Mysterious Chicken

The question "What's for supper?" was answered by "Nothing" and "I don't know." So I grabbed my basket and cane and hobbled to IGA in the rain after a hard day at the mine (craft store, actually.) Don't I have a hard life? They say stress makes you fat, so that's my excuse.

Believe it or not, the most economic meat in the meat display was beautiful chicken breasts, so I plopped them in my basket and headed home to prepare them for a late Monday night hockey game supper.

Unfortunately I never checked the cooking sauce section of my kitchen cupboard, for when I got home I found that I had no barbecue sauce, no teriyaki sauce....no anything to bring this meal up to a Food Network standard. So I hunted fridge, and I hunted cupboard, but the only bottle of stuff that tastes good I could find was Thousand Islands Salad Dressing.

Now, Howard hates it - it belongs on stuff he believes only rabbits should eat. And Neil hates anything with a mayonnaise base - I probably shouldn't mention it here, but his big brother used to chase him around the house with a bottle of mayo when he was little. But what the heck, these two were busy, face into a semi-final hockey game, and what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them.

Here is the pattern for the best ever Mystery Chicken - (I knit a lot...) -

Wash chicken and lay in oven-proof dish (plastic would melt.) Spread tons of Thousand Islands Dressing over chicken, turn over chicken and swish it around to cover as much as you can with the dressing. Add tons of onions and salt and pepper.

Cover and plop in 400 degree oven, as you want it to cook as quickly as possible - it's already after 7:00pm.

(When I checked in about 45 minutes, the dressing was still sitting whitely on the chicken. I knew Howard would think the chicken was baking in some kind of cream of something soup, and therefore would refuse to eat it, so I had to somehow darken and thin the dressing - so here comes the next step.)

Add 1/4 bottle of Teriyaki Cooking Sauce - which is as much as there was in the fridge door - and try as much as possible to mix it in with the salad dressing, to camouflage the colour and hopefully turn it into a sauce, disguised enough so the salad dressing will remain hidden.

Keep cookin' until the chicken is so nicely done everyone is pleased with it - because this mysterious sauce is such a hit that everyone just loved it. Tender, and great tasting! Who woulda thunk it - maybe I'll try out for Top Chef Canada.

The Easiest Diet of All..so Far

Well, so far, my diet is going really well. I'm not craving anything, but that could be because whenever I want to eat something, I do. Yesterday's buttertart muffin was especially delicious. Also, I'm not suffering from hunger pangs, therefore am not short-tempered or snappy, which I'm sure is appreciated by the people who live with me.

I am using my legs more, and clocked quite a few miles this weekend. In fact, my cane is started to wear
away on the bottom. I'm hoping the same thing will happen to my bottom, but we'll have to wait and see about that. Surrey has hills, unlike Richmond, where a walk means a flat stroll around any given block. The corner store that serves soft serve and chocolate bars is but a hop, skip and a jump away from our house - however, since it is now difficult to do either of these three things, I stick to steps.

 In Surrey, Walmart is almost half an hour's walk, uphill one way, although there is a corner shop both ways, coming and going. Unless we take the short cut by the hydro lines, which is really no shorter, just away from traffic. Am I rambling?

Anyway, off to work. So many choices for lunch...soup, sandwich, salad, carrot cake.....need I say more? Wish me luck.....

My Ultra Fantastic Fruit Crisp Recipe

TOPPING
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup rolled oats

Mix dry ingredients together then cut in butter with pastry blender or cut butter in small pieces and rub in with your fingers until mixture gets nice and crumbly. IMPORTANT NOTE: This recipe can easily be doubled, assuming you have a full block of butter in your fridge - Keep the extra in a container in your fridge for weeks and weeks...until you find some more delicious fruit and need a break from that damn diet food.

FRUIT
Place cut up fruit in oven-safe bowl. Use any fruit, add sugar depending on sweetness or tartness of fruit. For example, even though rhubarb is technically a vegetable, add a lot more sugar than if you were using apples or peaches, okay? Our personal favourite is rhubarb/apple crisp. Yummy

Sprinkle topping over fruit and bake in 375 degree oven for about 45 minutes - stab a fork in to make sure fruit is cooked. Serve with cream, ice-cream, whipped cream, ReddiWhip, Cool Whip.....whatever you desire. Or just serve with a spoon.

If you want to cut calories and fat grams just leave out the sugars and the butter, but don't expect to get anything that tastes good.

 

INSTEAD OF BAKING GOODIES....

What good is an oven if you want to cut out eating juicy rhubarb/apple pies, or scrumpdelicious berry crisps, or warm cottage puddings with warmer brown sugar sauces?

