Kids' Whimsical Cooking: Play Dough

Hi this is Addie. Today I will tell you about making play dough. Making play dough is a simple and exciting way to have fun. I think the reason you should make play dough instead of buying it is because depending on the ingredients you use it could be cheaper. Some play dough recipes only involve household items such as water and flour. Kneading the dough is fun for kids especially kids 4-8. I liked the experience of making play dough and I think you should try it too.

Homemade Play Dough

Ingredients
2 c. all purpose flour
2 t. vegetable oil
½ c. salt
2 T. cream of tartar
1-1/2 c. boiling water (adding more in increments if needed)
Food coloring (optional)
Few drops glycerine (optional, add mores shine)

Process
Mix the flour, salt, cream of tartar and oil in a large mixing bowl. Add the boiling water. Stir continuously until it becomes a sticky, combined dough. Add the food coloring and glycerine. (I cut it into several sections so I could make different colored dough.) Allow it to cool down, then take it out of the bowl and knead it vigorously until the stickiness has gone. You might have to add more flour. This is the most important part of the process, so keep at it until it’s the perfet consistency.

Now play, play, play!

Notes from Nana: I’m not sure that you save a whole lot of money by making your own play dough, but it really is a lot of fun. I happen to like to make bread (though I’m not good at it, but that’s a blog for another time). Part of what I like about bread baking is the kneading process. I love the feel of the dough on my fingers, and I love how it goes from a mass of powdery floury mess into a soft, elastic dough. Making play dough allows kids to have that feeling. And what is more fun than playing with a floury mess? The kids can choose their colors and watch the dough take shape.

Two other notes: It seems to me that it ends up taking significantly more flour than originally called for, so don’t worry if that’s the case for you. Also, I never use the glycerine, though Addie tells me it is prettier if you do so. I don’t even know where to buy glycerine to be frank. I think it’s pretty without it.

Have fun and enjoy watching the kids make a mess!

Hey Edna, How's Your Mom and 'Em?

I really try to be patient and upbeat about technology. It obviously benefits me tremendously. I am a blogger. Twenty years ago that word made no sense. Well, to be honest, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me even now. But I am wholly cognizant of the things that technology does to improve my life.

However, one of my pet peeves is the endless loop that one gets in on the telephone when trying to take care of simple matters, like changing any kind of information. In the old days of rotary telephones, a person would simply call Edna at the phone company or Jerry at the bank and ask them to make the change. Edna would ask about your mom and dad, congratulate you on your daughter making the cheerleading squad, and make the necessary change. Same with Jerry.

Now, once it’s been established which language I speak, it is a series of loops, all of which almost NEVER get me to what I want. Sigh. By time I get to a human (by pressing the 0 button 10 or 20 times I have learned), I am so crabby that an apology is almost always necessary at the end of the conversation. After all, “Hank”, who claims to be in Texas, is actually in India and, no matter where he is, none of this is his fault. He is only trying to make a buck (or a rupee as it were).

But I guess if my grandmother could transition from a horse and carriage to a motor vehicle with grace, and accept that you could watch programs on a box in the living room, I should be able to be more patient when I am making a change that is allowing me to access nearly endless information on the world wide web.

Friday Book Whimsy: The Aviator's Wife

We have already established my love for historical novels. I am a sucker for learning about people, places and things via a novel. It engages me much more readily than nonfiction.

I knew very little about Charles Lindberg. I knew the basics – he flew solo from the United States to Europe (establishing that it could be done), and he had a baby son who was kidnapped and ultimately killed.

The Aviator’s Wife, by Melanie Benjamin, emphasizes the life of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, his wife. Through her story, the reader learns about aviation, world history, politics, and another side of the famous Mr. Lindbergh.

Though a novel, (which, as I have pointed out, requires that the reader takes the information with a grain of salt) nearly all of the information the author uses is factual if one is to trust Wikipedia (and heaven knows Wikipedia is never wrong!). Where speculation comes in seems to be the author’s presentation of Lindbergh as a fairly cold-hearted husband and father who loved his wife and children but didn’t display his affection in any kind of way.

The story of the kidnapping was really interesting. Benjamin spent more time around the emotions surrounding the family than she did on the events following the kidnapping. I thought she did a really good job of showing how Anne reacted to this horrific event.

I really liked the character of Anne Morrow Lindbergh. She was the daughter of a strong mother and a very prominent father. She grew up wealthy and was well-educated, but never gained any self-esteem. As such, she was completed astounded when Lindbergh selected her to be his wife. As a result, it was years and years before she really stood up for herself.

She was an author, a poet, and an aviator in her own right. She brought up the children almost single-handedly as he travelled around the world. They were, from all accounts, the first people to experience paparazzi, and it strongly impacted their life in many ways.

I really liked Benjamin’s writing. The novel is well-researched. The story seems to be much more fictional than the previous historical novel I reviewed. But the characterizations seem to be realistic. I learned a lot about what the world was like in the 20s, 30s, and 40s.

I enjoyed watching Anne develop through the novel, and grew to like her a great deal. Conversely, I heartily disliked Charles Lindbergh, and am not sure that is entirely fair.

A good read that I would recommend for a book club.

Jabba the Hut Meets the Energizer Bunny (and guess which one I am)

So, the cold which has been playing around with me for the past few days finally caught up with me. I awoke yesterday morning with a sore throat and it felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest. I’m really pretty hearty, but this one kind of knocked me on my behind.

So, I pretty much sat in my recliner chair in the family room and watched television all day. Let’s

see, I watched three or four recorded Pioneer Woman shows (including one in which she made a yummy looking chicken Florentine in sixteen minutes), two episodes of Foyle’s War (my newest Masterpiece Theater obsession), an episode of Cedar Cove to meet my heightened need for romance in my weakened state, the Dancing With the Stars that we had recorded Monday night because we were watching our Denver Broncos TROUNCE the Oakland Raiders, an episode of Call the Midwife (my other new PBS obsession), and back to Food Network to watch Jamie Deen’s Home for Dinner. Count it out. It adds up to about nine hours of sitting on my rear end in my pajamas watching television. I did get up around noon and eat some canned chicken noodle soup.

While I was masquerading as a giant blob, my husband was working on his remodel project. He was busily sanding, hammering, painting, and cleaning paintbrushes. In between home improvement projects he was emptying mouse traps, paying the bills for which he is responsible, and getting the garbage cans out for the collectors to pick up.

The pinnacle was tonight, around 10, as we were heading up the stairs (my legs were weak from having not been used all day), he says to me, “Do you mind if I put up some shelves in my office tonight?” Ten o’clock at night and he is going to put up shelving. That’s what he’s doing right now. The man is the Energizer Bunny.

That, of course, makes me Jabba the Hut.

And, because I was sick, here is my soup recipe of the day:

Mickey Mouse Visits the House

So enough of my waxing eloquent about autumn. Football, baseball, cool weather. Blah blah blah. In the first place, the weather only stayed cool a couple of days, and has been near or above 80 most days since. Now I just feel foolish.

Plus, there is a lot about the fall that makes me cranky.

