The new Republican idea of prosperity is a Wal-Mart every quarter mile and six lanes on every street, but that's a post for a different blog.
Last night we had Chicken in a Pot for dinner while we watched the State of the Union Address.
I have been living with the false impression that some president or other used this phrase in a speech but, in preparation for my post on this recipe, I found that not to be the case.
Promising a Chicken in Every Pot — Infoplease.com: "The Question:
Which president promised 'a chicken in every pot'?
The Answer:
It wasn't just chicken. During the presidential campaign of 1928, a circular published by the Republican Party claimed that if Herbert Hoover won there would be 'a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.'
Despite a landslide victory over Alfred Smith, the first Roman Catholic to run for president, the Republican Party's promise of prosperity was derailed seven months after Hoover took the oath of office. The stock market crash of 1929 plunged the country into the Great Depression and people eventually lost confidence in Hoover.
During his administration, however, there were several impressive accomplishments. He increased the acerage of U.S. national forests and parks by five million. He also worked out the engineering and funding of San Francisco's Bay Bridge, and re-organized the FBI. Despite these undertakings, American voters couldn't be persuded to elect him to a second term. With the Depression at its lowest point, voters elected Franklin D. Roosevelt to replace Hoover in 1932."
Who says history doesn't repeat itself - except the only impressive thing he did was get us into a war that is sucking us dry financially and we kept him for two terms.
But, regardless of who said what, Chicken in a Pot tastes great, is simple to make and everything cooks in the same dutch oven making clean up quick and easy.
Chicken in a Pot
Ingredients:
1 large chicken
2 Tbs Olive oil
1 Tbs dried rosemary or 2 4-inch sprigs of fresh rosemary
1/4 to 1/2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp black pepper
salt to taste
1 pound of packaged baby carrots
8 small red potatoes
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 cup dry vermouth
2 Tbs flour
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
Put the olive oil, paprika, garlic powder, black pepper, salt and rosemary in the pot.
Roll the chicken around in the spices and oil to coat it evenly on all sides.
Place the potatoes and carrots around the sides of the chicken then pour in one cup of chicken broth and the wine.
Cover and bake for at least 3 hours.
Remove the chicken, potatoes and carrots to a serving platter. Mix the flour in the remaining 1/2 cup chicken broth and add it to the cooking liquids in the pot. Stir over a burner on medium heat until it thickens to a gravy. Serve the gravy over the chicken and potatoes.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The good, the bad and the incidental
The good:
I made the same dough I usually do and topped it with provolone, crumbled Italian sausage, mozzarella, Parmesan and roasted red pepper.
Things were hopping around here yesterday and I didn't get a chance to make sauce, but that turned out to be a good thing too as I discovered a very acceptable pre-made pizza sauce, Dei Fratelli. I plan to keep a couple cans of this on hand for emergency purposes. It was so much better than any pre-made sauce I have ever tried in the past.
The bad:
I went to visit my neighbor and to bring her some of the shredded chicken nachos we had the other day. She asked me to look up a term her doctor used to describe her medical condition which she was unfamiliar with: Binswanger's Disease.
The term was unfamiliar to me as well but sadly, I am all too familiar with the condition.
Binswanger's is another term for Alzheimer's.
So now I get to tell my friend that she has been tentatively diagnosed with the same disease which killed my mother.
The incidental:
They are wrapping up the first stage of our sinkhole remediation. They ended up pumping 300 cubic yards of cement under the house, 100 cubic yards less than the worst-case scenario.
My excitement yesterday occurred about four feet in front of my computer on the other side of the sliding glass doors leading onto the porch. They were attempting to fill one of the last remaining grout points when the pipe shot out of the hole and straight through the ceiling of the porch with a horrific bang. Much excitement ensued. But today they are cleaning up and clearing out.
I feel sort of bad for my first post or two about the workers here. They have all been very nice and it's not their fault they were here to do a job that for me was living hell.
I think Jack will be sorry to see them leave. Now he will just have me to harass and, on top of that, I got his Frisbee stuck in a tree this morning when I was at the barn.
