Chaotic Chronicles

Lazy Day Lunch

2012-01-27T16:27:00.000-08:00

Today we just hung out at the house. Planned to go skiing but Ron had a conference call - working from home.

I had to put the bird in her cage during the call; this is Bruno.

She was my bird until I met Ron then she shifted her affection to him and openly and unashamedly prefers his company to mine, but when he gets on the phone, she seems to know his attention is elsewhere and today made so much racket his coworkers asked him if he had a bird at work. So she got a time-out. She was also a he, hence the name, until she decided she wanted to be Ron's mate and started laying eggs. When she does, she turns into a hostile, shrieking termagant we call Birdzilla. The advice we gleaned from the web when she first started laying was to let her keep them until they would have hatched - they're not fertilized - then she'd lose interest. Boy is that #&!@# crap . She kept laying eggs and we started taking them away. I don't know about everyone else, but I like to walk into my bedroom and not have the nasty bird run across the floor of her cage, hissing and flapping her wings. So we don't let her keep her pretend eggs.

I love salads and bought some green leaf lettuce this week, made this just pulling stuff out of the refrigerator; lettuce, spinach leaves, snap peas, celery, green onion, green pepper, boiled egg (recently bought one of those wire egg slicers), feta cheese and tuna. Lighthouse blue cheese dressing. yum.

We do plan to ski tomorrow, then we pack a lunch, laskluster as it may sound, just turkey and cheese sandwiches, some fruit, maybe some mixed nuts. We're too cheap to buy food at the lodge. Booze, but not food!

Maybe post some pics from the ski slopes soon.

To shovel or not...

2012-01-26T22:20:00.000-08:00

We finally got snow this week. Snow and snow and more snow. That’s good because where we ski (http://www.skiwhitepass.com/) got enough snow to open before Thanksgiving, then it didn’t snow in any appreciable amount again, so skiers were sliding around on nearly two-month-old chewed up and re-groomed crud. Until the last week and a half. The bad thing about snow, in more ways than one is, out of job necessity, my hubby and I live about 150 miles apart with a mountain range between, and last weekend he couldn’t drive over because the weather in the mountains was so savage. Pooh :( That and shoveling snow:

Where I live, if you don’t shovel the driveway, the snow gets driven over repeatedly and packed into a treacherous two-wheel-path glacier that no amount of scraping, bashing, scooping, and salting can budge until the spring melt (it’s also a really good idea to have the leaves raked before it snows so spring doesn’t hand you a flat vegetative slick that has smothered your lawn). So when it snows, I’m out before much accumulates, removing it from the driveway.

That’s where I developed the theory that the next time you’re house-hunting, stand at the end of the driveway and imagine it’s winter. It could influence your choice. I didn't do this. I have a lonnggg driveway to shovel.

When my kids were younger, it used to annoy them spitless to have to go out and shovel while it was still snowing, but I insisted, with the premise that it’s easier to move lesser amounts more often than wait until a foot or more has accumulated to shovel just once. This week’s accretion was very light powder that was (almost) fun to shovel and not so cumbersome as the wet concrete that usually collects here.

While shoveling for probably the sixth time Tuesday evening, a man walked up and introduced himself as the son-in-law of my next door neighbor. He had a tool for removing snow buildup from her awning and offered, for a price, to do mine done, too, mentioning that it was supposed to snow more that night; my awning might collapse.
“How much?, I asked”.
"I’m charging her $60 dollars”.
I explained that there is another awning on the other side of the house.
“$70 dollars, then”.
“For each, or both?”
“For both”.

Hmmm. “I’ll think about it”. What I was thinking was, $60 dollars? That’s f*cking ludicrous for a 5 minute task – this is fine, powdery fairy dust, remember?
And, “What kind of a jerk charges his mother-in-law $60 bucks for a 5 minute task when he should just help her out because he’s married to her daughter.” If I was married to him, and my hubby will attest, I would harangue his ass for even considering charging my mother for snow removal services.

I turned the offer down and continued shoveling.

I said all that to say this: It warmed up then cooled down, melted the snow on the awnings and resulted in these colossal icicles forming from the awning on my front porch. They’re beautiful, but I’m afraid if one falls, it will kill a passing neighborhood pet, or worse, a passing neighbor. Maybe I should have had the damn awning cleared…

Pasta with Gorgonzola and Italian Sausage

2011-11-16T22:34:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the unimpressive cell-phone photo, but damn! This tasted really good and I was just using us ingredients I had in the fridge:

8 oz. cooked pasta
8 oz. Italian sausage, browned
2 cloves minced garlic
1 cup chopped fresh spinach
3/4 cup milk
4 oz. crumbled gorgonzola cheese
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
Italian seasoning, to taste
Fresh ground pepper, to taste

Brown the sausage, add garlic, brown a bit, add spinach, milk, cheese, and red pepper flakes, reduce until thickened, add to drained pasta.

Top with grated parmesan.

One of the Joys of Reading...

2011-11-08T18:09:00.000-08:00

I subscribe to Outside Magazine (website: www.outsideonline.com) not because I’m the most robust, outdoorsy person or that all the articles appeal to me-some don’t, in fact, but I usually read them anyway-for the writing. All of the writing is outstanding, so even if the subject doesn’t interest me I can ride a wave of better than exceptional prose and far-over-the-top vocabulary and learn about some subjects I wouldn’t have otherwise if I didn't bother to read them. Some articles are about extreme activities, some human interest stories, and some are funnier than hell.

Normally I do need to look up a word or two I find in each issue, so to my delight, in the November issue article On the Origin of Species, written by Michael Roberts uses the word “sastrugi”. The article explains why Steve Martin’s new movie The Big Year, in Martin’s irreverent style perhaps -I haven’t seen it-may garner some long-overdue respect for bird watchers. But Roberts uses the word describing a skier. What the hell? I’m a skier and have certainly never heard that word. But the beauty of learning it that way, as a delightful surprise, is that I’ll never forget it. Go ahead-look it up!

Sort This!

2011-10-27T20:45:00.000-07:00

While in a long meeting this afternoon, I mused over an item I recently saw perusing Skymall Magazine during a recent flight, amid the countless yard ornaments and luxury items for your pets:

A plastic cup that you presumably allow your adorable offspring to use to separate the cereal from the marshmallow goodness in Lucky Charms?

These is so much wrong with this; that we need another useless plastic implement (it's a long list, but I include in it those plastic devices with different sized holes that help you measure the correct amount of spaghetti like you can actually screw up and cook too much, and these charming plastic containers I saw at the store shaped and colored like either lemons, onions or tomatoes to store either lemons, onions or tomatoes in that probably don't "keep" them any better, if even as well, as the plastic bag you brought them home in) on the planet whose oceans and landscape are choking in it. Is there truly a need for these?

Back to the cereal, if you want your child to eat marshmallows for breakfast, buy 'em a bag of Jet-Puffed or even better - a jar of marshmallow creme. Instead of letting them sit and sift out the toasted oat cereal (Lucky Charms via Wikipedia - If Wikipedia can be trusted, this cereal is the original Cheerios with sugar and marshmallows added, and I never realized there were so many iterations of the marshmallow shapes), probably leaving them for you to eat, buy some Cheerios for yourself in the first place. Do parents actually let their children sort the cereal?? I remember getting seriously chewed out for trying to dig the prizes from the bottom of the box before we ate all the cereal, but then, we didn't have a handy tool to dig it out with.

Leaving Ocean Shores

2011-10-18T22:03:00.000-07:00

We tourists probably think this is adorable-I know I do, I turned around to take this photo, but if it was my yard-probably not.

We had a mom and child deer visit us at the condo about dinner time Saturday night. We tossed out sliced veggies and apples. The little one just sniffed at them, but mom deer chowed down. We're probably not supposed to feed the deer, but it was obvious from their expectant looks up at us that, if not us, someone will...

Long Weekend at the Beach

2011-10-16T13:37:00.000-07:00

We took a walk on the beach today. Normally the first thing I do when I get to the beach is shed my footwear and wade in the surf, but this trip, the water is a dark chocolate color and leaves a mucky residue on the beach. I have no idea what's caused it, but it's nothing I want my feet in, although we did see some people surfing this morning. Blech.

This was the sunset Friday night:

This morning I was looking at the tracks of someone who walked the beach in wedge heels, apparently. I find just walking in the sand my Keens fairly challenging and sure wouldn't try it in a heel. If it's all I had to walk in (and that would never happen - I subscribe to a one pair per day + another pair just in case strategy), probably I'd just take them off and brave the chocolaty muck.

My love of the ocean grew from horrible yearly family trips to the ocean when I was a kid. We'd start out in darkness, my parents would overdose me with dramamine because my Dad refused to stop the car if I got carsick and was outraged if I rolled down the window and puked down the side of the car. People who can't tolerate the unexpected probably shouldn't have children, but this is not a rant about my Dad.

Once at the ocean, we'd get up pre-dawn every day to go dig razor clams. I hated it, a squeamish young kid shouldn't have to kill things; once we got our limit, Dad would hasten off to a bar and the rest of us were free to nap, read, or explore. I spent a lot of time propped up against some driftwood with a book in my lap, watching the breakers and listening to the surf. I love it to this day, and nobody makes me go dig clams these days.

Water for Elephants-A complete surprise

2011-08-10T22:38:00.000-07:00

I recommend this book, not because it's pretty much a chick novel and is released as a movie now, but because to me it's evident that the author researched Circus/Carnival history and has an interesting story to tell, much of which is true, go ahead, google it.

I loved it, the ending is - not fall off the wall, "I gotta end this book"- but went just where I'd want to go if I were in the main character's situation. How often anymore do we get an original plot line like this?

Will see the movie but worried about how it's treated.

Mes Chaussures

2011-08-10T20:38:00.000-07:00

I won this trip, no kidding, ask me...