Every summer we have a bird feeder. Our feeder attracts the prettiest little birds – chickadees, house finches, wrens. Some bigger birds graze on the leftovers that fall to the earth. Squirrels too, but that’s a given. Anyway, I enjoy watching the little birds all summer long.

However, as with most things good, there is a down side. In this case, it’s the mice that appear around this time each year. They are apparently stocking up for the winter months, and they like the seeds that drop to the ground. I see them scurrying around, in and out of the rocks that make up the garden area in which our feeder is located. I really don’t mind seeing them running around outside. After all, they are God’s creatures too, and part of nature. But the other evening as I was sitting at my kitchen table near the back door, I looked out to see a tiny little mouse sitting just outside the door looking in at me. I half expected him to knock on the door and ask to come in. Perhaps I have been watching too much Mickey Mouse Clubhouse with my grandkids. He did kind of look like this, however.

Anyway, all of my warm feelings about the sweet little mice being part of nature went out the window. I pounded heartily on the door and yelled, “Scram!” at the top of my lungs. He did. Probably through a tiny hole into my basement.

So it was time to set the traps. We started out with the old standby traps, but quickly learned that the squirrels are able to trip those bad boys and get the bait without a problem. So my husband sent me to the hardware store for Plan B, the covered traps. Squirrel-proof. Unfortunately, apparently our mice are too small to trip the traps, so they can just munch on the bait without a care in the world. I expected them to wave over at me and tell me thanks for the snack.

Finally, my husband sent me to the store for Plan C. (By the way, in case you are wondering why my husband is sending me to the store rather than going himself, it’s because he is in the final stages of a room remodel which has been going on for approximately 750 years. I am so ready for him to be done that I will do anything to keep him working. I would sleep for him at night if that was possible.) Anyway, Plan C is the sticky trap. I’m not even going to talk about that.

But I will talk about this delicious soup. It is a copycat version of Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana, and I think it is very close. How can you go wrong with Italian sausage and cream in the same recipe. I got this recipe from Annie's Eats.

Zuppa Toscana

Ingredients
1 lb. Italian sausage
1 large onion, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 c. white wine to deglaze the pan
1/2 t. red pepper flakes
2 potatoes, peeled and cut into small chunks
2 c. fresh kale, chopped
3 c. chicken broth
2-1/2 c. water
1 c. heavy cream
salt and pepper

Process
Place a large stockpot on the stove over medium heat. Crumble the sausage into the pan and cook until well browned. Remove the sausage with a slotted spoon and set aside. Add the onion to the pan and saute until tender, 5-7 min.

Add the garlic and red pepper flakes to the pan and cook for a minute more, just until fragrant. Add the wine to the pot and stir, scraping the bottom of the pan to loosen any browned bits. Add the potatoes, kale, chicken broth and water to the pot. Return the sausage to the pot. Increase the heat to medium high, bring to a boil, and then reduce heat to simmer. Cover and let simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are fork-tender.

Stir in the heavy cream and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Bon appetito! Don't leave any crumbs for the mice.

Brushing Teeth

I'm going to give you a great soup recipe, but first a funny story….

The other morning I agreed to watch my 3-year-old granddaughter for the morning while her mommy acted as a chaperone for her sister’s school field trip. As usual, Little Missy was glad to see me, and my morning look like a walk in the park.

As my daughter-in-law was walking out the door, she called back to me, “By the way, could you please help Mylee brush her teeth?”

“Of course,” I replied. “No problem.”

Or so I thought.

“Which toothbrush is yours, Mylee?” I asked.

“I don’t want to brush my teeth,” was her response.

“Well, of course you must brush your teeth,” I said. “It will only take a minute.”

“I don’t want to brush my teeth,” she said again.

And so our morning went. I know this sounds silly. After all, I’m nearly 60, and she’s only 3. I outweigh her by a good 100 lbs. I should be able to make her brush her teeth. But, I swear to you Ladies and Gentlemen, there was no way she was going to let me brush her teeth. When I tried to use psychology (“all good girls brush their teeth; that way they will have pretty smiles”), she responded, “I don’t want to brush my teeth.” When I tried to use bribery (“I will read you that funny Halloween story AFTER you have brushed your teeth”), she said, “I don’t want to brush my teeth.” And when I tried more direct persuasion (that is, picking her up, carrying her into the bathroom, putting her onto her little stool and coming at her with the toothbrush), she clamped her mouth shut tighter than the doors at the Strategic Air Command in Omaha, Nebraska.

It was getting closer and closer to the time when Mommy was to come home. I had only been given one substantive task, and I had failed. I finally just crouched down to her level and simply asked her, “Mylee, why do you not want to brush your teeth?”

“I’m afraid of the toothpaste,” she replied.

There you have it. That was it. I don’t know now, nor will I probably ever, just why she found the toothpaste so scary. However, when I washed the toothpaste off of the brush, she opened her mouth and let me brush her teeth. This is a true story.

Doesn't she look innocent?

And Mom doesn’t need to know this story.

Now, about soup….

When I was newly married and a very bad cook, I joined a subscription service offered by, hmmm, maybe McCall’s Magazine (which I don’t think even exists anymore). Each month, McCalls sent me a series of recipe cards for a fee. As I recall, most of the recipes were not good or were too complicated for my little newlywed brain (which at the time was also concentrating on college as well as marriage). I also recall that it was kind of expensive, at least for two college students on a very limited budget, but hey, I really was a very bad cook.

Out of that subscription service, this was the only recipe that I continue to use. By the way, the image was posted online as a "vintage recipe card." It's the same recipe card I use. Guess that makes me old.

Sunday Supper Soup


Ingredients
1-1/2 lb. ground chuck
1 egg, beaten
½ c. soft bread crumbs
¼ t. salt
1 T. chopped parsley
2 T. butter
1 10-1/2 oz. can beef broth
1 28-oz can tomatoes, undrained
1 envelope (1-3/4 oz.) dry onion soup mix
4-5 carrots, peeled and sliced
¼ c. chopped celery
¼ c. chopped parsley
¼ t. pepper
¼ t/ dried parsley
¼ t/ dried basil
1 bay leaf

Process
Make meatballs: In medium bowl, combine beef, egg, 3 T. water, bread crumbs, salt, and parsley; mix lightly. With hands, lightly shape into 24 balls.

In hot butter in 5-qt. Dutch oven, sauté meatballs, a few at a time, until browned on all sides. Drain off fat. Set meatballs aside.

In same Dutch oven, combine 2 c. water, beef broth, tomatoes, soup mix, carrots, celery, parsley, pepper, oregano, basil and bay leaf. Bring to boiling, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, but stirring occasionally to break up tomatoes, 30 min. Add meatballs and simmer 20 min. longer.

6 servings

Dodging Raindrops

Last night, probably around midnight, I woke up to the sound of falling rain. I’m not sure how long it had been raining, but the sound of the steady falling raindrops was soothing.

Before going to bed, I had taken dose of Nyquil because somewhere along the line I have managed to catch a cold and I felt like a good night’s sleep would be helpful. So I was in kind of a groggy, Nyquil-induced coma-like state as I listened to the rain fall. It was really raining hard.

