Chicken and Broccoli

Alrighty.  I have returned to the land of the living.  It has been a bumpy two weeks trying to get over that wickedly awful germ that I caught on vacation.  There’s nothing quite like illnesses that you get in another country…or on a cruise ship.

Anyway, as soon as I started feeling a little better I started thinking about homesy kinds of foods.  Some of it was comfort food like fried chicken or biscuits, but some of it was food that mother figures in my life have made.  You know, the kind of food that says, “The earth beneath your feet is solid because the woman who taught you to cook this food loves you.”  That’s the way things are with this chicken and broccoli.  I first had it at my mother in-law’s house before I was married.  She used left-over Thanksgiving turkey instead of chicken in it.  I later made it for my own mom and it has become one of her favorite meals.  Mom often asks me to make it for her when I invite her over for dinner.  It makes her happy.

I am twice blessed to have a mother in-law who shared this recipe with me and to have a mother for whom I can make this meal.  Yesterday was my first real meal since I got home from vacation, cooked in my own home, in my own kitchen, by me.  I chose it because it says there are mothers who love me and whom I love in return.  Afterall, when we are sick we often think about how nice it was when we were little and sick and Momma would take care of us.  At least that’s the way I feel when I am sick.