So, hopefully things will be back to normal around here for a while(are they ever normal?) until the shallow grouting starts February 12 when I will get to tell you what it's like to have expanding urethane injected under your house.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
An interesting blog post
Rebuttal for Urban Gardening and Some Other Thoughts
By jamesg, on January 25th, 2010
Alright, this got a little bit lengthier and more off topic than I had originally planned, but it’s already written so I may as well post it. The arguments against urban farming–its small scale, its questionable economic feasibility, and simply its difficulty–are all completely valid. However, these “problems” in my opinion are in fact the solution to what has become our food chain which is at best, misdirected by industry, and at worst, frankly disgusting and pushing some ethical boundaries to the limit.
As Barry Commoner once said, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” While urban farming may appear to cost more (in terms of labor, time commitment, space, or literal food costs), it takes into account all the externalities that the industrial food market machine does not. Our Dollar Menus and Happy Meals may seem cheaper, but only when ignoring many factors, namely environmental degradation, transportation, conglomerate business schemes and government subsidies insuring cheap corn.
I think that urban farming should kept at a small scale because while it may not seem as efficient as large-scale industrial agriculture, it is philosophically different. It represents a move towards the way things used to be done, taking with it the advantages of modern knowledge and technology. Mother nature really does know best, but there is a definite culture shock looming on the horizon. We are going to have to get over our need for instant gratification and massive, one-stop super stores. People (or more accurately, organisms in general) are much healthier and populations are much more stable when allowed to differentiate and specialize at local levels rather than the homogenous culture we have become accustomed to. Unfortunately for our industrialized society, this will require a rediscovery of such novel phenomena as seasonality and face-to-face interaction.
Thomas Jefferson was an important advocate for equalizing America, socially, economically and in this case, agriculturally. He proposed that the United States is nothing more than a giant grid-x, y, and z-where land is land for whatever purpose and everyone everywhere could and should exist in exactly the same way and live the same experience. However, the world doesn’t really work that way. Local conditions are key to survival. From a broad evolutionary perspective, communities are more stable when its members are allowed to specialize and differentiate. This also makes more sense in terms of energy use and natural resource consumption. Why, for example, do we continue to burn down the Amazon (thus contributing to positive feedback cycles of global climate change, desertification and ocean eutrophication) to grow oranges, which grow perfectly well in Florida, where instead, we drain and pave over the Everglades to maximize real estate. Somehow it doesn’t make sense that shipping food, materials, and products all over the world is somehow better than learning to use what we have at hand.
Globalization, in every aspect of our lives, has taken over. Everything we do and everything we are has been reduced to numbers streaming through cyberspace. I can search the internet for just about ANYTHING that I want, and not just find it, but have it delivered to this building by merely entering a credit card number and an address. Then the most involved thing I have to do, three to five business days later, is take the elevator (or heaven forbid, the stairs) down to the first floor to pick it up. I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with this, or that I would change it; it’s a marvel of the modern world. But is what we’ve done with it best for us? Such an exchange of knowledge and ideas is fantastic, but it may be costing us a life worth living. While everyone in the world knowing everything that everyone else knows would be incredible for the progression of knowledge (maybe if Google and Wikipedia ruled the world), it does not mean we should all BE the same. Technology and globalization should offer us all the same resources and the same opportunities, but it should not advocate any particular way of life beyond what is necessary to coexist. What a bore the world would be if we all spoke the same language, ate the same foods, dressed the same way.
This leads me back to urban farming. It’s small. It can’t feed everyone. That’s the point. It’s simply one piece of the puzzle. There is no one answer to any of the problems humans face today. There is no silver bullet to solve the energy crisis. There is no simple panacea to food security woes. Everyone, along with his or her unique methods or field of study, has a part to play–a different part. This is key, I think, not just to urban farming, not to neighborhoods, and not to Detroit, but to any human endeavor of any size. Collaboration and a sense of place are becoming more and more important to everything we do as a species. Whether it’s a melting pot of nondescript assembly line workers or the acres upon acres of maize that cover this nation from coast to coast, it won’t work anymore. There can be freedom, and equality, and maybe even government to tell us so, but it will never change the fact that each person is undeniably and irrevocably different, simply incapable of forming a human yogurt–tasty for sure, but uniform and dull.
By jamesg, on January 25th, 2010
Alright, this got a little bit lengthier and more off topic than I had originally planned, but it’s already written so I may as well post it. The arguments against urban farming–its small scale, its questionable economic feasibility, and simply its difficulty–are all completely valid. However, these “problems” in my opinion are in fact the solution to what has become our food chain which is at best, misdirected by industry, and at worst, frankly disgusting and pushing some ethical boundaries to the limit.