Before our recent trip to India, I heard my husband – on the phone with one of my friends – tell her “maybe two.” Shoes-that’s how many pairs of shoes the sadly erroneous man and love of my life thought I could get by with for a week-long trip? Most men don’t get shoes; they think they are merely functional items that either keep your feet warm or keep you from stepping in unpleasant stuff with your bare feet (you know what I mean, we’ve all done it). They don’t see the need to own multiple-to-numerous pairs, many of which may be inarguably similar. He has a pair of dress shoes, a pair of unremarkable grey tennies, some flip-flops and a pair of Keens I got him because I thought he could use a sporty upgrade in the footwear sector.

Chez Shoes

Our history with shoes probably began when he noticed I had to have shelves built in my closet to hold all my shoes. (I also had a rack built to hold all my earrings, but that’s a story for another day.) We travel well together which is fortunate because we travel a lot, and, like most couples, I probably have the conspicuously larger suitcase because – I have to pack enough shoes. The word at issue here is “enough.” The preferable number for me would be about a pair a day, plus maybe a pair for evening. He asked me once, at the end of a trip if I wore each pair. What has that got to do with anything? It’s not that I wore them, but that I could wear them.

The "Mustard Festival" Napa 2009

Take a trip we took to California wine country a couple of years ago; the suitcase with my shoes packed in it didn’t make it into the car (there is some question over whether I didn’t bring the suitcase out of the bedroom or that he should have had a gut-feeling there was another bag with my shoes in it), leaving me on a week’s trip with a pair of Clark loafers and a pair of Minnetonka moccasins. The kind with the suede soles. As it rained nearly the whole week we were there, relegating me, really, to just one choice of shoes, I did try shopping for substitutes, but my heart wasn’t in it. That’s a mission not to be taken under duress; shoe shopping should be a pleasure, not an emergency. I haven’t worn that pair of Clarks much since.

Coach, but uncomfortable...

The latest trip was to Japan. Since we were gone 18 days, the one pair per day was impractical. I don’t own a suitcase large enough, plus we were very mobile and had to haul our luggage with us a lot. Even I could get tired of dragging a suitcase full of shoes around Japan. At one point though, I did tell my honey that I couldn’t wear a particular pair of sandals; they weren’t “walking” shoes. (Insert a look here from him, “why did you bring the damn things all this way then, to not wear them?”) I only tell that because, after we got back I had the damn things on when a friend and I decided to walk to the waterfront for lunch. Then she said, “but I don’t have walking shoes on, so let’s drive. “ See, she understands shoes.

This is Sad and It is True

2011-07-10T23:03:00.000-07:00

Troy Alan Wilton

Two weeks after my last post, over a year ago, my youngest son, whose lasagna I had featured in the post, took his own life. There is so much I could say about this, but where would I begin and end? Mostly I would say that, stilted as it sounds, you don't know what you've got til it's gone, I wish I had yelled less, listened more. He was a beautiful, cheerful child who skipped around the house and wanted everyone else to be happy. He battled depression from the time he went to college, maybe earlier, but never found that happiness in himself, and on April 3rd, 2010, all alone, he made the irrevocable choice to end his life. It left all of us with shattered hearts, shattered family. Anger, Confusion, Guilt, Questions. I write about this now because on Father's Day, Ron & I were in Home Depot and I saw a father bitching at his son that "this is why I didn't want to bring you"...Obviously the kid was bugging his dad about something ("I would have yelled less, listened more"). The little guy, about 8, sat down cross-legged on the cart and looked sad. I nearly made it out of the store without crying. I should have 1) hugged the kid and told him -to quote the lines at the end of an incredible book "The Help" - "You is kind, you is smart, you is important", 2) I should have plinked the asshole father on the tip of the nose and asked him "how bloody dare you? Do you have no idea the gift you have been given and the damage you have just done." Because, as I witnessed it, I regretted every single time I yelled at my kids about things that really didn't matter even one day later, or that interrupted "my quiet time".

Pasta and Whatever is in the Fridge Alfredo

2010-03-21T12:49:00.000-07:00

We were going to head up skiing yesterday morning, but it's the time of year that, after we've been doing it for several months, the conditions have been hit-or-miss all season and, hey! It was the first day of spring, we just start to lose our enthusiasm for the early mornings and cold weather, so we just hung out around the house all morning, talked with friends on the phone, caught up with some their doings.

I've been re-potting plants all week. After they've grown for several years, they have absorbed all the soil in the pot and are just a pot-shaped root-mass, they start losing leaves and deteriorating and it's time to give them fresh soil and a new lease on life. Spring cleaning is just around the corner.

We went up to some friends' cabin later and stayed the night, intending to ski today, but the conditions at the ski area turned out to be snow in its liquid form, so we came home. The tacit conditions of our staying with the friends is - they wouldn't dream of taking any money - but we always take a meal. There is an added challenge this year-Cathy became vegetarian, so I can't take any of my good old stand-bys that I used to. Meat dishes don't always translate over to vegetarian by simply eliminating the meat. I'm open to any suggestions! Since we were just lazing about I started looking at what I had on hand to make and take up for dinner.

Pasta, always
Canned Roasted Red Pepper Alfredo, check
Green onion, green pepper, garlic, mushrooms, check, check, check

Frozen spinach, hey, we have lift-off!

Cooked and drained the pasta, baptized it with generous glugs of olive oil, added the spinach and chopped veggies, then poured the Alfredo over all.Just heated up in the oven at 350 for about half an hour. And we had Focaccia Asiago to accompany it. We also took St. Patrick's Day Nutella Pocket Cookies. All was well received, devoured actually.

Several months ago, Thanksgiving week, two of my three offspring moved out of my house, where they had landed temporarily for a protracted period after college, and into their own apartment. They invited us over for dinner tonight-I hadn't been to their apartment before! My youngest son made lasagna; he started with my version of it, but his version is far better. We decided to take ice cream. I was raised by a Mom who taught us that you don't show up at anyone's house empty-handed. Even your childrens'! I'll post photos when we get back.

Photo as promised (he's a really good cook):

What's really great about their move, besides moving out of my house, is that Ron and I are downsizing with the hope of someday living in the same town and the same house and don't need or want two, or possibly three of everything, so when the kids were moving and needed furniture, we gave them Ron's old kitchen table-a country-nook set, hide-a-bed, coffee table, magazine rack, and I think a chair and ottoman, although I don't remember seeing the last items at their place.

They live on the third floor and had to carry that probably 30 year-old, incredibly heavy couch up three flights. They said it's not coming down soon. The coffee table is out on their patio.

I'm not sure I can explain the layout. It's a two bedroom apartment, one for the oldest, the other for the youngest and his girlfriend. They've been together so long (an aside of which I won't go into because she reads my blog, oh hell, sure I will...she was 14 and he was 19 and her family didn't exactly approve. I think they've accepted it now, 7 years later) we refer to her as my daughter-in-law and on my 50th birthday, I gave all the kids my blessing to give me grandchildren-something no one is making the slightest progress toward-and embarrassed the bejesus out of her.

The living room has the aforementioned couch facing a wall, which contains all three of the kids computers. They must sit there side by side, day after day, and surf. It was a good visit.

Cooking while Traveling

2010-03-19T19:55:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd share our strategy for cooking when we travel. We take four to six trips a year and normally stay in condos, either Ron's timeshare, or mine. His condos have dishes, ample cookware, coffee, tea, basic spices like salt, pepper, Italian, dried parsley, red pepper flakes, garlic powder, and dried onion, dishwasher detergent; mine have dishes and cookware. (I sold mine last year when we bought a joint membership at Grand Mayan in Cancun.)

I get the impression that many, if not most people don't cook much while traveling; perhaps they don't do it for entertainment like I do. In fact for me, cooking is a vacation. I dream food! One of the other reasons we cook is that neither of us is particularly fond of fast food, eating in restaurants for several days can really add up, using money that would be better spent on something else-lift tickets, for instance.

I've learned when we travel, at least in the states, to take along a few essentials. Maybe more than a few, and they can change depending on what I think I might plan on cooking. Our last trip, for instance, I'd brought pork loin chops, lamb chops and chicken drumsticks. The friends who joined us brought salmon caught on their last trip to Canada, which we barbequed and I featured in an earlier post .

They once called me and asked if I liked duck...boy, do I, however until then I hadn't had duck since my Dad hunted when I was a kid. They invited me over for roast duck, wow, it was a dream come true! Yum-yum!

In no particular order:

Coffee; Ron drinks instant, but the condo usually has a couple packets of drip-type
Coffee creamer; Ron's also
Tea; I like loose tea (I elucidated in an earlier post my love for tea and my fave tea shop) but I often take bagged teas on trips. Convenience factor. In fact, I've bought so many boxes of bagged teas on trips, I take it now just to try to use it up
Olive oil
A couple cups of flour
A couple cups of sugar
Sea salt in mill; I need a new one, the one I have doesn't work so well
Peppercorn mill
A mix of spices; this time it was Montreal seasoning mixed with dried parsley flakes
At least one head of garlic
Red pepper flakes
Dried rosemary (that I grew and dried)
Spice packets leftover from prior condo excursions, once opened they discard them, this way they aren't wasted
Some kind of pasta
Rice
Microwave popcorn. Usually we watch a couple of movies, but that week we watched the Olympics

Butter
Cheese
Bacon
Miscellaneous stuff that might rot in the refrigerator during the week if we don't eat it before we leave!
Since we were skiing that week, sandwich ingredients-bread, sliced turkey, cheese, mustard, mayo
Salad ingredients-lettuce, green onion, green pepper, bleu cheese dressing, mushrooms
Hershey's chocolate for my chocolate milk in the mornings
(Not to get on a soap-box, but if you are even mildly environmental, follow this link about Nestle's marketing and try to be cognizant of where what you eat comes from and what resources might be used producing it)

If we're driving, this all goes into coolers and a box or two, if we're flying, obviously we don't take as much as we have to fit it into luggage, which takes space away from the number of shoes I can take! With these basic items, we can go to the store at our destination and cook pretty much anything we decide to buy.

Happy traveling! Which reminds me, we are going to New Orleans in May. I've never been to The Big Easy and am very excited, so if anyone can suggest some really great things to do, drop me a note...

