The Crab Chronicles

Awesome Meatloaf and Easy Chicken and Dumplings

The problem with all this cold weather is that it makes me want to eat everything in sight. Stews, soups, roasts, spaghetti - not salads. Hearty fare.

Last night for dinner I made meatloaf, redskin potatoes, and sauteed zucchini with garlic and butter. Michael ate a big dinner, which did my heart good. He has days he eats almost nothing. He didn't eat much over the weekend.

Here's the meatloaf recipe, which is a little different from the way I usually make it:

DEE'S MEATLOAF

1 lb. ground sirloin

1 cup breadcrumbs with Italian seasoning [Publix]

1 egg

1 tablespoon baking powder [this lightens it]

1/2 cup sherry

1/2 tablespoon olive oil [if you use super lean beef]

1 can Campbells French Onion soup

Sea Salt and pepper to taste

Mush together and form into a rectangle. The consistency should be very, very wet - almost too wet to hold together. Add water if necessary.

Bake at 350 for 35-45 minutes, depending on how hot your oven gets.

 

The redskin potatoes I just tossed in some sour cream and butter.

Tonight I am making Chicken and Dumplings. This is the easiest chicken and dumplings ever. No need to use bisquit dough or worry about the dumplings being light. Just get 2-4 chicken filets and boil them until soft, and then shred them and set aside. Or you can use a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store and just don't use the skin. That's awesome chicken, usually.

Take a heavy saucepan or pot and dump in about 4 cans of this soup and add some milk or heavy cream, or chicken broth if you want it to be lighter. Cook on medium low for 5-10 minutes. Whisk it or beat it until it's a smooth sauce.

When the broth is hot, add in strips of flour tortillas. Now, you just cut the flour tortillas into strips, as shown below.

Turn the broth to High. When the broth is boiling, drop in the strips of tortillas a few at a time and stir. Keep stirring, keep the broth boiling. The tortillas will magically transform into dumplings in the boiling broth. I promise. Once they are all transformed, cut the heat back to low, or off. Add some butter, and salt and pepper if you like, and onion powder is good. Add in the shredded chicken. Serve. YUM.

Except for cutting up the tortillas, it's easy.

The High Cost of Not Knowing How to Cook

You do not have to be rich to eat great food. You can eat really healthfully and well, on a tight budget. You just need to know how to buy good stuff, have a few decent utensils (like a good knife) and use some resourcefulness. Also, read my blog. I love to talk about gardening and cooking.

My fascination with this started early.

My grandmother Wilma Hasty was a wonderful cook, and my mom was a great cook. 

When I think sometimes about my grandmother and her skill at cooking, I remember that her early marriage years were a sort of baptism by fire. She had studied Home Economics in college, but then she dropped out and did the Southern Belle debutante thing.

My grandfather was a major league baseball player for The Philedelphia Athletics, and then his contract was sold and he and my grandmother got sent out to Oregon. The story of all that is complicated. Suffice to say, Mamaw thought she would be living the high life, and after a year of marriage she found herself stuck in Oregon, living in a boardinghouse, trying to manage a household on very little money. [Not to diss Oregon, I know it's a beautiful state, but in the 1920's it was a 3 day journey from home and their families back east.]

Living in boardinghouses was not an easy life. Meals weren't always included. Even if they were, my grandfather was a big man [6'3, 220] and he could eat a LOT. Mamaw had no kitchen. My mom always says Mamaw could prepare a lovely 3 course meal with a hot plate and a toaster.

In the 1920's there weren't many convenience foods. You couldn't just buy frozen meals to prepare. There were no microwave ovens. Refrigerators were small, or you might only have an Ice Box.

This is an example of an icebox. Mamaw always called the fridge the "icebox" and I grew up believing there were really two words that meant fridge, and one was "icebox" even though I didn't normally hear anyone other than my grandparents use that term

Mamaw knew how to stretch a food budget, though. She could cook a chicken 50 different ways. She lived through the Depression trying to feed 3 kids and she lived through World War II on a farm. The family moved around a lot, and didn't always have running water or electricity.

