Today was not typical, but I'll tell you about it anyway. We are friends with a couple who live down the street. On Wednesday, they'll be leaving for several months, so we invited them over for a meal. The plan was for rice and mulligatawny soup for dinner, and a blueberry pie for dessert. I had a vaccination appointment at a nearby pharmacy this morning. There was the checkbook to balance (I do this weekly) and some credit card transactions to review (ditto). I had some email to write, related to our church's activities with/for inmates at CCW (women's jail in Milpitas).
Wow, just reading that makes me feel like taking a nap! Anyway, I took care of the paperwork before my vaccine appointment, then ran over to Costco for a big bag (10 cups) of frozen blueberries. On my way home, the phone rang; I pulled into a parking spot and answered it. The dinner schedule was accelerated by a few hours, so there was no time to fulfill all the requirements of the soup recipe: it was make do with what we had.
Carol and I got to work on the soup as soon as I got home. She cut up some things (carrots, celery, etc. ) and I cut up half an onion, then dredged chicken in flour and sautéed it in butter. I removed the chicken from the pot and cooked the veggies and apple, then added spices, put the chicken back in, and added water. And shredded coconut.
I looked at the clock and put some rice on (the recipe calls for white rice). Then I measured out 4 cups of frozen blueberries, ¼ cup sugar (this was too much), ⅓ cup flour, ½ tsp cinnamon, and mixed them together. I was supposed to mix the dry ingredients and then add the blueberries, but I was in a hurry and muffed that. I was also supposed to add about a teaspoon of lemon juice, but I muffed that, too.
Then the pie crust. I used the pie crust recipe from this 2013 apricot pie recipe, but I mis-remembered the amounts and used too much flour (so that’s why it was so hard to roll out!), but I dumped the filling into the bottom crust, then flopped the other crust on top. I made a half-hearted (maybe ¼-hearted) attempt at a fluted edge, but again I was out of time so I threw it into the oven, forgetting to dot the crust with butter. I set a timer for the pie.
It was time to add a little cream to the soup, so I did that and walked out front for some parsley. While I was picking, our friends arrived, so in we went.
Carol and I worked on getting the table set. I chopped the parsley and threw it into the soup (it was supposed to get sprinkled on top after serving, but I muffed that detail too). I was also supposed to bone the chicken parts, but skipped that because, well, you know, I’m a slacker. And I was out of time.
We all enjoyed the soup. The timer went off, so I popped up to check the pie... no juice visible on top, so I set the timer again. On the second alarm, I just pulled it out.
The soup used up only a little from the shelf-stable whipping cream, so Carol put the rest into the mixer for a nice topping for the pie. It didn’t work, because nobody read the part about “refrigerate six hours before attempting to whip.” So we had a cream sauce over the pie, rather than a whipped topping. The crust was light-years from perfect, but it tasted OK and there were no complaints.
After our friends left for urgent dental care, I looked at the office email. This is a habit I’m trying to break, but well, you know… Anyway, I'm on a rotation with some other folks, and I'm due to be on duty for exactly the two weeks Carol and I will be on vacation. I had not seen that coming! So I emailed an apology, and a request that my colleagues cover for me on this shift in exchange for my working a double shift hwen I get back.
And now I’m typing a blog post on the living-room floor, with the dog sleeping beside me.
ADDENDUM: pie baked 375°F 50 minutes. Or maybe 400°F 35ish minutes
2022-09-09
