Chicken Mew-dle Soup

As those of you on Facebook know, Mr. Butters is home sick with a kitty cold. This, of course, is opposed to what he would normally be doing (i.e. trading stocks online, writing poetry, and visiting his poo igloo, which Matt and I have fondly named First National Feline. Butters goes here to make deposits and get change for a clump).

I became aware that Butters was under the weather when he woke me up with one million tiny kitty sneezes this morning at 4 a.m. This passed without incident, and I really wasn't alarmed until I woke up at nine o'clock and Butters had not woken me up recently to tell me that it was kitty kibble time. Which happens like clockwork every day at 7:30 a.m. So Butters has passed the rest of the day snuggled under our covers, which is not a luxury he would typically enjoy, as he tends to make me itch like a fiberglass bathrobe. So, this is love.

First, he aked me to make him a hot toddy. I refused. Not just because whiskey is not exactly what you would call healthy for cats to imbibe, but also because it is hard to seperate me from my Fireball. Not to mention that if Butters drank too much whiskey, we all know who would be scrubbing the walls of First National Feline. This kid. That's who.

I believe I'll compromise by making Butters my potent cold-remedy soup that I recently discovered when Matt was feeling similarly...

(Note: I obviously will not be feeding Butters Chicken and Sausage soup... so cool your PETA engines, he's going to eat science diet and chicken Temptations cat treats like all other sick kitties.)

What you'll need:

2 large chicken breasts

3 hot and spicy sausage links, skins removed prior to cooking

2 stalks of celery, chopped

3 large carrots, cut on the bias

1 head of broccoli, cut into inch chunks

1 large onion, roughly chopped

enough water and boullion or stock to cover all your ingredients and fill a big stock pot about 3/4 full

Noodles of choice, preboiled and set to the side

olive oil

Spices of choice (I chose mustard seeds, garlic, black pepper, a little salt, onion powder, and basil, but when you're feeling poorly some things just don't taste right, so I like these because they are spicy)

Start by browning your sausage in the bottom of your pan, once finished, remove from pan and set to the side. Add a little olive oil, and cook chicken breasts (I like to cut them into 2 inch chunks first so they cook evenly and all the way through, but you can cook them whole and cut them up late if you like...), remove and put to the side with sausage. Put ALL your vegetable into your pot, allow them to wilt and become translucent, adding more oil if necessary. Now, dump everything back into the pot, and add stock/water and boullion mixture. Add chosen spices, and let come to a simmer. Pour over (warm) noodles, and let the healing begin! This is particularly good served with garlic toast. Which I make like this:

You'll need:

A crusty loaf of something, like sourdough

Olive oil

garlic cloves

Kosher Salt

Turn on your broiler. Baste slices of bread on both sides with olive oil. Place under broiler, allow it to become evenly brown. Remove from oven, let cool slightly. Take cloves of garlic and rub them all over both sides of bread, sprinkle with salt. Try and be sick NOW! You're gonna smell so garlic-y you also will lower your chances of spreading your disease! No one will want to come ANYWHERE near you! YOU'RE WELCOME!

HEY, CHICKEN, CHICK-EN ITALIANO! OH HO HO, PASS-A DA MOZARELLA!

I greet you today with some fantastic news: THOSE SNEAKY BITCHES AT THE UNIVERSITY OVERTURNED MY WPA GRADE! Yes! With an apology letter and everything! So what we've known for a long time must, in fact, be true. I am surprisingly non-illiterate. In the meantime, I've been getting ready for my senior saxophone recital, playing all the time and developing tasty lip blisters, and trying to catch up in my REdiculous lit strat class (i.e., in between lip blisters I've been typing up roughly 97 pages of homework in order to get ahead in there...).

Also, we went home to Dillon, MT last weekend, and in between in-law weddings, I managed to make a tasty romoulade sauce for some crab cakes my mom made, which is what you call teamwork. In the meantime, Butters has been enjoying the fact that he has discovered where every heat vent in the house is, and eating piles and piles of cat treats. He also has discovered he really doesn't care for snow, so right now the sleepy little poop is still in bed.

Also, some good news! I have it on authority that there could be a new computer in store for Christmas! Do you know what this means?! That's right! More efficient stock trading! No, that's a lie. It means, COOKING WITH BUTTERS IS COMING TO A THEATER NEAR YOU! i.e. We are going to start making hilarious videos, and I am going to have to learn to use technology. Which also means, I am probably going to be swearing a whole lot more in the coming months. So there's something to look forward to.

What all of these things have in common is absolutely freakin' nothing. But now I'm going to tell you how to make chicken parmigiana, which is also completely unrelated.

I've been making chicken parmigiana since I was super little. As you read, this will raise the question, "Who lets a ten year old deep fry chicken?", but once you're done, you'll ask, "Why am I not making my ten year old fry me some chicken?"

You'll need:

A large can of Hunts or similar tomato sauce

2-3 tablespoons each basil, oregano, and garlic POWDER

4 large chicken breasts, pounded thin-ish

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

enough sliced mozarella to cover four chicken breasts

olive oil

Italian bread crumbs

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

Start by combining the sauce and the garlic, oregano and basil in a sauce pan, whisk together completely, and let simmer on medium. You could technically use less of all of those spices, but it is much more awesome this way, and would I steer you wrong? No. Also, put about 1/4 inch olive or other oil in the bottom of a frying pan. Turn the heat onto medium/medium high, DO NOT PUT ANYTHING IN THAT OIL UNTIL IT IS HOT. You will have chicken mush.

