Saturday, December 21, 2019

2 Chicken Recipes in the Kitchen

First off, Ann's "Vegan Mac & Cheese and Creamy Vegan Thai Mac" serves up two vegan recipes so be sure to check that out. Second?  Simple chicken recipes asked Wilma.  Here are two.  First, from the Mayo Clinic (this is from their diabetic recipes):


Balsamic roast chicken - Mayo Clinic

Dietitian's tip: Balsamic vinegar has a dark color and rich flavor. Combined with a little brown sugar, this vinegar makes a sauce that's much healthier than traditional high-fat gravy.

Ingredients
1.1 whole chicken, about 4 pounds
2.1 tablespoon fresh rosemary or 1 teaspoon dried rosemary
3.1 garlic clove
4.1 tablespoon olive oil
5.1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
6.8 sprigs fresh rosemary
7.1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
8.1 teaspoon brown sugar

Directions

Heat the oven to 350 F.

Mince together the rosemary and garlic. Loosen the chicken skin from the flesh, and rub the flesh with olive oil and then the herb mixture. Sprinkle with black pepper. Put 2 rosemary sprigs into the cavity of the chicken. Truss the chicken.

Place the chicken into a roasting pan and roast for 20 to 25 minutes per pound, about 1 hour and 20 minutes. Whole chicken should cook to a minimum internal temperature of 165 F. Baste frequently with pan juices. When the chicken is browned and the juices run clear, transfer the chicken to a serving platter.

In a small saucepan, combine the balsamic vinegar and brown sugar. Heat until the mixture is warmed and brown sugar dissolves, but don't boil.

Carve the chicken and remove the skin. Top the pieces with the vinegar mixture. Garnish with the remaining rosemary and serve immediately.



I think that's a very simple recipe.  And let's pair that with an Instant Pot recipe.



Ingredients
  • 6-8 boneless chicken thighs , skinless or with skin*
  • sea salt and pepper to taste
  • 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
  • 1/2 teaspoon red chili flakes optional or to taste
  • 2 Tablespoons olive oil
  • 3 Tablespoons butter (swap with ghee for paleo OR Whole30)
  • 1/2 small onion chopped
  • 4 garlic cloves sliced or minced
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • 2-4 teaspoons Italian seasoning
  • zest of half a lemon
  • 1/3 cup homemade or low sodium chicken broth **PLEASE SEE NOTES BELOW
  • 2 Tablespoons heavy cream OR coconut cream
  • Chopped fresh parsley and lemon slices for garnish , if desired
Tools:
Instructions
  1. Season the chicken with salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika, and chili flakes.
To cook in the Instant Pot:
  1. Press the Sauté function (Normal setting) on the Instant Pot and add the olive oil to the pot. (I use a 6 Quart Instant Pot DUO)
  2. Place chicken in the Instant Pot and cook on each side for 2-3 minutes, or until golden brown. This helps to seal in the juices and keep it tender. (You may have to work in batches depending on the size and amount of chicken you are using). Once browned, remove from Instant Pot and set aside.Melt butter in Instant Pot and stir in the onions and garlic. Add lemon juice to deglaze pan and cook for 1 minute. Add Italian seasoning, lemon zest, and chicken broth.
    Place the chicken back into the Instant Pot, lock the lid, and turn the valve to SEALING.
  3. Select the Manual (older models) or Pressure Cook (newer models) button and adjust the timer to 7 minutes.It will take about 5-10 minutes to come to pressure and start counting down.
    When done, release the pressure after 2 minutes, then remove your Instant Pot lid.
  4. Remove chicken from Instant Pot using tongs and set aside on a large serving plate. Stir in heavy cream (if using) into the Instant Pot. If you like your sauce thicker - you can thicken with a cornstarch slurry (if not low carb) or arrowroot starch slurry (or xanthan gum) by mixing 1/2 teaspoon cornstarch (arrowroot starch) mixed with 1 teaspoon cold water). Press off and turn Instant Pot to SAUTE function. Cook and allow the sauce to bubble and thicken. Turn off and add chicken back to the Instant Pot to coat with sauce. Spoon sauce over chicken and sprinkle with chopped parsley. Serve with your favorite sides and garnish with lemon slices, if desired.
To cook on the stove:
  1. In a medium-sized skillet over medium-high heat add olive and cook for 4-5 on each side, or until chicken reaches 165 degrees. Transfer browned chicken to plate and set aside.
  2. Return pan back to heat and melt butter. Stir in onion and garlic. Add lemon juice to deglaze the pan and cook for 1 minute. Add Italian seasoning, lemon zest, and chicken broth. Stir in heavy cream [if you like your sauce thicker - you can thicken with a cornstarch slurry (if not low carb) or arrowroot starch slurry (or xanthan gum) by mixing 1/2 teaspoon cornstarch (arrowroot starch) mixed with 1 teaspoon cold water].
    Once the sauce has bubbled and thickened up slightly, add the chicken back into the pan until hot. Spoon sauce over chicken and sprinkle with chopped parsley. Serve with your favorite sides and garnish with lemon slices, if desired.
 

