Chicken Lo Mein

This past Sunday was not only Valentine's Day, it was Chinese New Year. Happy year of the tiger everyone. We had some families over for a celebratory pot luck. In addition to pot stickers and rice, and some plain lo mein (long noodles for a long life), I planned to serve this chicken lo mein. I found the recipe at allrecipes.com. I realized after cutting the chicken and getting it in the marinade, I just hadn't left enough time, so I saved it for dinner the following night. We had plenty of food at the party, so it wasn't missed, but it turned out really good. My kids even all ate it in varying degrees. Ashley picked the red peppers out but ate the rest, Sammy ate the chicken and the noodles, and Jon ate mostly just chicken but said it tasted good. Here is the recipe. It is easy, and is really yummy.

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves- cut into think strips (I just used a close to 2 lb. package I had. It was 3 breast halves, but they were large. I didn't want for more chicken in the dish)
5 teaspoons white sugar, divided (I only used 4, and I didn't miss the extra one bit. In fact, you could probably scale it down more if you wanted to)
3 Tbsp. rice vinegar
1/2 cup soy sauce, divided
1 1/4 cups chicken broth
1 cup water
1 Tbsp. sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
2.5 Tbsp cornstarch
1 (12 oz) package uncooked linguine (I used thin spaghetti and only put in about 7-8 oz. Soba noodles would work as well. I thought linguine would be a heavy choice here.)
2 Tbsp. veg oil, divided
2 Tbsp minced fresh ginger root (I grated it, because I am lazy)
1 Tbsp. minced garlic
1/2 lb. fresh shitake mushrooms, stemmed and sliced
6 green onions, sliced diagonally into 1/2 inch pieces

I also added one chopped red bell pepper for color and texture etc. Others who commented added broccoli or snow peas. There is a lot of room to play with this if you want to.

1. in a medium, non-reactive bowl, combine the chicken with 2.5 teaspoons of sugar (I used only 2), 1.5 Tbsp. vinegar and 1/4 cup soy sauce. Mix this together and coat the chicken well. cover and let marinate in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour (because of my timing issue, mine was in there nearly 24 hours. It didn't hurt it)

2. In another medium bowl, combine the chicken broth, water, sesame oil and ground black pepper with the remaining sugar, vinegar and soy sauce. In a separate small bowl, dissolve the cornstarch with some of this mixture and slowly add to the bulk of the mixture, stirring well. Set aside.

3. cook the linguine according to package directions, drain and set aside. Heat 1 Tbsp. veg oil in a wok or large saucepan over high heat. Add the chicken and stir-fry for 4 to 5 minutes or until browned. Transfer this and all juices to a warm plate.

4. Heat the remaining veg oil. Add ginger, garlic, mushrooms, green onions and stir fry 30 seconds. Add the reserved sauce mixture and then the chicken. Simmer until the sauce begins to thicken, about 2 to 5 minutes. Add the reserved noodles and toss gently, coating everything well with the sauce.

It was very flavorful but not really spicy. If you want to add a kick to it, I would suggest Tabasco sauce, stir frying dried red chili peppers with the chicken, or using a bit of cayenne in the sauce.

Look What I Made....

I originally saw these apothecary jars on Summer's blog. She is amazingly crafty. (She got the idea and instructions here) I haven't been crafty in a long time, but I loved these and wanted to make them badly. The biggest problem was that the nearest Hobby Lobby is west of Gettysburg, and neither Michaels nor A.C. Moore had the glass canisters. I did a google search of Shanty 2 Chic apothecary jars and found someone who had acquired their glass canisters at Home Goods. Hey, I have one of those close by! My first trip was not as successful as I would like, and after some help and guidance from Summer, I returned the Friday the monster storm came with measuring tape in hand to the pleasant surprise of a new shipment with just the right product. Hooray!!

The search for a snow shovel deterred the procurement of the remainder of my supplies, but I did eventually get there after digging out after the storm and made my jars. One jar is leaning (as you can see). I am not sure if it is the candlestick or the canister, but I still need to figure it out and see about fixing/replacing it, but I couldn't wait to put the pictures up, so here they are flawed and all.

I am still considering putting the jute around the lids, but we are trying them out solid black first.

Snowpocalypse

Some of you may be waiting to see of these pictures. I appreciate all who have called and e-mailed to check on us. It really has been quite an experience, but we are doing just fine and choosing to enjoy it as much as we can.

