Chicken Bites

I had some chicken and wanted to try these, from Aaron McCargo, Jr.  But I was thinking that I wanted to bake them, instead of frying them (our deep fryer takes too much oil and it's so messy).  So, from the comments after Chef McCargo's recipe I found these.  I didn't have all the ingredients that either of these recipes called for, so I substituted a bit and came up with a recipe that was a hit with the family.

Kammerman's Chicken Bites:

4-5 cups cooked chicken, buzzed up in food processor
1 3/4 cups shredded cheese (I used half cheddar and half Monterrey jack)
1 small can of green chiles
1/2 can of black beans, drained
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup hot sauce
AND
flour
eggs
corn flakes, buzzed up

Combine the first six ingredients.  I buzzed up the mayo and black beans together to make a paste that would act as a binder.  Next time, I would probably use about 50% more of that paste. I think I only used about 1/8 cup of hot sauce tonight.  And I might even add more cheese.

Taste your filling and make adjustments.  Green onions would have been delicious and added a nice crunch; we just didn't have any and I didn't want to run to the store.  I could see a lot of variations work.  Maybe one with swiss cheese, ham (or bacon) and chicken.  Leave out the hot sauce and make a paste that is more of a honey mustard sauce.  Chicken cordon bleu bite!

Once you have your filling, check that it binds together into a "meatball".  If not, add some more of your binding ingredients.  Then do the dredging process of dipping the balls in flour, then eggs, then corn flakes, finally placing them on a greased cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

As I'm typing this, Hyrum just said: "Next time make like 45-50 of these!"  The above amounts yielded about 25 chicken bites that fit nicely on one sheet, with about 1 1/2 cups of filling left over.  I could see this filling used in taquitos, too!*

*Now it's the next morning and I uploaded the photo.  Hyrum said to me: "I used some of that filling with a corn tortilla for a taco this morning and it was the best taco ever!"

In the words of Guy Fieri: Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

Some analogies

While reading a post over at another blog, I came across a reference to this talk, by Neal A Maxwell.  The talk was given when I was but one year old; yet the message is just as relevant today as it was back then. It is rich with wisdom, and I hope to write a number of blog posts, each dealing with one or two points from the talk.  

The first of which I would like to tackle involves time and perspective.  I've created my own little analogy that houses my perspective on knowledge, science, epistemology, and revelation.  Let's call it the Ant and the Rock Analogy:

A tiny ant lives under a rock in my backyard.  During it's lifespan it may traverse the entirety of my backyard at some point, and it may even venture into the yards of my close neighbors.  It is safe to imagine that the existence is anchored in the rock under which it lives.  Generally speaking, this ant knows the rock, and some of it's immediate surroundings. 

Now, can this ant even comprehend my house?  He has seen my house, and maybe even come inside and escaped back out (I'm out of Raid at the moment); but can this ant hold in its brain the concept of a house?  Or this computer at which I'm sitting?  Of the stove?  The bathroom?  The books in my shelves?  I don't think so.

Furthermore, can this ant comprehend my neighborhood?  An entire collection of houses?  Can it comprehend the Wendy's on the corner, or the traffic light at 54th and 40th (granted, many people can't comprehend the traffic pattern at this intersection!), or Bangerter Highway?  No chance. 

And we move out further.  Could this ant comprehend the State of Utah?  The United States? The World Cup (Yes! Argentina lost.)?  Or the Pacific Ocean?  It would truly be silly to think that this little ant could comprehend anything past its finite universe of my backyard.   

And yet.  This ant has some friends, who, knowing no more than he does, claim to have a complete understanding of the rock, my house, the fence, the trampoline, and the planes overhead.  Some of his friends tell him there's nothing beyond the house (and that it's there by chance anyway), and other friends tell him there are no other ant colonies besides their own. Depending on their lifespans, many doubt the existence of humans (I'm dropping an hint about how lazy I am about yardwork these days!).  I wonder what these friends said two weeks ago when I finally fixed and turned on the sprinklers after 12 years of not using them.  And what if I move their rock when I finally decide to weed that section of my garden?  I might even relocate some dirt, moving some ants from the front yard to the backyard.  That would make for some great stories among the ants!  

The thing is, this ant can know with a surety about the real nature of things beyond it's realm of existence.  How?  By a visiting and (being) that can teach him.  Will that ant comprehend everything? Probably not, and it will struggle to arrange the new information to fit in it's current worldview.  His worldview will necessarily expand.  

It will all depend on whether that ant believes the visitor, and whether or not that visitor can be trusted.  And who is going to believe the ant who reports about the visitor?

Who are you believing?  And Why?    

I know this type of analogy has been written in many forms.  Terry Pratchett brilliantly presents similar paradigm paradoxes in a lot of his work (try The Bromeliad Trilogy).  Another great analogy can be found in Flatland, by Adwin Abbot.  Like all analogies, it can break if abused, but I think it can also be very helpful in discovering important questions that we must all answer for ourselves.

Now, on to the Maxwell talk.  He quotes someone else, in this following passage:

I should like, if I may, to share with you on this point the fine writing of your own A. Lester Allen, a dean and scientist on this campus. This is what I have come to call the “Allen Analogy” about time. Let me read you these lines, if I may. Their application will be obvious. Dean Allen writes:
Suppose, for instance, that we imagine a “being” moving onto our earth whose entire life-span is only 1/100 of a second. Ten thousand “years” for him, generation after generation, would be only one second of our time. Suppose this imaginary being comes up to a quiet pond in the forest where you are seated. You have just tossed in a rock and are watching the ripples. A leaf is fluttering from the sky and a bird is swooping over the water. He would find everything absolutely motionless. Looking at you, he would say: “In all recorded history nothing has changed. My father and his father before him have seen that everything is absolutely still. This creature called man has never had a heartbeat and has never breathed. The water is standing in stationary waves as if someone had thrown a rock into it; it seems frozen. A leaf is suspended in the air, and a bird has stopped right over the middle of the pond. There is no movement. Gravity is suspended.” The concept of time in this imaginary being, so different from ours, would give him an entirely different perspective of what we call reality.

Juxtapose the Allen Analogy (focused on time) with the Ant and the Rock Analogy (focused on space) and I think some interesting questions and insights appear.

Science is a great tool.  Perhaps we can understand much of the rock, part of the backyard, and a good part of the fence.  Science will most likely get the house wrong, though.  Some scientists will be humble and admit to an impartial (and potentially incorrect) understanding.  Others will adamantly defend their ridiculous conclusions about the foundation, the siding and the front window, and the planes overhead.  Science will get us only so far.

Revelation will give us more.  But our understanding will still be a weak shadow of reality, hopelessly confused by our limited worldview.  We have to know that we can trust our visitor, or the messenger (who met with the visitor).

What am I missing?   I've love to play in these analogies with anyone that wants to join me.  I'm on a Facebook fast right now (how liberating), so if you want to chat about this, leave a comment below.