What got me started thinking about this was a long discussion on Facebook with many comments. A friend of mine who teaches in a small college was saying one of her students had written about trying to eat on $10/day. She got a lot of harsh comments from folks saying that was plenty of money and she shouldn't complain.

Well, yes and no. Part of the reason people sometimes don't eat well is because they are simply ignorant. They don't know how to cook. They don't understand how to budget. Perhaps they grew up with a working mom who just fed them frozen food and takeout food and sandwiches and pizza.

My mom put a hot meal on the table every night, mostly stuff made from scratch. However, we also ate our share of tater tots and canned beans and frozen chicken pot pies. My mom couldn't cook when she got married, so she spent years learning, and teaching us. We all learned together. This is probably why I am a good cook, as is my brother.

What I'm trying to say is that we didn't have a non-cooking mom BUT we had a mom who was always learning, always trying to improve our meals, always seeking better ways to make healthy meals. Mom, OTOH, grew up with Mamaw, who was Queen of the Kitchen and never bothered to teach her daughter how to cook. When Mom would try to learn, Mamaw would say "If you want to help, go set the table." Mom married a man who expected a hot meal every night, not tuna salad and fudge [Mom's only two dishes she could cook when they married.]

Anyway, I digressed.

Budgeting

When my brother was a young lieutenant in the Army, he learned quickly that some of his troops were running out of food money by the end of the month. They might have a wife and baby to feed, and because of poor budgeting, they found themselves out of money at month's end.

I don't recall the exact story, but what my brother did was tell his men basically "Look, at the beginning of the month when you get paid, I want you to go to the commissary and buy a 10 lb. bag of rice and a 10 lb. bag of dried beans. When you run out of money, you can live on rice and beans." He likes to cook and he patiently explained to them how to COOK rice, and cook dried beans.

If you eliminate sodas and alcoholic beverages and drink water or milk, you save money. If you snack on fruit instead of fruit rollups or cookies, you save money and you are more healthy. The banana is the perfect snack - packed with nutrition and easy to carry.

Last time I looked, our local super Walmart had a great selection of fresh fruits and veggies, and good prices.

I wish I could teach poor people who have never learned, the skills of budgeting and cooking and eating well. First thing I'd say is don't spend food stamps on sodas and junk foods. Don't buy frozen pizza and McDonalds and all that crap.

Give your kids proteins for stamina and veggies for energy, and good complex carbs, like oatmeal.

Rice and beans make a complete protein. Or buy black beans or lentils - tons of protein there, and cheaper than meat. Eggs are also good.

Gardening

My friend Cindy has raised 39 children [ranging in age from 11 to 39, all adopted but one], and she is a retired, single school librarian. She writes about food often, and I am always fascinated by those posts. Her kids are all healthy. She grows most of their food. She's been a vegetarian most of her life and now is vegan, but her kids are not required to be vegan. She has managed to feed them all and teach them her food values, and she has done an amazing job.

Even if you don't have a big yard, you can grow a surprisingly large number of fruits and veggies in small plots, even in containers on a balcony if you live in an apartment. You don't have to be a great gardener, either. I suck at gardening but I can grow a lot of stuff.

Above are some seeds I started in Jiffy pots - spend $10 on dirt and fertilizer and you can plant in egg cartons, old paper cups, whatever - and in a few months you'll have TONS of tomatoes, peppers, squash, etc. I've started seeds inside many times in a sunny window when it was 30 degrees outside.

Vegetables

Many people I know who don't cook are afraid of raw vegetables. They literally think there is nothing they can do but eat salads, and what if they don't like salads? Or what if you can't really cook and you are intimidated by the cooking channel shows?

