crowdog66

A recipe I created yesterday on the spur of the moment upon discovering some chicken drumsticks on sale, and which I put in the slow cooker today. It's smelling pretty good so far. :)

LAURIE’S SLOW COOKER TOMATO CHICKEN DRUMSTICKS

1 kg (or more) chicken drumsticks, skin on
2 medium carrots, chopped
7 large mushrooms, sliced
1/2 to 1 medium onion (to taste)
1 large green pepper, chopped
1 large clove garlic
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 cup water
2 tsp dried italian seasoning (recipe below)
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp salt

In a 5.5 qt slow cooker, layer veggies (carrots, mushrooms, onions, green pepper) and place chicken drumsticks on top. In a small bowl, mix crushed tomatoes, water, spices and chopped garlic clove. Pour sauce over chicken, cover and cook on low for 8 hours. Serve over noodles or rice.

ITALIAN SEASONING

1/3 cup oregano
1/3 cup basil
1/4 cup thyme
1 Tbsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp rosemary, ground down to 1 tsp
2 tsp onion salt

I'm just about to put some pork chops in the oven. I don't usually cook from frozen -- I'm much more of a bring-it-right-home-and-roast-it kind of person -- so I hope I've done things right. I took the pork chops out of the freezer into the fridge to thaw yesterday afternoon, hoping (unrealistically) that they'd be thawed tomorrow night. No dice. So finally, about fifteen minutes ago, I pulled them out of the fridge and found them at least thawed enough to be separated with difficulty, but pretty much still frozen internally. (Also quite dried out on top, since I'd opened up the package to check them yesterday. D'oh. Told you I'm no good on this.) So into the microwave they went for a couple of minutes, and now they're in a baking pan with a bit of water in the bottom of the dish, some canola oil brushed on top, and some rosemary sprinkled over them. Hopefully they'll turn out (a) palatable, and (b) not poisonous.

I'll bake them for an hour, then pour some mixed cream of broccoli and cream of celery soup, thinned with milk, over them. Back in the oven for another thirty minutes and they should be done. *crosses fingers* If anyone with more cooking experience has any advice, I'm all ears.

As for the "ow"... half an hour ago I was working away on the computer when a tremendous sneeze caught me by surprise. It hurt my nose, and a moment later I realized that it had also hurt my back -- there's a painful spot under the bottom of my right shoulder blade. *sigh* I'd just gotten over the sore back from the kidney infection...

Back to work until it's time to mix up the sauce.

My blood sugars seem really out of whack today -- quite high, which might be a result of my fighting off an infection. I've had a sore throat since early this afternoon, and exercise only made it worse, adding a sense of pain and pressure in my ears that has not abated.

On the plus side, I cooked 1 cup of pearl barley in 3 cups of water with 1/2 cup of concentrated chicken stock added in. It plumped up nicely in about half an hour. I took out a cup of the barley, added a cup of mixed vegetables and a teaspoon of fresh butter... mmmmmmm, good! And only about 45 g of carbs total. Now we'll just have to see how it affects my blood sugar.

I need to write up a blurb for Beltane in the Park to go into the Winnipeg Free Press this coming weekend, and I'll have to get that out of the way tonight so the Circle of Artemis group can approve it before the due date of Wednesday at 4 pm.

Back to The Eternals. Yay.

ETA: The barley had an AMAZING effect on my blood sugar, resulting in a lower post-meal reading than pre-meal reading. And it turns out that barley can be easily cooked in the rice cooker chimera452 and her husband gave us for Christmas this year. Something to think about, anyway.