Round and Round

Stan and I started cooking about November last year, and someone turned the heat up over the past few months. We can't seem to settle into a new normal or find any type of routine that makes sense. The frustration has been we keep hearing "You guys are doing everything right", but if we were, we wouldn't be almost cooked from our perseptive. With that being said, the last time we came out of the hospital and at the recommendation of our most awesome home heath guys, we started the pathway to using some type of Hospice/Pallative care services. We intially had a referral to Horizons Pallative Care last week, which generated a referral to Hospice. As of last Friday, we were admitted into the Hospice program and are in the begining stages of trying to figure out what our newest normal looks like. With Hospice, we pick up a coordination of services that we haven't been able to accomplish. No matter how we yell, call, research, beg, or dance, we haven't been able to pull all of the pieces that keep us at home into any type of focused care plan. For me to open up a can on someone, it takes a long time to get me to that point. (Same with Stan). I am not sure if it is a side effect of the disease or a different expectation of care with Nana because we are her voice. So, as of Monday, here we are with some familar players. Nana's nurse was Mom's nurse. Yet another kit is in the fridge. FedEx is making regular deliveries and we are trying to move our house around yet again to figure out the best way to get all of the equipment in place.

Chicken in a Pot

I struggle with quick and easy meals that can be done in the morning, or assembled quickly after work. I had been using a ton of prepackaged entrees but this was killing my budget and not really doing what I needed. With Bev, evening is the end of a long day and comes with a new set of challenges.

Chicken in a Pot

1. Ball up some aluminum foil and put it in the bottom of your crock pot. What you are trying to do is to raise the chicken off the crock pot floor and out of the juices. Then, spray the inside with some type of cooking spray (helps with cleanup).
2. I  have a 4 lb chicken. I pulled out the giblets and removed the skin. (I am saving this for broth).  Rinsed this guy and dried him off.  I  grabbed a big bowl, added some paprika, pepper, garlic salt, and seasoning salt, mixed this stuff up, stuck the chicken in this bowl and gave him a spa treatment. (Inside and out).
3. After this was done, into the crockpot.. In my crockpot, we are going to go low for 8 hours.  Since everybody has a different guy, this will vary. You need to hit 180 dark/165 white for this to be safe.


Wrap Up
1. I should have been more aggressive with the seasoning. This is the only color the bird will have, I needed to dress him up a little more. He was still crazy yummy.
2. I overcooked him.  Next time, I will shoot for about 10 below safe and let him get there without any heat. (I think if I had pulled him out and set him on a plate about 45 minutes before, he would have gotten there without any crock pot help.)
3. Once I pulled him out (he was falling apart), I added about 8 cups of water  to the juices, all of those parts from the prep, plus the bones, an onion, some celery and carrots, and kept the party going. [At some point later tonight, will strain this for broth.]

I also tried scalloped potatoes in the other crock pot. Spray the crock pot with type of cooking spray. Layered sliced potatoes and onions for a couple of layers. I mixed butter, flour, evaporated milk, and random grated cheese in the food processor and poured it over the top  with some salt/pepper/red chili flakes. Cook this guy until the potatoes are done (3 hour or so on high, 6 hours on low in my crock pot. You want the potatoes fork tender.) These had a good flavor but the sauce was pretty lumpy.  Next time, will make the cheese sauce on the stove and layer this with the potatoes/onions and add some cheese between the layers. This may end up going in the blender and turning into loaded potato soup.

Because I was having a great time hanging out it the kitchen, I made pickles with the sad cucumbers in the fridge with yet some more onion, and bread crumbs from the last of the bread I made last week.

Open and Shut

I have a trunk in my house that was the Little Grandma's. This is where the best things in my house live. My rabbit and my doll, my Mom's teddy bear and robe, one of the Little Grandma's nightgowns, a 12" cigar I gave to my Grandpa when I was small, my wedding dress, one of Zach's outfits and toy he played with, drawings for a restaurant that Dad was going to open called 'Robyn's', my High IQ name banner and a few letters and random things. Without me, all of these treasures lose context.

As most of you know, Stan's Mom has lived with us for the past few years and has dementia. She moved in with us a few months after Mom. As she unpacks her trunk, I feel like we need to give context to these memories.

So, here we go.

On Sunday, Bev remembered that her Dad always had life savers in his pocket when they went to church. The Minister would always ask if "Norm had finished passing out the candy" before he started the service.

But tonight, the trunk lid is closed and we can't get past where we live, this is not my robe and when will Stan be home.