As Barry Commoner once said, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” While urban farming may appear to cost more (in terms of labor, time commitment, space, or literal food costs), it takes into account all the externalities that the industrial food market machine does not. Our Dollar Menus and Happy Meals may seem cheaper, but only when ignoring many factors, namely environmental degradation, transportation, conglomerate business schemes and government subsidies insuring cheap corn.
I think that urban farming should kept at a small scale because while it may not seem as efficient as large-scale industrial agriculture, it is philosophically different. It represents a move towards the way things used to be done, taking with it the advantages of modern knowledge and technology. Mother nature really does know best, but there is a definite culture shock looming on the horizon. We are going to have to get over our need for instant gratification and massive, one-stop super stores. People (or more accurately, organisms in general) are much healthier and populations are much more stable when allowed to differentiate and specialize at local levels rather than the homogenous culture we have become accustomed to. Unfortunately for our industrialized society, this will require a rediscovery of such novel phenomena as seasonality and face-to-face interaction.
Thomas Jefferson was an important advocate for equalizing America, socially, economically and in this case, agriculturally. He proposed that the United States is nothing more than a giant grid-x, y, and z-where land is land for whatever purpose and everyone everywhere could and should exist in exactly the same way and live the same experience. However, the world doesn’t really work that way. Local conditions are key to survival. From a broad evolutionary perspective, communities are more stable when its members are allowed to specialize and differentiate. This also makes more sense in terms of energy use and natural resource consumption. Why, for example, do we continue to burn down the Amazon (thus contributing to positive feedback cycles of global climate change, desertification and ocean eutrophication) to grow oranges, which grow perfectly well in Florida, where instead, we drain and pave over the Everglades to maximize real estate. Somehow it doesn’t make sense that shipping food, materials, and products all over the world is somehow better than learning to use what we have at hand.
Globalization, in every aspect of our lives, has taken over. Everything we do and everything we are has been reduced to numbers streaming through cyberspace. I can search the internet for just about ANYTHING that I want, and not just find it, but have it delivered to this building by merely entering a credit card number and an address. Then the most involved thing I have to do, three to five business days later, is take the elevator (or heaven forbid, the stairs) down to the first floor to pick it up. I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with this, or that I would change it; it’s a marvel of the modern world. But is what we’ve done with it best for us? Such an exchange of knowledge and ideas is fantastic, but it may be costing us a life worth living. While everyone in the world knowing everything that everyone else knows would be incredible for the progression of knowledge (maybe if Google and Wikipedia ruled the world), it does not mean we should all BE the same. Technology and globalization should offer us all the same resources and the same opportunities, but it should not advocate any particular way of life beyond what is necessary to coexist. What a bore the world would be if we all spoke the same language, ate the same foods, dressed the same way.
This leads me back to urban farming. It’s small. It can’t feed everyone. That’s the point. It’s simply one piece of the puzzle. There is no one answer to any of the problems humans face today. There is no silver bullet to solve the energy crisis. There is no simple panacea to food security woes. Everyone, along with his or her unique methods or field of study, has a part to play–a different part. This is key, I think, not just to urban farming, not to neighborhoods, and not to Detroit, but to any human endeavor of any size. Collaboration and a sense of place are becoming more and more important to everything we do as a species. Whether it’s a melting pot of nondescript assembly line workers or the acres upon acres of maize that cover this nation from coast to coast, it won’t work anymore. There can be freedom, and equality, and maybe even government to tell us so, but it will never change the fact that each person is undeniably and irrevocably different, simply incapable of forming a human yogurt–tasty for sure, but uniform and dull.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
USF Study Shows First Direct Evidence of Ocean Acidification
USF Study Shows First Direct Evidence of Ocean Acidification
Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - News
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TAMPA, Fla. (Jan. 20, 2010) – Seawater in a vast and deep section of the northeastern Pacific Ocean shows signs of increased acidity brought on by manmade carbon dioxide in the atmosphere -- a phenomenon that carries with it far-reaching ecological effects -- reports a team of researchers led by a University of South Florida College of Marine Science chemist.
The scientists, whose results are published in the American Geophysical Union’s journal Geophysical Research Letters, analyzed Pacific seawater between Oahu, Hawaii, and Kodiak, Alaska by comparing pH readings from 1991 and from 2006. This study provides the first direct measurements of basin-wide pH changes in the ocean’s depths and at its surface and has produced the first direct evidence of acidification across an entire ocean basin, the investigators said.
