Food News From Nowhere

The votes are in, and it looks like my devoted readers are calling for a recipe.  As with most recipes I try, this one came from Sunset magazine (July 2007).  It took me over a year to gather the ingredients to actually produce this food--not that is was really so difficult to locate smoked paprika (I found it at the "Heist")--mostly I'm just a lazy grocery shopper.  In fact, I'm a lazy shopper all together; that makes two luxuries I would have if I ever won the lottery:  a driver and a personal shopper.  But enough of this...on to the food. 

Grilled Chicken Kebabs

With Romesco Sauce

Chicken

8 skewers

2 lbs. boned, skinned chicken breasts cut into cubes

1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

3 TBS olive oil

2 TBS fresh lime juice

2 tsp. minced garlic

1 tsp. each kosher salt and smoked paprika

Combine the above ingredients in a large bowl or plastic bag.  Toss to coat the chicken, then chill and marinate for at least 25 minutes. Meanwhile...

Romesco Sauce

1TBS minced garlic

1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

3/4 cup peeled roasted red peppers

1/4 cup whole almonds or hazelnuts, toasted

1 slice crusty bread, toasted and cut into cubes

1/4 cup olive oil

1 TBS sherry vinegar

Put the above ingredients in a food processor and whirl them until pureed.  This sauce is thick.

Obviously, the chicken must be threaded onto the skewers and grilled before this meal can be served. So, do that, and enjoy!   

Food Notes:  One person in my house really doesn't enjoy chicken all that much, so I was a bit skeptical of even preparing this meal.  But, it was a big hit!  You can't even taste the bird in the chicken once it's marinated. And the romesco sauce...mmm.  If you like mole, you'll be smiling when you dip into this stuff. Also, if you are into impressing the neighbors with scents wafting off your grill, this recipe is sure to please; my neighbor actually popped her head over the fence to inquire as to what I was cooking.  

In other food news:  I have learned that preparing smooth (Mazza-like) hummus does not involve the labor intensive task of peeling the skins of each and every little garbanzo bean. This summer, I was stealing a read from Cook's Illustrated while I waited in line at the grocery store, and there was an article on getting this silky smooth hummus.  I catalogued the technique in the back of my mind where it remained until  yesterday when it popped into my conscious thought somewhere after mile 15 on the Jordan Parkway trail.  Long runs deserve whatever food the mind desires, so I obliged by making the hummus shortly after consuming a cheese danish (like I said, whatever the mind wants).  Magic!  Super smooth and creamy.  The trick, it turns out, is to leave the olive oil out until the very end, and then pour it into the mixture in a slow stream while it blends in the food processor.  Here's my recipe for simple hummus:

Hummus

One can garbanzo beans

2 TBS plain yogurt

2 TBS lemon juice

2 TBS tahini

Garlic (you be the judge on quantity)

Olive oil (use your best judgement)

Breaking the Silence

The blog has been silent nearly all month.  I'm torn up over it, really, I am.  Now, I don't know how to get started again mostly because there are so many topics to be covered here:  cake pans on loan from libraries nationwide, miles and miles of running woes, saffron and smoked paprika, school starting and the mystery of head lice, pesky thievery, poetry Friday lost, stupid names like Renesmee (...there's definitely a blog brewing over this one), man boys in pink panties, a much needed public service announcement directed towards women.  So many things.  I promise to cover at least one of these topics this week.  If any of you have a preference, drop me a comment and I'll do what I can to oblige.

Why Did the Boiled Chicken Breast Cross the Road?

Exhilarating. Inspirational. Empowering.  Often, a long run is all of these rolled into one magical ball.  Not so today.  At mile 13.75 I wanted to cry, and I probably would have if I wasn't so concerned with staying hydrated.  The mile and a quarter to home seemed impossibly far away. 

Adding insult to injury was the vanity check in the Seminary building's glass door--it's really not fair that this flat stomach thing is largely genetic (this according to some flat-bellied, defined-abbed writer for Oxygen magazine--yes, I tore out the article 3 years ago and am holding on to it in case I ever get motivated enough to live solely on 3 oz. of plain boiled chicken breast each day)....

  

It's also not fair that after burning 1200 calories and already feeling defeated, I have to look at my reflection in a glass door and have two love handles waving back at me.*  This problem could be easily and instantly solved, I suppose, by wearing a shirt that is loose at the bottom...I'll look into that.  Then there's the obvious solution:  stop looking in glass doors.  Or, when looking at my reflection in glass doors, focus only on my good points.  These are solutions I can live with as they don't require me to cut all the crappy food out of my diet.  Of course, they also only mask the real issue that will still be lurking there beneath my shirt and in my blind spot....

 

These were the distractions of thought that allowed me to get my rubbery legs home where I can sit at the computer and compose a cathartic blog post while sipping my favorite cappuccino-flavored recovery drink.  Ahhh...feeling better already.  And it's almost time for me to meet the girls for a birthday lunch!  Hurray.

*Disclaimer:  lest you all fear I have image problems, stop fretting.  I DON'T THINK I'M FAT. If any of you think otherwise, keep your thoughts to yourselves because I don't need your skewed vision in my life.   

 

Friday's Poem

I'm drained of poetry at the moment, but in honor of Poetry Friday, I'm sharing one from Pablo Neruda:  "The Well".   Think of this as an Ode to the blog--which often falls silent for reasons unbeknownst to me. 

The Well

At times you sink, you fall

into your hole of silence,
into your abyss of proud anger,
and you can scarcely
return, still bearing remnants
of what you found
in the depth of your existence.

My love, what do you find
in your closed well?
Seaweed, swamps, rocks?
What do you see with blind eyes,
bitter and wounded?

Darling, you will not find
in the well into which you fall
what I keep for you on the heights:
a bouquet of dewy jasmines,
a kiss deeper than your abyss.

Do not fear me, do not fall
into your rancor again.
Shake off my word that came to wound you
and let it fly through the open window.
It will return to wound
without your guiding it
since it was laden with a harsh instant
and that instant will be disarmed in my breast.

~Pablo Neruda 

You've Gotta Wear Shades

It's been too hot recently.  The sun is bright.  Blindingly.  The heat makes it difficult to think clearly--clouds the judgement.  You know that's why Gatsby's story finally came to a climax, the oppressive heat of summer.  Heat makes us do crazy things--like delete our blogs. (And here I am writing in 2nd person like some Mitch Albom hack...I hate 2nd person.)  Since erasing all those old posts I've lost my momentum.  How do I get it back?  Here's how:  wait for my dark alter-ego to come out of hiding.....  

...And he finally did it!  We're back in business--the business of blogging, which isn't really a business at all because there's no money in it.  Of course, this would make it a great candidate for a business that white people like (see #105);  maybe I should get an intern for my blog.  

Anyway, my point is that once knownsideeffects started clacking away at the keyboard, a spark of inspiration twitched in my own fingertips.  And here I was thinking I am so independent and individual...no longer needing a springboard for blogging material.  Apparently, The Mop's assessment of us "... they keep acting.... well like one is an index finger and the other a thumb. Individual fingers, work well together. but different....and part of the same hand..." is truer than I gave him credit for.  Weird, too, how that anonymous blogger can pick up on this nuance.

So, now that the blogging game is back on, I'm going to stop worrying about all those posts I didn't think to save, don some dark glasses, and in the spirit of forward momentum, close this post with a genius quote from some guy on A&E's  Intervention : 

"Me living in the past has inhibited my future."  

No more.