St. Patrick's Nutella Pocket Cookies

2010-03-17T21:09:00.000-07:00

Ok, St. Pat didn't invent these cookies. They're the delightful creation of La Fuji Mama that I adapted to the Irish holiday by adding green food coloring. I shared with her that I had never heard of Nutella before, but upon discovery of her recipe, found some at the store (among the peanut-butters and jellies). Curious, I opened it in the car on the way home and tried a couple fingers full. I had to toss the jar into the back seat where I couldn’t reach it to keep from eating most of it before I got home. This stuff is perilously addictive.

We had a St. Paddy's potluck at work today, so I baked and took these; everybody I work with just loved them. So my derby is off to you, La Fuji Mama! I award you the glorious shamrock o' the kitchen!

The only change I made, besides their wearin' o' the green, was that I believe I cut them a little thinner. After you get a routine going, they're quite simple to assemble. The only advice I would give is to resist the temptation to overfill them with the chocolatey Nutella gooey goodness, because it squishes out when you try to seal them. They taste just as great, but are slightly less attractive. So I ate those.

And yes, that is a seriously old Tupperware pie crust guide! I've had it forever and use it for anything I'm rolling out. I don't happen to own a cookie cutter though, so I used a drinking glass and may be looking for a cookie cutter next...

Today at work we had the potluck. We work in a rather shabby area of town in a fenced in compound with about a dozen buildings called the "Region Complex". The building I work in is just across a chain-link fence from a small ~~mobile home~~ trailer park where police activity is not uncommon, so we have occasional "lock-downs" that we are notified, when they are searching the trailer park for some unsavory criminal element, to lock all the doors and stay inside.

My supervisor told us this morning he'd seen a police car go by next door, so we all watched as, not one, but two stole slowly by and turned the corner into another part of the park. Some time later, I walked over to another building in the complex and when I returned, found the door was locked. Oh holy hell! I envisioned armed criminals and cops in a crossfire with me at its center! I started banging on the door and yelling to let me in. When my boss opened the door, he was laughing so hard, he had to lean against the wall to keep from falling. Other than a totally warped sense of humor, he's a great boss :)

He loved the cookies, too...Happy St. Pat's day everyone.

Fallout Baked Potato Soup

2010-03-03T22:32:00.000-08:00

I discovered about 9:00 tonight that I really didn't have anything for lunch tomorrow...I normally make soup on Sunday for lunches all week, it's cheaper, I know what's in it, and I only have half an hour for lunch, so I don't have to wander out to find fast food that I will actually eat. But we were just getting home from the ski trip Sunday evening, and I haven't been to the store since.

We had several baked potatoes leftover from the trip (we always have a lot of leftovers because we and the friends we ski with always make way too much food), which we carted all the way home from Oregon because I refuse to waste food. I needed to find a use for them, so this is my version of Baked Potato Soup made mainly of ingredients I had in the refrigerator and cupboard. I have a friend whose Mom used to call this sort of meal "fallout" which I've always found amusing; basically it's anything that "falls out" of the refrigerator.

She would give me a hard time for scraping together whatever leftovers were in the refrigerator, heating it up and serving it for me and the kids for dinner. Chili, scrambled eggs, pickles, wrap it in a tortilla...She thought it was pretty disgusting and called it "pig slop", but I did it because if there was a dab of this and a scosh of that, one of them would always be unhappy with what they didn't get. I was a single Mom and it's why I dislike wasting food today. (Also, from childhood I have hated to let my food "touch", so I wasn't real crazy about this prep method myself!)

Ingredients:
2 medium potatoes of your choice
Olive oil or reserved bacon grease
1/2 chopped onion
1 stalk minced celery
1 shredded carrot
Minced garlic
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup milk
3 tablespoons cornstarch
Salt and pepper to taste
Tabasco sauce, also to taste-I find a little goes a long way, so I used four "splashes".

Garnish:
Bacon crumbles
Sliced green onion

Grated cheese; I used Gouda, again brought back from the trip. It doesn't grate very well, and usually it isn't leftover-we had cheese, meat, and veggie trays, and our choice of beverage while watching the Olympics, but as I said, we brought a lot of food. The great thing about this soup is it requires so little cooking!

I might mention that I don't normally garnish my soups for lunch, just toss it in the microwave and heat at work which would incinerate the garnish, but I wanted the photo to look attractive :)

Method:
If you don't have leftover baked potatoes, rub medium potatoes with olive oil and bake in 400 degree oven until done. At this point, you really should just throw your favorite toppings on, eat and be done with it, however, we overestimated our appetites and these were relegated to the refrigerator for "later", hauled home, and here they still were.

Dice the leftover baked potatoes fairly small, 1/2 inch or less and set aside. Heat butter in a sauce pan and saute onion, celery, and carrots until nearly tender.

Add chicken broth and diced potatoes. Bring to a boil. Whisk milk and cornstarch well. Add to soup and heat through. Season with spices and Tabasco-feel free to be creative.

My son, the one who dredges most of his food in cayenne pepper, said the soup wasn't very spicy (apparently the lining in his mouth and esophagus were still intact), but it still tasted good. As usual, sorry about the photos, my camera is old and wheezing it's last shuttery clicks. You do know, don't you, that today's digital cameras don't need the shutter click, but we, who have always operated cameras that clicked wouldn't know if the photo took without the accompanying sound!!

I'd ask the guys for a new one for Mother's Day, but one of them recently borrowed my blender to make cheesecake and burned it up, so I'd have to decide between a camera and a new blender. Or some of my favorite perfume. Usually, though, I have them all come over on Mother's Day for what I call "obligatory slave labor", the price they pay for my having let them live to grow up. They clean up the yard, haul away the recycling, repair what needs repaired. And I cook!

Lunch is made, tomorrow is my "Friday". How could life get any better? Good-night!

Tom's bbq Salmon

2010-02-26T21:20:00.000-08:00

We've skied three days at Timberline (in bluebird sunshine yesterday) and plan to ski Mt. Hood Meadows the next one or two-snow expected tomorrow and sunshine Sunday, which may lure us there on the way home.

We had friends join us here yesterday; Tom, Lynda, and Ryker:

Last night we had Tom's barbequed Chinook Salmon. He catches these on his boat trips near Port Alberni, Canada. He says if he tells me exactly where, he'd have to kill me. He spreads the fish with pesto, encloses it in aluminum foil and barbeques it on the grill. Again, if he gave me the exact recipe, he'd have to kill me, but I've never had better fish and we're privileged to share the bounty of his fishing trips.

Know what this is? It's the second greatest ski convenience item invented; neck gaiters are the first...Tom tunes my skis, and after the latest time, this strap, that holds my skies together disappeared. This makes carrying them to and from the slopes more difficult and annoying, because they "scissor". He went out and dug through their car last night and found the strap, so I was a happier skier today. The mistake, he explained, was that he had a red one, too, and thought this was one of theirs.

Next day: A photo of our group from Mt. Hood Meadows with 4 inches of new on a beautiful sunshiny day-life is good and after four straight days skiing, I'm pretty tired:)

Pork Chops, Pasta and Condo Campinig at Mt. Hood OR

2010-02-23T22:51:00.000-08:00

When Ron and I met, we both owned condos, and Ron loves to travel and plan trips, weekend junkets, week long excursions (we drove-I'm not kidding-2300 miles in a car through seven southern states back east and visited eight civil war battlefields in fall 2008), in the US, outside the US-2 trips to Mexico last year and next year-Japan, where he grew up, a military brat.

I love to travel also but don't love planning so much, possibly the consequence of raising three sons and a step-son (from a now-defunct marriage, but I had him for 10 years) all of whom we kept active in sports, scouts, band, karate. You can imagine what a hectic schedule that was to orchestrate, let alone planning vacations for six of us, which was assuredly hellish. Plus feeding them, teenagers are, as you might know, eating and sleeping machines. We had a white board on the kitchen wall with a monthly menu, shopped at Costco, took out left-befores for lunches because they left no leftovers-they didn't eat until they were full, they ate until the food was gone. Actually, they still do that...

So back to Ron and his trip-planning propensity; when we met, we discovered we both have the travel bug in its acute form, so he started planning trips until I had to give him the time-out signal and explain that unlike him, I haven't worked at the same place for over 20 years and have adequate, but not unlimited leave available. I had planned a trip to Seaside Oregon, to sulk, if you will, from yet another failed few-week relationship. Ron invited himself along, half-kidding but also serious, before I had even met him in person. We did meet the week before, on my birthday 2007 and then met up in Seaside.

That was the last trip I planned. He plans 'em now, gives me directions when we're driving, or hands me my boarding pass as we get ready to board a plane. Man, is this the life! Now we're at Welches,Oregon (where??), at Whispering Woods, going to ski Mt. Hood the next few days and have ski-buds joining us Thursday. That brings me to condo camping. I don't camp outdoors, I like that shower in the morning and sleeping indoors, no bugs or dirt in my food. It helps if we're sleeping indoors in really great places! My ex liked to golf, so my timeshare exchanges were all in beautiful locations on - you got it - golf courses. Tonight we're using Ron's timeshare exchange, which is also always wonderful and ironically, on a golf course.

Ron likes pork; I don't particularly, but I like the price-usually it's the cheapest, so I brought some pork loin chops along and gave him the choice between pork chops or lamb chops. This was dinner tonight:

Pork Chops

Pork Chops or Pork Loin Boneless Chops

1 egg and 1/2 cup milk whisked together
Corn Flake Crumbs-I used the boxed stuff, lazy I know, but easy to transport
Seasoning-make your own-remember we're in travel status-this might have been Montreal seasoning, parsley flakes, garlic powder, I'm not sure. I packed it for Grand Lake, Oklahoma trip this summer, didn't use it, nor for a couple of other trips until now. See the next post on what I pack to travel.
About 1/4 cup grated parmesan.

