The Last Few Days

The last few days were nice. Well it didn't start that way. Sunday was a rough day for me, regardless of it being the day we got home. You see I had my worst "close call" ever. I was driving down a side road near Bozeman, enjoying the beauty of a Montana early morning and an interesting barn, when I turned back to the road to realize there was a car in front of me. Not only that, but he had stopped, and I was going about 45mph and wasn't going to stop. My heart did though! Picture my 80,000lb semi swerving (as much as it can) onto the shoulder at which point I realized I was in direct line with an approuching guard rail, and so swerved back just missing the car and the guard rail, and I was sick to my stomach for about an hour following.
Prior to that moment, it had been an absolutly glorious day and so beautiful and I have great memories of my drive up through the Madison Valley towards Bozeman, but from that moment the day went downhill.
Upon arriving home, we were making our way through the neighborhood when a neighbor flipped us off and said "f*** you."
Ok.,..well I was pretty devestated. And to think we were both raising our arms to wave at him. After cleaning up at home, Malcolm went to meet Brandon and stopped at the neighbors on his way out to find out what was up. They guy was outside and Malcolm pulled up and said he wanted to appologize for whatever we had done to upset him. The neighbor at that point was very appologetic and said he was just sick to death of people raising so much dust and it blowing onto his house and yard. (Hello...you live on a gravel road!) So he was really remorseful, and after that I felt better. I was worried that he was put out with us and our truck. But still....those two events were enough to leave a damper on my day.
We would have left back for work on Tuesday evening, but there was a storm in North Dakota, and the truck with our load ran off the road, so we stayed home till Wednesday night when he got the trailer there.
Home time was nice. I like those little unexpected vacations. We spent a couple of evenings with Brandon and Jessica. Malcolm spent most of his days with Brandon. They havn't been home on the same days since before Christmas, so they had a good time palling around. Bradon helped Malcolm build some shelves in his shop and Malcolm helped Bradon pick up his new living room furniture he'd bought.
I cut out peices for my next quilt project, read some, cooked some, went shopping for a new skillet (no luck) and piddled around. I also learned how to work the DVR on our sattelite (thanks to Jessica) and so now am recording all the CSIs on Spike TV. I love that show.

I've had some issues lately of cooking meals that I think look great, but then Malcolm doesn't like them. I was getting tired of it. So on Monday morning while I was throwing together something to eat and trying to figure out what to do for dinner, I had an idea. He was sitting at the table looking at his Cabelas catalog. I pulled out a recipe book that we got as a wedding gift, it happens to have a LOT of pictures, and sat it in front of him with some orange paper. I told him to shred the paper and mark anything that looked good. Brilliant! I fixed two successful dinners from scratch while we were home.
Here is one of the recipes. I liked this a lot. Malcolm thought it was too bready, but thats easily fixed. I just won't add all the topping next time. Be warned. Its not low fat. But I think you could use low fat soup, sour cream, and cheese, and it would help and shouldn't mess with the texture too much.

Dairyland Confetti Chicken

1 cup diced carrots
3/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup diced celery (I didnt' have any so left it out)
1/4 cup chicken broth
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 cup sour cream
3 cups cubed cooked chicken
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms (I used canned)
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce (thought this was interesting for chicken)
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
Confetti Topping

In saucepan combine carrots, onions, celery, and broth. Simmer 20 minutes. In 3 quart casserole, mix soup, sour cream, chicken, mushrooms, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Add simmered veggies with remaining liquid and mix well. Drop tablespoons of Confetti Topping onto the casserole. Bake in 350 degree oven for 40-45 minutes or till golden brown. Sprinkle with remaining cheese and return to oven till cheese is melted.

Confetti Topping
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup milk
1 Tbs chopped bell pepper
1 Tbs chopped pimento (again I didn't have any so left it out)
1 1/4 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Mix dry ingredients. Add egg, milk, and veggies and 1 cup of cheese. Mix just till blended.