If you’ve never been to Newport, Rhode Island, you’re missing a real treat. In nice weather, it’s gorgeous. A small town, really, right on the Atlantic Ocean. And many sailors claim it’s the most beautiful sailing harbor in the world. Perhaps so. It can get wickedly cold and it snows some there in winter (I wouldn’t advise going there in the winter months), but in the shoulder seasons it’s really beautiful. I used to live there when I was 14-17. I wrote up  a post about this some time back. If you’d like to read that part, click HERE. It’s about cranberries, but it’s also about Newport.

I was surprised how much I remembered about the town, about how to get around it. I drove right to the first house (apartment) my parents and I lived in. Back in 1955, the day after moving in, we had a gigantic snowstorm that brought 5 feet of snow and we were snowed-in for 4 days. Everything shut down. As a kid, it was all very exciting. We didn’t have hardly any winter clothes, so we bundled up in layers until we were able to buy some during our 2nd week living there. I built a snowman, and we drank many cups of tea and cocoa trying to keep warm.

Here are the photos I took last week when we were there – top photo is the Chastellux estate, owned by a wealthy family. When we lived there it was owned by Mrs. Lorillard Spencer. I don’t know about now . . . The bottom photo is the former stables, converted into two apartments (we lived upstairs, entered through the door just to the left of the garage door).

It looked just like it did when I lived there. Fortunately, after raining all day getting to Newport, it cleared up (albeit very gusty winds both days) enough for us to enjoy the sunshine. Dave just loved looking out at the big sailboats anchored all over the harbor. We drove around Ocean Drive, the beautiful 2-lane meandering road that goes all around the southern curve of the island. I took just one picture along the drive, as there are almost no places to pull over or stop.

We also stopped to visit The Breakers, the fantastically ornate Vanderbilt mansion (a summer residence). I remembered visiting it when I was a teen, but Dave had never been to Newport, so it was all new to him. He was quite impressed.

No picture taking allowed inside, so these were the few I took outside. It was blowing like crazy out there, but beautiful nonetheless. We drove up and down lots of the gorgeous country lanes in Newport, looking at the homes there. And I managed to drive right to the second house my parents and I lived in there. We had two delicious dinners in Newport. One of the nights I ordered a lobster roll. Oh my goodness, was it good. So I had lobster twice on our trip. Altogether delicious.

Then, on one of the days I drove right to the Newport Creamery (actually we ate breakfast there as well). It was and is an institution in Newport. When I lived there in the 50’s it was the teenage hangout, and their reputation was all about ice cream, particularly the “Awful Awful.” Can you imagine a name like that for a milkshake kind of thing? Crazy. Coffee was the most popular flavor back then (now it’s available in many flavors). So I did have to order one – a small one, and with Dave and me sharing it, it didn’t last long. But it brought back lots of nostalgic memories.

And lastly, Dave just had to walk out to the famous local yacht club, the Ida Lewis (named for a lighthouse) Yacht Club. (There is also a branch of the New York Yacht Club there, but it’s all very highbrow and we knew we wouldn’t be invited to enter, even though we’re members of a yacht club in San Diego.)

There’s a photo of the long, long walking ramp going out to the Ida Lewis Yacht Club. Dave wanted to buy a baseball cap from there, but alas, the yacht club had closed up for the season the day before. Too bad.

That ends my travel and photo diary for this trip. The next day we flew home. So here’s one more fall leaves photo. Not a very good one, but we didn’t see many good ones.

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When you look at that photo do you think warm, balmy breezes, bathing suits and beach towels? Or brisk wind and promise of whitecaps? The first night we were in Maine we visited a restaurant (just behind me where I’m standing taking this photo) right on the water in East Boothbay and I’d bet it was about 45° and windy. A few days later we visited the same restaurant for breakfast (the photo above, their last day of the season) and it was closer to 80°. What a difference . . .a . . day . . makes. A day or two anyway. We did have rain several days of our week in Maine. Hard enough that we didn’t really want to go outside much. And then there were a couple of days of very warm, summer weather. Indian Summer, right?

