World Enough and Time

I created a chicken dish last night that every present liked, and asked for the recipe. Since I had made the recipe up when I didn't like the ones I was finding online, I promised to write it down and send it to them.

So here it is.

February Chicken

Ingredients:


Instructions:


1. Preheat oven to 375F. Coat chicken with turmeric and salt and put in a casserole dish. Put them in the hot oven. Set the timer to 30 minutes.
Toast the almonds in a dry fying pan over medium heat. While they are heating, slice and wash the leeks.


2. Take the roasted almonds out of the frying pan and put in the avocado oil and the leeks. Cook the leeks till they are soft, about five minutes.


3. Add the almonds and the coconut milk to the frying pan and simmer. When the timer goes off, take the chicken out of the oven and pour the coconut mixture over the chicken. Return to the oven for another 15 minutes.


4. Serve and enjoy.

Had a lovely post-Christmas dinner at Tasia's place, with her, Peter, StarWolf and Chrystine, Ysolde, Beulah and Paul. Ysolde's wonderful soupe aux legumes, Tasia's lamb roast, and my plum pudding. Beulah's wine. All lovely.

After supper, we watched the Doctor Who Christmas special, "The Snowmen". ( The story... )

I asked Dr. Pope why I might be having strange cramps in my toes, and he suggested that (because of the Sjogren's Syndrome keeping me a little dehydrated) I probably needed more potassium.

This reminded me that Dr. Griffiths also had told me to be careful about potassium. So I looked up potassium on Wikipedia:

Foods rich in potassium include parsley, dried apricots, dried milk, chocolate, various nuts (especially almonds and pistachios), potatoes, bamboo shoots, bananas, avocados, soybeans, and bran, although it is also present in sufficient quantities in most fruits, vegetables, meat and fish.

Bananas, okay, I like bananas. And Apricots. And chocolate. I don't much like nuts but, hey, I can eat a few. Potatoes. okay. Bamboo shoots: no way. Bananas: fine, though they have to be ripe - the unripe ones make my mouth sore. Avocados: yum. Soybeans - does that mean tofu, too? I don't much like beans, but I like soy milk and tofu. Fruit, vegetables, meat, fish: yes, of course.

But first, pizza for supper.

My mother used to love breakfast. It was her favourite meal, if only because it meant she could eat her favourite food - grapefruit.

I never liked grapefruit much - too sour for me, unless sugared - and could never understand her love of grapefruit. She used to say that when she was young and poor, she only got half an orange with her breakfast - her sister got the other half. She thought I was lucky to get a whole orange. I thought she was lucky to have a sister, and any sister I had would be welcome to my orange.

My mother used to love the passage in Winnie-the-Pooh:

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
"It's the same thing," he said.

Sometimes my father made pancakes, which was fun.

I think I was a teenager before I started to like breakfast, and adult before I realized that while the rest of the world was eating their cereal, their toast, and their scrambled eggs, I could eat anything I want. My favourite breakfast? Oatmeal. Or Caesar salad. Or leftovers from the night before. Or crepes, which can have just about any filling, but my favourite is cinnamon with butter and sugar. Yeah, decadent. And I like the crumpets that they sell at Metro, especially when they are really fresh.

I've been enjoying going out for breakfast, when possible, with maaseru and sometimes Pim. Club Zed at Zeller's is currently a favourite; good cheap basic breakfast of bacon and eggs (sunny side up) and toast, with coffee. The kind that Nate's used to have, on Rideau Street. I like that.

A recent discovery (by maaseru) is that they serve a darn good breakfast at Kristy's on Wellington near Woodroffe. We went on the weekend; Pim had liver with onions and eggs, while I had a double-bacon version of Eggs Benedict. Nice.

Different places have different breakfast choices. I like the oatmeal at Denny's, but not much else. The oatmeal at Tim Horton's is delicious. Baker Street on Wellington used t obe great, but was disappointing the last few times I went. I need to find a good place for breakfast crepes.

When I was in Turkey, I was swooning over the magnificent breakfasts we had. Buffets with huge, fresh selections. Every day: maybe a dozen different kinds of cheeses and bread, fruit including fresh figs, and lots and lots of watermelon. I came to love Turkish yoghurt.

My first trip to France, as a student, I loved their continental breakfasts: fresh baguettes with unsalted butter and delicious coffee.

In Italy a few years later, I came to love palmiers with cappuccino.

In New Orleans, I had beignets for breakfast.

Today I came across 50 of the World’s Best Breakfasts. I'm always fascinated by foreign breakfasts - always such distinctive national food. I instantly read the Canadian one, and thought: what? I've never had perogies for breakfast in my life, or seen it offered on a restaurant menu. Maybe in Calgary.

I want to try Halim. I assume the Vietnamese dish is actually congee? No, it says semolina. Okay. I do love congee - essentially the same thing, but made with rice rather than wheat. I have that for breakfast sometimes. I suspect I would like a Mongolian breakfast, as I love lamb.

And #50 - the Turkish breakfast. I sigh in nostalgic longing. But, really, their picture doesn't do it justice.

Had dinner tonight with Beulah and Lyn at the Sala Thai Authentic Thai Cuisine Restaurant on Alta Vista. It was great: and I didn't have to compromise on my diet. I'm really, really trying to avoid eating wheat and grains, and this place made it easy. I had a dish of seafood and vegetables.

As birthday presents, Beulah gave me books. Lyn gave me graphic novels and a giant card. We talked about Turkey, which Lyn has visited, too.

Supper at Bento Sushi: Rocky Mountain Rolls:



Delicious.

I did something today I've never done before: I made yogurt.

Everyone has told me it's easy, but I'd never done it. And I did it the extra-easy way: I have a yogurt-making machine, which I bought in the Great Glebe Garage Sale last year, but hadn't yet used.

I figured it was time.

So I read the instructions, and set it up this morning, and now, 9 hours later - allowing an hour for the yogurt to cool - I have some rather delicious yogurt to eat. Plain and unadulterated.

And I could add fruit to it, too. Or cinnamon and stevia. Or... whatever I want.

I am delighted with this. Yum.

This article strikes me as significant: How to make a decent cup of tea by Christopher Hitchens. So true. If only people would listen - especially restaurants!

There is a local Greek restaurant in which I had the most delicious moussaka of my life.

Sadly, that meal, wonderful though it was, was accompanied by the worst cup of tea I have ever encountered. I can't remember the one without the other. I know Greeks aren't into tea; but they shouldn't put it on the menu if they are going to make it so badly.

Tea aside, I also came to love Christopher Hitchen's commentaries on history and religion. At first I was wary of his confrontational style, so unlike my own. But I can to respect it, and him, because of what he was saying. I came to respect him more and more. He made people listen.

I like to put food in the slow cooker before I go to bed, because then I don't have to worry about cooking things in the morning. Frying or scrambling an egg is okay, and so is oatmeal, but one likes a change. I seldom eat cold cereal, and don't like it. So the slow cooker is a wonderful thing.

Last night I put leftover pork and some veggies and sauce in the crockpot and had it for breakfast and it came out weirdly tasteless. Disappointing.

I wonder why.

I need to get this book: Inn at the Crossroads, mentioned on George R.R. Martin's not-a-blog.

What a brilliant idea. I wish I'd thought of it. So much more interesting than Julia Child recipes.