mama's sabbatical: Lost Week . . . a Reconstruct

So . . . wow. Last week the score was something like, lymphoma 7, Kimberly 0. I didn’t even get the menu up on the chalkboard, although it was jotted on our paper menu on the fridge.

Someone was cleaning the kitchen and tossed that paper menu in the recycling, too! But here’s what I remember, jogged by the pics from my camera:

When last I blogged, it was a Wild Card Wednesday, and a delicious one, too. Next up was a “Fennel-Flavored Squash Soup” and “Thyme-Roasted Chicken”. These were both from The Food and Flavors of Haute Provence by Georgeann Brennan. That was a very challenging day, and Nigel offered to make dinner. I took him up on it, so he did the chicken but not the soup. No picture even, but the recipe was just salting and peppering a whole chicken, rubbing with olive oil, and stuffing the cavity with fresh garden thyme before roasting. Very very simple, good for when one is directing a son in cooking. He made potatoes to go alongside, and we called it good.

Littlest guy had a birthday, so we skipped our regular “Sugar Saturday”. In fact, we skipped two of ‘em. I made him birthday cupcakes, but didn’t use our regular cupcake book and the whole thing was so hilariously bad. The idea was this: vanilla cupcakes, strawberry buttercream frosting, spider web on the top with a candle to blow out. He doesn’t actually have any safe/allowed foods to make a cake at all – this is just for the candle to blow out, then someone else eats the cake. Does that seem cruel? It’s actually their choice – the little girls have always wanted us to make cakes on their birthdays that they can’t eat. Well, the frosting sort of liquidified, the candle fell over into the “web”; yikes.

From the 30th of July through the 3rd of August . . . that’s a week I just vaguely remember. There aren’t pictures from Monday or Friday. I went back on Zofran for the nausea, and it makes me so loopy and forgetful! Thankfully I did get a couple of pictures from Wednesday, because it was good and also pretty easy.

The recipe was “Chicken Paprikás” from Staff Meals from Chanterelle . The recipe called for both hot and sweet paprika, and I only had sweet paprika. I think to have both would be yet more delicious. This recipe starts with caramelizing onions and garlic, then pan-browning a cut-up whole chicken, then cooking over time in paprika, tomato, spices, and adding sour cream in at the end.