Chicken and Tomatillo Soup

There are no amounts on spices because I was cooking by taste and just sprinkling things in...


3 pound chicken
salt and pepper
oregano
1 tablespoons butter or olive oil
1 medium sized onion, coarsely chopped
2 carrots, coarsely sliced
2 ribs celery, coarsely sliced

Put above in a pot, cover chicken with water and poach until chicken is done. Put chicken aside to cool. Strain vegies from broth, saving both vegies and broth.

1 lb tomatillos, husked

Add above to broth and cook until tender. Strain again, reserving both broth and tomatillos. Puree tomatillos in a blender or food mill and add back to broth.

chili powder
cumin
bay leaf
Adobe seasoning to taste
hot sauce to taste
garlic
2 10 oz cans Rotel tomatoes with lime juice and cilantro
two large leeks, sliced thinly
1 c. rice

Cook until rice is done. Debone chicken and shred meat. Add to soup with reserved vegie mix (carrots, celery, onions). Heat through.

Garnishes:

sour cream
grated Monterey Jack or Queso Fresco cheese
yogurt
fried strips of corn tortillas

Pumpkin -Pecan Pie

Ingredients
3 eggs
1 cup dark corn syrup
1/2 cup sugar
4 tbsp melted butter
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped pecans
1 9-inch unbaked pie shell
whipped cream

Preparation
With a hand beater beat eggs well. Beat in corn syrup, sugar, butter, pumpkin, and vanilla until well blended. Arrange pecans in bottom of pie shell. Slowly pour egg mixture over them. Bake for 1 hr or until knife inserted 1 in from edge comes out clean. Let cool completely before serving to allow filling to set.
Source- Paula Deen.

Two pies for the calories of one. I like that thought.

Paul Pines

I listen to Paul Pines read poetry and excerpts from his latest novel at the Gulf of Maine Bookstore recently. I haven't read the book of poetry I bought (yet), but just finished the memoir, "My Brother's Madness". Sometimes memoirs are as much or more about those who people the author's life than the author himself. Pines does have a poetic eye and a wonderfully philosophic way of examining things (all the way down to particle physics roots), but I came away with such a strong attachment to the others in his book as well. I can't recommend this enough.

Take what pain, hope, sorrow, and madness there is in this world, pass it through the alembic of an educated sensibility and a deep, informed compassion, and you might be lucky enough to reach My Brother's Madness. Paul Pines has achieved just this: a story both profoundly personal and universal, an exploration of the trials of family, the breaking points in our psyche's powers, and yet the capacity of compassion to ride the worst of storms all the way home.

James Hollis, Ph. D., Jungian Analyst, and author of Why Good People Do Bad Things.

Cioppino

I just made this for a party - it got rave reviews. Incredibly fast to make. I doubled the recipe and used 4 lbs of mahogany clams to replace the 2 lbs of mussels. Also, I used Syrah for the wine and cod for the fish.

Easy Seafood Cioppino

1 fennel bulb cut into 6 wedges
1 onion, quartered
3 garlic cloves, smashed
2 T olive oil
2 bay leaves
1 1/2 t. thyme
1/8 t. crushed red pepper flakes
1 1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. pepper
28 oz can of crushed tomatoes
1 1/2 c. water
1 c. Syrah or red zinfandel
8 oz. clam juice
1 lb halibut or other firm white fish
1 lb mussels

Put veggies in food processor and pulse until chopped. Heat olive oil in Dutch oven - saute vegies and spices 4 min. Add tomatoes and liquids and boil 20 min. Add fish and mussels - cook until mussels open, 4-6 min.

~From Gourmet magazine

Soup Season

400 Best-ever Soups - by Anne Sheasby

I saw this book at a friend's house and just had to have my own copy. It is certainly soup season and there will be plenty here to keep me trying new things. I was amazed at the variety - all ethnicities, from cream soups to stews, seafood, meat, veggie - it is all here. This is one of the recipes I tried with this season's blackberries (very quick and yummy - my kids liked it as well). I've slightly adapted the recipe so it is faster to make.


Indian Beef and Berry Soup

1 ½ lb steak, sliced
3 T oil
1 medium onion, peeled/sliced
2-3 c beef stock
1 c blackberries or blueberries, slightly mashed
1 T honey
salt to taste

Saute the steak and onions in oil until meat is brown and onions are golden. Add the blackberries and enough beef stock to barely cover the meat. Stir in the honey and simmer the meat, covered, until it is very tender. If the berries are too tart add more honey to taste. Add salt and serve in bowls.

