Easter dinner planning

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Hibou-by-the-Bay is hosting Easter dinner for the first time, and it’s my first time cooking Easter dinner since, I think, the year that GIJ threw out his back and I refused to let him sit in the car for two hours each way driving to his family’s Easter gathering. That was … 2004? A very long time ago.

(I feel ancient just TYPING that.)

I have only the vaguest ideas of what I want to cook for Easter dinner, but I’m about to venture out and hit up Wegmans to do the big shopping for things I don’t need to buy fresh. Wegmans is a dangerous place to be if you don’t have even some semblance of a plan. I’ve gotten it down to

- ham
- carrots [I like the look of this recipe]
- green beans [this recipe]
- scalloped potatoes [oh, Martha.]
- green jello salad [potentially this recipe]
- chocolate pie [NEED to get the GF crust at Wegmans]
- hot cross buns [potentially this recipe]
- some other kind of roll or biscuit
- something else for dessert? carrot cake?

Ay yi yi.

Recipe: Crockpot Peanut Chicken

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Ingredients:

leftover roast chicken pieces, or 2-3 large chicken breasts, cooked and shredded
1/3 C. peanut butter
2 T. soy sauce
2 T. rice wine vinegar
2 chopped cloves of garlic
1 1/2 t. sesame oil
1/4 t. cayenne pepper
1/2 t. ground ginger

Method:

- Put peanut butter in crockpot. Turn to high, so that the peanut butter begins to soften.
- Add liquid ingredients; stir to mix.
- Add dry ingredients and garlic; stir to mix.
- Add chicken. Stir well to coat chicken shreds evenly.
- Cook 1.5 hours, stirring every 20 mins.

This is a very forgiving recipe. I almost always make it with more peanut butter and garlic than it calls for, and depending on the kind of peanut butter you choose to use the sesame oil can be omitted entirely to keep the dish from becoming too oily (add sesame seeds instead for flavor). Using wheat-free tamari for the soy sauce, this dish can be made entirely gluten-free.

Irritation.

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I’ve just discovered that my webhost no longer offers script installation via Fantastico, which is what I used to do all of my WordPress installs.

Eh. I spent enough time as a computer science student to know my way around scripts and prompts.. looks like it’s time to get back into the practice.

Time to make art.

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A dear college friend talked me into driving to New York and back in the space of two days, in order to attend Neil Gaiman’s impromptu reading of his new work.

It was manna for the aspiring writer’s soul (or, this aspiring writer, anyhow). The whole trip got me thinking about what I’d need to do to get my head into that space, hours upon hours watching the miles in front of me with thoughts and plots for company. The story itself was very engaging, and afterward his wife (the lovely Amanda Palmer) serenaded the 700+ of us in attendance with a rendition of the Ukulele Anthem, which includes the lines

quit the b*ching on your blog
and stop pretending art is hard

I looked over at my friend at that, and said “..right.”

I try not to complain overmuch on the Internet, and this blog has gone mostly neglected since I created it last June. But it’s time to make art, and someday perhaps after I make enough art, the art I make will be good.

Thank you, AFP, for the kick in the butt that I needed. And to Mr. Gaiman, for the opportunity, and the lovely story.