Dinner apple pie and reinterpreted chicken enchiladas

Yesterday I fed six people for about $15-$20. Got some chicken on sale at Albertson's for 67cents/LB, slow cooked them till the meat fell off the bones. Oh from that I learned that you can put a layer of onions on the bottom of the slow cooker, tie a satchel of spices and stick that in there, and add the chicken. No liquid needed. Most of the fat will be rendered out of the chicken and you will get the best ever chicken broth, so rich that it gels up. Save the bones for a second cooking for the broth though.

Soaked the black beans overnight then cooked them on the stove for about an hour with some stock and salt. They turned out really well.

So the chicken enchiladas consists of chicken, black beans, sauteed onions, and chopped pickled jalapenos on the inside, wrapped in a corn tortilla, roasted bell pepper soup as sauce and layer of cheese. Baked till cheese is bubbly. It was soooo good. Normally I don't like canned stuff, but I think the pickled jalapenos really work in this case. Adding the occasional kick and a pop in the taste of the thing.

For dessert, I made my first apple pie. Normally I am not an apple pie person, but even I liked the filling on this one. Perfect with some scoops of ice cream. I would like to still play around a bit with the crust though. I might need to double the recipe to make the crust thicker.

Big news of the day: Japan earthquake and tsunami. It's amazing when natural disasters strike and completely stops our (human) lives. We think our little lives are so important, then along come this wall of water, and a whole country stops.

I helped an 80-something year old member today at the CU and he commented on how horrible the earthquake was, along with the string of natural disasters we've been having. He said that nature is doing enough without men doing more damage to each other. I think he's talking about the uprising in Libya. He walked away quite frustrated, but trying to curb from delving more into the awful things we do to each other.

Then I read a story on Mefi about a guide dog in Britain who went blind and now follows another guide dog. One person commented, "They don't sit around missing what they don't have anymore, they just receive it as a new state of the world. We humans, on the other hand, are under the illusion that we have a lot more control than we really do over the world in which we live. When we lose part of that control, lose something for good, we're fully aware and it's hard to cope." There's a lesson in there somewhere...

which leads me to Butters. It's pretty hard to find a person who's undemanding and happy for the most part. It's refreshing with animals that they place really minimal demands on us. Please take me out to pee/poo so I don't pee/poo in our living space because you don't like it. Please feed me. Please give me treats! Please take me with you wherever you go! Please let me be with you. That's about the extent of his demands. Of course, I'm sure he'd be quite happy to not be groomed or get his nails clipped. He puts up with me giving him a haircut/bath. He doesn't really demand that of me. I've seen others of his kind not groomed and they are still quite happy. As I type here, he's sleeping peacefully on the floor beside my chair. I love him really in a way that I don't love another human being. And coming back full circle...I wonder if it's because I control him?