What Did You Eat?

WCB: Happy New Year Everybody!!!!

Yippee!  The Vet took my stitches out last week! I'm pretty happy about that.  They said I've lost almost 2 pounds.  I did have sugar in my urine, so I have to come back for another blood test in 30 days.  But, I'm not going to worry about that right now. I saw this movie once with a lady called Scarlett O'Hara and she would say, "I'll think about that tomorrow."  She also said, "As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again!"  Words to live by.

See the broccoli box that I guard, to keep the cabbage worms away?  I've never seen a cabbage worm, but I will smash them to bits with my Maine Coon Cat paws if they dare try to eat any of the broccoli or bok choy.  By the way, I'm not responsible for weeding the box, that's a human job.

I'm starting to tolerate The Sundance Kid.  I let him sniff my nose now--but he tried to head bump me tonight and I think it's too soon for that. So I hissed at him real good.  He can stay here because Mom feeds him kitten chow and I really love that stuff. I'm not supposed to eat it (because I may be diabetic), so I sneak into The Kid's room and try to steal some of his food when no one is watching. He's still trying to destroy the Christmas ornaments and even climbed up the tree!!  Kids today. 

Weekend Cat Blogging is being hosted by the fabulous Lisa over at Champaign Taste.  You should go over there and check out all the rocking cats!!  Happy New Year everyone!!!! 

Thanks For The Sauce!

We receive many wonderful food gifts during the holiday season, for which I'm truly grateful.  Most of the gifts are delicious sweet treats, such as cakes and cookies.  And wine. We always get quite a few bottles of wine.  And there's one particular item that I look forward to receiving every Christmas--a bottle of barbecue sauce, given to my husband by a business associate.   It's their own secret recipe, tangy and full of smokey chipotle flavor, which I love.   And it was perfect for yesterday, when I was very tired and didn't feel like cooking anything complicated.  It transformed chicken thighs into a special meal, with almost no effort. Well, I did have to open the bottle, pour it on the chicken and stick the pan in the oven.  I served it with a simple salad of shredded jicama, carrots, bell pepper, chopped green onions and cilantro.  This also tastes very good by wrapping a warm tortilla around the chicken and some of the salad. 

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Earlier today I wrote a post and Typepad suddenly froze before I was able to save it.  Poof!  It vanished somewhere to reside with other dead posts.  So, here I go again. 

Yesterday, my friend Nancy held her annual gingerbread decorating party.  Last year my house was so awful, I refused to show it to anyone after I left the party.  I think my house was a little better this time.  Nancy orders her houses from a local grocery store. They're quite sturdy and will last forever, I'm sure.  Next year, I'm going to bring a pastry bag, to pipe icicles onto my roof.  I won't be happy until my house resembles Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water.  As you will see, I have a long way to go until I realize my dream.

WCB: Say Hello To My Little Friend.....

This is Frodo, who disappeared 3 years ago.  Little did we know that he was lost in the rosemary bush. Mom pruned it, and there he was!  I like to rub my face on his ears. It makes me feel good--and I need all the help I can get lately.  You know the squirrels are gone, right?  So, life should be better.  Well, it isn't. 

Now if you're eating anything, sorry to show you this, but here's what's under my fur--the stitches where they cut out the growths!  I'm in recovery people!!!!  I have these all over my body!  Shouldn't I be able to recover in peace and quiet???

Holiday Cooking With Herbs: Citrus Salt

Recently, Kalyn shared her recipe for Rosemary Salt, part of her Holiday Cooking With Herbs, a special Weekend Herb Blogging event.  That reminded me of the Citrus Salt I made last week to use in my Pork Stew With Orange And Fennel. An easy recipe, this fragrant salt would make a nice gift for someone.  I used sea salt, but one could easily use kosher or gray salt.  The recipe calls for orange, lemon, and lime zest, but you can make it entirely with only one type of citrus zest.  It tastes wonderful sprinkled on fish or chicken.

Citrus Salt   (Michael Chiarello)

1 Tablespoon minced lemon zest
1 Tablespoon minced lime zest
1 Tablespoon minced orange zest
1/2 cup sea salt, kosher salt or grey salt

Preheat oven to 200F.  In a small bowl, stir together all the ingredients, then spread the mixture on a small rimmed baking sheet.  Place in the oven to dry for 2 hours.  Remove from the oven and let cool completely. 

Pour the mixture in a mini processor and process until finely and evenly ground.  Store in a tightly covered jar for up to 2 months.

