviously, can be almost anything, but also needs to be used ASAP, given it's from frozen.)

Hey, 30 minutes is up! Time to de-mummify the chicken....

Tongs are useful things. For one, they will stop you from getting burned horribly by the steam coming off of this packet (wafting, at left). They will also allow you to pick up all the veggie bits out of the lemony chicken juice left at the bottom of the tinfoil. Sadly, the juice is not delicious.

If you forgot to cook the rice, then STOP UNWRAPPING THE CHICKEN! It'll stay hot for a while if still wrapped (see: steam). Go make rice.

Transfer the chicken and bits to a plate. Leave the watery tin foil.

And now you're either ready to eat, or you garnish with the rice of your choice. The chicken is lovely and moist, everything is lemony (though don't bite into the lemon or you'll be sorry), the vegetables are perfectly steamed, and the only thing I'd really think of adding is maybe some sort of garlic. Possibly in the form of garlic salt, because I really can't see how garlic would do well being steamed in a packet. That just seems a recipe for evil.

Anyhow, it's a good base for further experimentation. For obvious reasons, when choosing vegetables to add in, stay away from anything that you can't readily eat raw, like potatoes (though carrots in this could be very nice.... hm). There's a possibility that you could use only the pocket lemon, then do thin strips of carrot and leek with rosemary and some balsamic vinegar.... Hm.

Point is, it's relatively easy, pretty inexpensive, pretty damn quick. And can even look nice, unless you do what I did, which is offensive to the eye (but delicious nonetheless).

Ah, roasted vegetables. You are a blessing and a curse. Check back for a chicken recipe that WILL go with root vegetables later.
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Roast Veggies

Have you seen the employment figures lately? Ha ha ha.... aaaaaugh! Sigh. In tough times like these it's necessary to find other uses for your oven, to prevent you from sticking your head in there and breathing deeply.

As unemployed people, it's also necessary that we make do with what we've got. For instance, the Food Network. The Food Network is awesome and inspiring, but who has pickled red pepper lying around? And at this point, we're not exactly going out to buy it.

Which brings me to root vegetables.

While I was cleaning out the fridge, this is what I found:

One sweet potato
Two red potatoes
Two parsnips (mmm!)
One and a half carrots (?)


This is a pretty typical haul, I think. They're long-lasting veg that I probably bought a week or so ago, and they probably would've lasted in the fridge for a while longer. One thing I did while I was working was do a weekly supermarket run: basically, whatever day I remembered to grab the canvas bag on the way out the door, that was grocery day.

Get chicken... Oh, dammit!

This is why it helps not to be an idiot. Freezing meat is a good thing to do, I think -- long before the Day of the Pink Slip I would buy meat that was on sale (usually because it was within a day or two of its sell-by date) and them immediately stick it in the freezer. Of course, it helps to actually defrost the meat when you want to use it in a meal. Like now. So, chicken goes in the fridge and we're going to just make roasted veggies, and hold half of them over to tomorrow.

Peel everything, though you can pretty much leave the skin on the potatoes -- I just gouge out their eyes! Grrr!

So, back to the theory of impulse grocery shopping: the downside of is that I didn't really make a list before going, and I also tended not to see what I already had in the fridge. Looking back, I realise I was wasting an enormous amount of food, either because I forgot stuff and shoved it back in the fridge or I bought the same item twice. Bad, bad habit.

Chop everything up, dump in cooking dish (this is a Le Creuset cast-iron enameled soup pot, with which I am obsessed).

Add in a teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of pepper, a teaspoon of dried thyme and a teaspoon of dried rosemary. Dash in a few tablespoons of olive oil, and mix mix mix.

Oh, you thought I forgot the garlic on the cutting board? I did not! Three cloves of garlic, do the Food Network thing and thwack them with the side of a knife before peeling then and chucking them in with the rest. You can put less in if you're not a fan of garlic. Other things that would be very nice in this? Quartered onion, leeks (wash carefully, full of sand), probably fennel -- you could also use fresh rosemary instead of the dried stuff, but since frugal is currently my watchword, I'm going with dried.

Keep your eye on the garlic when you mix, and try and spread the cloves out a bit. If they bunch up, I don't think the flavour carries through as much. Have I mentioned I love garlic?