Roast the veggies. Seriously. Wash them. Peel them if necessary. Chop them up. Throw them in a bowl or in a plastic bag, and toss them with some olive or canola oil, and some spices. Put foil or parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Put the veggies on the sheet, spread them out, and roast at 400 for 10-20 minutes. After you take them out, throw away the foil or parchment paper.

Spices you can use: onion powder, garlic powder, Lawrey's seasoned salt, Italian seasoning - tons of others out there to choose from but these are our staples.

Fresh herbs can be scary to non cooks. I totally understand that. They still intimidate me a bit. So be it. It's also yummy to toss roasted veggies with some parmesan cheese.

Fresh spinach is even easier. Heat up some olive oil in a skillet and throw in fresh spinach and minced garlic, Sea Salt and pepper. Saute for 2-5 minutes. Yummy and SO nutritious.

Don't know how to mince garlic, or have a garlic press? Use the jarred kind, below. You can almost always find this in the produce section of the store.

Here's another tip.

Any sort of squash, zucchini, or peppers can benefit from being cooking with onion. Do onions intimidate you? YouTube is your friend. Check out this video on how to chop an onion.

I like red onions because they have more flavor.

Veggies cry out for a good knife. If you don't have a decent knife, all my veggie cooking lessons are for nothing. You don't have to spend a fortune for a good knife, either.

In this video by Alton Brown he tells you about kitchen knives. My brother bought me some good knives from a company called Cold Steel. Here is a link to a knife similar to the one I use a lot. Yes, it costs $32. Best money you will ever spend. You can use it for years.

Veggie peelers are also important. I hate veggie peels. If you are going to eat them, wash the veggies very carefully. I just tend to peel more and wash less because I don't like chemicals on my food, and sometimes unpeeled veggies cause an allergic reaction in me, like my face swelled up one time from eggplant.

Anyway, to recap: cooking helps you stick to a budget.  Growing your own veggies helps you eat better and saves money. Finding cheap protein sources is important. Eggs are cheap and easy to cook. Spices make food taste better. LEARN TO DO SOME BASIC COOKING.

I could go on and on but I have to stop now.

Leave me a comment if you have some good tips you want to share.

Book Group Day

I realized yesterday at 5 p.m. as I was standing at the deli counter in Kroger waiting on some sliced roast beef that I had not been on the computer all day. That's a rare day. A good day. Email went unseen for hours. Facebook was all new when I finally looked at it later.

Michael hates that I comment about stuff on Facebook all the time. He never comments on anything. I want to participate in the conversation. I want to be heard. It's my inner child always seeking attention. Or maybe I am just a busybody. Whatever.

I had my book group yesterday. I love book group. We are all women, all between 50-65 years old. The group is open to men, but they never come more than once. We talked about that yesterday. We are all educated, opinionated, outspoken women, and we are not shy. We are all "chiefs" in the group; no "indians" - I put quotes because I know that's not politically correct but so be it. Mom always talks about chiefs and indians and since she is part Cherokee, she has the right.

I had suggested the book, The House on Tradd Street. I was dying to hear what everyone said.

Nobody liked it.

Dang. I read it about 3 years ago. As everyone talked, I remembered stuff. Like, oh yeah, the main character was rather weird and immature. Oh yeah, there was some plot points that didn't make sense. Hmmm...

One lady, not a writer but who used to be a fact checker at a newspaper, made a list of all the inacccuracies in the book. Like, the fact the author wrote that hibiscus "trailed." It doesn't trail. Maybe bougainville would trail. I don't know diddly about tropical plants so I didn't notice the hibiscus acting weird. She also noticed something said about putting stuff in the trunk of a porche, in the rear of the car. She thought that was wrong, so she called a Porsche dealership! They said you only put stuff in the rear of the SUV. Now, that's going a little too far. She is retired though.

I am not smart enough to let stuff like that bother me. I don't notice stuff like that. Now, if they said something about an old Mazda or Toyota, that I might notice. Or if they discussed philodendrons, I could fact check. but high end stuff? Nope.

