Finally, paper numero uno is completed for my damned American Lit course, a paper gently mocking James Fenimore Cooper’s American masculine sublime as symbolized by Natty Bumppo and Major Duncan Heyward.
I swear, Cooper would have bumped uglies with Hawkeye if he could figure out how to get it on with one of his own literary characters.
Earlier this week I got a hankerin’ for my mom’s recipe for chicken pot pie. It was a favorite when I was a kid, and signifies what I think of when I think of a warm, comforting winter meal. Mom got the recipe out of the newspaper when they lived in Oklahoma in 1973, and it’s the one she and my sisters still use.
This was my first attempt.
Once Mom transcribed the recipe to me over the phone, I immediately put Chef to the work of tweaking the instructions. We added wine and peas (”You can’t have pot pie without peas.”), decided on proper chicken broth instead of using only the water the chicken was boiled in, argued over whether to add potatoes (too much starch, I say), and debated whether or not to keep the frozen veggies or add fresh (laziness won out). We also opted for some good, hard cheddar grated directly over the top instead of using prefab cheese food product. Finally, at the suggestion of my mom, we cut the original biscuit recipe altogether and went with the recipe on the back of a Clabber Girl Baking Powder can, outlined below.
This was a more expensive venture than I thought, and since I won’t handle raw meat and making a (pseudo-gravy-like) roux intimidates the hell out of me, Chef did all that. Chef was also really bothered at the idea of boiling chicken, remarking all the while that it “just doesn’t feel right.”
I really wish we’d gotten a picture of this when it was fresh out of the oven. It was delicious.
Ingredients
1 boneless chicken breast
2 boneless chicken thighs
1/4 cup butter
1 medium onion chopped
1/4 cup flour
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup milk
1/2 cup white wine
juice from 1/2 fresh lemon
2 teaspoons fresh tarragon, chopped
1 teaspoon fresh thyme, chopped
1 cup celery, sliced
1 cup carrots, thinly sliced
9 oz. pkg. green beans
1 1/2 cups frozen peas
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup to 1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
Prepare the chicken:
Boil 1 chicken breast and 2 thighs in water until done. Dice and set aside.
Prepare the filling:
In saucepan, saute carrots, celery, peas and onion in butter until tender. Once tender, deglaze* the pan with white wine. Add flour and let cook until flour smells nutty. Add chicken broth, milk and lemon juice.
Cook whole mixture until thickened, then add cubed chicken. Stir in tarragon and thyme. Salt and pepper to taste.
If mixture gets too thick, add more chicken stock or white wine.
Remove from heat, stir in green beans, and pour evenly into casserole dish. Should be slightly runny so the biscuits do not soak up all the moisture.
Prepare the biscuits:
2 cups white flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable shortening
3/4 cups milk
1/2 tsp. salt
Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt. Cut in shortening with fork until mixture resembles course cornmeal. Add milk and blend with a fork until dough pulls away from the side of the bowl (do not overwork or your biscuits will be flat). Knead lightly about 30 seconds and roll onto floured surface until 3/4 inch thick. Cut dough into circles with a biscuit cutter (I use a drinking glass), dipping cutter into flour between cups.
Place biscuits on top of casserole mixture evenly until they completely cover the top. Sprinkle shredded cheese on top of biscuits and bake in 400 degree oven for 18-22 minutes until biscuits are done and filling is bubbly. Remove from oven and let set for 5-10 minutes until filling sets. Serve, swoon, go back for seconds, and drop off into a comfort food coma.
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* Hit the pan with the wine and scrape up all the good bits like you do when you’re making gravy.
Today I added at least ten new blogs to the feed. Doesn’t mean I can keep up with them.
It’s one of those videos with some lyrics I could do without that is nevertheless awesome.
I like the shoutouts at the end.
Originator of our new favorite household phrase.
It’s a shame Mark Twain never had a blog.
Why (WHY????) do people have to pay their bills in person?
[Post excludes people who do not have checking/debit/credit accounts.]
The educational spiral is on: When choosing between The Last of the Mohicans and Alien, Alien will win every time.
This correspondence course thing would be so much easier if I didn’t have self-imposed deadlines.
Chef is in the kitchen stuffing ginger-wasabi sausage, E is in the den finishing the 4th season of Buffy, and I am in the office with a glass of malbec, smelling cat poo and researching James Fenimore Cooper.
How’s your Monday?
People are still posting to this comment thread about Brangelina 2 1/2 years after it’s initial publish date. God, I love teh internets.
Added to the list of things I don’t do: Sending Xmas cards. There was that one time I sent out thank yous for Xmas gifts (in April), but I think that was the only time I’ve ever attempted anything remotely similar. I know my lack of card-sending has pissed other people off before but that in itself is just not an incentive.
Maybe I should just send out a single blanket THANK YOU - HAPPY BIRTHDAY - HAPPY HOLIDAYS to anyone who might expect one, ever.
Chef (watching TV, ED commercial ends): Do you think I should get male enhancement?
Me: You’re not getting enough mail? I get a lot of catalogs and stuff. Lots and lots of catalogs.
Chef: Nice.
Me: Do you want me to send you a card or something?
I like what TNC is getting at here:
The thing that I find so appealing about Obama on race is he spins the thing forward–he talks about it in a way that enrolls everyone in the sort of progressive agenda that will ultimately help black and brown people. It’s rhetoric, I know, but it’s important. The worst thing to happen to this ongoing conversation around race is the creation of a kind of zero-sum thinking. We debate over whether Affirmative Action takes jobs from hard-working whites. We argue over whether welfare allows lazy black women to leach off the system, or if lax crime policy leads to the rise of young superpredators.
Progressives need to stop fighting on their enemies’ terrain. We need a paradigm that pitches our policies as in the self interest of all Americans. We have to start thinking of our drug laws as bad–not for black America–but for America. It may be true that the justice system is racist, but why are we fighting that battle? The bigger question is does it work? Are we comfortable being a world-leader in incarceration? How do we, as a country, want to allocate our resources? It can’t be a matter of helping out the blacks–noble as that may be. I get the appeal toward social justice, and history. I just think it’s a nonstarter. We have to argue from the perspective of patriotic self-interest, of doing what we need to do to compete in the world.
Personally, when I argue with conservatives in the vein of my dad, I like to point out how most progressive ideals are good for the greater economy — and thus one’s own pocketbook. Once you get past the “I want to spend my money like I want, down with taxes” conservative cliche, rarely is there a viable comeback. It’s not that I don’t believe in the historical, oft imperialistic implications to ignoring progressive social issues — I’m a fucking heart-on-the-sleeve liberal — I just really want to see progress made. If that means reframing my own rhetoric, I goddamned will.
“Because it’s in your own best interest” is pretty effective politics.
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