Fast Food

This is my little kitchen helper. She is very helpful when it comes to all things chicken (or pork or turkey or anything else she thinks she desperately needs and rightfully deserves!). And to enforce her terrible behavior, I like to give her a little nibble. She did work so hard, after all!







Tonight's dinner was one of my favorite combinations; grocery store rotisserie chicken, mesclun salad with pecans and blackberries, cranberry dressing and acorn squash. Mmmm good! And since there are leftovers galore, it will be dinner tomorrow too. Those chickens make dinners fast and easy.


It always surprises me when friends mention they don't ever cook/eat acorn squash. I could eat it twice a week and be happy I think. It's really just an excuse to eat brown sugar and butter anyway. I like to mix my brown sugar, butter and a dash of maple syrup (the real stuff- none of that fake crap- gross!) together into a paste of sorts. It melts better that way. You can add whatever you have on hand but I usually add apple chunks, pecans, raisins or cranberries and the butter mixture. I also discovered last year that it makes a world of difference if you microwave the squash whole, no holes added, for several minutes before cutting. It turns that little event from nearly missing taking several fingers to the hospital on ice to one of ease. Then after I slice it and scoop out the seeds, I microwave it again for another 5 minutes. I do then cook it at 350 for 15 minutes (or so- depends on how large your squash are) but the microwave process cuts the cooking time down to about 1/3. Oh and I also take a piece of tin foil and form it into a snake and then a donut to hold each squash steady. Keeps them from rolling onto their sides and spilling out the liquid.





I had a very relaxing weekend. I did a whole bunch of nothing. Very unproductive. But Sadie Kate and I were too happy loafing about to care about the ironing going undone. There's always next week and the ironing isn't going anywhere.