Vegetables and fruit from the Portland Farmers Market at Portland State University, in the South Park Blocks, downtown Portland

I rode the 12 bus to the farmers market--we had a detour due to street and bridge closures in preparation for the Grand Floral Parade which was scheduled to begin an hour and a half after I had arrived at the farmers market.



I bought zucchini from that bin at the back. Yummy.



I bought potatoes from the front yellow bin. Yummy.



I bought Hood strawberries. Yummy.



I bought Brooks cherries. Yummy.



I bought raspberries and blackberries. Yummy.

Still life No. 2, Bijou Cafe

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The omelette and potatoes I had ordered. A single pancake in the distance. Consistently delicious.

A Tale of Two (More) Chicken Breasts

You know something that I've discovered? A real big surprise to me? The difference between taste and texture of never-been-frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts and purchased-frozen chicken tenders. It's a delightful difference, let me tell you. Of course, those of you who already know this may be chuckling in a mannerly fashion at my naivete. That's OK.

Earlier in March I bought my first ever fresh chicken breasts, two of them, from the meat counter at Freddie's. I figured I could do something nice with them. That day I also bought some carrots, potatoes, onion, zucchini, yellow crook neck squash and chard. You can see what I did with all of that, here in this photo. Much like what I had on the blog on Monday, I baked the chicken breasts first, sprinkled with sea salt and pepper, drizzled with an olive oil, canola oil mixture. I forgot to say that on Monday, about the oil mixture. In a big pot, I cooked the potatoes in chunks, the carrots in disks, after I had sauteed the onion in bits and pieces, in that same olive oil/canola oil mixture. I added a little bit of water, too.

After the chicken was done, I called Lamont and asked him, "Can't I put my chicken breasts in pieces into my pot with the carrots and potatoes and onion, then add the squash and later on the chard?" "You sure can," he replied.

So I got the chicken out of the oven, let it rest a couple of minutes, then cut it into chunks. Once the potatoes and carrots began to get tender, I poured the chicken chunks and liquid into the pot, added a little bit of water, and turned up the heat for a few minutes. Then I poured in the disks of both squash and stirred in the chard which I had cut in the manner of chiffonade, as in finely cut. Well, finely cut as well as I could do it, not teensy but narrow. Anyway, it all cooked for a while on lower heat and smelled great. Right before I turned off the heat, I stirred in some leftover Green Giant Steamer Shoe Peg Corn. Oh, and as I added each new ingredient, I sprinkled some sea salt here and there in the pot.

Needless to say, I had me some more great leftovers. In fact, Lamont came over one night that week and ate a bowl of it, proclaiming it "chicken stew." He liked it! I hope that I can cook this again and have it turn out just as tasty.

My Sunday, May 31, 2009, breakfast

Already in the skillet, rough-chopped sweet Vidalia onion and thin-sliced potato in an olive oil, canola oil mixture. I forgot to take a photo of them, but I remembered with this colorful chiffonade of rainbow chard beside the bowl with two eggs. At first it occurred to me to scramble the two eggs into the vegetable mix, but I changed my mind as things progressed.

Here you see the onions and potatoes with the chard.

I let it all cook for a short while underneath this lid ...

...then I added a tomato and replaced the lid.

Once the vegetables felt done when I pushed at them with the spatula, I put them into a bowl and set it at the back of the stove top which the oven had nice and warm. Then I scrambled the two eggs in the skillet and placed them on top of the mixture in the bowl.

I got my Smart Balance, sweet tea and pepper jellies ready.

The timer went off, so I got the biscuits out of the oven, canned Grands Homestyle Originals.

Here's the finished meal, waiting on me to dig in.

Mama still slept as I cooked and ate. She's not an early riser. Sometimes I fix food like this for brunch, and she enjoys it just as much as I do--some days I'm way hungry when I get up so I go to these somewhat experimental lengths. Most of the time, though, Mama likes her raisin toast about an hour after first drinking her Shaklee protein drink, made with milk and chocolate syrup in the blender, just as soon as she's dressed and made her way to the kitchen.