**********************

Michael and I spent most of the evening discussing the tattoos he wants to get when he turns 18 next summer. I don't like tattoos. They freak me out. Just the thought of ink embedded in skin freaks me out. ACK. Plus, they are so permanent. Hard to remove. Not like the 3 earrings he has now - which he removed when my brother was here, BTW. Nope tats are permanent, for most folks.

I told him he cannot have ANY visible tats except my name [very small] or something on his short arm. People who have had limbs amputated feel better about it if they decorate their prosthetic or their stump [I hate that word]. I don't know why, but so be it. We talked about his short arm being a shark, or a cannon.

Just before bed, he started negotiating. He asked if he makes all A's and B's this semester, could he get a tattoo before he turned 18, like right when school lets out, in May. We debated that for a while.

We talked about college. He doesn't want to go.I keep trying to get him to understand that he will have more choices in life if he goes. I also make the argument that college is fun, unlike high school. He is wavering, but unconvinced.

The hard part is that he fears doing hard things. Studying every day is hard. He already resents spending 6 hours a day in school. I told him if he doesn't step up his game, he will have a very hard time keeping up his grades. At least we were able to discuss it rationally, without anger. That's good.

Tomorrow is a school holiday. YAY.

Today, we have a home visit by a lady from Basset Hound Rescue of Georgia. I was sort of amazed when she called the other day but then I remembered being told yes, they do home visits. Good idea.

Lola is our queen and we are her minions. Lola runs the house. She sits and naps on the furniture, the beds, wherever she likes. She eats everything. Sometimes she even deigns to eat dog food. She is adored and spoiled. She is walked multiple times a day.

Why have a pet, except to love and spoil them?

dogs are all about LOVE

January Morning Poem

Noticing the Day

 

Lola has a high nasal whine that usually indicates a need to pee.

I sigh, leave the desk, and clatter down the stairs to fetch

The much chewed leash.

Out into the mid-morning January day.

Be a good girl, I mumble, wishing I had brought my cell phone.

At least I could see my emails.

 

Lola walks deliberately to a spot in the sunshine.

This is the third time in an hour we have made this small walk.

I am not patient. I have a headache.

However, something about her gently waving tail

stops me from muttering a cuss word.

 

I simply stand.

Lola waits, head up, for who knows what.

I notice the angle of her velvety head.

chittering birds, a far off car,

the lazy puttering of a small plane.

The slight breeze tickles my arms.

 

I decide to see how long it will take

for Lola to move again.

We stand there, noticing the day.

I remember doing this as a small child,

Swaying slowly on a swing, in my sun-filled yard.

 

Lola lifts her head, sniffs.

We amble into a patch of stronger sunlight.

I notice an impossibly blue sky,  

beyond our towering pines.

Loveliness exists in the urban suburbs,

even here.

Lola sits.

I remove my shoes and feel grass, cold earth

Waiting for me to love it again.

 

 

 

January 2014

Coats and Books

The past few days have been beyond busy. Lots of working and plowing through tasks that HAD to get done, and no time to write. Sorry about the lack of blogs, regular readers. Sometimes life is just chock full of busy.

The good news is that I've had several job interviews in the past few days. I am getting hopeful that the end may be in sight for my partially-employed state. Yay.

The only bad thing about winter around here is that every day is like a box of chocolates - one day it's 25, the next day it's 60. Dressing "for the weather" is anyone's guess. Still, I was appalled yesterday when I dropped off Michael and it was about 30 degrees, and none of the kids even had on coats. Light jackets, hoodys, yes, but not coats. What happened to coats?

You don't see that many people around here wearing them any more.

I've also been working on a book, for one of my clients. It's a very short book, about his practice area, and it will be a freebie, an e-book freebie. Even though it's a short book, it still needs to get done, and it takes time.

A big shout-out to my brave friend Hallie who recently donated a kidney, to save a life. Her dad is alive because of a heart donation, and she is a spokeperson for organ donation.

