I just walked into my house after about an hour of gardening, doing something else creative so my mind can rest before tackling another scene in my work-in-progress. My house smelled like my old piano teacher’s house. Fantastic!
During my ninth grade year of high school and my last year of piano lessons, one of my best friends and I drove to the next town over and took piano lessons. I can’t remember the teacher’s name, but I do remember the exotic smells that wafted out of her kitchen while I waited for my friend’s lesson to end and mine to begin.
I tried to do homework, but as I was starving, I concentrated more on what could elicit those wonderful aromas every week. I always wondered but never asked, never said much of anything to my teacher. (Do people group piano teachers and librarians into the same category—set apart and a little above the rest of us? Maybe a little intimidating?)
Today, I opened my door and wham! The wonderful smell pulled me straight back to that teacher’s den with me on the couch, listening to Ellen play and daydreaming about food.
I don’t know what was cooking in her house, but I’m cooking chicken breasts and Italian dressing in a crock pot. That’s it.
One of our sons is due home today for a long weekend, and he asked for Chicken Ring Around, a favorite meal of his. I used to cook this recipe with leftover chicken plus one block of creamed cheese (one third less fat in our house), but today I didn’t have leftovers. I cooked the chicken and then prepared the rest of the dish.
Here’s the easy recipe for tonight’s meal:
4 chicken breasts
Tuscan House Italian Dressing—poured over the chicken. I didn’t measure. Maybe ½-3/4 cup.
Cook in crock pot till done. (Maybe 4 hours on high, 6 on low.)
Shred cooled chicken and mix with one block of 1/3-less fat creamed cheese. You may add more dressing if the mixture seems too thick.
On a cookie sheet (I use a pizza stone), separate two cans of crescent roll dough into triangles, and overlap the short ends of the triangles so that they form a circle. Spoon the chicken mixture onto the dough, then bring the tips of the triangles over the mixture and tuck under the inside of the circle.
Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes or until the crescent rolls are golden brown.
That’s it. A favorite meal for a returning son and a mystery solved–maybe!
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