Dip the pork chops in egg mixture, then corn flake crumb mixture, brown on each side, then cover and simmer until done to your preference. Ron did ask me how I made these and I told him, but I doubt he has most of the stuff at his house!

Pasta Salad-I put roughly 8 things in this-my signature pasta salad, limited only by your imagination:

Pasta-your choice-I used 3/4 lb. cooked multi-gran fettucini tonight
Olive oil
1/4 cup sliced green onion
4 cloves minced garlic
2 tablespoons minced kalamata olives
2 tablespoons capers, drained and rinsed (capers are pickled juniper berries, that plus the olives are little salt bombs)
Chopped parsley (I used dried-packaged tonight because I'm traveling, but usually use fresh Italina
Grated parmesan cheese

Boil the pasta, drain add other ingredients, chill and add grated parmesan cheese and fresh ground pepper.

Dinner:

Flintstone Ribs and Baked Potatoes

2010-02-20T15:24:00.000-08:00

I love Tony Roma's barbeque sauce, we discovered the restaurant years ago in Spokane, WA (that restaurant is now, unfortunately closed although there still is one in Kennewick, which is much closer to me, but I seldom get down there) during my last disastrous marriage when we were hungry, driving around bitching at each other because neither of us was "hungry for" what the other wanted to eat. Spokane's Division Street is a miles long succession of restaurants on either side of the street, where we spotted Tony Roma's. It was the first we'd ever been to, but I really fell in love with their bbq sauce. I think I'll make it a goal, maybe this year, to invent a copycat recipe for it-although I can find it at Safeway, because I feel it's cheating to post a food blog with a commercial product in it and call the recipe mine.

So Flintstone Ribs? Anyone remember the Flintstones? Are they still on-I don't watch much television? But there is a scene in the closing where they wheel up to a drive in and order Brontosaurus Ribs. The waitress carries them out to the car, heaves them up to the side of the car and the car tips over...

I get beef back ribs, usually on sale for way cheap, boil them for at least an hour, until they're nearly falling off the bone, then brush the bbq sauce all over them and bake them until the sauce is thick and sticky. They're messy, gooey, sticky things, that taste just terrific. I serve them with baked potatoes, because-you may not know this-baked potatoes are great with bbq sauce on them.

We've been watching the Olympics all week. Watched Lindsey Vonn cross the finish line the other night, with bad form, nearly on one foot due to the pain, and win gold. I'm a skier and had a broken foot in 2006 (not from skiing, just from stepping off my back steps onto uneven concrete), and can tell you that you skiing with an injury isn't a whole bunch of fun. Lindsey, you rock! Apparently Korea hates Apolo Ohno because he's an aggressive skater and he keeps winning their golds. Somewhere in the definition of competition must be the word aggressive. You don't tap someone politely on the shoulder and ask to pass them while skating in the Olympics...they evidently invented toilet paper with his picture on it that is selling well in Korea.

She's so old...I have a 20 year old cat who has always been blind. She's amazing, really. I don't think she hears or smells so well anymore either. She's a lilac point Siamese, always been just so beautiful, but she doesn't take such great care of her coat anymore, so every week or so we have to hold her down, brush her, and cut the hairballs off, a process she strenuously and vocally resists, and I dislike doing it, but if we don't she develops golf ball sized snarls that we eventually have to shave off anyway.

Taking her photo is pretty challenging, because you just get her in the frame and she moves, plus I have a years old camera that waits a few seconds before the photo "takes", seconds in which she moves.

Rice and Beans with Buffalo Chicken

2010-02-15T20:29:00.000-08:00

Or Some Pseudo Mardi Gras food!

We've had a laid-back holiday weekend, as I mentioned, pretty much rained out for skiing, but watching the Olympics. Their weather isn't exceptional, either, and they've had to helicopter snow in to hold the alpine events. We didn't get to the store, so had to rely on the cupboards and freezer for dinner tonight, which can be very fun seeing what we have that we forgot we had and what we can come up with. Lunch was leftovers.

A couple of weeks ago, I discovered, heaven only knows why it took me this long, the bulk food section of Fred Meyer. It isn't as if the store is new, nor is their bulk food section. They have a better than decent selection, compared to most other supermarkets, and seems fresher, at least the trail mix I bought was. So for dinner I had rice and black eyed peas, with buffalo chicken wings. The rice is a wild rice blend I found in bulk foods, the black eyed peas were packaged dried beans, and the buffalo wings frozen from the meat department at Safeway.

Rice

1 cup water
1 cup tomato juice
2 teaspoons crushed red pepper
1 cup long grain and wild rice blend

Boil the liquids and add the crushed pepper and rice. This takes about 1 hour to cook. I used the 2 to 1 ratio I'm used to when making rice, but it was dry after about 20 minutes, so I added 1 more cup of water and 1 more cup of tomato juice. It turned out very tasty.

Black Eyed Peas

Rinse 1 cup black eyed peas well and drain
4 cups water
About 1 tablespoon salt, to taste
About 1 tablespoon beef bouillon granules (you wouldn't believe how many tries I took at spelling bouillon correctly so the little red squiggly line disappeared.)

Boil for 1 hour or more until tender. Yes, the package says to pre-soak overnight, or quick soak by boiling 1/2 hour then letting it sit in the hot water for 1 hour. This isn't necessary, they cook just as quickly without doing all that. Mix the cooked rice and beans together, if preferred.

So this is our lazy day, sort of spicy Mardi Gras food.

The Olympics, Steak & Shrimp Scampi

2010-02-14T20:42:00.000-08:00

I bought a lot of seafood on sale this weekend, so we had steamer clams and store-made shrimp scampi Friday night. The clams, I boiled, drained, added some garlic, white wine, and lemon juice. I could eat those by the gallon! Tonight, though, to celebrate the Olympics-so far we've seen two couples skate-not being able to ski (rain rain rain-but I don't feel so bad, I watched the nordic combined today, and those guys were out cross-country skiing and shooting in sleet-blech), so I had some cooked, deveined shrimp (hey, I'm lazy, but I'd gladly take a lesson on deveining if someone has some advice to make it easy). The store-made scampi was pretty salty, so I left salt out and mine turned out less salty and, perhaps, healthier.

Olive Oil in skillet, about 2 tablespoons
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 sliced green onions
2 teaspoons crushed red pepper
2 lbs. cooked deveined shrimp (but not those little bitty canned things that have the consistency of pencil erasers and are suitable for a last-minute salad for a 4th of July picnic!)
4 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup white wine
Italian seasoning

Multi-grain thin spaghetti

Saute garlic and green onion in olive oil. Add crushed red pepper flakes and shrimp and cook until warmed through. Add butter and Italian seasoning, then white wine when the butter has melted. Add to cooked, drained pasta and serve. I plan to submit this to Presto Pasta Nights, the hosted this week by Mrs. Ergul Passion of Food and Life and courtesy of Ruth of Once Upon a Feast.

My son Brian cooked the steaks, a talent he has perfected over the last several years. When he started, he cooked them all the way he likes them - nearly raw and coated with cayenne pepper. Once I explained that the rest of us like them cooked, and edible, he does a great job, and did so tonight.

Years ago, when he was a novice, it was my parental pleasure to listen to him clicking the starter repeatedly on the barbeque, lean outside and suggest he open the lid, as fire needs air. He did, then clicked the starter again immediately and then disappeared, albeit briefly, in a fire ball. Mercifully the only damage to his person was singed hair and eyebrows, and to me, wide open mouth and rapid heartbeat.

It's still hard for me to watch Olympic skating. My mother loved it and followed it avidly. She died of heart disease in 2001 and were she still alive, I would know who was skating for what country, their standings, and would have watched some of the competition leading up to the Olympics. So, I watched the young American couple skate tonight, often overcome with tears. I always miss my Mom, but at times like these, I miss her more. Even if I didn't, there are so many poignant stories on the paths the competitors take to get there, I would probably be weepy anyway. Many of the athletes and their families sacrifice all to compete.

I have found limitless creative ways to waste time on the web. I spent quite a lot of the day on Facebook, not only creating a comic avatar for myself (this actually looks quite a lot like me, except I might look slightly older), but also chronicling where I've traveled on "Where I've Been" both of which are excellent examples to tick away your time on - well - the inconsequential.

Valentine's Day Basket

2010-02-08T22:34:00.000-08:00

My Scuba Club meets once a month (at a Mexican Restaurant whose food I abhor-huge portions of greasy, salty food. I usually eat beforehand and just have wine at the meeting :) Each month we auction off a basket, the proceeds of which go to the club. I won it last month. In the 6 or so years I've been diving, I don't remember ever having won it before, I guess because it used to be 50/50 and the winner generally donated their 50 percent back to the club. I may have won that once or twice, the winnings amounting to all of $11.,in that neighborhood. I don't remember when or how the basket raffle started.

Well, I won it last month. The guy who got it in December must have taken issue to the "girl" theme, because he donated a "Man Basket", Hot Rod Mag, Beef Jerky, Chips and Salsa, an oversized bottle of Fat Tire Beer, Beer Glass and a Butterfinger he said was to disguise your breath so your wife doesn't know you were drinking...Do guys really do that? Do they really think it works?? But, he pointed out, there was not a single scented candle in the basket. As I drink mostly wine, I donated the beer to the superbowl party yesterday. Now, wasn't that quite a game?? Even a non-football lover like me got a little thrill, particularly when the Who, geezers that they have become, performed at half-time. Yeah, they still got it!!

Now it's my turn to fill this basket to raffle off for tomorrow night's meeting. What a dilemma-on the one hand, it's a perfect opportunity to "re-gift" those things you got for Christmas that you'd never buy yourself and will never use. Scented candles probably being pretty high on the list. I didn't want to try to invent another man basket, even though most of the dive club members are guys. I've pondered this all month. Hey, it's Valentine's Day this weekend, yeah, I know, guys are all over that holiday, only because we make them.