(For some reason I don't feel like starting my diet this week either....)

Well. one can use an oven for many different things, one being Lumpies, of which I made hundreds (?) back in the 80's. My Lumpies had the strange ability to be friends' mini-me's, and it was tons of fun. I still have this book - if you get so inclined to follow my generous footsteps, I'll send you the instructions...
Meanwhile, my brother and sister'n'law in Guelph have a collection of them, if you want to visit and check them out for yourself, let me know and I'll send you their address.

Another non-calorie use for the oven is..have you guessed it already? I bet you have...

...it's the record bowl!

 Instructions here:  http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Bowls-out-of-Vinyl-Records

So, you can put your chips'n'cheesies in the bowl while you spin your Beatles LP's and drive your IPod kids crazy with the beautiful sounds of scrunching chips and scratchy pop records. Couldn't ask for a better way to spend one's Saturday afternoon. Also...because there is a lovely little hole in the middle of the bottom, it would be a terrific planter for your back deck.
Oh, forget the chips and cheesies, though. Why does everything have to swing back to food?
I'm a bit hungry right now, come to think of it...I guess I should eat the last buttertart muffin from Walmart so it doesn't tempt me tomorrow morning - just in case I do start my diet then after all! I'll just pop on Cat Steven's Morning Has Broken first...

10 REASONS TO LOSE WEIGHT

Well, I'm definitely not ready to start dieting today. I just had my toast and coffee for breakfast, and I don't know if we're going to Vancouver for a walk-around or not, since my dear husband doesn't seem to be talking to me today. We'll see. It may turn out to be a laundry and tidy and sit-and-knit day, and I guess I can live with that.
So, let's see...what diet-related words can I include in this post...okay, I got it, here we go...

10 REASONS TO LOSE WEIGHT (take that, David Letterman, you're not the only person who can come up with lists)

1.  One doesn't have to have one's tummy sitting on one's lap when one sits down.
2. The clothes in my meager wardrobe are either too big or too small, so I either have to eat waaaay more chocolate, or eat less of just about everything.
3. I hate looking at pictures of me, although I know if I do manage to lose weight, all my friends (both of them), will start telling me I look sick, but at least the back on pics may be easier on the eye.
4. I would definitely reverse my Real Age, which presently is about 8 years older than my True Age, which sort of really sucks, especially since I feel the former and not the latter. Oprah had a Real Age of about 15 years younger than her Real Age, but that was a few years ago.  Check yours at  https://login.realage.com/login/                                  
5. There is a chance I would sleep better. Howard swears I snore but whenever he snorts in his sleep loud enough to wake himself up, I am already awake and he blames my snoring for waking him. Go figure.
6. It could make my sore miserable knee last longer, as it wouldn't have to bear as much weight when I took it walking. That's about all I could do now anyway - it wouldn't run, or skate, or skip, or probably even climb the Grouse Grind, although I can occasionally manage a rough game of make-up-your-own rules softball with the grandkids
7. I could possibly lower my blood pressure without the help of pharmaceuticals - and thus help our health insurance plan save money.
8. I could spend my muffin and cupcake money on yarn.
9. I wouldn't have to through security turnarounds at Canadian Tire and SkyTrain stations sideways.
10. I would feel better in just about every way - so I hear.

So that's it for now. Today I will try not to eat cookies, and that should be easy as we don't have any in the house. I'll eat strawberries - we have strawberries.

I heart Cupcakes

This blog is gonna be all about FOOD - as I have realized I should probably, maybe, definitely,  lose weight. So it's going to be my journey, either losing, gaining, or staying the same. Hopefully either the former or the latter. Unfortunately, most of my 'diet' journeys have ended up with me weighing more than before I started.
Since I've started watching the Food Network, I realize that you can serve little tiny servings of delicious looking food on plates the size of dustbin lids, and the judges of the competition shows don't seem to mind at all. That could be because they eat dishes from about 20 contestants, of course. Never thought of that before.
Anyway, I probably won't start dieting tonight, but I am being good about walking, even though I have a rotten miserable knee. Maybe tomorrow or next week, I'll start giving up cupcakes and fudge brownies - I'm feeling sad already.  I'm sure I'll find an excuse to postpone until the time is right.
However, I don't want this to be just a calorie -counting calorie-burning account of my days. Here you will find my favourite secret family recipes, plus tips that even though they may not work for me, may work for you.
One thing I promise you - I may not be losing weight, but I definitely am losing my mind. So the title will be very appropriate. If you want to join me, or challenge me, or dare me...go ahead.