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I really like the BBQ chicken sold at the supermarket already to serve. When I get home, I place it in a in a shallow pan and blast it ina 500 degree Fahrenheit oven just long enough to crisp it back up. Minutes really. Leftover chicken is skinned and taken off the bone to store in the fridge. Removing the bones guarantees you won't get that funky smell and taste the bones give it when refridgerated. I then use the carcass for stock. Once I've made the stock, I strip the carcass completely of all meat left on it and the gelatinous stuff. Ruby loves that!

Avgolemono (Greek for "egg lemon")

8 cups chicken stock
3/4 cups orzo pasta, or, rice
coarse salt, and freshly cracked black pepper
2 egg
juice of one lemon
dried mint

In a medium pot, bring broth to a boil.


Add the orzo pasta and simmer, uncovered, until pasta is cooked, about 8 minutes.


In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs and lemon juice until frothy.


Take a ladleful of the hot broth from pot into a measuring cup and add slowly to the egg mixture while whisking vigorously. Make sure you temper it gradually. You want a velvety end-product and not bits of scrambled egg floating in broth.


Pour this mixture back into hot soup.


Remove immediately from heat and do not boil.


Adjust seasoning, top with a pinch of dried crushed mint and serve immediately.

This soup does not freeze well at all.
If you have leftovers, keep in the fridge no longer than a day. Reheat over medium heat until just before boiling. Whisk it a few times to keep it from splitting.

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I disagree. It is a weakness to not be made of stone... for this job.
Feelings cloud our judgement. We need to be able to make the right decisions for the people under our care based on all the facts, not just how we feel. The most competent of nurses (of any group of professionals, for that matter) are the ones who can do the delicate balancing act of leaving their problems and feelings as well as their thin skin and tender, easily bruised hearts, at home and taking their thick-skinned, strong, logical and compassionate hearts to work.

Burn out is a symptom of job dissatisfaction as well as over-work, and it does not sneak up on you. You're complaining, dragging your ass and experiencing mysterious illnesses the whole time. It's the snap!, the climactic mental breakdown that occurs at an arbitrary moment, perhaps triggered by the most insignificant event. The proverbial "last straw". One thing is for certain, once you've burned out once, subsequent break downs require less and less stress as a trigger.

Nursing has drastically changed in the last two decades. However it's romanticized notion hasn't. The worse thing that ever happened to nursing is it becoming a profession. Nurses wanted to be counted and considered healthcare professionals, equals with the likes of physicians. Well, we are. We have all the credibility and responsibilities bestowed upon us by our newly defined profession. The people responsible for bringing nursing out of the dark-ages made irreparable damage. By lobbying for, and adding onto our job-description autonomy and decision-making authority, they forgot that we already had our hands full taking care of the 'people'. Nurses were originally nuns and unmarried women, for very good reasons. It requires 'vocation', and putting others' needs first. They had no lives outside of caring for the sick. Historically, young women were stripped of their status as nurses and ordered to leave the hospital if they got married. Hospital administrators of the time realized that a woman could no longer give a 100% if she is splitting herself between her husband and children and the sick and elderly. Nurses were expected to followed the physician's orders and care for the physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being of their patients (not to mention the housekeeping, laundry and meal preparation...).

They worked for a pittance. No one was concerned about their welfare or feelings. You can't be whining about your needs not being met when you choose to care for others in this kind of setting. It's oxymoronic.

Most of us became nurses because something inside of us needed to care for people out of loneliness, a need for approval and appreciation, whatever. Thanks to the many advancements in our profession, we no longer have the time nor opportunity to do so, and a lot of us end up with responsiblities in the workplace beyond the scope of what we can or want to be doing. Minus the self-esteem pay-off.

We have no one to blame, except the members of our own profession, that we allow to represent us and who were in the position to exact these changes.

And finally, we are responsible for our own health and happiness. If we don't feel well doing what it is we do, then we need to apply our nursing process to our ailing lives, both personal and professional..

