Off-schedule. Food. Keys. Roo.

Without the usual morning rushing out the door thing, I'm off my feed.

Off my schedule too. I forgot to put my pedometer and pager on. I couldn't get started this morning (although part of that was the clinging Roo using my pant leg for a snot rag).

Finally shuffled out the door with Roo to grab groceries for tonight, since Dena's coming and Mike may not be home and Kim may be coming or may not, and god knows who-all else might knock on the door, so I'm making Hidden Treasure Chicken and anise beef and frying up some Chinese kale and there will be rice, dammit.

Love me, love my mother's recipes, that's what I always say.

So we go to Northwestern Books & Cafe to get Roo a Veggie Tales video because he's been good, and because I'm sick of seeing the ones he has and he has no energy to do anything else and gets fussy easily. It takes me, no lie, 30 minutes to *buy a video* that it took us 30 seconds to walk in and find.

Then we go grocery shopping.

Then I realise I've lost my keys.

Then we spend 40 minutes hunting for my keys.

Not a good way to spend time with a sickety tired crabby Roo, wailing as he clutches at my shoulder, "I'm tiiiiiiiiired, I am Tiiiiiired! Izzit lunchtime? Izzit bedtime? I don't SEEEEEEEE dem. Less go hooooome!"

Right now he's stripped all his clothes off and is attempting to take a nap on the sofa. That's fine by me. Poor kid...

Hidden Treasure Chicken & Anise Beef

Both of these are simple, 'company dishes' that can be made the night before and then gently warmed on the stove, crock-potted (as long as you have 12 hours' head start, or cooked for several hours on the stove.

Both of these are also known as 'brown dishes': that is to say, there is a LOT of soy sauce in them-- and that means a lot of sodium.

The trick is finding the right ingredients.

Anise Beef

1 lb stew meat
12 star anise stars
3 dried chinese peppers
1.5 cups water
1.5 cups soy sauce

Combine. Cook. Add more peppers (to taste-- 3 peppers will make a spicy dish. 6, a hot dish. 12, a blow-your-sinuses-inside-out dish).

This can also be done as a vegan dish by substituting extra-firm tofu for stew meat (equivalent weight) and adding two chopped up onions.


Hidden Treasure Chicken

2 lb bone-in chicken (drumsticks and thighs, usually)
5 hard boiled eggs
12 dried chinese mushrooms (shiitake)
various fresh mushrooms (woodear is best, sliced thin)
1 can of bamboo shoots
1 can straw mushrooms
1 can baby corn
2 cups soy sauce
1.5 cups water (ideally, the water that your dried mushrooms have been soaking in)
2 dried chinese peppers (the small kind-- optional)

Soak mushrooms in 12 oz water for 15 minutes. Place chicken in bottom of large pot with water and soy sauce. Add peeled hard boiled eggs. Chop up bamboo shoots and baby corn and add to pot. Add straw mushrooms to pot. Cut stems off dried mushrooms and add to pot. Add fresh mushrooms to pot last. Cook until chicken is hanging off the bone.

Serve with rice: everyone should get an egg. The hidden treasure is the yolk, which you mash with your fork and mix with the rice/sauce/rest of the dish.

Sadly, there is no vegan equivalent to this dish that I know of.

Anyone interested in Kale, I'll email you the recipe later. I need to change someone's diaper.