...and how did she forget the taters?

As MotherMe noted....the cranberry bread recipe is nice, but ya left out the potato casserole recipe.

Well, yes.

There was sort of a reason I did, though.

I am not a fan of pre-packaged anything.  Sure, I admit, I use cake mixes from time to time.  There's a coffee cake that I make which can be made from scratch or by using that stuff that rhymes with smishquick; guess which one gets made more often.  And I admit to the sin of using condensed soups from time to time while cooking.  

But mostly, I belong to both the Eat Local and Slow Foods schools of thought.  Buy fresh local ingredients whenever you can is the Eat Local bit.  Slow Food, as one might suspect, is the antithesis of fast food; i.e., something that you take time to make, and take time to enjoy.

So I cringe both to admit that I love, love, LOVE this potato casserole and that it includes several things that usually are not in my house, let alone in my lexicon.

And after all that moaning and wailing, when you actually see the recipe, you will probably be asking what I'm fussing over.

Auntie B's Cheesy Potatoes

Oven 350F (175C)

2 pound bag frozen hash brown potatoes (cubes, not shredded) 

1/2 stick of butter

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1/2 c chopped onion

1 can condensed cream of chicken soup 

16 oz sour cream

8 oz package shredded cheese (no particular type...Auntie B probably uses cheddar.)

Mix all ingredients in a bowl, reserving a small amount of cheese to sprinkle over the top.  Pour into a casserole dish, sprinkle remaining cheese over the casserole, and bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes.  

Auntie B used to put corn flakes on the top, too, which sounds bizarre until you taste it....I think she tossed the corn flakes with melted butter and then put them on top.  In the last few years, though, she's stopped doing that, and I can attest to the fact that it is good without them, too.  Don't try substituting croutons or bread crumbs for the cornflakes, it lacks the....flair? of the cornflakes.

What would I do differently?  The bagged frozen potatoes, outta there, just on principal.  Bagged frozen potatoes!  *scoffs* The very idea.  The cream of chicken condensed soup would be tossed for its mystery ingredients and high salt content.  The package of shredded cheese, also chucked out for its mystery ingredients...have you ever actually READ the labels on some of that stuff?  The corn flakes, for their corn syrup and associated yuckiness.

Which would leave us with the butter, sour cream, salt, pepper, and onions.  I've never tried to make this recipe using more, shall we say, natural ingredients, but I suspect that I would not like it nearly as well, because we're all so accustomed to the mystery ingredients that it seems to be missing something without them.

Maybe next year.

Dessert Fiend

I am a sucker for a well-written recipe. I admit it. My geek-factor knows no limits. Yes, I will read a cookbook, cover to cover, just like a novel. The result of years of this behavior is that I don't really need a recipe to construct something, because of the enormous amount of trivia that resides in my head. Want to make a quickbread? (Muffins, cornbread, banana bread & the like) I know the basic formula, and can toss it together with little trouble. Likewise just about anything else. So, sure, there are practical applications to this knowledge.

But I also find that I'm a sucker for the recipes on the back of packages of anything; the oatmeal canister lists recipes for oatmeal cookies, the bag of coconut has macaroon recipes, heck, even the tinned tomatoes I toss in all sorts of things for dinner have suggestions about what to use them for.

Lest we think this is a uniquely Yankee sort of thing, I have to point out that even the Swedish stuff that I buy from IKEA-land's little grocery store (products produced in Sweden, things that are hard to find here, like Vanilj Sas, {vanilla sauce} Nippon Soppa {rose-hip soup} and various other things) have recipes on the back of the boxes. One of my favorite "wow" desserts comes from the back of a box of vanilla sauce, which is perhaps best described to the American palate as a kind of thin vanilla pudding that's used as a sauce for all sort of desserts, notably Swedish Apple Cake.

The instructions were simple, perhaps three lines of Swedish text printed next to a picture of a skinned, baked pear, with the top cut off and almonds spilling out of the hollowed-out center, the little cap balanced rather precariously back on top of the nuts.

"Hollow out and core a pear," it suggested, "and stuff the hollowed space with a mixture of almond, cinnamon, and corn syrup. Bake at 175'C for 15-20 minutes or until the pear is tender. Serve warm, with vanilla sauce."

Simple. Elegant. I first noticed this at about 20 years old, and made it for a family gathering of DH's, back when he was The Boyfriend. DH's brother raved about it, as did almost everyone who tasted it. So I've kept the recipe and pulled it out over the years when I've needed a wow kind of dessert. I've made a few changes, though, feeling as I do these days that corn syrup is right up there next to the teevee laugh track on the scale of evil things on this earth. Honey is a more-than-acceptable substitute, and is even (gasp) good for you.

Shortcuts for this would be to use canned pears, but I must point out that canned pears are canned in heavy syrup 99.99% of the time, and even rinsing the pears does not remove the ridiculous amount of sugar that resides in them after being canned in that nasty stuff. Use fresh pears unless you have no other alternative.

Ingredients

6 ripe pears, peeled, cored, and centers hollowed out, tops cut off and kept for presentation
3/4 to 1 cup almonds or pecans, or a mixture of the two, roughly chopped (the amount needed will depend on how large your pears are)
1/3 to 1/2 cup honey
2 tsp cinnamon
1 packet vanilla sauce (substitute sugar free instant vanilla pudding, thinned out so that it could be poured out of a gravy boat)

Instructions

Make the vanilla sauce/pudding, and set aside in the refrigerator.

Mix nuts, honey, and cinnamon in a bowl. Spoon into hollowed out pears, overstuffing them. Put the caps back on. Place the pears in a lightly greased 9x13 glass baking dish, and bake at 350'F until the pears are tender. (about 15-20 minutes) For additional flavor, spoon a small amount of honey over each pear during the baking process. Serve warm, with chilled vanilla sauce.

A wee bit of a sugar buzz, just the thing to combat the creeping crud and the blahs. Honestly, though, this is not an unhealthy dessert. A serving is ONE pear, and although nuts are high in fat, you're not getting an overdose of them here. Likewise honey is high in sugar, but again, better for you than refined sugar or *shudder* corn syrup. Since vanilla sauce isn't widely available, using skim milk to make sugar free vanilla pudding, and adding about two tablespoons of it to each pear isn't adding anything miserable either. So relax. Eat one. Savor it.

Disguises

My M-I-L got me a cookbook for Christmas. My addiction to all literature of baking, cooking, entertaining etc is well-documented on this site. So I was thrilled. When I opened it, and noticed the subtitle (Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food) I raised an eyebrow; she quickly explained that she hadn't realized that it was aimed mostly at kid-friendly recipes.

"That's OK," I replied cheerfully. "Its a cookbook. I'll use it!"