I am very glad that it's Friday.

another awesome photo from my friend Lisa Amos

 

Devil Baby Makes Me Laugh

Lots going on, lots of mundane tasks I am wading through, but nothing noteworthy or particularly blogworthy.

My friend Judy posted this on her blog, and I think it's hysterically funny. I have a rather twisted sense of humor, though, I will admit.

 

Monday Recap

Wow, today just flew by, and there's not much to say. Rather than try to say anything profound, I will just do a quick catch-up post here.

• Got a work project that I desperately need to do, yet I sort of dread getting it right for this client.
• Lola decided when she was in the house alone with Mother and Mother was eating her lunch, that she needed a lunch companion. So Lola sat up on the chair, just like a person. [see photo below, altho it wasn't taken of her in the chair] Too funny!
• Took Michael to the doctor to see about a badly bruised muscle in his thigh. No tennis for a week, the doc said, but I was so relieved it wasn't worse.
• Spent a good bit of time on the phone today trying to get some answers abut my insurance coverage. I hate government bureaucracies.
• Took the Mazda up to the Chevron for them to check it out. Michael hydroplaned last Friday, driving in the rain, and knocked the back bumper loose. He's nervous about it but my attitude is, whatever.
• Made an awesome beef stroganoff with green beans for dinner, and used some different flavor combinations, like sesame oil and ginger. It was like a stir fry but I used pasta instead of rice. Very tasty. Tons of garlic. Photo below. Great stuff, sesame oil.

Snapshots of the Past and My World Today

We've had a fairly busy day, but it was all good. Sundays are sometimes quite busy, after I've goofed off all day Saturday.

My friend Amy brought her son over for Michael to babysit, and he gave the boy a tennis lesson. Mike is going to try out for the LHS tennis team this week, if they don't get rained out. So he played tennis last night and again this morning, before the lesson.

I ran errands and went grocery shopping. Woo hoo!

A mom and 2 tiny boys and one small girl came to the door this morning selling girl scout cookies. I almost asked "Are they made from real girl scouts?" but I controlled myself. Lola jumped up on each child and tried to lick them. Repeatedly. They handled it well. I felt bad about her, though, so I bought 4 boxes of cookies.

After yesterday's storms, today we had a lovely day, not even cold enough to need a jacket.

Photos and Stuff

The tiny house movement has migrated over to England. I find tiny houses interesting, but I would never wnat to live in one. A small house, yes, a TINY one, no. Not unless it was attached to a huge screened in porch, which would not look very politically correct then would it?!

I will confess that when I've not been working or running errands I've enjoyed looking at some very cool photos. This lady Chino Otsuka seems to be a time traveller. Way cool.

These historic photos absolutely fascinate me, and seem like true time capsules.

this is a red shouldered hawk, photographed by my talented cousin Linda Hasty Harris, probably in her backyard in Acworth. Love the majesty of this bird!

this is Michael washing his car - Uncle Bruce gave him car washing products

Tough Lessons

Those of you who read my blog regularly might wonder why you didn't see a post from me yesterday. I was in a very foul humor all day yesterday, for various reasons. I just didn't feel like writing. It's a rare day when I don't write a word, but it happens sometimes.

I started off being irritated with some of my friends on Facebook. Obviously not everyone among my more than 500 friends is going to agree with me about everything, but I am always shocked to see some of the comments and things people post. I am neither a liberal or a conservative, but my middle stance seems to anger both sides.

I have resolved to just ignore Facebook more. I know I will get more done around the house, and my blood pressure won't elevate when I scroll through my News Feed.

I went to the movies by myself yesterday after lunch, to see Philomena. Excellent movie. Really well written, beautifully photographed, etc. Also, to me, REALLY depressing. It's about an Irish woman who was forced to relinquish her toddler son, and 50 years later finally found the courage to search for him. The nuns from that particular place were pretty awful. It's based on a true story, which made it all the more depressing.

