The Library and Cookbooks

Within 24 hours of moving to California we had our public library cards. Who needs cable, Netflix, and wireless when you have a public library within a mile of your home? As a plus, the public allotment gardens are right next door to the library so when I go to drop off books I can wander through the woodchip paths and marvel at the productivity of people and plants.

During my second or third perusal of the New Books shelf I found this:

The America’s Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook. I had been reading reviews on Amazon only the night before and had tried to decide if cost outweighed the recipes. Now I can flip through the pages and write down promising recipes for free! You have to love the library.

The first recipe I tried was Plum-Peach Upside-Down Almond Cake. I didn’t take pictures of this process and this blog is not about that experiment. But I will tell you it was a HUGE success and especially gratifying to a girl who does not have a knack for baked goods.

The second recipe was Sloppy Joes, found in the Kid Friendly section. It calls for ground turkey instead of ground beef and you can cleverly mince and brown mushrooms that are completely camouflaged in the browned turkey. It was delicious and made for a great picnic meal. This post is also not about that process.

The third recipe, the Chicken Salad with Fennel, Lemon, and Parmesan, is the focus for today. Found on page 90 in the Salads section, the recipe recommends serving in a sandwich form of serving over a green salad. I opted for sandwich form for a light and easy weekend dinner.

This looked like it would be a nice easy weeknight dish that would resist the urge of many weeknight meals to be boring.

To make it even simpler I used part of a rotisserie chicken vs. preparing the poached chicken that the recipe recommends. Cheating? Perhaps, but rotisserie chicken was on sale and less expensive than any of the raw chicken options. And I have enough meat left over for at least three more meals plus the bones for a batch of homemade chicken stock. So I cheated and it was still tasty.

I have quite a few chicken salad recipes and am pretty satisfied with them. What caught my attention were the other ingredients, namely fennel.

I have never cooked with fennel though I think it is a lovely plant and enjoy the zippy scent of the greens. There are plenty of recipes out there for braised fennel and whatnot but that never struck me as all that appealing. Plus there is always that slightly intimidating factor of what to do with a fennel bulb after you have acquired one. The chefs at the Test Kitchen anticipated my insecurity and showed a picture step-by-step how to at the bottom of the recipe for how to prepare fennel. I love you guys.

First slice off the base.

They remove tops, feathery fronds, and outer layer if tough.
Slice the bulb in half the find the core.
With a sharp knife, remove the core.
They should look like this.
Slice the fennel bulb halves into thin strips. But don't stop there! Keep chopping until fine.

With the chicken and fennel taken care of, I moved on to the lemon.

This particular lemon has been sitting on the counter for over a week and desperately needed to be used for something. The scent of fresh grated lemon sent tingles to my toes and then as I was juicing it I was marveling at how potent and lemony this lemon smelled. I should have tasted the juice before adding it because this was a super intense lemon! I announced to Mr. Sojourner that we were having lemon salad with chicken and fennel because it certainly was the dominating flavor. If you like lemons then hurrah, this is a dish for you. I happen to like lemons, and limes.

I know you are supposed to follow the recipe exactly the first time you make it, and then add tweaks the second time around. This is a good and right practice and I generally do try to follow it, but I did make an adjustment at the beginning. Instead of the 1/3 cup light mayonnaise, I used 1/3 cup plain Greek yogurt because I had yogurt and I didn’t have light mayonnaise.

Grate your Parmesan.

Whisk together the yogurt (or mayonnaise) grated parmesan, extra-virgin olive oil, lemon zest and juice with a dash of pepper and salt. If you have celery seeds then add the ¼ teaspoon called for. I don’t yet because I am still slowly stocking up my spice cabinet and honestly celery seeds do not rank high on my list. I don’t even have cinnamon yet, I’m not going to have celery seeds.

Add your shredded chicken, minced red onion, and finely chopped fennel bulb. I did not chop my fennel fine enough; the pieces were pretty substantial and made eating the sandwich a bit more of an adventure. Think of the little bits of celery that you often have in chicken sandwiches and go for about that size.

Don’t forget fresh basil. Ours came straight from our little herb garden. These little guys survived being dug up by our dog Odin and then replanted by me. I’m so proud of them and they had a great rich basil flavor.

Fill pita bread to make your sandwiches.

Serve with grapes to provide sweetness to balance the lemon/yogurt tang. Next time I think I would actually add chopped grapes into the salad or add a bit of honey to mellow out the yogurt and lemon.

Today I have to return the cookbook to the library. Instead of renewing it I think I'll find the cookbook section and find a new book to bring home. The nice thing about returning a book to the library is that if you need it again, it will probably be there waiting for you.

Let Us Introduce Ourselves

My husband and I both grew up in very nomadic households (and no, neither of us are army brats, though that is the first assumption of many when they hear us rattle off the myriad places we have lived). There is a part of us that would like to settle down somewhere to live out the rest of our lives in a familiar setting, yet there is an equally strong side that cannot imagine really ever settling down.

Perhaps in two years we will receive a call that will be our permanent placement for the rest of our lives. We may also continue our pattern of moving every two to three years simply out of habit. Either way we will never shake our foundational sense of being sojourners through this world. It is a blessing that we have the promise of an eternal home with our Heavenly Father regardless of where we end up here.

Last year we kept a blog titled Kippers and Marmalade: Two Heaths Discovering Love, Tea, and Newts for All. It chronicled our year in Cambridge, England.

This year we will live in Palo Alto, California, for twelve months. We found out on May 1st, 2011 that this would be our home starting July 1^st, 2011.

After that we will move back to Ft. Wayne, Indiana where my husband Mr. Sojourner will finish his final year of seminary.

That is all we know so far. Where we will go from there is out of our hands.

If you like mysteries and adventure then this is an exciting prospect. If you prefer to keep two feet firmly planted on the ground and plan for your future then the uncertainty of the unknown can be pretty unsettling.

I did not want to keep making a new blog for every move so we had to think up something that was transportable. Everything we own is measured first by its ability to withstand multiple moves and I wanted our new blog to be able to endure that test too. My mom told me many times growing up, when I was feeling sad about leaving yet another home, “We are all just travelers through this life, honey.” We will share our travels, be they physical relocations or emotional growth, here with you. We will strive to balance the dichotomy within ourselves between our desire to settle down and to remain sojourners.

Either way I think we are in for a grand adventure.