"Told ya so!" DH exclaimed triumphantly from his corner. Apparently, they'd had a "discussion" (read that disagreement) over whether or not she ought take the book back.

I'd seen Jessica Seinfeld's book in bookstores during the holidays, but hadn't leafed through it after noticing that it was aimed at families with young children. Seeing as I don't have any and all.

There's some controversy and she's being sued over the book for supposedly taking the idea from someone else, but *shrug* I just don't really care about the hoopla.

I like the book. There are a few things that I don't like; she's hyper-focused on getting her kids to eat their vegetables, but there isn't much in there about organics or focusing on cutting down carbs, and too many places where she's using ingredients like margarine spreads that I think have no place in any kitchen, too many artificial ingredients. That's really me nit-picking, though...in this age of fast food for dinner all the time, the fact that she and Jerry actually cook a real dinner for their kids is commendable. And note the artificial flavoring (banana candy flavoring) I suggested that you use in my Banana Cake recently...I have all sorts of rationalizations for it (DH likes a stronger banana flavor, I spent a small fortune on the teeny-tiny bottle and might as well use it up, there's no sugar in the stuff...) so I've got no room to throw stones and I'm sure she's got her reasons for icky artificial margarine. No one said I had to use it.

So the premise of the book is this; rather than fight with your super-picky eater kids about "EAT YOUR VEGETABLES, DAMMIT!" hide the veggies in things they like to eat by using pureed veggies in things like spaghetti sauce, chicken nuggets, sloppy joes, mac & cheese, and even burgers. Not a bad idea, really. I kind of had a V-8 moment when I started reading it...why the hell didn't *I* think of that?

Another thing I'm not crazy about is her assumption that she needs to teach you to cook from square 1; it comes off as condescending, in my ever-so-humble. I'm probably a better cook than you are, Miss Hollywood Wife, so let's skip the "what is a steamer" section, mmkay? Not that I'm egotistical about my culinary abilities, not at allllllllllllll. Where'd ya get that idea?

I don't usually cook vegetables; I like a green salad better than cooked broccoli any day, and eating cooked spinach rates right up there with a root canal as far as I'm concerned. Unless we're talking about spinach and artichoke dip, or a spin/artichoke appetizer I make that also has sour cream and creme cheese in it, so not good for you. There are some vegetables that I'd like to prepare (squash, among other things) that DH just turns his nose right up over, and aren't worth my irritation when he won't eat it.

DH will tell you that he's not a picky eater. I disagree. I'm adventurous when it comes to food, I'll try just about anything once. I have firm opinions about what I do and don't like, but something new? Sure, I'll give it a shot. I discovered sushi and curry, both of which I like, by saying, "sure, I'll have a bite of that, what is it?" I have tried reindeer, (didn't agree with my tummy) lutefisk (ugh) and a whole bunch of other oddities. When in Rome and all that. DH, on the other hand, is sort of a meat-and-potatoes kinda guy. Nothing wrong with that. I just like a bit more variety.

I'm giving it a shot; I bought 2 bags of baby spinach, steamed them and pureed them, put them in 1/2 cup portions and tossed them in the freezer just like she suggests. I also steamed a whole head of cauliflower (add that to the list of things I'd rather eat raw) and roasted an entire butternut squash. The head of cauliflower yielded the most, a cup and a half of finished product.

The first thing I sneakily put veggies into was homemade mac & cheese, following MotherMe's recipe. (I did make a few changes; see below.) The book suggests cauliflower OR butternut squash for additions to mac & cheese. I had both purees, but since I was using Colby and cheddar with a hint of Monterey jack, the squash seemed more likely to blend in color-wise.


In the interest of the additional 23 pounds I still need to lose, I cut out the really yummy half & half and used skim instead of whole milk, along with a reduced-fat cheddar, after carefully reading the label to make sure there was nothing icky in it. I also added a whole onion, pureed and quickly browned in a skillet, with 2 cloves of garlic. Then for the protien additions; I added 12 strips of bacon, browned super-crisp and crumbled up, and two diced (pre-cooked) chicken breasts. I didn't need the additional liquid from the half & half, because the puree of squash was pretty liquid-y, and I popped it in the oven only long enough to brown the top.

The result? Good! It was a bit too sweet...I think using a sweet onion probably had a lot to do with that, and next time I'll use a regular old white onion. And the squash is kinda sweet too, so I'll give the cauliflower a shot the next time around. DH didn't love it; but he ate it without too much complaint. I didn't think it was necessary to inform him that there was both onion and butternut squash in his mac & cheese; he blamed the taste being "off" to him on a head cold he's suffering from. We had it again the next day for lunch, and in my ever-so-humble, it was better the next day.

There are a ton of things I can't wait to try in this book. She even manages to squeeze veggies into baked goods...it will be interesting to see how that works out. I could do without the parenting tips on every third page, too, but whatev.

It's What's for Dinner

Fall is my favorite time of the year in Oh-hia-ia. We have a lovely few weeks when the days aren't blistering hot but are still warm enough to be without jacket, scarf and hat, the nights are cool and crisp, and we open the doors and windows, turning off the air conditioning and not yet needing the heat.

The harvest begins to come in, and after a summer of abundant strawberries and blueberries, which I miss when they're gone, tomatoes, peppers of every color and heat level, and beans and potatoes and huge bunches of fresh herbs are available at the farmer's market I like to visit on the weekends.

Walking around the farmer's market makes me inspired to create menus of only fresh seasonal things, which is how we should all cook all year round, but that is fairly difficult in this climate. It also makes me miss my sister in New York dreadfully, because she was the person who introduced me to the market and we used to meet there for an early morning breakfast on Sundays and do our shopping together. Going it alone is lots less fun.

Deals abound there; two weeks ago, I took $23, and came home with 4 of my canvas shopping bags full to bursting with celery, cilantro, green beans, cherry hot peppers, ginger, garlic, some late strawberries (from California, I suspect, but the stall owner was reluctant to say that they weren't local) double yolk eggs (they're HUGE), even some local cheese. Last week my mum and I went, and I got more double yolk eggs, an enormous bunch of basil and another of dill, radishes, more green beans, more berries, yellow tomatoes, 10 pounds of baking potatoes for $3, lemons, limes, onion. My fridge is full of possibilities.

My cooking is always low fat and lately I've been trying for lower carb, cutting out pasta almost entirely :( and not making rice at all either. But that does not mean that we don't eat well. Cooking doesn't have to be a miserable chore; I enjoy it very much, especially when I have so many ideas that I end up making entirely too much stuff and have lots of leftovers to play with.

I'm also having far too much fun playing with our digital camera, a small 5 megapixel that a client gave to DH for fixing their computer. So are ya ready for some food porn?