Starbucks®Pumpkin Scone

My son made these yesterday from fresh pumpkin. They are amazing! And so is he - not bad for a 14 yo.

~

Top Secret Recipes
version of
Starbucks®Pumpkin Scone

During the holiday months you'd better get over to Starbucks bright and early if you want to get your teeth around a delicious pumpkin scone. These orange triangles of goodness are made with real pumpkin and pumpkin pie spices, and they quickly vanish out the door when fall rolls around. Each scone is generously coated with a simple plain glaze and then spiced icing is drizzled over the top for the perfect finishing touch. But good scones are more than just good flavor. To get the flaky texture we'll cut cold butter into the dry ingredients, either with a pastry knife and some elbow grease, or by pulsing away at it with a food processor, until all the butter chunks have been worked in.

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups all-purpose flour
7 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
3 tablespoons half-and-half
1 large egg
6 tablespoons cold butter

PLAIN GLAZE:

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon powdered sugar
2 tablespoons whole milk

SPICED ICING:

1 cup plus 3 tablespoons powdered sugar
2 tablespoons whole milk
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
pinch ground ginger
pinch ground cloves

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

2. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon cloves, and 1/4 teaspoon ginger in a large bowl.

3. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together pumpkin, half-and-half, and egg.

4. Cut butter into cubes then add it to the dry ingredients. Use a pastry knife or a fork to combine butter with dry ingredients. Continue mixing until no
chucks of butter are visible. You can also use a food processor: Pulse butter into dry ingredients until it is the texture of cornmeal or coarse sand.

5. Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients, then form the dough into a ball. Pat out dough onto a lightly floured surface and form it into a 1-inch thick
rectangle that is about 9 inches long and 3 inches wide. Use a large knife or a pizza wheel to slice the dough twice through the width, making three equal
portions. Cut those three slices diagonally so that you have 6 triangular slices of dough.

6. Bake for 14 to 16 minutes on a baking sheet that has been lightly oiled or lined with parchment paper. Scones should begin to turn light brown.

7. While scones cool, prepare plain glaze by combining ingredients in a medium bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed. Mix until smooth.

8. When scones are cool, use a brush to paint a coating of the glaze over the top of each scone.

9. As that white glaze firms up, prepare spiced icing by combining ingredients in another medium bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed. Drizzle this thicker icing over each scone and allow the icing to dry before serving (at least 1 hour). A squirt bottle works great for this, or you can drizzle with a whisk.


Makes 6 scones.

Current Read

Well...I've just started it but it came recommended from a friend....I'm reading "Challenger Park" which is a fictional story about two astronauts who are married - one of whom is awaiting the first assignment. I'll update it as I continue to read....

I did finish reading "A Son of the Circus" by John Irving. Lots of characters, flashbacks through time, interesting story - but it did take quite a bit of time to read. Irving's better known books include A Prayer for Owne Meaney and Cider House Rules.

Asparagus & Pancetta Spaghetti Salad

Salad:
1lb cooked spaghetti
2 or 3 bunches blanched asparagus
1/2 lb chopped pancetta or prosciutto
shredded parmesan cheese to sprinkle on top

Dressing:
1 cup olive oil
1/4 c. white wine or rice vinegar
2 cloves garlic
3 T grated parmesan cheese
2 T assorted chopped fresh herbs

Gregory Maguire

I still haven't finished the George Sand bio, partially because I keep misplacing it (ha), partially because I tend to read nonfiction in bursts with pauses for fiction and poetry in between. The last fiction book that intruded on this bio was Lost: A Novel by Gregory Maguire. You may have read his Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West? Both of these books have made me want to read more of Maguire. The review below is of "Lost".


From Publishers Weekly
Before he broke onto the adult bestseller lists with his irreverent interpretations of the Cinderella story (Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister) and the Wizard of Oz (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West), Maguire wrote children's books with titles like Six Haunted Hairdos, Seven Spiders Spinning and Four Stupid Cupids. His latest is a virtual literary paella of adult and children's fantasies: Jack the Ripper, A Christmas Carol, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, The Exorcist even a wafting glimpse of Dracula. The result is a deftly written, compulsively readable modern-day ghost story that easily elicits suspension of disbelief. American writer Winifred Rudge, whose mass market book about astrology has been far more successful than her fiction, is in London to research a novel linking Jack the Ripper to the house in Hampstead where her own great-great-grandfather rumored to be the model for Ebenezer Scrooge lived. But as Winifred discovers, there is no evidence that the Ripper ever visited Hampstead, let alone buried one of his victims inside the chimney of a house there, and his presence in the story is a red herring. Much more interesting is the mysterious disappearance of Winnie's cousin, John Comestor, the latest resident of the family house. Moreover, something is making an infernal racket inside the chimney, and soon there are other bizarre manifestations of some unseen force. A Dickensian assortment of neighbors (one dotty lady is called Mrs. Maddingly) variously obfuscate and hint at strange events. Maguire's prose is both jaunty and scary; he knows how to mix spooky ingredients with contemporary situations. By the time a spirit called Gervasa begins to speak through Winnie, readers will be hooked.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Current read - George Sand bio

