Vacation and good recipes!!

My April vacation started out Friday morning April 10. Husband drove us to Salem where he stayed with his sister and brother-in-law to attend a gathering of former class mates.

I visited for a bit and then drove from there north to Portland. On my way there via I5 I spotted a cute little blue convertible mini Cooper. The driver was white haired. The car sported a personalized plate that read " X QQQ ME"

I laughed and then smirked to myself, "I wonder if that was Steve Martin?"

NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!




When I drive I try to stop at most of the State rest stops due to diminished bladder capacity. I snapped this picture of one of the fruit trees that bloomed whilst I tarried.

I drove as far as Pendleton and overnighted at a Best Western and my aren't they proud of THEIR rooms? But breakfast was free. I got to Emmett about noon the next day. Mom and I ran around most of the week, got groceries, visited with friends and relatives and played several games of Scrabble.

While there Mom made Mexi-chicken. I decided to do the same thing when I got home.




Assemble ingredients for Mexi-Chicken as follows: (Original recipe with changes noted):I am told that that this recipe came from the California Berglunds. Yummy!

2 cups chopped chicken or turkey
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup chopped green chilies
1 medium onion chopped
12 corn tortilla's torn into small bite size
2 cans Campbell's creamy chicken soup (make 8 cups)
Make up soup, drop in ingredients, stir until cheese is melted.
Pour into greased into appropriate sized baking dish.
Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Mom's modification
Obtain 1 package of Bear Creek creamy potato soup (No MSG!)
Boil 4 turkey thighs, 1 to 2 hours, remove from stock, cool, remove meat from bones, discard bones and skin, chop.
Use stock as part of the 8 cups of liquid for the potato soup mix.
Add soup mixture, allow stock to come to a boil, reduce to simmer for 15 minutes
stirring occasionally.
At 15 minutes, drop in chopped turkey, cheese, chilies, chopped tortilla's, stir together.
My modification (Mom will scream when she sees this ingredient)
Add one can whole black olives, drain, slice in half to check for pits.
This makes a whole stock pot FULL of Mexi-Chicken.
I used olive oil on three large casserole dishes and filled them all up.
I baked them in a 350 degree oven for 90 minutes, turned the oven off and let the dishes cool.
The smell is pure heaven, but you don't have smell-o-vision and you probably will not need salt as it tasted just perfect.




The dish tastes much better than it looks.

Art on Display at work....

Today the maintenance crew and some of the hospital volunteers began hanging new artwork all great big huge photographs by two of our physicians;

The purplish one above is one taken by Dr. G of the Grand Canyon, it is from the South Rim, wonderful color past twilight, last little gasp of daylight before full evening. This print and frame is about 3 by 4 feet in size.



This panoramic view is by Dr. I who went out and about this winter taking pictures of the flooding high tide Coquille river. Gorgeous. This print is 2 foot x 4 foot.

There are other beautiful black and white prints, some botanicals in stunning color and perhaps the best of all a sea turtle swimming along accompanied by many colorful tropical fish. Gorgeous. Nice work,guys!

Made me want to do something artistic....for about five minutes....

A lovely Saturday, more bookcases and.......

My stock of books is growing, these are two new folding bookcases purchased since the previous orgy of bookcases pictured on a previous blog.

These books shelves can hold triple the books easily, so it will be a while before I purchase any further shelves.

Mom is saving up her books for me and I will drag back a car load of them later in April.

Also today was the Saturday that I had decided to try my culinary skills by trying my hand at Gorgonzola sauce with steak.

MENU:

Filet mignon (Two each - seared off in a HOT pan three minutes each side and allowed to rest ten minutes off heat)

Heated mass quantities of salted water to cook tortellini for five minutes, drain, keep warm in oven.

Baked new potatoes tossed in oil and salt, also carrots, cooked 350 degrees for 90 minutes.

Tossed lettuce, tomato onion salad with home made Thousand Island dressing, I skipped the hard boiled egg and made a simple mayonnaise, catsup, chopped pickle mixture, at the last minute added a couple drops of apple cider vinegar. Not bad.

Gorgonzola sauce; I found a lovely video and followed the directions.
High simmer 1 pint whipping cream, whisk constantly, cook five minutes, reduce by one third. TURN OFF HEAT. Add fork separated 8 ounces Gorgonzola (I had Dulce) and stir until melted two minutes. Add 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese, add 1/4 tsp ground black pepper, 1/4 cup chopped parsley. It was PERFECT.

We dished up, dripped desired amounts of Gorgonzola sauce over the steak and pasta and ate then went into post prandial coma. Delish!

The flavor is slightly different from the taste of Bennetti's New York New York Steak with Gorgonzola sauce, I think they may have used a hint of nutmeg. I would love to chat with the chef over there.

I am left with 8 ounces of Gorgonzola and not too sure what to do with it. I may save it for the next potluck and use it for Mac and Cheese. Oooooooooh!

Today's word is.....

This is a picture of a pink convict ciclid. Isn't it pretty?



This is a picture of people who sure want to be picked next.

CONSURE. I googled this and could not find a definition at on line Websters, so folks I have supplied a couple pictures for inspiration.

Consure: A nutrition drink used for geriatric prisoners who have the "Dwindles"..and that my friends is real doctor speak for failure to thrive.

C'mon I know you folks can do better than that!

MORE DEFINARY DICTION

Today my security word was "purgists"

I have elected to demonstrate the singular. Plural purgists worshiping at the same throne is just toooo disgusting.

DEFINARY DICTION

Those of us who must sign onto blogs have routinely typed in the computer generated anti-spammer word so we can happily post to our favorite blogs.

I have noticed that lately these made up words are starting to make a weird kind of sense.

The one I typed today was BUMPYRE. So in the tradition of Definary Diction:

Submit your definition of Bumpyre.

Spring and Antiques Sale

I found these two ceramic kittens on separate tables. I found the one with the open arms first and thought that was an odd posture and something was meant to go inside the kittens arms. I spotted the next kitten because it had similar coloring and then I decided to see if they fit together.



Well whattya know!?

It was a fun day, found lots of things I would have loved to drag home but after my three dollar tarot reading I decided to save the money. Yep, three dollars, the woman doing the reading asked me to hold the cards, concentrate on my one question and cut the cards. She offered to do a cold reading but I told her that I was contemplating retirement and did not say anything else. The first card was an upside down dark figure meaning loss, the second figure was the Queen of cups and the third figure was also a figure meaning loss. So basically the message from the Tarot reader was that while retirement would be comfortable there would not be any around the world trips and I should expect loss of money if I were to be foolish with expenses. Duh... She was actually doing a pretty brisk business.