Philomena was a fairly powerless person, until her daughter put her in touch with the journalist who helped her trace her son. The result was not what she had hoped it would be, though. I don't want to spoil the movie, but suffice to say it had a lot of depth. Just hard to imagine, the terror and coercion that went into her relinquishing rights to her child. I'm aware that that still goes on today and it's heartbreaking.

[In case you're unaware or wondering, my kids were removed from alcoholic mothers who were incapable of parenting and chose alcohol over their children.]

I was in a theater where I was probably the only person under 60. No big deal. However, at one point in the middle of the movie I heard an odd sound, and I realized someone to my left and about 3 rows back, was snoring. Fast asleep.

Michael took his car out to get gas in it yesterday, despite the pouring rain, and hydroplaned on the drive back. The back bumper of the car hit something. He didn't hit another car. So there's probably about $300-500 worth of damage there. He was SO upset when he got back.

He also paid for $15 in gas and told the attendant the wrong pump number, and someone else got the gas. Poor kid. He is learning some tough lessons.

I had a will signing last night at 7. I got the chance to visit with Kristy on the way over, and that lifted my spirits. The man whose will was signed had lost his wife just a couple of months ago, very suddenly. Sad situation, but he was not weepy. Losing her made him aware of his own mortality and the need for a will like nothing else could.

Seems like the theme for yesterday was that life will hand you some tough lessons. You have to just not let things get to you. A lesson for us all. Faith is what gets me through.

Shame on You, Meryl

I have always liked an admired Meryl Streep, but in the past hour I have decided that she is a MORON.

Yep, you heard me right.

She was giving a speech last week about her friend Emma Thompson, and she used the occasion to rant and rave against Walt Disney, as reported in Time.

"Variety reports, read a letter that Disney, described as a “gender bigot,” sent to a female animator in 1938 that included the line: “Women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen, as that task is performed entirely by young men.”

Really?

 

Streep was presenting the best actress prize to Thompson at the National Board of Review awards in New York. The CBS News story gives some more details.

 

Was Walt Disney sexist or anti Semitic? I don't know. I don't think the occasion was an appropriate time for Streep to say nasty things about the man. The occasion was meant to HONOR EMMA THOMPSON. Emma Thompson won an award for her portrayal of PL Travers in Saving Mr. Banks.

 

Was Walt Disney a saint? A superman? Politically correct by the standards of 2014? No. I don't think it's fair to judge the man that harshly, however. I did some research, and he was a member of a conservative group called the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. Their main purpose was to be anti-Communist, judging by what I read online.

 

I find no proof that he was anti-Semitic.

 

Was he sexist? Undoubtedly. However, most men born in 1901 were sexist, and wouldn't hire women for certain jobs. My mother encountered that a lot when she was young. Disney was a product of his time.

 

I am no great fan of Disney movies. I don't collect them, like a lot of folks. I make no huge effort to see Disney films, or to avoid them.

 

I am also not ant-Semitic, racist, sexist, or anything else, BTW. I would never defend people who espoused those sorts of viewpoints.However, to diss famous people that one disagrees with - famous people who died decades ago - is insane. He wasn't there to defend himself. The speech was supposed to be about Emma Thompson. What Streep did was utterly and unforgivably INAPPROPRIATE.

 

It was bad manners.

 

I hate when Oscar winners stand up at the podium and start ranting and raving about their political opinions. YUCK.

 

I want to see Saving Mr. Banks. It looks like a terrific movie. I am not interested in the politics of anyone in the movie.

 

Whatever his politics, Walt Disney undoubtedly changed the face of entertainment in the 20th century. His contributions to animation are historic and verifiable. Billions of people have enjoyed his movies. The guy died in 1966, before he could be enlightened about women's rights, political correctness, and anything else today's actors and actresses think is important. Slamming him publicly the way Streep did simply caused pain to his children and grandchildren and other family members, and that's just UGLY.

 

Shame on you, Meryl.

 

Guess she has no plans to ever work on a Disney film...