Seat Of Your Pants Fried Rice

You know how it is, it's the holidays and you're really tired.  And hungry.  My food for the entire day was one apple eaten in the morning, and as evening approached I was ravenous.  So once again, I decided to do a cleaning out the fridge recipe. Only this time I fixed fried rice.  This is strictly fried rice by the seat of your pants--no measuring, cursory chopping, and leftover jasmine rice from my favorite Davis Thai restaurant, Sophia's Thai Kitchen.  I'm not sure if this dish was that good, because I really was starving.  But it was so satisfying, it reminded me that food doesn't have to be complicated to taste delicious.  Of course, I was starving, so my judgment may have been affected by that.  But, Bob said it was delicious too.  ( I think he was hungry as well.)

WCB: Post Surgery Blues

Can you believe the way my fur looks?  I had growths removed from all over my body and mom can't comb me at all because there are bald spots with stitches all over me!  And they hurt!  But, I have the nicest vet--she gave me pain killers, so that helps.  And I have clean teeth now. And I may be diabetic, they're not sure. I have to have more tests.  Today was the first day I could walk without staggering, so I guess that means I'm on the road to recovery.   OH!  And I lost a pound!

It's Weekend Cat Blogging and KitchenMage is hosting, even though they're dealing with horrible weather!  That's so brave. Go there and see the roundup of cool kitties.

SIgh--OK.  Here's the whole horrible saga of the last day of the squirrels.

Glazed All-Beef Meat Loaf

A few weeks ago, Bob expressed an interest in having meat loaf.  That's when I realized that years had passed since I plunged my hands into a bowl of raw ground meat and formed it into a loaf.  Coincidentally, I just received a Cook's Illustrated cookbook with an interesting recipe for Glazed All-Beef Meat loaf.   The recipe uses only beef, not the standard meat loaf mix of beef, pork, and veal.  In true Cook's fashion, they found a way to produce a meat loaf with the same characteristics of one made with the traditional trio of meat.  The difference was noticeable, in that the texture was different from any beef meat loaf I've ever eaten. It was moist and slightly unctuous, each slice holding together beautifully and all due to an unusual ingredient which I will reveal later in this post. Oh, and it was very tasty too.

Menu for Hope III

Two years ago Pim, of Chez Pim, founded the Menu For Hope raffle, which officially started yesterday.  What a marvelous event this is, an opportunity for bloggers and their readers to raise money for those truly in need.  Each year the Menu For hope grows larger, offering wonderful prizes donated by bloggers to be raffled off for a chosen charity.   

This year the beneficiary is the United Nations World Food Programme, which assists people around the world in desperate need of food.   Please take the time to consider taking part in this event.   In last year's Menu Of Hope, I won two marvelous cookbooks by Marcella Hazan, which are all the more valuable to me because the money spent on my raffle tickets helped someone in need.

To Take part in the Menu of Hope

1.   Go to the Menu Of Hope page and choose a prize from the beautiful photos.  You'll be amazed at the offerings this year. 

2.   Go to the donation site and make your donation.

3.   Each $10 you donate gives you one raffle ticket for a prize of your choice. Please specify which prize you'd like in the "Comment" section of the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write in how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code—for example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for prize number EU01 and 3 for EU02. (Please use the double digits, not EU1, but EU01.)

4.   Make sure the Menu for Hope organizers can see your e-mail address so that they can contact you if you win. Your e-mail address will not be shared with anyone.

5.   The event ends on December 22, and since time waits for no one--go check out those fabulous prizes and make a donation. I can tell you, based on my personal experience, that it's very exciting to win!  Check back at Chez Pim on January 15 for the results of the raffle.

The Spice Is Right: Pork Stew With Orange And Fennel

I've wanted to make this recipe ever since I bought my At Home With Michael Chiarello cookbook.  The pictures are beautiful and you can't help but be influenced by the author's relentless hunkiness.  I previously made one recipe from the book, Pasta With Uncooked Watercress, a recipe touted as extremely quick, which was a blatant lie. I discovered that tearing individual watercress leaves from their stems proved time consuming and annoying.  However, the idea of this Pork Stew With Orange And Fennel was just too tempting.  But once again, I found myself bogged down by a lot of busy work, cursing a certain good looking chef from the Napa Valley. 

But, back to the recipe. It's full of good flavors, the most dominant being orange, rosemary and fennel.  And the fennel makes this perfect for Warm Me up Baby! It's Cold Outside, part of The Spice Is Right created by Barbara of Tigers and Strawberries, guest hosted this week by Rosie, of Bitchin' in the kitchen with Rosie, who has the rules for taking part in this event..  Although this dish lacks chili peppers, it's rich with the tingle of fennel.  And what could be more warming than a nice bowl of steaming stew, served on soft polenta?  Although it was a cold and dreary day yesterday when I served this to my cousin Charmayne and her handsome boyfriend Julius, a bowl of this stew made us feel quite cozy.  Much to my delight, Charmayne is moving to Sacramento in February, and this recipe was a good way to celebrate that happy fact.