All of the sudden, I remembered that when I drove to the mall yesterday afternoon, I had cracked the sunroof on my little yellow Volkswagen Beetle (dubbed Nana’s Bug by all of the grandkids), which I left outside rather than parking in the garage. Had I closed the sunroof? Couldn’t remember. Being anesthetized by Nyquil didn’t help my memory.

I leaped out of bed and ran to the window, but I couldn’t see a thing. I did, however, awaken my husband, who can generally sleep through anything, but apparently not me running around the bedroom in only-somewhat-controlled hysteria.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. I explained, and asked him if he knew the location of any of the 40 or 50 umbrellas we own. Of course he didn’t. And I’m not complaining about him, because I had no clue as to where they were either. That’s why we own 40 or 50. We can never find one when we need it, so we buy another. Somewhere in this house there is a pile of umbrellas the size of Mt. Fuji.

I don’t own any rubber boots, but I knew I didn’t want to go outside in my bedroom slippers. So I put on a pair of hiking boots. And I don’t own a raincoat. (Hey! I live in Denver, not Seattle. I own a ski jacket.) So I grabbed the jacket to my workout clothes and threw it over my shoulders. There I was, wearing a blue nightgown, hiking boots, and a bright green Nike jacket. I looked like Granny Clampett. But it doesn’t matter how I looked. The point is I was wearing absolutely nothing that would keep me dry.

Anyway, the good news is that I hadn’t left my window open and my car was locked up tight as a drum. More good news is that I didn’t even have to go outside, which I would have realized had I not been medicated. Kids, don’t use drugs. I simply opened the garage door and looked outside at my cozily-locked-up-tight-as-a-drum car.

Bill had fallen back to sleep, but I laid awake a long while listening to the rain.

Soup's On

This week I am going to feature recipes for soup. Soup is one of my favorite things to eat, and my mom had a lot of soup recipes. She prepared soup every day for the little coffee shop/restaurant they owned in Leadville, Colorado, for a few years. She gave me this recipe that she called Cream of Anything. I always thought it was very clever of her to have come up with the idea.

Cream of Anything Soup

Ingredients
¾ c. butter
1 onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 c. chopped vegetables
2 T. chicken broth seasoning, or 2 chicken bouillon cubes
2 c. milk
2 c. half and half
1 qt. hot water
Salt and pepper
Seasonings

Process
Melt butter in Dutch oven. Add onion and celery. Sauté until onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Add chopped vegetables, and sauté, covered, for about 10 minutes, until the vegetables are becoming tender. Stir in flour. Cook, stirring occasionally, 2 or 3 minutes. Add water, chicken seasoning and milk. Cook, stirring, until thickened.

Season with salt and pepper to taste. Stir in half and half. Bring to simmer, but not to a boil. Add seasonings according to vegetables used.

Lord Help the Mister That Comes Between Me and My Sister

Sisters can drive you crazy. I should know. I have two of them.

Your parents dress you alike. And even when they don’t, the younger sisters end up wearing the older sisters' hand-me-downs. I remember having to wear my sister’s hand-me-down First Communion dress and thinking I just wanted to die of embarrassment. That was 50 years ago and I still cringe when I think of it.

I also remember, however, that my mom made my sister take me along with her on her dates when she was in high school. That must have been a riot for her and definitely evened out the embarrassment levels a bit. I’m surprised she speaks to me at all.

Of course, we would have gone to the mat for each other, even when we were children. And now we are the best of friends.

I keep this in mind when I watch the sisters among my grandchildren. And I particularly noticed it recently when I watched two of my grandchildren, sisters, ages 3 and 5. They have very different personalities and interests. While the 5-year-old wants to help me make cookies, the younger one uses the plastic hand mitts as shark puppets.

What kind of cookies should we make, I asked them. “M&M cookies.” “Chocolate Chip Cookies.” They speak simultaneously. What do you want for lunch, I ask. “Macaroni and cheese.” “Rice with soy sauce.” Once again simultaneously.

So we divide the dough in half and put chocolate chips in one half and M&Ms in the other. And thank goodness for those little individual containers of rice and mac and cheese because I can please them both.

Before long, the two of them are in the playroom having a tea party. I can hear them talking to each other and I know that they, too, would go to the mat for each other. Well, maybe not today, but sometime soon.

By the way, the title comes from a song from the movie White Christmas that is sung by Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen. It's become the theme song for my sisters and me!

Friday Book Whimsy: A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet

I’m sure I commit one of the seven deadly sins on a regular basis, especially gluttony and sloth. In fact, I probably committed the sin of gluttony last night when I had a second piece of the apple cake (see yesterday’s post for the recipe).

And I definitely committed the sin of envy over and over this week as I read Sophie Hudson’s wonderful book A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet. I want to write like Sophie Hudson. In fact, I want to BE Sophie Hudson.

Ms. Hudson’s book (I would like to call her Sophie because after reading the book, and after reading her almost-daily blog Boomama now for a while, I feel like we are friends) is a collection of stories about her quirky and delightful southern family. The stories are, seriously, laugh-out-loud (do I have to say LOL?) funny. And yet, never mean-spirited. Ms. Hudson just has a way of looking at situations and finding the humor and, well, humanness. I want to know these people. I already feel like they are my family too.

Obviously a deeply spiritual person, I also like the fact that Hudson is not a bit afraid to talk about the role of God in her life. I think many authors would shy away from this, afraid that it would diminish the audience. I think, on the contrary, it should enhance Hudson’s audience because her words are not preachy but so clearly come from her heart. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT let the fact that Hudson talks about her faith stop anyone from reading this book. You will be missing out on some wonderful writing.

I very often am in awe of an author's writing. Hudson's book certainly isn't the first to make me envious. However, I think I am more aware of her writing because she is a blogger, just as I am. Her blog has led to this book, which I clearly think is excellent. It gives me hope.

Kudos to Hudson for concluding the book with all of those yummy recipes. I will definitely try some of them in my quest for the perfect-food-that-will-almost-certainly-close-up-my arteries-permanently.

I hope that A Little Salty… will become a best seller and that there will be more to come from Sophie Hudson. In the meantime, I will work on my envy issue. Sigh.

Apple Cakes Like My Mommy Makes

In 2008, Bill and I took the trip of a lifetime. We traveled for 3-1/2 months in Europe. We took a 2-1/2 week cruise across the Atlantic, and then traveled around much of western Europe, concentrating on France and Italy. In fact, we spent an entire month living in a small town in Tuscany.

A couple of years later, we again cruised across the Atlantic to Rome, and then cruised around the Mediterranean to such places as southern Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Egypt. Very nice travels. Remind me to tell you about it sometime.

My mom and dad didn’t travel nearly as much as Bill and I. Still, they went to Hawaii a couple of times, and saw a fair bit of the United States thanks mostly to my sister who married a career army man who was stationed in several locations throughout his career.

But mostly I think my parents – and particularly my mom – liked to stay home. She loved her family and loved spending time with them. So her travels consisted almost entirely of visits to my sister and her family and my brother and his family (who live in Phoenix). And, of course, she enjoyed traveling to any places where she could travel with her kids and her grandkids.