We have a friend who owns a house near Boothbay, and she very generously offered to let us use her cute-as-a-bug Victorian house. She lives in San Diego and visits her house a few times a year. Thank you, Nancy, for letting us enjoy the Maine countryside and coast for a week. Here are some photos:

Clockwise from top left: the backyard (Dave is sitting in one of the rocking chairs reading a book); the quaint and cute nautically themed kitchen, the barn (where a family of chipmunks lived underneath and frequently darted back and forth in the yard) and the family room where we spent many hours reading, sipping cups of hot tea, and watching television. Mostly the Weather Channel.

Clockwise, from top left: the view from the kitchen table; the ultra-green grassed backyard; the formal living room including a very baby grand piano; and another shot of the kitchen table where we also spent many an hour plotting our travels in the area.

We took jaunts in every direction. North to Camden. Oh, what a cute town that is. Including a stop at Camden Cone, a miniscule ice cream stand, a favorite of Martha Stewart (she always orders Maine Blueberry). It was drizzling some of the time there; I didn’t even lug my camera as we darted in and out of the cute local stores. We ate dinner twice at a place in Boothbay Harbor called The Thistle Inn. One of the best restaurants on the whole trip, according to me. Very innovative food, and just full of flavor. We cooked dinner in on three of our nights. I made the the Risotto with Turkey Sausage (and corn, leeks, spinach) for us all.

West to Brunswick, where Dinny and I visited the Bowdoin College’s art museum, to see an Edward Hopper exhibit. THAT was really interesting. I studied Hopper’s work  back when I was in college (Art History), and knew there were stories to tell about his art, although he’s known as a realist. Learning more about his art career, and his eventual success painting lighthouses in Maine, was enlightening. This one is my favorite – at least my favorite of the hundred or so paintings on exhibit. I like the colors, the sky, the angles. This one, called Captain Upton’s House was painted toward the end of his life. Watching a 30-minute video about his art at the exhibit, we learned that he and his wife (also a painter, but she eventually took over managing her husband’s career) would conjure up stories about the people who appear in some of his paintings. Apparently some museum has all of her notes when they were in the process of creating one of his “people.” Like this one:

One of his more famous paintings, this one’s called Nighthawk, shows 4 people sitting in a New York diner at night. I remember studying this one in college and as students we had to make up stories about the people, to explain what we thought Hopper’s purpose was with each character. Those are called allegorical, yet Hopper maintained that he didn’t paint with allegory in mind. It’s just that in order to paint faces or postures, he thought it helped to visualize a person before he set paint to canvas. The video we saw also alluded to the fact that Hopper wasn’t happily married, but there was no further explanation.

This has nothing to do with Edward Hopper. It’s a wall of a house near where we stayed. The folks who live here have a real sense of humor. That’s a painted wall. Or a painted garage door, I suppose it is, although I don’t think the door opens at all.

That’s it for today, folks. More stories in a day or two . . .

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Because we live in a huge state (California) that’s nearly a thousand miles north to south, we were surprised each time we so quickly crossed from Massachusetts, to New Hampshire, then seemingly just a few more miles and we were in Vermont. Then into New York too. And back. I don’t remember where I took that photo, but you can see some of the trees have lost lots of leaves already (from the tropical storm). I think this was in Manchester, VT. A charming town, if you haven’t ever been there. It’s rural, yet pretty, quaint and also upscale if you shop in the small downtown big-name stores. It’s the home of Orvis. And the Vermont Country Store. And a small designer outlet mall too. We didn’t shop at all except at the bookstore (below), but the shops sure were attractively built to blend into the local architecture.

We visited a gorgeous book store there, called Northshore Books. It was a big store, and just full of nooks and crannies of interesting books, large and small. I wrote about it some days ago but couldn’t upload this photo. You had to walk over this as you entered the store. So cute! So true!

We allowed ourselves two nights and one full day to explore the country roads everywhere in the area of Manchester. To Dorset. East Dorset. Or was it West Dorset? Ludlow. Londonderry. Our friend Dinny, who lives in Nottingham, England, felt right at home with all those names. We drove to Woodstock VT too, and it’s there that we saw the most damage from the tropical storm. Dinny had never seen a covered bridge. She had no idea what we were talking about, then we spotted one.