First up as an appetizer is a Caprese salad; tomatoes, fresh mozzarella cheese, salt, pepper, fresh basil and a drizzle of olive oil. I could eat this every day.

Then the green beans. I dump them out on the cutting board, cut the ends off, cut them into manageable chunks, rinse them, and then steam them for a scant few minutes with salt, pepper, slivered almonds and a weee hint of garlic. Baked potatoes as a side with the green beans. Now I know I said I was trying for lower carb and we all know that potatoes are a no-no when it comes to low carb. But, baked, without sour cream and cheese and bacon, they're not so terrible for you. I baked two of them, but we split one, and the second one is in the fridge for another day.Then the main event, tilapia grilled with basil, lemon juice, lemon zest, garlic, salt, pepper and a very small amount of olive oil. Fish sticks to the grill horribly, so I wrap it in foil packets and it steams inside them. Bonus, your house doesn't smell fishy because they cook outside. Here's how you make the packets, which were inspired by Hugh Carpenter's Fast Fish cookbook. The fish lies diagonally on a square of tinfoil that has been rubbed with olive oil to ensure that the fish doesn't end up plastered to the tinfoil. Fold up the bottom point of the square.Fold in the two sides of the square.Flip the packet over to begin to close it up.

Fold down the remaining flap to seal the packet.Four packets of fishy goodness. I make more than two fillets because tilapia fillets can be small, and they always shrink while cooking, so sometimes they're too small. DH always wants more than one, and I eat the second left over filet for lunch the next day.

I didn't remember to take a picture when they came off the grill, so you will have to just trust me that they were beautiful and yummy. We eat fish at least twice a week, once you get over being afraid of cooking it, it is a wonderful addition to your diet. Lean, and full of good things.

I got over the fear of preparing it by taking a class taught by the aforementioned Hugh Carpenter, where he taught how to select fresh fish from the grocery store, how to cook it, how to season it, and what to avoid. His cookbook, Fast Fish, is a great jumping-off point for the beginner. There are two recipes from the book that I use on a regular basis, but mostly now I use it for inspiration and guidance, not necessarily for a particular recipe.

I never buy fish that the fishmonger has listed as "previously frozen" because it isn't as good. If nothing looks good at the store that day, we're not having fish. I make usually salmon and tilapia, but I'll experiment with other things from time to time. I look for whatever is freshest and least expensive; last week my local mega-mart had Mahi-Mahi, a Hawaiian fish that is wonderful stuff, but they wanted $17.99 a pound for it. No thanks.

Tonight we're having a salad made with leftover salmon, which was grilled with dill, lemon, and olive oil, plus Italian greens made from radish leaves. Yum. The freshness of the veggies right now is so wonderful.

Kitchen

While I'm off, I've been able to do more things in the kitchen than I ever have; making dinner nearly every night instead of heading to a restaurant. I love to cook. I love to bake. I hate to clean the kitchen. Today's Tuesday Brain Dump is all about last night's dinner.

Yesterday I indulged in both the baking and the cooking, along with my strong desire to experiment and tamper with recipes that I've been wanting to try for years.

Chicken Paprikas is something that I last had in Budapest, Hungary about 15 years ago. I loved it, and have wondered for years if I would be able to duplicate it. The recipes I've seen over the years aren't difficult or particularly time-consuming, so I'm not sure why I've never tried to make it before.

My go-to guides for things I'm not sure about in the kitchen are the Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook and The Joy of Cooking. I'm enough of a geek to actually read cookbooks, just like you might read a novel. Joy lends itself well to that. BHG not so much. But I read both recipes, along with another recipe on the back of the Kaluski noodles that I picked up to go along with the dish. The commonality to all of them is the chicken, the paprika and onion.

DH hates onion, or claims to, anyway. His favorite thing to eat is the lasagne that I make from scratch, and the very first thing that goes in the pot? Onion. I mostly disregard his opinion in this matter, therefore.

In order to disguise the onion, however, I need to be creative. All of the recipes called for thinly sliced sweet onion. Instead, I chopped it fine and then dumped it in the food processor until it was nearly paste. One of the huge Emperor's New Cloves garlic cloves that I got at Trader Joe's was added to the paste. I love those garlic cloves, but they're tough to chop, so after a rough chop into the food processor it went.

I have some hot Hungarian paprika in my pantry. The recipes for the Paprikas all call for between a tablespoon and a quarter cup of paprika. After having made and tasted the finished product, however, I strongly advise that you don't use all hot paprika, rather a mix of hot and sweet would be the way to go. My version was far too spicy, and I love hot food. I had to add a can of tinned tomatoes and a can of tomato paste to cool it down enough to eat. An addition that I'll continue to use, I liked it.

Chicken Paprikas

1 Emperor's New garlic clove OR 3 cloves regular garlic, chopped fine
1 large onion, chopped fine
2 to 2-1/2 pounds chicken pieces, skinned. Bones are OK. I used two breasts, a bit of a thigh, and a drumstick with the thigh still attached.
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon hot paprika
2 teaspoons sweet paprika
salt
pepper
1-1/2 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can tomato paste
1 cup fat free sour cream
3 cups hot cooked noodles

Heat the olive oil in a large heavy skillet and add chicken pieces, browning on all sides. Remove chicken from skillet and add onion, garlic, and paprika and cook until onion is translucent. If you grind them up as I did, about 10 minutes at a medium temperature is fine. Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper and return to the skillet, turning to coat with onion/paprika/garlic mixture. Add chicken stock and wine, bring to a boil. Add tomatoes and tomato paste. Reduce heat and cover, allowing to cook until chicken is throughly cooked, about a half hour.

Remove chicken, chopping and removing the bones. Return chicken to skillet, add sour cream and stir well. Mix in noodles and serve immediately with crusty bread. Yummy. And not even bad for you.

I also made a pound cake yesterday, rich and wonderful, with a whipped chocolate ganache filling. Very yummy. But I need to avoid spending my days baking, especially baking with chocolate, because then? I want to eat it. Not a bad thing until I can't make myself stop.

I'm off to the gym to work that off.

The Full-Fat Version

My sisters being home means many things, not least of which is the chance for the three of us to catch up and be very silly together. We'll all be at my parent's place, with its lake and pool, plus all the water toys you could ever want. There's enough room for the whole fam there, and we have a great time. But it also means that there's lots and lots of good food around this weekend.

I made chocolate chip cookies on Wednesday night, not the usual hearty cookies that I'll make for DH and I with whole-wheat flour and all kinds of other things tossed in that make them more like trail mix. No, I made the two-sticks-of-butter that go straight to your thighs chocolate chip cookies. Not good for you. I can't resist the dough, but I'm better at resisting the baked cookies. Usually.

