All week long I’ve had a low-grade version of what my boys were sick with a week or so ago – congestion, a bit achey and tired, sneezing like crazy and pretty crusty all around. I feel better each day, but not yet at my best. Even without my normal energy level I’ve continued on like all Mamas do – creating a big pot of homemade baked chile with stew meat one night, homemade shepherds pie another (gotta share those recipes with you soon), working on everything I always do – typing emails, homeschooling my boys, filling book orders and scheduling speaking events for 2010, meeting deadlines, cleaning toilets, yada yada yada. We women can’t really stop for long, can we?
So about 4 pm, since I hadn’t really had the energy to deal with it sooner, I pulled the fridge door open to peruse my dinner options based on what was in there. I began to pull out various ingredients to create something new . . . with a random gourmet flair! Chicken breast (1 left), crimini mushrooms, some bacon, onion, a pile of spinach . . .
Then, I pulled a package of fancy rice blend from the pantry – something new I wanted to try, containing long grain brown rice, black barley and Daikon radish seeds – hmm pretty impressive. I put it on the stove to cook. Then I began to sauté the diced chicken breast, chopped onion and criminis in some olive oil and butter. I diced a few strips of bacon and tossed that in, then I threw a pile of spinach on top of everything, poured in some white wine, shook a good bit of saltless seasoning over all – wow – it was looking and smelling delicious!
Then I took a sharp left turn and it all went downhill from there! I imagined a very light, tasty sauce and saw the liquids accumulating in the pan so I stirred TOO much cornstarch (2 Tablespoons! – a tsp would have been enough) into a half cup of water with 2 tsp chicken bouillon powder, stirred well and added it into the pan of goodies, but it thickened way too much, so I added more water, more wine and stirred more but I could tell the spinach was gettting too done, oh my.
So . . . What could a woman do? Can’t go back, so – I sauteed it all a bit more to make sure it was combined well, then I served a portion to everyone on top of the yummy rice, telling them if they finished it they could have a serving of the prepared frozen ‘chicken with orange sauce’ I had found burried in the deep freeze (for such a time as this!). It was a bit of compassionate bargaining in order not to waste the sort-of-slimy but real tasty 
gourmet fare. It worked!
My son commented graciously that the flavor was good, but the texture was, uh . . . I laughed! And agreed. Here are a few photos of the masterpiece-gone-bad. You can see how lovely it was looking (bottom to top – until the end, when, the spinach DIED.)
A few tips I know, but didn’t heed: Always add fresh spinach last last last. It cooks quickly and you never have to worry if it will ‘be done’ because it’s delicate and even the steam at the top will cause it to cook fast just by putting the lid on the pan.
1 tablespoon cornstarch will thicken 2 cups of liquid. So what I did was . . . overkill. The combination of the ooey-gooey sauce and the slippery-slimey spinach was rather unpleasant while chewing 
Have a delicious weekend!
Let’s get the job done.
ha!)
