Smoothies & a Poem

Every morning this week has been a Smoothie morning for me and Husband. Well, this morning it was a Smoothie for me and a rush-out-the-door-in-a-big-hurry for Husband. His smoothie's in the freezer; I will have it for elevenses. Or maybe tenses.
It's fun to wake up with Husband and make him a smoothie. He's been taking a thermos of coffee to work, so he makes coffee and when that's been done I get up and make the smoothie while he dresses. Then we drink our smoothies together.
'Sfun.
Today's smoothie was exceptional because I got these insanely ripe strawberries at the farmer's market yesterday. When I got them home I understood the air of desperation that pervaded the site--everyone had strawberries to sell and everyone had to sell them yesterday if they hoped to sell them at all. I had to carve them up to put them in the smoothie this morning--they were verrrrry soft--but so red they were nearly bloody, and sweet and delicious.
I planned to skewer them along with pineapple chunks for the party we're having tomorrow. Husband's family is coming down for a graduation--his uncle is receiving his PhD!--and I planned the menu very carefully. I wanted the skewers out before lunch so people would have something healthy to snack on (besides the chips and veggie dip), and these skewers are an example of something that is greater than the sum of its parts--even if you include the actual skewers in the equation. They are elegant without being pretentious, they are portable, and they are awesome-tasting! But you need to have whole strawberries, or they at least need to look like someone didn't peel them with a hacksaw. So I guess it will be a bowl of strawberries and pineapple. The best laid plans, as they say.
Incidentally, what they say is "The best laid plans of mice and men/ often go awry." I looked up the original Robert Burns poem and will include the wacky-sounding last two stanzas, because I think they're nice. He's writing to a mouse whose nest he overturned with his plow one winter's morning. He's sorry for the mouse, but not too sorry.

But Mousie, thou are no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Still, thou art blest, compar'd wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!

(this is from http://www.electricscotland.com/burns/mouse.html)

In which our Heroine Speaks of her Defeat at the Hands of a Child's Blanket

I will call it a clash of ambition and ability.
I want to finish a project so that I can say "Look, I finished a project." This is something I need to hear myself say. I need to feel like sewing projects don't have to take like indefinite amounts of time to complete.
But something always gets in my way.
With this little-girl quilt for one of my god daughters, what's getting in the way is my total inability to plan anything. That, and this sick tendency I'm discovering in myself to nitpick.
Aargh. I'll explain.
At first I thought it would be great to have all these bright, intense colors. I picked up a few solids during my last binge of fabric-buying, and was so happy to have a kelly green and a really intense turquoise. I tried to incorporate them into this quilt, and they looked tacky. They clashed a little and it was a bad move.
Around the same time, I was also discovering that I can't seem to leave well enough alone. The idea for the quilt was simple: my god daughter's name, with each letter appliqued on a different quilt square. I couldn't leave that alone, so I put a log-cabin border around each of the letter squares. I was pleased with the way that turned out. The rest of the plan was to use squares of the solid-colored fabric interspersed with the occasional print-fabric square, with the print squares matching the fabric from the appliqued letters.
But that wasn't good enough for my god daughter. Even though I still can't make a proper square out of a piece of fabric, and even though my log cabins are inevitably and maddeningly crooked, I decided to experiment with different kinds of log cabin squares, and after spending all day yesterday cutting out squares of the wrong color fabric and then painstakingly piecing the overly-ambitious (and ultimately crappy-looking) log cabin squares, I am really nowhere.
So I wish I could just pick a project, start it today, and stick with it until it is finished. I wish I could just say "I want some orange napkins" and make the orange napkins and be pleased with the way they turn out and come downstairs when Husband gets home without feeling like I'm retreating in a cowardly fashion from a big fight with bad guys.

