Match Made in Heaven

Coffee and Girlscout cookies. mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Just sayin'.....


Oh, and hi everyone! So tell me, what are great food combos that you love?

If I don't know where it was made, I don't want it!

My department has had 3 lunches this month, scheduled for the holidays. One of them was an end of year "Thank You" (can no longer classify official business meetings as Holiday) held by our department VP. It was a very classy event held at a prestigious restaurant, with great food and service. The second was held the very next day for the entire business unit. Lunch was catered in from a local business, lame gifts were given out, and it was okay. The third was held today, just a department potluck and white elephant gift exchange.

I really don't like potlucks. It's not so much a dislike, but rather, a fear. First of all, you don't know what the kitchens of your co-workers look like. You don't know if they wash their hands at home. You're not sure who as been in the line before you, touching the same utensils and breathing on the food. So many unknowns. Yet if you chose to not participate, the potential is there to be seen as the department scrooge. Such is my dilemma.

I "accidentally" forgot to bring a gift to exchange (not really- I just have no desire to trade my crap for someone elses), and brought a pre-made salad from Costco. I purposely waited for everyone else to go, and got at the end of the line. Then the department slug got in line behind me. This slug is a man that I work with that is the most condescending sexist pig I've ever met. How he is still employed by my very politically correct company, I'll never know. I know of at least 2 occasions that he's been busted for porn viewing in the office. His wife is a BYU professor! When he speaks to me he acts like he's teaching a sunbeam class. And he's huge... probably 6'4" and 300 pounds. And he's in line behind me. Behind me isn't a good way to put it, more like, he got in line ON TOP OF ME. Literally breathing down my back, his stomach touching my arm and waaaaaaaay over invading my personal space. So I got out of line and went back to my desk. I'm not THAT eager to make an appearance.

I wait for everyone to finish, and am the very last in line. No room for me at the big table, I have to sit at the "little kids" table with 2 others.

Doesn't every office have these lame-ass potlucks? Why? Does anyone REALLY like them? I mean, don't most people have the exact same experience I just described?

To end on a happy note, this was my last day of work until 2007. Yipee!!

Chicken Curry

When our Sundays are not inundated with family gatherings, my husband and I like to try out new recipes. We made this one today and it is deeeeelicious, even if not too authentic.

1/2 cup unbleached all purpose flour
Salt & Pepper
3 boneless whole chicken breast halved
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium onion
2 cloves garlic
2 red peppers seeded and diced
3 tablespoons best quality curry powder
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 can cream of coconut
a dash of Tabasco sauce
a dash of Worcester sauce
1/2 cup currants

Gather up all the ingredients and preheat your oven to 350°F.
Finely chop the onion and mince the garlic cloves.
Seed and dice the red peppers.

Season the flour with S&P and lightly coat chicken with mixture. Heat 3 Tbl. butter in a skillet over medium heat, add chicken and lightly brown on all sides. Remove chicken from the skillet and preheat oven.

Add remaining 2 tablespoons butter to the skillet and melt over medium heat. Add onions, garlic, peppers and sauté, stirring frequently until the veggies are soft (5-7 minutes).

Stir in curry powder and cook 2 minutes longer.

Stir in tomatoes and cream of coconut, heat to simmering and season with Worcester sauce, Tabasco and S&P to taste. Stir in currants & remove from heat. (we did not use currants)

Arrange the sautéed chicken in a casserole and pour the curry sauce over the chicken bake covered until the chicken is tender, about 45 minutes.

We served this with a basmati rice. Yummy!!

Things like this only happen to me

Sorry for the two posts today. I wanted to blog about a strange phenomenon that only seems to happen to me. Please tell me if you can relate?

Okay, I'm really picky about food. If something grosses me out (which happens easily and frequently), I'll never eat it again. For instance, when I was about 5, one of my sisters stirred up a bowl of strawberry ice cream and told me it was throw up. To this day, I will not eat strawberry ice cream. I've had 2 attempts at eating breakfast burritos, and both times I found a hair in them (cooked at entirely different places). I will never again eat a breakfast burrito.

Today for lunch, I skipped out on going to La Fronterra with some co-workers, and walked to the cafeteria on premis with some others. After getting our food, two of them were talking about their days of fast food and putting dead flies on burgers and such. I said "I've got a weak stomach and can't handle stories like this, I'm going to step out of this conversation." and got to my desk as quickly as possible. I sit down, eat two bites, look down, and see it. A fly. A whole one. In my salad. :(

I took it back to the cafeteria, and the manager offered anything else that I wanted. I told him I lost my appetite for cafeteria food, so he gave me a refund, and I got baked doritos from the vending machine instead.

Ew. I'm still freaking out about it. I'll never have a salad from my cafeteria again. I should have gone to La Fronterra.

Pie

Have you ever had a pie that you just wanted a sliver of? Heaven forbid that you eat a whole piece of pie and devour all those calories. So you eat a sliver of pie. Then you walk through the kitchen and think "I want another sliver". Before you know it, the whole damn thing is gone. I hate it when that happens.