Chicken Pot Pie

Not long ago, my wife found a recipe that yielded a very yummy chicken pot pie. She modified it somewhat to make it easier and yummier. I now am posting a similar, though even easier version of this recipe, in case you're interested in making a chicken pot pie. Just so you know, this is a combination of based-on-memory and made-up-as-I-go. If it turns out to not be yummy, well, sorry. Let me know and I'll try again.

Here's what you need:
2 cans of condensed cream of chicken (or mushroom, or celery) soup
2-3 potatoes, diced
1-2 stalks celery, chopped
1/4 onion, diced
1/2 bag frozen mixed veggies
1 can diced, cooked chicken (or 1-2 chicken breasts, cooked and diced)
Maybe some milk. Yeah, let's say you need some milk.
Salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning (or some other generic seasoning (maybe Spike?))
1 refrigerated pie crust (the kind you roll out)

Here's what you do:
Preheat the oven to... oh, let's say 375
Cook the potatoes, celery and onions
Dump the soup into a casserole dish
Dump in the potatoes, celery and onions
Dump in the frozen veggies
Add about 1/4 teaspoon each salt and pepper, and about 1/2 teaspoon of the other seasoning
Drain the chicken and dump that in, too
Stir it all up in the casserole dish
If it looks too thick, add some milk (or half-and-half) until it doesn't look too thick anymore
Stir it up some more, if necessary
Unroll the pie crust on top of the glop in the casserole dish. Roll up the extra dough on the edges. Try to make it look pretty, if you're into that sort of thing. Poke some holes in the pie crust.
Put it in the oven for... how 'bout 30 minutes, or until the crust is nicely golden brown.
Take it out of the oven and let it sit for about 15-20 minutes.
Eat.

I could use some advice.

This evening I received an email from a member of my extended family (actually, two of them). The person who sent the email is well on the right of the political spectrum, which I've known for a long time. I occasionally receive emails from this person espousing the many virtues of George W. Bush or lambasting various Democrats or encouraging readers to support the war in Iraq wholeheartedly, etc., etc. I sometimes skim through those emails, maybe laugh a little to myself, and delete them, but usually I just skip straight to deleting them.

This particular email encouraged me to visit this website, which is highly recommended by some guy who just happens to be good friends of a guy who used to be a US ambassador to various countries in Africa, and who therefore has his finger squarely on the pulse of the world, or something.

Ignoring my usual inclination to mostly ignore the contents of these emails, I decided to see what this reputedly awesome web site was all about. Well, as you may have already discovered, it's basically spewing hatred. I mean, at first when I saw it I kinda chuckled at the rampant patriotic theme, but quickly my amusement turned to disgust as I actually read the text. I can't stand crap like this.

You know, I'm a Christian, and I believe completely and absolutely that I have been saved by the grace of God through Christ's death and resurrection. I also know that in the Bible we are called to make disciples of all nations. I believe that Christianity is the one true faith.

However, one thing I simply cannot tolerate is intolerance (sorry--that statement has always kinda cracked me up, so I had to throw it in here). In all seriousness, that kind of intolerance and blind hatred really, really upsets me. And then it's being thrown at me by my own family, whom I love dearly.

So how do I respond? Do I respond at all? Obviously they're entitled to their opinion, however much I may disagree with it. I feel a very strong urge to reply to everyone who received the email and state that I don't agree with the message on the web site and ask that they not send those kinds of messages to me in the future. At the same time, though, I don't like conflict, especially among family. I've seen too many families split over arguments or differing political views or something else like that, and I certainly don't want that to happen. What do I do? This bothers me in many ways on many levels, and I just don't know what to do about it.

GHETTO

Check it out, yo. Here’s a photo of my mom and her siblings in front of their crib in Compton, California. My mom is the particularly thuggish looking one second from the left (man, her feet were HUGE!). My uncle is sporting the flattest flattop I’ve ever seen. That’s gangsta.

Thou Hast Mail

I got an email from Jesus today. Outlook informed me that I had a new message, so I checked my inbox, and right there in the "From" column, in bold letters, it read "Jesus."

"Wow," I thought to myself, "I've never before received an email from Jesus." It wasn't even marked "high importance." So I opened the email to see what the Messiah had written, and discovered that it wasn't actually sent by Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior of the world. No, it was sent by the guy who teaches the breakdance class where I work. Except his name is Chuy. Maybe Chuy is short for "Hey-Seuss."

Realizing the Truth

I guess I have to conclude that it may, in fact, be true that no one cares what I had for lunch. I figured that was just some kind of blogger smack-talk. Or smogger black-talk. What?

Still, I feel an undeniable urge to report that today I didn't have lunch at all. No, today I indulged in brunch!!! Now, if that's not at least mildly interesting, well... Oh, all right. I give up the fight.

Tom Vilsack has announced that he's running for President in 2008. I'm only a scant couple of years from being legally old enough to run for President. Alas, I'll still be too young to run in 2008, so my bid will have to wait until 2012 at the earliest. I'll just barely be too young; technically you have to be 35 to serve as president, and whoever is elected in 2008 will take the oath of office probably less than a week before my birthday in 2009 (it's usually on or around Jan. 20th that the President is sworn in, right?), so I'd be a week or so shy. Tough break. I was born a couple weeks late, though, so I guess it's my own fault (cursed tardiness!).

I find it hard to believe that absolutely no one cares.

An interesting wrinkle in my lunch plans today. Intrigued? I thought you might be.

I brought with me to work today a frozen meal. A frozen sandwich, more precisely. A Lean Cusine frozen panini sandwich, to be even preciselier. I planned to eat it for lunch. As we all know, though, sometimes even the best laid plans don't come to fruition. C'est la vie.

My plan to consume the aforementioned frozen panini was laid completely asunder when my wife called and offered to bring me some lunch. She was out and about already, and planned to pick up some lunch for herself, and thought to offer to bring me something. I accepted her offer. Having already been informed of her location, I quickly considered the proximate dining establishments, then suggested that she might pick something up from Burger King. I'm nothing if not a quick thinker and decisive... decider (W: "I'm the decider, and I decide..."*).

Shortly after she called, my wife brought me a two cheeseburger value meal, which I proceeded to eat. My panini will wait.

* Turns out he didn't decide after all.

Update

My daughter turns 1 tomorrow. I can't believe it's already been a year since she was born. Wow.

She's learning and growing so much every day. She took her first steps last weekend, and quickly progressed from two or three shaky steps to walking most of the way across the room (still quite shakily). Her vocabulary is slowly expanding; the other day she pointed at a book and said, "read that," as she sat on my lap. This morning she learned that Santa Claus says, "Ho, ho, ho!" though her version sounds more like "Ha, hoo, ha," or "ho, hoo, hoo," or "ha, ha, *giggle*." She seems to more or less have it down, though. She also can consistently pick out a pig or a duck from a lineup of various critters, and if you ask her what a cow says, she'll say, "moo." She loves music and loves to dance; she starts to wiggle and bob her head whenever she hears music, whether it's from one of her toys, the TV, a CD, or one of her parents singing.

Basically, she's great. She's happy and she makes us extremely happy. Hooray!

And to keep this from being just a child-focused post, I will now tell you what I plan to have for lunch ('cause I think that's generally accepted as primo blog fodder ("blog fodder" is kinda fun to say)):

A Smart Ones frozen meal consisting of roasted turkey with gravy and mashed potatoes. Delicious? No. Nutritious? Well, allegedly, but that's debatable. Filling? Uh... no.