Love, C.

Occasionally I try store-bought preserved lemons to compare against my own as a sanity check. They look better (mine now have a dull brownish-yellow peel) but general consensus is that mine have a better and stronger flavour. I usually use a quarter of a lemon per person in salad recipes.

If you get a chance and you 'do sodium', I recommend making these yourself.

The salad sounds wonderful (from here in once-more-baking southern CA).

- One three-pound bag frozen chicken breast
- A bunch of canola oil
- One medium onion
- Four cloves garlic
- Salt to taste.

Dump the chicken into a pan with a quarter-inch canola oil; bake until thawed. Slice the onion, halve the garlic, toss it all in, cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces, bake some more.

Total time invested: ten minutes, feeds four hungry no-carb people twice, with a bit for the dog (removed before adding the onions.) The oil is for no-carb calories.

It's less foodie-oriented than your recipe, Teresa, but it sure is nice having chicken ready to eat whenever I want it. This is really good with cauliflower and curry, or with broccoli. We eat a lot of cauliflower and broccoli, and long for the day when we can start eating potatoes again. Or yautía.

I, too, am tempted to develop a vegetarian version of this, but was thinking of substituting seitan instead.

P.

Michael Roberts @6::
Sounds like a great base for any chicken recipe! One masterful secret I picked up from a wonderful Indian chef - try marinating chicken with malt vinegar to give it a subtle but great flavor boost. I splash by eye so I'm not sure what the exact amount would be for 3 lbs of chicken, maybe start with 1/3-1/2 cup and bump up from there.

Oh, and the four cloves of garlic: that's per chicken breast, right?? :)

Jason B @8::
For a vegetarian spin, I'm thinking a combination of grilled tempeh cubes and portabello strips might be good. I'd use the tempeh for the texture and the mushroom for the deeper meat approximate flavor.

Garlic is such a subtle spice, that's why you have to use so much of it.

(Pam: is that David's line, yours, or some other person's entirely?)

Just had this chicken now, along with provolone and muenster, and almond-flour cheese bread. Tasty!

Thanks for sharing. And reminding me that I need to try preserving lemons again. My last two times have not turned out so well. But I'm going to keep on trying.

My favorite version uses bay leaves and cardamom layered in with the lemons and salt.

I'm too hungry now. Which is what I get for checking the Fluorosphere almost as soon as I get up, instead of hitting the kitchen first...

It also occurred to me (while listening to the tomato story on The NewsHour) that back in the home country, my people have used night soil to fertilize their crops for possibly thousands of years. Why were e. coli and the like not regular scourges? Then I realized that Chinese salads were invented in California around the time of Jimmy Carter. Stir frying for the win! Not that it won't keep me from trying out the recipe myself. Sounds yummy.

Unless the garlic is to be consumed raw, I always double or triple the amount called for in a recipe. I go through four heads of garlic a week, when I'm cooking. Yum.

P.

Fragano -- It isn't very much beef, so once in a while you can do it. That's one reason this receipe is so appealing. I happen to have beef filet in the freezer.

Love, C.

I did end up tweaking it slightly, by substituting marinated grilled chicken for the beef, fresh limes for the preserved lemon, cilantro for the basil, jalapeno for the bell peppers, grilled sweet corn for the sun-dried tomato, and a chipotle ranch dressing for the balsamic vinegar, but I think the tastes and textures must be pretty close to the your original. I'd definitely make it again!

(Inspired by Constance :)

When I made my chicken yesterday, just because garlic is so subtle, I put in five cloves.

I had an acquaintance back in my contract days at Eli Lilly, young guy fresh out of college. He wanted to cook spaghetti, and got a recipe, but didn't know what a "clove" of garlic was. Assuming it meant the purchased unit (and hey, why not?) he made some ... really spicy spaghetti.

O, you made me laugh! Thank you. I've gotten a wee bit depressed over the events of this last weekend, which included bad news on several fronts simultaneously.

Your version sounds delicious too.

Love, C.

An unfortunately common happening, that.

