Cream of Chicken Soup Doesn't Always Suck

I can be an awful restaurant companion. If a chef has hidden tamarind in a marinade, I will taste it. Saffron in the reduction? I'll find it. Champagne instead of white wine in the vinaigrette? I'll know. Conversely, if the soup isn't made with real homemade chicken stock, I'll scowl. Don't even try making hollandaise from a mix... lamentably, I'll talk about it all evening.

When I cook at home, I also have very exact ideas about how food should be prepared. Sausage for pasta must be the cut to the same size as the pasta or smaller. The only canned food really appropriate for human consumption is tuna and/or beans. I'm not Martha, and I do slip, but by and large, I'm a foodie with a capital F.

6:00 this evening dinner needed to be on the table. Fast. Hot. Kid Friendly Dinner.
Women reading this everywhere are feeling the universal pit in their stomach right now - right?

Rather than crafting a lovely cassolet or pasta fagiole, I did what moms for generations have done - threw a bunch of processed food in a dish, covered it with cream of chicken soup and baked it - Easy Chicken Pot Pie. Know what? It was the perfect meal on a *&*%!&$ cold night like this. The kids loved it, ate some veggies and the best part is that not only is dinner done, but so are dishes! Its not low fat, but I figure since I'm now living in the arctic, I'll never have use for my bikini again. So in hopes I can spare some of you, dear friends, one night of dinner anxiety, here's the recipe:

Combine in a good sized casserole dish:
*One deli roasted chicken stripped of as much meat as you feel like pulling off
*One bag of your favorite frozen mixed veggies
*One can of cream of chicken soup
*Enough milk or half/half to make the soup soupy
*Pepper
Cover with:
*One can of refrigerator biscuits
*Whatever shredded hunks of cheese are lurking in your fridge
Bake at 425 until biscuits are done and veggies are cooked - About 30 minutes.

multi-post

Forgive me mother for I have sinned. Its been five weeks since my last post.

You know its been a while since you blogged when you freakin' forget your user name AND password. Of course, these days my tiny little brain would forget my own name if it wasn't for on all of the bills from the holiday. There's too much stuff up in my poor head to organize it all properly - so below find random post-ettes regarding:

Adventures in crustacians:

Much as we try not be a cow town, Denver is not exactly known for fine seafood. But the Asian market here has the most beautiful live lobsters. Happy lobsters in tanks so big that you can smell them the minute you walk in the door. Even better, cheap lobsters. The recipe was ridiculously simple - boil water, add lobster. We washed them down with - what else- chilled champagne and realized that money really can buy happiness.

Breakfast (Lunch and Dinner) at Tiffany
I adore the Tiffany mittens featured in Knitty. Faced with a long holiday roadtrip I thought these would be the perfect project and I was right. But not the perfect project for me. I should have had more fair-isle experience before starting solo. Halfway through the first mitten, I've lost that lovin' feelin'. There's an impossible number of ends to weave in and the green and red yarns are slightly different gauges, so the fabric has some major puckering issues. I'm afraid these might sit in my stash for a few years until I have the heart to rip them out.

Felted slippers take 1,000,002:
I must be the last knitter in the world who hasn't tried to make a pair of the Fiber Trends Felted Clogs... but made a pair for my dad for Christmas. I gave them to him pre-felted and pretended to be shocked that they didn't fit. The gag lasted five whole minutes. Post felting, they were perfect. It understandable why this pattern is so popular! I love it, despite having to count like crazy, its a quick pattern and even when I did screw up a bit, felting hid all my sins.

W.I.P ing me into shape:

Tulips (work in progress) - after putting down Tulip to start on holiday knitting this fall I picked it back up. I remember fighting with it this fall, struggling to keep the stitches from falling off the needle and fighting boredom with all miles of micro-stockinette stitches. But now I found the rhythm and its going quickly. Cast on for the front left side yesterday and should finish tonight. Knitting a spring cardi is a great anticdote to all of the endless snow we've been getting.

Also bought some Fiesta Watermark in Santa Fe over Thanksgiving and its been tempting me ever since. What better to show off its charms than Clapotis? The yarn is much chunkier than the pattern gauge suggests, but the patten makes adaptations soo easy, its been a joy to knit.