Mmmmmm.

Okay, we're good. Stick it in the preheated oven, set an alarm for 30 minutes.

I've done this in a roasting pan before, and it's extremely good. If you like your roasted veg crispier (and more impressive in presentation), than this is probably the way to go. Spray the roasting pan with oil before spreading the mix across it in a single layer -- and when you're cutting the vegetables, make them nice quarter-inch chunks. That way the edges get all brown and lovely. If you do it in a pan like the one I've used, the vegetables are going to stay more moist and only brown in bits. It's also going to look a lot less pretty on your plate.

Once the buzzer goes, take the mix out, stir it up (make sure to get any bits that have browned against the bottom) and pop it back in. Another 30 minutes, and you're done.

Voila! One of the most comforting winter side dishes I've ever known. It's fantastic with lemon chicken, but clearly we're experiencing some technical difficulties on that front, so it'll have to wait for tomorrow. For now, I'm eating half of this now, because it's delicious. So there.
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Recipe: Devil's Food Cupcakes with Vanilla Butter Cream Frosting

I found this recipe on Epicurious, and it sounded so good I just had to try.


For the Cupcakes

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup hot brewed coffee
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs, lightly beaten


For the Frosting

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 350°F.

Line16 muffin cups with liners.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler over hot, not simmering, water. Remove the pan from the heat.

Sift the sugar, flour, baking soda, and salt together into a large bowl.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the hot coffee, sour cream, and vegetable oil.

Gradually whisk in the eggs, then stir in the chocolate. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until all the ingredients are smoothly blended.

Fill the cupcake liners about two-thirds full. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Frosting instructions:

1. In a large bowl, cream the butter until smooth.

2. Add the powdered sugar, salt, milk, and vanilla and mix until smooth and creamy.

3. Frost the cupcakes.

There's nothing quite like home-made gourmet food!

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The Game

The game is played thusly: my staffing/temp agency calls me just before my alarm is set to go off, and to win, I must either answer or call them back before they get someone else to do the temp assignment. Now, because I am a fairly light sleeper and live down the block from a very conscientious fire station, I sleep with ear plugs in, and as these ear plugs by necessity must be so strong that they prevent me from hearing screaming sirens, they also completely obliterate the noise of a cell phone ringing. The second hurdle is that I am (I've been told by roommates) completely incomprehensible when I first wake up, so returning the call immediately is not a good or productive idea. Left alone, I can sound relatively normal in 20 minutes, but with some serious voice exercises I can get that time down to 5 minutes. At the same time across town, the temp agency is furiously working to get someone else into that temp job before I can call back.

So far this week, they have two points, and I have zero.

Tomorrow, though, I'll be prepared and get up even earlier than today. That'll pretty much guarantee that they won't call, but I think if I lose any more points they'll take me off the books.
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want! part 2!

Ok, now that I've admitted to being a bit of a fan of the Scrabble, I feel comfortable admitting I'd love to have one of these bad boys for my computer:


Pretty sweet, eh? Of course, it's for one of those produce-related computers, not a real one, but whatever.
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I am the Sultan of Scrabble

I'm not one to brag, but I just scored an all-time best at (online) Scrabble: 409 points. Obama's America truly is magical!




You know, I'd say I need to get a hobby, but seeing as how this is my hobby, maybe I should get a job.
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Solving Problems

I'll be attempting to cook again tomorrow, so stay tuned for that!

In the meantime, I'd like to give a big thumbs-up to President Obama for his Day One decisions to close Guantanamo Bay and to freeze the higher salaries of White House Employees. These are two very nice steps toward having a government that leads by example, and doesn't just tell its citizens to be responsible with money and ethics. I doubt it'll be the death of hypocrisy, but it's certainly a start.

I'd also like to offer a suggestion I came up with: Tax Credits for Volunteers. President Obama wants more people to volunteer, and the Republicans still inexplicably want tax cuts (if the government collects less money and spends more, it'll create unicorns), so why not combine the two? There can even be tiers - the casual volunteer can get a $100 tax credit, the moderate volunteer can get $500, and the hard-core volunteer can get a $2,000 credit on their federal taxes. Setting up the bureaucracy to monitor and verify claims by volunteers would create jobs, and who knows, maybe all that volunteering would actually help out communities.

