 I thought that I would take a moment away from all things cooking and maybe wax philosophical. I’m really bad about not waxing the floors, but I wax philosophical quite frequently. Just ask Mr. Fix-It.  I have the blessed joy of having had experiences in life that many people only read about in books. Some of those experiences weren’t so hot, but I always learned something in the doing. I’m not so old that I don’t remember being 18, but I’m not so young that I can bend backwards, and walk on my hands and feet like a crab. You know, we DID have to do that in high school gym class, in our younger days, and I always wondered how it was supposed to affect my outlook on life besides feeling dumb and seeing everything upside down. Well, I’ll tell you. It DID affect my life as I now have two herniated discs in my lower back and two in my neck. I am certain that walking like a crab did it. I never noticed it until a few years ago, but I KNOW the culprit. Thanks, Coach Cox. Had nothing to do with all that hay bale tossing. But my point? I’m no spring chicken.  On that note, I heard a very disturbing bit of info on the news this past week. Very disturbing. It seems, according to the headlines, that women become invisible at the age of 50. I pondered on that for awhile and I just couldn’t believe it. I mean, it’s at the age of 50 that women start getting bigger without any effort at all. It seems impossible that we could be getting bigger AND invisible at the same time, but evidently men really just can’t see us. That would explain alot. It would explain why the son, home on a visit, doesn’t answer the questions I ask him. I can now understand why Mr. Fix-It didn’t inform me that I was leaving the house in my old, ragged, backless tennis shoes (in which I informally flip-flop around), while dressed in a fancy frock for a luncheon. I was invisible!! It gives total understanding to the actions of the young bag-boy at our local grocery who asks, “Paper or plastic?” and upon my request for paper, immediately begins bagging my groceries in plastic. I think he just asks the question out of habit, because it is obvious that he can’t see or hear me.  But do you realize the advantage that we middle-aged women have now that we have found out the truth? There is no end to the possibilities this new revelation has provided!! I can sit in front of the doctor and eat a triple-decker, mayonnaise laden hamburger WITH cheese and he won’t say a word! He can’t see me!! I can buy a 1963 baby blue Impala for $15000 and bring it home and won’t have to hear about it because nobody will know where it came from since I’m invisible!! Shoot! That means I can’t get a ticket driving that 1963 baby blue Impala because the policeman can’t see me!! Oh my gosh. I can’t get my head wrapped around all of this. But wait…as I read along in the article, I now see that women only THINK that men find them invisible. That’s not very scientific. One of the ladies interviewed even shot the theory down by stating, “Even when I met the man who is now my [third] husband, I assumed he wouldn’t fancy me.” Well, he proved her wrong. He married her didn’t he?? Seems like he pretty much saw her!  More than half of the women surveyed felt that advertisements give them unrealistic expectations of how they are supposed to look beyond age 50. I can’t imagine why. The advertising world works hard to portray us women over 50 with not a gray hair on our head, shaped like Miss Universe and usually galloping across green meadows astride a sinewy steed while explaining the heartbreak of psoriasis or the inconvenience of constipation. You know that’s me! And so, I have just come in from a much more scientific inquiry of Mr. Fix-It, regarding whether he finds me invisible. He gave me a big hug and said, “How can I not see you?” I’m going to have to think on that answer, but I have a sneaky suspicion that it could hinge on that ‘getting bigger after 50″ thingy I mentioned!  |
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Aging Gracefully?
February 21st, 2011
Hashbrowns! Yum!!
