2 chicken breasts, halved
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cups celery, chopped
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup white cheddar cheese, shredded
1/4 cup fine bread crumbs
2 cups milk
1 tablespoon dill seed
1 teaspoon celery seed
salt and pepper

1. Cook the celery in the milk in a sauce pan over medium heat until soft, about half an hour.
2. Remove the celery from the milk with a slotted spoon.
3. Melt the butter in a separate sauce pan over medium heat and add the flour, stirring until completely incorporated and cooking for about a minute.
4. Gradually stir the milk into the flour and butter, then add the bay leaf and salt and pepper to taste.
5. Cook the sauce until reduced to a thick paste.
6. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
7. Season chicken breasts with salt, pepper, and crushed dill and celery seed.
8. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat and brown the chicken on both sides, about 4-5 minutes per side.
9. Remove the bay leaf and add the cheese to the celery sauce.
10. Place chicken in a casserole dish and top with sauce, then bread crumbs, and bake until crumbs have browned, about 25-30 minutes.

Makes 4 servings

1 cup broccoli stems, peeled and julienned
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
water
salt and pepper

1. Place broccoli stem strips into cold water and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Drain.
2. Bring salted water in a large pot to a boil and add the broccoli stems, blanching for 1 minute.
3. Transfer the broccoli to an ice bath to prevent further cooking.
4. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat and add the nutmeg, stirring until fragrant.
5. Drain the broccoli and coat in the nutmeg infused butter. Season with salt and pepper and serve immediately.

Makes 4 servings

1 pound asparagus
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon milk
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 cup fine bread crumbs
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper
water

1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and add the asparagus. Cook uncovered until bright green, then transfer to an ice bath to prevent further cooking.
2. Combine egg with milk in a bowl. Shake excess water off of the asparagus and dip into the egg and milk mixture, then into the bread crumbs.
3. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat and add the asparagus in batches, frying until lightly browned on all sides.
4. Transfer asparagus to paper towels and pat dry. Top immediately with parmesan cheese, season with salt and pepper and serve.

Makes 4 servings

Shannon hasn't been eating a lot of the dinners lately. I've either been cooking for one because we're working opposite schedules or I just haven't been able to interest her in the leftovers. Tonight she ate the dinner and loved it. She said it made her feel comforted and loved, like something her grandmother would have made for her. Considering this was just thrown together as a quick theme dinner, I'd say I got lucky.

I thought that I'd come up with a way to use broccoli stems since the bunches of broccoli that haven't had the stems removed are a lot cheaper. Plus, I personally think that the stems are quite tasty. From that I developed a 'stalk' theme, involving asparagus and celery, the only other stalky things I could think of. The broccoli dish was simple Sautéed Broccoli Stems. This was the lackluster dish of the group. Hardly anything to look at and not particularly flavorful, it at least had some character and tasted unlike what I expected it to, more like shoots in a 5 spice stir fry than broccoli at all.

I was originally just going to make creamed celery, but I had a couple of chicken breasts thawed in the fridge that I wasn't planning on using in the near future, so I thought I'd make Cream of Celery Chicken. This was really quite tasty and a simple way of using up celery sticks. Plus, if you've ever wanted to make a Campbell's soup plus chicken dish from scratch, this would be a perfect recipe to start with. It's comforting, it's creamy and it's filled with celery and dill flavor.

The other dish, Battered Asparagus, should really speak for itself. It's asparagus that's battered and topped with parmesan cheese. If you have any desire to eat asparagus whatsoever you can tell that this is delicious. My toaster, toaster oven and food processor are sold, so making bread crumbs for this was a bit difficult. I scraped at a dried out loaf of bread with a serrated knife until I had enough to barely coat the spears. The light battering was good enough and I ate the entire pound to myself.