Spring cleaning

Now I know that what I'm about to post will probably not go over really well with a lot of you... and it is only tangentially related to food. But Joe decided to straighten up our back porch this morning -- since my parents are coming tomorrow. In one corner there was a white sheet bundled up... from when I covered my plants during the cold snap -- er two months ago --(See Jennifer, I really don't like to clean!) In addition, there's a giant green tarp that we used to wrap our couch during our move to Kentucky -- uh, 1 1/2 years ago. We didn't want to throw it away, but once those things are unfolded they can be pretty cumbersome and tricky to fold back into a manageable shape.

Well. I put the sheet in the washing machine and as I extracted several pieces of moss from it, I wondered if there had been a little bird fixing to make a nest there. When I came back outside, Joe was moving the green tarp out of the corner to sweep.

Then he started. I turned to look where he was looking. And we saw:


I think the usual reaction for a girl who meets a mouse in an unexpected place is to shriek. And I can almost hear a collective groan from moms and aunts across cyberspace. But I squealed with delight and ran to get my camera. I can't help it, I think he's adorable. And confused. His prolonged pondering made him even more amusing. He could have run along the fence to freedom. The way was wide open. But he seemed to think that we would get him somehow. Then he considred rebuilding the little nest we'd wrecked, gathering the grass and moss in his tiny paws. Then, after attempting to scale the brick wall, getting stuck in a cob web and skittering in several quivering mouse circles, he did the unthinkable.


He ran straight at me.
Over my bare foot.
And into the neighbor's yard. It was the funniest thing ever. And I really wish I was quick enough on the draw to get that mouse-on-foot photo, but I guess I really have a lot to learn as an amateur nature photographer.
Once the mouse was gone we noticed a big black widow spider was hanging next to a huge yellow egg. While Joe bashed its brains out with the broom, I slipped back inside before another creature decided to escape via the Emily Foot Highway.

Spring rolls

My coworker once told me that if I were a food, I'd be a spring roll. After getting over the weirdness of being likened to something edible, I decided it's not a bad food to be... Healthy, fresh, ethnic. Well, today I decided to make some.

The wrappers come dried in a plastic disc and they soften after about a minute or two of soaking in warm water. I filled them with salad shrimp (discovered in the back of the freezer), pan fried tofu strips, julienned cucumber and basil and mint from my container garden.

For a dipping sauce I combined a little splash of fish sauce with a double splash of soy sauce, about 2 Tbs sugar, half a lime, 2 Tbs peanut butter, a tiny bit of sesame oil and a splash of rice vinegar. I nuked it to soften the peanut butter, then stirred til it was smooth.

They came out pretty good...I gobbled the first one down as Joe gobbled down two. BUt the herbs were a little overpowering. I probably had 20 mint and basil burps after eating that little roll. Should have filled them with a nice buffer of rice noodles like they do at the restaurants.

Our backyard just got bluer

On Friday I notices some of the bluberries, which have been green for a month, began to blush. Today I snapped this shot... visions of bluberry muffins dancing on my tongue. Yes. My taste buds have an imagination.
As if one miracle wasn't enough, we've finally got our long-awaited, much sought-after, often anticipated pair of bluebirds at the nest box. Here's the female in action. Sorry my hand was so shaky.

Calico bunnies

Joe and I drove out to Todd County on Saturday morning to explore some Mennonite businesses. I like shopping off U.S. 68/80, where all the venues are marked with makeshift billboards that say things like "Books 3/4 mile ---> 1843" or "Wood furniture, bicycles, flowers." We first went to the Country Barn, a popular garden center with beautiful hanging baskets, trays of seedling herbs and farm produce. We always find this nursery by looking for the Jefferson Davis monument that spikes the horizon behind it. This is the South, remember.

We followed a string of signs and arrows to the house of a Mennonite family that sells books. We purchased a Kentucky Bird book that has kept me entertained for hours this weekend. Then we drove further down 1843 to the furnature/bicycle/flower shop. At first, we couldn't find the shop keepers but just beyond a greenhouse we saw minature horses and cages full of very active speckled creatures. Enjoy!

Cinnamon success

I had a craving for cinnamon rolls... so I made some. Based on an Allrecipes.com recipe.