I also made lasagna. And when I tell you that I made lasagna, I mean all day in the kitchen and everything from scratch. I learned the recipe from a wise woman in Europe, and it is well worth the effort. Instead of using the ricotta cheese that you usually find in lasagna, this variation, probably northern-Italian influenced, uses a white sauce not unlike an Alfredo sauce for pasta. You can make this white sauce with skim milk and reduced fat cheese and margarine, but since I make it so rarely, why the heck would I do that? No, this was the hefty version.

It starts with a stick of butter, and a half cup of flour. You make a basic blonde roux, and then in a very long process, you add whole milk and cream, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, asiago cheese, Romano cheese, and fresh mozzarella cheese. This takes nearly an hour, and must be stirred constantly. Burn something in the bottom of the pan and you've got to start over, because you'll never get rid of that burnt taste, no matter how much doctoring you attempt. Add the cheese when the sauce is the wrong temperature and you're left with a stringy mess. Been there, done that, more than once.

It is, of course, a labor of love, I pull out the lasagna only for special occasions because of its pain-in-the-ass factor. But I won't eat more than a few bites of it myself, because it is much too high in fat to indulge in more than a wee bit.

Then there's the bratwurst that will be boiled in dark beer with sweet onions and garlic and whole black peppercorns, then tossed on the grill to sizzle. They're eaten with those onions removed from the beer bath and fried in butter. I can't resist one of those, some of the very very little red meat that I will eat.

Not to mention the potato chips that are not in MY house, ever, the scratch-made guacamole for the tortilla chips, the apple wood smoked bacon (um, bliss, I promise) and you've got a recipe for completely destroying the healthy eating that I've been doing for the past six months.

Fortunately, reason prevailed a tiny bit, and there are vegetable and fruit trays, I made my quinoa salad, which is really good for you. I brought boneless skinless chicken breasts to toss on the grill that are already in a tasty but not bad for you marinade, and I insisted on two cases of water to combat the temptation to drink soda and beer.

I don't know anything that will stop me from drinking mojitos, those will be around as well. And sangria. But we do usually wait until at least late afternoon....yeah, nothing I say here is going to help the impression you're getting right now, that we're all full-blown alkies. We're not, I promise.

I can work out at my parent's place, the community where they live has a nice exercise room. I'm not sure I'll take advantage of it, but I'm pretty sure that the potato chips I ate today while listening to babysis tell our dad stories of island life will end up coming back to haunt me unless I get on the elliptical and do my usual routine.

Middlesis gets here on Friday, and it looks like the three of us will have lots of time entirely to ourselves without anyone else around, and I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that.

Listening to: Incubus, Light Grenades

Bento Box Madness

I bought a bento box like this one on eBay about a week or so ago. It arrived yesterday. I first read about bento boxes on WellFed, when someone, I don't remember who, wrote an article about her Mr. Bento and how it was helping her post-gastric surgery weight loss program. I subsequently developed a minor obsession over bento boxes. (See, I do get obsessive about things other than hot young TV actors. Really.) I read everything I could point my mouse to about them, discovering the Flickr community dedicated to all things Mr. Bento, several great blogs about bento, and then, the hallelujah chorus rang out in my head when I decided to check eBay for a bento box of my own. I had decided that I didn't want a Mr. Bento; I wanted something cute.

And is it ever cute! There's a cute little fork that goes with the set, cute matching chopsticks, with their accompanying case, a little strap to keep the boxes tied together, and a bag to carry it all in. Cute, cute, cute!

DH puts up with me buying things from eBay because I have not yet purchased a car, a house, or major furniture. Some dolls, some books, some yarn, y'know, harmless stuff. He watched me open all the pieces and parts of my new bento box last night with growing incredulity. "What IS that?" He asked, rolling his eyes at yet another needless acquisition.

"A Japanese lunch-box," I responded gleefully. "Isn't it CUTE?"

"How could you possibly fit enough into that for a whole lunch?" He wondered, noting that it is six inches wide, 3.15 inches across, and when all 3 pieces are stacked one on top of the other, no taller than about 4.5 inches. The whole thing fits into a bag no bigger than a 20 ounce bottle of water.

Plenty of room, I assured him. See, two compartments for food! So much fun! He rolled his eyes again and asked how long until dinner was ready. So I made something kind of bento inspired for dinner and brought it with me today for my yummy lunch. The fish dish was inspired by the Fast Fish cookbook and the quiona salad recipe is adapted from Well Fed.

Parchment Wrapped Fish with Quiona Salad

Fish
2 large SQUARE pieces of parchment paper
2 fillets any mild, white fish...I use Basa
2 T soy sauce
1 t your favorite hot sauce (I use Sirachi here)
1 T brown sugar
1/4 c lime juice
Zest of 1 lime
Juice of 2 limes
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 c chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 c olive oil

Oven 400F

Combine soy, hot sauce, sugar, juice, zest and garlic. Slowly drizzle oil in, as if you were making a vinaigrette. Marinate the fish in this mixture 15 minutes in the fridge, turning once.

Lie one square of parchment on a flat work surface. Place the fish diagonal across the parchment, and bring up the bottom point of the square. Fold in the left and right sides, then flip the packet over, tucking the top corner into the space left at the bottom. You're making a small envelope full of fishy goodness. Bake on a tinfoil lined cookie sheet in the oven 15 minutes. Cut packets open and slide fish onto plates. Serve hot.

While the fish marinates and bakes, make the quiona salad.

1 c quiona
2 cups water
zest of 1 lime
juice of 2 limes
2 T sesame oil
1/4 c olive oil
1/4 c cilantro, chopped fine
Grape tomatoes...about 1/2 cup
2-3 ribs celery, chopped fine
1 seedless cucumber, peeled, seeded, cut into fourths and diced

Follow package directions for quiona. It is a grain just like rice, it simply bears close watching. When it is done, spread onto another tinfoil lined cookie sheet to speed the cooling process. In a large bowl, combine the zest and the juice, and whisk oils in. Add cilantro, and vegetables, allowing them to soak in the dressing. When the quiona has cooled, add it to salad, toss, and add more olive oil if desired. Serve cold.

Dinner was wonderful, and I didn't eat all of my piece of fish intentionally, saving it for today's lunch. It fit beautifully into the bottom tray of my dragonfly bento, and I filled the top with quiona salad. That left a bit of room in the bottom container, so I added a mini muffin liner and filled it with about a tablespoon of blanched, slivered almonds. I closed both containers, fitted the strap around them, and put it in its cute little bag in my fridge. Brought it with me to work, and had a wonderful lunch. The bento box is microwave safe, but not dishwasher safe, which is the only downfall as far as I am concerned.

Definitely enough food, too. Yum!

