Rain, dogs, food, books.....

I got sidetracked doing other things and couldn't add any Pierce info this week. But I thought I'd do an update as it keeps me motivated. It's been a hectic week. We had LOTS of rain and some roads in the area are closed due to flooding. When Doug and I ride in to work we can see the river is so high it almost touches the bridge we drive over.

Tonight it's going down to 38 and tomorrow the prediction is a low of 24. Brrrr. Hopefully we won't get anymore rain though. Our driveway looks like hell.

Tuesday morning we were awakened by Kobe and Aja yelping about a stray dog roaming around the house. It was a large pit bull with a surprisingly sweet disposition. This poor guy just wanted in the house. You could tell he was used to being indoors - he kept trying to come in. He'd walk around the house and stare up through the windows. By Tuesday evening when we returned from work he was still there. We'd hoped the owner would come around and call for the old guy but alas.... so I had to take him to an animal hospital and hope he gets a home. Doug walked Kobe and Aja and I drove the dog to Tallahassee. I told Doug I felt like a real redneck girl - driving down I-10 in his big pickup truck, blasting country music with a pit bull in the back seat. Ha!

Monday evening I made chicken burritos and we had the leftovers last night.
Oh, and I made more chicken noodle soup and added sweet potatoes to this batch.
The only goals/plans I have for this week are to write out what I have on Edward Pierce's other children, watch Lost Thursday evening and make chicken Marsala tonight or Friday. I'm almost done with Chocolate & Zucchini and am only a few chapters in The Rebels of Ireland. When I'm done with Rebels I want to start a new book by Geraldine Brooks called The People of the Book. It sounds good. The subject matter is one of the reasons I love used books so much. It is about all the people who have had this old old book; all the people who had hidden it over the ages and what their lives were like in their time period. Small artifacts in the spine of this book like a drop of wine stain, an insect wing or a piece of hair are discovered by a librarian. The librarian (Hannah)researches this cool book.

Anyway...that's all I've accomplished and here is the burrito recipe.

Chicken Burritos
16 oz canned black beans
16 oz canned refried black beans
2 or 3 boneless chicken breasts
6 medium or large flour tortillas
2 1/2 cups cheddar, Kraft Mexican style cheddar or Montery Jack combination of cheese
2 cups cooked white rice
8 oz can tomato sauce
1/2 cup water
abt. a teaspoon each of cumin, chili powder and garlic powder

Cook the chicken breasts and chop in small pieces. Or get a rotisserie chicken or precooked chicken and shred it up into small pieces. Roughly 2+ cups for the amount needed.

Mix tomato sauce with 1/2 cup water and add spices. Heat but not to boiling. In a separate bowl mix the two cans of black beans. (I can't always find the refried black beans but when I do it's in the Mexican food section of the grocery aisles and it really does make a diffidence in the texture. You can still use regular black beans but you'll need to drain and discard the juice of one of the cans.)

Line up your assembly line for the burritos with your pan of tomato sauce, pan of rice, black bean mix, bowl of cheese and the chicken. Now put a few tablespoons of sauce in the bottom of a 9x12 glass baking dish.
Put one tortilla on a plate and a tiny bit of sauce in the center of tortilla. Now place some rice, bean mix, some cheese and then chicken.

Roll up the burrito and place in the dish. Repeat for the other 5 tortillas. Cover the burritos with the rest of the tomato sauce mixture then top generously with cheese.

Cover with foil. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove foil gently and bake another 5 or 10 minutes so the cheese is gooey. I get the burritos out of the pan with two spatulas and sometimes they even stay together. One is very filling and a salad goes well with it.

Happy Valentine's Day

It's been a hectic week of problems at work, problems with our wireless router at home (can't get online), with my weariness at looking at this dead guy's worldly goods being sold out from under his young widow. They were only married about 5 years!

But today I created an Excel sheet that shows the names of the purchasers for William's estate/admin and what they bought. My cousin Char provided me with the alphabetical list of the purchasers. That old writing from 1838 is a devil to read sometimes. Thanks Char! As soon as I get that chart scanned I'll post it tomorrow. Some of the things I found interesting were:

1. In newspaper accounts and parts of the legal documents (the administration) William's surname is spelled PEIRCE.

2. In other parts of the admin. Rebecca spells her name PIERCE.
3. Edward Pierce spells it both ways.

4. Edward purchased quite a bit of William's fishing gear including his batteau, fishing boots, oars, nets etc. He even bought his wearing apparel.

5. Right..so it's not proof Edward is William's brother but to have purchased his clothes and boots he must be the same build. I still think they were brothers but I am still looking for concrete evidence/documentation.

6. The McLaughlin (or McGlaughlin) name is also among the purchasers. That's the name of the man who murdered William. I found that surname living right next door to one of my Pierce familes in Chester in a much later census.

It's just food for thought. And speaking of food - I made pure comfort food tonight. I used convenience items to toss it together but it tasted fine. Normally I make all my own pasta/lasagna sauce. I make homemade soup from all fresh ingredients...but tonight I'm weary. This is good on a cold night and right now it's 36 degrees.

Cheesy Chicken Casserole
1 box Stovetop stuffing (any flavor)
5 or 6 boneless chicken breasts
1 can cream of chicken or celery soup
1/8 cup sherry or white wine
slices of Swiss or cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9x13 pan. Prepare stuffing mix. Place chicken breasts in pan. I cut them in half but you don't have to. Mix soup and sherry in bowl, pour over chicken and in between chicken pieces. Place cheese slices over chicken. Place stuffing mix over chicken and put remaining stuffing in between chicken and to the edges of pan.
Bake uncovered 45 minutes. If after 30 minutes it looks to brown cover with foil.

This goes well with salad and Negra Moldela beer. We had Old Speckled Hen ale tonight though.

In a few minutes I'll go watch the new episode of Lost and eventually eat a bowl of ice cream. William Pierce will have to wait until tomorrow. Once I'm done with all I have on him I'll work on Edward's children. Also, I have a file I started looking over titled Unknown Connections. As I sort through, I see many Pierce, Peirce and Pearse names that don't, as yet, connect to my folks. But one day they might.

Good night.