Uncle Richard, me, and James Earl Jones

The best part of my day was when I was sitting at my desk in the den, playing Three Towers Solitaire on facebook, and listening to my Ben station on Pandora. I forget to ever listen to Pandora, because I don't usually listen to music when I'm at home, or anywhere, really, except in the car. I am just too ADD and it's one more distraction when other things are going on, and it makes me start to feel overwhelmed.

So yeah, it was such a lovely quiet time, playing cards, and listening to music that I like, and now I am humming Ben Folds' Lullaby in my head, probably will be all night, and by 4 a.m. I will be pretty sick of it, and have to start humming O Canada to make it go away, but right now I still like it.

When I tore myself away from the solitaire game, it was because I was hungry and needed to make something to eat. I had some chicken that I baked a couple of days ago...

Wait, here's the story on the chicken, because Diana was laughing at me when I told her about it, and I'll tell you why. It's because I am the queen of bravely substituting one food item for another when I am cooking, and she thinks it's funny that when she gives me a recipe, I will sometimes make something entirely different because I didn't have all the right ingredients.

Like the time she gave me a recipe for a chicken and rice casserole, and I was out of rice, which never happens because it is one of the things we eat all the time, but apparently that day there wasn't any for some reason. So I used some bulgar, which is cracked wheat, so it's a grain, just like rice, and then I didn't have something else, so I substituted again, and finally when I reported back to her that I had made the casserole and it was okay, but not really great, and told her I used bulgar, etc, and she said, "So you made a completely different dish?" and yes, that's why it wasn't as delicious as she promised it would be. And now she makes fun of me for that.

So tonight I was talking to Diana on the phone, and told her about the very good chicken salad I made today, using some leftover baked chicken breasts, Diana said she wanted to bake some chicken breasts, too. I started telling her how easy it was to just marinate some thawed chicken breasts in molasses, with salt and pepper, only I didn't have molasses, so I had looked around for something to *substitute* and I used a jar of Hoisin sauce, and it was very good that way. Which is when Diana started laughing at me because I didn't have a jar of plain American molasses, but I had plenty of something weird like Hoisin sauce in my cupboard.

Which reminds me of when she gave me a recipe for some kind of enchilada-type dish, and I said I would make it as soon as I had a chance to go to the store, to get ingredients, but by the way, had I told her about the great hot and sour soup I made? I started describing it, and she said, "You have all the ingredients for that but you can't make a burrito?!" Yes, I know, and we're the only family in the Midwest that has 15 kinds of mustard and 4 bottles of rice vinegar in the fridge, but doesn't have any ketchup! Just ask Scott.

So here is the way to make marinated baked chicken breasts, because there is nothing easier, and they are good! You take a bag of frozen chicken breasts and thaw them in the refridgerator overnight, and do not just put the bag in the sink in the morning so they will be thawed by dinnertime, because that is a recipe for salmonella, and I would never, ever, do such a thing. Ever.

Then when your chicken is thawed, you trim off all the bits of fat and icky stuff with a pair of sewing shears that you keep in the kitchen drawer for cutting pizza and trimming fat, and when they are trimmed, you bathe them in molasses, or Hoisin sauce, or the way I did it last time, with sesame and ginger marinade from a bottle. Let the chicken marinate in the sauce for at least 30 minutes, and then bake in a 350 degree oven for another 30 minutes.

I had a couple of the baked chicken breasts leftover, so I chopped them up and mixed them with about a half cup of minced celery, a couple of pickles, chopped finely, and about 1/3 cup of mayonaise. I had some whole wheat hamburger buns from the bakery and they were great for the chicken salad sandwiches.

I still had some of the corn on the cob from last week, and I cooked the last of that in the microwave, to go with the sandwiches. I just found out how to do corn in the microwave, and it's so easy! You put two ears of corn in the microwave, still in the husks, and cook them for 2 minutes. Turn them over and cook them for another two minutes, take them out and wrap them in a towel and let them sit for 5 minutes, and then peel the husks and silk right off! I told Diana's father how to do it, and he was pretty pleased with this method, but he said at their higher elevation, you have to cook the corn for 3 minutes on each side. Who knew?