We knew last Saturday we were receiving another storm this weekend. While shoveling the 10 inches we received that morning, I was talking with one of our neighbors and noted that I would see him same day, same time for the same purpose next Saturday. Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, we received 4 inches of heavy wet snow. The kids were out of school as a result and enjoyed a neighborhood snowball fight. I was grateful they ran all through our yard, because it packed down and melted a lot of that wet snow before Friday and Saturday. By Thursday, people were hearing the weekend storm would rival the storm we received before Christmas, so grocery stores were hectic. Personally, I wanted a second snow shovel so that Trent and I could shovel at the same time and so that when he left to help dig out some of the families in our ward, I could shovel at home. Thursday, I went to 4 different stores with no luck. I tried two more smaller hardware stores the next morning, and I am glad I did. The 6th and final place I checked had some. Sammy and I stood in line for 30 minutes, but we were fully prepared. Thursday afternoon, the kids brought home notice that due to the early afternoon arrival of said storm, they would come home 2 hours early on Friday. Trent, who is so smart, asked his supervisor at the State Department if he could telecommute on Friday because of the storm coming in. An hour later, this man sent out an e-mail suggesting anyone with the ability to telecommute consider doing so. Even though government offices shut down at 1:00 Friday, getting out of D.C. was going to be difficult. The snow started as flurries around 10:30 but didn't start in earnest until noon. By mid to late afternoon, it was sticking.

When we woke up Saturday morning, it looked like this:

grill and trash cans

front walk

One thing I don't particularly love about my house is that the garage is not attached, and I don't have a pantry in my kitchen. As a result, a lot of our pantry items are in cabinets in the garage. Trent and I have been looking at options to remedy this but haven't found the solution we want yet. Anyhow, I needed to go out to the garage to get syrup for breakfast. I couldn't get the screen door open. We had one of the snow shovels inside, so I used it through the 3 inch crack formed from my attempt to open the door and eventually opened the door enough to squeeze through. I promptly shoveled the path between the garage and the house. At 8:30, that looked like this:

Around 10:00 or so, we decided to get out and start shoveling the walk. It was still snowing. The snow was pretty heavy at this point. The stuff that came later through the day wasn't as heavy, but this stuff was wet heavy snow brick, igloo making snow.

Saturday afternoon, while working on the driveway, we decided to clean off the car and dig out to the street. That was a crazy amount of work, but if we had an emergency and absolutely had to go out we could. Trent took the car around the parkway to check on the situation, and I dug out what drifted under the car during all the wind the night before. Some of our neighbors looked at us like we were crazy at this point, and several remarked that we must be used to this being from Utah. We let them know that 30+ inches of snow in less than 30 hours was a lot anywhere. The snow stopped shortly after 5:00.

Remember those garbage cans and that grill from 8:30? This is what they looked like about half an hour before the snow stopped.


The kids, with help from Trent, built a snow cave. They call it the hobbit hole. How fun.
For the second Sunday in a row we had no church. Next week is Stake Conference for us, so the bishop authorized home sacrament meetings. It was nice to have the sacrament with our little family. We then finished up what was left of the driveway. Isn't this fully dug out driveway beautiful? It feels beautiful having worked so hard to achieve it.
Through all of the predictions and even through part of Saturday morning, I was the crazy optimist. I thought since they would be more ready for the storm and since it was coming a little earlier than the last one etc. etc. that we might be going to school Monday with just a 2 hour delay. Um, yeah, when I finish laughing at myself, I will let you know. The National Weather Service reports the grand total for Crofton was 34 inches. D.C. got less, but the above ground metro service is still down, so there is no school today and no federal government either. We are expecting another storm Tuesday afternoon into Wednesday morning. I should snow another 4 to 6 inches. That really isn't a lot I know, but on top of the rest it is and coming over night, that much snow would equal a snow day anyhow, so I am fairly certain Wednesday will mean no school. As of yesterday, the school was not at all dug out. No one had even started plowing the parking lots and bus lanes, so I am not confident there will be school tomorrow. We will assume there is until we hear otherwise though. Right now, most predict Thursday will be our first day of school this week. We are already one day over our banked amount of snow days. The Principal petitioned the School Board for a 2 day waiver. Even if they grant it, we are likely to nearly certain to go over it. That would mean school gets out later for the kids. There is an ongoing debate about what happens if those days are taken during a state of emergency. It will be an interesting debate to follow. For now, it is sunny and beautiful, and when Trent gets back from shoveling for one of the families in our ward, I am off to run a few errands. Sometimes it is fun to be a part of these kind of things. It is a big mess, and we will be cleaning up after it for a while. I already broke the screen door on our kitchen. Sigh. However, this is something none of us will ever forget.

How's the Weather

I am writing this on a beautiful sunny day after shoveling the 4.5 inches of snow we received last night and watching the remainders under what was shoveled melt. I have two children currently inside finding many things to entertain themselves and one still outside throwing snowballs with other gathered neighborhood kids. It is technically the middle of the school week, but it is a snow day. It probably could have been a 2 hour delay today, but I don't make these decisions, so snow day it is.

