Curried Chicken Salad

There used to be a place in downtown Indianapolis called The Educated Sandwich where a group of us often walked for lunch, and one of my favorites was their Curried Chicken Salad Sandwich.  They only had it occasionally, so after searching a while, I found a recipe that pretty much duplicates the spicy-savory-sweet goodness I loved.  I couldn't just WAIT until they decided to make it, right?

When I was a kid, my mom used to pack the little boxes of SunMaid raisins in our lunches, and I always ate them all.  Then we'd blow into the box through the top to make a kazoo-like noise!  I don't know when I started picking them out of my food, but there you are.  I leave them out of this recipe because I don't like their texture when they're included in a recipe and partially rehydrate, but that's my personal weirdness.

Curried Chicken Salad (6 servings)

3/4 c mayonnaise or Miracle Whip

2 T curry powder

1 lb cooked, cubed chicken breast

1 large apple, cored and chopped

1 1/2 chopped celery (about 4 ribs)

1/3 c raisins (optional)

1/4 c green onion, chopped

Mix the mayonnaise and curry powder together, then stir in the remaining ingredients.  Refrigerate overnight before serving.

Egg Bread

A long, long time ago, I had a DAK bread machine, and I used to make the most wonderful bread from one of the recipes that came with it - "Golden Egg Bread."  I made a few tweaks to it over time, until the product was exactly what I wanted.  

Added gluten makes the bread rise higher.  Potato flakes make the bread more moist and tender.  Most flour in the grocery stores is unbleached, but bleached bread flour (if you can find it) makes the bread rise higher I buy mine from a food service company in 25-pound bags.

The original recipe made the equivalent of two loaves - it was a LARGE bread machine.  The directions here have been halved.

[NOTE:  These directions are for my KitchenAid Professional 5 Plus.  If you have a KitchenAid Artisan mixer, use speed 2 for the kneading phase.] 

Egg Bread (1 loaf)

2 1/4 t (1 pkt) yeast (rapid rise or bread machine type)

3 1/2 c bread flour

1/4 c plain unflavored potato flakes (Hungry Jack or Idahoan are both good)

4 t vital wheat gluten (I use Hodgson Mill)

1 1/2 t salt

4 T sugar or honey

5 T melted butter (or 1/3 c canola oil)

3/4 c warm milk (or water)

2 eggs (room temperature)

Put ingredients in the mixer bowl in the order listed.  Using the flat paddle, mix on speed 2 until all is incorporated into a shaggy mass.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl, scrape the bottom of the bowl, and scrape off the flat paddle.  Switch the flat paddle for the dough hook and knead on speed 1 for 5 minutes.  Stop the mixer and scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl again, then continue kneading at speed 1 for an additional 5 minutes.  The dough should be smooth, elastic, and a little sticky.

While kneading, spray a large bowl with non-stick spray.  When kneading is finished, transfer the dough from the mixer bowl to the sprayed bowl, and turn it to coat.  Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for about 1 1/2 hours until doubled.  [NOTE:  Some newer ranges have a bread proofing setting for the oven.  This gives you a consistent controlled environment for the rising bread.]

After the first rise, lightly flour a work surface, punch down the dough, and scrape it out onto the floured surface.  Fold in the edges a couple of times, then shape into a loaf and place into a 9" x 5" or 8" x 4" loaf pan sprayed with non-stick spray.  Cover again as before, but spraying the plastic wrap so it won't stick to the dough as it rises.  Let rise until doubled, about 45 minutes (it should rise to about 1 inch above the pan rim).  Bake at 350 degrees (preheated) 40 minutes.  

Take from the oven and remove from the pan onto a wire rack.  If you want a softer, more tender crust, rub some butter over the top of the hot loaf, then cover loosely with plastic wrap until cooled.  Slice with a serrated knife so you don't mash the loaf down.

[TIP:  I use the same piece of plastic wrap for both the rising and the cooling phases of the process.  No need to waste plastic wrap!  Alternatively, you can use a damp linen dish towel if you want to be even more eco-friendly, but I find the plastic wrap does a better job.]

More Watercolor Fun!

When I was a kid, about 11 years old, my aunt Thelma gave me a coloring book of pictures of national parks and a big tin of watercolors.  I remember it had a picture of Mesa Verde on the cover, and the tin must have had thirty or forty little pans of paint and a brush.  I LOVED that gift!

