Dawn Brocco's Life & Design Blog

Well, apparently, I can't help myself.

I said I wasn't gonna cook yesterday, but when I went into the kitchen to dig up some dinner, I thought to myself, there's a bunch of leftover chicken from the roasted chicken he cooked on Saturday?, now what can I do to it to mess it up?!

Well, that wasn't exactly my thought. I do aim to improve on what's there, and what was there was just some basic cooked chicken. (But when I mentioned what I had done to hubby, when he called me, as he does every night, he laughed, knowing full well I could have made that great chicken inedible!)

So, I dug out that chicken cookbook again and found an apricot chicken dish - simple - onion soup packets and fresh apricots.

OK - we never do onion soup from packets, so the pantry will never have that tucked away, but what is onion soup but onions and beef broth - which I have, but I decided to use chicken broth instead.

And though I haven't got fresh apricots, I did have 14 remaining dried apricots in the fridge, from a large package I've been nibbling from for weeks.

So I boiled a bit of water, turned off the heat, cut the apricots in half and tossed them in to rehydrate, and for good measure added 1/2 c marsala (which I love in chicken dishes).

While they were soaking, I sauteed 3/4 a large onion in a little olive oil and butter, then tossed in the apricots and the liquid, sprinkled on 2 packets of low sodium chicken broth powder and let that simmer a bit, adding a bit of salt, pepper and all-seasoning.

Then finally a small amount of cornstarch to thicken the sauce, which I should have dissolved in cold water first, but it did dissolve with a bit of stirring.

I was just Googling for French Onion Soup and found, what I thought looked like a great recipe, yet the first comment made was such a series of no-no's of the non-Frenchness of the recipe and how one shouldn't bother unless one began with making beef broth from scratch, and ordering the correct cheese to use, etc, etc, and wondered how many people would cook at all, if every thing you made had to be done from scratcharoo or Else!

Nope. Sorry. We don't live in those bygone days when someone, usually the woman of the house, was home all day to cook and clean. Not to mention that doing it all from scratch can get costly. We spend too much at the store as it is each week.

I don't think of my cooking as being restaurant-worthy (I'm not delusional!), and if I want to spend only 30 minutes preparing something different for dinner, do I have to flog myself with wet noodles in repentance?! There's A) cuisine, which one pays big bucks for, and then there's B) home cooking, which is creative use of what's on hand. I will forever defend a cook's right to follow plan B!

PS
I just heard some folklore that says no eating chicken on New Year's. Never heard of this, but, there's something about chickens scratching backwards? Anyway, it's bad luck.

Considering this past year, I don't think I wanna give the New Year any opportunity to mess up, so it looks like a piece of meat for NY's dinner, though I'd be happy with homemade pizza!

Knitting
Still making those socks for brother. 1 down, 1 to go.

If I don't write again in the next coupla days, Happy New Year to All!