We Climbed before the Klimb 4 Kim...

We Climbed before the Klimb 4 Kim...
1997's Climb

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Where are the vegetables?

    Today, my southwest mom, Angie, calls me up and says she is making the vodka sauce...'you guys sure eat a lot of pasta' she tells me...yes, indeed, I tell her...pasta is our friend!  'Did you guys eat much meat?'  Well, not too much red meat, although I could probably eat carne asada every day.  Kim did have one killer london broil recipe that I'll get to...we eat a lot of chicken, though - that's meat, right?  'How about fish?' Angie asks.  Yes, fish tacos!  I would grill the fish and Kim would make some incredible salsas - she had this mango one that just made the taco so juicy and sweet!  Which reminded me, 'Angie!  Vito has made a fish burrito with chipolte sauce that is incredible!'...I had one Friday and asked Vito why I should eat a burrito at an Italian restaurant...dumb question - try one at Viro's on 22nd and Sarnoff and you'll see!  'Well', Angie said, 'you'll get to eat a lot of those, Lent starts in just over a week!'.  And then she dropped the hammer.  "Dave, I notice that your recipes don't have a lot of vegetables"...yeh, uh, vegetables...Kim was always good about making sure she kept us well rounded and could make any vegetable taste good - even brussel sprouts!  When we met, I ate virtually NO vegetables - just corn, potatoes and rice - which is largely what I still make today!  'Actually, Angie, that recipe Andrea gave me with the chicken, rice, peas and carrots - yes, there they are!  Peas and carrots!!'...I think I posted this recipe before - let me know if I didn't, because it is a great one!
      Despite the obvious victory of having put peas and carrots in one recipe, I promise Angie I will do better - and tonight, I made chicken marsala, arrborio rice and...wait for it....peas!  Sometimes Kim would mix the peas directly into the arrborio rice, which was excellent - but I had already made the rice before Angie called, so I had to go back and make the peas separately...
Oh, and I did take this photo before Angie called, too, so the peas came later...honestly!

To make this delight, take 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts and pound them as flat as you can.  Melt 1 tlb of butter and 1 tlb of olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  When hot, put the chicken in and brown them on both sides.  Remove the chicken - put them aside for now.
Add 1 tlb of olive oil to the skillet.  Add 1 large shallot, finely chopped (or about 1/2 cup of red onion would work nicely!) and 2-4 cloves of minced garlic.  Saute these for about 30 seconds.  Add another tlb of olive oil if too dry.  Add a 1 to 2 cups of sliced mushrooms and saute until tender.  Add a punch of salt. Pour in 1/2 cup of Marsala cooking wine.  Simmer about 2 minutes.  Pour in 3/4 of chicken broth and a fresh rosemary sprig (out here, you can just pick one from someone's front yard!).  Simmer another 3-4 minutes.  Return the chicken to the skillet until cooked through, turning to coat.  Mangia!

This was a great one Kimmy would tantalize us with.  At work, they are concerned with the amount of weight I've lost. Well, I tell them, I no longer drink soda, don't eat many sweets, as I do not bake...yet and get a little more excercise - a new program - Zumba, you ask?  No, Bambinicise!  So, one of the managers, Jaime, made me a red velvet cake Wednesday, and Regina, the Foothills Mall manager, made me the largest batch of chocolate chip cookies I've ever seen!  "It's a long weekend Dave - your family will eat them all"...and, sure enough, we do have them on the run!
Of course, Kim made everyday a food fest...so I'm bound to lose some weight...but, as the kids started a 4 day weekend, I found myself in the kitchen the entire day...!  We picked up Lexy (freshly back from an amazing class fieldtrip to San Diego...lucky!) and Breanna around 10, came home and I made breakfast burritos with bacon, eggs and hashbrowns...for lunch, I whipped up a batch of the chicken and rice I mentioned above (hah!  We had peas TWICE today!!!)...once the kitchen was clean, I began prepparing the marsala -all of  the kids ate great today! Well, Cody skipped out on dinner - Amy, Tom and Alex took him to Red Lobster!  Good excuse!  Then, we settled in to watch the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" with Nicolas Cage - pretty good - the kids gave it a thumbs up!

Lexy and Autumn made "Best" and "Friends" T-shirts today!

Later...enjoying the movie...Breanna was the designated photographer today - great job!!

Yep, good food, good fun...and, by golly, we ate our vegetables!!!

"The sun rises and the sun sets and hurries back to where it rises..."
                                                                      -Ecclesiastes 1:5

Love,
           Dave




            

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