Randy’s Recipes: Chicken Strips in Soy Sauce and Garlic

For two or three appetites!

Place a fairly large boneless chicken breast in a gallon size freezer bag and smash (I use a short length of 2x4).

Cut the breast into strips, lengthwise. Put the strips in a baking dish (rinse them in cold water and dry with a paper towel, first). Add ½ cup of soy sauce. Chop 2 cloves of garlic, add to the dish, also, a little coarse ground pepper. Add a tsp. of olive oil. Mix it all up with your hands, cover and put in the fridge for half an hour.

Slice a large baking potato on a grater. I used the side that makes potato chips or scallops. Watch your knuckles!

Heat a large pan. I use a 3-½ qt. non-stick stainless steel saute pan by Cuisinart. No aluminum and copper is sandwiched into the bottom. It spreads the heat evenly and it you condition the pan with mineral oil once a month or so, use wooden utensils, wipe it out with a paper towel or wet sponge, no soap, it’ll last forever.

½ c. olive oil to the pan.

Put the potatoes in first. Once they get going, clear a space in the middle of the pan and add the chicken. Work on the chicken, turning it so it cooks evenly. I happened to have some smoked bacon on the bone. I cut off the fat and added a little to the chicken.

Mix in the potatoes, then start adding the veggies. I used the following:

soy beans (shelled)
baby carrots
green onion or chives
mushrooms

I didn’t use it, but chopped, fresh kale is also good in this dish.

Because of the flavor of the soy sauce, the only spices I used were coarse ground black pepper and a little minced onion and garlic.

Salt only after you place the food in serving bowls. Add a tablespoon of Earth Balance spread and enjoy!

Carrie: Double-Edged Sword

It’s a great photo, isn’t it?

Carrie Prejean is a beautiful girl.

And the “other” photos? You’ve seen them. They’re posted all over the I-net. I’m not a Christian woman but if I were, I wouldn’t have made the choice she did. Why? There are limits and for Christians in particular, within those limits there is Joy.

I know this is true. I go out of the limits – I told a couple of good friends earlier this week I hope God gives me a mulligan for having looked at porn.

Yeah, very funny. Carrie’s pictures bring home a lot of things. I do believe God has used her, in her flaws and in her beauty, and with the choices she’s made. And in a way that only He can do.

She’s shown the world its hypocrisy. And I'm right in the middle of the pack. No, I’m not homosexual, let alone homophobic, at all. But does it make it all that better to drool over someone of the opposite sex rather than the same sex?

I didn’t drool over Carrie, but I don’t agree with Trump’s statement about her semi-nude photos being fine because it’s the 21st Century. If that were true, it’d validate all the relative morality arguments. Truth is truth – it’s an absolute – deal with it.

And don’t the gays and the libs and the agenda-driven media know that? They do, it’s God’s word that we all know right from wrong. Everyone. Believers and non-believers alike. He created ALL of us. It’s somewhere in the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy or Leviticus that those laws are written inside our hearts, undeniably and indelibly. Right and wrong, black and white, they are our laws, from Him.

Through Carrie Prejean, God is showing us that we're ALL hypocrites – not gays, not libs that Christians, by definition, disagree with. We’re NOT any better than one another. Kind of gives us a basis of love for fellow man/woman, doesn’t it? Hate their sin and hate ours as well. Because we’re on an equal playing field.

I’m learning a lesson.

BTW Carrie, take all the photos you want, semi-nude or in your birthday suit. Paste them up all over you and your husband’s bedroom, once you’re wed. The marriage bed is pure.

Somewhere

Regretfully, I couldn't find the photo of my mom that I wanted to run today.

She looked beautiful. It was taken before either I or my sister, who's five years older, was born. It may have even been shot around the time my folks were married or right before my dad went into WWII.

It was before the verities of a long marriage had set in: raising two kids, managing the finances (she socked it away in envelopes to pay the bills and put what was left in the bank before dad said a word), the cooking and the cleaning over and over again, planning all those parties and family events, dealing with a husband with post traumatic stress syndrome well-before that term was coined or anything was in place to help returning vets with those problems.

There are no lines or wrinkles on her face in that photo. She was in her early 20s and the ravages of her 2-pack a day cigarette habit was more than a half century away from taking their final toll. She had already lived through the Depression and you couldn't tell that she had to live in an orphanage with her sister when she was four because her mom had gotten paralyzed scrubbing floors in a factory in the winter with the windows wide open.

And she didn't have to pray and hope and worry yet over a son who would stay in college during the riots of the late 60s-early 70s, drive a bus on the old 41 route through Cabrini Green and then backpack and hitch hike through Europe with the money he'd earned. It was either that or the Navy and Vietnam.

Rather she looked like she was posing for a portrait for her new husband. She had that Gibson-styled hair (no, it doesn't mean she had a guitar on top of her head. The "Gibson-girl" look was pretty popular in the 40s). Her makeup was perfect. And she wore her famous raccoon coat. I remember when it got damaged beyond repair in a flood in the basement at the old house. She had stored it in a trunk along with love letters from my dad and other memorabilia from the early years of their marriage. It was almost all lost.

