This 'n That,

Life is not being kind to me lately. Today I have a raging sore throat. I hope that doesn't presage a cold, I haven't had a cold in many a long year, nor has Matt.

Talking of Matt, I do hope he (Matthew) doesn't visit the east coast. Nasty things and I have seen reports of evacuations which is a good idea if you live on the coast.

Today I dragged myself out of bed early, once again, and went shopping with my hubby. I found ducks on sale for about $14. Couldn't believe it, they are normally horrendously expensive here. I snapped one up and plan to cook it on Saturday for our Thanksgiving celebration.

Tech guy called this morning to change my modem because I have been having problems with my wifi. Guess what, nothing's changed. Damned thing keeps dropping and coming back and dropping again. Doesn't stay long enough to use my laptop for blogging or much of anything else at the moment. Once I have written this, I plan to phone them once again.

I spent part of this morning making tomato soup. Not the kind I posted the other day, to me that is a vegetable soup. Mine has onions, garlic and tomatoes in it and that's it. It's good stuff too.

This recipe looked very easy to do and if it ends up anything like paella, it should be good. It came from the New York Times.

Chicken With Rice, The Easy Way

You can easily vary this dish by using any stock instead of water; by substituting another grain, like pearled barley, for the rice; by sautéing or roasting the chicken separately and combining it with the rice at the last minute; by adding sausage or shellfish, like shrimp, along with the chicken, or, most excitingly, by adding strips of red pepper, pitted olives, capers, chopped tomatoes or shelled peas to

the initial onion mix.

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 medium onions, about 8 ounces, peeled and sliced
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 chicken, cut up into serving pieces
• 1 ½ cups white rice
• Pinch saffron, optional
• Freshly minced parsley or cilantro for garnish
• Lemon or lime wedges

Preparation

1. Set 3 cups of water to boil. Place olive oil in a large skillet that can be covered, and turn heat to medium-high. Add onions and a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onions soften and become translucent, 5 to 10 minutes. Remove skin from chicken.
2. Add rice to onions; stir until each grain glistens; sprinkle with saffron, and stir. Nestle chicken in rice, add a little more salt and pepper and pour in the boiling water. Turn heat to medium-low, and cover.
3. Cook 20 minutes, until all water is absorbed and chicken is cooked through. (You can keep this warm over a very low flame for another 15 minutes; it will retain its heat for 15 minutes beyond that.) Garnish and serve with lemon or lime.

Have a great day
 

Women’s Prisons, Oil Rig and Earl.

Last night we watched a programme on women in jail. This was serious stuff, not just misdemeanors but all kinds of serious crimes including murder in one jail or in another they were trying to help addicted prostitutes who’s lives were turning into a revolving door going in and out of prison. Some of these women looked as hard as nails and some even looked more like men than women. I found it all pretty staggering to see my own sex in such a situation. Many of them were abandoned as kids or abused from childhood, but there were others with a reasonable background and education who, it would have appeared, would be unlikely to end up in such situations I guess one knows about it, but unless you see such a programme or are involved in such institutions, it doesn’t really impinge on one’s consciousness – which maybe it should.

Everyone is breathing a sigh of relief after there was another explosion on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. This time no deaths and no spills thank goodness.

The news is full of Hurricane Earl this morning which was downgraded last night to a Category 2, but is still causing a lot of problems on the east coast beaches today. Waves in some places are up to 30 ft. high. Apparently one man went swimming and is now missing and presumed dead. People do do some stupid things. The hurricane is moving north so will certainly impact New England and the east coast of Canada but will hopefully downgrade even further. At least the storm hasn’t been as bad aswe thought it was going to be for a while.

We have the first of our Friday league bowling today, wondering how many will turn up. There aren’t many of us at the best of times. I have been aching all week after bowling on Monday, hopefully I won’t feel as bad after bowling again today.

Watching Dr. Oz the other night, there was a woman who had lost a lot of weight and she introduced a snack of two Graham wafers sandwiching some low fat Cool Whip which you then freeze. I tried a couple yesterday. They were pretty good. I don’t think I put quite enough Cool Whip in between though.

I came across this recipe yesterday and decided to make it for supper. In fact we didn’t taste a lot in the way of cumin and I certainly added cayenne for me although Matt did not. It wasn’t bad and very quick to make.

Cumin Chili

Source: Quick from Scratch - Herbs

Serves 4

You'll get a clear taste of cumin in this great cold-weather chili made with ground beef, beans, and green bell pepper. If you want a hotter chili, add as much cayenne as you like.
INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 tablespoons cooking oil

1 onion, chopped

1 green bell pepper, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 pounds ground beef

3 1/3 cups canned whole tomatoes with their juice (one 28-ounce can), broken up

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper

1 1/3 cups drained and rinsed canned pinto or kidney beans (one 15-ounce can)

DIRECTIONS

In a large saucepan, heat the oil over moderately low heat. Add the onion, bell pepper, and garlic and cook, stirring, until the vegetables start to soften, about 10 minutes. Increase the heat to moderate. Add the ground beef and cook, stirring, until the meat is no longer pink, about 5 minutes.

Stir in the tomatoes, tomato paste, cumin, oregano, salt, and black pepper and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered, for 10 minutes. Add the beans and simmer, partially covered, until the vegetables are tender and the chili thickened, about 5 minutes longer.

Variation

Add one ten-ounce package of frozen corn, thawed, to the chili along with the beans.

Have a great day.