This month I decided to make "Food-in-a-Jar" with a Valentine's slant. Cowgirl cookies from Bakerella with pink M & M's, you gotta love it, Chocolate Cherry Cookies I found at Wheatfoods.org, and last but not least, Cupid Soup! Ok, it's actually called Country Soup in a Jar on allrecipes.com, but I'm going for a Valentine's theme here. At least if a guy wins it-and chances are one will, most of the dive club is male-they do eat cookies and soup.
And just so it doesn't look too manly, I added pink heart tissue and frilly Valentine ribbon. Please overlook the crummy labels, I'm not particularly artistic and the ones Bakerella had I could download didn't print clearly. I probably have a crummy printer, too.

I thought I'd save money and buy the jars at Value Village for .49 each. None had lids. How much could those little lids and rings possibly cost anyway? I don't can, so I've never priced this stuff. The first challenge was finding them. None at Safeway, which is on my way home from work. Ok, Michaels is just up the street. That's a hobby store, surely they'll have them. Zilch. Bi-Mart, a discount membership sort that sells food, clothes, sporting goods, and kitchen supplies. They had them.

In my infinite wisdom, though, I had chosen large mouth jars thinking they'd be easy to fill. First, Bi-Mart had only regular-size lids and second, even the large one are not so easy to fill. I found the damned things at Fred Meyer, four stores and an hour and a half later. What a bargain! I also haven't made any of these, so I can only hope that they're good.

I made a list of all the ingredients and tucked it in, just in case someone is allergic.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Superbowl Fest-Spiced Walnuts, Sweet Pecans (and Bleu Cheese Crisps from last post)

2010-02-06T22:33:00.000-08:00

For Superbowl, the ski buds are making BBQ Pork Rolls and Caesar Salad, so we're providing "extras". I made the Bleu Cheese Pecan Crisps last night (which Ron "taste tested" until there are nearly not enough left to take) and I'm making Spiced Walnuts and Candied Pecans tonight.

Spiced Walnuts

-based on a recipe from Luna Cafe

2 cups walnut halves
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt

Blanch walnuts about 3 minutes in boiling water, drain, then toss with sugar, cayenne, salt mixture. Bake on parchment lined baking sheet in oven at 350 degrees for 20 or more minutes. Watch to make sure they are crisp but don't burn the last few minutes.

Candied Pecans

-based on a recipe from Epicurious

2 cups pecan halves
1 egg white, whisked
1/ 2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt

Whisk egg white until foam, add sugar, spices, and salt. Add pecans; stir until coated. Spread on parchment paper on baking sheet. Bake until deep golden brown, about 35 minutes. Transfer to container; cover, and store at room temperature.

Bleu Cheese Pecan Crisps (& skiing today)

2010-02-05T22:46:00.000-08:00

Rain was in the forecast pretty much all weekend, which really raises the suck factor for skiing, so I didn't sprint out of bed to head up skiing this morning. I kind of oozed out, puttered around the house for a couple of hours before checking the ski report. Did that look like sunshine?? I was definitely sprinting then! I didn't get there until after 1:00 pm but got in a good three hours skiing.

We've had an odd season this year-they got snow early and opened a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, then didn't get any more appreciable snow until January. That early of a season, we are doing other things, so this is only my third time up. As most season pass holders know, you have to show up a certain number of times to make a pass worth the bucks.

Working 4 10's is great, in winter I can ski on Fridays when there are no crowds or lift lines, but has its downside; unless you run into someone you know, you pretty much ride the lifts alone and ski alone. I did ride the lift and ski with ski instructor friends once today. I taught at White Pass for five years before deciding I'd get much more skiing in if I didn't teach, and quit. I've discovered that much of the reason I ski is it's social aspect which I will encounter tomorrow, along with crowds and lift lines.

This recipe comes from a cookbook called "Soup to Nuts" that I believe I bought years back when my kids were in school doing a fundraiser. Everybody I feed them to say they're addicting. Probably helps if you like bleu cheese. I had to take them away from Ron tonight-I made them for Superbowl this Sunday and want some left to take to the party. Might try to post whatever else I decide to take. The Ski-babes and buds have a huge Superbowl party. On the other hand, it's a great time to ski, because if everybody isn't home watching the Superbowl and partying, they're in the lodge watching it and partying, so the slopes are deserted.

Bleu Cheese Pecan Crisps

8 oz. Bleu Cheese
4 oz. unsalted butter
1 egg
1 tsp. finely ground pepper
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1 3/4 cup flour

Cream bleu cheese and butter in bowl. Add egg, pepper, pecans and flour; mix well. Shape into 1 1/2 inch diameter roll; wrap in plastic wrap. Chill for 4 hours to overnight-I'll be honest, I throw these puppies in the freezer for an hour, then pull them out and slice them. Slice 1/4 inch thick, place on ungreased sheet. Bake 425 degrees for 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Makes 4 dozen.

Beef Stir Fry

2010-01-30T20:21:00.000-08:00

This no way pretends to be any kind of traditional oriental stir fry. The ingredients in a stir fry are limited only by the imagination, what's in the refrigerator and cupboard, so it's a moving target, and depends largely on what you have on hand:

Tonight I used:
Olive Oil
About 1 lb. thinly sliced Beef Chuck Steak
6 small cloves minced Garlic
4 Green Onions, sliced in 1 inch pieces
1 Green Pepper, sliced thin
1 cup sliced Mushrooms
1 medium Zucchini, halved and sliced
1 cup chopped Chinese Pea Pods
1/8 cup minced Shallot
1/2 minced Jalapeno
Sesame Oil
Toasted Sesame Seeds

Soy Sauce to taste

Steamed Rice, toasted in ghee before steaming. Toasting the rice adds another depth of flavor; I didn't used to do this, but rarely cook rice without toasting now.

Heat oil in skillet or wok, add garlic and jalapeno and saute slightly. Add beef and stir fry until nearly fully cooked. Salt and pepper to taste. Remove to bowl, add more oil then vegetables, saute until veggies are tender-crisp. Add beef, garlic, and jalapeno back in and stir fry until all are heated through. Scoop rice onto plate, then stir fried meat and vegetables.

Drizzle with Sesame Oil and sprinkle Toasted Sesame seeds before serving.

Last night we watched The Visitor on DVD. I subscribe to Netflix and have a movie queue I won't begin to see in my lifetime and add more movies each week! The Visitor was a fairly dark film depicting a side of life some of us, at least me, are not exposed to. Director Thomas McCarthy.

Trips we have planned this year, that I may or may not write about, depending on what we cook and how interesting they turn out:

February: Mt. Hood, skiing
May: New Orleans-The Big Easy, my dream trip
June: Vegas, Narimasu Class Reunion
July: Reston, VA-Overseas Brat Reunion
Labor Day week-Oregon Coast and Sonoma Wine Country
Last week of December 2010: Victoria, BC

Stuffed Green Peppers

2010-01-30T17:23:00.000-08:00

My Mom made these when I was growing up and I loved them. I have no idea what her recipe was if she even had one, I was too interested in guys and skiing, guys and motorcycles, guys and...well you get the general idea, to be interested in cooking. Mom was a fairly rudimentary cook, the basics and nothing particularly fancy. When she tried to be a bit fancy, it didn't always work, and there were stories in the family about her inedible Christmas Cranberry Salad or Fruitcake that could be used as doorstops.

She was a working Mom, long before it was as commonplace as it is now. She was a college grad-u-ate, about which my Dad, who was not, chided her. Most of my friends' Moms stayed home and made (in my opinion) better and fancier food, but she came home from work and often threw something together with no particular plan.

When I was married and raising 4-yes, 4-male teenage eating machines, I had a dry-erase calendar on the wall to plan the month's meals and make a shopping list, of which Costco played a big part, and a Daytimer to keep track of their band, sports, and scouts schedules, who was dropping off or picking up whom, and I was overjoyed when the oldest started driving, because he wanted to drive so badly he was delighted to take over the kid-delivery duties, although the first few times the kid took off with the rest of my offspring in a hurtling, wheeled instrument of death was quite scary to me.

The only wreck he ever had he was by himself in a 1970-ish Ford Maverick, a gift from my Aunt when she turned 80 and decided to stop driving. It was made of real metal, had a standard transmission, NO power steering or power brakes. Roll-down windows. I thought it was hell to drive, the few times I had to. I did have a CD player installed in it for him. B (I'm not trying to conceal his identity, I do call my kids B, Beej, and T, or the all-encompassing, it could be any of you-Sweetie, and don't get them started on "uh oh, she used the middle name") rear-ended an Infiniti while fiddling (not the word he used at the time, but this blog has no adult content) with the radio volume. The Infiniti was totaled and the Maverick merely needed a new bumper to continue its journeys on life's highways. I think the hood was damaged, but he didn't care, it faithfully rolled him and his siblings whereever they needed to go, and after they left home I sold it to another kid and have no idea if it's still on the road today.

It's just me and one of those boys at home now, with visits from my partner, Ron, so I never go to Costco now, I just don't need that much food. My Mom shopped there, though, nearly until she died, a willing purchaser of mass quantities that we brought to our house during the clean out process of her house . There was so much food, too much to fit into our cupboards so we stacked it on the counter and kitchen floor and categorized it cupboard food, counter food, and floor food. She was a heavy smoker until a week before she died when, on oxygen, I threw her cigs away, afraid she was going to blow her house up, so some of the food smelled so much of smoke that we had to discard it, but what we kept we ate for months. That was in July 2001, and I still miss her every day. She may not have been much of a cook, but she was an incredibly intelligent and loving person, and in retrospect, I am grateful she was spared the agony that was 9-11 that year.

But, I digress; back to the stuffed peppers, they're something of a comfort food that I love but rarely make.

Stuffed Green Peppers

4 green peppers, tops cut off, seeds and veins removed
1 lb. ground beef
1 cup cooked rice
1/2 onion, chopped
1 egg
a couple tablespoons of ketchup
garlic salt and pepper to taste

Combine beef and the rest of the ingredients and press into prepared peppers. Bake at 400 degrees for 1 hour. Eat!