I got to thinking about those paints and that coloring book, and decided to order some national parks coloring books (yes, that's plural!) and the first one arrived last weekend. I sat down with my cheapo Crayola paints and played with the first picture. I used too much water and the paints bled through to the other side of the thin paper - rats.  But there's no picture there so that's okay.

The Crayola paints didn't do too badly, did they?

I used watercolor pencils on the second picture, then "activated" them today with water and a brush. The colors became way more vibrant after the water! I didn't use as much water for that picture, so there wasn't any bleed-through.  Anyway, it was fun!  I'll be experimenting some more.

Here are the watercolor pencil pictures before and after adding water.

Yum-Yum Chicken - A Quick and Easy, Mostly Pantry Staples Recipe

That Girl told me about a dish she made - shrimp and yum-yum sauce over pasta.  I didn't go looking

for the sauce, but during my last foraging trip to Sam's Club, I walked past a BIG bottle of yum-yum sauce and decided to give it a try.  I already had some chicken breasts thawed, ready to cook for dinner, so that's what I used.  

It's a quick, easy, fairly brainless thing you throw together with just a few ingredients.  There are recipes online for yum-yum sauce if you want to make your own.  But the deal here is something you can pull together with minimum time and effort.

[NOTE:  I know this looks different from my earlier recipe posts, but the platform has been "streamlined," and now I can't control the line spacing!  We will see how this shakes out.]

Yum-Yum Chicken

2 T canola oil

2 lb skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into strips or cubes, as desired

3 T minced garlic

1 T red pepper flakes

2 c bottled yum-yum sauce

2 t sesame oil

8 oz pasta (your choice - I used farfalle), cooked per package directions

Heat oil in a 12" skillet or a 14" wok on medium heat, add minced garlic and cook one minute.  Add chicken, brown on both sides, and cook thoroughly.  Sprinkle with red pepper flakes.  Turn heat down to low and add sauce.  If you don't turn the heat down enough, the sauce will separate.  When heated through, remove from heat, stir in sesame oil, and serve over pasta.

more teeny tiny watercolor fun!

I'm working on my watercolors again!  Back to the artist's paints.  

A lot of the painting I'm doing right now is mainly just exercises.  I section my block of watercolor paper with artist's masking tape and do the exercises/practice in smaller rectangles.  I practice brushstrokes and different techniques and materials.

I always start out with washes - flat and graduated, wet in wet, wet on dry, single and multiple colors.  Some are better than others - it's just practice, after all (and I need a LOT of it!) - but it's fun.

My skies always need work, so I was practicing that the other day, and when I was done, a couple of them begged to be turned into little scenes.  Again, nothing exciting, but FUN.  

Not my best rendering of a sailboat.
Just playin' around with the exercise.

I kind of like this one.
Again, just playin' around with paints.

I'm having FUN and experimenting with the paint for now.  There ARE some things I'm planning to make into "real" pictures.  Just need some guts to get started!

Key Lime Pie - A New-to-Me (and EASY!) Recipe

When I go to Florida, I make a point of trying key lime pie at restaurants because I LOVE it, and you don't find it here at home.  I love the sweet/tart filling, the graham cracker crust, and the whipped cream on top.  YUM!

I finally decided it might be fun to try to make my own key lime pie.  First of all, of course, you need key lime juice.  Not from the limes you're used to seeing in the grocery.  Key limes are actually a different species from "regular" limes.

Key limes are also known as Mexican or West Indian limes and grow in tropical and subtropical areas.  Key limes grown in Florida are also more aromatic (sort of floral) and the juice is more tart but less acidic than grocery store limes.  They are small and spherical, light yellow when ripe instead of green, have more seeds, and have a much thinner skin, which means they don't store well.  Key limes are grown in Florida, parts of California, and Mexico, but the ones grown in Florida's alkaline soil are less bitter and juicier than the ones grown in Mexico and California.

Grocery store limes are called Persian or Tahiti limes and are larger and more acidic than Florida Key limes.   They are large, dark green, oval-shaped, and juicy.  They have thick skins that help them keep longer and ship more conveniently than Key limes.  Each Persian lime contains two to three tablespoons of juice, compared to two to three teaspoons in a Key lime.