One such trip was to Lancaster, Pennsylvania – Amish country, in 1989, probably as an addendum to a visit to my sister’s home in northern Virginia outside Washington, DC. I only know the year because as I was going through my mother’s recipe box, I came across an envelope from Historic Paul Sours Plantation House in Bendersville, PA, and it was addressed to my mother. That seemed like an odd thing to find in a recipe box. It was date-stamped October 1989. I opened it, and a note card fell out. It was a recipe for Apple Cake.

That was when I recalled that trip, and how much my mother loved that apple cake. What I didn’t remember is that she must have loved it so much that she talked the bed-and-breakfast proprietor into giving her the recipe. That is probably not something most chefs are wont to do, preferring to keep the recipe their own little secret. My mother, however, could be charming and persuasive.

Enjoy this apple cake. By the way, I looked it up and can find no sign that the Historic Paul Sours Plantation House still exists. But thanks to my mom, their apple cake does!


Historic Paul Sours Plantation House Apple Cake

Ingredients
2 c. flour
2 c. sugar
2 t. cinnamon
1 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder
1 c. shopped walnuts
1 c. vegetable oil
2 t. vanilla
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 c. brandy
4 c. chopped apples (peeled)

Process
Mix all ingredients and press into a greased 9 x 11 baking dish. Bake at 350 for 1 hour or until center bounces back when touched. Don't know how the B&B served it, but I plan on serving mine with a dollop of fresh whipped cream.

Third Born

I’m a middle child. There are four of us in our family –three sisters and, finally, to our dad’s great relief, a son. I am second born.

There are numerous studies that indicate that birth order impacts each child uniquely. First-born children, for example, are ambitious and feel responsible for solving all of the problems in the family (maybe even the world?). Second-borns want to please everyone. Third-borns, well, they just fight for what they get, and mostly they get what’s left.

Our middle son has four kids, ages 10, 8, 7, and 5 – girl, boy, girl, girl. Because of the sheer number of kids, and because our son and daughter-in-law are determined that their children appreciate all that they have, there are lots of hand-me-downs. It’s just inevitable, especially with all those girls. This photo, by the way, is missing the youngest who was likely in the warming hut with Mom.

Recently the kids tried on their ski clothing and equipment to see what fit, what didn’t, and what needed to be bought. As it turns out, the littlest one hadn’t grown a bit (she’s a wee bit of a thing), but the others were all in need of at least some sort of new clothing and/or equipment. But, unfortunately for the third-born, her brother’s old clothes and equipment fit her perfectly. Her mom told me that little Miss Third-Born wept real tears when she learned that she was going to have to wear her brother’s old clothes and equipment on the slopes this winter. Boy’s clothes. With her brother and older sister sporting shiny new duds. Argh. The unfairness of being a third-born.

Of course, when Mom told Nana, I wanted to weep real tears as well. Instead, I headed to the sporting goods store to buy Dagny some bright pink ski mittens. A girl has to have some pride.

Now I know absolutely nothing about ski duds, not being a skier myself. I was studying my choices when a nice young man came over and asked if I needed help. I proceeded to begin to tell him the story of these four grandkids and their ski clothes and how my poor little 7-year-old was getting the short end of the stick because she was going to have to wear her brother’s clothes and yada, yada, yada. I suspect I went into a bit too much detail because, though I have heard the phrase used before, this time I literally saw this young man’s eyes glaze over. He couldn’t possibly have cared less that my granddaughter had to wear her brother’s clothes, except for the fact that it might mean he could sell me a new pair of ski mittens. It made me laugh at myself.

Dagny got her pink mittens, and some socks to boot.

Today’s fall dinner offering:

Coq Au Vin

Ingredients
4 slices of bacon
1 whole chicken, cut into pieces
Salt and pepper to taste
1 medium onion, diced
1 carrot, diced
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. butter
1 lb. mushrooms, sliced
2 c. red wine

Process
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Fry the bacon in a large skillet until crisp. Remove from the pan, crumble it, and let it drain.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper, then place the chicken pieces fat side down into the skillet and cook in the bacon grease until brown. Turn over and cook the other side. Remove from pan and set aside in a baking dish, skin side up.

Sauté the onion, carrots and garlic in the skillet with the bacon grease until onions are translucent and garlic is fragrant, about 3 minutes. Remove from pan and add to the baking dish with the chicken. Add 2 T. butter to the skillet and cook the mushrooms until golden. Add to the baking dish with the chicken and the onion/carrot/garlic mix.

Drain grease from the skillet, then place over medium heat. Pour in 2 c. of red wine, using a wire whisk to loosen all the goodies from the bottom of the pan. Salt the liquid and cook for three minutes to allow wine to decrease. Pour the wine over the chicken and vegetables in the baking pan. Cover and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Serve over buttered noodles or mashed potatoes.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

So that you know that braising roasts until the meat falls off the bone isn’t the only thing I like about the fall months, I want you to know that I also look forward to autumn because of the World Series.

I am not a baseball fan. Baseball, like gardening, is one of those things that I want to like, but simply don’t. My sister loves baseball. She enjoys spending a day at the ballpark. She understands why the catcher is making funny hand signals and what they might mean. She knows what the bullpen is. I, on the other hand, have trouble sitting for three hours watching a sporting event that isn’t football.

My dad, who is now deceased, also loved baseball. Well, to be honest, he loved any sporting event that involved a ball. But especially in his later life, he loved his Colorado Rockies. And he loved to talk baseball with anyone who would listen. He would try with me, but I just didn’t know or care what a ground rule double was. So he would talk baseball with my sister, who does know what a ground rule double is. He always did like her best.

But even not being a baseball fan, I recognize that there is something special about the World Series. It’s the culmination of an entire summer of seemingly endless baseball. It has all that history and legend and controversy. I remember even in Catholic grade school in Nebraska in the 60s that the nuns let the boys listen to the World Series on their transistor radios during class because, well, it was the World Series.

One of the best things my sibs and I ever did was pool our money and buy Dad tickets to a World Series game back in 2007 when the Rockies played the Boston Red Sox. Dad was already unable to get around much without a wheel chair, but my stepmother accompanied him to the game. One of my sisters and I dropped them off at the ballpark. We parked the car illegally, and hustled them to the gate. We watched as my stepmother gamely pushed my dad through the purple throng, and we both agreed we felt much the same as we had when we watched our kids go off to kindergarten. Gulp. Later, my stepmother said that despite the crowd of excited fans, as they made their way towards the elevator, the “crowds parted like the Red Sea.” The fans were so kind, as only baseball fans can be.

The Rockies lost that game, and lost that series, but my dad never forgot that he got to attend a World Series game.

And in memory of my beef-loving dad, here is my fall recipe of the day:

Ree Drummond’s Perfect Pot Roast

Ingredients
Salt and pepper
One 3- to 5-lb. chuck roast
3 T olive oil
2 whole onions, peeled and halved
6 to 8 carrots, cut into 2-in pieces
1 c. red wine (optional)
3 c. beef broth
2 or 3 sprigs fresh rosemary
2 or 3 sprigs fresh thyme

Process
Preheat the oven to 275 degrees.
Generously salt and pepper the chuck roast.

Heat the olive oil in large pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the onions to the pot, browning them on both sides. Remove the onions to a plate. Throw the carrots into the same very hot pot and toss them around a bit until slightly browned, about a minute or so. Reserve the carrots with the onions.

