Here's a sentence you will rarely see here: it poured rain all afternoon and I spent more than 90 minutes driving around in it. I HATE driving in rain. Hate particularly driving on the interstate in rain. Add in a tornado watch, rush hour traffic, and a cranky teenager, and you get some real fun.
Thank God I have lived here long enough to learn back roads so I don't have to just sit on the interstate waiting for cars to crawl along I-285, while I worry that my bladder will explode before I can make it to a bathroom. Just the sight of cars sitting on the interstate in pouring rain will suddenly make my bladder seize up and I will have to pee no matter how little I've had to drink that day.
Michael's prosthetic needed a new "glove" - this is the part that makes it look sort of like a real hand, and not something out of a Terminator movie [see below - this is Mike's actual prosthetic, when brand new]. Mike's glove had a ripped place, and various people [cough cough] at school had colored in the fingernails and drawn "tatoos" on it. So it was looking pretty gross. [I like that juxtaposition of "pretty" and "gross" - hang on a moment while I slap my inner English major...]
He was thrilled to be leaving school at 1:30. He was not so thrilled to sit around and wait for almost an hour before we saw anyone at the prosthetic clinic. Then another 20 minutes before we got the new glove. However, it's worth it, just so I don't have to look at that messy glove any more.
VEGETABLE TALK
I know I've spoken here before about my love of squash, and by extension nearly all root vegetables. Therefore, I was beyond thrilled to see this post on Pioneer Woman about spaghetti squash, my new favorite squash. Then I was dismayed to see she put maple syrup on it. NOOOOOOOO! my brain screamed. It's like the whole nightmare of trying to find a butternut squash recipe that isn't like sweet potato casserole - my only reaction to that is YUCK. now, this recipe from Epicurious sounds like it might be tasty. I have a flourishing sage plant in the back patio; well, if it hasn't drowned in all this rain...
Here in the south, if you don't totally neglect your gardens, you can get fresh produce out of the yard until mid November, if the weather cooperates. We still haven't had a hard frost yet. So I have suddenly found myself with a bumper crop of green tomatoes. I decided rather than bite my nails waiting for the insipid autumn sun to ripen them, to just bring those bad boys inside. So the 'maters are on the windowsill in the kitchen ripening, and the bigger ones are on the dining room table. My dining room tables gets tons of sunshine every morning.
I have a beautiful cauliflower in the fridge and I am going to boil that thing on the stove tomorrow until it's tender, and then make my favorite cauliflower dish. I make a basic white sauce, then add in LOTS of grated cheese and garlic. I use fresh garlic if I have the energy, otherwise garlic powder. Then I like to take my Braun hand blender [my favorite appliance] and puree the mixture. This makes it like mashed potatoes.
Whenever my teeth fall out of my head, when I am REALLY old - like over 55 - I will have no trouble eating, because I already like my vegetables incredibly soft and pureed. I could make a fortune marketing my delicious veggie purees to old folks homes. Hmmm.... there's a revenue idea. Oh wait - old folks often have blunted taste buds, I hear. Dang. Another idea down the drain...
I digressed.
I tried out a new recipe.
PORK CHOPS SUPREME
4 boneless pork chops or cubed pork steaks
1 box Stovetop Stuffing [for chicken]
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
4 tablespoons butter
1 can Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup
1 cup sour cream
Make the Stove Top stuffing with chicken broth, according to the directions on the box, then spread it on the bottom of a corning ware casserole dish - or any dish you can cover. Next, salt and pepper 4 pork chops and brown them in some olive oil and butter, and minced onion if you like. Put the chops on top of the stuffing. Next, mix the Campbell's cream of mushroom soup with about the sour cream, then put that in the pork chop pan and heat it, stirring it until it looks like gravy. Pour it over the top of the chops and bake it with the lid on at 300 for an hour.
We ate it with a side dish of fruit, which was yummy.
It was delicious. Michael had an entire chop and some stuffing and said "Good chicken!" He was skeptical when I told him it was pork - I always use very lean pork. You could use chicken, too.
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Mother did an interesting post over at her blog. Check it out.