Principal investigator Robert Byrne, a USF seawater physical chemistry professor, said the study leaves no doubt that growing CO2 levels in the atmosphere are exerting major impacts on the world’s oceans.
“If this happens in a piece of ocean as big as a whole ocean basin, then this is a global phenomenon,” Byrne said.
Adding carbon dioxide to seawater makes it more acidic, and each year the world’s oceans absorb about one-third of the atmospheric CO2 produced by human activities.
Using pH-sensitive dyes that turn from purple to yellow in more acidic waters, the scientists were able to track changes produced by 15 years of CO2 uptake near the ocean's surface, Byrne said. In deeper waters, down to about half a mile, both anthropogenic and naturally occurring changes in CO2 and pH were seen. In the very deepest waters, no significant pH changes were seen.
The results verify earlier model projections that the oceans are becoming more acidic because of the uptake of carbon dioxide released as a result of fossil fuel burning, said Richard Feely, a member of the research team and chief scientist of the cruise and NOAA researcher from the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle.
Byrne and colleagues at USF’s College of Marine Science developed the methods for precise pH measurements and the project was the first time a team of researchers employed those methods in the field.
Byrne led a team of scientists that made pH measurements aboard the NOAA-National Science Foundation-sponsored cruise R/V Thomas G. Thompson in the spring of 2006 using state-of-the-art techniques developed at USF’s College of Marine Science. The researchers found that upper-ocean pH had, over the preceding one-and-a-half decades, decreased by approximately 0.026 units, equivalent to an average annual pH change of ‑0.0017, over a large section of the northeastern Pacific. Similar recent pH trends have been found at isolated time-series stations in the North Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and corroborating observations have also been reported by scientists who study other CO2-related substances in seawater.
"The pH decrease is direct evidence for ocean acidification of a large portion of the North Pacific Ocean," said Richard Feely. "These dramatic changes can be attributed, in most part, to anthropogenic CO2 uptake by the ocean over a 15-year period.”
The implications for sea life and the world’s food web are serious, Byrne said. When seawater becomes more acidic, lower concentrations of carbonate result. Because the protective shells of sea organisms are made of calcium and carbonate, more acidic waters make it more difficult for many organisms to make their shells and thrive.
That affects not only the food web, but also many important processes essential for healthy marine ecosystems, such as coral reef formation, Byrne said.
The cruise was part of a decade-long series of repeat hydrographic sections jointly funded by NOAA-Office of Global Programs (now the Climate Program Office) and NSF-Division of Ocean Sciences as part of the Climate Variability and Predictability/CO2 Repeat Hydrography Program.
The program focuses on the need to monitor inventories of CO2 and heat in the ocean. Earlier programs under the World Ocean Circulation Experiment and U.S. Joint Ocean Global Flux Study have provided baseline observational fields.
Scientists from 11 academic institutions and two NOAA research laboratories participated in the expedition, whose goal was to determine how the release of huge amounts of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning, land-use practices, and cement production will affect the chemistry and biology of the ocean.
Over the next millennium, the global oceans are expected to absorb approximately 90 percent of the CO2 emitted to the atmosphere, says Christopher Sabine, chief scientist for the first leg of the cruise.
"It is now established from models that there is a strong possibility that dissolved carbon dioxide in the ocean surface will double over its pre-industrial value by the middle of this century, with accompanying surface ocean pH decreases that are greater than those experienced during the transition from ice ages to warm ages," Sabine said. "The uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide by the ocean changes the chemistry of the oceans and can potentially have significant impacts on the biological systems in the upper oceans."
“Estimates of future atmospheric and oceanic CO2 concentrations, based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emission scenarios and general circulation models, indicate that by the middle of this century atmospheric CO2 levels could reach more than 500 ppm, and near the end of the century they could be over 800 ppm. Current levels are near 390 ppm, and preindustrial levels were near 280 ppm," Feely said.
Corresponding models for the oceans indicate that surface water pH would drop approximately 0.4 pH units, and the carbonate ion concentration would decrease almost 50 percent by the end of the century. This surface ocean pH would be lower than it has been for more than 20 million years.
