I’m officially out of the post-play slump. Things that have helped:

*The sun! It stopped raining after nearly an entire month of soppy weather. Now it’s hot and muggy, my left foot is swollen, the lawn needs mowed every other day, and I’m taking the kids to the pool this afternoon. Hip-hip.

*Rehearsals for the next play have started! In my down moments, I once again have lines running through my head. And you know what? I love the constant bubbling of words in my brain. It’s comforting, in a jittery sort of way.

*The strawberries are coming! Last night was the first full-patch picking. With four of us working together, it wasn’t such a big deal. 

*Consistent morning runs with a non-fussy husband! In fact, so a-okay is he with running that he goes on runs on my days off, crazy guy.

*I’m back to writing. Note the absence of an exclamation point. I feel like a fish out of water after a couple months off. I look at the pages I’ve written and my head feels like it’s cracking in half. Pure torture. So I…

*Started a writing group! I checked in with a writer friend to see if she had interest and before I knew it, I had a group of eight, super-smart, super-intimidating writer people who are going to be squinting their eyes at my very not-polished work. This is bad because SCARY. But also good because MOTIVATION.

*New recipes! Actually, all of May was a good month for recipes. (I’m still dreaming of butter chicken, and I’m gearing up to make this salad again.) Among the winners was a new rhubarb muffin recipe that caused me to eat more than I should have. In other words, success!

I realize there’s already a rhubarb muffin recipe on the blog, but hey, that was five years ago. It’s time for a new take, right? Besides, one can never have too many muffins. (And this one is easier than the other recipe to make. Tastier, too, I think.)

Cool thing: if you don’t over mix the batter, the brown sugar stays in little clumps and then dissolves in the oven’s heat, leaving the muffins speckled with little pools of caramely sweetness.

Brown Sugar Rhubarb Muffins
Blog reader Susan alerted me to this recipe which comes from Mel’s Kitchen.

for the batter:
2½ cups flour
1¼ cups brown sugar, lightly packed
1 teaspoon each baking powder and baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1½ cups rhubarb, chopped small
½ cup oil
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sour milk (or buttermilk)
1 recipe crumbs (see below)

Stir together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. It’s okay if there are little lumps of brown sugar. Add the rhubarb and toss to coat.

In a separate bowl, combine the wet ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and combine, taking care not to over mix.

Divide the batter into greased (or paper-lined) muffin tins (don’t over-fill them like I did—makes them nearly impossible to dump out afterward), sprinkle with the crumbs, and bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. Cool for about 10 minutes before removing from the tins. Serve warm, though leftovers are excellent, too.

for the crumbs:
¼ cup each flour and brown sugar
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon oil

Put all ingredients in a bowl and mash together with a fork.

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (6.1.15), small pasta with spinach and bacon, and three reds fruit crumble.

This same time, years previous: in her element, spicy cabbage, the race we saw, showtime!, the saturation point, rhubarb tart and rhubarb tea, and fresh strawberry cream pie.

I made a new chicken dinner and it is the chicken dinner to rule all chicken dinners.

Or so say I, aka Miss Humble Pants Know It All.

It irritates my husband to no end when I get all cocky with my food-love proclamations. The other day when I wrote about this chicken dinner and called it “THE BEST CHICKEN DINNER EVER,” the man got on my case.

“That’s a stupid thing to say,” he said. “You don’t know it’s the best chicken ever. You shouldn’t say those things.”

He’s right, I don’t know if it’s the best chicken ever. Just because I thought I’d died and went to heaven doesn’t mean I haven’t ever felt that way while eating chicken other times. What can I say. I’m a loose-praiser of chicken dinners. A chicken slut, if you will. Forgive me, World.

(My husband is going to blow his top when he reads that last paragraph. You don’t need to say all that, he’ll scoff. I’ll just ho-ho-ho and say, Read on, baby, and then he’ll read this parenthetical paragraph and get a wonky huge grin on his face. THE MAN HAS THE BEST SHEEPISH GRIN EVER.)

Earlier this week, me and a bunch of friends took our chatty selves out to dinner. We settled on Indian food, but when we got to the restaurant, it was closed. “How about Thai food?” someone suggested.

There was an awkward silence, and then I blurted, “I don’t really like Thai food.”

Gathered around the table at Indian Restaurant Take Two, I clarified. I do like Thai food, I said, but for some reason—maybe the restaurant?—all the food always tastes the same to me, sort of industrialized. (Am I the only one who thinks this?)

Anyway. One of the restaurant’s specials was butter chicken. I had no idea that my latest chicken dish affair was Indian! How could I have missed that important detail? (Especially since the recipe writer said it was Indian. Shame, Jennifer. Shame.)  I toyed with ordering the chicken, just to see how my version compared with the real deal, but then I decided, Nah, I love what I made, and it’s easy. I’ll try something different. So I got something else that I can’t pronounce, plus na’an with paneer, and it was wonderful, but I think I prefer my butter chicken. Moral of the story: there is no need to spend twenty-six dollars at an Indian restaurant when you can just whip up a pot of THE BEST CHICKEN EVER from the comfort of your home.

Scratch that. The food was awesome and my friends were even more awesome because they tolerated me eating from their plates à la Helen Keller. Plus, we had ourselves a jolly blast, laughed ourselves silly, and left smelling like exotic spices. Totally worth the splurge.

Now for the chicken. Here’s what you need to know:

*Mouth fireworks!
*My kids approved (though a couple were deterred by the heat, even with my chili pepper reductions, the wimps), and some of them LOVED it.
*I bet this could easily be made into a vegetarian meal: just use roasted cauliflower, carrots, and chickpeas (or zucchini, tofu, sweet potatoes, etc) in place of the chicken.

Butter Chicken 
Adapted from Camille’s recipe over at Flowers In His Garden.

The original recipe called for 1 teaspoon of cayenne, but I halved it and found it plenty hot. I’ve read elsewhere that the sour cream can be substituted with yogurt (preferably Greek, perhaps?), and I think the yogurt might actually be more authentic (but I don’t know that for sure).

4 tablespoons butter
¼ cup minced ginger
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 pounds boneless chicken thighs, cubed
1 cup sour cream
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
4 teaspoons cumin
1½ teaspoons cinnamon
½ teaspoon chipotle (or cayenne) pepper
1 tablespoon salt
1-2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
1 pint tomato sauce
1 cup whipping cream
¼ cup brown sugar

Melt the butter in a large pot set over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and ginger. After a couple minutes, add the chicken and fry for a few minutes until it starts to brown.

In a bowl, stir together the sour cream, lemon juice, paprika, cumin, cinnamon, chipotle, salt, and black pepper. Add to the chicken and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the tomato sauce and bring to a simmer.

Pour the whipping cream into a bowl and temper it by slowly whisking in a couple ladlefuls of the hot tomato-sour cream sauce. Add the now-tempered whipping cream to the pot of chicken and add the brown sugar. Bring to a boil before reducing the heat and simmering for another 25 minutes.

Serve hot, over rice, with na’an and some weeds.

This same time, years previous: the hard part, an evening together, the quotidian (5.26.14), the quotidian (5.27.13), the quotidian (5.28.12), questions and carrots, one dead mouse, we love you, Wayne, the ways we play, de butchery, and just the tip.