There in the bottom photos you can see the uprooted trees. We went across the covered bridge (fortunately it was high enough that the rising waters didn’t damage it) and took photos of the river’s edge. Below is a photo that hardly shows the damage at all.

We did visit Fort Ticonderoga, having never been in that part of the country before. We took a quaint little ferry (we were the only car on it) across Lake Champlain (quite narrow at that spot).

It was cold, blowing and some mist in the air on the short ferry ride across. The fort is just on the other side. I didn’t go inside (Dave did) because it was raining lightly. And my foot hurt that day.

The grounds of the Fort were quite beautiful. I think the Fort is owned by a private family who bought it in 1809. I did snap a few photos.

The road less traveled. Probably not worthy of a painting, but I thought the view was pretty.

You can see why the Army thought this was a safe and defendable location on the lake. We drove down to Albany, NY to pick up our friend Dinny who flew in from England to go with us on most of this trip. That all went well – she was waiting for us in the airport lounge and we were off and running within a few minutes. We zipped back to Vermont.

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This is most likely the prettiest tree photo I took on our leaf-peeping trip.

Now that I’m home, and CAN upload photos, it’s as if I need to start at the very beginning of our trip, 3 weeks ago, and begin telling you about it. I won’t bore you with day by day photos – but will give you some of the highlights. On the last day of our vacation a very kind gentleman explained to me why we saw such poor changing leaves. He said it was because when Hurricane Irene hit the east coast some weeks ago, it brought lots of salty, wet air onto the trees. Trees don’t like salt, so the leaves not only blew off during the hurricane (tropical storm), but those left on frizzled and died rather than going through their usual cycle of colors. That story made sense. Don’t know if it’s true or not. We did see some leaves – mostly in Maine, but the trees seemed quite sparse but I didn’t exactly figure out that most of the trees really didn’t have as many leaves on them as normal.

Nearly 100% of the trip planning falls to me when we travel. I enjoy it, but after years of making short and long trips, I’ve learned that we want to travel at our pace – sometimes it’s a fast one – other times we take more time. This trip it was the latter. The more I read about things to do and see in New England, the more days I added on to our journey. Our first stop was Lake Winnipesaukee. I did upload a couple of photos from there, but they were very small and fuzzy because I tried to increase their size after I uploaded them (bad idea). I’ve now uploaded the full sized ones if you’re interested, you can click back to that post to see them. It rained while we were there, so the photos aren’t the best. The Lake, however, is certainly beautiful. And huge. Mostly private property, it’s hard to see the lakeside except in a few places. We drove all the way around the lake – that takes hours if you make any stops along the way. The rain reduced to a drizzle a couple of times so I did get out and take some photos.

Both photos were taken from our hotel room or across the street from it in Meredith, NH. One of the few places you have lake access. I noticed all the Adirondack chairs everywhere. And just a few leaves changing color across the way.

We spent 2 nights in Meredith because I wanted to have a full day to drive all around the lake. On the NNE side of the lake there’s a house called Castle in the Clouds. Built in 1914, the house was the very forefront of home building in its day (craftsman style). A shoe manufacturer, Tom Plant, built it when the lake was still quite remote. We took a tour and learned all about the history of the house and the families who have owned it.

There are exterior photos. Notice that the house is all built of rock.

The home isn’t gigantic – probably about 4,000 square feet maybe – but that was huge in 1914. The grounds are beautiful (often used for weddings).

We headed north from there, up to Conway and North Conway, then on up into the White Mountains. I allowed us an extra day there so we could criss-cross all the highways in that part of the state, hoping for lots of changing trees. The only place we saw them was on the Kancamagus (pronounced Kank-ah-maw-gus or just “the Kank”), but it was absolutely pouring buckets as we drove through it. It’s a 26-mile stretch of curvy highway. I was gripping the wheel tightly through there as the roads were slick.