Chicken and Mice

When I was growing up, the dinner hour was sacred at our house. My mother, a SAHM until I was in high school, made dinner every night, and now that I’m all growed up and running my own household, I’m in awe of her skill; egad, how the heck did she get dinner on the table every night by 6pm, always cooked perfectly, always well balanced and nutritious?! One thing that she made pretty frequently that my sisters and I liked just fine and my dad hated was a chicken casserole dish. Dad called it Chicken and Mice. I dunno why he stuck it with that name, but when mum announced to dad that we were having chicken and rice for dinner, he always made a face and grumbled, “Chicken and mice? Again?”

I see the attraction that it held for my mum; cheap, quick, super-easy and with the addition of a green salad or another veggie, dinner was done. I would be willing to bet that you have all the ingredients in your pantry right now.

Chicken and Mice
2 cups rice
4 cups water
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 envelope Lipton’s Soup Mix , any flavor (I use Savory Herb & Garlic, but any of them would work. Just check the package directions to make sure you’re not supposed to mix with milk instead of water.)

Using a 9x13 casserole dish put the dry rice in the bottom. Mix the soup mix and water in a measuring cup. Place the chicken over the rice, and add soup mixture, pouring slowly and carefully. Cover with aluminum foil so the chicken does not dry out. Bake in a 350 oven for about 45 minutes, until the chicken registers 180 on a meat thermometer and the rice absorbs all of the water.


See? Easy. Quick. Cheap. It makes a ton of rice, but I like that because rice takes so long to make and I like to have leftover rice for other dinners. You could cut the rice down to 1 cup, and then the water should only be 2 cups. My mum would make this with 4-5 chicken breasts and about a cup and a half of rice. I made it for Sunday dinner for DH and I this week. He was in a meeting of our homeowners association when I put it in the oven, and when he came back, he opened the door and said, “What smells so good?”

DH is not a fan of onions, but I think this would be wonderful with the onion-flavored soup.

My other favorite quick chicken dinner recipe is something I’ve written about before; it is a crock-pot recipe. Ten minutes in the morning before you head out the door to work and when you get home, dinner is DONE. I love my crock-pot.

On the political front, I don’t have a lot to say today. The Foley scandal continues to unfold; don’t you LOVE his excuses for sending inappropriate messages to teenaged congressional pages? 1. I’m an alcoholic 2. I was abused as a child 3. I’m gay. A friend who is a recovering alcoholic told me that she finds his attempt to blame his behavior on his disease particularly offensive. Personally, I find it all offensive; he’s tossing excuses at the wall to see which one sticks. The fact that your sexual orientation is homo or hetero does not make you a pedophile; you’re a pedophile because you have something wrong with your brain circuitry. And scandals like this just confirm what red state-ers already think, that homosexuality automatically equals sexual predator. And that makes me angry, because it simply re-enforces that ignorant belief.

A complete change of gears now; it is fund drive time on all 3 public radio stations that I listen to. You know that you’re a complete public radio junkie when you continue to listen during the fund drives. I give to the station that I listen to online every day, which is a very unusual public radio station; they play “World Class Quality Rock” and I’ve heard more new music listening to them for about the past 4 years than I ever did listening to pop radio, which I can’t even do anymore because the commercials make me soooo nuts. I also give to the local NPR affiliate. NPR fund drives are kind of worse than the other station; I listen to NPR for news, and during fund drives they break into the news and interrupt the broadcast to beg for money. On the pop station, they do it where there would be commercial breaks on a regular station, so they’re not breaking in to your current favorite song to beg. But it does cut down on the amount of music they’re able to play.

I used to drive 500 miles a week for work when I worked for the big ol’ bank, and I listened to 2 NPR stations because the drive took me out of the range of one station and into another. You spend 6 hours a week in the car and then tell me that commercial radio is where it’s at. Here’s a hint: it isn’t. The commercial stations drove me so crazy during the 7 years that I made that drive. So nuts that I can no longer spend more that 10 minutes listening to them. DH alternates between top 40 and classic rock in his car, and it is hard to say which of the two stations irritates me more. Probably the top 40 station is the more annoying of the two, because it is heavy on the repetitive commercials and heavy bass. I often look over at him in the driver’s seat when we’re in his car and ask, “WTF are you LISTENING to?” because he /hates/ hip-hop and R&B and the top 40 crew plays A LOT of that.

If I wasn’t in my current field, I think I would like to work in radio. As an on-air personality, you understand, not ever in sales or administration. Here’s what I think my chances of doing that for a living are: zero. I don’t have a fantastic speaking voice; in fact, the sound of my own voice on tape gives me the heebie-jeebies. But I’d like to give it a shot. I’ve done TV interviews for work (so not fun) but I’ve never been in a radio studio, and I’d like to give that a shot. Could be fun, ya know?

Soundtrack for the day is Gnarls Barkley “Crazy”, from the St Elsewhere album

Midsummer Pics

The party was wonderful. I wanted to post the pictures and the recipes from the Swedish food. The picture above is of K's hand holding one of my Darlencian Horses, a very typical Swedish symbol. There's 4 types of crispbread and a Swedish cheese on the platter.

Next, Choklad Bollar



I know it is bad form to compliment yourself, but damn, that's a cool picture that I took. Chocolate Balls are comfort food for Swedes. I first encountered them in Västerås, at language school. They were sold everywhere and I got them at cafes, convenience stores, wherever. The first time I ever tried to make them myself back here in the states, though, it was a complete disaster. They've got butter, oatmeal, sugar, and cocoa in them, and how hard can that be? You don't even bake them, for heaven's sake. My mistakes weren't just in the ratios of the ingredients, but in my methods, as well. The butter and sugar must be creamed for a very long time by hand, or done in the food processor, which is the definitely the easiest way. Then the oatmeal; this time, I used steel cut oats. That wasn't a mistake, exactly, but I won't do it next time. I will repeat what I did with the steel cut oats, though. I ground them in the coffee grinder until they were powder fine. That makes a big difference in the final texture, so I will keep on doing that, even with rolled oats.

1 stick of butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 2/3 cups oatmeal (DO NOT COOK THE OATMEAL!)
6 TBSP cocoa, unsweetened (I used Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa)
2 tsp vanilla sugar or 1 tsp vanilla extract
5-6 TBSP milk

In a food processor, grind the oatmeal into a fine powder. Remove the oats from the working bowl of the food processor and cream the butter and sugar in the food processor. Add the oats, cocoa and vanilla sugar and pulse until the mixture resembles gardening soil! Remove the mixture from the food processor and put into a large bowl. Add milk, one tablespoon at a time, and mix with your hands. After each addition of milk, check to see if the dough will hold together. When it does, you're ready to roll! I used a #60 ice cream scoop to make sure the balls were all roughly the same size. Roll the balls in coconut, cocoa powder, pearl sugar or nuts. Store in the fridge. You could substitute coffee for the milk, and have Mocha Balls. I don't know if rum or another booze would work, but it would be fun to try!

