Showing posts with label crimini mushrooms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crimini mushrooms. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

You can? Thanks!

Yesterday I finally got someone to sell me a cheap emergency phone to replace the one I lost, the one I borrowed and the one I bought that didn't work. Living on Culebra and buying a phone in the states makes life extra fun, so I decided to buy one I can toss at the end of this trip. Works for me! I hope...

And if life isn't exciting enough with all of that, I also finally found the hardware I needed, deep in the bowels of some box or another, to put together book cases so I could load 'em up with a few hundred books. Yes yes, hold on to your pacemaker, it was a wild whirl for sure.

So here are some shots from the other day that I didn't post. I'll try to do something more exciting soon enough. There is a big boat show coming up as well as a certain blond-haired tornado a few of us know and love blowing into town for a day or so. Hang on; it can't all be motorcycles, wooden ships and moose.

* * * * * * * 

This bench is across the river. I found a very neat spot down a path from my regular spot...two Adirondack chairs connected by a table, sitting on the water's edge (did I post that already?), turned to look down the way, so I went back there...to sit in them. I thought, well, no one will be out here this early on a Sunday morning, I'll just be here a minute. On my way back through the woods a guy cheerily said good morning, commenting on the glorious day and his errant dogs (a cheery hello in Maine is a big thing, by the way). When I got back and mentioned his cheeriness to Laurie, she told me, "Oh, you know those chairs you found on that path the other day? That's the guy who owns all of that land; he gave those to his sister for a present...he just came by to talk about doing some tree work around here..."
I guess I'll leave this bench alone...

Not that guy's mushroom

 I forget exactly what Laurie told me this is called, something like 
False Lavender, but it's pretty...oh, and it's his lavender too. Oopsy.

Not his mushroom dos - I'm going to miss doing one thing I really would like to do, a Mushroom Walk, learning to identify some around here, to do something I'd like more, the Maine Boats, Homes and Harbors show- I might never see some of these boats and builders in person again, so sorry, 'shrooms!

I do love the trees here...young, old, standing, falling...so beautiful, so MANY! Oh yeah, his tree. But hey, this guy was in knee high rubber boots, with a big old coon dog and a YORKIE - I bet he'd not mind a whole lot that I trespassed his path, so thanks, guy in the woods!

On a very sad note, a dog was poisoned around my Culebra neighborhood yesterday. Chacho's crime was having an owner who let him wander, despite warnings, and living in a world with some human who could do such harm to him.. He was a big, sweet dog, a companion for a few of us who walk in and out of town a lot.

He (and no animal) did not deserve to die such a cruel death. We need to keep getting the word out that there are alternative ways to control wandering animals, an often difficult issue, but one that Chacho's owner learned at the cost of his dog's life and that the killer has on his or her soul. If you know the owner of a loose animal, please let them know the consequences can be real and final. If you know the poisoner, let them know there are other ways to solve the problem and people willing to help solve it. RIP Chacho, you'll be missed.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

What I really cooked



Thinking that I might never see leeks on Culebra again, it was hard to decide what to do with them, so many recipes looked excellent and delicious. But this one seemed to be exactly what I wanted, with a few additions of my own.



Pan Roasted Leeks & Chicken (basic recipe is taken from foodandwine.com - recipe by Nancy Harmon Jenkins)

Ingredients
  1. 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
  2. 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  3. 10 medium leeks (3 pounds)—trimmed, slit and rinsed (I used two leeks)
  4. Salt and freshly ground pepper
  5. One 4-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces (I used leftover chicken, maybe 1 pound worth)
  6. 3 rosemary sprigs, halved
  7. *

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 450°. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in 1 tablespoon of the oil in a skillet. Add the leeks; cook over moderately high heat, turning, until browned in spots, 6 minutes. Transfer to a 9-by-13-inch baking dish, season with salt and pepper and roast for 10 minutes, or until beginning to soften.
  2. Wipe out the skillet. Melt the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter in the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil. Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Add the chicken and rosemary to the skillet; cook over moderate heat until browned, about 10 minutes. Set the chicken on the leeks, skin side up, add the rosemary and roast for about 20 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through and the leeks are very tender. Serve hot.

* I added sauteed crimini mushrooms & diced red and green hot peppers as well as cherry tomatoes. I used 1 tablespoon less butter and olive oil and added marsala wine, along with leftover rotisseried chicken with the most of the skin removed.



And wa la...a dinner that will be way too much food for one meal, (with the altered amounts I used), so it will be dinner, lunch and munch. It would work overly well for two, and if rice was added - I'd go with yellow rice, for the color as well as the taste - you could serve 3 or 4. Really.

Buen provecho!