We stopped at the Cabot Creamery (cheese fame) and shopped a little bit. A very large tour bus was also sharing the parking lot with us (as well as another 20 or more cars) and as we were leaving the bus headed down the steep slope of driveway and as it reached the road and began making a wide-sweep turn, the read end of the bus hit the steep driveway and stopped it dead in its tracks, completely blocking the road from one side to the other. Fortunately after 10 minutes or so some kind bystanders began directing traffic – and we were able to sidle past the bus and head out the other direction. Thank goodness for the GPS – it guided us another way – maybe even prettier than the highway we had been on.

More tomorrow . . .

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For most of my life I associated grits with the bland, icky-tasting pablum type stuff served to me when I was 14, on the cross-country trip I took with my parents when we moved from San Diego to Newport, Rhode Island. Sidebar: we moved back to California 3 years later when my dad’s project was completed. If you want to read a bit more about those years, click over to this post.  This was in the late 1950’s and a loooong time ago, obviously. My mother never made grits. I never made grits. Based on that stuff I ate at one breakfast somewhere in the south, it soured me on grits for near-on 35 years. I suppose some people in the south are willing to eat the plain grits that have nothing but cornmeal grits and water, boiled until it’s thick. Maybe a dash of salt. It tastes something like cream of wheat with nothing at all on it – no milk, no butter, no nuthin’ as they say. The grits I ate had a little pat of butter. It was awful. I think the waitress insisted that I needed to cover it well with pepper. Hmm. But then I discovered polenta in the 1980’s and learned that polenta and grits are almost the same thing. But there’s grits – and then there’s grits.

Now I love grits. Not that I make them all that often, because I don’t like them unless they’re loaded with flavor that comes from cheese and butter. These grits fall into that category. Probably not all that good for us. But gosh, are they ever GOOD! I tried to give myself a smaller portion that you can see in the above photo. That was Dave’s portion which made for a better photo. It went with the Picadillo I’d prepared, which I ladled on top of the grits. Really delicious.

What I liked: the buttery, rich taste. I almost never eat them alone – it’s usually just a “bed” for something else. But you certainly could eat them alone.

What I didn’t like: can’t say there was anything. You have to not mind the kind of cream-of-wheat texture, though. If you don’t like that, you’ll surely not like grits in any way, shape or form!

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After nearly three weeks on the road, we’re just so happy to be back home.

My frustration with blogging from my iPad is significant. I have no clue why I could not upload photos (except a couple at the beginning of our trip). Only thing I can conclude is that the hotel/b&b/inn wi-fi’s I used just didn’t have enough bandwidth to up the photos to my website. But it’s extremely frustrating. I never had trouble with that when I was using my mini-laptop (Windows based). I know, you readers probably don’t care a whit about my upload difficulties, so sorry to bore you with this part. I was so hoping that on future travels I’d be able to do everything I want to do with my iPad which will fit in my purse. It requires very little equipment to go along with, too.

My DH and I had numerous frustrations with some of the places we stayed on this trip. (Sorry, you’re going to have to listen to a couple of rants). I’ve always preferred inns or B&B’s when we travel. I like the ambiance of them. The quaint rooms, the nice, wholesome breakfasts. The conversation and advice from innkeepers. And I try to book B&Bs where the room is on the ground floor. Alas, I couldn’t get ground floor rooms in nearly all the places we stayed on this trip. It’s no fun lugging suitcases up a flight or two of stairs. With my DH’s prosthetic legs, it’s sometimes a real trial for him. He rarely complains about it, though. My suitcase is always heavier than his – I usually take more clothes than he does, although we travel quite light by standards of some people. I take care of my own bag – ever since he lost his legs I’ve taken charge of my own bags. But I have to bring my good DSLR camera (heavy, awkward sometimes), the battery charger for the camera, numerous charging cables/cords for our variety of electronic devices as well. Then there’s my hair dryer and curling iron and cosmetic stuff. My Kindle. My iPod too. So I take a suitcase and a rollaboard (small, very small, in the shape of a large, deep briefcase) that will sit on top of the suitcase to flit around airports or into and out of the inns, etc.

