Weekday Rambler

Since it's January, I have been staying home a lot.  The weather is too dreary to gad about.  I have been a prolific cook in the past couple of weeks.  One dish of which I am particularly pleased is my Chicken Marinara sauce.  I can't take full credit for the recipe, because I got the idea from Holly Clegg's Trim and Terrific Meat Sauce recipe.

It all started when I asked my husband what he wanted for supper.  In the past week I had cooked a pot roast, white beans with ham, lemon pie, meat loaf with mashed potatoes, garlic cheese grits and eggs.  He said: "spaghetti with chicken."  So I got out my cookbooks and searched the Internet for a good recipe.  When I couldn't find one I liked, I improvised.  I took Holly's tried and true Meat Sauce recipe and added a few touches of my own.  I substituted chicken for ground beef and made an entirely different tasting main dish.

I posted a picture of this huge pot of Chicken Marinara on my Facebook wall and had r…

My Mom's brother, Uncle Robert, died this week.  He was almost 90 years young and had Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.  They said he died peacefully. His last days were spent at the VA Medical Center  in Prescott, Arizona and his ashes will be spread in the National Cemetery there.  I began thinking of snippets of memories of his life.  I didn't know him very well as he always lived afar.

As a young man, he enlisted in the Army during WWII.  Nothing unusual about that as that was what one did during that time in history.  He saw combat in Europe.  My Mom told the story of one of his foxhole mates being shot as Uncle Robert lay beside him and prayed for his own life.  I am sure there are many people alive today who heard stories about such from their parents.  My Mom said the war changed my uncle and not for the better.

Somehow, during his war service, he became a cook.  He grew up on a dairy farm where there was lots of home cooking, so I suppose that's where he got t…