2 1/2 cups flour
1 pkg yeast
3/4 cup warm water
1/4 cup sugar (brown probably would have been better)
3/4 tsp salt
1 room temp egg
cinnamon, sugar, butter for filling

Dissolve yeast in water for 10 minutes. Add yeast to sugar, salt, egg and 1 cup flour. stir until blended, then add the rest of the flour, 1/2 cup at a time. Once it's mixed, knead the dough for 8 minutes on a lightly floured surface. Let it rest 10 minutes, covered with a damp towel. Butter an 8 X 8 pan. Roll out the dough into a large rectangle about 1/4 inch thick. Rub on the butter. Shake on the cinnamon, and sugar until it is well coated, then roll it up along the longer edge. Cut into 12 pieces... or 13 like me and cram them into the greased pan.

Let them rise 45 minutes, covered, in the oven or another warm draftless place.

Then bake uncovered for 15-20 minutes at 350.

I think I over cooked mine slightly.

German Potato Salad

Granted, the French have invented a lot of good things-- snails baked in a pool of butter, potatoes deep fried in fat, and stale bread dunked in egg batter and pan fried -- these I like. But the day they invented mayonnaise was not a bright spot in french culinary history. With that in mind, I present a German Potato Salad adapted from All Recipes...

3 lbs red potatoes, cubed
2 cups white vinegar
18 Tbs sugar (sorry, don't know how to convert)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
3 medium onions, chopped
a bunch of fresh parsley, chopped
12 slices bacon, crumbled

I didn't want to heat up the house too much, so I nuked my potatoes in batches.
In a skillet, as used some (not all) the bacon grease to saute my onions and a handful of parsely. Once they were browned, I added the vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper. Once it was bubbling, I added as many potatoes as would fit and let them simmer a little. I removed the potatoes with a slotted spoon and added more until the whole batch had taken a nice hot vinegar bath. Bacon and parsley added last.

Farmers Market

Last night Joe and I worked the night shift at the newspaper... and that included covering the grand opening of Hoptown's new farmers market. Here's Joe in his element.

While he did some interviews, I took pictures of cute things. The little boy, Hank, managed to get jambalaya almost everywhere besides his mouth. He did pick up a piece of sausage from the ground and eat it though :-)


My coworker's grandpa was the guest of honor -- he ran a fruit stand where the market now is for the last 30 something years.

There were only nine vendors there ... nothing compared to Urbana's farmer's market we used to frequent when we were at the U of I. But it's nice (in my humble opinion) that the city is making an effort to revitalize a pretty dreary downtown. After the reporting was done, I bought a strawberry pecan bread and some zinnias... which I plan to plant today.

Microcosm

I already knew several reasons my cilantro wasn't doing well... For one, I grew it from seed in my house and it got very gangly from lack of light. Then I transferred it outside and it had a bit of culture shock with a week of full sun which turned into a week of no sun and nighttime frosts. Half its little leaves were face-down in the dirt and the rest had to learn to be strong and stretch toward the sun.

But if those weren't enough obstacles, this morning I discovered several other reasons my cilantro isn't doing well. Can you spot the three critters in this photo?
And if you're as crazy as me... you can watch my inchworm video:

I like the part where the ant knocks him off his course.

Shirley's sandwich

Joe and I ate dinner at the Martin's last night. Shirley made her special sandwiches, adapted from something she learned from Rachel Ray.
She used:
Ciabatta bread, toasted and sliced
Guacamole
salsa
chicken breasts with salt, pepper and Mrs. Dash
pan fried green tomatoes (cooked in the chicken juices)
cilantro
pepper jack cheese

These have to be squished a little before they can fit into my mouth, but the jaw workout is worth it :-) I think it is my new favorite sandwich!

Wontons revisited

One more Wonton recipe:
1 lb 7 percent fat ground turkey
15 white mushrooms, chopped
1 cup frozen cauliflower, thawed and chopped
1/4 sweet onion, minced
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp garlic salt
about 1/3 to 1/2 bottle garlic teriaki marinade.

Saute veggies, sprinkled with salt and pepper, until most of the moisture is evaporated.

Mix veggies with ground turkey, garlic salt and teriaki.