I doubled the recipe and ended up with 58 balls, and used only a couple of tablespoons of coconut. I had some trouble getting the coconut to stick to the chocolate balls, and I don't know why. The original recipe that I got off the web said to chill the balls first, then garnish. I didn't do that, I garnished them as I rolled them. But that seems counter-intuitive to me that the garnish would work better after they're chilled. I would think that they would accept a garnish better while warm.

Next is the dilled potatoes.

I love potatoes, and I love dill. There's no real "recipe" to this....
Boil 3 lbs "B" size potatoes and drain. Melt one stick of butter and add 3 tablespoons chopped dill. Allow the butter and the dill to hang out together for a while, like brewing a cup of tea! Toss the taters and the butter in a casserole dish and garnish with a blossom from the dill plants. Keep warm until serving time.


These are lingonberry pears, or lingonparon. You can find lingonberry jam if you hunt for it. Hell, my local grocer in Ohio carries it, so it can't be that hard. But check a local IKEA if your grocer doesn't. Anyway, I did these the cheating way by using canned pears. This means I didn't peel, core, or cut the pears. They are better when you use fresh pears, of course, but I was short on time. I bought pears that were in light syrup and rinsed them well to rid them of the syrup, although that doesn't get completely rid of it, it does decrease the sugar content a bit. Then I took the whole jar of lingonberry jam, added some water, lemon zest, a cinnamon stick and a few whole cloves, and boiled it for a few minutes. Add the pears and stew for a little while. Serve warm with vanilla sauce or sweetened whipped cream.

Add lots of friends, a bunch of alcohol, stir well and keep the stories going until at least 1 am. Repeat annually.
Cheers!

Perfect Sunday Dinner

I'm so clever, I am. Came up with a perfect sunday dinner all by myself, and then as I've started to enter it here, banged my knee into something under the computer desk and owwwww.

I did a post on slow cookers for FitFare last week, and I made the slow cooker chicken that I wrote about for the post. Its easy, and I'm not entering the whole damn thing again here. Check it out over on FitFare, the post went live on 03/24.

Then I've got some brown rice going to accompany it, but the thing I'm most excited about are the stuffed tomato halves that are waiting to go into the oven. The credit for this goes in equal parts to Aunty Marianne and Giada De Laurentiis, strangely enough. Aunty Marianne did a stuffed mushroom caps recpie the other day (03/18 to be exact), that I found wonderfully inspiring. The problem is that I'm really allergic to mushrooms. They make my throat close over, which does make it difficult to breathe. Then this morning, when I should have been getting dressed, I was instead watching Giada make a big Sunday dinner for her family. I didn't make the tomato halves just like her, though, because she left out several vital things IMO. She said during the episode that her mom doesn't like garlic (horrors, can't imagine cooking without it, myself. Ever.) so she wasn't putting any in. Also, I love the combination of tomato and basil, as does apparently Aunty Marianne, because her blog is called Tomato and Basil sandwiches. Anyway, here goes.

2 large beefsteak tomatoes, cut in half, seeded, and centers removed with a grapefruit spoon
1/2 cup provolone cheese, shredded
1/2 cup breadcrumbs, unseasoned
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 TBSP olive oil
1 tsp finely minced fresh basil leaves
1 tsp oregano

Chop the removed sections of tomato into a fine dice. Mix all ingredients well and stuff back into hollowed out tomatoes. Bake in 375 degree oven for 20 minutes. Top with more shredded cheese.

I'm excited about the taste. I tasted the filling raw, of course, and it is yummy. So I'm thinking that hot and with the cheese all melty it will be even better.

I have a fairly yuucky week coming up, so I'm pulling out the wine for dinner as well. Cheers!

More Cheney and then I'll stop, I promise.

I caught just a few minutes on Saturday of Left, Right and Center on NPR as I was frantically running errands in very heavy traffic on the coldest day of the year (here, anyway) to date.

I had a party Saturday night, and typical of me, I left the grocery-storing and other errand running I needed to do until that day. But with my ridiculously busy week last week, I didn’t have a second to do it before then. And I was determined to have some friends over, adding to the stress level of a crazy week but that’s life sometimes. It certainly was something to look forward to all week when things were nuts.

My local NPR affiliate plays a very diverse set of programs on the weekends, and just when I think I’ve got the schedule down, they move it around. Left, Right, and Center used to be aired on Sunday afternoons, and Justice Talking was early early Sunday morning, so I was a bit kerflummoxed when I turned on the radio at 3 on Saturday afternoon and heard Arianna Huffington’s very distinctive voice. They were of course discussing the Cheney shooting and said some of the same things I did last week; great minds, eh? I know she’s a conservative, but she’s anti-Bush and I really like her. And then Justice Talking was on right after that, so confusion was had by all. I wish I’d been able to hear all of Justice Talking, they were talking about the process of Supreme Court nominations and I am a junkie of all things Supreme Court.

I made wonderful food for the party and my favorite thing was a very twisted and very loose interpretation of English trifle that I came up with all by myself, which made me happy. Trifle purists may be a trifle put out, (oh, I entertain myself!) as there was no liqueur, but I’m not a purist. I bought two angel food cakes, and cut them into roughly 1-inch cubes. I would normally have baked them myself, but two things prevented this. One, time limitations and two, when my diet started on January 2, my sister came and cleaned out my kitchen cabinets and she tossed everything I’m not allowed to be eating, which included every single cake mix I had. Anyway, I zested a lemon and a blood orange that I was using in another recipe, and sprinkled the zest over the cubes of angel food cake, with a little bit reserved for garnish. Then I sliced fresh strawberries very thinly and completely covered the angel food cake bits with lots of strawberries. Finally, I topped it with fat free cool whip, and selected a pretty and large strawberry, and fanned it out by leaving the top intact and slicing vertical slashes in the body of the berry. A sprinkle of the remaining zest, and presto, a lovely dessert. I really like the texture of angel food cake as is, with no tampering, but if I did feel inclined to tamper, I might sprinkle some wonderfully flavored liqueur such as Frangelico over the angel food bits. Which might mollify the purists somewhat. But soggy angel food cake is bad.

I finally got some longed-for winter weather. It was sooo cold on Saturday…the temp went down to around 4 degrees Fahrenheit, which would be roughly –16 in the much more sensible Celsius scale. Why, oh, why, can’t the US use the metric system??? It makes so much SENSE!! Seriously, live with it for a while (why yes, I am completely suggesting that you live somewhere other than the US) and you’ll see. It makes such sense because it is a base 10 system. In standard measurements, there’s no sense. 12 inches = 1 foot, 3 feet = 1 yard; then there’s 4 tablespoons to ¼ cup, 2 cups to a pint, and 4 quarts to a gallon. In the metric system, 10 millimeters = 1 centimeter, 1000 centimeters=1 meter, 1000 meters = 1 kilometer…and if I remember right, a liter of water equals 1 kilogram in weight. Really, though, that's a rant for another day. But it all just WORKS…sigh.

