I wrote this yesterday, but never got around to posting it. The prompt was to write a cinquain about food, each of the 5 lines following a specified structure.

(As an aside, I’d never heard of a cinquain until last year, when the boys started writing them at school. Apparently there are a variety of different formats/kinds of cinquains, some rhyme, some don’t, some have a certain number of syllables per line, some don’t…the main theme seems to be that each has 5 lines).

Back to the bad poetry. The idea was to write about a special dish, or something that you always eat or…

Chicken Monterey.
Sweet. Juicy.
Pink. Black.
I order you every time we go to Bonanza.
Supper.

I actually went looking for a photograph to go with it, but couldn’t find one. I did, however, find the recipe. I was a little surprised to find out that what the recipe was, because it turns out I’ve made chicken this way, without realizing that it was exactly how they do it at Bonanza.

Chicken Monterey ala Bonanza

Boneless skinless chicken breasts
Western Salad dressing

Place the chicken breasts in a small bowl.  Pour Western dressing over the chicken breasts. Gently mix to make sure chicken is fully covered with  dressing. Cover and let sit over night in your refrigerator.

The next day, cook the chicken on your grill.
****(Note when done the chicken will have a light pink color through the meat…This is from the dressing) Make sure the chicken is fully cooked.
Just before you take it off the grill brush some unused dressing onto the top of the chicken with a pastry brush.

When I was growing up, we couldn’t buy Western salad dressing in Connecticut. Whenever we traveled to Iowa to visit my grandparents, we would always take home several big bottles of it with us. I think you can get it just about anywhere, now. It’s still my favorite salad dressing, though we don’t really have salad very often.  Will have to remedy that.

No wonder I love Bonanza’s Chicken Monterey so much.   I really do order it every time we go to Bonanza. When the boys were littler and we were in Waterloo going grocery shopping, we ate there a lot — almost once a week.  They were free until they were 3….which would explain why we went so much.  All you can eat buffet plus a really good meat/potato plus the boys were free?

We still go quite a bit, but not nearly as often.  I actually try to go get groceries on my own as much as possible, so we don’t have as many family trips to Waterloo as we used to.  Thank goodness.   Shopping is so much more pleasant when I am by myself.  I can dawdle as much or as little as *I* choose.  I can make 14 different stops in one trip because there is no one in the car with me to complain that we have to stop AGAIN.

Speaking of shopping, that’s what I did today.  Groceries and fabric.  I got some more options for my Blooming Nine Patch.  I’ve tried out so many combinations I’m going a little cross-eyed.  “Blooming” may turn into an epithet rather than simply an adjective when I refer to this thing.

Mary made a comment yesterday about how she couldn’t quite imagine all of those fabrics in one quilt — I had to laugh at that, because in some ways, that’s exactly my problem.  This quilt is not hard to physically piece: the fabric choice is the challenge.  This challenge is so far out of my box, I can’t even see the box anymore.  Most of the time when I make a quilt, I pick ONE busy print, and then everything else is blenders that coordinate.  This quilt does it’s thing with SEVEN busy prints.  (Well, the pattern calls for eight, but I’m making mine a bit smaller).  I still haven’t hit the right combination of prints yet, but I’m closer.  I hope.  I’m itching to sew.  I’m actually proud of myself for sticking with this challenge.  I’ve been tempted to wad up the whole mess and forget I even had this crazy idea.

I had to go get groceries today because we were down to one gallon of milk, and I wanted to get it before tomorrow.  We are looking at a weather forecast that says we have a 90% chance of snow tomorrow, with 2-5 inches of accumulation.  I keep getting offers from blogging friends who think I should come visit their warm sunny homes.  I’m tempted to take them up on it.  I should have gone today, so I could get out before the new snow hits.

And you thought I was going to get through a whole post wihtout taking about the weather, didn’t you?

TTFN-

Suzanne