Hey folks . . . one of my passions is cooking so I thought I would start posting some of my favorite recipes to the Steemit community. Each one I post has an origin somewhere so I will try to provide some details on where or how I came up with each recipe I post.
Back in June of 2013 I started to have shortness of breath out of the blue. Over a a couple of weeks time frame the problem got so bad that I could not climb three or four stairs without getting so out of breath that I had to sit and pant for 10-15 minutes to get my breath back. Being a guy around 50 years old doctor's visits were not really high on my "to do" list so I tried to tough it out and see if things would get better . . . they didn't. I ended up driving to the emergency room at the nearby hospital and once they did some initial tests on me they immediately admitted me. This was the first time I had been hospitalized since I was 7 years old.
The hospital I was in, Henry Ford Hospital in the northwest suburbs of Detroit, happened to be a newer facility and the private room I had was literally as nice as a Hilton hotel room. The other thing that really surprised me was the easy access to food and the quality of the food that was served.
Anyway, to make a long story (somewhat) short, the doctors found that I had acute kidney failure and my hemoglobin count was around 2.3 (or something close to that). For those that don't know, hemoglobin is the chemical in your blood that carries oxygen throughout your body. A normal hemoglobin count is 13 or better! My count of 2.3 was the reason I was having shortness of breath - I literally could not absorb enough oxygen into my blood. What caused this you ask? The root cause of all of my problems was a form of blood cancer called multiple myeloma. It is a cancer that effects the plasma cells in the blood and bone marrow. Because the myeloma was creating all of this "debris" in my blood (called light chains) my kidneys were shutting down because they were becoming clogged up.
To get my kidney function back to something normal they put me on a strict diet where things that were bad for my kidneys, like calcium, were verboten. So for about a week my choices of food from the hospital were extremely limited. That said, I found one dish they had that I could eat that was awesome . . . . some days I would eat that dish at least twice a day. This is where I found the dish that is the focus of my recipe today - I call it chicken scampy but I have no idea if it is really a "scampy" dish or not . . . .
The best type of pan to cook this type of dish in is a "wok" type skillet. The one I use is 12" in diameter, about 4" deep and has a ceramic, non-stick coating on the inside. If your pan doesn't have a matching lid get one of the "universal" pan lids to cover it during simmering.
Spoon the thickened sauce over a bed of linguini and serve with garlic bread and a salad of choice.
Bon appetit!!!