Gotta run, kiddos…

Some winter weather finally! & Random brain droppings.

Looking out my window is a pleasure when there's snow on the ground and more falling from the sky. We were forecast lots, as much as 5-8 inches, but got about 2 and maybe as much as 4 by the end of the day. I wish I had time this weekend to run away and ski, but I do not. I've got a work event to attend Saturday night and the another cooking class at Lyndhurst on Sunday which will end up precluding any skiing I might do on Sunday unless I was taking Monday off of work, which I can't. Should be good skiing weather, too, in the upper 30s and partly sunny. Unfortunately, the farthest I could get away would probably be Peek'n Peak in western NY state, which isn't a bad place to ski, but not my favorite, that honor would have to belong to Breckenridge in Colorado. Anyway.

Remember a few weeks ago when I posted about The Black Table shutting down? Tomorrow's the day. I never posted to the site myself, just enjoyed reading what everyone else posted. Today's update is the final Black List, which I love to read. You never know what people are going to submit. I like the random-ness of it all, plus the grades that they assign to whatever they are reviewing are funny.

I'll miss The Black Table, but I have found another fun author to read, planet mom, and funnily enough, she shares my name. Exchanged some nice e-mails with her; I've been thinking a lot about writing lately. I've never wanted to write the Great American Novel; but maybe something that someone would read. I don't have many ideas floating around in my head for fiction, but I am a really big fan of Charles de Lint, who writes what he calls "mythic fiction" and I like the possibilities of faerie being just at the edges of our perception. So maybe there’s an idea there. I’ve never really thought of myself (necessarily) as a creative person, but perhaps I am. Or perhaps that changes as you move through life.

Julia’s blog had a story about her son’s teacher saying he was gifted the other day. I too was labeled “gifted” somewhere around 2nd or 3rd grade and was in accelerated reading and English classes. Looking back, it makes me smile a bit because when you look at my standardized test scores, from the IOWA test we took in 4th and 8th grades to the SAT, ACT and LSAT, I consistently score high in language arts, reading comprehension, English composition, and then way down near the bottom for math & science. I liked science, just didn’t “get” it. I love to cook and bake now, and baking especially IS chemistry. I don’t know what made the school administrators decide that I was “gifted” but I am real glad that they did. I would have been more than bored if I hadn’t had the enrichment classes. We read J.R.R. Tolkien in 5th grade, had to follow an adult (long long before “Take your daughter to work day”) for about 3 days in 7th grade, and wrote papers that required more work than many things I did in college. The gifted/talented classes ran from I think 2nd grade through 7th. Then they put us back into mainstream classes in 8th grade, which was a pretty big mistake. We drove the 8th grade reading teacher insane. Literally. I’m not proud of this, but it is the truth. The man took a sabbatical about halfway through the year because of what we put him through. As an adult, however, I place most of the blame on the school district; we were bored. They put all of the really smart kids in the same class period with a teacher who was completely unprepared for us. After having spent the last 5 school years doing things like studying the evolution of democracy and being given the freedom to pursue things that interested each kid, they put us into a reading comprehension class. Duh! Half of us read War & Peace in 7th grade and the other half chose something else by Tolstoy. One or two of the smarter kids puzzled through the Russian. For fun. (Were we geeks or what?) Then they wanted us to move light-years backwards. No wonder we drove the teacher nuts. We did some terrible things. We organized our misbehavior. Had a schedule. Isn’t it amazing that I remember these details? The 8th grade history book was a 600-page behemoth; we would all bring it to class and all drop it on the floor at a specific time. It must have weighed about 12 pounds. Noisy. Then we’d all scoot our desks forward little by little until the aisle between the first row of desks and the blackboard was mere inches. While he was teaching, writing on the blackboard. He’d turn around, and we’d be right there. Which I now imagine was kinda terrifying. Then when he’d order us to move back, we’d overcompensate so that the last row of kids couldn’t get out of their desks. The instigators ended up getting suspended for a couple of days, but really, the adults had almost no control over the situation. The worst thing that I personally did was borrow someone else’s glasses and wear them only in his class; I insisted that he change my seat so I could “see the blackboard” about once every 3 days. Moving, of course, to yet another friend who I would then proceed to chat to through the entire lesson. A few years after we did this, the school system decided that when the gifted program ended, they would offer the choice of foreign language classes to the kids who had been in the program.

All this makes me think that maybe friend Jen is absolutely right to home school her kids. But I think I’m against home schooling. Mostly because although the pubic school system is undoubtedly broken, I don’t think that the way to fix it is to pull out all the kids whose parents can afford to home school them. There’s gotta be another way. And then there’s the fact that socialization IS learned and that home schooling doesn’t teach social skills, exactly. If you only have to interact with your own family, you will never learn how to get along with someone who is different from you. It took me a very long time to learn how to interact with kids my own age, because I was always mature for my age. I spoke in complete sentences and whole paragraphs even at a young age, from “oh” to oration in nothing flat. I loved to read from age 2 on, and could read all by myself at 3. I haven’t ever stopped either; I’m always reading something, and usually 2 or 3 somethings. Fiction, non, doesn’t much matter. My parents worked really hard to make me pull my nose out of a book and to interact with neighborhood kids, but my closest friends were almost always older than me by 2 or 3 grades. I ended up skipping out of high school after my sophomore year, first to be an exchange student and then to start college a year early. I was in a hellava hurry to get going! By being only a year younger than most incoming freshmen at the local uni, I didn’t stand out too much unless someone asked me how old I was or if I wanted to get a drink with them, then they were usually surprised, as in “what are you DOING here, why aren’t you going to high school?” For all that, though, it still took me 5 ½ years to finish my degree. So being “gifted” didn’t really make a difference in the long run, I guess.

I work on a regular basis with someone who is a teacher in the public schools, and she tells me all the time that the “No child left behind act” which is Pres. Doofus’s answer to what’s wrong with the school systems is also broken. They’re required to test much more frequently, and all that does is cut into the time that they are able to learn new things. Then there’s the fact that you end up teaching to the test, so that more kids pass. O-hi-a’s got a voucher system that allows you to put your kid into a private school if your local public school is rated “failing” and they also recently enacted an open enrollment rule that forces any public school to accept any kid, no matter where they live, as long as there are enough spaces. Competition, as you can imagine, is fierce for desirable schools, which only “open” a few spots a year to comply with the letter rather than the spirit of the law.