Byrne and many other scientists expect that even if substantial reductions are made in the pace at which humans produce carbon dioxide, ocean acidification will continue for hundreds of years to come.
“The bad news is it takes many hundreds of years for self-correcting factors to occur,” he said. “That leaves many centuries of ugly consequences.”
The University of South Florida is one of the nation's top 63 public research universities and one of only 25 public research universities nationwide with very high research activity that is designated as community engaged by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. USF was awarded $380.4 million in research contracts and grants in FY 2008/2009. The university offers 232 degree programs at the undergraduate, graduate, specialist and doctoral levels, including the doctor of medicine. The USF System has a $1.8 billion annual budget, an annual economic impact of $3.2 billion, and serves more than 47,000 students on institutions/campuses in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota-Manatee and Lakeland. USF is a member of the Big East Athletic Conference.
-USF-
Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - News
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TAMPA, Fla. (Jan. 20, 2010) – Seawater in a vast and deep section of the northeastern Pacific Ocean shows signs of increased acidity brought on by manmade carbon dioxide in the atmosphere -- a phenomenon that carries with it far-reaching ecological effects -- reports a team of researchers led by a University of South Florida College of Marine Science chemist.
The scientists, whose results are published in the American Geophysical Union’s journal Geophysical Research Letters, analyzed Pacific seawater between Oahu, Hawaii, and Kodiak, Alaska by comparing pH readings from 1991 and from 2006. This study provides the first direct measurements of basin-wide pH changes in the ocean’s depths and at its surface and has produced the first direct evidence of acidification across an entire ocean basin, the investigators said.
Principal investigator Robert Byrne, a USF seawater physical chemistry professor, said the study leaves no doubt that growing CO2 levels in the atmosphere are exerting major impacts on the world’s oceans.
“If this happens in a piece of ocean as big as a whole ocean basin, then this is a global phenomenon,” Byrne said.
Adding carbon dioxide to seawater makes it more acidic, and each year the world’s oceans absorb about one-third of the atmospheric CO2 produced by human activities.
Using pH-sensitive dyes that turn from purple to yellow in more acidic waters, the scientists were able to track changes produced by 15 years of CO2 uptake near the ocean's surface, Byrne said. In deeper waters, down to about half a mile, both anthropogenic and naturally occurring changes in CO2 and pH were seen. In the very deepest waters, no significant pH changes were seen.
The results verify earlier model projections that the oceans are becoming more acidic because of the uptake of carbon dioxide released as a result of fossil fuel burning, said Richard Feely, a member of the research team and chief scientist of the cruise and NOAA researcher from the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle.
Byrne and colleagues at USF’s College of Marine Science developed the methods for precise pH measurements and the project was the first time a team of researchers employed those methods in the field.
Byrne led a team of scientists that made pH measurements aboard the NOAA-National Science Foundation-sponsored cruise R/V Thomas G. Thompson in the spring of 2006 using state-of-the-art techniques developed at USF’s College of Marine Science. The researchers found that upper-ocean pH had, over the preceding one-and-a-half decades, decreased by approximately 0.026 units, equivalent to an average annual pH change of ‑0.0017, over a large section of the northeastern Pacific. Similar recent pH trends have been found at isolated time-series stations in the North Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and corroborating observations have also been reported by scientists who study other CO2-related substances in seawater.
"The pH decrease is direct evidence for ocean acidification of a large portion of the North Pacific Ocean," said Richard Feely. "These dramatic changes can be attributed, in most part, to anthropogenic CO2 uptake by the ocean over a 15-year period.”
The implications for sea life and the world’s food web are serious, Byrne said. When seawater becomes more acidic, lower concentrations of carbonate result. Because the protective shells of sea organisms are made of calcium and carbonate, more acidic waters make it more difficult for many organisms to make their shells and thrive.
That affects not only the food web, but also many important processes essential for healthy marine ecosystems, such as coral reef formation, Byrne said.
The cruise was part of a decade-long series of repeat hydrographic sections jointly funded by NOAA-Office of Global Programs (now the Climate Program Office) and NSF-Division of Ocean Sciences as part of the Climate Variability and Predictability/CO2 Repeat Hydrography Program.
The program focuses on the need to monitor inventories of CO2 and heat in the ocean. Earlier programs under the World Ocean Circulation Experiment and U.S. Joint Ocean Global Flux Study have provided baseline observational fields.