Sausage & Parmesan Meatballs in Tomato Sauce

2010-01-22T22:26:00.000-08:00

I have no idea where this recipe came from, I've made it forever, my kids always loved it, and it was a great meal to have after skiing today:

Meatballs (this recipe is doubled, because my family devours these like starving carnivores).

2 lbs. Sausage (your choice: Italian, Jimmy Dean, Hot, Medium, Regular, Sage)
1 cup crushed cracker crumbs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan Cheese
1/2 cup chopped parsley
2 eggs

Shape into meatballs; these were about 1 1/2 inch diameter. Bake 30 minutes in 400 degree oven. Back when the kids were growing up, I just plunked them into the sauce and cooked them for 30 minutes, but baking them makes the dish less greasy so, presumably, healthier.

Sauce
1 28 oz.can tomato sauce
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
2-3 Tablespoons Chili Powder (to taste-I'm still trying to figure out ways to use up several jars of Chili Powder-previous buzz!)
1/2 cup chopped Parsley
Lotsa minced garlic (the recipe calls for 1 clove-why bother? I used 4, because garlic is life)

1 lb. your choice of Pasta, cooked al dente.

Apparently I haven't bought pasta on sale for a while, because all I had in the cupboard was whole wheat thin spaghetti. No penne, no farfalle. But it worked, smelled, tasted, and ate the same.

Brian, the smiling omnivore piles on the parmesan:

Tortilla Soup

2010-01-17T18:57:00.000-08:00

I fell in love with Tortilla Soup in Mexico at the end of the year. I mean really good, authentic Mexican food, not Taco Bell or El something-or-other in the states. So I've been searching for recipes and it seems like there are as many recipes for Tortilla Soup as there are cooks! I chose one from that had fried tortilla strips in it, not crumbled corn chips. Then I just sort of "averaged" the ingredients, but will credit basic recipe to Bigoven.

Most recipes called for chicken breast, but I had thighs, so that's what I used:

4 chicken thighs
Olive oil
4 cloves minced garlic
1/2 chopped yellow onion
1 minced jalapeno-seeds and veins removed for less heat, I seeded 1/2

Cover chicken with water and add seasonings: Cumin, chili powder, cayenne, thyme, rosemary, salt and pepper to taste. Boil until chicken is well done, then shred chicken, reserving stock.

Saute garlic and onion in olive oil and add to stock.
Add 32 oz. chicken broth
1 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes (I used fire-roasted diced tomatoes)

Heat while cooking the tortilla strips:

Cut tortillas in half, then into 1/4" strips. Fry in oil until crisp and drain on paper towel.

Place fried tortilla strips, cheese and avocado in the bottom of bowl, then cover with soups. Add more tortillas strips and cheese if desired. Squeeze lime on top and add cilantro.

Garnishes:
Shredded Cheese
Chopped Cilantro
Sliced Dried Peppers
Avocado
Lime Slices

Other things that can be added, limited only to your imagination:

Corn Kernels
Black Beans

My New Teapot and Favorite Tea Spot

2010-01-16T12:02:00.000-08:00

I rarely drink coffee, only if I get really groggy in the afternoon at work, which isn't all that rare, because I'm a night owl who has to get up about 4:50 to get to work by 6:00 am. So out of necessity I will drink coffee, but I am a tea lover. Not that stuff you get from the grocery store in bags that is probably scraped off the floor after the manufacturing process and tastes like, well, tea bag. I have bought half a dozen boxes of this stuff when we travel, use one or two bags, then the remainder sits in the cupboard, rejected. I like loose teas and my fave spot to buy them is Treasures and Teas-102 5th Ave S. in Edmonds, WA.

For Christmas, Ron bought me this Primula tea pot and some Primula Green Tea with Jasmine "flowers". I've always used a metal mesh tea ball or tea infuser; this one is made of glass. The difference is immediately noticeable, using glass instead of metal, and far better.
Check Primula website for products. Another benefit of the glass infuser is that the tea can be made in the microwave, although I choose water boiled on the stove. Did you know you should boil the water (but do not overboil, as this depletes oxygen from the water), remove it from the heat for 30-60 seconds before adding to the teapot.Boiling water can burn the tea leaves and give tea a bitter taste.
According to the package, this tea is grown in the Fujian province in southeast China and hand-sewn into flowers by artisans there. When steaming hot water is poured over them, they open up into lovely flowers and produce a fragrant, tasty amber colored tea. Heavenly! Each tea flower can be used 2-3 times.

Back to the tea shop: I love their selection, rows of jars that you can open and take a sniff, and Carla, the owner, is friendly and knowledgeable and often gives me a couple samples with my purchase. She was delighted to know I was writing about the shop in my blog! My favorite teas are Market Spice (made popular as Pike Place Market Spice), Misty Thursday, Midnight in Missoula, and just so they don't all begin with M, Sassafrass, a very sassy citrus-licorice flavored tea.

They have a marvelous selection of traditional and quirky teapots. I have this kitty-cat one in lime green. I nearly bought a less whimsical one, but my best friend advised me to buy one that would put a smile on my face in the mornings! This hand-carved dragon teapot is made of stone, and quite heavy. Carla said its price would be around $500.00. I don't believe I'll be the one who owns it...

Wow! A French Fry Cutter

2010-01-14T19:41:00.000-08:00

Look at this thing; we had one of these when I was a kid. I found it at Ron's house, ~~probably a remnant from his former marriage, because he sure hasn't used it since I've known him~~. He told me he actually bought this (where did he find it?) because they had one when he was a kid...! It slices in two different sizes, thick and thin. Probably you could cut other veggies with it-Jicama? Carrots? Cheese? Ok, I know, cheese is not a vegetable, but it might work.

The one I grew up with didn't have interchangeable size parts, one size-slice only, and I don't remember my family ever using the one we had. If you're going to own a kitchen gadget, for heaven's sake, use it!

Ron bought a set of tongs after I met him because I bitched about not having any over here when I am cooking and having to "fork" things, he's a complete sweetie :)

So instead of potato wedges, I used the fry cutter to make oven fries tonight.It cuts long thin potatoes far better than round short ones, they just get stuck and you have to work to force them through.

Again, no real recipe, cut up the potatoes, toss in olive oil, season however you like, and bake at 400 degrees for 20-30 minutes, until browned and tender.

Don't Sweat the Petty Stuff

2010-01-14T15:57:00.000-08:00

I was off work the last two days with a sore throat, it's raining in the mountains so the suck factor for skiing is off the charts, Ron wasn't sure he could come over (he lives in Seattle-the wet side-and I live in Central Washington-we met three years ago online) due to his work schedule, so rather than pout about not skiing (yes, I could ski in the rain but it takes a lot of the fun out of it) and the possibility of not seeing Ron for the weekend, I decided to drive over to his place for the holiday weekend. Normally in winter, I ski and he drives over to the dry side.

I texted him that me and the bird-Bruno, who is female, but I didn't know that when I got her until she laid eggs last summer-were on the way over. I feel like kind of an eccentric old maid traveling with the bird, but if I leave her, she's totally neurotic when I get home. He texted back to ignore the mess in the kitchen and the rest of the house, for that matter. Hmmm, so he lives like a slob when I'm not around...I entered the house cautiously, expecting to find Armageddon. Gee, the bed wasn't made and there were like six dishes and a bunch of silverware in the sink. It took me all of five minutes to clean it up, then I popped some beef short ribs in to boil and will bake them with barbecue sauce and do some oven baked fries before he gets home.

So what about the petty stuff? I've been reading "Food for Thought" written by Brittany in Texas, whose beloved passed away less than two years after they were married and in one post she said she would have paid less attention to the petty stuff. I'm paraphrasing, but it got me thinking about the stuff I nag this guy about. I've been married and divorced three times, both of us have been single about 10 years (and not unhappily), and before I met Ron, I can't say I believed in love, or love at first sight, or soul mates. I believe in them all now, from the moment I met him.

So what do I nag him about? He's a total packrat and I'm not, and I've told him I don't want to buy a house big enough to house all his crap. Alot of it is even his kids' crap. He understands that and is willing to part with some of it, but some of the things he wants to keep-I think are just dumb. His first computer. Probably he's had six since then, like the rest of us, but apparently this one really means something to him; I think he had to fight his ex-at that time first-wife to buy it. Double-dumb. But after reading Brittany's account, I decided this was indeed a petty thing. Let him keep the damn computer, shove it in a closet somewhere, and get on with living our life. Thanks, Brittany, for the insight. I'm nearly twice your age and don't mind learning a lesson from a younger babe!

The dinner is pretty simple; I seldom cook anything difficult, unlike EatLiveTravelWrite, who has spent the last few weeks doing battle with macaroons, her accounts of which I have thoroughly enjoyed. Boil spare ribs until they're tender, about 2 hours. Slather them in Tony Roma's bbq sauce, which is mercifully available at Safeway, since there is no TR in Yakima. Probably to qualify as a food blog, I should invent a bbq sauce, but I'm not doing it tonight! Bake until they're sticky and gooey.

Slice potatoes into wedges, coat with olive oil and seasonings-at Ron's house, that will likely be garlic salt and pepper, maybe some paprika, because he doesn't have near the spice collection that I do (he sometimes cooks with cream of something soups-GASP!!), and bake until tender, about 20 minutes. I'll post photos after he gets home, because I can't find his camera. He doesn't take it to work, does he?

Edamame Salad

2010-01-09T23:34:00.000-08:00

I have this cookbook; my kids gave to me for Christmas many years ago, probably 12 or more. It has sheet protectors in it that I've inserted recipes for years, and recently I started using 4 x 6 photo protectors and printing recipes on 4 x 6 cards because I can put in 6 recipes per two-sided page .The process of typing and printing will probably take me several years!

I love the computer age, though, because I can print the recipe with a photo on it that shows what the recipe looks like - or should look like anyway.

I have an Edamame Salad recipe in it that I printed out, but I don't remember where it came from, so I can't credit the original creator. I've made several changes to it judging from my hand-written notes on it.

