Just got a few bell peppers out of my Earth Box garden on the west deck this evening. My tomatoes hate the heat, but the peppers seem to be enjoying it.
This was not originally supposed to be an artistic shot, or even a formal shoot, just an image of a pepper, but a white countertop and black microwave and refrigerator seem to have encouraged other traits for the image.
Fry bacon in large non-stick skillet or fryer. Fry until crisp and fat pools. Remove remaining bacon solids, set aside to cool. Split chicken breasts to divide mass in half, making roughly square portions. Keep pan at at least 300 degrees. Place divided breasts, bone side down, into the hot bacon fat. Cook for about 5 minutes, then verify brownness (top side should be beginning to turn white). Once brown (or golden caramelization), turn breasts over and repeat on opposite side. Once fully cooked, move chicken on to a broiling pan and place into preheated 350 degree oven.
Crumble or mince cooled bacon pieces to the desired texture. Chop chives. Place bacon and chives into a small sauce pan. Heat on low to reactivate remaining fat in bacon. If any drippings or "pan goodies" remain in fryer, deglaze by pouring chicken broth into hot pan, the liquid should sizzle instantly (if it doesn’t, then pan is not hot enough). Gently scrape bottom of fryer to remove any stuck "bits". Cool slightly and pour liquid into sauce pan, add corn starch, salt and pepper. Whisk vigorously until starch is mixed in, then bring to a boil. Gravy will slowly thicken. Once at the desired texture, remove from heat, take chicken out of the oven and serve.
Serving suggestion: with rice.
Preparation Time:
10 minutes
Cooking Time:
25 hours
Yield:
4 servings
Category:
Chicken
Added on Monday, May 25, 2009
This week I have discovered my absolute worst garden enemy, the aphid. The only problem is they are not in the garden, where it is easy to kill them. This is on the AeroGardens, indoors. Today I have been trying to get the little bastards off of my pepper plants. I started by trying to spray them with water, that worked out ok, but not great, it got a lot of them off. I brought the garden in and let the dead fall off, that took out a few more of them. A few hours ago I became bored enough to decide to kill them off manually. I went after the colony with tweezers, q-tips and a cup of warm soapy water (1 part Dawn detergent to 3 parts water). The big boys that I pulled off with the tweezers I drowned in the water, and then the others I swabbed off with the q-tip soaked in the soapy water. That seemed to do the trick, there are few to none of the demon insects left and I feel a little better about the new pepper plants that are growing in the garden I just started.
Aphids are no fun, but its kinda cool having their corpses chained together in a cup of soapy water.
One may think that with being bored, that any chance for activity to occur would be a welcome blessing. Unfortunately, in my world, things seem to all hit at almost the exact same time. My mother has decided to take the rest of the week off from work and take care of some things in the yard, so of course I am needed for that (since she can barely carry a light bag of mulch). Also at the same time, the boyfriend wants to hang out, and by the time I finished with my mother it was too late for that, and now boyfriend is crushed, and I feel nothing but guilt for the fact that I didn’t put a time limit on my mother, since I did agree to hang out with boyfriend, and the thing with my mother was sort of a last minute thing (don’t even remember agreeing to do it, just sort of got started). Now that I’m done with mother, and boyfriend is upset, uncle calls. I have no clue what uncle wants to talk about, since I have decided to take a few minutes to calm down instead of totally cracking, but whatever it is, it is time consuming, since he only calls when he needs technical advice or someone to fix something that he has broken.
I don’t like disappointing people, especially not people who are very close to me. I often wonder if there is something wrong with me, since I can not manage to avoid getting roped into helping certain people, when I have already agreed to do something with someone else. I suppose in my life there aren’t that many things that require a lot of time and that block me from doing other things. In other words, my time management skills suck, and GITI is by no means able to make things like this work (no stated time, so no way to schedule).
On a positive note for today, I have planted about 16 pepper plants, 8 or 10 tomato plants, 2 hibiscus and an azalea (but I can’t forget the 1 broken heart and 1 ignored relative).
