Thursday, July 2, 2009

Canada Day

We had our traditional Canada Day call out yesterday. For some reason Canada's birthday seems to be targeted by the fire/rescue gremlins, and they give us a disproportionately high number of calls on that day. You could write it off to the holidays attracting more travellers on the highway, and vacationers to nearby cottages, but some of the calls have been just plain weird. Like bark piles spontaneously combusting and cottages getting struck by lightning. Yesterday's call was more of a run-of-the mill, typical summertime vehicle crash . . . if you call someone's trailer breaking loose and running headlong into a tractor trailer run-of-the-mill. The tractor's driver-side control arm broke, dragging it into oncoming traffic and almost headlong into another tractor trailer. Everyone escaped with life and limb intact for the most part, and the vehicles took the brunt of the damage.

The strange thing is that I was cooking a nice Canada Day dinner for my family and thinking, gee, it's Canada Day and my pager hasn't gone off yet . . . maybe if I just keep my mouth shut, the gremlins will forget. Wrong. I guess gremlins must be mind readers.

Speaking of cooking, here's another recipe, hot off the kitchen range. Make sure you follow the steps in order:

  1. Look at yesterday's leftover roast beef and decide it isn't enough to feed your family of four (if it is enough, skip this recipe and just feed them the beef)
  2. Get the roast beef out anyway, and also the left over gravy
  3. Slice two chicken breasts into strips cross ways, and fry them in oil until they are lightly browned on both sides
  4. Take the chicken out of the pan
  5. Pour a little water into the pan and scrape the bottom with a flat lifter
  6. Add some tomato juice or tomato sauce (sauce is probably better . . . I only had juice.)
  7. Add the leftover gravy
  8. The sauce should be reddish brown and enough to cover the beef and chicken (later)
  9. Add some spices and herbs. I was feeling Italian, so I put in some fresh cut and chopped oregano and basil, some powdered garlic, a little mustard, Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco. A little salt is good too. As usual, add everything to taste, a little at a time if you aren't sure
  10. Cook for a while (the time depends on how hungry your kids are). Longer is better. Tomato seems to be improved by cooking
  11. Add the chicken breast and roast beef, and stir in
  12. Cook a tiny bit longer. You shouldn't have to thicken it, but if you do, I suggest cornstarch mixed well with water first, add a little at a time
  13. Grate a handful of cheese (I used marble cheddar, but any cheddar will do) and spread it on top of the whole thing
  14. Sprinkle parmesan cheese on top of that
  15. Sprinkle some more oregano and basil on top of that, then cover for a few minutes with the heat off
  16. When the cheese melts, put the whole frying pan on the table and serve with linguine or spaghetti
  17. How much linguine to cook? If you can figure that one out, let me know.

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