The flood was around 1990 -- their 50th wedding anniversary. Losing those items was a turning point, because by the end of the decade, Mom and Dad were both gone. Mom first.

That picture is somewhere. And so is Mom.

Randy's Recipes: Grandma's Favorite Chicken Hash

In honor of my grandmother’s 122nd birthday (she lived to 87) and since I’d just made chicken soup, I thought it’d be a great time for this recipe.

My mom got this one from her. Every time she made chicken soup from scratch, the next day she made delicious hash with the left over chicken. If you keep the chicken in broth, it’s even better the next day. After that, forget it. So make the hash the day after.


This feeds two really well, three isn’t stretching it.

Dice two red potatoes, leave the skins on. Rinse and put them in water. Bring water to a boil.

To the water add the following. If you have a small grinder, grinding the herbs/spices will unlock the flavor like you wouldn't believe:

1/2 tsp. Kosher salt
several peppercorns – I use about ten
tsp. dry, minced onion
tsp. dry, minced garlic
tsp. parsley flakes
1/2 tsp. thyme
tsp. dry dill
tsp. chives
1 medium bay leaf

This is incredibly aromatic, and GREEN!

Put about 2/3rds of this mixture into the boiling potatoes.

Add a couple drops of olive oil to the water, then blanch some fresh broccoli (I separate half a head and then chop the stalks) in the boiling water. The oil will turn the broccoli deep green. Don’t leave the broccoli in too long. It should still be al dente when you take it out of the water. Set it aside.

Chop the following and put in a large bowl:

a quarter of a medium sized Bermuda onion (any onion is OK)
one stalk of celery
a small carrot (or use a few baby carrots)
one clove of garlic
small handful of walnut pieces

Pull all the soup chicken meat off the bones, throw it into the same bowl.

Heat a fry pan (I use a large sauté pan and it’s perfect for all my recipes) and add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Put in all the ingredients, including the broccoli, and stir with a wooden utensil.

Drain the potatoes. Make sure they drain completely, then add them to the pan. Don’t be afraid to let it all brown lightly, especially the potatoes. As it cooks, add some green olives (cut them up), and sesame seed. If it starts to dry, add more olive oil or a little Earth Balance spread.

Spoon into serving bowls or plates. Top with some grated Parmesan, coarse ground black pepper, and a little Kosher salt.

Driving While Liberated

It made national news -- a woman who admitted she was painting her fingernails while driving at a high speed, slammed into a motorcyclist, throwing the biker hundreds of feet, killing her.

Last winter (Feb. 2008) I was in the same general area, waiting to turn onto a main road. Speed limit on the main road was 45. Family in a white SUV was waiting to turn left onto the smaller road I was on. I was waiting to turn left onto the main road.

Some traffic. Typical situation. I was first in line to turn, couple of cars behind me. I had the radio on and I remember looking at the knobs or switches because as I looked down for a second, I heard an atomic bomb go off.

A kid in an old car slammed into the back of the family's stopped SUV at 60 mph. In an instant, what was an SUV turned into an accordion. Before anyone could utter, "Oh my God!" the kid, badly broken up, got out of his car and tried to walk to the van. And he was busted up bad, I can tell you.

Text messaging, ringtones, the radio, whatever he was doing, his choice changed lives forever. I turned right instead of left, pulled over and called for help. Paramedics and police arrived quickly. Other motorists got out of their cars to help with traffic. I waited for the police and then left. I called them later to see how the victims were and to give my name as a witness. At that time, they said there were no fatalities. Yet.

The year before, my neighbor was on her way home from church at night (Good Friday) and got rolled over and dragged 100 feet by a lady in an SUV, on a cell phone. Fire department had to use a hoist to get the SUV off of her -- she was pinned underneath. Both of her arms were broken near the shoulders. Miracle, she survived, had months of therapy, and is now back at work.

I remember standing on the El platform in 1983, waiting to catch a train downtown to go to work. The tracks ran along the expressway. I was appalled to see a guy driving his car on the Kennedy, with a newspaper folded over the steering wheel.

Bicyclists too, are getting killed in droves in Chicago.

Any suggestions? Is this another freedom of speech issue? Do people have a right to drive a vehicle and do virtually anything they want on the basis of being liberated and "empowered"? There couldn't be enough laws passed and enforced to cover any of this -- they'd have to have devices to measure where the eyes are focusing, if the head turns too often towards the dashboard, if hands come off the steering wheel. Sensors all over the car. Voice sensors, too. Oh, that'd fly.

People have to choose whether "defensive driving" is an antiquated, extremist term, thus taking on the meaning "offensive driving" in this brave, new upside down world we call home. Or is there some small portion still alive in the human psyche that says there are limits as to how much one's own selfishness is serving them and society.