For some bizarre reason I decided that I wanted to cook a whole chicken. Having my roasting bags and my bird, I set out to begin working on the chicken this afternoon. I thought it would be no big deal, just rinse, season and pop in the bag. I suppose I subconsciously eliminated the part where there are inner parts to deal with. I really grossed myself out by opening the orifice of the bird and looking in. I grabbed my tongs to finish extracting all of the ickies out. I was so disgusted with having to do that part, which is something I don’t easily. I believe at one point Chris was laughing at me while I was fishing for “spare parts”. Fortunately, the chicken cooked well in its bag and is a nice golden color with a smooth texture of meat. A very lovely chicken.
UPDATE (1906): Decided to use the drippings to make a white gravy, it tastes amazing as well 
I have decided something recently in my kitchen, round knobs on lids and round handles on pans, suck. Anything with a single screw is absolutely stupid. Cookware should be able to be held completely still, and not be dependent on the obedience of a single screw. I have made this decision after having cleaned by new 12″ skillet/fry pan and its lid for the first time this morning. It has a double-post strap handle on the lid and a sturdy handle that is attached firmly to the pan with 3 rivets. My old pan had a handle and a knob that would spin. That made cleaning an absolutely bitch, go to scrub the lid, and the lid starts spinning like a fucking top.
My new pan is a Calphalon Non-stick One CR1394, the old was a Pampered Chef “non-stick” pan. The new pan weights at least twice what the old pan weighed, cleans a lot easier and things don’t spin. Originally the PC pan was replaced because it 1. it spun in place on the burner (not good for stirring), 2. its knob spun (not good for cleaning) and 3. its handle spun (not good for anything).
The snow has melted and it is as if we have gone straight from winter to summer in just a few days. Luckily the nights are still cool and the weather is not too unbearable yet, but 80 degrees in March has me not looking forward to what the weather will be like in June.
With this warm weather I have gotten in the mood for planting and preparing for my summer garden. Earlier today I transplanted the last of the strawberries in the AeroGarden to different containers to finish maturing their root systems, and then I planted my tomato and pepper seeds in the starter tray as the next batch. With a little good weather I should have quite a nice garden this summer. I do not know what I am going to do with 46 tomato plants and 24 pepper plants.
Unfortunately this weekend’s weather will not hold and therefore I am stuck with 20 strawberry plants sitting on the kitchen table until the last frost (traditionally signaled by the blossoming of blackberries).
One of the strawberry plants that has not yet been transplanted out of the AeroGarden has begun blooming. This is a fairly small plant compared to the larger friends that were removed from the garden recently.
This week I have to take these plants out and the starter tray and put them into soil so that I may begin prepping for the summer tomato and pepper plants that will be grown in the new starter tray.
I have been browsing DVDs on Amazon as well as in the Columbia House club, looking at various categories. One of the categories I decided to browse was fitness. I notice something quite disturbing to me when looking at them, most of the covers featured women. Why are there no men in fitness? The only exceptions I found were Billy Blanks (he’s aging), Richard Simmons (hardly a man) and Jake (he’s aging too).
Even searching for military workout DVDs on Amazon returned a majority of women on the results. What gives?
Can men not properly instruct workouts?
There is something quite pleasing about oiling and dressing an old pair of boots. I have an old pair of CAT work boots that I have hidden away in a closet for way too long. They were in pretty bad shape when I pulled them out earlier. Some spots were dark brown (almost black) and some appeared to be fading to a light tan, from varied wear (jeans protecting part, scrapes on the toes, etc). There is a quite rewarding feeling that goes along with taking off the old finish (using oils, warm water and towels) and the putting on a new finish (with boot dressing).
This pair of boots confused me at first. With most of my boots, I clean them (with a little water, brushes and occasionally some shoe cleaning spray) and then apply either dressing, bee oil or polish. These boots feel under the category of boot dressing (polish is for shiny black boots and the oil is for porous leathers). The boots became sticky when I tried applying the dressing (odd reaction for a boot), so I wiped it off and cleaned the area with water. The water didn’t seam to do anything, but strangely, a dry towel and a little bit of sesame oil (not an oil I usually use on boots) worked beautifully, it removed whatever it was on the boot finish and allowed me to put down the dressing.
Now the boots are a consistent medium brown color with a low shine, as they are supposed to have. They are also water protected by the dressing.