We can do this by collecting the the data, applying it to our knowledge, assessing the situation, planning the changes and implementing them. I assure you that upon final evaluation, you will indeed feel good about yourself again.

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Now my oven is not a light-weight. It baked for 80 minutes before a skewer inserted in it came out clean. I did think perhaps the oven should have been cranked up to 350 degrees; but in order to get the right pound cake texture, it's best to bake at a lower temperature over a longer period of time.
This recipe came from the same place I got the flawed biscotti recipe from.

I'm beginning to suspect that someone purposely wrote errors into the recipes for this particular show. Hm.

This was my second attempt.
RESULT!
I want to stress the importance of following the recipe to the letter. Any error in the creation of the batter, anything out of order and I can't guarantee it'll turn out right. Also, I had Ray haul out my standing mixer because you have to whip the butter, vanilla and sugars until really fluffy and that takes time. Besides it frees your hands to do other things in the meantime.

It's rich, it's decadent, it's a show-stopper




Brown Sugar Pound Cake

Ingredients:

Cake

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
6 egg, room temperature
3 cups pastry flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sour cream
1/4 tsp baking soda

Icing


6 tbsp icing sugar
2 tbsp browned and strained butter
1 tbsp water
1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

Cake

Preheat oven to 275 F. Grease and flour a bundt pan.


In a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or with an electric mixer), cream butter, sugars and vanilla on high speed until light and fluffy, scraping down sides often. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.


Sift together flour and salt.


In a separate bowl combine sour cream and baking soda. Add flour and sour cream alternately to sugar mixture, beginning and ending with the flour. Scrape cake batter into bundt pan.


Bake for 20 minutes at 275 F, then turn up oven to 325 F and bake for an additional 70-80 minutes or until a tester inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clear.


Icing

Stir together icing sugar with browned and strained butter, water and vanilla.


To Assemble

Ice cake after it has cooled by drizzling icing over top of cake.

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Ingredients

Lamb any or all of the following:

lamb pancetta (belly)
lamb chops
lamb shoulder

Veal

from the shank of shoulder
ribs

Meatballs

ground pork/veal mix
1 egg
breadcrumbs and grated Pecorino cheese to taste


Italian Pork Sausage

preferably homemade

Making the Gravy

Cover the base of a dutch oven a half-inch deep with olive oil. His favorite was Filippo Berio. Heat the oil with a whole yellow cooking onion, halved. When the onion has begun to brown around the edges, remove it from the oil. Sprinkle it with salt and snack on it with a glass of homemade wine. Brown all the meat in this oil. The bigger the mess you make with the oil splattering, the better.*

Once the meat has browned, pour in the homemade jars of tomatoes enough to cover the meat and then some, and a can of tomato paste. Salt and pepper to taste. A sprinkle of sugar and a splash of red wine. Cover with a lid and simmer for the duration of the soccer game.
(He was a rabid Juventus fan.) Try to remember to stir it occasionally.

Maccheroni:

Bring a stockpot 2/3 full of salted water to boil. Cook 1 lb of Penne Lisce. My father used to swear they were the best for this gravy because they slid between the lips. I'm sure all the oil helped too! When the pasta is cooked, one minute longer than al dente, strain in a colander.

Plating the serving dish:

On a serving dish warmed in the oven, place half a stick of butter. Pour in the pasta. Swirl it around until the butter has melted. Add the gravy one ladle at a time, mixing it the pasta to thoroughly coat it. Not more than that. It's called past'asciutta, meaning dry, not swimming in a broth.

On a separate plate place the meat.

The maccheroni was always served as a first course and the meat with a green tossed salad as a second course. Bread was served with the meat, but not with the pasta. Cheese was placed on the table, allowing each one to use as much or as little as they preferred.

My father, best remembered for his stunning good looks, always showered, shaved, styled his hair, and dressed every night for dinner. Always.
Doesn't matter, 'cuz the women will clean it up.

« Okay, that's it.