February 18th, 2011
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Is Misspelled…  It’s closing in on planting time for potatoes! I love fresh potatoes from the garden and have done posts before on them. I am planning on doing a full bed of the knobby things this year. Usually, we only do a half a bed, but we were out of potatoes too soon this time. And of course, I’ll be drying some of them. But I have another favorite way to prepare potatoes for the long haul and I have been asked by reader, Shari, to share it here. Mr. Fix-It loves hashbrowns and it is easy to take a large batch of either garden potatoes or Russets from the store and make hashbrowns to last you a long, long time.  First cut up potatoes to fit into a food processor with a grating blade on it. You can also grate them by hand. Red and Yukon golds can keep the skins, but Russets are better peeled  Put into a food processor to grate or do it by hand  Once the potatoes are grated, put them into a collander that is in a larger bowl and pour water to cover the potatoes. Pick up the collander and swish it up and down. The water will be white and cloudy. Pour that off and do the same process until the water is clear. This washes off all of the starch that makes potatoes turn black.  Lay a large bath towel out on the counter and spread the grated potatoes over the towel.  Fold the edges of the towel over the top of the potatoes and roll the towel up like a jelly roll, pressing as you roll. This squeezes out excess water. When you unroll it, the potatoes will be dry.  Distribute the grated potatoes among cookie sheets and place in the freezer.  Remove from freezer and, using a spatula, lift potatoes off of the cookie sheets.  Place in plastic freezer bags  Bend the bags around to break up the slabs of frozen potatoes. Label bags and place in the freezer.  Your hashbrowns can now be used in any recipe calling for hashbrowns, even casseroles. To make old-fashioned hashbrowns for breakfast, put 2 – 6 tablspoons of oil (depending on the size of your skillet but barely covering the bottom), either olive oil or vegetable or coconut, in the bottom of a large skillet and heat on medium high. When heated, add hashbrowns to about 3/4 – 1 inch deep and salt to taste.  Cover with a lid and cook until the bottom of the potatoes is golden brown.   Cook until the second side is browned and crisp. Remove from the pan and pat with paper towels to remove any excess oil. Serve as a side dish. And don’t forget the grits!! |
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Healthy Butter
February 13th, 2011
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Butter…Because It Is! Just a quick tip for those of you who love butter, but would like to add more of the “good fat” to your diet. There are things that I have done to make my eating habits more healthy and more fat-free. But I WON’T do without my butter!! While I know, in my last post, I admitted that I like Velveeta cheese, which it could be argued is not really cheese, I can’t stand margarine. And talk about bad fats…ewwww. All I know is that God made cows which make milk that is churned into butter without any additives. There is no animal that has produced a stick of margarine. It’s pretend butter. Anybody remember that “it’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature!” routine? Nowadays, one can spend a pretty penny on butter that has been mixed with olive oil or canola oil to increase the good fats and to make it spreadable. I’ll show you here how you can do the same thing for a whole lot less.  For about 3/4 cup of soft butter, use one stick of real butter, at room temp, either salted or unsalted depending on which you prefer, and place into a blender or food processor.  Add 1/3 cup light olive oil.  Process until the butter and oil are completely mixed. The consistency will be that of whipped cream and some of the oil may still be separated out, but you can just stir that in.  Pour the mixture into a container and refrigerate for several hours  You will have spreadable butter that is part butter and part olive or canola oil, both of which are higher in mono and polyunsaturated fats – the good fats. And it tastes good too!!! |
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Yep!! Canning Cheese
February 9th, 2011