Fold a small spoonful into wonton wrappers, and seal edge with water.
Boil until they look done. 5-10 minutes.

Kentucky Coconut baked chicken

I had a brainstorm in the shower this morning... I had some coconut because I made some skillet granola. Also, I had trimmed those giganto chicken breasts from the chicken marsala down to a more manageable size, leaving me with probably a pound of chicken. I've also been going crazy with that Kentucky Sweet Rub I bought from Joe Wilson. Gathered all those ingredients together with one of the persian limes rolling around in my crisper... and I made Tropi-tucky chicken nuggets. I served them with corn and zucchini and big chunks of watermelon.

To make:
Cut chicken breast into bite-sized pieces
In a bowl, stir up enough shredded coconut, flour, and seasoning (mine is a barbecue rub of garlic, onion, sugar, cinnamon, pepper, salt and some mystery spices) to coat your chicken.

Spray a cookie sheet with no-stick spray. Dredge your chicken in the coconut mixture, then place on cookie sheet. Give it a spritz or two of oil then bake at 400 degrees until the coconut starts to darken, then flip and cook a minute or so until it looks done. Squeeze lime juice over the top.

It was a singular triumph for me because Joe said it didn't need any condiments.

cookies and chicken marsala

I made some cookies last Friday night. They turned out a little differently than planned, because I accidentally used baking powder rather than soda. But I kind of like the way they didn't spread. And they were soft. For my recipe, see an old post.

Matt liked them.


Thursday night I finally made chicken marsala, per my cousin Rich's recipe. There was a whole bunch of very bad-smelling steam as the alcohol cooked off. This was disconcerting, because I usually smell and savor the aromas of my meals while I cook them, in anticipation of the taste. Also, the chicken breasts I bought were gargantuan. I don't even want to know what kind of hormones that had to feed that clucker to get it so big. I thought there were four breasts in the package, but there were only 2.
So even though I complained that the meal was too ugly to photograph and that my sauce didn't thicken as it was supposed to... it actually tasted very good. So mission accomplished.

Chicken Marsala
1 bottle marsala wine
2 chicken breasts
3/4 pound mushrooms, halved
olive oil for frying
2 Tbs butter at room temp

Rich recommended washing the chicken with salt to "micro scrub" away the germs. So I did that. I wash my mushrooms because there's all kinds of peat stuck to them, and I don't want to eat peat. If you don't believe in washing mushrooms, as I know some don't, then that's your business :-)

Heat oil in a large pan on medium high heat. When it's hot, add mushrooms and chicken breasts. Brown the chicken lightly, flip and repeat. Then add the wine, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring once in a while. Or if you're me, stir constantly because you don't have a non-stick pan big enough to hold all that. When the wine turns a little sludgey and bubbles, add another 1/2 cup. Repeat process until wine is gone.

Remove from heat, and put chicken and shrooms on a platter. Put the sauce back on until it just begins to boil, take off heat and add butter. Let it melt and the sauce is supposed to thicken. (mine didn't because I probably did something wrong along the way.) Even if it doesn't thicken, it will taste good because it has butter in it. Pour sauce over the chicken and enjoy!
Thanks Rich for the recipe!

berry update

Having my blueberry bush and strawberry stow-aways stay in our living room for a week during the cold snap seems to have paid off. I think... but dare not be certain... I might actually have some blueberries this year.

Right now they're still in the greenberry stage. But I intend to do whatever it takes to get them on to the delicious blue phase of their brief lives. Even if that means picking off and squishing aphids by hand. (Four down so far.) Or keeping track of them each day to make sure no greedy bug or bird has stolen a premature prize.

Now, what should I make with my roughly 87 blueberries whenever they come to fruition? Pancakes? Trifle? Muffins? 5 bowls of cereal?

Something fishy on the cheap

I made catfish nuggets... Kroger had a big package of random catfish pieces for $1.50. Thinking back to living food-stamp-cheap, I couldn't pass up a deal.

I rolled them in Italian style bread crumbs (leftover from when Joe made his mom's meatballs). I dumped some cayenne pepper and garlic salt into the mix too. I sprayed the pan with olive oil (found extra-virgin spray for 2 dollars at Big Lots!) Then gave a couple squirts to the fish nuggets. Popped it in the oven at 400 until they looked done.

