Today I made what may be the best chicken-chile-cheese nachos in the world. Quite possibly. At least, they were so good that I ate too much!
Here in New Mexico it's all about the green chiles. So while at the Farmer's Market yesterday, I picked up some fire-roasted Sandia Hots, knowing I could easily make my husband happy just by trying. Today I thought maybe they could make some good green enchilada sauce, so I peeled, seeded, and chopped them while chicken cooked in the oven. It was taking a while, so I decided chicken-chile casserole might be easier. And finally, as Liam whined and tugged at my pants incessantly, it became just nachos.
But what a good choice. The chicken was cubed, along with celery and onions in a creamy sauce; the chiles went into a pot with garlic and chicken broth to turn saucy. Cheddar melted on the finished chicken completed it. I put corn tortilla chips on my plate, followed by chicken, the chile sauce, and some sliced green onion. MMmmmmmm.
And yes, my husband was very happy.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
What I said I would tell you...
I've eluded to an incident involving cold water and life jackets; here's where I give the full details.
We were visiting Utah for a family reunion and were hanging out with Jeremy's mother, siblings, and their children. Somebody had said the Provo river (up in the canyon) was tame, so we thought it would be fun to take all the kids tubing. The whole time, I'm imagining a sunny, lazy river scene, very similar to one I experienced as a child in some Tennessee river. So, with our 8 adults and 7 kids, we drive up the canyon for what should be a fun morning.
I had Liam in my lap; Jeremy had John in his. The other kids were no older than John, and most were also riding in the lap of an adult. We all had life jackets on. The water was quite shallow. Seems very safe, right?
But the water turned out to be unusually fast that day, and our tubes turned out to be difficult to steer when we had a child to hold onto. Suffice it to say, I eventually flipped out of my tube. It was at a point where, try as I might, I couldn't get away from the edge, so when an overhanging tree came, and I was simply too high to go under it, I had to fall out. I can still see in my mind Liam going under the icy water (but popping up quickly)... feel the hard, slippery rocks beneath my feet and hands while I struggled to stand up for what seemed like a full minute as the river carried me swiftly on, knowing that at least I was holding Liam's head out of the water... hear Jeremy yelling at me to "Stand Up!" and me yelling "I Can't!"... then the feel of my hair getting caught and pulled on a tree branch... and finally grabbing hold of a branch so that I would stop moving long enough to stand up. Then looking down river at my tube floating away.
Jeremy stood up and came over to us -- John was refusing to go any further after witnessing his mother's mishap -- and so there we stood at the edge of the Provo River yelling at each other trying to figure out what to do. Jeremy's mom came over, and, being the sacrificing woman she is, insisted that she would take the boys out while Jeremy and I floated on down. But we could see how scared our kids were, and there wasn't even any easy way up the bank where we were. It's a good thing we decided to all stay together, because the adventure wasn't over yet.
On the other side of the river from us was an RV campground, with some concerned ladies waving their arms and yelling, but we couldn't hear them over the river. Then a young man appeared, having walked across the river (which must have been hard), to help us up out of the river. He even offered his shirt for Liam to warm him up. Up the bank was a gravel service road which we would need to walk along, so it was a good thing we had our comfortable river shoes. Oohhh, wait. We left those in New Mexico. Jeremy's mother had one shoe (the other was lost in the river). So we walked slowly along carrying our tubes and children.
The man who'd come to help us ran forward to get his car, with John on his shoulders. Our feet were getting cut and burned... but in a stoke of ingenuity, I fashioned shoes for my mother-in-law out of an old dilapidated pair of boots with no soles. I had her step on them and tie the laces around her feet: we called them "pioneer boots" in honor of it being Pioneer Day. When we got to the very helpful and giving man's car (he couldn't just drive it to us because the road had one of those bars to keep cars out), his wife was there with snickerdoodles. Wonderful! I think John ate quite a lot of them.
I had some great bumps on my leg, that turned into the best looking bruises. My mother-in-law had me model my purple badges of courage as she retold the story the next day at the family reunion. I know I should have taken a picture for you all to see, but... coordination like that is not my forte.
The moral of the story:
We were visiting Utah for a family reunion and were hanging out with Jeremy's mother, siblings, and their children. Somebody had said the Provo river (up in the canyon) was tame, so we thought it would be fun to take all the kids tubing. The whole time, I'm imagining a sunny, lazy river scene, very similar to one I experienced as a child in some Tennessee river. So, with our 8 adults and 7 kids, we drive up the canyon for what should be a fun morning.
I had Liam in my lap; Jeremy had John in his. The other kids were no older than John, and most were also riding in the lap of an adult. We all had life jackets on. The water was quite shallow. Seems very safe, right?
But the water turned out to be unusually fast that day, and our tubes turned out to be difficult to steer when we had a child to hold onto. Suffice it to say, I eventually flipped out of my tube. It was at a point where, try as I might, I couldn't get away from the edge, so when an overhanging tree came, and I was simply too high to go under it, I had to fall out. I can still see in my mind Liam going under the icy water (but popping up quickly)... feel the hard, slippery rocks beneath my feet and hands while I struggled to stand up for what seemed like a full minute as the river carried me swiftly on, knowing that at least I was holding Liam's head out of the water... hear Jeremy yelling at me to "Stand Up!" and me yelling "I Can't!"... then the feel of my hair getting caught and pulled on a tree branch... and finally grabbing hold of a branch so that I would stop moving long enough to stand up. Then looking down river at my tube floating away.
Jeremy stood up and came over to us -- John was refusing to go any further after witnessing his mother's mishap -- and so there we stood at the edge of the Provo River yelling at each other trying to figure out what to do. Jeremy's mom came over, and, being the sacrificing woman she is, insisted that she would take the boys out while Jeremy and I floated on down. But we could see how scared our kids were, and there wasn't even any easy way up the bank where we were. It's a good thing we decided to all stay together, because the adventure wasn't over yet.
On the other side of the river from us was an RV campground, with some concerned ladies waving their arms and yelling, but we couldn't hear them over the river. Then a young man appeared, having walked across the river (which must have been hard), to help us up out of the river. He even offered his shirt for Liam to warm him up. Up the bank was a gravel service road which we would need to walk along, so it was a good thing we had our comfortable river shoes. Oohhh, wait. We left those in New Mexico. Jeremy's mother had one shoe (the other was lost in the river). So we walked slowly along carrying our tubes and children.
The man who'd come to help us ran forward to get his car, with John on his shoulders. Our feet were getting cut and burned... but in a stoke of ingenuity, I fashioned shoes for my mother-in-law out of an old dilapidated pair of boots with no soles. I had her step on them and tie the laces around her feet: we called them "pioneer boots" in honor of it being Pioneer Day. When we got to the very helpful and giving man's car (he couldn't just drive it to us because the road had one of those bars to keep cars out), his wife was there with snickerdoodles. Wonderful! I think John ate quite a lot of them.
I had some great bumps on my leg, that turned into the best looking bruises. My mother-in-law had me model my purple badges of courage as she retold the story the next day at the family reunion. I know I should have taken a picture for you all to see, but... coordination like that is not my forte.
The moral of the story:
Don't you DARE take your baby tubing on the Provo River.
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