Broccoli dish No. 2

This is a main dish, that I learned to make from the same friend that taught me how to make Dish No. 1.

We (the family) were visiting her and her husband for a few days and their garden was growing lots of broccoli and it was ready to eat. So, naturally, we ate lots of broccoli that week. She is a really good cook, and every dish she made was super delicious. Even the one broccoli disliker in our family ate the dishes. Notice I said disliker not hater because Alan dislikes broccoli, but he doesn't hate it, and he will eat it.

What you need.

1 chicken whole or cut up
1 package rice-a-roni -- chicken flavored
1 small package frozen broccoli
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup sour cream

Boil the chicken to cook it. After it's cooked pull the meat from the bones and put in a bowl.
Cook the Rice-a-roni according to package directions. Set aside.
Cook the broccoli according to package directions. Drain and set aside. Remember to salt it.
After all the components are cooked you are ready to assemble.

Put together chicken pieces, rice, broccoli, sour cream and cheddar cheese. Stir to mix. Put this mixture into an oven dish -- I use a 9x12 baking dish. Sprinkle a little bit of cheddar on top of the casserole. Put in oven for 30 minutes at 350 degreees.

When it is bubbling, it's ready.

And it's really, really good. For all your broccoli haters out there, this dish disguises the broccoli so you can eat it and get all the good nutrients that broccoli provides.

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Summer's here, oh yeah!

I know that summer has arrived because I am now able to get great, wonderful, delicious tomatoes. You know, the kind that are grown in dirt, get dirt spattered on them when it rains, and ripen on the vine, causing the vines to droop, which makes the tomatoes suck up more dirt.

I am convinced that it's the dirt that makes summer tomatoes so delicious.

Today I was purchased 10 pounds of delicious tomatoes. Now, they weren't Jerseys, but Big Boys are almost as good. For those of you in the Midwest who have never heard of Jersey tomatoes, they were developed by Rutgers University's School of Agriculture way back on the 1950s and were the staple of homes back east in the summer. My mom preferred Jerseys to Big Boys, but she always had at least two or three Big Boy plants, along with her dozen or so plants of Jersey tomatoes.

Back to the tomatoes I purchased. These tomatoes were so good. So sweet. So non-mealy. So firm. So delicious! I made the usual tomato salad that I grew up with -- that is: cut up tomatoes -- for Alan and me I use three large ones; add to that a cut up onion in rings -- pull the rings apart; five or six leaves of basil, fresh; salt and pepper to taste. That all gets mixed together, and then a couple of sprinkles of EVOO is incorporated into that mess, and there you have it-- tomato salad the way my mom made it. The only thing missing is Italian bread to dip into the juice that accumulates in the bottom of the bowl -- the best part as far as I'm concerned.

If only I had thought to go over to Panera's to get a loaf of bread, but I didn't, so I just drank the juice. Hey! It's tomato juice, just not as thick as what is in the can, but just as tasty.

What else did we have with the tomatoes? (I could have made a meal of just them.) Well, we had corn on the cob with butter, a small steak (1/2 each of a New York steak); and rice made with lemon pepper and butter. That was it. What a tasty meal. And the juice dribbles over to the steak which makes the steak taste even better!

Wish you all could have been here. And, I'm really looking forward to BLTs during the summer. That's really the only time we like them. And, stuffed tomatoes --stuffed with tuna salad or chicken salad. And fresh marinara sauce. And on and on and on.

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