Thursday, April 23, 2020

Car, Shopping, Costco, Climate Change, Water,

Hopefully this will be the last time heading this blog with car. Anyway, I ended up losing 2 hours of my day, nap time you understand, and spending most of it in the garage. I am now assured they have fixed what they missed on Monday. One thing, I got him to test my answering message on my cell phone and it worked OK. He left a message which I heard, of course, then when I got home I couldn't get it to play!! I really will have to learn how to use this damned phone one of these days.

This morning Cathy got my shopping for me and also went to Costco and picked up lamb and chicken for me. Mistake on my part, I had to spend an age packing the chicken thighs for the freezer. Putting away shopping is bad enough. Hey, they had bananas today too. Very green ones. Turns out Cathy is another Instant Pot enthusiast. With a bunch of kids, I assume she has a 6 qt. at least. Mind you I sometimes wish I had a 6 qt. She told me she is going to try making yoghurt which is one of the things they are always advertising when touting the Instant Pot - never tried it myself, not something I eat a lot. I get phases of eating it and then don't have it again for months.

Apparently, Cathy tells me, that early morning (well Costco's early morning) is a good time to shop there as there are usually no queues. The only trouble with Costco, to me, is that their meat department is away at the back of the store and by the time I have got there I am almost too exhausted to shop. My legs are usually giving me such a bad time I need to sit. I assume they have driveable buggies or whatever they are called, but I have never seen any there.

I have just been letting of steam to The Happy Whisk about two programmes I just saw on our local PBS station which comes from Buffalo. The first one, Climate Change: The Facts, is one of the most important videos made for us today. It was hosted by Sir David Attenborough, supported by HRH Prince Charles, backed by the British World Wildlife Fund with the intention of sending a wake up call to as many people, countries, and governments as possible. I knew it would be on Netflix and for various reasons, despaired of seeing it, however, tonight I did. To a certain extent I have evaded my responsbilities in this matter due to my age and the knowledge that when disaster strikes, I will no longer be concerned. However, I thought it would be good to see it again and looked online. Yup, I can see it if I live in the UK. This is such an important documentary that it should be available all over the world for anyone to watch and watch again. The second documentary was the first part of h2O: The Molecule That Made Us. Another important film and which told me facts and information I had never heard of before and also helped make me wake up. Not that I am sure what I can do except join in making other people aware. Their final comment was something like "We should join the fight to preserve water, our lives depend on it, literally".

Now I am going to do some Spanish and come back here later. By the way, if you wondered where the blog was this morning, some dummy had forgotten to set the time!!!

Once again Kevin Lynch to the rescue. Unfortunately we have just had chicken for two days running so think I had better make something else to Thursday night. Otherwise, I think this would definitely be on the menu, looks delicious. The picture makes me drool.

Baked Firecracker Chicken

Sweet and spicy baked chicken that is both packed with flavour and nice and light!

1/2 cup hot/chili sauce (such as Frank’s Red Hot or Sriracha)
1/2 cup brown sugar or honey
1 Tbs soy sauce (gluten-free for gluten-free)
1 Tbs apple cider vinegar
2 cloves garlic, grated
1 pinch red pepper flakes
1 Tbs oil
1 lb boneless and skinless chicken breasts
salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat the hot sauce, sugar, soy sauce, vinegar, garlic and chili pepper flakes in a small sauce pan until the sugar has melted into the sauce.

2. Heat the oil in a large oven safe skillet over medium-high heat, season the chicken with the salt and pepper, add to the pan and brown, about 3-5 minutes per side.

3. Transfer to a preheated 400F/200C oven and bake until the chicken is cooked, about 10-15 minutes, basting with the sauce every 5 minutes.

4. Enjoy with the remaining sauce!

Servings: 4

Author: Kevin Lynch
Source: Closet Cooking

Have a great day, stay safe, stay well, stay home.

15 comments:

  1. Sir David Attenborough is a world treasure isn't he? I have read a memoir of his early life and that was fascinating too.
    I hope the car issues are done and dusted.

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    1. He is Sue. Amazing that both brothers became famous. I am surprised Sir David is still going I must say. Memoir must have been interesting.

      Me too - I will be somewhat irritated if they are not.

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  2. Hi Jo - glad the car is fixed. Those big box stores are daunting aren't they ... I'm quite glad I'm shopping in smaller ones in town here. Lots of interesting programmes and films around ... love the learning aspect - but well done on the Spanish. Take care ... and enjoy whatever you end up cooking ... I'll be doing some cumin flavoured meat balls, and a veggie stew with the rest of the mince - keep me going for a week or so ... take care and all the best - Hilary

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    1. Me too Hilary. They never worried me when I could walk easily, but since I can't, yes, they are daunting. Pity because they have excellent meat and one of the best places to buy lamb. Gracias! I usually enjoy what I cook. Funnily enough I have never made meat balls, never really enjoyed eating them so why make them.

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  3. They definitely have those buggies you mention at Costco, and I am sure someone would be able to help you with that. I know they have them at the store in Waterloo, I should say. I have never visited the Kitchener location, but I would imagine that it would have them too. I am really sorry I missed the Attenborough/Prince Charles documentary. I will check to see whether it is on again, perhaps on TVO. We don't have Netflix so that doesn't help me. I shopped for a few items at Sobeys yesterday morning. They could take lessons from Costco on how to handle the Coronavirus.

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    1. I figured they must have David, but even so, for me, parking and walking into the store is difficult these days. I don't have Netflix either David so thought I wouldn't get to see it. However,it was on WNED last night and I have no doubt they will play it again. Haven't been to Sobeys in a while. I really like the underground parking at "my" Zehrs.

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  4. Two hours of your day? Sorry, Jo.

    Bananas. Woohoo. I just ate one.

    Making yoghurt is fun. And, you can just make a little. Plus, it lasts a long time in the fridge, I find. But people do it on their counters and in the ovens on off, too. We can do this with or without a pressure cooker. Good option for those without one.

    Driveable buggies, those are good. I see them at some of the stores. I haven’t been in a Costco in forever. They were fun though.

    I wish you could get to see everything that you wanted to see. This whole restriction thing is nuts to me.

    Hope you have fun doing your Spanish. Very cool.

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    1. Not that bad really Ivy. I like the guy who runs the place and I had a good book to read. Yes, maybe I will give it a try one of these days. Used the buggies in Walmarts in NC years ago. I am not a very good buggie driver though LOL. Well I saw it once, but I want to see it again. Yes, I have been doing Spanish for months now.

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    2. Love that you've been doing Spanish for months now. I remember you talking about it in your posts. Very cool.

      I came back to get a copy of the Baked Firecracker Chicken because I want that sauce. I'm thinking I'll try it on crunchy bean curd. Printing it now. Thank you!

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    3. Sounds good doesn't it? Would be good on regular tofu too.

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    4. I'll let you know when I make it. I'm out of got sauce so I'll make that first. Thanks ❤

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    5. I'll email you when I make it. I just copied down the Asian Orange Chicken sauce you posted. Yum.

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  5. Glad the car is taken care of. Not to just figure out your phone messages!
    I'm sure with less people driving all over the world, the climate will change again.

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    1. Me too Alex. Still can't figure out my phone though. They say there is a noticeable difference in the atmosphere with this shut down. I saw a cartoon on Facebook which basically said something like " Mother Nature: You can't shut down your industries and reduce emissions, here's a pandemic to give you some practice"

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  6. I stopped shopping at Costco once my children left home. I've never found their prices good enough to deal with the big store headaches. I always bought large quantities of things I didn't really need.

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