Okay, now for some news.  Labor news.  And it's not good.  Jessica Goldstein (WSWS) reports:

US Steel announced Friday, just days before the Christmas holiday, that it is issuing layoff notices to 1,545 workers at its Great Lakes Works facility south of Detroit. Next year it will idle most of the mill and shift production to Gary Works in Gary, Indiana, pitting workers in the same region against one another for a dwindling supply of jobs.
Company spokesmen told the Northwest Indiana Times that US Steel’s goal is to make the remaining jobs “more secure and sustainable” to “help the company reach its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2030.” In other words the new jobs will most likely pay lower wages with few benefits.
Great Lakes Works sits along the Detroit River and spans two Michigan communities, Ecorse and River Rouge, which now face economic devastation. It is currently capable of producing a net of 3.8 million tons of raw steel annually and primarily produces hot-rolled, cold-rolled and coated sheet steels used in the automotive industry.
US Steel issued layoff notices to 200 workers at Great Lakes Works in September in the wake of an announcement that one blast furnace was to be idled.
US Steel President and CEO David Burritt, who was paid a total of $11.6 million in 2018, offered the typical empty words after the announcement of the layoffs: “These decisions are never easy, nor are they taken lightly. However, we must responsibly manage our resources while also strengthening our company’s long-term future—a future many stakeholders depend on.”



This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for Friday:


Friday, December 20, 2019.  A look at the hideous debate.


Last night, Democrats vying for the party's presidential nomination gathered for a debate -- if they were lucky enough to be invited.  Or if they showed.  Did US House Rep and Iraq War veteran Tulsi Gabbard carry out her threat to boycott or was she not invited?  It's all so confusing.  She says she won't be at a debate and then retracts it.  Now its a debate or two later and she's announced she wouldn't be there but was she even invited?  Who knows, who cares, she can't stand up to War Hawk Joe Biden to begin with.

Tiny Pete showed up -- with all his usual lies and a new spin.

Uh, Miss Amy Kobulcher, what you don't know about me, about this "gay dude," is that I was re-elected in Mike Pence's Indiana.

Really, Tiny Pete, the state is Mike's?  Wow.  He owns a whole state.

More to the point, "gay dude" Pete, the bro bottom of the neolib movement -- excuse me, the bro power-bottom of the neolib movement -- wants to ignore reality.

The most powerful thing any candidate has in an election is being an incumbent.

Pete wasn't elected as "a gay dude" in Indiana.  He was in the closet for his first two terms.  He did come out in 2015 and was re-elected in 2016.  He'd already been elected twice.  That does shine a different light on his boast.

And he knows the power of incumbency -- after all, he used it to install his White friend as his replacement and to keep anyone else from advancing in the Democratic Party primary.  Typical Tiny Pete.  South Bend's never had a mayor of color or a female mayor so, naturally, Tiny Pete endorses the White man in the race.

Another fun fact that Tiny Pete misrepresented?

He was elected in South Bend.  After two terms, he came out and, yes, he was re-elected mayor.  He was the incumbent and he had no real challenger that year on the Democratic Party side.  So, of course, he was re-elected.

 10 hours ago

Some pictures of Pete Buttigieg struggling to endure in “Mike Pence’s Indiana”

69 replies704 retweets2,346 likes









And his "Mike Pence's Indiana" is really a lie.

It was South Bend.

South Bend that has elected a Democrat as their mayor every year since 1972.

For forty-six continuous years, South Bend has elected a Democrat as mayor.

Tiny Pete's big boasts shrink like a scared turtle when examined.

He was loud -- if not proud -- on the stage.  Curiously, Tiny Pete has been seizing -- bit by bit -- on his sexuality in the debates.  But it's as though he sprung from the head of Zeus like Athena.  He has no history to cite.  Barack Obama would invoke Selma, for example.  Barack would invoke the names of Civil Rights leaders.  Tiny Pete is apparently the first gay man on the face of the planet.