Joe's column

Runners come in all forms, as seen Saturday
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — My ego wasn’t deflated by losing to my little brother. Jack “B. Nimble” Parrino finished Nashville’s Country Music Half-Marathon in 1 hour, 45 minutes and 28 seconds. I came across the line at 1:55:14. Jack walked part of his race. Big brother was running the whole time. But defeat in sibling rivalry is easily dealt with.
“I can still bench more than you, punk.” A change of subject and I’m good again. What really knocked my wind out was the stampede of runners who bounded past me on the 13.1-mile course.
First, there was the elderly gentleman:
“Scuse me, fella, comin through.”
Then the guy on his cell phone:
“Hold on a sec, honey, I’ve got to get past this dead spot here.”
The teenager in braces:
“Like OK, Mr. So-and-So. This is like the fast lane.”
The woman old enough to be my mother:
“You need to change your underwear, don’t you?”
One dude dug my sense of fashion:
“Hey bro, love the T-shirt. How do you like mine?”
I looked down at the number 2659 pinned to my T-shirt.
It should have been 2,867 for all the runners who finished ahead of me. So many people passed me along the way I began to make a study of them. Footracers come in an amazing range of body types. Sure, there were plenty of prototypes with gangly limbs and bony cheeks. But there was also the jiggly-thighed, multi-chinned anti-type.
One runner was so pudgy that I momentarily believed the course had taken a detour through funhouse mirrors. That butterball passed me too.
I didn’t see any sumo wrestlers but they might have caught me too if the race was 15 miles.
Two brutes with linebackers’ shoulders nearly sandwiched me on their way by. Their hurry was understandable given the curvaceous brunettes who jogged past a minute earlier.
Some bodies were hard to make out because of a costume. One girl ran the entire 13.1 miles dressed like a giant pita chip. A valiant effort saved me from losing to her.
There is one other runner I remember passing. At 8 miles, I spotted a towering figure lumbering slowly down the middle of the street.
As I pulled up alongside and glanced up at him, I realized I was shoulder to Shoulder with football great Eddie George.
Eddie, the former Ohio State University and Tennessee Titans running back, tuned me out until I shouted “Go Buckeyes.”
He flashed a quick smile and turned his attention back to the road. I smiled too and trotted ahead, resisting the urge to strike a Heisman pose.

JOE PARRINO is a staff writer for the Kentucky New Era. He can be reached by telephone at 887-3239 or by e-mail at jparrino@kentuckynewera.com.

Marathon munchies

On Saturday, Joe and Jack ran the half marathon in Nashville. Here they are looking exhausted, but pleased.
Jack had the forethought to get some custom t-shirts made. Joe said he saw several Christians running this race and so there were lots of Bible verse clad backs to read.
Dan holds out a packet of Power Gel... it not only sounds gross, but none of the guys liked it. Too sticky and sweet they said.
So to make up for the disagreeable snack, we went to Cracker Barrel for lunch. Jack had meatloaf. Joe had blueberry pancakes.
I'm a big fan of Cracker Barrel's catfish.

Frontyard wildlife

In Taiwan we had geckos and japaluras. In kentucky we've got the wonderfully shy and squiggly skink. I've been trying to get a picture of one of these creatures for over a year now. My photo doesn't show it well, but he's got an irredescent blue-green tail.

Chicken Marsala adventure

I know this photo seems a little incongruent with my post title, but bare with me. The omlette was my attempt to use some of the very large package of mushrooms I bought to make chicken marsala... My cousin Rich, who tackles much more complex dishes than I, gave me the recipe last month and I've dreamed of making it ever since. So why the long string of tortilla chips, pizzas, toaster oven s'mores and other less sopisticated endeavors? Well because I couldn't find the Marsala wine. Or the chicken!
Apparently Kroger chicken truck drivers were on strike last week. So there were some whole fryers and some livers, but no boneless skinless breasts. And you'd have to be crazy to think I was going to buy a whole chicken and deal with all that chicken crud getting stuck under my fingernails to extract just two puny pieces of meat.
After the lady at the checkout counter assured me there was no telling when the chicken truck drivers would resume their much needed role in society, I decided to find another grocery store.
I'd never been in a Save-A-Lot before... There was sort of a Sam's Club-unfinishedness to the store, but instead of high ceilings and shelves, the aisles were cramped and crooked. The produce section seemed promising, with cheaper cilantro and tomatillos than elsewhere. But the rest of the store was a dearth of fresh foods. Everything was packaged, uber-processed and completely unhealthy. Save-A-Lot never sells boneless skinless chicken breasts.
I stumbled across this story: Oregon governor starts week on food stamps (click here to read it) To summarize, a politician had a really hard time buying a week's worth of groceries with 21 dollars. He ends up living off of Cup Noodles and other demoralizing dorm-style foods. It made me feel sad that unhealthy foods are often the most economical in the short run... but people who are forced to chose ultra processed foods pay a big price for health problems in the long run.