Edamame Salad

1 lb. frozen shelled edamame, cooked according to package directions
3 cups frozen corn
1 cup chopped bell pepper
2-3 cloves minced garlic
3/4 cup sliced green onion
1/4 cup crumbled Feta cheese

Dressing
Whisk together
1/3 cup lemon juice (try to use fresh, although the stuff in the lemon shaped container works ok)
2 T Dijon mustard
2 T olive oil
Minced fresh parsley
Minced fresh cilantro
salt and pepper to taste

The finished result, with lamb chops cooked on a grill pan with olive oil, garlic and rosemary, my favorite--Yummmm.

As a sad side-note, I believe this is among maybe the top three dumbest things I have ever read on the info super-highway: Soy is making kids gay This guy is apparently a minister of some sort.

Parmesan Lace Crackers

2010-01-09T16:31:00.000-08:00

I've made these forever and fried them in a skillet. Recently I discovered this recipe for Parmesan Tuiles on FoodBuzz, that said to bake them on parchment paper. WOW! I'm never frying these guys again! Not only is it preposterously easier, they turn out uniformly cooked, and I think, a little crispier. This one is fried:

My recipe is a bit different than the one above, as I add chopped sage to mine.

Parmesan Lace Crackers

2 cups grated parmesan cheese. By the way, buy a block and grate your own, do not use that dessicated stuff in the green can or I'll have to come and find you!

1/4 cup chopped sage. Use fresh is you have it, although I used dried sage from my garden because my plant is currently covered with snow.

Drop about 4 tablespoons in a mound onto a parchment covered baking sheet, scrape the stragglers into the main pile and flatten slightly. I did six per baking sheet.

Bake at 400 degrees for 5-6 minutes. Remove from oven and cool slightly to set.

Parchment paper an item I've only recently discovered that is a wonder-invention from heaven, and I don't know how I ever lived without it, or why it took me so long to break down and buy a box of it. It's not even expensive, nothing sticks to it, and it makes cleanup practically a non-issue.

And just for giggles, you can read about the history of Parmesan on Wikipedia.

More Than Grandma's Potato Soup

2010-01-04T22:16:00.000-08:00

My Grandmother made great potato soup, which was especially good when we were sick. Thick, rich goodness. When I had my tonsils out, you know they promised you all the ice cream you could eat, and you really didn't want to eat anything. She made some potato soup, ran it through a blender, and saved my life! Ok, that's probably a little melodramatic, but it is a good memory. I've blogged about her cooking before. I took her recipe consisting of crisp bacon, potatoes, chopped onion, milk, salt and pepper, added some corn from the freezer, a shredded carrot, and cilantro. I make soups on Sunday night for my lunches, and I'm looking forward to this all week!

Recipe

5 strips of bacon, fried crisp and crumbled
About 5 medium peeled diced potatoes
1/2 onion, diced
1 large grated carrot
Water to cover

Boil until the potatoes are nearly soft (I like it chunky, cook longer if you like a smoother consistency).
Add 1 cup of frozen corn
Stir in 1 cup of milk (or cream)
1/2 cup of chopped cilantro

My grandmother added about 1/2 stick of butter and stirred til it melted, but things like fat content and cholesterol let me add about a tablespoon!

I apologize for my photos, Ron isn't here this week and I have a crummy camera. I have hinted but Santa didn't bring one. He did bring me this, though:

This gadget aerates red wine. We discovered these in use when visiting Napa Valley last February and doing way too much tasting. This is for red wine. I drink mostly whites, and Ron felt rather bad. He said he looked all over the package and didn't see where it said that anywhere.That's actually what that circle at the bottom right says, but we have friends who do drink red, so we'll get the use of it.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-03T13:15:00.000-08:00

I've been told I'm Irish/Welsh all my life and, being Irish, we have Corned Beef and Cabbage on New Years Day for a prosperous and healthy year. I've been working on my family tree on Ancestry.com since fall and haven't found any Irish or Welsh ancestors, some Scottish and German, but so far, no Irish, but I still love corned beef and cabbage, although we had it on January 2nd because we were in Mexico for the holidays and flew back on New Years Day.

It's a simple enough recipe; corned beef comes sealed in plastic with a seasoning packet. Just place the corned beef brisket in a large, deep pan, add the seasonings, cover with water and cook for about 2 hours. Remove from the pan, trim off the fat if you prefer, quarter the cabbage and steam in the liquid in the pan until tender-crisp and remove. I make corned beef sandwiches with Jewish Rye bread and horseradish, the hotter the better.

Happy New Year!

As for Mexico, we read an article about how English movie titles don't always translate across well: (http://www.virtualvallarta.com/puertovallarta/read/readshopping/whats-in-a-name-anyway.shtml), so the movie title "Grease" is "Vaseline", and "Dumb and Dumber" as "Dos Idiots".

Speaking of Dos Idiots:

Too many Margaritas, I admit, and later told my honey I don't want to do any more tours where we end the evening dancing to "YMCA" and disco we disliked 30 years ago, as this one did. It was the fiesta at Las Palmas, Puerto Vallarta, the music, food, and entertainment wonderful, until the disco started. They could leave that out. And we recommend Pipi's in town-bucket sized Margaritas and totally great food and service.

Egg Nog French Toast

2009-12-28T18:19:00.000-08:00

This isn't my post or my recipe, but I'm passing it on because of a conversation my partner and I had Christmas Eve. He was making the traditional-for him and his kids and spouses-Christmas morning breakfast. Bacon, sausage, a strata, pancakes, and french toast, some kind of store-bought pancake syrup. Strawberries. I asked, "so, how do you make french toast?" He answered, "the way my mother did, mix eggs and milk together, dip the bread in it and fry it." Now I promise, I did not roll my eyes, snarl, curl my upper lip in disgust, or in any way dishonor his late mother. I said nothing (hey, it's his family tradition, I wouldn't mess with it).

Ron is a wonderful, rudimentary cook; meat and potatoes, rice and (god help him) Campbell's cream of something soup (about which I do roll my eyes, snarl, etc.), BUT-I point this out-he does cook, and adheres to (my) rule that the one who doesn't cook cleans up. And he endures endless taste tests of the recipes I'm experimenting with. Who could ask for more? Except perhaps for a more interesting french toast, in this circumstance.

About a half hour later , he asked me "so, how do you make french toast?" I told him I make a batter of egg, milk, flour, powdered sugar, vanilla, dip the bread in and fry it. He had heard of using vanilla, but I suppose he made it his traditional way Christmas morning. We had so much other food, I didn't try the pancakes (if someone has a great pancake recipe to share, let me know-I just don't like the things-I mix chocolate chips in with waffles to tolerate them) or french toast.

So thanks, Paula, these look and sound delicious, and I hope to try them soon. Thanks for the post: Egg Nog French Toast

Things I wish I'd thought of

2009-12-09T21:54:00.000-08:00

I got this in an email:

This was in Pennsylvania:

"Good news is that I truly out did myself this year with my Christmas decorations. The bad news is that I had to take him down after 2 days. I had more people come screaming up to my house than ever. Great stories. But several things made me take it down.

First, the cops advised me that it would cause traffic accidents 'cuz they almost wrecked when they drove by.

Second, a 55 year old lady grabbed the 75 pound ladder and almost killed herself putting it against my house! She didn't realize it was fake until she climbed to the top (she was not happy). By the way, she was one of many people who attempted to do that.

Lastly, my yard couldn't take it either. I have more than a few tire tracks where people literally drove up my yard in an effort to "help".

Happy Holidays.

Travel Channel Travel Bug Sweepstakes

2009-12-06T21:55:00.001-08:00

Corn Pudding

2009-12-06T17:44:00.000-08:00

I was looking for a simple corn pudding recipe for a holiday potluck, which I found on all recipes.com. I made some changes, used one less egg, added chopped veggies for color and flavor, and I have a somewhat slow oven, so inserted a knife at one hour and cooked it 20 minutes more. But I wanted to give credit for the basic recipe to the original cook :)

4 eggs
1/3 cup melted butter
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
4 tablespoons cornstarch
1 15.25 ounce can whole kernel corn
1 14.75 ounce cans cream-style corn
1/4 cup chopped scallion (which I hadn't used before and found more potent than a regular onion)
1/4 cup chopped jalapeno (seeds and veins removed it you want less heat)
1/4 cup chopped roasted sweet bell pepper strips

Preheat the oven to 400 and oil a 2 quart casserole dish.

Whisk the eggs lightly in a large mixing bowl, add melted butter, sugar, milk. Mix in cornstarch, whole kernel and cream-style corn. Add the chopped vegetables and mix well. Pour into prepared casserole.

Check for doneness by inserting a knife in the center. It should come out clean, otherwise continue baking and check until it does. Voila!

Sausage, Feta & Sage Pasties

2009-11-21T19:09:00.000-08:00

My grandmother made pasties, a pasta with mashed potato and cheese filling that, as most Grandma's cooking is, a warm memory from my childhood. She made it look easy to make them, as she did everything she cooked. She really did! I wish I'd bothered to write down more of her recipes when she was alive, because I can't duplicate many of them now, even with the Internet as a resource. I got to thinking lately that these pasties can be filled with other things, so I cooked up these-sausage and sage pasties, because I grow sage and love both sausage and sage. The pasta, though, is the recipe I got from Grandma

2 cups flour
2 tsp minced fresh sage
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
3 eggs + 1 for brushing pasties
2 T olive oil
Water as needed to make dough workable

1 pound Jimmy Dean or other sage sausage
3/4 cup feta cheese
1/2 cup chopped green onion

Olive oil
Roughly chopped fresh sage
Pepper, optional

Combine dry ingredients; flour minced sage, salt, and baking powder. Lightly beat 3 eggs. Make a well in the dry ingredients and add eggs and 1 tablespoon olive oil. With your hands, or a fork, combine all ingredients until soft dough forms.

Put dough on flour covered cloth and knead until all ingredients are well blended. Brush with the remaining olive oil, wrap in plastic wrap and let set for 30 minutes. Bring a large pan of lightly salted water to a boil to cook pasties in.