He doesn't even give lip service to Stonewall -- and this is the fiftieth anniversary of that historic moment.

Moderators: Judy Woodruff, Yamiche Alcindor and Amna Nawaz of PBS; Tim Alberta of Politico. That's from THE WASHINGTON POST transcript and all debate excerpts are from that transcript as well.

When not lying in the debate, Tiny Pete was flashing his substantial ignorance.

At one point, when he wanted to insist he valued the First Amendment more than anyone else, he hid behind his service in the military -- truly a cowardly move.

But as he was attacking Senator Amy Klobuchar and trying to use his military service to shut her down, he only flashed his ignorance.

I took an oath to defend the Constitution!

Did you, Tiny Pete?

I think if you're going to float that you then have to follow up with how you view defending the US because nothing you did says you're defending the US -- you have no accomplishments there.  Maybe White America?  You could claim your service as mayor was an attempt to defend White America while tearing down people of color?

But here's the thing that no one in the press after -- or at the debate -- thought to mention.

Amy Klobuchar's taken an oath as well.

In fact, she's taken one oath three times already because she's been elected to the US Senate three times.  Does Tiny Pete not know this?

Let's explain it to him via the US Senate's website:

 Upon taking office, senators-elect must swear or affirm that they will "support and defend the Constitution." The president of the Senate or a surrogate administers the oath to newly elected or re-elected senators. The oath is required by the Constitution; the wording is prescribed by law.

I hear Tiny Pete howling but, like a true power-bottom, begging for more swats, so let's give him what he wants.

Here's the oath Amy -- like every other member of the US Senate -- has sworn/affirmed:

 I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

Tiny Pete's exhausted himself across my lap.  While he composes himself, let's talk about his oath.  I believe he was in the Reserves.  That would mean he took this oath:

 I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the State of (STATE NAME) against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the Governor of (STATE NAME) and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to law and regulations. So help me God.


Not all that different is it?

Tiny Pete can't answer.  True power-bottom, he's taken it upon himself to stand in the corner with his hands on his head.

But, here's the thing, this was Amy Klobuchar's entire point.  Pete was ignorant of the reality of what others do and had done on the stage because he'd never done it himself.

It was Mike Seaver skipping school on GROWING PAINS all over again.  Mike was shocked to learn that life would go on at school without him. ["Career Decisions," written by Neal Marlens, Bob Brush and Tom Walla.]


Tiny Pete wanted to snarl at Amy that he took an oath.  Yeah, he did.  I don't know that he followed it but he took it.  So did Amy.  So has Joe Biden.  So has Elizbeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

Tiny Pete is one of those average people who has been told too many times that he's special and started to believe it -- despite all evidence to the contrary.

Grasp what a self-entitled tool he is, lecturing Amy about how he -- HE -- took an oath while he's so stupid -- don't they have a course in government at South Bend high schools? -- he doesn't grasp that Amy took that same basic oath.

Pete's ignorance of that -- intentional or not -- goes to the point Amy was making about how Pete denigrated the experience of those on stage.

But, hey, when you really don't have any experience, attack those who do, right?

It's hard to get high, Pete, when you're living on the bottom -- didn't you hear Kelly Clarkson?

Tiny Pete was awful and the biggest winner there?  His all grown up self Joe Biden.  War Hawk Joe spoke less -- always a gift.

Doesn't mean he didn't make crazy statements.

 ALBERTA: Just to follow up, Vice President Biden, if elected, if elected you would turn 82 at the end of your first term. You'd be the oldest president in American history.

BIDEN: More like Winston Churchill.

ALBERTA: Are you willing -- are you willing to commit -- American history.

BIDEN: Oh, American history.

ALBERTA: Yes. Are you...

BIDEN: I was joking. That was a joke.

ALBERTA: OK.


No, it wasn't a joke.  You couldn't hear the question or were spacing and wanted to liken yourself to Winston Churchill (well, we all needed a laugh).  Winston wasn't a president.  Forget that you didn't hear "American history," Joe, Winston was a prime minister.  You honestly don't understand the difference?

When not providing laughter (unintentional laughter), Joe played weasel.


ALCINDOR: Thank you. Thank you, Senator Warren.
Vice President Biden, why couldn't you close Guantanamo Bay? Why couldn't the Obama administration close Guantanamo Bay?

