My Camera

My camera is broken, at least more than I am capable of repairing. My plan is to see if anyone at Best Buy can help me out but... my captain thinks I broke it intentionally so that I can have a much nicer (read: much more expensive) camera. It's a really good thought. So I admitted my guilt and I think it worked. I'm not a wasteful person though so I'll still find out if mine can be repaired. Maybe someday I'll get a real camera.

Fame

Today there was a commercial shot at my house! There was a camera man, a key grip (I think), and even a director, they were so great!
The whole deal is that my Mom's friend was hired to try out a product, then choose her favorite recipe and make that for the commercial. After they filmed the process she was then interviewed about her experience with the product. The only problem was that she needed to use her own kitchen for the site, and that was in the middle of a re-model... do you see where this is leading? To my house!

Here's the fun:

This is the camera man, Scott and the lady I called the Key grip, Nakita. I'll research her official title and make sure that's correct. In the photo below they had just begun setting the scene and getting all the lights right. Oh, and that gal in blue is the star of the show, Tricia!

Here's Rob the director with Tricia.

Rob and Nakita dealing with some details. Getting things just right.

Finally, here she is making' pizza! That was some really great pizza!

What an exciting and interesting experience that was! My kitchen is famous now, but without those lights, it'll never be the same.

Salsa Verde

I made a green sauce the other day for chicken enchiladas. This would be called Enchiladas Rancheros in my local Restaurante Mexicano, I believe. I'll show ya how it's done.

Here's what you'll need:
1 lb of chicken breast
1 lb of tomatillos ( toe - ma - tee - ohs, this looks like a green tomato but has this dryish peely skin around it) I've cut one in half so you can see the inside too.
1 or 2 Serrano peppers (watch out they're spicy)
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock
6 oz of white American cheese or to your taste
About half of a bunch of cilantro
A medium to large onion
A few cloves of garlic
12 corn tortillas In a large-ish sauce pan bring water to a boil, add in the tomatillos (whole please or you'll have lots of retained liquid), add 1/3 of the onion and about 2 cloves garlic (I chopped mine). The idea is not to over cook the tomatillos. Cook them just until they turn from bright green to a sort of "army" green color.
At this point reserve half of the remaining onion and toss the rest of the ingredients together in your Mexican clay pot/bowl and add less than a cup of chicken or vegetable stock. You can add more later if you wish to thin the sauce. If you don't have your very own Mexican clay pot, you can use any old bowl you have in your kitchen. Since my hubby took our blender with him to the Air Force Base I blended my sauce in batches with the Magic Bullet. You can see how it will turn out in the bowl to the left. Once you have your sauce ready you can begin cooking the chicken. I dice up the previously set aside onion and get that cooking for a bit. I like my onions good at cooked. Well done even. I diced my chicken up pretty small but that takes some time. If you're in a rush you can chop it in larger chunks or cook it whole and pull it apart later. Any way you like to do it is fine. I added the cheese just as the chicken was finished cooking.
After the chicken is ready, form an assembly line near your stove. You'll need a small skillet to heat the corn tortillas in, dishes to plate your finished enchiladas onto, and plenty of elbow room. A second set of hands would come in handy too. I cook my tortillas one at a time in a small skillet, this keeps me on top the my game. Here's what I do: heat a tortilla, scoop some sauce onto a small plate nearby, toss the hot tortilla onto the sauce and scoop a little more on top. Throw another 'tilla into the pan to heat while you fill the first tortilla with some chicken and then roll it up. Gently slide the enchilada onto a warm serving plate and begin again. Add a little more sauce to the top for extra scrumptious-ness.

I took mine to bible study so I put them all together in a casserole dish. They get a little soggy but they still taste great! Feel free to garnish with shredded lettuce and sour cream or an extra dash of cheese. Any way you serve it, it'll be so good!

Air Force Reserves ~ Drill Weekend

My husband is in the Air Force Reserves and right now he's on active duty. That means he works for the Air Force full time rather than just one weekend a month plus 2 weeks in a year. He's active duty while he's training for his military job, he spent 10 weeks in Florida and will train another 9 months at Whiteman AFB here in Missouri. That's only about a couple of hours from where we live. Although he is on active duty and working full time for the Reserves, he still has to attend his drill weekends as usual. He came home from Florida and had leave for 7 days starting the Thursday before last, this weekend is drill weekend.
Yesterday it was hard for me to let him walk out the door. I don't know why. When he left for weeks and weeks in Florida, it really wasn't that hard. I knew I'd miss him but that he'd be back and the time would fly. It wasn't like he was shipping out for months. This time I guess it just felt like he was to close to home to be missing. What I really wanted was to stomp my feet and shake my fists and make him stay. Most jobs, let alone military jobs, don't really work that way. So I came along. I'm hiding under his desk in the lab where he works right now. No, not really, actually I've been hanging out at his hotel all day waiting for him to come back. Even if I have had to loaf around all day, eat a nice hot breakfast, take long hot showers, wash my hair twice, read books, play around online, eat out for lunch, and, worst of all, swim in the pool and sit in the hot tub. It's really been a miserable day. I think I'll come along and suffer next time too.
I love drill weekend!