 I’ve always heard that “necessity is the mother of invention” but I also think that it is “the mother of learning something new”. Such was the case recently after a productive trip to our local grocery which is owned and operated by the Absentee-Shawnee Indian Tribe. On this particular day I discovered that the store had block cheese on sale; 1 8oz block for $1. Never one to pass up a good deal, I decided that if one block of cheddar was good, 20 blocks of a variety of cheese was phenomenal! I tossed mild cheddar, mozzarella, sharp cheddar, pepper jack and cojack into my cart and trotted on down the isle. To my surprise, I found that Velveeta was on sale too. Oh joy. Now, I must digress here for a sec in defense of Velveeta cheese PRODUCT. Although I realize that Velveeta is the plasticized version of cheese, it is a must for any kitchen simply because it melts sooooo smoothly. It is wonderful for cream soups. It is true that nobody REALLY knows where Velveeta comes from. And while we are told that it is made from milk, it could be guinea pig milk for all we know. However, while we ponder how one milks a guinea pig, the rest of America is enjoying its queso made with Velveeta, picante sauce and maybe some ground beef flavored with taco seasoning. Velveeta is to the cheese world what Spam is to the ham world. Each has its purpose. And so, I got my Velveeta and checked out. On my way home, it occurred to me that all of this cheese had to have a place to go to stay fresh. I usually grate my hard cheese, put it into bags that I can vacuum on my FoodSaver sealer and then freeze it, but this was going to be an enormous amount of grated cheese. What if I wanted sliced cheese? My experience with freezing blocks of cheese for slicing had been less than successful. I had been totally unhappy with frozen Velveeta, so what to do? What to do? Thank goodness for the Internet. Enola Gay at Paratus Familia had the solution. Can it! Can cheese? Really? She showed how to can hard cheeses and that got me to thinking about canning the Velveeta too. I researched and researched and found several ways to do that as well. I wound up with what I think worked best for me. So first, I’ll show you how I canned the hard cheeses and then the Velveeta. Talk about handy. You can’t believe how wonderful it is to have canned cheeses. You can shred and slice the hard cheese and the Velveeta is just as good as if it were in the box. I suppose at this point I should throw in the disclaimer that I haven’t found anything that indicates the government watchdogs have given their seal of approval to this, but then, they don’t like us canning apple pie filling either. From everything I have read, these canned cheeses last up to two years.                  Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ Company on Facebook
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Gift Ideas
February 4th, 2011
Oklahoma Winter
February 2nd, 2011
  In Oklahoma, we’re pretty used to weather extremes. It’s not unusual to have a three inch rain pop up with consequential flooding or a tornado rip through 20 miles of farmland and homes. You’ve see the pictures of the ice storms that I’ve posted and the results of extraordinarily violent twisters. As I’ve pointed out, we’re a resilient group of people and many of us plan way ahead of time for all kinds of possibilities. The ability of our people to keep things running with “a piece of baling wire or twine” isn’t unique but keeps us ‘keepin’ on’. But even with our low-keyed responses to impending doom, it doesn’t stop our local weathermen from shooting epinephrine and revving their engines to morph into maniacal harbingers of catastrophe and certain death. Such was the case this past weekend as the top meteorologists at our three local stations went into overdrive and excitedly announced that the storm of all storms was going to bring the entire state to a screeching – er – sliding halt. Almost suppressing giggles of glee, they attempted a serious demeanor to express the certain destruction that was ahead, but it was obvious they considered this event to be what made life worth living and their jobs finally legitimate.  As soon as the blizzard hit on Monday night, the stations sounded their continual little warning tones throughout the evening and by Tuesday morning, all those in the tv weather rooms and on the roads, with cameras and microphones, were keeping a steady conversation that only needed a, “How bad is it?” “It’s sooooo bad that…..” joke. Embarrassed fools who attempted to travel in over a foot of blowing snow and ice and subsequently slid into 4 foot drifts, discovered microphones in their faces and the question, “So. What happened here? What is your name?” I loved one man’s answer, “My name really doesn’t matter now does it? And I slid into a snowdrift. Duh.” The reporter was kind enough not to remind the man that he was pretty stupid for trying to navigate the roads, except that the reporter was out there right beside him, having attempted to navigate the roads!  And so, winter is again in Okieland, however, this particular storm HAS outdone itself. Blizzards are not a common occurrence here, but MOST Oklahomans were ready for this one and are snug in their homes in front of their woodstoves, fireplaces or gas heaters, drinking hot chocolate, playing Rummy and cooking some darned good dishes. So far, no reports of hypothermia or other weather related deaths. The groceries have been shut down as have the government offices, but no worries because most were prepared. I guess we can thank the weathermen!  |
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That Crazy Government!