Anyway. How did I get here from chicken marsala?

Asian Snacks

Asian snack attack
A world of whimsical munchies in the aisles of your local ethnic grocery
TASTE BUD TRAVELS EMILY PARRINO
One of the magical places of my childhood was a hole-in-the-wall grocery in Chicago’s Chinatown. While my mom and aunt scouted out the deals, I lingered in the center aisle filled with whimsically designed packages of Asian snacks.
It was enchanting. A smiling, white cat waved from the boxes of Botan rice paper candies. Cuttlefish crisps swam in a bag with cartoon squid. Shiny pouches of dried peas, rice crackers and peanuts usually included some absurd slogan like “Enjoy happy present from the earth.”
Chinese snacks offer a variety of flavors and textures absent from American snacks. Seafood like squid and shrimp, or root vegetables like yams and taro, are popular in salty snacks. Asian junk food is often lighter textured than American chips and crackers (though by no means lighter in calories.) Also, Asians seek the sweet and savory in one bite. Most products get a dusting of sugar as well as salt.
Sweets are dressed up with exotic fruits. One of my favorites, the pineapple cake, folds a generous block of dried fruit into a pastry that resembles an overstuffed Newton. Pureed mango and lychee find their way into gummy candies. My cousins were crazy for gelatin cups that could be eaten in one slurp.
Such fantastical snacks in all their playfully packaged glory seem more fit for a child than for an adult. But I still get a craving for the flavors of childhood from time to time. So I recently scoped out the snacks at one of several Korean grocery stores surrounding Fort Campbell. Not all my Chinatown memories were on the store’s shelves, but I snapped up a few purchases.
If you’re interested in noshing on something new, consider munching these foods:

Prawn chips
Many flavors of crispy chips come and go. But these French fry-shaped snacks with a hint of shrimp have been around for decades. And they are favored by my Japanese, Chinese and Filipino friends alike. I liked the kicked-up spicy version even better than the original.

Chocolate-dipped
cracker sticks
Several different brands make these crunchy snacks. They are slightly salty, but finer in texture than pretzels. Some have chocolate, others strawberry or nut coatings. Most come in a rectangular box with a flip-top lid. All are addictive.

Wasabi peas
Look beyond the grass-green food coloring, and you will realize these legumes are actually chickpeas, the bumpier cousin to the common green pea. Fried and smattered with a salty batter, these peas get some kick from the spicy green mustard that usually accompanies sushi.

Chinese peanuts
Not all Asian snacks are super-processed. In Taiwan, eating snacks that involve a little work, like wedges of fruit or nuts in shells, is a popular way to pass an evening with friends. Chinese peanuts are smaller and more intensely flavored than the peanuts sold at the ballpark. They are also easier to shell.
Another bit of Taiwanese culture is handing out individual paper boxes for guests to discard nut shells and fruit rinds. See the example below to make your own paper boxes from used computer paper.

Emily Parrino is a New Era copy editor. She can be reached at 887-3298 or eparrino@kentuckynewera.com.

Baked tortilla chips

Last night Joe and I drove through the most idyllic country south of Clarksville, Tenn., on our way to Emily and Rob Stahl's new home for Game Night 3. We didn't really get to the games, but we had some good eating and enjoyed the critters. (see previous posts) For more photos, click here.

So I usually don't prepare a new experiment for friends (I usually reserve those creative and often inedible bursts for Joe) But I decided that instead of running out to buy some expensive Terra Chips to serve with the white bean and caramelized onion dip I learned how to make at the superfoods class, I would make my own flour tortilla chips. Happily, it worked.