Roast chicken

I've become rather enamored of roasting chickens. It's so economical: the two of us reap at least three meals from one roasted chicken, and that doesn't even count the beautiful golden stock I make and freeze when all the meat's been devoured.
I've tried a few different recipes and a few different roasting vessles. I started with the real live Calphalon nonstick roasting pan with the professional-looking rack and ergonomical handles. It produced a beautiful bird. But our kitchen is very small, and that roasting pan is very big--too big, if we're being completely honest, for one 3- or 4-pound chicken (which, incidentally, can cost as little as $5. I know I should be getting my chicken from a farm but the reasons I don't are myriad and will have to be reserved for another time. For the moment, let's just say it's because I'm cheap.). And counter space is at a major premium in my kitchen, so the second time I roasted a chicken, I left the big beautiful roasting pan (which was a wedding gift, of course) in the basement and turned to the big (but slightly smaller than the roasting pan) beautiful enameled cast iron dutch oven which was also a wedding gift. I have two of them. Nah nah nah nah nah nah. I love them both. One is about 5 quarts and one is 8. The 8-quarter is oval and it almost fits over two burners on the stove. I used the big one for my second chicken and it turned out great. But it's also a little unwieldy and I was getting pretty cocky with the chicken roasting. So I turned to my big cast iron skillet--sans enamel. I believe I wrote a tipsy post about that experiment. It turned out great. The cast iron skillet is now my go-to roasting pan. It's a manageable size and cleanup is pretty easy as long as I have an abrasive scrubbing sponge on hand.
As far as recipes go: after trying a few different ones, including Julia Childs' master Frahnch recipe, I have to say the best one is Marcella Hazan's Roast Chicken with Lemons. It is ridiculously simple, and in comments sections on like every Roast Chicken discussion on the world wide web, you will find that someone has posted a rave review of this recipe. You poke about twenty holes in two lemons, with a fork or a toothpick. You stick said lemons up a raw, rinsed (do I need to say plucked?) chicken's butt. You rub the chicken's skin with salt and pepper. You place the chicken in a cast iron skillet (this is my variation, you understand). You roast it at like 350 or 400 degrees for about an hour. You turn it from its back to its front, and then vice versa, every 15 to 30 minutes. You do not baste it. When the juices run clear and the leg wiggles freely in its socket*, you remove the bird from the oven and let it rest for about 10 minutes. Then you carve it and serve it and it is delicious and juicy.That's the recipe. Marcella has you truss it and I ruined a perfectly good embroidery needle (because who has chicken-trussing needles lying around?) the first time I made this, trying to sew the chicken's butt closed. I have not since trussed a chicken.
I also made a variation of this recipe for quesadillas recently: I stuck two limes up the chicken's butt and used salt, pepper and cayenne to rub the chicken. It turned out great, too. The lemon doesn't really flavor the chicken too much, and neither did the lime. Marcella says this is a "self-basting" bird, and I suppose that's really the function of the citrus fruits--to baste more than to flavor.
*I am a tiny bit paranoid about my ability to determine the wiggling of a leg and the clarity of chicken juices. The breast should be at 160 or 170 degrees. The leg and thigh should be at 180 degrees. These are the FDA guidelines. Julia says that in France people like their chicken less well-done than we do in these United States. That makes me want to puke a little. The trouble is that a juicy chicken and an undercooked chicken are a little too similar. My chickens fluctuate a little as concerns their done-ness. I would say err on the side of dry, not because of salmonilla but more because, even though everyone thinks they want a juicy piece of chicken, it can be a little gross if the chicken's so juicy it's almost wet. But that's my personal taste, my personal advice. You really have to feel your way to being comfortable with chicken-roasting.
P.S. Sorry--the only photos I have are these, which I forgot to snap until the chicken had been carved a little bit.
P.P.S. The lemon chicken stuck once. I think it was in the enameled cast iron. There was no rhyme or reason. I scraped it off and flipped it and it still tasted great. I chalked it up to a fluke. That's what you should do, too. If you try this. If you read this, which you won't because...you know. I might be a tiny bit crazy.

Resolution Update.

It's not that I'm slipping. Today was just kind of a fluke. We had a very busy weekend, with lots of manual labor on Saturday, fixing up some buildings on my family's land out in the hills. And we had a last-minute, very welcome visit from my best friend and her two radiantly beautiful children yesterday.
AND we're out of coffee, so I had no motivation to get up with Husband this morning. Plus I was very tired from the weekend. But so was Husband, and he got up and went off to work lickety split. I, on the other hand, did not. It's a testament to my exhaustion that I had no seven o'clock dreams. I did have some eight o'clock dreams, but I actually woke up before those could get out of control and turn into nine o'clock dreams.
Anyway, not the best way to start a new week, but it is what it is.
On the other hand, I have not spent much time on the computer this weekend. We were too busy, for one thing. Yesterday I restricted myself to the reading the NY Times website, which is chock full on Sundays. And my Facebook farm has been managed--I won't have to go there ever again if I so decide. Pathetic, I know, but I think it's important to be honest.
My parents are bringing down some furniture they're donating to our cause (our cause being "we have a rickety dining room table and the chairs keep breaking"), but besides that I have nothing to do but sew, sew, sew. Finished an apron for my mom last week (and forgot to take pictures), and it turned out really nicely. On the front of it I sort of appliqued one of those off-kilter log cabin squares, and it looked so cool I can't wait to make some more. Without coffee, however, I'm having a hard time deciding what those squares will become part of.
P.S. I put the picture of the purple flowers here so it would stop being such a text-heavy page. They have nothing to do with me sleeping in like a big fat sloth; they have nothing to do with me intending to make log cabin quilt squares today; they have nothing to do with me being out of coffee. But they're pretty and they're growing wild in the wooded hill across the street from our little house.