Sunday, November 30, 2008
Plenty to Go Around
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Turkey - It Ain't Like Momma Made It
And then he scoured the ads to find all the good deals and took a nap in front of the heater.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Sweet Potato Fries (or Steak Fries) and Pumpkin Parfaits
So we are going to keep eating "fall" foods until either Kevin demands that we give them up until next year, or else I get tired of them.
New Height in Crazy Holiday Shopping
I am keeping the hippo for myself.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
The Salad that Pleased an Engineer
Monday, November 24, 2008
Thanksgiving Trivia
(This card is designed by the fabulous Kara. Gobble, gobble)
"Indians are marginalized in this civic ritual. Our archetypal image of the first Thanksgiving portrays the groaning boards in the woods, with the Pilgrims in their starched Sunday best and the almost naked Indian guests. Thanksgiving silliness reaches some sort of zenith in the handouts that school children have carried home for decades, with captions like, "They served pumpkins and turkeys and corn and squash. The Indians had never seen such a feast!" When his son brought home this "information" from his New Hampshire elementary school, Native American novelist Michael Dorris pointed out "the Pilgrims had literally never seen `such a feast,' since all foods mentioned are exclusively indigenous to the Americas and had been provided by [or with the aid of] the local tribe."
"It is painful to advert to these things. But our forefathers, though wise, pious, and sincere, were nevertheless, in respect to Christian charity, under a cloud; and, in history, truth should be held sacred, at whatever cost."
As a fellow seeker of truth, I wish I had access to more unfiltered truth. And that truth wouldn't use such big words.....I had to break out the dictionary for 'advert'.
The Burger that Lasted Forever
(more to come in the coming weeks)
Bi-Polar Pancakes
Here they are, ready to go into the oven.
And here they are right after they came out. I had to open the oven door and snap the picture because they fell so fast that I would miss it if I took the time to take the pan out of the oven first. They have already gone down quite a bit.
Bi Polar Pancakes
1 cup milk
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (or all purpose flour)
6 eggs
1/4 cup melted butter
dash salt
Blend everything with a stick blender and pour into cups, muffin tins, or a 9 X 13 pan. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Bloody Celebration
Walleye Appetizer
Buried in Treasures
I also have a shelf of pants.....
And three more drawers full of shirts. And sweaters. And camis. And long sleeved T-shirts.
I will save you from a picture of my underwear drawer. Actually, I have to do laundry today or else I will have no underwear to wear tomorrow. And absolutely, no matter what, I will not wear dirty underwear. So if I skip church tomorrow, you know why.
Although I whole heartedly disagree with the theory of retail therapy, I often find myself sorting through a clearance rack at Kohls, and traipsing home with a bag of clothes I don't need. Even though everything cost less than $4, I don't think I can afford to get anything else. Where will I put it? More importantly, what hole am I trying to fill with all this stuff?
There is no room for more amongst all my junk. Actually, the things I have aren't junk - I have a lot of very nice things. They could even be called treasures. The problem is that nothing I own gets truly appreciated simply because of the sheer volume of my possessions.
Sometimes I look at all my stuff and think of the pirate movies with a huge cave full of gold. No one person could ever realistically use all of it. Some greedy pirate stashed it all there just so that nobody else could get their greedy paws on it, and there it sits, doing nobody any good.
What I need is a friend who will come over and watch me try on everything I own. Then help me choose what to get rid of and what to keep. And I will go do the same for her. Seriously, I read a book about decluttering and it suggested that everyone have between 5-8 shirts and 2-3 pants, all of which coordinate. Ha! I can't even begin to imagine how to get to that point.
Bean and Ham and Bean Soup
A ham bone had been sitting in the fridge for a few days, and I had promised that I would use it, and demanded that I absolutely did not want it thrown out. So I finally decided that I would have to make good on my promise and make some soup. It was about 9 PM when I started.
Drat! We were out of white beans. Oh, wait! There was one bag hiding at the bottom of the bean pile in the freezer. It was 2 pounds, and the recipe I had called for just 1 pound, but I used the whole thing anyways. After all, soup is very tolerant to tweaking.