OK, enough for today. I type the entries in Word for spelling and grammar checking which is easier for me than blogspot’s speller, and this has run on for several pages in Word, which is more than a bit longer than my usual entry. Cheers!

the happenings keep hitting and the hits keep happening

So the cooking class that I took up at Lyndhurst was a blast. Learned some new recipes, had a good time, didn't really pick up any new friends, I don't think, but I do think everyone in the class enjoyed themselves. There was one guy who sat next to me that I liked, but I don't need another unattached (that is, single) guy friend...I have several and most, although not all, of them drive my DH crazy. But I'm a green-eyed monster myself when it comes to single female friends of his, so I can't blame him. There was a really sweet girl who told me about her sorority in college and the volunteer work that she did with them, she seemed very nice, but I didn't get her name. Dammit. Got home late (for me) last night and am feeling like I need a caffeine IV drip to get up and running today. That sounds like I'm a computer: Reboot? = yes, with at least 4 more hours of sleep, please.

Have you heard about Haleigh Poutre? I'm relieved that the Massachusetts Superior Court ruled that her stepfather who is being held in her savage beating was denied the right to make medical decisions on her behalf. Common sense. What a refreshing turn of events. This LINK is to the NPR story where I heard about her. The MA Superior Court found that her stepfather had given no evidence of providing a loving nurturing nature in his contact with her. They also said the following, for which I applaud them.

“To recognize the petitioner as a de-facto parent was unthinkable.

” My heart is breaking. It is likely that this little girl will die from the injuries she sustained in the beating. Child abuse is something I will not ever understand. Especially as a woman. How on earth do you carry a child for 9 months or thereabouts, give birth to that child, then hurt that child or allow someone else to hurt that child? This is NOT one of the issues where I straddle the fence. I'm not against spanking; I think an occasional swat to the be-hind is not a terrible thing. Reinforces your point, so to speak. This is all moot, since I don't have any kids, but I do know how I feel about abuse. I'm a firm believer in eye-for-an-eye justice in abuse cases. If they find Haleigh's stepfather guilty of causing her injuries, I think it would be perfectly acceptable for someone to hit him with a baseball bat and push him down a flight of stairs, as he allegedly did to her. I cannot imagine what an 11 year old could have possibly done

wrong

” or

“bad

” to merit such a beating.

I AM a sheltered girl from the 'burbs, who grew up in a very nice home, with a (mostly) stable family [no offense to ANYONE I'm related to, but we do have a nut or two in our family tree, and you know it.] and because that's my experience, I admit to a very high degree of naïveté. Most of the time, I think that what most people are telling me to my face is the truth. I don'’t sugarcoat much of anything when I'’m talking to you, but you'’re also going to get my real opinion and the truth from me. Part of the reason I don'’t work for that big ol' bank anymore is that they'’d ask my opinion, I'’d give it, truthfully, and it would be more truth than they could handle. Then they labeled me

“not a team player

” because I wasn'’t a yes-woman. You can'’t win, sometimes. Sigh. I digress. Here'’s where I was heading before sidestepping. Several folks that I work with now tell me that abused kids don'’t know any different; just as I think that everyone'’s family dynamic is similar to mine, those who are abused think everyone'’s family is like that, that everyone is abused. If you don'’t know me IRL, you probably think I'’m a social worker. I'’m not...but a lot of what I do every day would easily fit the typical social worker job description.

I thought today that I was going to write about my death penalty POV, but that hasn'’t happened. Maybe next week. Just as I was DEE-LIGHTED when Pres. Doofus was disappointed in the Supreme Court ruling, I am DEE-LIGHTED today to have heard that one of the democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee has said that he won'’t vote for Sam Alito, although I do caution everyone that what usually happens when a nominee is not confirmed is that the president usually goes even farther into conservative territory. So keep your fingers crossed for a positive outcome on that.

Thank goodness it is Friday, I am looking forward to pleasant weather (for Ohio, ‘tannyrate) this weekend and will be thinking about what I want to say about the death penalty next week. I'm attending a sporting event tonight, one of the few sports that I like, hockey. :-) Hope they win.

Rain, Rain Go AWAY!! Send me some SNOW

Yes, I'm going to bitch (again) about the weather. It is colder today, which is the proper trend for January, but it is cold and raining. Overcast, as usual. I don't mind overcast when it is snowing like mad. Yes, I love snow. I love the cold. Hellooooo!! I spent a whole year in Sweden. Of course I love the cold. I hate wearing coats, but that's another story. I have a wonderful really heavy warm coat for our cold northern winters, but it is so bulky that I can't wear it while driving. Anyway. There IS snow in the forecast, horray!! But not for a few days. I'm taking a cooking class at the Viking store in Lyndhurst on Thursday, probably that's when we'll get a ton of snow.

I'm excited about it, the class is learning how to cook once and eat twice. I grew up cooking for a big crowd; parents, 2 sisters, me plus whatever assorted friends we had over. My parents would always have prefered that we hung out at home, and the rule was that if you cooked, you could invite whoever you liked over for dinner. Consequently, if you need dinner for 12, I'm your girl. Dinner for 2? That's a problem. Total lack of portion control is how I got to be the lovely size 16 that I am today. I'm also excited about meeting some other foodies, albiet Lyndhurst is far away from home for me and undoubtedly everyone else there will be from the immediate area. But I am at least making the effort...remeber the recent post about making grown-up friends?

I've been looking through some knitting books trying to find a patteren for the baby blanket that I am going to make for Fred and Nikki. I know ONE (!) baby blanket pattern by heart, and I've made 3 of them. I'm tired of the pattern, but it is really easy. Cast on 150 stitches, knit 5 rows, then for the body of it knit 5, purl 5, repeat to the last 5 stitches, knit again.Do that for 5 rows, then the next 5, purl 5 knit 5, repeat to the end. Switch every 5 rows. When the blanket is as long as you'd like (about 36 in is good for a baby blankie), knit the last 5 rows, and weave in any loose ends. Couldn't be easier, and it is reversible; looks the same on the right side as the wrong, which is a great added bonus. So I checked a ton of baby pattern books out of the library, and most of what I've found is 1)way beyond my skill level, 2)ugly or 3)require me to follow charts, which I am TERRIBLE at doing. Why is it when they say "easy knits" that they DON'T mean easy? Easy if you learned to knit at your bubba's knee and she's still around to help you out of a sticky spot, maybe. I, on the other hand, took classes at a store in Cuyahoga Falls, OH, when I worked in Akron, which I don't anymore. Now that's so far out of my daily orbit that it might as well be on the moon. And they're perfectly willing to help you out of a tough spot IF you bought the yarn for your current project from them. I don't need to tell ya that they's ex-spen-sive, do I? Grrr.

Wish for snow for me, will ya?