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Topic: Food, share a recipe or two and why you love it. Where did you get the recipe or from who?
Welcome to The Blue Honor Blog from Lela Markham‘s page.
My recipes come from my mother and the creativity and cooking I’ve learned from her. I started at a very young age, from a drive to remain at her side, to learn how to cook. Being with mom meant good food. I think I indulge in treats a bit much to recapture that feeling of happiness and security, which I had in mom’s kitchen. As an adult, the reality of the world can wipe away the rose color in your outlook. Nothing is quite secure in a system that is constantly changing. Happiness is fleeting for most. Food is a comfort that can be purchased for small change (I don’t mean your monthly grocery bill–I mean the odd dollar bar or lunch out). We also know that food is life, for without it there is no life, or denied enough of it, we have a limited life. Multiple studies show the affects of food poverty on the development of the human brain and the rest of the body. This is why I’m always in support of making sure people don’t go without. Besides helping to maintain peace, having enough builds strong citizens who will be healthy and happy to participate in the world. Refusing the basics leaves most stunted, ill and wondering why they should bother.
Anyway. I don’t want to politically showboat on this thread–back to food!
If you’ll notice, on the right side of the page I have a few topics you can click on and it sorts my blog by date and that topic. You’ll find one marked Cooking. I keep my recipes simple, because I am a forty year old with a job and understand how busy most other women and men are trying to just make ends meet. Complicated recipes, to me, are for extremely special occasions, or a chef at a restaurant. It’s not that I don’t like to pat myself on the back with accomplishing something difficult, I simply do not have the time to take for this. Besides, most chefs, celebrity chefs too, will tell you that simple is better. Those recipes with the umpteen ingredients and steps tend to just be flash. The fewer the ingredients and preparation, the better.
I recently took a dish of my Quick Chicken Curry Salad and a co-worker of mine did a double take. “That looks amazing. What is it?” I had stuffed a half of a cup into a small Italian roll from a local bakery (Mastroianni Bros. Italian Bakery of Schenectady, NY–Italian Dinner Rolls). They’re perfect for a person of my size to make a sandwich in. I use them to make a sub style sandwich too. They’re larger than regular dinner rolls, but smaller than a kaiser. No seeds. No flash. Just fresh Italian bread.
The Curry Chicken Salad is inspired by another local favorite: the Chicken Lilly dish at The Breadbasket Bakery in Saratoga Springs, NY. It’s a refreshing flavor change from the usual lunch fare. And, that! will keep you straight and narrow on the diet. Using flavorful by spice recipes plus minimal and wholesome ingredients, you’ll stick to eating right. Weight loss and maintenance doesn’t have to be a slog. You don’t have to eat wooden carrots or tongue numbing celery everyday. Portion control and what you put into your food is a lot of the issue. I build my recipes around what I have learned from journaling my caloric intake and being honest with myself. The only person you hurt by ignoring what you put into your body is you.
Along with adopting and modifying recipes I find in restaurants and have taken on from the family, my background in science has indirectly influenced my understanding of how things work together. It’s like second nature to understand how water, flour and heat will react in a recipe. Growing up cooking can give you that, but, if you’ve ever watched Alton Brown’s show on the Cooking Channel (Good Eats), you learn from him just how much of cooking is actually chemistry. With that knowledge, you’ll never err again. I recommend his books.
Feel free to share, use and enjoy the recipes I’ve placed on my blog. The Curry Chicken Salad is just one of many.
Click on over to Traci Wooden-Carlisle’s blog to see what she has to share.
Born in Los Angeles, California, Mrs. Wooden-Carlisle desired to be a poet and novelist at the age of 11. Today, Mrs. Wooden Carlisle lives in San Diego with her husband, serving as a church Office Manager, teaches fitness classes, celebrates her faith through dance, and is currently writing her third book in the Christian-fiction series, Promises to Zion. Check out her other books here.
Lela Markham is a writer of fantasy, apocalyptic thrillers, murder mysteries, and human dramas.
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Fabulous post and I’ll be trying your recipe. Thank you.
I love it! Just had some last week. The other half of the chicken tenders are waiting in the freezer to be turned into more.