If (for the sake of argument) artichokes and plums had the same nutritional value, then I'd expect a dietician to be able to factor in preparation, palatability and plausibility, all of which would be a challenge in the absence of any familiarity with cooking basics, like peeling/chopping garlic. The paring knife... I usually use a sturdy scrub brush, and don't bother peeling carrots at all... but it's not for lack of knowing how to peel carrots.

I learned it as wash carrots, then slice or peel and cut up as appropriate. (For soup, peeling isn't as important.)
The paring knife is one of the most important tools in my kitchen: it gets used for almost everything short of chopping stuff.

It seems to me that one of the big problems in higher education these days is dietetic majors that don't have a lot of nutritional value. It means carnivores like me have to eat a lot more students to stay healthy.

Maia was required (in the course of a Large Animal Science degree) to take a quarter on butchery. There were lots of people in the same boat. They wanted to be horse farm managers, but it's an Ag school, so they had to learn how to dress pigs, and beef and chickens.

(CS students were, at one time, required to take hardware classes. As in building simple circuits from standard parts, and using test equipment. It helps a lot if you go in liking lab classes.)

It was one of those things where majors in journalism could borrow cameras (which wasn't an option for someone who was taking the class from outside the dept. The dept. didn't keep loaners, but some were handed down through the photo-staff. We looked after our own).

But even those who barely passed got an understanding of what couldn't be asked of the shooters. That was worth keeping a couple of old Pentax and Olympus SLRs in the cabinet.

CS students were, at one time, required to take hardware classes. As in building simple circuits from standard parts, and using test equipment.

And what's wrong with that? There's nothing like reading bits off actual wires to give a sense of the underlying Tao of computers, and (by comparision) of the scale of complexity to which they've evolved.

The computer that you do not construct is not the true computer.

He wanted to cook spaghetti, and got a recipe, but didn't know what a "clove" of garlic was. Assuming it meant the purchased unit (and hey, why not?) he made some ... really spicy spaghetti.

Be careful, you are getting close to my Secret Chili Recipe, to be defended to the death and never written down.

My first attempt at scratch chili was about 30 years ago for a group of friends. I worked from a restaurant recipe, and somehow became confused about the relationship of 1 clove vs. 1 head of garlic. It got rave reviews, especially when reheated the next day. It continues to be a central feature, allowing a lot of punch whithout cranking up the heat too much. I also makes for great burps.

"spicy"? I consider garlic a vegetable, right next to the four kinds of onions I keep handy! ;-)

I was present when someone got similarly confused between a stick of plastic explosive and a case. (Eight sticks to the case). That was... impressive. No injuries, but debris everywhere and a lot of rather surprised people.

"Think ya used enough C4 there, Butch?"

I was present when someone got similarly confused between a stick of plastic explosive and a case. (Eight sticks to the case). That was... impressive. No injuries, but debris everywhere and a lot of rather surprised people.

And how long did you work for the Oregon State Department of Transportation?

By all accounts the ODOT managed to do something I've never thought possible. There were no seagulls on the beach or in the area afterwards. This Doesn't Happen.

PJ Evans @#37: CS students were, at one time, required to take hardware classes. As in building simple circuits from standard parts, and using test equipment.

And what's wrong with that? There's nothing like reading bits off actual wires to give a sense of the underlying Tao of computers, and (by comparision) of the scale of complexity to which they've evolved.

I dunno, as I get older my fingers seem to get fatter and fatter. I can't seem to manage to hook a probe on an ALU carry bit anymore. </crusty curmudgeon>

Mephistopheles (looks up at blubber raining from the sky): Why this is the whale, nor am I out of it.

In my case the process, involving a required course for CS majors taught by the EE dept, which was in the Engineering School instead of the College of Natural Sciences, had some interesting lessons not directly connected with circuit design.

First, that hardware does not necessarily always work even if correctly designed; whatever building blocks you use inevitably have a short or a loose connector in them somewhere. You *will* learn hardware debugging skills.

Second, that hardware TAs (in the EE dept) were considerably less tolerant (at least in the late 70s) of females than were TAs in my own department, which even had a female as chairman.

Valuable lessons, both.

Gillian: "I suppose they told you that?"

Spock: "The hell they did."