Naked in the Marketplace: The Lives of George Sand

From Publishers Weekly
For all her notorious affairs with men, Sand's passionate and unrequited attachment to her mother is the real love story of her life," writes noted literary biographer Eisler (Chopin's Funeral) in her bustling study of the great French Romantic writer's love life. Capturing the complexity of George Sand's relationship with her adored but largely absent working-class mother, Eisler analyzes the writer's various attitudes to class in light of her childhood, as she rapidly narrates Sand's remarkable transformation from rebellious young wife and mother to cross-dressing, controversial Parisian literary star. Treating Sand's autobiography with skepticism, Eisler emphasizes how Sand (1804–1876) also caused strife for others in her turbulent emotional life. Eisler authoritatively sketches the themes and philosophical preoccupations of Sand's novels in an age of revolutionary ferment, but places Sand's affairs center stage: from Alfred de Musset's "romantic passion run amok" to her political education by radical lawyer Michel de Bourges, and her long relationship with Chopin. Eisler's Sand is doomed to act out the insecurities of her childhood in an ugly, punitive relationship with her own daughter, Solange. As Eisler comments, referring to Sand by her real name, "It was Aurore, the motherless child, who was both the cause and victim of much of George's confusion and suffering." (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

LL Bean summer concert series

Alan Doyle, Great Big Sea, Freeport, ME 8/11/07

The last two Saturday nights, I've enjoyed free music at LL Bean - Great Big Sea, the 11th and Brandy Carlisle and the Indigo Girls on the 18th. Brandy's part of the concert is archived here, as are others such as Robert Cray (which I missed, but will certainly listen to).

If you ever get a chance to see The Great Big Sea, do! Those boys have a sense of humor, boundless energy and sing damn good harmony. Check out their myspace for some sample songs.

Coming up - John Hiatt and Shawn Colvin, 8/25 and Bela Fleck & the Flecktones on 9/1.

Easy

I didn't know all male poets had to have long curly black hair and big doe eyes, but I did enjoy the movie Easy - more for the wide-eyed, messed up but sensible lead:

The Darwin Awards

The real website is here, but watch the movie which features a wannabe beat poet serial killer and the real Ferlinghetti.

Wislawa Szymborska

Poems New and Collected

If you read poetry at all, read this. I've fallen in love...

"All poets, according to Wislawa Szymborska, are in a perpetual dialogue with the phrase I don't know. "Each poem," she writes in her 1996 Nobel Lecture, "marks an effort to answer this statement, but as soon as the final period hits the page, the poet begins to hesitate, starts to realize that this particular answer was pure makeshift, absolutely inadequate." As a self-portrait, at least, this is fairly accurate. From the beginning, Szymborska has indeed wrestled with the demon of epistemology. Yet even in her earliest poems, such as "Atlantis," she delivered her speculations with a human--which is to say, a gently ironic--face:

They were or they weren't.
On an island or not.
An ocean or not an ocean
Swallowed them up or it didn't.

Fifteen years later, when her 1972 collection, Could Have, appeared, Szymborska seemed to have made some major inroads into her notorious ignorance. Now she confessed to at least a shred of comprehension, stressing, however, that such knowledge has come at a terrible price: "We read the letters of the dead like helpless gods, / but gods, nonetheless, since we know the dates that follow. / We know which debts will never be repaid. / Which widows will remarry with the corpse still warm." And even in her most recent work, the poet continues to gravitate toward the admirable emptiness of, say, the clouds: "Unburdened by memory of any kind, / they float easily over the facts." Ultimately, though, the joke is on Szymborska, whose poems have grown more witty, more humane, and more tender--in other words, more knowing--with each passing year."

Charles Simic is nation's new poet laureate!

Banner day for outstanding poet Charles Simic. He was named the 15th poet laureate of the United States and then won the $100,000 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets.