Then I brought the beans to a boil, rinsed them off, and threw everything into a crock pot. At noon the next day Kevin emailed, "This has got to be the best Bean and Ham soup I have ever had. Got to go get more... Bye!" I smiled when I read it. He's the best. And he was right - it was "bean and ham" and not "ham and bean." There were a whole lot more beans than ham. It's healthier that way.
If you have a bunch of friends, it would be great to invite them over for this. The soup is good and all, but ham and bean soup just isn't something you eat as leftovers for days on end. Or, if you ARE the kind of person to do that, nobody else probably wants to be around you much. And they probably call you "Stinky Stinker" behind your back.
Ham and Bean Soup in the Crock Pot
8 C water
1-2 pounds white beans, sorted and rinsed
1 T lemon juice
1 T honey - optional
1 bay leaf
1 handful of food storage onions (or 1 onion chopped)
1 ham bone with a bit of meat on it
1-2 C chopped cooked ham
Rinse and sort the beans, then throw them in a pot with a teaspoon of baking soda. Bring it to a boil, then rinse the beans. Then rinse them again. Get 'em good and extra rinsed. Then add everything to the crock pot and let it cook on low either overnight or all day, up to 12 hours. Remove the bay leaf before serving.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
All for a Quarter
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Sweet Potato and Chocolate Pumpkin Pie With Marla
The pies are finally in the oven.
Chocolate Pumpkin Pie
In a large bowl, beat eggs with a whisk until slightly foamy, about 1 minute. Whisk in all the remaining ingredients, except the milk, and beat until smooth. Then gently whisk in the milk. Pour the pumpkin pie filling into the crust and bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes, until pumpkin filling is set.Cool completely in the pan before slicing and serving.
Preheat oven to 350F. Press sweet potato puree through a wire strainer to make it as smooth as possible, adding a tablespoon or two of water if you are working with leftover potatoes to make them a bit more pliable.In the bowl of a food processor, combine all ingredients except the flour, and whiz until smooth. Add in flour and pulse the food processor a few times until it is fully incorporated.Pour filling into pie crust. Place the pie crust on a baking sheet and place baking sheet on the middle rack of a preheated oven. Bake for 50-55 minutes, until pie is set and jiggles only very slightly when the pan is bumped.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Banananana Muffins
BUT NO MORE.
If you don't have any soft wheat or whole wheat pastry flour, go ahead and use regular whole wheat flour. Or, if Armageddon is upon us, use white flour. (Just don't tell me about it.)
There must have been SOMETHING wrong with it, I couldn't eat it.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Phenomenal Lentil Soup
to which I replied, "And who'd a thunk that it was super healthy, too!"
He responded, "No kidding, I still don't believe that."
Here is the pot of soup right before I added the kale.
And here it is when it is finished and screaming to be scooped into your bowl and eaten just as quickly as possible.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Sad Day for Stable Relationships
Although I feel that homosexuality is wrong, I feel that it is more wrong to discourage stable relationships. And I think it is horrendous for any church to try to be so influential in the national government. I certainly hope Islam doesn't start legislating its' beliefs.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out --Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out --Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out --Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
American No Matter What
Sunday, November 2, 2008
The Spell Has Been Broken
The pie is great. I was too leery of spending a lot of time on cute little pie-lets, so I opted for one big pie the second time. It isn't as cute, but it is a lot less work. And many fewer tears will be shed it it doesn't taste good.
Now that we made a pie from scratch, next time I will buy the pumpkin puree in a can and be done with it. That one step will take the pie from an all afternoon event into a 1/2 hour breeze. And it will be just as good. It you are looking for something fun to do with your family, making a pie from an actual pumpkin might be a fun family activity.
3/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
2 eggs
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin (or 2 cups if roasting the pumpkin yourself)
1 (12 fluid ounce) can Evaporated Milk
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Combine sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves in small bowl. Beat eggs lightly in large bowl. Stir in pumpkin and sugar-spice mixture. Gradually stir in evaporated milk. Pour into pie shell.
Bake for 50to 60 minutes or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. Dive in and eat it all before anyone else tries to come and try it.