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Quick Mexican Stew
Zola Gorgon
The mantid are back!
For those of you who are not long time readers, about this same time last summer I discovered my first praying mantis. I had never seen one before and I was fascinated. I named her Spike. We'd see each other each day when I watered the flowers on my roof deck. The strangest thing to me was how a praying mantis (mantid is the plural form of mantis) had gotten 5 stories up to decide to make a home in my roof garden.
My husband and I were very careful come Fall when we cleaned up the flowerpots. We looked diligently for a "pod" in case Spike had babies that were encased in the pod waiting for Spring to appear. We never found a pod, so sadness set in at the prospect of not seeing more mantid this year, but we got over it. Sort of.
When I was at my favorite garden store in Madison, WI (my other home) my friend Dom saw that they were selling these funny looking pods. We pulled down the package and realized they were selling mantid pods! All you had to do was take them home, attach the pod (that was hooked to a small branch) to a bush with a twist tie. Wait a few weeks and you'd have the prospect of as few as 40 and as many as 400 new baby mantid hatching from the pod.
I bought two pods and Dom and Amanda (my niece) bought two. They hung theirs in Madison and I hung mine on the roof gardens in Chicago. One in the front garden and one in the back garden. And we waited...
By email we began reporting back and forth the anticipation of the mantid. Our hatch out front came on a sunny Saturday afternoon. I was tending to my pots of plants when I looked down and saw all these fuzzy looking half-inch long creatures scurrying everywhere! We hatched! We had at least 100 new babies marching around the deck. Many went under the deck boards. I hoped they'd be safe down there and find ants to eat. I really didn't have a concept of how to feed them so we let Mother Nature take her course. We worried but we really had no control.
Amanda and Dom announced the arrival of their "babies" not long after. They started to name them. Doris and Spartacus are two of the names I remember. The list got too long to memorize.
Spartacus was a favorite. He set up shop on the screen porch. Everyone thought young, three inch Spartacus was the smartest mantid on the planet. You see, by setting up his territory in the screen porch he had plenty of bugs to eat. (The bugs sneak into the screen porch between the floorboards.) He was growing very fast and was probably quite fat by mantid standards. He was handsome and strong and was loved by Amanda and Dom. They were as fascinated by the creatures as I am.
One day we found out that mantid have a serious predator that we had not thought of. The spider. The big spider that had also set up shop in the screen porch, built a massive web, caught Sparticus unaware and murdered him.
That was one sad day.
I regularly see 4 or 5 mantid on my front deck but today was my first time to see one on the back deck. This one is quite large. He's over 3 inches long already and half green, half brown. He's maturing nicely. When my husband gets home from Toronto tonight I think we'll start brainstorming names for him. Could be a fun evening.
You can have a fun evening too, making this Mexican stew. It's so easy. And when I say easy, I mean easy. It's not fancy food. It's just fun food. You can serve it over rice or just eat it out of a big soup mug or bowl.
Quick Mexican Stew
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into 1-inch cubes
1 green bell pepper chopped
1 red bell pepper chopped
2 cloves garlic minced (jar garlic is fine)
2 Tbl olive oil
2 cans (approx 15oz each) stewed or diced tomatoes
1-15 oz can of pinto beans in sauce
1 cup salsa (you choose how hot)
1 tsp chili powder. I use smoked chili powder
Garnishes (optional)
Avocado diced
Green onions chopped
Sour cream
Cheddar cheese grated
In a large sauté pan, or soup pot, saute the chicken, peppers and the garlic in the olive oil until the chicken is done. Do this on medium high and keep cooking until the chicken has no more pink remaining in the middle. Stir often. I always just take out one of the bigger chunks and cut it open to check.
Then add the other ingredients up through the chili powder and bring to a simmer. Simmer on medium for about 30 minutes or until it's as thick as you'd like it.
Serve in soup bowls. I garnish mine by putting on a layer of grated cheddar, a scattering of diced avocado, a few chopped green onion pieces and a dollop of sour cream right in the middle.
Note to readers, from Zola -- about ArcaMax: I love the new comment posting system added by ArcaMax. For the past few years, there was only a 1 through 5 story rating system on each article once posted online at the Zola channel. (Note: All of my articles come to the email readers exclusively before being posted online). My goal is to get you a Five Star column every week, so feel free to vote while reading any Zola columns while online.
With the new comment posting feature, there are now two places you can "respond" with your own comments. One of them is a public section that gets posted on the main site now (see Comment on this Story link). You can write notes in there if you want them posted publicly and readers can share comments with everyone. I love to see fan mail with the stories and recipes there, but I cannot personally answer that mail.
If you have a question for me or a personal item you want me to get right away you must push the button below that has my direct email: dinnerwithzola@hotmail.com. Those emails come to my desk so I can answer them. I love getting mail and special notes, so keep them coming!
There were a couple of emails that asked questions on the cocktail party. One was what size of Italian dressing bottle. My answer is just buy a regular sized bottle and pour half of it in. The nice thing about this recipe is there is no exact science. Just don't use a huge bottle from a discount store (i.e., Costco) or something like that, or your shrimp will be "swimming". Your favorite jar of Italian will be fine and there are so many good ones these days I didn't want to limit your choice.
For those of you that already went looking for the menu in the Party Menu section at www.dinnerwithzola.com, it's now up there. It sometimes takes my editor up to a week to get those things posted. She has a ton on her plate so please be patient. Thanks! Zola
Enjoy!
Cheers,
Zola
This news arrived on: 08/27/2007
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Posted Comments:
08-27-2007 18:58
Elaine wrote:
praying mantis
I have to tell you a funny story, I found a pod of I did not know what and took it into the house and laid it on my dresser. It got lost in all the stuff on the dresser and I did not think about it again, until I came home from work and found hundreds of baby mantid all over the bedroom. The kids and I had fun catching them and releasing outside. I now know what a praying mantis pod looks like. LOL
Elaine Kyle
State permitted rehabber (squirrels only)
Cut & Shoot, Montgomery Co, Texas
http://come.to/Star_K_Farms
Elaine Kyle
State permitted rehabber (squirrels only)
Cut & Shoot, Montgomery Co, Texas
http://come.to/Star_K_Farms
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