If needed, add a bit more olive oil to the very hot pot. Place the meat in the pot and sear it for about a minute on all sides until it is nice and brown all over. Remove the roast to a plate.

With the burner still on high, use either red wine or beef broth (about 1 c) to deglaze the pot, scraping the bottom with a whisk. Place the roast back into the pot and add enough beef stock to cover the meat halfway. Add in the onions and the carrots, along with the fresh herbs.

Put the lid on, then roast for 3 hours for a 3-lb. roast. For a 4- to 5-lb roast, plan on 4 hours. The roast is ready when it’s fall-apart tender.

Falling for the Weather

The past few days of weird, rainy Colorado weather have been devastating to some. As I mentioned, my family has been spared, and for that I’m grateful.

One thing the rainy weather brought with it was a cool down, something I think many of us anticipated with eagerness. We have had a very hot and dry summer. And it seems like late August and early September were particularly hot.

I am not a fan of cold weather. I am sad every year when I have to turn on the lights a bit earlier and my pretty summer flowers start to dry up and the tomato plants begin to crumble. Even when our kids were younger, I really didn’t look forward to school starting as did many of my friends.

I suppose if I had made it a point to participate in some winter sports I might feel different. I really did give skiing a try, but it just never worked for me. Despite taking a lesson, I never got good at it. I was always just thiiiiis shy of being a danger on the slopes and careening madly down the hill. And this was on the bunny slope. It’s not a good idea to careen on the bunny slope. There are all those 3-year-olds happily skiing down the hill, their skis in a perfect pizza shape. I have always meant to try cross country skiing, but since I’m nearing 60, I’m not sure it’s necessarily going to happen. And I just don’t like being out in the cold weather.

My dislike for cold, wintry weather (a dislike that is shared by my husband) is the reason we bought a house in Arizona a couple of years ago. Somewhere just after Christmas, we head south and spend the remainder of the winter into May in the desert. That makes me very happy.

Having said all this, however, I am ready for the weather to cool down a bit and the rain to stop. While I don’t like winter weather, I do like winter cooking. Nothing tastes better to me than a tough piece of meat cooked slowly to tenderness in a Dutch oven with a lovely gravy to put over noodles or potatoes. And don’t even get me started on chili. Yum.

I laughed the other day when my sister, who lives in Arizona, texted me to tell me that they were eating chili because the weather had turned cool. It was 86 degrees.

This week I’m going to feature some fall recipes, starting with Apple Crisp.


Apple Crisp

Ingredients
10 c. apples (I used 4 Granny Smith and 4 Honeycrisp)
1 c. sugar
1 T. flour
1 t. cinnamon
½ c. water
1 c. quick-cooking oats (I only had regular oatmeal, and it worked fine)
1 c. flour
1 c. packed brown sugar
¼ t. baking powder
¼ t. baking soda
½ c. butter, melted

Process
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Place the sliced apple in a 9X13 inch pan. Mix the white sugar, 1 T. flour and cinnamon together, and sprinkle over apples. Pour water over all.

Combine the oats, 1 c. flour, brown sugar baking powder, baking soda, and melted butter together. Crumble evenly over the apple mixture. Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes.

By the way, if you use a lot of peeled apples in your cooking, I recommend you purchase an apple peeler from your local hardware store. Old school, but so effective.

Flooded With Blessings

In the biblical story of Noah, God promises his obedient servant that he will never again destroy the world with a flood. He didn’t, however, say a word about northern Colorado.

If you live in Colorado, or have been watching the news, you know that we have been having torrential, historical rainfall. Like many weather phenomenon in this crazy state (probably because of the mountains, though I am not, of course, a meteorologist), the rain is hit and miss. So, I can leave my house where it is lightly raining, drive through a crazy downpour about a mile-and-a-half south of here, and arrive at my son’s house (about four miles away) to light rain. Because of this, it is hard to know who has been impacted by what the news people are calling the 100-Year Flood, and who hasn’t.

Well, once again, God has blessed us. Though a sister, a nephew, and my stepmother live in northern Colorado, none has (at least to date) had any problems with floodwaters. In fact, all of our family members who live in Colorado have remained high and dry. That’s pretty remarkable considering all the people who live literally 15 minutes north of here who are pumping out their basements or are confined to their homes because their streets are impassable.

I never understand why some people are burdened and some people are spared when there is a crisis. We certainly don’t deserve this blessing more than many others. Still, I will never look a gift horse in the mouth and am not forgetting to give thanks, as St. Paul suggested to the Philippians.

Friday Book Whimsy: The Winter Sea

I think when we were studying World History in high school, I was more interested in boys and make up and rock and roll music. Maybe that’s why I enjoy historical novels so much now. I find that well-researched historical fiction is a pretty good way to learn about the past as long as you remember that it is a novel and take things with a grain of salt.

In 1708, a fleet of Scottish and French soldiers attempted to bring back the exiled King James of the Stewart line of Scotland to reclaim his crown. I’m not giving anything away when I tell you they were unsuccessful. Scotland was often unsuccessful in their battles against England.

The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley is the story of a famous historical novelist who moves to the Highlands area of Scotland to research and write a book about the Jacobites who were behind this movement to return King James to the throne. The novelist, Carrie McClelland, decides to use her own Scottish ancestors as the characters, despite the fact that she knows nothing about them.

However, it soon becomes eerily apparent that, though she thinks she’s writing fiction, everything she writes, including character names, is factual. This understandably creeps her out. Through discussions with a local physician, she becomes familiar with a phenomenon called ancestral or genetic memory, which is memory present at birth passed down through DNA over spans of time. (As an aside, the belief in ancestral memory still exists today in some New Age circles. In fact, it’s tied into the Jungian psychological theory.)

So, while all of that sounds really complicated and somewhat silly, I found the novel to be an interesting account of the early Jacobite uprising, and a really grand story. Kearsley clearly is a wonderful researcher. In fact, in her Author’s Note, she points out that she tried to use the best evidence possible to support a scene. She says: “If an account was written down of what was said between two people, then I’ve had them say the same thing in my book. If Captain Gordon’s ship was in Leith harbor on a certain day, I’ve put him there.”

The story goes back and forth from contemporary to 1708, but in an interesting way. The contemporary story is told in first person, and the historical story is presented as McClelland’s book. I found this to be less confusing than some novels that take place in two time periods.

I have never read anything by Kearsley. In fact, I obtained The Winter Sea literally months ago on my Nook as part of Barnes and Noble’s Free Friday book marketing. The plot description didn’t grab me for some reason even though I am such a fan of historical novels. The history of Scotland just didn’t seem to be something in which I was particularly interested. But this novel grabbed me from the very beginning. I love Kearsley’s writing and her plotting.

I found the contemporary story to be as interesting as the historical story. I like to say I am not a fan of romance novels, but secretly I think I am (as long as there are no heaving bodices and bare-chested men on the cover). The contemporary love story, which complimented the love story that took place in McClelland’s novel, was fun.

The supporting characters were interesting, and Kearsley chose not to have a lot of drama in the contemporary story, perhaps because there was so much drama in the historical story. The ending had a nice, unexpected twist that I thought was well done and well thought out. It could have been cheesy, but wasn’t.