Charleton Heston Couldn’t Have Said it Better

We walked into the nightclub late last night – me and Don, the leader of our big band. It was a weeknight and people were still out partying.

The place was once a bowling alley. I used to bowl there in the late 60s with my high school buddies. A few years ago, it changed hands and was reconditioned into a combination of the old Playboy Club, the Drake Hotel, and, if you’ve ever been there, House on the Rock in Dodgeville, Wisconsin.

The main dance floor could have been used as a set for Star Trek or any of the action movies, including Batman. There were lasers, more than half-naked girls, an unbelievable sound system that pumped really good, modern dance music.

Three other smaller side rooms served as auxiliary bars. By smaller, I mean the size of a large banquet hall with a 25-ft. ceiling as opposed to a gymnasium. Speaking of the ceiling, there were chandeliers – maybe 20 feet in diameter and God knows how tall – that had to have been taken from an old hotel downtown. Hotel Xanadu.

It’s all Polish. Young, affluent Polish, ultra-chic, not like grandparents who came over on the boat and worked in factories. They were dressed to the nines (I forget how to say “nine” in Polish). The waitresses and female clientele struck me as something you see on the internet (when you should be doing something else), or maybe Dancing with the Stars. This is like money Hugh Hefner doesn’t even have. Course, I’ve never been and never will be to one of his parties. I hear they wear even less clothes. I read about it.

I had to tell the blond, thin, fit, 20-ish waitress who drew our $7 beers that the girls were so pretty I wish I was 30 again. She thanked me. I could have been her grandfather. The bar was a huge mahogany and glass job that might have come from a world’s fair at the turn of the next century.

Did I mention there were four TV screens in the marble and frosted glass washroom?

You can call it sex, hedonism. Opulent sexuality. But I didn’t get the feeling of sleaziness or meat market. That’s from my culture. “Meat Market” was Rush Street in the 60s and 70s where you’d meet white girls who didn’t go to college and you’d see plenty of pro baseball players hanging out after a game.

The nightclub struck me as the pinnacle of Polish culture in America. But it wasn't exactly the America we knew. However, the owner seemed to have had some thoughts about that.

I finally noticed the floor – narrow strips of maple, worn. I motioned to Don. It was the original floor from the bowling alley. An artifact. How nice of them. You could even see marks where you’d spot your ball. I wondered if I was standing at the spot where maybe 40 years ago I’d knocked down some pins.

We headed out. BTW, we were there to see if the owner wanted to hire the big band. As of this morning, surprisingly, it looks like a maybe. Have to make another phone call. Got another smile from the waitress when I told her we were jazz musicians, had a big swing band and we were the “real deal.” She seemed to think that was cool.

Don and I went through the lounge, which could have come from the Palmer House. The door to the parking garage was chained, but we kept walking towards it, still exploring.

A wall had blocked what we were about to see. Slowly, on the left, a space opened up and something came into view. Take, double take, then swallow.

There, in dim greenish florescent light, were two remaining lanes of the original bowling alley. Pins were set in both lanes, many balls, black and colored (the ladies’ bowling balls were colored and lighter as I remember) were racked up between the lanes, a pair of small scoring screens still hung overhead.

“Damn you! Damn you all to hell!” Charleton Heston’s utterance was a mix of shock and disgust at the end of Planet of the Apes. We could have well come upon the head of the Statue of Liberty sticking out of the floor.

I wasn’t angry and I wouldn’t have damned anybody. I was shocked at the passage of time and seeing the culture I had known become quaint – distilled to a museum piece in the corner, contrasted by this grandiose opulence.

We’ve lived a long time. Maybe playing big band music at this club – music written before I was even born – will somehow balance all of this.

Randy's Recipes: Pot Roast, Italian Style!

Boneless chuck roast, seven blade roast, whatever you think is best. I used a 2-1/4 lb. roast for this recipe.

Brown the meat in peanut oil, season with garlic powder (find one without salt or additives), minced dry onion (perfect for browning meat -- no moisture), and lots of oregano. When meat is well-browned, remove from pan. Clean the pan or use a Dutch oven, and then add 3/4 inch of beef stock, 1/2 of a red onion (it's Italian!), 1 medium green bell pepper sliced, put the meat in, a couple of carrots, 1 leek or the tops of three green onions, a small bunch of fresh dill, a bay leaf, 2 large red or white potatoes (cut into quarters, but leave the skin on), a good splash of Chianti, black pepper, couple a cloves of garlic, more oregano. Simmer, simmer, simmer, 2 hours is good, till the meat is soft but not dry. Test! Cut off a bit and taste. Don't let it dry out – make sure it's tender! Add green beans and a sprinkle of savory. I also like some chopped zucchini and mushrooms, but add both at the end for only 5 or 10 minutes. Serve with a green salad and some Chianti or red wine. Whew! Delish!

Update: I now have a pressure cooker and this entire roast can be cooked in about half an hour. I also grind my herbs and spices in a small grinder and rub them into the meat. You can also cut small pockets into the roast before browning and insert pieces of raw garlic.