But once we’ve checked into a place to stay, I’m peeved too often when I can’t find a plug to charge these darned things. My iPhone requires a couple of hours to charge. So does my DH’s. My Kindle only needed charging a few times on the trip. But my iPad required charging at least every night or two since I used it for reading Kindle books. In numerous places we stayed, the only plug available was in the bathroom, and sometimes one of the two receptacles were permanently wired for – say, a coffeepot, or a refrigerator. So that meant we really had just one plug to charge things. Many times I was down on my hands and knees trying to FIND another plug somewhere. Forget about it if it’s behind the bed, or a dresser. I’m not moving furniture to find a plug. I was also concerned about leaving my electronics in some rooms while we went out to dinner. I did do it several times, and always returned to the room and immediately checked to make sure my iPad was still there. Or my  camera. Mostly I left the camera in the car, hidden as best I could under the driver’s seat. Not altogether smart, but necessary. We also had a brand new Garmin Nuvi 2350 GPS we took along (it was a lifesaver, I must admit, on numerous occasions), which required slipping it into a hidey-hole in the car throughout the trip. Fortunately, it charged in the car through the cigarette lighter. But that meant I couldn’t charge my iPhone there, even though I brought along the adapter for it.

I’m sure the economy has had some bearing on this next subject: uncomfortable hotel beds. I must be more particular than a lot of people because my back just isn’t very happy after a night on some innkeeper’s beds. At the posh hotel where we stayed in New Hampshire, they’d put some kind of 4-inch thick pad on top of the mattress, but once I rolled into it (it was a high bed to begin with, but with the pad it was high enough I had to kind of hop up to get on it), the center of this pad just sunk in. About the shape of a body, obviously. The edge of the bed was up several inches higher than I was, and when I tried it get up, it required a bit of maneuvering to get my legs over the edge to slide my feet to the floor. Maybe taller people have no difficulty with this, but I sure did. I’m 5’3” tall. The second night I didn’t even sleep on the bed, but chose the comfortable long sofa in the room. When you’re paying nearly $300 a night for a hotel, you sort of expect a good bed. A couple of places we stayed had no amenities except a bar of soap. Now that’s really Spartan. Most had more than that, but one inexpensive (yet highly rated Trip Advisor location) truly didn’t have shampoo, lotion or even a shower cap, if I’d wanted one.

After nearly three weeks of inns and B&Bs (and a week at a house in Maine – bedrooms upstairs, but we only had to schlep the bags up once, and down once), we stayed in a Howard Johnson’s in one city. That’s because staying in any of the nicer, view-type hotels in Newport, Rhode Island, were upwards or more than $400 a night. We’d already splurged enough on accommodations on this trip, so I chose a Howard Johnson’s there. The room was all right. Nothing to write home about. But clean, and the bed was better than most other places we stayed, actually. And we paid about $180 a night for that.

Our last night was at the Boston airport. You know when you’re going to stay at an airport hotel, you’re going to pay-pay-pay; the bigger the city, the larger the tariff for a hotel. And yes, indeed we did. The Hilton offered the best price, I thought, when I booked online a couple of months ago, and we paid $290 for the one night. But, it was a very large room. A really comfortable room with a big flat-screen TV, a large bathroom, and plenty of room to spread out as we re-packed our bags for returning home. And a fantastic king-sized bed. We didn’t regret one dime of the expense for that room.

My conclusion after planning out this trip is that in order to have a better room, you have to pay over $200 a night most places, and more and more the closer you get to or in cities. Sure, you can find some for less, but you get what you pay for. Lots of the inns have standard prices most of the year, then during leaf-peeping season they raise their rates about 25%. They do it because they can. For most of the trip we had a widow friend with us, and twice we stayed in a room that offered two bedrooms and one bath. She was fine with it, and we were able to share the bathroom with no difficulty. It saved money in both places and both offered a small living room area, which was nice to have.

So, does that adequately explain why we’re happy to be home? Home to our comfy bed. My lovely kitchen. Our patio area, where it’s still warm enough we ate outside last night. I reached into the freezer and grabbed the first thing I saw, a package of spicy bratwursts. There’s no date. I didn’t buy them, I’m certain. Where did they come from? No recollection! We had someone staying in our home while we were gone – maybe he bought them and forgot to take them when he left. Well, they were simple and tasty.

