June is Just Around the Corner!

Where has the school year gone?

Spring Broke Recipe #1

I omitted the story that led to this meal, but here's the last sentence:
"When we got home, it was time to make dinner, and I was angry and disillusioned."
Which brings me to this recipe!  It's a great meal to make when you feel like slamming things around.  There are no tiny measuring spoons to deal with and you get to use a big knife.

Creamy Chicken Burritos (I doubled this)
2 C cooked boneless chicken, cut recklessly into pieces with a BIG knife
4 TBSP chunky salsa or whatever - just pour a glob in
8 oz Light cream cheese, torn quickly into chunks with your bare hands
12 small flour torillas
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 C Monterey Jack cheese, shredded (watch the knuckles)
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Spray a 9 x 13 inch pan with cooking oil.  This is a good time to whisper obscenities.
Dump chicken, salsa, and cream cheese into a mixing bowl.  Use the beaters to mix it to a pinkish pulp.  Turn the mixer on higher than you need to and kind of bang the bowl on the counter as you do this.
Grab an ice cream scoop and slam globs of the filling onto tortillas, roll them haphazardly and squish them into the baking dish, seam down.  Brush the tops of tortillas with cream with heated slaps, then throw the grated cheese on top.  With a look of disgust, send the dish sliding into the oven and slam the door closed.  Let someone else set the table and show up 20 to 25 minutes later, ready to eat.

Drink! Drink!

So far, I've been nursing or pregnant for 63% of my legal drinking years.  Legal to drink for 20.75 years, abstaining for a total of 13 years so far.  So I guess you could say that I don't really drink.  This extended caffeine free tea totalling has forced me, I guess, to find other coping machanisms, all the while really wanting a drink.  Well, maybe not ALL the while, but I could have written a bartending book with drink recipes named after incidents like this:

My first reaction to this was, "Charlie?  What is that and why is your forehead breaking out in a rash from it?!" 

Oh.  Syrup.  And the dog's ears are covered with a syrup shellac from standing under the sticky cascades from the countertop. Somehow, Charlie's left ear was full of syrup.  Baths for Charlie, Zero, and Pooh Bear; floor mopped, counter triple scrubbed, stools washed, switch syrups to a brand that doesn't cause a rash on contact... 

I'm thinking of a strong coffee drink with maple liqueur.

This one ...

... calls for a strong backyard still whiskey with grenadine and a cherry.  Something to put hair on your chest, offsetting the bald patch on the back of the head.  The sweet smile (cherry) almost, but not at all, masks the pile of hair on the counter.

This one would have really made me crave a Kahlua Peanut Butter Cocktail, if I'd ever had one:

It was about the fourth time I'd caught Charlie scuba diving in the peanut butter.  It was the first time I got to him before it was up to his elbows and down the entire length of his clothes.
It all works out for the best.  My kids are safe from finding my whiskey bottles in the bushes, the floor gets mopped, and the dog gets an occasional bath.  It's all good.

Eat! Eat!

There's nothing I like better than watching a little kid eat corn-on-the-cob.  Wait.  That's not true.  Just in case my future Heaven is constructed by what I claim in this life is "my favorite thing," then it's not watching kids eat corn-on-the-cob.  No one needs an eternity of that.  But it is mesmerizing.

I don't mind the smacks and slurps of kids eating.  Maybe because it's nice to see someone really, really enjoy something simple.  Especially if that someone is cute to begin with.  Some of the lustre is lost when shiney niblets are hanging in this thing:

In a close second (not for planning my personal Heaven!) is watching a 2 year-old eat ice cream in the house in the summer.  This also drives me a little crazy because, even in video form, my hand keeps darting toward the screen to catch the drips.  Like an exasperating video game.  It's an extreme challenge for anyone over two to just leave the poor kid alone and let him eat his ice cream.  He hardly gets a moment's peace.  I guess I just wish I had that much abandon to eat ice cream like this - not worrying what it looked like on my face, felt like in my hair, or how quickly a waiting colony of ants would find it on the floor. 

 I guess I'll just have to wait a few more decades for that kind of freedom.