For Shame!! Making Promises I Didn't Keep!!! (Chicken Paprika recipe)

Wow - I've really been lax in keeping up with this blog, even though I've apologized and promised to try to do better. Shame on me!! I haven't given up, but when my get-up-and-go got up and went, it done got lost!!!


But, I'm still here and I still want to keep this blog alive, so I do hope you'll hang with me in this not-so-grand effort of mine. I mean, I'm ALWAYS talking food, be it on Facebook or at home or in emails or wherever. What's NOT logical about having a foodie blog where I can do what I'm already doing??


Anyway, I was at the Goodwill a week ago looking for a chair to replace the chair my friend broke - and I do mean broke! It was from the 60s and had come with a desk that we'd given away three years ago. My daughter had put screws in all the joints to reinforce them because it was the noisiest chair to sit in with the squeaking and creaking. So, while she was in Utah, my friend would go on my daughter's computer while I typed up his college assignments. I could always tell when he was there (or when anyone was there) because of the chair's constant complaints. Well, this one day I heard him thrashing about making the chair cry out in agony (squeaking and squawking more than usual), so I hollered up the stairs for him to stop before he broke the chair. About 15 seconds later, I heard it again and this time the chair did more than cry out in pain - it literally screamed. In other words, I heard a loud, thunderous CRACK!! I hollered again and told him he was breaking the chair and to get downstairs since he wasn't able to use it properly. He replied that he wasn't breaking the chair - and then silence. Shortly, a subdued friend began to descend the stairs and when his head cleared the ceiling, he said, "I broke the chair."


When I took a look at it I found that he hadn't broken apart any of the joints - he had LITERALLY broken the wood, splitting the back support away from the seat making the chair unfixable (without a lot of glue and braces being added). UNBELIEVABLE!!! I told him he owed her a chair. That was Friday. By Tuesday, he still hadn't begun looking for a chair and she was scheduled to come in Tuesday night. He kept offering to loan me a chair which I had told him already more than once was not sufficient. He'd found excuses every day (not counting Christmas) for not going to look and I'd had enough. So I went to Goodwill.


I found a perfectly good chair that day, fully padded on the seat and back and only $3. So, I got it. But, I'm not one to go into a thrift store and NOT look around, so I went through my favorite departments to see what was what (jeans, household items, books) and found a neat little paperback cookbook called Potluck Cookery by Beverly Pepper. A quick flip-thru showed me that I would like the recipes therein, so I bought it.


After finding several recipes I wanted to try, I thought about sharing them with all of you, but wanted to see if anyone out in cyberspace had ever made them and had images because, quite frankly, that's easier than making them myself - and it helps me know if the recipe looks as good as it sounds. That's when I learned that my little paperback, despite its well-kept appearance, was actually printed in 1955! I knew it looked vintage (as I am also beginning to, unfortunately), but it was in such good condition, it never occurred to me it was over 50 years old!! Nice!!!


So, even though I haven't made anything yet, I wanted to share with you the first recipe that caught my eye and a picture that links to another blogger who actually made several recipes from this little book. I suspect that her version looks different than mine will but, it's a start.


"Chicken Paprika"
Potluck Cookery by Beverly Pepper, pg. 72

I happen to like Chicken Paprika with its saucy paprika gravy and buttery egg noodles, but I think it would work equally well over rice. This blogger used brown rice and green beans which makes it look entirely different than I had imagined. She admits having burnt this which altered the color of the sauce, so there's another reason for it to not look quite like I expected. I still think I'm going to try it, though, because it's a very easy recipe and because you can use either leftover chicken or some that you've cooked special for the dish. Of course, if you have leftover turkey, that works, too.

Chicken Paprika

LEFTOVER: Cooked chicken
At least 4 slices or 1 ½ cups

AND

Fat, 2 tablespoons
Sliced onion, 1 large
Paprika, 1 tablespoon
Egg yolk, 1 beaten with 1 cup sour cream
Salt and pepper to taste

Sauté onion in hot fat until golden brown. Add chicken and paprika. Cook 5 minutes. Add egg yolk-sour cream mixture, salt and pepper. Simmer very slowly 10 minutes.

Serves 3 – 4

SUGGESTED: Serve on buttered noodles with Mushroom Croquettes and buttered rye bread slices.