You can substitute lime juice for key lime juice in recipes, and the taste won't be all that different, especially in sweet recipes like Key Lime Pie, but I really wanted to use real Key lime juice for my first try at making it, so I found bottled (GASP!  Heresy!) Key lime juice and used that.  

Nellie & Joe's Key Lime Pie (Baked)

9" graham cracker crust

14-oz can sweetened condensed milk

3 egg yolks (no whites are used)

1/2 c Nellie & Joe's Key West Lime Juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine sweetened condensed milk, egg yolks, and lime juice.  Blend well until smooth.  Pour filling into graham cracker pie crust.  Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.  Allow to stand 10 minutes before refrigerating.  Refrigerate at least 4 hours before serving.  Top with whipped cream.

Something's Gotta Give - Part 2

What do Milk Duds have to do with this?
Read on - you'll see!

When it rains, it pours, they say.

After last week's ordeal (exactly one week ago!) I thought maybe I was over the hump.  Hmmmm...  Guess not.

I've been having some niggling car issues that I've put off a few weeks - after all, I'm not driving much.  I fill up the gas tank about once a month, compared to once a week when I was working!  So I wasn't in a HUGE hurry when the oil change notification popped up on the dashboard display.  I mean, it comes up when the oil life is still supposedly at 20 percent.  Well, I'm not getting it changed until it's a LOT closer to ZERO!

And for a couple of months, when I turn the car, there has been this subtle "thump" from the right rear quarter of the car.  I suspected something in the rear suspension.  Oh, goody.

In the past two weeks, when the car's not moving, the dash display has started showing TWO new notifications:  "Traction Contol Off" and "Service Brake System."  Plus the red idiot light "BRAKES" came on at the same time.  Oh, GOODY.

Yesterday, while I was running some errands, I flipped on my right turn signal, and it started blinking like crazy.  Heavy sigh.  One of the bulbs had burned out.  Good grief. What next???

I'd planned to take the car to the shop this week anyway, so I called and made an appointment to have it looked at today.  By gosh, I was going to remove these low-level automotive anxieties from my brain!

And here's where the
Milk Duds come in.

Then last night, while I was watching an old movie and munching Milk Duds, I lost a crown.  Oh.  My.  Gosh.  Are you kidding me???  Of course, I had to extract the crown from a caramel-y Milk Dud - FUN.  So I called the dentist.  Because it was late at night (well, honestly, early this morning!), I left a message.

This morning, I took the car to the shop, and That Man followed me to take me back home.  Shortly after gingerly eating a bagel for breakfast, I got The Call - come to the dentist's office at 9:00 - ohyespleaseandthankyou!!!

So here's the status as it stands right now!  The dentist cemented the crown back on.  (That Man told me it probably popped off from all the recent stress - HA!)  I was in and out of there in 30 minutes, and it feels fine - like nothing had happened at all.  

I was right about the car's suspension.  The rear shocks were leaking, the right sway bar link was broken, and the control arms were loose.  All those repairs require an alignment, too.  For the brakes, the master cylinder was leaking into the vacuum booster, and that affects the anti-lock brakes and traction control.  The bad turn signal bulb was the right rear, and the oil and filter have been already been changed.  Whew!!!

I'll get the car back tomorrow, and I'll be some mega-bucks poorer, but it's all necessary stuff if I intend to keep the car - and I DO.  

The car only has 201,000 miles on it.  After all this, I should be able to squeeze another 100,000 out of it, don'tcha think?

It's Magnetic!

It's Back-to-School time - one of my favorite seasons!  It's a dangerous time for me to go into nearly any store.  All those pens, mechanical pencils, notebooks, rulers, erasers, and graph paper do something to me.  I want them all!!!

So far, I've shown great restraint.  I've bought only one mechanical pencil, one package of gel pens (10 assorted colors), one 3-subject spiral notebook, three packages of magnets, a box of 96 Crayola crayons, and 3 slap bracelets/rulers.  I rationalized buying the crayons and slap bracelets by telling myself they are for The Grands, then I went back and bought another slap bracelet for myself.  I couldn't resist - it has sharks on it!  And The Grands will never see those crayons.

The "worst" things I bought, though, were the magnets!  For some reason, they just CALLED to me.  I have plenty of magnets on my refrigerator, but when I see one/some I like, that's immaterial.  Here is a selection of SOME of the magnets on my fridge:

 

It's a disease.

MUST.  HAVE.  MORE.  MAGNETS.