"Now I just have to break a leg. It's just too much luck,'' the 69-year-old Simic said in a telephone interview with Bloomberg. "I'm just overwhelmed by the amount of good luck, being a superstitious person.''

Luck might account for 0.999999% of the recognition he's received over the years. The Belgrade-born bard won the Pulitzer Prize (1990 for The World Doesn't End: Prose Poems) and most every other major poetry prize. Simic, who emigrated to the United States with his family in 1954, also received a $500,000 MacArthur Foundation "genius'' grant for 1984-1989.

You can read some of his work at PoemHunter. Here's what one reviewer has to say about his collection Jackstraws.

The Washington Post and New York Times have filed profiles of the poet the Times calls a "surrealist with a dark view." He succeeds Donald Hall.

~Michael Winter, USA Today



~~~~~~~~~~~

In addition to Jackstraws, mentioned above, I'd also recommend Aunt Lettuce, I Want to Peek Under Your Skirt.

Here are some audios of Simic reading.

I'm rather excited about Simic being poet laureate - the past few choices haven't been ones I read much (I know, I know - how could I not like Billy Collins, lol). He can be surreal, dark, humorous and above all, writes beyond the ordinary. And how great to choose an immigrant poet who didn't speak English until he was 15!

Errata
~Charles Simic

Where it says snow
read teeth-marks of a virgin
Where it says knife read
you passed through my bones
like a police-whistle
Where it says table read horse
Where it says horse read my migrant's bundle
Apples are to remain apples
Each time a hat appears
think of Isaac Newton
reading the Old Testament
Remove all periods
They are scars made by words
I couldn't bring myself to say
Put a finger over each sunrise
it will blind you otherwise
That damn ant is still stirring
Will there be time left to list
all errors to replace
all hands guns owls plates
all cigars ponds woods and reach
that beer-bottle my greatest mistake
the word I allowed to be written
when I should have shouted
her name

Bukowski: Born into This

I just finished watching Bukowski: Born into This - excellent! A fascinating man to say the least...














Bluebird

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

~Bukowski

Grilled Pork Tenderloin Salad

This was my Sunday dinner. I replaced the watercress with baby spinach because my kids like that better.

2 T olive oil
1 T lime juice
2 t Dijon mustard
1/4 t salt
dash of pepper
1 sprig rosemary
1 pork tenderloin (~1 lb)
raspberry vinaigrette (see below)
2 or 3 bunches watercress torn into bite sized piece
1 cup raspberries

Mix 1st six ingredients in a plastic bag and add pork. Marinate 1 hour in the frig. Grill pork about 20 min, turning. Slice in 1/4" slices. Arrange on greens. Sprinkle raspberries over the top. Drizzle with the vinaigrette.

~

Raspberry Vinaigrette

1/4 c olive oil
2 T raspberry vinegar
1 t honey
1/2 t ground mustard
1/2 t salt

Beef Tenderloins with French Onion Sauce

This is an easy dish, but incredible for a romantic dinner or company.

2 teaspoons butter or stick margarine, divided
2 cups thinly sliced onion
3 cups cremini or button mush-room caps, halved (about 1/2 pound)
2/3 cup water
1 (10 1/2-ounce) can beef consomme
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
4 (4-ounce) beef tenderloin steaks (1 inch thick)
1/2 cup dry red wine
4 (1-ounce) slices French bread (about 1 inch thick), toasted


Melt 1 teaspoon butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and mushrooms; sauté 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Stir in water and consomme, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. Bring to a boil; cover and cook 10 minutes. Remove onion mixture from pan.

Combine thyme, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Rub the thyme mixture over steaks. Melt 1 teaspoon butter in pan over medium-high heat. Add steaks; cook 3 minutes on each side or until browned. Remove steaks from pan; keep warm.

Add wine to pan, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. Stir in onion mixture; bring to a boil, and cook 1 minute. Return steaks to pan; simmer 1 minute.

Place one toast slice in each of 4 shallow serving bowls, and top each slice with steak. Spoon the onion mixture over each serving. Serve immediately.

Governmentium, discovery of new element.

A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science and that effects all basic life. The new element has been tentatively named "Governmentium ". Governmentium has 1 neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 11 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. It has properties similar to "black holes" and absorb all independent energy.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of governmentium causes one reaction to take over 4 days to complete when it would normally take less than a second. It has the opposite effect on a reaction than that of a catalyst.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 3 years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause some morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.

This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass".


http://energysavingnow.com/mainsite/governmentium.shtml

Home (soon) at last, but in the meantime...