What do you think?
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Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Yep, that's right: Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Banana Bread. You can go ahead and thank me now.


INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 bananas, mashed
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup chocolate chips



DIRECTIONS:

Step 1 - Do you have bananas? You do not have bananas. Go to the store and buy some. They don't have any brown ones, do they. Jerks. All they have are bright yellow bananas.

It's ok, you're resourceful. Remember those apples you've had in the fridge for like two weeks?

Those! Now, do you vaguely remember reading something once about how the ripening process is all just chemical and has little to do with actual time? If it's true, and you're fairly sure it is, then if you put these probably-decaying apples in a brown bag with the bananas for a few hours, it's got to help speed things up.



And now we play the waiting game.

And sudoku.


But that'll get boring pretty soon, so take the bag outside to catch some late-afternoon sun, because surely solar energy will speed up the process.

(Bring a book)

Of course, this would have been a much better idea earlier in the afternoon, so once you lose the sunlight, head back inside and watch some TV.

Oh hey! Bear caught a snake! Well done, Bear.


Check the bananas - they're not done yet, but letting those gases escape from the brown bag will make you feel like you're doing something.



Better have that sushi you got as an impulse buy at the grocery store - this could take a while.





There goes the sunset. Feel free to watch the whole transformation - you've got nothing but time.



Bear found a sheep in an Irish bog! Or should I say, he "found" a sheep in an Irish bog. Am I the only one who was extremely disappointed when the show got busted?

Oh gross! He's eating the heart! They can show this on Discovery??

Are the bananas ready yet? Nope. Awesome. This was such a good idea.

Kind of like intentionally getting lost in the middle of the Louisiana swamp. Honestly, who does that?



Start a knitting project. Chances are you'll finish that Aran throw blanket before the bananas ripen.



OK you know what? Time to give things a kickstart. Heat up the oven a bit on "warm", check to make sure the oven rack isn't too hot, turn off the heat, and pop the bag in for a few minutes.

I cannot stress strongly enough that you make sure the oven is OFF before you put a brown bag in it. On the "warm" setting it probably won't get hot enough to catch fire, but let's not tempt fate, shall we?



Right, well, after a few minutes of that, the bananas are showing signs of some browning and the green is gone from the stems. Close enough. Let's move on to step 2!

Step 2 - Pour yourself a glass of pinot. You deserve it!

Step 3 - Preheat the oven to 325, and move the TV so you can see it from the kitchen. Oh look! Bear caught a giant lizard of some sort!



Step 4 - Lightly grease a 5x9 inch loaf pan. Or, if you started step 2 earlier, messily grease a 5x9 inch loaf pan.



Step 5 - In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar.



Step 5A - This can be tiring work, so, as Bear would undoubtedly advise, make sure you stay hydrated.




Step 6 - Add eggs, beat well.
(And see step 5A)



Step 7 - Mash bananas. If they're still somehow inexplicably @$&#$@*% under-ripe, try adding a little honey to make up for the lack of natural sweetness that would have been there if all that Mr. Wizard crap had actually worked.



Step 8 - Stir bananas, peanut butter, flour, and baking soda into the mixture in the bowl, and mix until blended. It's starting to smell lovely, isn't it?




Cool - Bear's eating tiny bananas somewhere in Sumatra!





Step 9 - Fold in the chocolate chips, and add a few more if it looks like it needs it. It probably does. I think I ended up using closer to a cup of chips.


Step 10 - Try to find the pre-greased pan (note - this will increase in difficulty the more you repeat steps 2 and 5A), and pour in the batter.



Step 11 - Bake at 325 for 60-70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.




Repeat step 2, and grab a few of those chocolate chips while you're at it. I got milk chocolate chips from Ghirardelli. Yum.




How did Bear get so dirty? What did I miss? Why don't I have a DVR??


Ok, enough Bear. Time for something completely different.



Ahhhh.



65 minutes later...

Step 12 - Remove loaf and let it cool on a wire rack.



Well that worked nicely! I may have to make this more often, but given the fat and calorie count per slice, I should probably just make it for sharing. Watch out, book club!
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