telophase | Long time no see!

I worked Saturday, so I had Monday off, and then I ended up with today (Tuesday) off as there was a very, very uneventful ice storm*. So I've been inside making kanzashi - I've discovered that I can make tiny ones (3/4" squares of fabric) using chirimen silk** and it works better than the other scraps I've got.

The kitten has also been driving me nuts as he really wants to help me with things like a plugged-in hot glue gun, a board covered with a thick layer of rice starch paste, and various sharp cutting and piercing implements.

He also has managed to get himself knocked in the head TWICE. Once as I was coming in from work - the garage door is at the bottom of a dark stairwell, and he was poking about down there as I came in and got in the way of my foot. I had no idea he was there. He hasn't been there since, fortunately. And then tonight I was on the exercise bike and he was trying to get in between one pedal and the bookcase it was next to, instead of, say, going around the other side which has 3 feet of clearance, and got himself knocked in the head with the pedal.

As he is a kitten and has only three working brain cells anyway, it's not too much of a problem. XD***

The cat is now involved in her proper role of mother cat and is teaching him the joys of sleeping on laundry.

I also made this recipe today - Crockpot Lima Beans and Chicken. Which is, pretty much, lima beans, chicken, and potatoes. It was good but was missing something and I can't quite figure out what.

Those of you who dislike lima beans can keep snarky commentary to yourself and give me all your lima beans. I love the things. Which is good, as I hate all squash including and especially zucchini****, broccoli, cauliflower, okra, cabbage and other cruciferous vegetables, and basically large amounts of vegetables except for the expensive ones like leeks, artichokes, and asparagus.

Am way far behind in reading my LJ f-list and may not actually catch up. If there's anything you wish to draw my attention to, drop me a comment. :)

ETA: Have also finished listening to Scalzi's The Ghost Brigades while making kanzashi and have started in on listening to The Last Colony. Will listen to Zoe's Tale afterwards. Hopefully they either got a female narrator for ZT or a male narrator who does a better job of female voices than the one who read TGB.

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* Drizzle and below-freezing temps over an extended period of time. Not a good combo in Texas, because nobody can drive on it, but everybody thinks they can.

** Silk woven with a twist to the thread.

*** I did check that he was OK afterward. I'm not that heartless.

**** Occasional tolerance granted to recipes that involve lots of other ingredients and which successfully disguise all taste whatsoever of the squash. A squash soup I've had, zucchini bread, etc. Pumpkin also excepted provided it involves lots of sugar and is in the form of a pie.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If the recipe is missing something, without even looking I'd say it's probably bacon.

Having checked the recipe, yep, it's definitely bacon. :) You could chop up a few strips, fry them to render the fat, brown the chicken in the drippings and then just throw the bacon into the crockpot with everything else.

I've never had lima beans before, but I think it would be a fair trade for more cauliflower and broccoli. Omnomnom. Though I think my love of cauliflower is partly from when I was a kid and I used to pretend they were brains I was dissecting. I was a strange child. :)

Lima beans are awesome. I love them! Especially taking the time to bite the skin off and split them in two.

Looking at the recipe, I'd suggest that the 'vegetable oil' might be better if one used something with a strong flavor. I'd use sesame oil because I like it. We also used to have something that called itself 'garlic oil' which was mostly linseed but had enough garlic that we couldn't use more than a drop or two of it in any recipe (we're wusses when it comes to spice).

If you ever want for some reason to use squash to cook, I recommend using a pureed squash to thicken soups or stews. I can't taste it when I do that, at least not if I've got the proportions right, use some form of stock for the soup base and add other flavorings. (Hummos also works as a soup/stew thickener.) I've also used pureed squash instead of water or milk when making biscuits with Bisquick and generally can't taste it there.

Of course, there's no reason you should cook with squash if you don't want to, and what I can't taste may be really nastily obvious to you. Such things vary.

Mmmm I emailed you the other night about webhosting things. I hope you can help me? XD;;

Hrm. There are no aromatics (http://www.timesoftheinternet.com/absolutely-scrumptious/what-are-aromatics/), fairly minimal amounts of herbs and spices, and none of the main ingredients have terribly assertive flavors on their own: that all seems like a setup for a fairly bland end product. If I were making this, I think at a minimum I would sweat or even caramelize some diced onions along with the chicken, and probably add a bit of minced/crushed garlic as well; I'd increase the amount of thyme, and add some other herbs -- sage and rosemary would be my top choice but anything else you tend to prefer on chicken or potato dishes -- tarragon, dill, chervil, parsley -- could work. Or you could certainly use leeks instead if you want a milder onion-y aromatic note. (If I were feeling more ambitious, I'd probably start with a broader mix of aromatics, like a classic mirepoix or sofrito or Cajun trinity, and might even just wind up playing around with the spices until I ended up with a sort of curried sauce...but I'd also probably add a bunch of other vegetables too, because I like most types of veg...)

It was more flavored than I thought it would be from the recipe, as the thyme asserted itself, I browned the chicken nicely, and I used a double dose of a store-bought reduction to make the stock. :D But it's lacking ... umami, I guess.

I'll be poking about with the recipe along the lines of the suggestions to see how it goes.

(I'm always amazed at the sheer volume of recipes online that are posted by people who are afraid of flavor!)

But it's lacking ... umami, I guess.

Definitely...if you like them, adding some mushrooms could help there, and be a tasty addition to the current ingredients. Or subsitute shoyu or worcestershire sauce for the salt...maybe even put a little wine in with the chicken stock. And a nice rich homemade stock, or a good commercial demi-glace like you had, would surely make a big difference: I'm kind of cringing a bit at the thought of how flat that would be with the blander sorts of canned broth...

I also realize that I gave it twice the amount of liquid - I'd halved the potatoes and lima beans, since I only had 1 3/4 pounds chicken, but forgot to halve the chicken broth. XD No matter! It had the perfect amount of liquid that way!

I also ahve no idea how much thyme I put in, as I poured it into my hand and put it in instead of measuring, and I extrapolated from a direction in the instructions that said to sautee the chicken in the butter and oil that I should melt butter into the oil tos tart with. XD

Mmmmmm, mushrooms.

Long time no see!

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