I will read other books by this author, and highly recommend this book to anyone who likes historical romantic fiction.

Kids' Whimsical Cooking

My mother didn’t teach me to cook.

Don’t get me wrong. My mom was a very good cook. She just didn’t teach me to cook, or my siblings either. She probably thought it was simply easier to do it herself. She prepared the meals; we did other things. As a result, I was a terrible cook when I first got married. Rice that could have doubled for wallpaper paste. A pie crust that was so hard to roll out that I ended up throwing it on the floor. You get the picture.

As the years went by, I must have learned through simply watching Mom how to do some cooking. I got better as time went on. Now I hardly ever throw a pie crust on the floor.

My 10-year-old granddaughter Addie likes to cook. She has liked to cook since she was a really small girl. She has a patient mommy who has allowed her to cook, and who has taught her a thing or two about cooking!

As I continue with this blog, I thought it would be fun to give Addie the chance to blog on occasion as well. She can talk about cooking from a 10-year-old’s perspective. As part of the process, Addie cooked dinner last night, and man! it was delicious.

Here is her first post:

Hi my name is Adelaide Grace McLain (I go by Addie for short). I am 10 years old and I will be doing blog posts about kids cooking on this blog. I have a passion for cooking and that is why my nana (the one who owns this blog) asked me to share my recipes. I have 3 siblings and so my family is a total of six. My favorite color is yellow and my favorite food is mango. I would have to say that my best dish is fettuccini alfredo which is coincidentally my first blog recipe.

I started cooking when I was about 6 years old. My mom was cooking fettuccini alfredo and I said, “Can you teach me how to cook?” After that, I started making breakfast for my siblings many mornings and coffee for my parents that I would bring up to them in bed.

I hope you like my blog posts.


Fettuccini Alfredo

Ingredients
1 stick of butter
¾ of a pint of cream
Enough Parmesan cheese to make the sauce thick.

Process
Melt the butter in a sauce pan. Add the cream to the butter, stirring the whole time. Add the Parmesan cheese until the sauce is thick (probably around ¾ - 1 c. of cheese). This is what it should look like:

Cook your pasta, and pour the sauce on top.

Smooth Sailing

Today it is like the heavens broke loose and the rain just keeps on coming. I love rainy days; just wouldn’t want them every day. But a steady rainfall following weeks of dry, hot weather feels just right.

So this morning as I thought about what to make for breakfast on this chilly morning, what do you think came to my mind? A steamy hot bowl of oatmeal with brown sugar, blueberries and cream? Bacon and eggs, with home fried potatoes? A pan of freshly-baked cinnamon rolls?

Nope. This morning I made smoothies.

Smoothies don’t exactly equate with chilly, rainy days. Still, I had all of this fruit that was going to go to waste if I didn’t use it soon. And yogurt that was coming alarmingly close to its pull date (buying Greek yogurt by the case from Costco seems like such a good idea at the time).

Smoothies are easy, healthy, and taste like a treat. So smoothies it was.

I simply fill my blender with frozen berries, a couple of nectarines, a banana, some peach-mango juice, and two containers of Greek yogurt. Some people add spinach. My husband would not in a million years, ever, ever drink a green smoothie. So there. No spinach.

(I did, however, add a few tablespoons of Benefiber, something 20- or 30-somethings would not have to do. That’s all I’ll say about that.)

Pour my decidedly PINK fruit smoothie into a pretty glass and call it breakfast. Should I have chilled soup for lunch?

Stalking Henny Penny

I speak for many when I say I love the grocery store rotisserie chicken. Any evening when I don’t have a plan for dinner, or when I have a plan but the plan doesn’t sound good to me, it’s off to Whole Foods for a delicious roasted chicken.

We like it just as it is, served with a vegetable and maybe some biscuits. And since, seeings as there are only two of us, we can only eat half, there is always the other half to use as a second meal.

I went to Whole Foods the other evening expressly to get a roasted chicken for dinner. My plan was to eat half that night and to make chicken enchiladas the next night. When I got there at about 4:45, however, there were only four measly chickens on the platform. I glanced up at the rotisserie oven and saw that the birds looked brown and yummy and ready to package up and put out. Ah ha, I thought. I bet they put out fresh chickens at 5. I’ll wait for a hot roasted chicken.

So I wandered around the store. I looked at the cheeses. I stopped at the olive bar and filled up a container with olives and pickles. I checked out all of the great looking sausages. I went back to the roasted chicken rack. There were only three chickens sitting there. It was 5:03.

That’s okay, I thought. I’ll wait a bit longer. I went to the produce aisle and filled my basket with the makings for my salsa verde that I would use with my chicken enchiladas the next night. It was 5:10. I went back to the chicken rack. There was one lonely chicken, and it proudly boasted that it was unsalted. Unsalted? I glanced at the people behind the counter and no one appeared to be getting chickens ready to put out. Rats.

So I went back to the meat area and asked the butcher to cut one of the big rib eye steaks in half the long way. We would go to Plan B and have panfried steak. On my way to the checkout I walked by the chicken rack. That poor unsalted, unloved chicken was still sitting there all by himself.

The store was busy and the line was long. I was second in line when I glanced back at the deli area and saw that a young man was putting roasted chickens in containers. Yippee! I left my place in line without a backward glance and asked the young man if I could have one of the chickens he was preparing. Of course, he said.

I went home with a hot, delicious chicken for dinner, though the process took longer than I thought it would. And the next night, just as I planned we had chicken enchiladas. Double duty.

Stacked Green Chili Chicken Enchiladas

Ingredients
12 tomatillos, husked and rinsed
2 jalapenos, stemmed
1 onion, quartered
Splash white vinegar
Water
1 t. ground cumin
½ bunch fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped
2 limes
Salt
1 pint green chili (homemade or store-bought)
1 deli roasted chicken
½ bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
12 corn tortillas
Cheese

Process
Make the salsa verde: Put the tomatillos, jalapenos, and onion in a saucepan with the vinegar and water to cover. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and poach for 10 minutes. Drain. Put the vegetables in a blender, add the cumin, and puree. Add the cilantro, lime juice, and salt. Pulse to combine.

Bring the green chili to a simmer. Fold in the chicken, cilantro, salt and pepper.

Preheat oven to 350.

To assemble, place some salsa verde on the bottom of a 9 X 13 pan, and cover with corn tortillas. Layer the green chili/chicken mixture, the salsa verde, and the cheese two or three times. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes. Let sit a few minutes before cutting into the dish.

Old School

My husband and I like to watch the Food Network television show Restaurant Impossible. In this show, Chef Robert Irvine goes into a failing restaurant and in two days and with $10,000, transforms it into a new, improved eatery with a hip interior and a slick, cool new menu. We are then to assume that the restaurant goes on to be successful, though we never know that for sure.

The thing that amuses both Bill and me is that at the end, all of the restaurants look basically the same, and the menus are pretty much interchangeable. Oh, there might be a few differences if the themes are different – Italian, Greek, hamburger joint, etc. But in the end, most of the restaurants are very much the same. We recently had the occasion to dine at Irvine’s Nosh restaurant on Hilton Head Island, and yes, you guessed it, it looks just like the restaurants on the program. Funny.