While the dough rests, brown 1 pound of sausage, remove from heat, stir in feta cheese and chopped green onions and set aside.

If you have a pasta machine, run pasta through it until it's very thin, 1/8 inch. Otherwise, roll out on flour covered cloth until it's 1/8 inch thick. Using biscuit cutter, cut 3-inch circles. Brush with the remaining beaten egg. Put about 1 tablespoon of the sausage-feta-onion mixture in the center, fold over and press edges with a fork to seal.

Drop pasties into the boiling water and cook for about 2 minutes, remove with slotted spoon, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle on roughly chopped sage, add freshly ground pepper to taste if you wish. Eat while hot.

Browning the sausage while the pasta rests saves time. I read online that this makes the gluten relax, but learned by trial that if you skip this step and try to roll out the dough, it springs right back and so, is much harder to shape.

You could probably use any other kind of cheese, I love feta, and it goes so well with these ingredients.

I also use this pasta to make wide egg noodles, which in our family is the only thing you can use in Turkey Noodle soup after Thanksgiving. My brother once used store noodles and nobody would eat it. We sat and stared at it like he was feeding us dog food.

Sage is a great plant. I can still pick it even though it's November and we've had some freezes. The leaves, either fresh or dried, I use in dishes year-round. My cockatiel, Bruno (a female, but we didn't know that until she laid eggs) loves sage, too:

More Fall Comfort Food - Corn Fritters

2009-11-14T15:21:00.000-08:00

My Mom made these when I was growing up, and they are the only thing I can think of that's deep fried that I still eat. I tore this page out of her recipe book after she passed away:

Looking at all the dripples and stains on it, it was a well-loved recipe!

Corn Fritters

1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsps salt
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk
2 cups fresh or frozen corn
1/4 cup chopped green onion

Combine dry ingredients and set aside. Combine beaten eggs with milk, add to flour mixture and stir until smooth. Fold in corn and green onion.

Drop from tablespoon into oil or shortening (gasp!!) heated to 350-375 degrees.

Fry until golden brown. These are rather fun to watch because when they are brown on one side, they turn themselves over to cook on the other.

Sometimes they will split open and grow little "appendages". If the oil is too hot, they will cook on the outside and be gooey on the inside. Lift out with slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.

I added a dab-a couple of tablespoons-of chopped jalapeno to this batch, but my kids, who grew up eating these and love them, too, said they didn't taste any different, so I didn't add it to the ingredients.

Ghee

2009-11-14T13:37:00.000-08:00

I haven’t made ghee for a couple of years, you know, life gets busy, you let things slide, but this is one thing I shouldn’t have ignored. The recipe is ridiculously easy, but you do have to keep and eye on it.

Ingredients:

1/2 – 1 lb. unsalted butter

You can find a lot of directions for this online-most of them probably work.

Melt the butter in a sauce pan on medium-low heat-it depends on your stove. It will begin to boil-actually, it can get quite explosive at first, then it settles down to serious business.

Don’t stir, but allow it to continue to cook 20 to 30 minutes. It will develop a foam on the top and the solids will sink and start to brown. This is where you should watch it, if it starts to burn, you won’t have that golden delicious flavor and aroma! You have to kind of get a feel for when it’s done. I read in one post that it should smell like fresh-baked croissants-that’s a pretty good description.

Remove from heat and let cool for half an hour. Line a strainer with 4-5 thicknesses of cheesecloth; strain into sterilized jar. It does not need refrigeration.

This is what's left in the pan:

This Is It

2009-11-07T23:41:00.001-08:00

If, like me, you were a Michael Jackson fan, back then, but thought he had a fairly legendary-abnormal upbringing in the showbiz limelight with substantial authoritarian discipline, made some very bad decisions, and was pretty damned weird in his later years, go watch this show. It's well worth seeing; whatever was or was not true about his personal life, and no matter what anyone thought of him, his talent was phenomenal, and this film shows Michael's human side, not the side the media cooked and showered us with. I don't think my partner, Ron, particularly cared for him or his music, he went because I wanted to see it, and said he was glad he did because the movie was an insight into how incredible that concert would have been but never will be. I cried at the end. Like many ultra-talented performers, he had a tragic streak of self-destruction that cut his life short. What a waste...

Sometimes it just doesn't work...

2009-11-07T22:45:00.000-08:00

Kahlua and Saveur have a recipe contest I thought I'd enter, so I made "Kahlua and Orange Mini Muffins". The recipe was pretty simple, basic muffins from my ages-old recipe file so I don't know who to credit:

6 T unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups flour
1/3 c sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 egg at room temperature, beaten

I reduced the milk to 1/2 cup and added 1/4 cup Kahlua
I replaced the vanilla with 1/w tsp orange extract

Bake 375 degrees for about 12 minutes. They looked pretty good (excuse the crappy photo, I'm hoping for a new camera and better photo-taking skills for Christmas!):

but, alas, I forgot to put the sugar in, so I slathered them with a melted butter/sugar mixture and some chopped toasted walnuts. They just didn't work. The kids (my three adult male children, ages 26-28) ate them, don't ever get the impression that they outgrow the "eating machine" stage when they exit the teen years, they still are, but these weren't so good. I'm re-thinking my recipe entry ideas...

By the way, check out Saveur's other contests and sweepstakes, lots of fun to be had.

Salud!

Fall Comfort Food, Or --

2009-11-07T17:02:00.000-08:00

The only reason in the world I would buy Velveeta cheese!

Toasted Cheese Sanwiches with Tomato Soup

Really, I think Velveeta (how did they come up with that moniker, anyway?) cheese is junk, but in the fall, one of my comfort foods is toasted cheese sammies and tomato soup. It's been blustery here all day and will probably rain tonight. I thought I could hear it raining hard, but it turned out to be "Dream Aquarium" on my laptop!! Too warm to snow, which, being an avid skier, I would look forward to, but cold windy, rainy weather - bah!! I still have sage growing out front, though, and need to think of something to do with it before it freezes. Suggestions welcome...

Back to the subject, I do make toasted cheese sandwiches with Velveeta cheese. It melts fast and well in seconds for a gooey tomato soup dipping delight. I didn't really feel like cooking tonight, so I cheated and used Campbells:

Pickled Beets, My Way

2009-11-02T20:22:00.000-08:00

I grabbed some beets at the store this weekend, too. After cleaning them up, I boil them until nearly tender, about an hour. When they're cool enough to handle, the peels slip right off, then I trim the greens and root ends and slice them about 1/4 inch thick. You can also add sliced onions to this. Then I cover with half vinegar/half reserved beet liquid and refrigerate overnight at least. I sprinkle a little coarse-ground sea salt on just before eating. (I recall seeing a recipe where you put boiled eggs in this same liquid, but haven't tried it. I'm not sure it sounds very appetizing, maybe someone can advise me??)

Mmmm, Brussels Sprouts

2009-11-02T19:03:00.000-08:00

After reading this on Foodbuzz a few weeks ago, I got a craving for Brussels Sprouts, so I picked some up this weekend. I steam them until they're nearly tender, then transfer them to a heated skillet with olive oil, the good, aromatic kind. After tossing them around in the oil for a bit, I added some basalmic vinegar, squeezed on some fresh lemon and added dried dill I harvested this fall and a little salt. My craving has been fulfilled!

My Spicy Cornbread

2009-10-31T20:19:00.001-07:00

This is the basic Albers Cornbread recipe:

1 cup Albers cornmeal
1 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Mix dry ingredients together, set aside.

1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 egg

Whisk milk, oil, and egg together, add to dry ingredients and stir until just blended.

However, I add chipotle pepper in adobo, frozen corn and cheese, so I call it my own.

2-3 Tablespoons chipotle peppers in adobo, minced
1 cup grated colby jack or cheddar cheese
1 cup frozen corn kernels

Pour into greased 8" x 8" baking dish or greased muffin tins.

Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes until well browned.

I'd like to thank Norfolk Cooking Examiner for this discussion on Northern vs. Southern Cornbread: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-4180-Norfolk-Cooking-Examiner~y2009m10d19-Northern-cornbread-versus-Southern-cornbread-with-add-in-ideas, because my family is Southern and I like the drier, less sweet version of cornbread.

It's hard to make "original" chili...

2009-10-31T19:22:00.000-07:00

Four Bean Chili

3/4 cup small white beans
3/4 cup small red beans
3/4 cup pinto beans
3/4 cup pink beans

Sort over and rinse (these are "agricultural products") to remove any stones and dirt. Cover with water and soak overnight.

1 1/2-2 lbs. ground beef, ground sirloin, chili or stew meat
1 medium onion, chopped
1 large jalapeno pepper, minced
cloves of garlic to taste (lots), minced

2-3 Tablespoons chili powder
1 Tablespoon garlic salt
salt and pepper to taste

Salt and pepper to taste, cook beans on medium low heat.
28 oz. crushed tomato in puree
16 oz. "Fiesta style" frozen vegetables

Meantime, brown ground beef, chili meat, ground sirloin, stew or chili meat in frying pan on medium heat. Add chopped onion, jalapeno, garlic and garlic salt. Cook until most or all grease is evaporated. Add to cooking beans. Add crushed canned tomatoes. Cook for 1-2 hours until beans are tender.

Stir in frozen vegetables. Serve with cornbread.

Crab Scramble

2009-10-21T21:20:00.000-07:00

I found crab on sale at Safeway for half-price last week and bought 4 of the little darlings.

We spent the evening cooking, cleaning, and “picking” (we’re pickers, we don’t eat the crab until it’s all out of the shell. We then feasted on crab, just crab, no sides, dipped in melted butter. Yum.

But there was a lot left…The next night I made Louisiana Deviled Crab Cakes found at Epicurious: They were delicious, but we still had a lot of crab left.

So I put them in scrambled eggs the next day. Just a couple of eggs, milk, chopped green pepper and green onion, threw a little Monterey Jack cheese and crumbled bacon on at the end.

And we still had crab cakes again the next day! Maybe next time I find it on sale, I won’t buy so much :)