I uploaded 191 trip photos from my camera to my home (PC) computer last night, so I’ll be going through those and giving you stories and photos in coming days.

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Ever even heard of picadillo? That’s pee-ca-dee-yo in Spanish. Actually this has a Mexican derivation. And its much beloved in the culture. We’re on our way home from our trip today, so I’ve set this up to post ahead of time.

Oh gosh was this ever good. It probably doesn’t look like much – a ground meat mixture on top of something. Yup. So delicious. So easy to make and just bursting with flavor. Traditionally, Picadillo is a Latin American dish, but variations exist in many countries, including Cuba. All the variations include something a bit different. This recipe, which came from Dean Fearnley-Whittingstall’s book River Cottage Meat Cookbook, is most aligned with the Mexican version, although it does contain a couple of ingredients from one or more of the other country’s variants. And then I added chives. Not typical. So I suppose that then becomes my variation. And I served it on grits, which makes it even more unusual. Southern cooking is not anything like Mexican or Latin American cooking. Ah, forget all that. Just make it.

This started out because I defrosted a pound of ground pork from our most recent 1/4 pig purchase – a Berkshire pig from a local 4-H kid. I went to my kitchen computer, to Eat Your Books website and typed in ground pork and scanned the recipes from my own books. Not only does it tell me where the recipe is, but it lists the most common ingredients. Yippee! I had everything needed. Except tortillas to serve it on or with. So I improvised. And it called for ground beef too, but I just used the ground pork instead.

First I started sweating the minced onion, red bell pepper and chiles. A friend had given me a lovely Cubanelle pepper a few days ago. Perfect for this. It’s not a hot pepper, but it added nice green color and flavor too. I added some chipotle chili in adobo sauce to the dish to give it a bit more character.

Then I added all the other ingredients – garlic, salt, pepper, sugar (just a little bit), the ground pork, raisins, some olives (I used a bottled product called Olivetta – a mixture of lots of different olives (and a few other things), all minced up – something I buy at my local Italian market), some diced tomatoes, and some tomato paste, along with some pork stock (which was just a dip into my jar of Penzey’s pork soup bases that I use so often). While that simmered I made the cheesy grits (recipe up tomorrow). Then I just served it like a sauce on top of the grits, with some slivered almonds sprinkled on top along with some chopped chives (optional). Dave and I talked about going back for seconds, but we decided we shouldn’t, even though the tastes of everything beckoned us. So, make this, okay? You won’t be sorry!

What I liked: oh gosh, everything. Flavor, texture, comfort food, warm on the stomach. Worth making for sure. Also, it’s versatile – serve it on rice (more traditional), tortillas (or even chips) or mashed potatoes (which would be great for using up leftovers). I think the raisins (that little bit of sweet) is what “makes” this. It’s like finding pineapple in a curry sauce.

What I didn’t like: ah, nothing. I’ll definitely be making this again.

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We will see whether I can upload a photo today. (nope) The above picture was in Manchester, Vermont, in front of a darling independent book shop called Northshore Bookstore. If I lived there I’d have to have an ‘account,’ I think, as some locals ahead of me just said “put it on my account, please!” I bought 4 small books there. Once I’m home I’ll give you the names and links. No time to do links right now!

As I write this I’m in our hotel room in Newport, Rhode Island. My iPad SAYS I have full connectivity on their wi-fi, but we shall see once I try to upload. If there’s no photo you’ll know why.

Today was a day full of nostalgia for me. My DH, Dave, has been very patient as I drove hither and thither around this town since I haven’t been here in about 50 years. I lived here for 2 1/2 years when I was a teenager. I have photos from our wanderings today, but I’m not going to try to upload more than the one above right now. I will have to write up a single post about Newport. We drove by both of the homes I lived in here. Not remembering the street names of one, I just drove with some bit of innate reckoning and found it. It’s a bit rundown so I didn’t take a photo. I thought the people who live there might have been suspicious of some woman out on the street taking a picture of their ramshackle house. I did take one of the other house, though. More on that later.