Scientists from 11 academic institutions and two NOAA research laboratories participated in the expedition, whose goal was to determine how the release of huge amounts of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning, land-use practices, and cement production will affect the chemistry and biology of the ocean.
Over the next millennium, the global oceans are expected to absorb approximately 90 percent of the CO2 emitted to the atmosphere, says Christopher Sabine, chief scientist for the first leg of the cruise.
"It is now established from models that there is a strong possibility that dissolved carbon dioxide in the ocean surface will double over its pre-industrial value by the middle of this century, with accompanying surface ocean pH decreases that are greater than those experienced during the transition from ice ages to warm ages," Sabine said. "The uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide by the ocean changes the chemistry of the oceans and can potentially have significant impacts on the biological systems in the upper oceans."
“Estimates of future atmospheric and oceanic CO2 concentrations, based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emission scenarios and general circulation models, indicate that by the middle of this century atmospheric CO2 levels could reach more than 500 ppm, and near the end of the century they could be over 800 ppm. Current levels are near 390 ppm, and preindustrial levels were near 280 ppm," Feely said.
Corresponding models for the oceans indicate that surface water pH would drop approximately 0.4 pH units, and the carbonate ion concentration would decrease almost 50 percent by the end of the century. This surface ocean pH would be lower than it has been for more than 20 million years.
Byrne and many other scientists expect that even if substantial reductions are made in the pace at which humans produce carbon dioxide, ocean acidification will continue for hundreds of years to come.
“The bad news is it takes many hundreds of years for self-correcting factors to occur,” he said. “That leaves many centuries of ugly consequences.”
The University of South Florida is one of the nation's top 63 public research universities and one of only 25 public research universities nationwide with very high research activity that is designated as community engaged by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. USF was awarded $380.4 million in research contracts and grants in FY 2008/2009. The university offers 232 degree programs at the undergraduate, graduate, specialist and doctoral levels, including the doctor of medicine. The USF System has a $1.8 billion annual budget, an annual economic impact of $3.2 billion, and serves more than 47,000 students on institutions/campuses in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota-Manatee and Lakeland. USF is a member of the Big East Athletic Conference.
-USF-
Friday, January 22, 2010
Friday sinkhole update
The guys are packing it in for the day. They have already put about 60 hours in this week in their attempt to save us from the abyss.
So far, we've got 270 cubic yards of grout under us with 13 grout points to go.
Having the septic tank sucked out for the second time this week as I type.
I am ready for this to be over.
So far, we've got 270 cubic yards of grout under us with 13 grout points to go.
Having the septic tank sucked out for the second time this week as I type.
I am ready for this to be over.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Well, the Chalupas aren't going to make it to the blog until my mind clears
This sinkhole remediation business is throwing me all out of whack and I didn't take photos and the the chalupas were too good to waste on a post without them.
They starting grouting Monday and at day 4 have 22 pipes left to go. I've lost count of the number of truckloads of cement.
Dinner planning has taken a back burner to hand wringing and pacing.
This morning, we can't use the water - septic backing up again (oh, joy).
Last night we had Almost Chik-Fil-A chicken sandwiches, potato salad and some very excellent onion rings Emily made with a beer batter coating. I didn't bother making buns, just bought some.
Potato Salad
Ingredients:
2 pounds of russet potatoes
1 tsp. salt
2Tbs red wine vinegar
1 cup mayonaise
6 hard bopiled eggs
3-4 Tbs sweet or dill pickle relish
Directions:
Boil the potatoes in their skins until they are cooked to your liking. Some people like mushy potato salad, some people like the slices or cubes a little bit firm.
I did mine for 20-25 minutes- we like our salad in between mushy and firm, but the time will vary depending on the size of the potatoes. I don't like peel in my salad so after the potaoes have cooked and cooled, I peel them and either slice them or cube them, depending on my mood. If you like the skin, leave it on.
While the potatoes are still warm sprinle on the vinegar and salt and toss. Add the chopped eggs, relish and mayonaise and chill for several hours.
Almost Chik-Fil-A Chicken Sandwiches
Ingredients:
peanut oil
1 egg
1 cup milk
milk (for dipping chicken)
1 cup flour
2 1/2 tablespoons powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons salt
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, halved
4 plain hamburger buns
2 tablespoons melted butter
8 dill pickle slices
Directions:
Heat the peanut oil in a deep frywer to about 375°F.
