Boning a Chicken Without Novocaine!
Hello Lovelies! As usual, I woke up at 4:30 this morning – I guess it’s become a habit. There was a mouthwatering aroma of the chicken I placed in the crockpot overnight. Crockpots! I love them! During grad school, mine was always churning out chili, chicken noodle soup, lentil soup or marinara sauce. Anyhow, The Hubby had grilled the whole chicken last night, and after we had our dinner, the remainder went into the crockpot with some carrots, celery, seasonings and garlic! Yum!
I was stewing the chicken to remove it from the bones and to also make chicken stock for gumbo! Yes, I know I made gumbo less than a month ago (See my blog entry: MAKING THAT CRAZY GUMBO!), But back then, I made a small batch (maybe 2 gallons) and I usually make a huge pot (at least 5-6 gallons, freezing most of it for later). But it was so good….the best batch I ever made…that it soon evaporated. I’d also given a couple of servings to Timothy McIntosh (aka Marina Mac), when he came over for a glass of wine.
I love chatting one-on-on with people across our VERY long (6 foot) dining room table. We chat unmasked with a small fan circulating the air away from both parties. And of course, Lizzie, our corgi loves it also. She always shows off one of her toys and wants to play fetch. Incidentally, she’s very gentle with her toys….she might chew them a little but she never destroys them. Such a lady! Right now our “social distancing” table is also covered with a partially complete jigsaw puzzle, which has an image of dozens of doughnuts. You’d think working on the puzzle would make me crave doughnuts, but by now I’m sick of looking at them!
But, anyway, I was taking the chicken of the bone, after saving the stock. And it reminded me of when my mother would make chicken croquettes. She rarely made them except for covered-dish events at our Southern Baptist church, and they disappeared within seconds. For those who don’t know what a chicken croquette is…we’ll it’s sorta like a crab cake but made with chicken. My mother always shaped hers into little cones (like Christmas trees) before deep frying them. Now, my mother didn’t use a crockpot to cook the chicken; she used an ancient (probably one of her wedding gifts) pressure cooker. I know how a pressure cooker works, but I’ve never used one, because they terrify me. I’ve heard horror stories of them exploding. I’ve done quite well without one all these years. So, no thank you!
My mother never used a recipe, but this one is very similar:
Now, you would think my mother was a masterful cook, but you’d be mistaken. Her daily meals where pretty unexceptional….mac and cheese from the box, Hamburger Helper, fried pork chops, pot roast, canned veggies heated up. Thanksgiving, however, she pulled out all the stops! And, I will say that desserts were her forte’. In fact, I have her old recipe book, and the majority of the recipes are for sweets, cakes, pies! Yummy! One her most notorious desserts was called Orange Slice Cake….an heavy almost fruitcake-esque monstrosity made with dates, nuts, coconut and Brach’s orange slice candy!! I loved it! That bricklike mountain of processed sugar was responsible for the creation of my sweet tooth!
And, of course, it was also responsible for the number of cavities that I had a child. Two or three at time. Now, drilling and filling that many cavities in a session would be pretty traumatic for a child, especially if your dentist didn’t use Novocaine!!! Yes, I went under the drill without painkillers…for years! It wasn’t until I moved to Chicago when I was 27, that I was introduced to any type of painkiller. About the only nice thing I can say about my sadistic (oh, he was!) childhood dentist is that he’s dead by now, and not torturing any more unknowing children. Sorry, I didn’t mean to rant just now. But I have a huge dentist phobia as a result.
Ok, ok, ok…..how did I get onto that subject when I was talking about gumbo? I sometimes feel like Gilda Radner’s character Roseanne Roseannadanna; I just go off on wild tangents. (Please don’t tell me you don’t know about Gilda Radner….you’ll make me feel so old).
So what is the morale of this entry? Always ask for Novocain? Always make enough gumbo? Remember to floss? I don’t know….but tomorrow is my cheat day. So maybe it’s time to make some Orange Slice Cake! Fuck the dentist!
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