Day 15: Jazzin' Up A Fricassee

Menu:

Chicken Fricassee JC (leftovers)
Saut'eed Mushrooms JC
Saut'eed Green Beans ME
Salmon Souffle JC (leftovers)

Today was an absolutely beautiful day. My husband and I took our Lhasa for a hike on the trail. And then after much of my hinting around over the last 15 days, my husband finally asked me if I would like to go look at flooring for my kitchen. I was ecstatic! I want a Julia Child chef type kitchen badly. I already knew exactly what flooring I wanted so we checked out the sample and brought it home and Michael loved it too. I've been working on reorganizing my cabinets so that I have easier access to everything. As I go along I will start posting pics of my progress.


Even though the chicken fricassee was bland I decided to serve up the leftovers this evening. It needed something to give it more flavor so I flipped through the cookbook and decided to saut'ee mushrooms and put those in it. I followed the Champignons Saut'es Au Beurre recipe. This will be a recipe that I will keep handy to jazz up any stew or casserole. After the mushrooms were done I put the heated chicken fricassee into the pan with the mushrooms and a bit of Bourdeaux wine. I added this for two reasons. It gave the cream sauce a nice tint and it also put that bang of flavor into it. I let it simmer for a several minutes. In the meantime I saut'eed green beans and heated the leftover souffle. As you can see I'm getting a little more comfortable with my Julia cookbook. She isn't quite as intimidating as she was two weeks ago. I don't think she would be disappointed in me because most of my day was spent fashioning my kitchen after her's.

Dinner turned out really good. I was glad to have somewhat of a break with only having the mushroom recipe as a new one this evening. We had some port wine with our meal and then we went for a fast paced walk to work all this butter off from the week. Like I said before she lived to be 90-something so she must know what she is talking about with all that butter. No dessert tonight when you see the facts you will know why. Ugh!

Facts:
Day 15 of 100 (I'd do 365 days if it were quick and easy like today but where would the lesson be in that?)

Pounds Gained: 1 (so back to the 4 lbs. game)
Pounds Lost: 4 total (in the last 15 days)
Happiness Level: 100% (Brandon called me last night and Rebecca called tonight, I'm happy)
Missing My Kids: 100%
Cooking Enjoyment: 100% (very easy meal with the leftovers)
Eating Enjoyment: 90% (much better than the original fricassee)
Meal Presentation: 95% (It looked more appetizing with the mushrooms in it)