It’s a beautiful day here, in the 60s and blustery. Big time! Tonight might be our last chance to have lobster – lobstah, as they say it around these parts. I’ve had it just once on the trip. And it was fantastic.

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Looking for an easy dinner entrée – worthy of serving to guests – that’s not all that difficult, AND can be made ahead one day? Try this one. If you don’t love broccoli, try asparagus instead.

Can you just tell by looking at that photo that this tastes good? I can’t always tell, sorry to say, unless I look at the list of ingredients. And sometimes, even then I’m wrong. Alas, what tastes good to one person doesn’t taste good to another. That’s what makes us human! But IF you like broccoli, bacon and cheddar (with some cream cheese in there to help hold it all together) you’ll really like this dish.

Once again, my hero, Phillis Carey, has created a chicken dish that is just delicious! Since I own her cookbooks, you’d think I don’t need to go to her cooking classes anymore. Wrong. She keeps coming up with new and innovative ways to cook and prepare chicken. This time it’s a method of oven browning that I’ve never tried. She’s just a wizard at it, I tell ‘ya!

What’s great about this one is that you can do most of the prep a day ahead of time. You will have to coat the chicken bundles in egg and bread crumbs, and bake them just before serving, but truly that won’t take that much time. If you prefer to keep the calories down, you can use low-fat cream cheese in this, and you can use less bacon. Or no bacon at all. If you’re not a fan of broccoli, Phillis suggested asparagus spears – precooked almost completely when you stuff it. The chicken breasts have to be pounded thinner than usual – to 1/4 inch thick. Carefully, so you don’t break them apart. That’s part of the secret to these – you have to pound the chicken thin enough to surround the filling.

And don’t forget this new method of getting the breaded chicken golden brown without frying – just by doing it in the oven. Phillis poured a little oil in the bottom of a large rimmed sheet pan and carefully laid the chicken bundles in the oil (after the pan and oil were heated up in the oven for several minutes), and 8 minutes later you turn them over to oven-brown the other side for 6-8 minutes (if using Convection/Bake, it’ll be closer to 6 minutes).

Once, years ago, an acquaintance of mine pounded chicken breasts out flat, filled each one with a wet, traditional bread stuffing mix, then pulled the edges up around the sides of the filling in a kind of cup shape, and used kitchen string to tie it in several places. After baking she clipped off the string, poured some chicken gravy over the top and served it with a green vegetable. It was kind of like eating Thanksgiving dinner in a single serving. I thought it was delicious. I didn’t really know this person well enough to ask for her recipe, so I had to do some trial and error. Mostly error and I gave up – it was always too dry. This method of Phillis’, though, is very similar. Maybe I’ll have to give that a try. I’m sure I baked these other cup-like chicken breasts too long and not in a hot enough oven, either. Here, at 1/4 inch thick (that’s really thin) they’re baked a total of 15 minutes at 425°. Hmmm. That has me thinking . . .

What I liked: just the overall flavor and texture. The broccoli. The bacon. The cream cheese. All yummy. Easy to make too – honest.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all. I suppose if I were making this for guests, I might consider drizzling the top with a light gravy, maybe, but it truly isn’t necessary.

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We are at the tail end of our trip now. We will see if I’m able to upload any photos. We are staying at a beautiful B&B in York, Maine that has a wi-fi. Answer: no. No photos. Sorry everyone. This must be an iPad problem or user dumbness!

The last week we have been staying in East Boothbay, a tiny hamlet of a village near Boothbay in Central Maine. The fall leaves are in full color here.  A friend of ours owns an old Colonial home she visits a few times a year and she graciously allowed us to use it! We made dinner there several nights and went out the other nights. Oh, the Maine lobster!!! So fantastic. We had several beautiful days of warm weather, thank goodness. Rain started again today and I drove 5 hours in pouring rain. Not fun.

I had some recipe posts waiting in the wings, so tomorrow I’ll put up one of them since I’ve had so few photos to give you. I’ve missed writing, telling these long-winded stories of mine. 

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