When I see packaged food and interesting appetizers at places like Trader Jo’s or Costco, I hesitate to buy it if I can make it myself.  Most of the time I don’t end up actually making the dish, but in my head I try to.  It is like my favorite show “Survivor”.  I tried out for the show on paper but ended up breaking my leg in Lake Tahoe so I used that as an excuse not to do the show.  Anyway, on “Survivor” they are always getting a live chicken or a rat or a small animal and killing it and eating it.  Gross, but in an emergency you would do it.  So I bought a whole chicken at Target for $3.00 and decided to cook it myself.  Who needs all of those pre packaged sliced chicken breasts?  I cooked it for hours in a big pot on the stove and scrounged up a recipe from one of my favorite chefs in the OC, Bill Bracken, and his famous tortilla soup recipe.  It is all from scratch and of course I had onions, carrots, celery, garlic, fresh tomatoes, and spices. I saute’d all of this in another pot.  Bill’s fabulous start to this soup recipe is to cook smoky bacon and use the grease from the drippings as your “oil” for the simmering veggies.  This makes the flavor of the soup awesome.  I added fresh dill and basil and probably some other spices (poultry seasoning and chardonnay sea salt).  Of course I added way too much chipotle spicy seasoning.  Because it was so spicy I added a bunch of small red cut up raw potatoes to the soup.  The chicken was WAY cooked well done and by the way, I never did remove the giblets or neck.  They had no paper on them and were not tied so I just left them in the chicken for flavor.  I only added salt and pepper and a bit of poultry seasoning to the chicken with about 8 cups of water.  The chicken stock was perfect so I just scooped it all out with a glass measuring cup and added it to the big soup pot.  I then de boned the chicken a la “Survivor” and had a huge pile of fresh chicken meat.  I only put half of the good shredded chicken into the soup and let it simmer a few more hours.  It was great, served it with fresh guacamole, chips, shredded mexican cheese and sour cream.  I also made a big salad and brussel sprouts.  I used the bacon again to make the brussel sprouts.  You cook the sprouts first for 5 minutes in the microwave, cut them in half and cook in a bit of olive oil.  Add the bacon and cook until crispy.  Then add a bit of maple syrup, cook, and you have the most awesome dish that is similar to the ones they make in Catalina at the Avalon Grill.

The day before I made a homemade Angel Food cake for my dad’s birthday.  I could not find a store bought one so I made one with 12 egg whites.  It also called for sifting flour and powdered sugar three times.  Kind of a pain but so light and fluffy.  You have to have a mix master to do this right.  My mother said her mom would make homemade Angel Food cake when she was a girl.  It was so perfect and went into the oven without a hitch.  Unfortunately, the cake fell the minute I pulled it out of the oven to “invert” it.  Whoever made that recipe was a loser because I should have never inverted that cake!  It was flat but tasted fantastic so my daughter Caroline said to just go ahead and ice it with this weird no gluten no wheat chocolate mix from Sprouts.  My dad and even Andrew loved the cake so it worked out.  Did I mention that we also went looking for stray dogs at the OC animal shelter?  What a disaster that almost was!  I don’t really want a dog but maybe I do.  We’ll see about that.