Cooking in the Kitchen

 

So there I was: Three days I did not want to cook, just because. Maybe the first three day stint of not cooking for my kids since they were born. Made macaroni salad to go with the fresh Corned beef and pastrami I bought at Carshon's Deli in Fort Worth (with egg bread and fresh rye), the other day, and made a rice side for something a couple of days ago, but basically was too freaking depressed to cook.

Today I woke differently: I wanted to sweep, mop, pick up stray garbage from the road that had found my place, get rid of cobwebs in the house, do laundry and that sort of thing. And for dinner I was gonna make my semi-famous Lime Chicken (buy the cookbook cause that recipe is worth the price of admission). But I realized that my son-in-law, Adrian, had bought an extra pound of Virginia ham the other day, and we had really good Swiss cheese, so I switched to Chicken Cordon Bleu. Cut pockets in the large half-breasts of chicken, stuffed them with chopped Swiss and Virginia ham, then breaded and seared them and tossed them in the oven where they are currently cooking at 325º.

Normally, you would make a mushroom-Marsala sauce with those babies, but I don't have mushrooms. What I do have is some refrigerated and still-fresh homemade cranberry sauce from Thanksgiving and some Marsala wine and a bit of heavy cream so I am going to make a Cranberry-Cream-Marsala sauce and it is going to be innovative and fantastic.

Remember that when you are in the kitchen, you are supposed to play. That keeps it interesting and makes it fun.