BIDEN: We attempted to close Guantanamo Bay, but you have to have congressional authority to do it. They've kept it open. And the fact is that we, in fact, think it's greatest -- it is an advertisement for creating terror.
Look, what we have done around the world in terms of keeping Guantanamo open or what Trump has done by no longer being an honest broker in Israel, [. . .]
Joe was on the ticket that, in 2008, promised Guantanamo would be closed.  
It has not been closed.  Two terms in office and the promise was not kept.  
A clear promise on that was made to the American people and it was not kept.  Where did Joe take any accountability for that?  
Joe Biden doesn't do accountability, never forget that.
He demonstrated that again -- and his hearing problems -- in the exchange below.
NAWAZ: Vice President Biden, let's turn now to Afghanistan. Confidential documents published last week by the Washington Post revealed that for years senior U.S. officials misled the public about the war in Afghanistan. As vice president...

BIDEN: Afghanistan, you said?

NAWAZ: Yes, sir, Afghanistan. As vice president, what did you know about the state of the war? And do you believe that you were honest with the American people about it?

BIDEN: The reason I can speak to this -- it's well-known, if any of you followed it, my view on Afghanistan -- I was sent by the president before we got sworn in to Afghanistan to come back with a report. I said there was no comprehensive policy available. And then I got in a big fight for a long time with the Pentagon because I strongly opposed the nation-building notion we set about.
Rebuilding that country as a whole nation is beyond our capacity. I argued from the very beginning that we should have a policy that was based on an antiterrorism policy with a very small footprint that, in fact, only had special forces to deal with potential threats from that territory to the United States of America.
The first thing I would do as president of the United States of America is to make sure that we brought all combat troops home, entered into a negotiation with the Taliban. But I would leave behind special forces in small numbers to be able to deal with the potential threat unless we got a real good negotiation accomplished to deal with terrorism.
That's been my position from the beginning. That's why I think Secretary Gates and some members of the Pentagon weren't happy with me.

NAWAZ: Mr. Biden, the question was about your time in the White House, though.

BIDEN: I'm talking about the White House.

NAWAZ: In that Washington Post report, there's a senior national security official who said that there was constant pressure from the Obama White House to produce figures showing the troop surge was working, and I'm quoting from the report here, "despite hard evidence to the contrary." What do you say to that?

BIDEN: Since 2009, go back and look. I was on the opposite side of that with the Pentagon. The only reason I can speak to it now is because it's been published. It's been published thoroughly. I'm the guy from the beginning who argued that it was a big, big mistake to surge forces to Afghanistan, period. We should not have done it. And I argued against it constantly.


NAWAZ: Senator Sanders, you had your hand up.
(APPLAUSE)

SANDERS: Well, in all due respect to my -- Joe, Joe, you're also the guy who helped lead us into the disastrous war in Iraq. What we need to do is, I think, rethink -- and the Washington Post piece was very educational -- what we need to rethink is the entire war on terror.
We have lost thousands of our own men and women, brave soldiers. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people have been killed abroad or forced to leave their countries. It is time right now that we bring this world together to try to end these endless wars and address the root  causes which are causing these wars.

NAWAZ: Senator Sanders, you do often point to your vote against the war in Iraq as evidence of your judgment on foreign policy, but you did vote for the war in Afghanistan. And as recently as 2015, you said you supported a continued U.S. troop presence there. Was that support a mistake?

SANDERS: Well, only one person, my good friend, Barbara Lee, was right on that issue. She was the only person in the House to vote against the war in Afghanistan. She was right. I was wrong. So was everybody else in the House.
That, Joe Biden, Bernie's last comments quoted above, is how you take accountability.  Learn it.

Please note that was also the only time Iraq was raised in the debate.

The moderators ignored it.

This was a lousy debate -- the only thing worse was the commentary PBS provided -- anti-Elizabeth Warren, pro-Tiny Pete (until he flamed out finally) and pure corporate nonsense.  They should all be ashamed.  It wasn't commentary, it was fan club clippings.

I loathe Amy Klobuchar.  That's not a secret.  Did I not defend her above.  Did I not note how she was right and do so in ways that even she missed?  Is this a fan post of Bernie and Elizabeth?  No.  They're barely noted.  They did a fine job.  The ones who failed -- Joe and his mini-me Tiny Pete -- are the focus.  They're awful and note that Joe wants to say I-was-against-it-on-Afghanistan (he was) but wants to pretend like he wasn't vp for 8 years and lying to the American people because that's what he was doing.

He's standing right by Barack . . . except when he isn't.

Over 500 protesters in Iraq have been killed in the last months and that's not an issue to PBS or their airhead moderators.





The following sites updated:





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