Next, on a clean surface (though it will be much less clean shortly...), take something heavy, and beat the crap out of those chicken breasts. They should be about 3/4 inch thick by the time you are done. Now please wash your beating implement. Next, whisk together egg and milk. Dip chicken into egg mixture, then cover completely in bread crumbs. Place in HOT oil. Flip once when each side is brown.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place freshly fried chicken into a greased baking dish. Cover in a layer of the sauce, and sprinkle with parmesan. Cover with foil, bake for 30 minutes. This makes sure the chicken is cooked without turning it into sawdust.

When that's done, remove foil, cover each breast in mozarella. Broil on high until they bubble golden brown. This is best served with angel hair pasta and caesar salad.

Now go forth, children! Sweet cooking, and Butters bless :)

TAKE BACK THE FENCE SPAGHETTI!!!

Okay, so I realize there has been a total lack of cooking in my life lately, which is why there has been a total lack of cooking on this blog. I can definitely explain why that is, and it's called, I have been fighting the man ALL FREAKING WEEK, and while I've been doing this, I have had no time, whatsoever, to cook.

It started on Halloween, when some D-bag stole half our fence and tipped over our arbor. I woke up on November 1st to find this giant freaking mess in our yard. I am 99.99999% sure it is our crazy, anti-arbor neighbor, because he is a nosy ass, and did not come out ONCE to ask what happened while I was re-setting a freaking arbor in my pajamas. In addition, if you were a hooligan (yes, HOOLIGAN!), would you choose to tip over the arbor that is STAKED TO THE GROUND, which will take ALOT of time and effort, or would you smash every freakin pumpkin in the neighborhood and pop the giant inflatable Snoopy down the street? You are going to smash pumpkins, is what you are going to do. And Snoopy is one dead dog. None of this happened, which leads me to the omewhat paranoid conclusion that this was TOTALLY personal. Also, my dear sweet hard working husband was up until like, 3 in the morning making posters, and heard and saw NOTHING. That, my dear friends, means that whoever did that crap waited until he knew we went to sleep, and carefully unclipped the fence and arbor from its supports, and gingerly pushed it to the ground without hurting it. YOU CANNOT TELL ME THIS IS THE WORK OF HOOLIGANS, and damnit, I want my freaking fence back! So the natural thing to do is to make a giant sign that says, "IT BETTER BE BACK IN OUR YARD BY MORNING!" and put it in the yard in front of my neighbor's front window. And then guess what? I GOT MY FREAKING FENCE BACK! So there.

Shortly after this, the most hilarious part of my week occurred. I found out I failed the University of Montana Writing Proficiency Assessment (or WPA). Now, essentially, the U of M uses this test to determine if you are illiterate, and then, if you are, you have to take the test over and over again or they will withold your diploma because clearly, you are not the kind of filth they like to unleash upon the world. Now, obviously, I did not answer my prompt on the test like I write this blog. I write this blog to you in a very personal and loving style, because you are all my dear, sweet friends. But even in this informal format, I am fairly certain that none of you are reading this and wondering, "I wonder what language this is..." Unless you are the sole reader I have in Russia, who I discovered existed the other day, and all I can say is: good for you Buddy, make those shrimp! When you fail the test, they ask that you go to the Writing Center and be tutored for your horrible mental abnormality. Well, I WENT to the Writing Center, and all that guy could tell me was that they might not have liked my placement of my main thesis. So I thought, well, I'll just retake it and it'll be fine, blah blah blah, submission, blah. THEN I thought, "Nah, I'm going to be a HUGE asshole." So I demanded an appeal form, and went home and wrote a letter to some faceless woman in the testing department, who is sadly experiencing the full brunt of my terrible November 1st. I will keep you posted about the eventual outcome of my unfortunate literacy problem.

So you can see, that this week would more make you want to drink copiously (which I did, in fact, do...) more so than eat. As a result, my dear friend Pecker and I made late night spaghetti last night, and it tasted kind of like guido heaven, seeing as it was the first food that didn't come wrapped in paper that I'd eaten all week.

FIGHTING THE MAN SPAGHETTI:
2 large tomatoes
2 large carrots
1 large onion
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 can or jar of pre-made spaghetti sauce (just wait, we're gonna make this good!)
1 tablespoon oregano
1 tablespoon basil
1 tablespoon rosemary
1 teaspoon celery salt
1 pound hamburger or spicy sausage
1 teaspoon chili flakes
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup red wine
As much spaghetti as you think the people you're cooking for will eat.

Start by grating the carrots into teeny tiny pieces and chopping the onion roughly. Saute those with the garlic in olive oil til they start to brown, remove from the pan and reserve. Brown beef in same pan, once brown, add onions, garlic and carrots back in. Cube tomatoes, add to pan, saute until semi-mushy (the tomatoes should still roughly have their shape). Add in sauce, wine, and spices. Let simmer while pasta boils. Eat that up and plot your next move! Sock it to 'em rockstar!