I took a stack of maybe 8 tortillas, brushed one side lightly with oil, stacked them, then used a pizza slicer to cut the stack into 6 wedges. I spread the wedges out onto 2 cookie sheets and dusted them with the Kentucky Sweet Rub spice mix we bought from Joe Wilson and some cayenne pepper. Into the oven for 8-10 minutes at 375. They were a hit :-)

Stahls' new home

Lucy follows Emily

Rob feeds Lucy

Torri's up to mischief. Twister is provoked. Lucy is unaware.

Torri pretends not to notice that he's the center of attention.

Joe made lunch!

Today Joe made lunch for me and for our coworker Alex and his girlfriend Sara. We had crusty bread, cavatapi with marinara and meatballs and a salad. He made the whole meal all by himself :-), using his mom's meatball recipe, of course.

Meatballs
2 lbs ground round
2 cups bread crumbs
2 tsp garlic salt
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp parsely flakes
1/2 cup grated Romano cheese
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350. Sprinkle meat with garlic salt. Add bread crumbs mixed with cheese and seasonings. Sprinkle a few drops of water on mixture, add beaten eggs. Mix thoroughly. Form into balls. Bake on cookie sheet 15-20 minutes. Drain on paper towels. Simmer in sauce at least 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Suko Thai

We were thinking to eat dinner at Cracker Barrel after we got back into Nashville last night, but then we spotted this quiet little Thai place. I was a little leary. Only a few cars in the parking lot. Dimly lit. And... the building was connected to a go-cart track. But when we got out of the car, my nose told me it was going to be good.

Joe ordered beef chow fun (I know, sounds cantonese. But it was thai style) and I had the Thai Pacific noodles with mixed veggies. The menu said it was the most exotic noodle dish. I think they just didn't know what else to write, because it seemed pretty much like stir fried Shanghai noodles to me... but it was tasty.

The atmosphere was also nice, but dark. I took this photo by placing my camera on the window ledge behind me and using my remote control and a several-second long shutter speed. Will someone please invent a tripod that lets you pivot your camera 360 degrees so I can take better restaurant food shots?

Airport food

Friday

was a very long day for me. I didn't sleep well in anticipation of the day ahead. Got out of bed at 5:30 and went to work at 6:30. All day, I had the most awful case of heartburn-- something I've only had maybe 2 other times. I got out of work a little before noon, then rushed home to tie up loose ends before driving to Nashville, where I eventually caught my plane. That flight was delayed several times. I was anxious to get up in the air because I had a connecting flight out of La Guardia, and the last thing I wanted was to be stuck in New York all night. My stomach was growling, but I was scared to eat. American Airlines no longer gives any kind of food... not even pretzels. So by the time I got to New York I was ravenous. Nashville had a BBQ place and fast food. But New York had a kiosk with deli wraps and pad thai and vegan sandwiches. Despite the heartburn, I bought an Italian wrap. Though I had to exfoliate the dried out first layer of tortilla, this thing was pretty darn good. And even though it had tomatoes, roasted red pepper, pastrami, lettuce and provolone... my heartburn went away. How does that work?

Won tons at home

Thursday night, Joe had already gone to Cleveland, and I wasn't ready to be in an empty house. Blair and Chris from the newsroom were nice enough to come for a late dinner and help me finish the last bit of won ton mixture I had in the fridge. Blair even got her fingers into the meat a bit! :-)

Joe and I adored this little won ton shop down a nearby alley from our apartment in Taipei. Mmmm. The people who worked there knew us well. Growing up, with regular visits to my Chinese grandma's house in Chicago, I always thought won tons belonged only in a hot, clear-brothed soup with a few leaves of bok choi, some slivers of bamboo and maybe a shitake or two. In Taipei, I learned the joy of eating dumplings "dry" as they said, over a bed of lettuce or bean sprouts with a little spoonful of beef stew on top. At home in America, I recommend serving won tons --or anything in the dumpling-potsticker family-- with spicy dumpling sauce from wei chaun. It comes in a squarish glass bottle with a red cap. Most of the label is in chinese.

