My Eternal Dave Edmunds Squeal, A Good Dinner, and Other Random Notes

1. My friend Kent Carrico posted some Rockpile clips on facebook the other day so yesterday evening when I was waiting for something on the stove to brown, I sat at the computer in the kitchen and watched most of the Born Fighters Rockpile video that's on youtube.

Good God.

Every time I watch it I want to squeal like the 18 year old girl that I am inside and yell, "OMG, Dave Edmunds is SO cute."

This part of it, in which he watches Albert Lee, is one of my favorite sections. I think I've posted it before and I'm sure I'll post it again.

2. I've been rather lax in the cooking department while I've been sick but I think I'm starting to come out from under it all. The other night I didn't know what to make but I scrouged around the refrigerator and pantry and came up with a pretty great meal. I had some chicken legs and I thought maybe something vaguely Asian would appeal to Owen so I went with this.

Gordon Ramsay's Sticky Baked Chicken Legs

Olive oil, to drizzle
10 chicken drumsticks
Sea salt and black pepper
For the glaze:
6 tablespoons honey
3 tablespoons fish sauce
4 teaspoons light soy sauce
Juice of 1 1/2 lemons
3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
4 teaspoons sesame oil

Heat the oven to 400F. Lightly oil a large baking dish. Season the drumsticks with salt and pepper and arrange in the dish in a single layer. Drizzle over a little olive oil and bake in the hot oven for 20 minutes.

Prepare the glaze in the meantime. Mix all the ingredients together in a small bowl until evenly combined.

Take the chicken out of the oven and pour over the glaze, to coat each drumstick. Return to the oven and bake for another 20 to 30 minutes, turning several times, until the chicken is tender and nicely glazed.

The chicken legs were good....I think perhaps I crowded them too much in the pan as they didn't get as sticky/browned as I would have liked but I ran them under the broiler for a minute at the end. What made the dinner so great however, was really the sides. I made brown rice in the rice cooker, using coconut milk instead of water (3 cups of brown rice and 2 cans of coconut milk). I added a smashed knob of ginger, a big old smashed garlic clove, and a couple of teaspoons of turmeric, as well as salt and pepper. While it was cooking I poked around and found a lovely head of crisp butter lettuce. I decided to keep the dressing simple, and also Asian flavored, so found this simple vinaigrette recipe. Simple, simple, simple, not even any chopping and  just a bit drizzled on the lettuce made we want to turn myself into one big lettuce wrap.

Asian Vinaigrette (Wolfgang Puck)

 

3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons peanut oil
1 tablespoon Toasted sesame oil
1/2 lemon, juiced

salt and pepper

 

3. Cancer Center stuff yesterday. It still feels weird seeing the new oncologist, although I like him. We got the report on the bone scan. They want to do an MRI on part of his spine to make sure some of what is showing up is just degeneration and not anything more suspicious. For some reason this is not stressing me out too badly. I feel as though it is just normal aging. I hope I'm not jinxing myself but I think it will be o.k.

 

4. I was pretty worn out after that (and the infusion) as this was my first full day upright in, uh, several weeks. However, I knew Ernie has been feeling housebound and I traditionally always take him out for a drink after his infusion we hit Fries and Peanuts. I didn't make it for terribly long but we were there enough to see our beloved friend Tom walk in...the same Tom who was in the Pacific Northwest as far as we knew. It turns out he and Rebecca are moving back and it made my day. We were delighted. And thus I realized that it had indeed been meant to be that I dragged myself in there. Welcome BACK Tom and Rebecca!!!

 

5. I was so sorry to miss the Dreamfakers at Cowboy Monkey last night (Adam Schmitt, Paul Chastain, Darren Cooper and John Richardson) with the Thin Souls (Kent Whitesell). Sigh. I sent Ernie though and was sound asleep by the time he came home. Do it again guys! Pictures stolen from Don Gerard and Donna Crossin on fb...thx!