January 27th, 2011
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 And speaking of all things country, a friend just sent me this article from the Wall Street Journal that had me laughing until I realized how sad it is!!! We have dairies in Oklahoma too and I’m wondering what our citizenry will do if WE have a milk spill. Imagine the disaster: In Western Oklahoma, our wheat farms would turn into giant bowls of cereal. In Southwestern Oklahoma, the windmill farms would churn it into massive quantities of butter that would clog all of the life-sustaining highway arteries between towns!! In Southern Oklahoma, a fisherman’s catch would come already dipped in milk and ready for breading! Here in Central Oklahoma, where our flour mill thrives and produces multiple mixes, people might be overtaken by huge masses of biscuit dough oozing through the streets like some whole wheat wall of lava. The visons are frightening! So get a load of what is being done in order to save us from these unimaginable ends: “President Obama says he wants to purge regulations that are “just plain dumb,” like his humorous State of the Union bit about salmon. So perhaps he should review a new rule that is supposed to prevent oil spills akin to the Gulf Coast disaster—at the nation’s dairy farms. Two weeks ago, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule that subjects dairy producers to the Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure program, which was created in 1970 to prevent oil discharges in navigable waters or near shorelines. Naturally, it usually applies to oil and natural gas outfits. But the EPA has discovered that milk contains “a percentage of animal fat, which is a non-petroleum oil,” as the agency put it in the Federal Register. In other words, the EPA thinks the next blowout may happen in rural Vermont or Wisconsin. Other dangerous pollution risks that somehow haven’t made it onto the EPA docket include leaks from maple sugar taps and the vapors at Badger State breweries.  The EPA rule requires farms—as well as places that make cheese, butter, yogurt, ice cream and the like—to prepare and implement an emergency management plan in the event of a milk catastrophe. Among dozens of requirements, farmers must train first responders in cleanup protocol and build “containment facilities” such as dikes or berms to mitigate offshore dairy slicks. ![funny cow:] Pictures, Images and Photos](http://i568.photobucket.com/albums/ss123/angelicab22/cow.jpg) These plans must be in place by November, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture is even running a $3 million program “to help farmers and ranchers comply with on-farm oil spill regulations.” You cannot make this stuff up. The final rule is actually more lenient than the one the EPA originally proposed. The agency tried to claim jurisdiction over the design specifications of “milk containers and associated piping and appurtenances,” until the industry pointed out that such equipment was already overseen by the Food and Drug Administration, the USDA and state inspectors. The EPA conceded, “While these measures are not specifically intended for oil spill prevention, we believe they may prevent discharges of oil in quantities that are harmful.” We appreciate Mr. Obama’s call for more regulatory reason, but it would be more credible if one of his key agencies wasn’t literally crying over unspilled milk.” By the way, if you make a cow laugh, does milk come out of her nose?  |
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Two Dangerous Women
January 25th, 2011
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Proud  I am sure that you have heard of the Home and Garden Show that stations itself at every fairground in the US to encourage gardeners to grow pumpkins the size of a Smart Cars and to coerce nongardeners to envelope their homes in copper guttering which, at the price of copper today, will be removed within a week by some industrious n’er-do-well needing cash for a big screen tv. Well, my darling daughter had two exhibitors’ passes for this past weekend and she asked if I would like to go with her to this show of shows. Now, it’s a great thing to get to go to this yearly event, but for a daughter to actually be caught with her mother in public and on PURPOSE is a cause for celebration indeed! Of course, my answer to her invite was a definitive, “Do pigs fly?” which is a much more genteel response than the one asking what bears do in the woods even though it makes absolutely no sense at all. She knew what I meant.  