I thought about this recently when Bill and I went for pizza at one of our favorite Denver-area dining spots, Bonnie Brae Tavern. Bonnie Brae has been in business for 75 years, and I have been eating pizza there for almost 35 years. In that time, the menu hasn’t really changed

much and the pizzas are just as delicious now as they were the first time I ate there. Yummy crust and fresh, delicious ingredients, but nothing fancy. No fancy white sauces, no clams, not an arugula leaf to be found.

Likewise, the décor is about the same as it has been for at least the 35 years I have been eating there. I’m sure the turquoise leather has been replaced a time or two, but it nevertheless, remains turquoise leather. The wall is lined with beer neon signs with the cords exposed as they snake over to the plugs. It feels like home. (Not that I have beer neon signs in my kitchen, but you know what I mean.)

I contrasted this to another restaurant where I ate today with a niece who is visiting from LA. Sassafras American Grill is in the beautifully gentrified Highlands area of Denver, and the restaurant is located in a lovingly and beautifully remodeled old Victorian home. While not the fresh, contemporary look typical of, say, Robert Irvine’s restaurants, it still is beautifully hip (and quite delicious, I might add). The Cajun-flavored offerings are absolutely yummy.

Still, Bill and I are definitely old-school. As such, I feel very much at home sitting on the turquoise leather seating that makes Bonnie Brae a favorite. Oh, that and the crunchy crusts on the scrumptious pizzas!

Speaking of pizza, here is how I make a grilled pizza that tastes almost like the pizzas we got in Italy.

Preheat your grill while you prepare your ingredients. Divide pie crust into individual portions and roll it out as thin as you can. I generally buy my crusts at Whole Foods, but you can certainly make your own.

While your grill is getting hot, warm some olive oil in a pan, and throw in a crushed garlic clove. Let the oils from the garlic flavor the olive oil, and then brush the olive oil on both sides of your individual crusts.

Put your ingredients in bowls and take them with you out to the grill, along with the crusts. I recommend very simple ingredients. Maybe you will want to brush a little tomato sauce on the crust after it has cooked on one side. Perhaps you will put on a little cheese. You can add some garlic or maybe a little prosciutto or few slices of pepperoni.

Once your grill is preheated, carefully place the crusts (on which you have brushed some garlic-infused oil) directly onto the grill rack. One web site recommends that you put your crust on a piece of aluminum foil that you have floured and slide it from the foil onto the grill. I have generally just used my hands. However you do it, this is probably the trickiest part. But you can do it!

At this point, don’t walk away from the grill. Keep your eyes open as you watch the crust begin to bubble. It really only takes a minute or so. Once the bottom of the crust has gotten a little charred, turn the crust over using tongs. Brush more oil onto the crust, and quickly put on your ingredients. Close the lid and let the pizzas cook and the cheese melt (if you used cheese) for a few more minutes – probably no more than five. Keep your eye on the pie. Delicious.

Saturday Blessing

It’s unseasonably warm in Denver. Instead of normal temperatures of high 70s, we are wrestling with almost 100 degrees. Warm temperatures don’t stop the soccer season, however.

And for me, despite the weather, I was blessed. It isn’t every day that I am able to spend much of the day with two-thirds of my grandchildren! Even if at any given time, one of them was on a soccer field.

Three of them (siblings, ages 5, 7, and 8) had a game today at two different fields. Their older sister, age 10, helped me as I watched our other son’s two girls, ages 3 and 5. The temperature hovered around 95. It was hot. The kids tried to stay cool in a pop-up tent. I tried desperately to find someone with an umbrella to provide me with a bit of shade.

The kids are grand friends as well as cousins. It is fun and such a blessing for me to watch them all play together. In this day and age, where families are generally so far apart, it is a joy to have six of my grandchildren within a 15 minute drive of my house (and four of those six are merely a 5 minute walk away). We miss the others who live far away, but never forget them.

By the way, two out of three games ended in a victory for the good guys.

Friday Book Whimsy: Favorite Book Series

I think I started to really like to read in 3rd grade. I vividly recall sitting behind the juniper bushes in our front yard with my best friend reading Nancy Drew books. I’m not sure why we felt compelled to hide in the bushes to read. Certainly our parents would have been delighted to see us enjoying books. My suspicion is we were hiding out from my sister who is four years younger than I and, as a child, felt she was put on earth for the express purpose of annoying me. She almost never annoys me now.

But boy oh boy, did I love Nancy Drew. Everything about her was thrilling to me. I loved her titian hair (though I’m sure I had no idea what color “titian” was since I don’t even know today). I loved her boyfriend Ned, with whom she had an entirely chaste relationship. It intrigued me that she had no mother, and it delighted me that she drove a spiffy roadster. Plus, she solved all of those mysteries.

While I haven’t looked at a Nancy Drew novel in quite some time, I can tell you that I still love nothing more than a great mystery novel. And it’s even better when that novel is part of a series. I love watching characters develop and seeing how their lives play out as book after book is written and read.

Here are a few of my favorite mystery series (in no particular order):

1. Matthew Scudder novels by Lawrence Block
Scudder is a private investigator who lives in New York City. He is a recovering alcoholic, though in the first five or six books in the series, he is a full-fledged drunk. The author’s description of Scudder’s drinking is vivid and realistic and not a bit romantic. It is interesting to watch Scudder reach bottom, and work his way back up. Through it all, he solves murder mysteries. He is a dark and deeply mysterious person, very honest and interesting. One of the things I like best about the novels is Block’s description of New York City, which almost becomes a character in and of itself.

2. Joe Pickett novels by C.J. Box
Pickett is a forest ranger who lives in Wyoming. He is constantly in trouble with his supervisors because he gets involved in murder mysteries (and solves them, of course). Like the Scudder novels, Box does a great job in using the location as part of the story, and the sense of place is strong. Pickett has a very interesting friend, Nate Romanowski, who is often on the other side of the law, but is at his core very honest and decent. Kind of a theme in many mystery series. I like Joe Pickett because he is not a perfect character. He is a terrible shot, for example. His family is sort of dysfunctional. He and his wife don’t always get along. Box is a very good writer. He has other books as well, all of which are equally good, but I like Joe Pickett.

3. Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich
Love them, love them, love them. Evanovich is about the funniest writer I know. The Stephanie Plum novels are one of the few that I actually enjoy listening to on CD more than reading them because the narrator (Lorelei King) does a great job of portraying the quirky characters. The story lines are secondary. The dialogue is hilarious and the characters are absolutely wonderful.

4. Hercule Poirot novels by Agatha Christie
I have loved Hercule Poirot since grade school. I love Miss Marple too, but there is something about this little prissy Belgian detective that I just find totally and completely endearing. I have read that Agatha Christie grew weary and annoyed by Poirot by time she finished the series, and I guess I can understand that to a certain extent. Still, I love his fastidiousness and the use of his “little grey cells” to solve the mystery. I must admit, I can count on one hand the number of times I figured out the murderer before the end of the book, and then it was really only a guess. Love David Suchet’s characterization of Poirot in the A&E movies as well.