Yesterday was Groundhogs' Day. Personally, I think Groundhog's Day is a bunch of nonsense. Trent teases me about my attitude and conversely thinks it is a great holiday, one of the top 3 in February easily. Hee hee. I still watched the festivities with the kids yesterday while they got ready for school. At 7:00, the announcer for the Weather Channel said that Phil would emerge from his hole in 30 minutes. I thought to myself, how do they know he will emerge in 30 minutes? Oh, that's right, they know, because they will pull the poor groundhog out of his artificial stump in 30 minutes. In fact, how do they know there is going to be a Punxsutawney Phil in that stump if they don't place it in there earlier? Has anyone been there in the off season and seen Phil out and about? At 7:30, they pulled Phil out of his hole. He didn't want to come out. Imagine that, the groundhog didn't want to come out of the artificial heated stump it is hanging out in and go out in the cold weather where thousands of people are standing around with lights and cameras etc.. Anyhow, Phil's handlers (that is right, Punxsutawney Phil has handlers) placed him on top of this stump, and a bunch of men in black top hats and bow ties gathered around while one looked Phil in the eye and conversed with him. This man then declared (in rather amusing speech I must say) that Phil saw his shadow and there would be 6 more weeks of winter. Phil saw his shadow on a morning where the sun was barely coming up and there was full cloud cover. It is far more likely that the men in black top hats and bow ties (Hey! Men in black..........) knew what the upcoming forecast looked like and therefore made sure Phil said there would be 6 more weeks of winter.

I know, I know. Bah humbug. Well, in further support, the Weather Channel reporter said similar things about the cloud cover and lack of light to provide a shadow after saying she didn't mean to blow the lid off the whole thing? What whole thing? Could she mean the whole concept that a rodent pulled out of an artificial den can't predict the weather?

In addition to the 6 to 8 inches of snow we received Saturday and the 4 or so we received last night, we are expecting a significant storm this weekend. The only question is how much snow we will get out of it at this point. One of the moms at school pick up yesterday mentioned she has a friend at the weather service who said that IF the storm coming up from the South and the building nor' easter converge, we could get at least 3 feet of snow. This is still a hypothetical scenario, but even if it doesn't happen, we are expecting snow again this weekend. Trent said I disrespected the ground hog and now look what is happening. I talked to the neighbor about the expected upcoming storm last Saturday while shoveling snow, so I think the ground hog and my feelings about its ability to predict the weather have nothing to do with the string of snow we are having. You can all decide for yourselves.

I should note that the concept of Ground Hogs day goes back to the middle ages in Germany where people would gather around and pull a groundhog out of its hole to see if it saw its shadow. Now, their torches created enough artificial light that it is hard to know about the whole shadow thing...... O.k., only kidding about the torches and stuff. They did used to have a tradition upon which Ground hog's Day is based, but it involved the groundhog coming out on its own.

An Unexpected Adventure

Friday evening while watching the weather report for the storm coming in, Trent and I got into a years old discussion about the Mason Dixon line. Ever since moving to Virginia, we occasionally ask each other where exactly the Mason Dixon line runs. Friday, we pulled out the laptop and looked it up once and for all. (I love reliable wireless internet.)

Like most Americans, Trent and I always thought the Mason Dixon line was the line that separated the North from the South. We could just never remember whether it included Maryland or was the border between Maryland and Virginia. While our understanding is not completely incorrect as the Missouri Compromise, drawing the line between slave and free territory, used the Mason Dixon line for a reference, we had no idea of the full history.

The Mason Dixon line goes back to the 17th century in which the King of England (Charles I) gave the first Lord of Baltimore, George Calvert, the colony of Maryland. Fifty years later Charles II gave the colony of Pennsylvania to William Penn. The descriptions of the boundaries in the separate grants did not match, so there was, of course, a land dispute that went to the British Court. In 1750, the court determined the boundary, and a decade later, the families accepted it. There followed a need to survey and mark the boundary. Colonial surveyors not up to the task, they sent for someone from Great Britain. An astronomer and a surveyor (Mason and Dixon) marked out the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland and marked it with limestone markers. Every mile a marker was placed with a P on the Pennsylvania side and an M on the Maryland side. Every 5 miles, the marker had the Penn coat of arms on the Pennsylvania side and the Calvert coat of arms on the Maryland side. There was an ACTUAL Mason Dixon line. The stones are disappearing, but there are some working to preserve it as much as possible.

I used to make a bit of fun of the Maryland state flag. I thought it looked like a race car flag. After Trent's and my discovery, I now know it comes from the Calvert coat of arms, and I have a new appreciation for it and the history behind it. Trent and I were really excited to learn this previously unknown (to us anyhow) bit of history and are really looking forward to heading a little north when it gets warmer to see if we can find the Mason Dixon line. We are looking forward to this unexpected adventure.