"Lite" chicken pot pie

What toothsome fare is that? Ye gods, it's a Gourmet Magazine "on the light side" Chicken Pot Pie. Those are mashed potatoes for topping, by the way, potatoes mashed with 2% Greek yogurt, water, and chives. The pie itself has chicken breast, onions, carrots, celery, mushrooms, peas, spices and broth. I went the long route and made my own chicken broth from the water I cooked the chicken in. I added a few green beans from the garden. Some wine in the sauce and a tablespoon of sherry made for some very good "light' sauce.

The only problem was that the recipe called for 19 (nineteen, count 'em) ingredients and the green beans made twenty. I made the potatoes from scratch (we frequently used the boxed around our house) and altogther this was fairly high on the labor side, but we ate for two nights and it did not seem like diet fare

Chives from the garden in the potatoes. The dish was colorful and had plenty of eye appeal. I cooked up the rest of the cranberries from 2008 today and also served a side dish of fresh broccoli. Can't ever get enough of those healthful veggies, don't cha know?

Tonight, at seventh inning stretch, we'll break out the apricot bars I made for my Toastmasters meeting today. Pretty good, with apricots from the 'cot king, grown in the flavor zone in California's central valley. http://www.apricotking/. The apricot syrup is incredible on pancakes and waffles. Don't apricots have vitamin A? Ya gotta keep eating them.

Tomorrow, we're back to salad, with a main dish of tuna, artichoke hearts, red onion and white beans. What's not to like?

Then more soup.

That's all.

Eyes Bigger Than Stomach

This is the Apricot Tart with the Cornmeal Crust that I found at Epicurious last weeek--the recipe not the tart. Hie thee to the Apricot King for the best dried apricots and other stuff as well, like syrup and hot pepper jam and their delicious, thick syrup that enhances any pancake, waffle or slice of French toast. www.apricotking.com

We went to the nursery (Brigg's) yesterday to buy bedding plants, and some perennials, and pretty soon the trunk and the back seat of the car were full to capacity of well, stuff that had to be paid for and planted. I always get carried away, and my eyes are not bigger than my stomach (fat chance) but bigger than the beds and assortment of pots we have to accommodate all this greenery.

So everything with the exception of one plant that goes into the wildflower border and the new hostas and impatience (add 10 lilies of the valley) are in the ground. What a job! As in work.

A most unpleasant discovery today. The bad rabbit who eats almost everything had done a number of some of the flowers and he ate the blooms! The verbena was a mass of leaves and stems. Grrrrr! Tomorrow I sprinkle red pepper on those particularly yummy plants. I thinned out some of the dill and coriander which reseeded itself from years past. We had the best salad with fresh dill and I sprinkled coriander (cilantro) on the chili. Yes, chili.

We discovered that we never had chili all winter. Not one bowl. I concocted scads of soups, but forgot to make the New York Times chili recipe. It's so good and so easy. I substituted half a jalapeno for the cayenne, and used half the amount of chili powder, because mine from Penzeys is hot hot hot! I fried up some tortillas and grated a bit of cheddar and was it ever tasty.
www.penzeys.com

So tomorrow I finish planting and Saturday it rains and everyone is happy. Except maybe that rabbit.

The cake plate is an old one with silver on glass, very pretty and until last week, stuck in a box and forgotten.

Fresh fruit season is here, and the tarts will be coming in and out of the oven thick and fast.

Yum!

More Open Salts

I do love these beautiful silver salt cellars, and it's hard to part with them, it really is. I saved a few for my special little girl, and kept a few of the tiny spoons that are so precious.

I bought a set that I had often admired in my in-laws home town which were never part of the collection, and I'm saving those. Doesn't seem fair to keep lovely things in boxes when someone perhaps has a collection she displays. I hope.

Off to the resale shop and then I will bake a delicous apricot tart using dried apricots and a crust with cornmeal. I hope this is good. The apricots are from the 'cot king in California. All his 'cots are divine, including the hot pepper jelly and the syrup. www.apricotking.com/

My 75 pages of Festival Madness have been tweaked until they just hum, and S.O. has offered two good suggestions. He's becoming a useful editor, having sat through a zillion hours of writing discussions and panels. Who knew?

Onward, onward and onward.

Grapeshot

A Waiting Game in Foxborough

Waiting for the game to start, and I may as well confess that I've had frissons of nervousness all week. Bill Bellicek, Tom Brady, et. al. How will it play out? Suspense, conflict, good characters, hey, this sounds like a novel. Maybe that's why it's so interesting. The characters are tough, but are they flawed? Flawed enough? I like their steely determination, the grittiness of it all. We don't usually watch the x+1 hours of pre-game hype. Maybe I'll allow myself an hour. What the hell?

Beautiful weather in the Boston area--they could be playing here today. I took a walk and found perfect football weather--sunny, cool, a bit of a breeze but pleasant.

The bean dip is ready. I mixed some of the bought-by-mistake bean salsa into the real bean dip, and got out the chips. S.O. pronounced it edible. We're going with the chicken and pasta casserole in a mornay sauce with baked crumbs on top. The Domino ad was so cool and showed the Dominos a couple miles from here--we recognized the intersection. Even the pizza looked good, but I usually make my own.

Blueberry pancakes this morning made with sour 2% milk and diet Bisquick, the only diet fare we'll see today. I bought some Schaller and Weber double-smoked bacon--to die for. It's slab bacon, which I had been having trouble finding. Always a good feeling to use up something like soured milk without pouring it down the sink. We put Apricot syrup from the Apricot King (grown in the flavor zone) on the pancakes. Their products are so delicious. http://www.apricotking.com/.

The New York Times Book Review was thick today, and I haven't finished reading it yet, what with walking and cooking and je ne sais quoi. So my analysis will come later this week.

I'm preparing to do the dreaded Tax Workbook the accountant sends us every year. Takes about 6-8 hours to get everything entered. I keep all the receipts together all year, but somehow this is heavy duty paper work which I hate. They don't call it paper work for nothin.'

This week we're venturing forth to the new Opera House to see My Fair Lady. We were in the Opera House years ago when it was literally falling apart, but one could see intimations of the glory days, and now that's it's been rehabbed, I'm curious to see if it captures the former grandeur.

I have to come up with a speech about writing for Toastmasters. I'm thinking of talking about characters and where they come from and how real they become to the author. Should be fun, maybe even edifying.

Yesterday the Globe had an article about all the glitzy parties in Arizona, pre-game parties. Some people don't even go to the game, they just fly down, party and come home before the game. The number of private jets flying into the area is unbelievable. I've been flying into Sky Harbor since there was just one terminal. One always gasps at the huge Valley of the Sun and peers down to see the Camelback, and the plane makes a huge loop and comes in and lands heading East. You can see a gazillion swimming pools, and the baked area of the valley and the green of the city--all that water. In a sense, it always feels like coming home, because I visited there so often over the years. I hope my favorite Mexican Restaurant, Such Is Life, is benefiting from the hoopla. Well, enough for today.

So, let's hear it for the Patriots!