In a small bowl beat the egg and stir in the milk.
In a separate bowl combine the flour, sugar, salt and pepper.
Dip each piece of chicken in milk and roll in flour mixture until completely covered.
Drop all 4 in the fryer and fry for approximately 15 minutes, depending on the size of the breasts.
While chicken is cooking, spread a coating of butter on the face of each bun.
When chicken is done, remove it from oil and drain on paper towels.
Place two pickles on each bottom bun, then top with chicken and top bun.
You can add lettuce, tomatoes, mayonaise and ketchup, but a purist will stick with just the pickles.
Emily's Beer Batter Onion Rings
Ingredients:
3 medium sized, sweet onions
2 eggs
1 bottle of Sam Adams beer
1 tsp. Cajun seasoning
1 tsp. salt
Oil for frying
enough flour to make a medium-thick batter, approximately 1 heaping cup, plus additional flour for coating the oinion rings prior to dipping them in the batter.
Directions:
Slice the onions into thick rings. Make the batter in a large bowl by combining the eggs, flour, salt, seasoning and beer.
Shake the onion rings in a bag with some flour to coat.
Dip the rings into the batter one at a time and fry between five and six at a time for four minutes then flip them over and fry for an additional 3 minutes.
Continue battering and frying until all the rings are cooked (this makes a large batch but I guarantee you will eat them all, cholesterol be damned.)
They starting grouting Monday and at day 4 have 22 pipes left to go. I've lost count of the number of truckloads of cement.
Dinner planning has taken a back burner to hand wringing and pacing.
This morning, we can't use the water - septic backing up again (oh, joy).
Last night we had Almost Chik-Fil-A chicken sandwiches, potato salad and some very excellent onion rings Emily made with a beer batter coating. I didn't bother making buns, just bought some.
Potato Salad
Ingredients:
2 pounds of russet potatoes
1 tsp. salt
2Tbs red wine vinegar
1 cup mayonaise
6 hard bopiled eggs
3-4 Tbs sweet or dill pickle relish
Directions:
Boil the potatoes in their skins until they are cooked to your liking. Some people like mushy potato salad, some people like the slices or cubes a little bit firm.
I did mine for 20-25 minutes- we like our salad in between mushy and firm, but the time will vary depending on the size of the potatoes. I don't like peel in my salad so after the potaoes have cooked and cooled, I peel them and either slice them or cube them, depending on my mood. If you like the skin, leave it on.
While the potatoes are still warm sprinle on the vinegar and salt and toss. Add the chopped eggs, relish and mayonaise and chill for several hours.
Almost Chik-Fil-A Chicken Sandwiches
Ingredients:
peanut oil
1 egg
1 cup milk
milk (for dipping chicken)
1 cup flour
2 1/2 tablespoons powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons salt
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, halved
4 plain hamburger buns
2 tablespoons melted butter
8 dill pickle slices
Directions:
Heat the peanut oil in a deep frywer to about 375°F.
In a small bowl beat the egg and stir in the milk.
In a separate bowl combine the flour, sugar, salt and pepper.
Dip each piece of chicken in milk and roll in flour mixture until completely covered.
Drop all 4 in the fryer and fry for approximately 15 minutes, depending on the size of the breasts.
While chicken is cooking, spread a coating of butter on the face of each bun.
When chicken is done, remove it from oil and drain on paper towels.
Place two pickles on each bottom bun, then top with chicken and top bun.
You can add lettuce, tomatoes, mayonaise and ketchup, but a purist will stick with just the pickles.
Emily's Beer Batter Onion Rings
Ingredients:
3 medium sized, sweet onions
2 eggs
1 bottle of Sam Adams beer
1 tsp. Cajun seasoning
1 tsp. salt
Oil for frying
enough flour to make a medium-thick batter, approximately 1 heaping cup, plus additional flour for coating the oinion rings prior to dipping them in the batter.
Directions:
Slice the onions into thick rings. Make the batter in a large bowl by combining the eggs, flour, salt, seasoning and beer.
Shake the onion rings in a bag with some flour to coat.
Dip the rings into the batter one at a time and fry between five and six at a time for four minutes then flip them over and fry for an additional 3 minutes.
Continue battering and frying until all the rings are cooked (this makes a large batch but I guarantee you will eat them all, cholesterol be damned.)
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