And so we did what any two red-blooded, southern women do and bundled up against what we considered a life-threatening 32 degrees. We drove across town to the beautiful OKC Fairgrounds, parked the car and walked to the building that we decided was obviously the first of 5 total exhibition buildings. I thought it odd that the steps were full of men in camouflage, smoking cigarettes and huddling to discuss who-knows-what, but I attributed it to true southern gentlemen who had brought their wives to the show even though it would have taken one of the John Deere Zero Radius mowers, displayed at the show, to physically drag them into the actual building to look at the latest fiberglass hot tubs.  Now, I have to tell you here that there is a certain sense of power that goes with having “exhibitor” badges. One need only flash these jewels at the TSA wannabes manning the doors and you are waved through with an “Oh! Go on in!” as the poor slubs with tickets must stand there and watch you waltz through while they have their wrists stamped to prove that they are NOT exhibitors. Only, at that particular moment, our passes didn’t mean much. As we waved our badges, I instantly noted that it was almost all men in the building – men in camouflage – and there were tables and tables of every kind of weapon of mass destruction that any self-respecting varmint hunter would be proud to call his own. It was at that moment that I and the attendant announced at the same time, “Gun Show!” My daughter and I backed out and headed to the next group of buildings where we would find weapons equally as deadly to our pocketbooks and our health – waterless cookware, full goldfish ponds with 8 ft manmade waterfalls and German Cream Cheese Strudel. And you know what? When we finally found that first Home and Garden Show building, I thought it odd that standing on the steps to the entrance were huddled groups of men in camouflage, smoking cigarettes and discussing who-knows-what. Yep. This is good ol’ Oklahoma!! 
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Dehydrating Series Pt IV
January 24th, 2011
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I’m sitting here listening to my sweet hubby laugh his head off as he is pulling up YouTube videos of “Carl” (Billy Bob Thorton) from the movie Slingblade making prank calls to restaurants and asking the clerks for “French fried pertaters and biscuits and I like some mustard with those biscuits, uh-huh”. The clerks are attempting to take this order with as much grace as possible. I have to admit that I’m laughing too. I guess I’m remembering the phone calls I used to make, from our church phone on Wednesday service nights no less, to Weigel’s Dairy Store in Knoxville, Tennessee to tell the clerk, in high pitched squeals, “Your cows are out!” immediately hanging up the phone. Real smooth, huh? Kinda like the phone calls my grandparents used to receive in the ’30’s, at their grocery store, where a voice asked if they carried Prince Albert in a can and with the answer in the affirmative, young voices would yell, “Then let him out!!” We are so brilliant when we are young. However, it seems that Mr. Thorton is still brilliant – he’s entertaining my husband, anyway!  There is nothing I enjoy more than putting a piping hot meal before Mr. Fix-It after a long day’s work. I especially love him because he loves soup and that is one of my favorite things in the whole world on these cold days. But I’m weird. I love it on warm days too – homemade that is. When I go to Olive Garden, I’m the “Never Ending Soup and Salad” kinda gal. Therefore, it is really pleasant to have all of the ingredients for soup right at my fingertips, dried and ready to reconstitute for any quick, hot meal. In this fourth and final in my series on dehydrating, I’ve got a recipe for broccoli cheese soup that will leave you craving more. Let’s go! 1 Tbsp Olive Oil 1 Tbsp dried celery (1 stalk fresh chopped) 1 tsp dried bell pepper (tbsp fresh) 1 Tbsp dried onion (2 Tbsp diced fresh onion) 1/4 tsp dried garlic (1 tsp fresh, chopped garlic) 1/3 cup dried potatoes (1 cup cubed fresh potatoes) 1/2 cup dried broccoli (1 1/2 cup chopped fresh broccoli) 4 chicken bouillon cubes 4 1/2 cups water 1 can milk or 3/4 cups half and half 1/4 lb Velveeta Cheese + or – 1 Tbsp corn starch + 2 Tbsp water              |
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Dehydrating Series Pt III Peppers
January 19th, 2011
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Part I Part II Pepper  Another vegetable that is fast and easy to dry is the bell pepper. All peppers can be dried, including jalopenos, but that is one pepper you will want to process in the garage or outside. Your eyes and nose won’t be able to stand the fumes while drying!! Here’s a fast rundown on drying peppers.       Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ Company on Facebook
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Homestead Revival
Paratus Familia
Rural Revolution