Two Thursday Treats

Boy, do I remember that tuna sauce on chicken!  I said it would be good on the PHONE BOOK, mama.

Well, dear readers, I’m just telepathing this older blog to mama because, well, I LOVE chicken and TUNA and I am sure most kitties would not turn up their incredibly cute nosies at this spring/summer delight.

Chicken with Tuna Sauce

Everyone was worried about me a few months ago because I was lethargic. And why not?

Don’t lions sleep all day in Africa and hunt at night? Not that I hunt, but recently it was as warm as a chili pepper, whatever that is, and I found a great place under the couch where I was in the dark and cool and could sleep the day away.

(Mama knew that if I were eating properly and pooing properly, all was well, but heat does not go well with lots of paw action.)

In the kitchen in Rome (where I was asked to get up on a ledge to eat my dry food – exercise, mama said, because I had no Annapurna rock formation here like the one in France), I saw mama making something really cool and appetizing and delicious because it had tuna in it and anchovies and I love both.

First she put a jar of tuna in the top of that machine that whizzes around, and then she put some basil and capers and a couple of anchovies and then a couple of spoons of mayonnaise and fresh pepper and lemon juice and turned on the machine until everything was mixed. Then she put in a little chicken broth (you can bet I knew what that is–she had left some out one night in a little cup and was it there in the morning? No way, rose!)  and maybe another little squeeze of lemon juice and voilá—tonnato sauce.

Then she made it just the right consistency, sort of like crêpe or pancake batter, thick and nice but not too thick, and then she let the sauce get nice and cold and then for dinner for her and papa (and for ME, I hoped, I hoped), she spread it over thin-sliced poached turkey or chicken breasts or even over big slices of ripe tomato, and that was IT. Easy, no?

She let me push the ‘On’ button with my paddy-paw but it scared the bejesus out of me and I ran like a crazed weasel out of the kitchen and back under the couch.

That was a close one, but boy, did I love mama’s easy recipes during those hot spring and summer days.

But I remember, too, that mama also makes a mean gazpacho, or as she calls it, salmorejo, which is the version from Cordoba in Spain with grilled almonds and toasted bread added.

She uses that same whizzer and puts in 2 cucumbers, peeled, 4 really ripe tomatoes, 1 small sweet onion, a tiny clove of fresh garlic, a handful of toasted almonds, 1 crisp toast (the kind you buy already made in packages) or a slice of stale bread (no crusts), a few sprigs of cilantro and mint and a good splash of olive oil, the same kind she dribbled over my food to make my coat shiny.

Taste it for salt and pepper or add a pinch of cayenne if you like a little jolt in your soup. I couldn’t have those things because kitties react to strong spices so I stuck with my tuna treat.

Back under the couch was for me. Cooking was exhausting.

Maybe I’ll help her again now that I am omnipaw-tent, haha.

By the way, things are poppin’in my jardin! This is Anniversay which speaks for itself to anyone listening.

Every day is an aniversary for someone, n’est-ce-pas?