To make these won tons:
1 lb ground chicken
1 lb ground lean beef
4 green onions
1/2 regular onion
3 cloves garlic
1 cup or so shredded cabbage

Finely chop and pan fry the veggies in a little oil, then stir them into the meat. Dump soy sauce, oyster sauce, a little vinegar, garlic salt and pepper into the mix at your discretion. :-) I'm very sorry for the ambiguity of all my recipes. I don't like to measure.

Keep a stack of won ton wrappers covered by a damp towel. Wet two adjacent sides of the a wrapper, spoon a smaller than seems necessary bit of meat into the center and press shut, squishing out any air bubbles before fully sealing. Then take the ends of the triangle and fold them upwards and pinch together like a big tortellini.

Drop about 10-15 into boiling water at a time and remove after about 5 to 10 minutes. (again, I'm not really sure about the specifics. They'll float and look all shrively when they're done).

Men leading the charge, women eating s'mores

Wednesday night
Our husbands were at the men's Bible study, so I had Shirley, Jennifer and Deona over for tortilla pizzas (sorry no pics of this). The guys were also planning a camping trip sans wives for the weekend and so I thought I would make s'mores as dessert.
I was surprised to learn that two of our group had never enjoyed a toasted marshmallow and melted chocolate ooze out from between two graham crackers. SO we fixed that problem. :-)

I do not have a wood burning stove, a fireplace or a gas range. Nor fire pit outside. Nor large enough candles to get the true campfire effect of a roasted marshmallow. I've found that nuking an open-faced s'more for about 6 seconds gets everything hot and gooey, but doesn't add the burnt flavor. Sticking a marshmallow on a graham in the broiler of my toaster oven, and watching it vigilantly, makes for a good flavor, but the cracker might get a little scorched. Any tips?

Adopted by the Couchmans

As a lot of you know, Joe and I don't have any family here in Kentucky. The Parrinos and Giammos are all in Cleveland and North Carolina. The Tilsches and Wongs are in Illinois, Minnesota (Aunt Susan, Uncle Greg, have you moved yet?), Arizona and Afghanistan. Big family gatherings are few and far between for Joe and I. So it was really sweet when Brendan and Jennifer Couchman invited us over for Easter dinner with their families. :-) The house was filled with foods, kids and good fellowship.

Kitty Field

Many of my friends and coworkers in Hoptown have heard me talk about the field by our house, and how there is often a kitty sitting in it when we drive by on our way to work. This black cat is there so often, we began to suspect he's a ferral cat, living in the grassy open space bordered by Old Clarksville Pike and Hammond Drive. Yesterday as we drove home from work with a trunk-load of groceries, I saw him slinking up from the tributary to Little River. Joe said he'd take me back after we unloaded.

It has been bitterly cold here the last 3 days. There was even a dusting of snow yesterday afternoon. The wind has also been strong, and whipping through the tall grass, Field Kitty didn't hear me approaching him. His eyes, half closed because of the breeze, were tracing the flight of some redwing blackbirds. I got very close before he turned his head in surprise.

I snapped one photo before he bounded away like a puma. My regret: I wasn't fast enought to take a little video of him. He was truly athletic!

Pasta shapes

While Joe was in Cleveland this weekend I bummed some meals and movies off the Martins. Shirley made garlic bread and spaghetti, Jeremy made some very lime-y salsa. I don't know if you can tell from my photo, but the noodles were hollow and had little ridges in them. It made fork-swirling the noodles more of a challenge, but they had a nice chewy texture compared to their solid counterparts.

Last night after I picked Joe up from the airport we had a late dinner at Romano's Macaroni Grill at Opry Mills Mall. I had the "make your own" pasta (it's like a high-class version of Za's for all you Champaigners). Whole-wheat penne with pesto, chicken, broccoli, artichokes and mushrooms. Joe had pesto pizza. (Looks like I need to hurry up and grow some basil, doesn't it?)
Joe likes wagon wheels, farfalle and penne. I've always been a fan of the more complex pasta shapes. Radiatorres and Cavatappi and Gemeli are my current favorites. As we drove home, we tried to imagine some new pasta shapes. What about a snail shell or some kind of coil? Honey comb? Bugles? Chex shaped?