A lazy weekend in Holiday Season

It was another lazy Sunday. It had been raining since previous night. When I woke up in the morning, and saw through my window, first thing I noticed that  my front yard turned golden yellow. The sky was gloomy, but my front yard was golden, definitely not by sunshine, but by the golden maple leaves which fell through out the night due to the storm. 

I was bewildered for a moment. I couldn’t understand whether I should feel fine by seeing such a beautiful sight, or I should be irritated as all my effort of previous day went in vein. Saturday morning, I raked my whole front yard, and it was looking perfectly clean until I went to bed that night. 

In the morning it was looking like nobody raked the yard for years. Anyway, as all the leaves were fresh, at least it was not looking dirty. Then I looked up at the sky. The dark clouds were moving, there was not a single spot of light blue. The drizzle were hitting the pots which I kept on my porch. It was the perfect weather to stay at home and sip a cup of hot chocolate. 

After a simple breakfast I was not at in the mood of cooking launch. I was totally in the mood to snuggle under a soft blanket. I just didn’t want to remember, whether I need to go to grocery shopping or not. 

I just want to forget any household job. Moreover, still there were many more Christmas crafts were pending to do. Anyway, since it is the Holiday season, I thought of cooking something different, but was not in the mood to cook. So, I decided to cook  just a one pot meal. After much searching on the Internet, I decided to go for pasta, obviously without cheese. No, not that I did that for health reason. The real cause was that  I ran out of cheese. Anyway, when I opened my fridge , only few tomatoes were there. So, I took only one tomato, but how could I do the gravy? My eye fell on the big box of fresh spinach. Yes, why not spinach? I could easily  use some fresh dark green spinach in the pasta. The color as well as the taste could be good and different. The dish turned out good. While I put the chicken, along with the vegetable on boiling, I felt pity to give only food in the lunch. I could make some sweet dish. The eggnog was the easiest one, and also perfect for holiday season.Now it’s the time give you the recipe of my green pasta
Two chicken leg pieces (better to use boneless chicken)
One big Roma tomato (or any tomato available in your kitchen)
five-six cloves of garlic
A handful of spinach
Salt to taste
Pasta (I used spaghetti)
One tsp. dry basil (fresh basil is better)
One tsp. of dry oregano
One tbsp. of oil

Wash the chicken, pat it dry with kitchen towel. Marinate the chicken with salt for half an hour. Peel the garlic cloves. Pressure cook chicken with tomato, garlic, and spinach. Let it cool down. Then take out the chicken pieces. If you are not using boneless chicken, then tear off the flesh from the bones, and discard the bones. Take a mixer, pour the tomato, spinach, and garlic with the juice, and grind well to make fine liquid paste. 

At last Mr. Man solved it

 Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti according to the instruction written on the package. Take a heavy bottomed pan, heat oil to medium. Add basil, oregano into oil. When the fine aroma starts to come, add the chicken pieces. Fry for one to two minutes. Add the paste of tomato, and spinach. Cook the curry, stirring occasionally. When it start thicken, add the cooked pasta. Give a good stir, and your spinach-pasta is ready to be served.

All of us were extremely lazy since morning. So, none of us took bath before lunch. After lunch I was just sitting idle for some time. On the other hand my son had been asking me since morning to bake gingerbread cookies. So, at last  pulled myself up from the couch. After bath still I was very sluggish. But my son drove me so much that I had to enter the kitchen again to bake cookies. I already made the cookie dough in the morning. When I took out it from fridge, it was as hard as rock. I told my son to allow the dough to come into room temperature. By this way I could buy some time from him. Then it was our cookie baking time. He wanted to make some something special with available cookie cutter with me. 

However, his effort went in vein. So, he decided to cut the cookies with the shapes available with me. That was an event to me. This was the first time I baked cookies successfully, keeping the shape of the cookies intact. One thing I learned that, cookie I should make with butter, not oil, not margarine. My son didn’t even let me sit after that. He started bickering over a Jigsaw puzzle which my husband had been solving since Saturday night. Anyway, to calm down him, I ask him to read about ship. That was another job for me. Again it became the time for making dinner. As I made a plan to make something special during the holiday season, I decided to go for soup and baked chicken. In winter when the temperature was sinking rapidly after few splashes of rain in the morning, which could be better than a big bowl of steam hot soup and baked chicken?
Here is my dinner recipes:
1/2 cup lima beans
1/2 cup black eyed beans
Three chicken leg piece (You can use boneless chicken)
One rosemary spring (take leaves out)
One medium sized onion
Three-four cloves of garlic
One lime (cut into halves. If the lime is very big, just use half)
oil spray 
salt to taste
One tsp. of dry basil leaves 
One tbsp. of oil (I used olive oil)
Soak the beans in a bowl for three to four hours. Pressure cook the beans, and let it cool down. You can also use slow cooker to cook the beans, but it will take a long time. 

Soup bowl

Mean while marinate the chicken pieces with salt, rosemary for half an hour in an oven proof big bowl.  Cut the onion into big chunks. Peel the garlic cloves. Just put the onion, garlic cloves, the lime in the bowl. Spray oil on the top.  Cover with an aluminum foil. Bake for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes open the cover, and check whether juice is oozing out from the chicken. If not, then add half cup water into it, and cook until the chicken pieces are tender. 
After the chicken baking is done. Discard the lime from the bowl. Take out the chicken pieces. In a mixer make fine liquid paste of rest of the ingredients from the bowl. Return chicken pieces into the bowl, cover it, and keep it inside the oven to keep warm, while cooking the soup.
Take heavy bottomed wok. Heat oil to medium. Add dry basil to oil. Then add the cooked bean into it. Give a quick stir. Add the liquid paste. Check the salt. Add salt according to your taste. Bring into boil. Switch off the stove. Take out the chicken from oven. Serve hot with the chicken.