Today was a great day!
I received the surgeons official bill today. Yes, I know that that does not sound like the makings of even a fair day, and it gets even less likely to make one do handstands for joy. The bill was approximately $1000.00 more than the estimate. So how does this constitute a great day? The bill started with the eye-popping figure, but ended with a final balance owed of approximately $1600.00 less than I expected. I had forgotten that Dr. Mina's office manager had told me that they give a discount to cash paying patients. Now, I call this a fabulous discount. Now, you see one of the reasons that today was a great day.

The other reason that I am typing this with a smile on my face is that my 19 yr old college student daughter spent a few hours with her dad and we successfully experimented in the kitchen with a dish that I humbly suggest one of the restaurant chains like Ruby Tuesday should add to their menu. Ok, so maybe the whole restaurant-worthy fare is a bit of an overstatement, but it was good. This whole enjoyable afternoon and earlier evening fun with Laura, began as simply a desire of mine to play around in the kitchen, maybe make something tasty. I was thinking about a dish that was heavy with various squashes and chicken. As I contemplated cooking, I decided to see if Laura was busy. She had plans to go to a football game with her gentleman friend later in the evening, but said she would enjoy a little foray into culinary experimentation. I will skip to the actual dish, noting first that I have never been a huge fan of peppers of any kind, a few finely diced in a meal won't make me run away screaming, but they are not my first choice. We sauteed, in olive oil, some green, yellow, and orange peppers, added fresh garlic, two small slices of jalapeno pepper some roasted red peppers and mushrooms. Then we added a spicy wine based tomato sauce, lightly. We didn't want a heavy sauce, more of a base to help the veggies stick to the fusilli pasta. We added this mixture to the chopped chicken cooking in another sauce pan , and let it simmer. We served it over the fusilli and it was awesome. The fact that it was not a heavy sauce made the dish even better, because we were able to enjoy the individual tastes of the veggies and chicken, as well as the blending. What was amazing to me, was that my daughter had sliced the peppers in long slices, no dicing at all and I loved them, even picking a couple out of the pan as they sauteed and eating them.
I did discover a great need in my kitchen, cooking tools that actually work, esp. knives. Since I have been a fast food addict for so long, Wal-Mart knives are the fare in my kitchen and that resulted in Laura struggling to slice pepper, really, slicing peppers was difficult. So when the apartment complex here is finished remodeling and I move into the new office apartment, I am throwing myself a house-warming party, so remember, bring kitchen utensils!