5. Maggie Hope novels by Susan Elia MacNeal
The Maggie Hope novels are a new series, and it has been fun to watch the author improve and the characters develop. The three novels take place during World War II, and Maggie is an American expat living in Great Britain. More importantly, she is a spy. The stories are interesting, and it is a challenge to try and figure out who are the good guys because they could actually be a double agent. You never know. The fictional characters mix with real-life characters such as Winston Churchill and then-Princess Elizabeth. Very fun reading.

I will tell you more of my favorite series at a later date.

Bleeding Orange

I happen to live in Denver, Colorado, where today – the opening day of the professional football season – we host the Baltimore Ravens in the year’s NFL season opener.

If you have happened to stumble upon my humble blog ramblings and you live in Seattle, or Miami, or St. Louis, or (heaven forbid from a Bronco’s standpoint) Oakland, you may just substitute your team name and your team color.

Today, here in the Mile High City, we are bleeding orange.

I undertook an early morning trip to the grocery store, and it tickled me to see how many people were already wearing the Bronco colors of blue and orange. Of course the store employees were wearing Bronco garb; likely, they are required to show Bronco affiliation to get a paycheck. However, shopper after shopper, old and young alike, were already in their Bronco clothing. Heck, I have to admit that I was wearing my Bronco shirt and a pair of orange flip flops!

The same was true when I took two of my grandchildren to the zoo. Many of the people looking at the zoo animals were wearing their beloved orange and blue. I'm happy to say the animals were spared.

I grew up in a football loving family. You learned to love the Cornhuskers in vitro if you live in Nebraska. So my sisters and I are just as likely as my brother to sit in front of the television on any given Sunday to watch the games. And cheer. And boo. And cover our eyes. And complain about the officiating. And take walks if the score is too close (well, actually that’s just me).

As a single mother for many years, I taught my son to love football as well. And he is a true fan. He not only will be in his Bronco shirt in front of his television tonight, but his two poor, helpless girlies (both of whom would rather be wearing a Princess Ariel dress) will be in their Bronco shirts because he is convinced that is necessary for the Broncos to win. Not that he’s superstitious or anything.

And what will we be eating as we watch the game? I am going to disappoint all of you. We will not be eating either orange or blue food. We will not, in fact, be eating anything vaguely related to football or tailgating. Alas, on the menu tonight is tilapia. I have a Weight Watchers weigh-in tomorrow.

Pan-Fried Tilapia

Ingredients
2 tilapia filets
½ c. seasoned all-purpose flour
1 T. butter
1 T. olive oil
1 lemon

Process
Melt the butter together with the olive oil in a nonstick fry pan. Dip your filets in the seasoned flour and shake off the excess. Place the filet in the hot pan and let it sear for a couple of minutes, until it’s browned on the first side. Turn over, and do the same on the second side. Remove the filets to a plate and cover. Squeeze the juice of a lemon into the pan with the butter and oil. Stir until you have a nice pan sauce. When serving the tilapia filets, pour the pan sauce over the fish, and serve with a side of lemon.

Try not to look at the disappointment on your husband’s face when he sees you aren’t serving chicken wings.

Go Broncos!

Slurping

Today I ate noodles with two of my granddaughters, both of whom love noodles.

I don’t think I have ever come across a noodle I didn’t like. I particularly like the long, skinny kind that you try with great persistence to wrap around the fork, and then just finally quietly work into your mouth using that same fork.

(In our travels in Italy a few years ago, we learned that the Italians wouldn’t even consider cutting their long pasta. They instead wrap and wrap and wrap it around their forks, without the use of a spoon. If all else fails, the Italians will slurp.)

So will my granddaughters. And one of the best things about being a grandparent is that you aren’t necessarily responsible for teaching your grandchildren their manners. So it was with great joy that I challenged the two of them to a noodle slurping contest. For the next two minutes, the sounds of slurping filled the kitchen. The 3-year-old won handily. Nobody slurps like a toddler.

As I said, I like noodles of all kinds. The two little girls prefer Asian noodles – especially ramen and pho. Here is a simple recipe for ramen noodles that I got from Rants From My Crazy Kitchen.

Easy Homemade Ramen Noodle Soup

Ingredients
1 package Chinese noodles
12-16 c. chicken broth
2 carrots peeled and diced
2 stalks celery, diced
2 scallions, thinly sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 T soy sauce
1 t. sesame oil

Process
Bring the broth to a boil in a large pot. Add the carrots, celery, scallions, and garlic. Reduce heat to medium and cook until vegetables are soft. Add in the noodles, soy sauce, and sesame oil. Continue cooking for 3 minutes.

Walmart Wonderings

I am not one of those folks who inherently hates Walmart. I have never quite understood some people’s knee-jerk loathing of this admittedly enormous retail giant.

In fact, I often shop at Walmart. I don’t love it, but I do it when I need certain items that, like it or not, are cheaper there. (And I am nothing if not a tightwad.) Still, Walmart shopping is one of my least favorite activities.

This is from a person who loves grocery shopping. (I can almost hear a symphony of groans.) However, since I am retired, I have the luxury of wandering through a grocery store looking at the various kinds of meats or cheeses, comparing prices on different brands, trying the samples, perhaps even sipping on a pumpkin spice latte, skinny, no whipped cream, that you can buy at the Starbucks that is located in every single solitary grocery store in the United States (even if there is a Starbucks in the same shopping center).

So, today as I shopped at Walmart, I decided to pass my time by observing certain phenomenon that caught my eye.

Why, for example, do so many male Walmart shoppers elect not to push the cart in a normal way, as would any woman shopper? Instead, so many men walk beside the cart and steer it from the side. Do they think it looks more masculine that way? And how do they control the cart? I would (and this is without a doubt) run the cart into a rack of t-shirts selling for $7.47 each.

And, speaking of that, why is that t-shirt $7.47? Why not $7.25 or $7.50, or round up to, say, $8?

And I love to see what they place up at the cash registers for people to ponder as they wait in line. When you look up impulse check-stand shopper in the dictionary, there I am. I have purchased many things that I didn’t know I couldn’t live without while waiting in line. Pipe cleaners. Nascar Bic lighters (and I don’t smoke or watch Nascar). Paula Deen’s magazine. Rachael Ray’s magazine. Weight Watchers Magazine (which I wouldn’t need if I didn’t cook out of Paula Deen’s or Rachael Ray’s magazines).

Nevertheless, my weekly shopping is done. And tonight I’m cooking for three of my granddaughters, ages 5, 7, and 10. I will make them the yummy chicken dish that I got from Pinterest for which I don’t really know the name. I have seen it called Heroin Chicken. I call it Buttery Chicken. Simply can’t serve my grandkids anything with heroin in the name.

Buttery Chicken

Ingredients
4-6 boneless chicken breasts or thighs
2 c. grated Parmesan cheese
3 T. parsley
2 T. dried oregano
3 t. paprika
1 t. pepper
1 t. salt
½ c. melted butter

Process
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the grated cheese and the seasonings. Line a shallow baking pan with aluminum foil. I also place a sheet of parchment paper on top to help avoid sticking.

Melt the butter in a pan. Dip each piece of chicken into the butter, and then into the seasoned cheese, coating completely. Arrange in a single layer on the pan. Pour any remaining butter over the chicken.
Bake for 30-45 minutes, until nicely browned.