Category Archives: Main Course

I’d Rather Be Playing Pickleball

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Monday is grocery shopping day for me. It’s not a particularly good day for this activity, because the stores are all out of product following the busy weekend of shopping by those who work for a living. So Monday it’s just the retired set. Me included. The store shelves are bare and I know they will be bare, but I continue to shop on Mondays. There you have it.

I’m a fairly loyal Kroger shopper. King Soopers in Denver; Frys here in AZ. No particular reason other than I’m used to their brands and their prices are within reason. Not Walmart prices, but need I say any more about Walmart shopping?

The nearest Frys to our house, a couple of miles from here, is located in an area that is surrounded by park model communities. Now, prior to moving to AZ, I don’t believe I had ever heard that term – park model. In fact, the first time I heard the term was at my neighborhood nail salon, when a pleasant retirement-aged woman asked me if I lived in a park model. My sister Jen happened to be visiting, and we looked at each other with deer-in-the-headlight eyes. “I’m not sure,” I told the woman. “I don’t think so. What is a park model?”

Well, she clearly lived in a park model, and was quite put out with me. I don’t know if she was frustrated at my ignorance or annoyed that I didn’t live in one. She never bothered to explain the term to us.

For your information, park models are what we might call manufactured housing back in Denver. They are RV-like, but more permanent. They generally sit on some kind of a foundation, and are connected to utilities. And they are uber-popular with the over-70 community here in the east valley, and for good reason. They are inexpensive, offer recreational activities, and because they generally are part of a large over-55 community, provide immediate friends. Personally, I like my neighborhood where I can hear children playing, but God made us all different and I’m not judging.

All this is to say that shoppers at this particular store on this particular day of the week are almost all retired folks. Again, me included. But I differ from the majority of these undoubtedly very nice people in one way. I am shopping alone. Almost without exception, shoppers here are a team – husband and wife. Bill rarely shops with me, and never when I’m doing my weekly grocery shopping. He might accompany me on a Walmart run, but he will check out the auto parts or the sporting goods while I get whatever I came to buy. And personally, I’m very happy to have him not included in this particular activity, if for no other reason than I can’t bear to see his disappointed expression when I place the vegetarian-fed, cage-free-raised chicken eggs into my cart instead of the ones that cost a buck sixty-nine.

But here’s the thing. Again, almost without exception, the husbands look so darn sad. The wives are showing them the two-pack of Magic Scrubbing Bubbles and, with furrowed brows and frowning faces, are saying, “Weren’t Magic Scrubbing Bubbles on sale at Safeway last week? I think they might be thirty cents cheaper at Safeway” and the husbands SIMPLY DON’T CARE. They want to be back at home playing cards or pickleball with their friends, or, even better, on the golf course. However, they know full well that must accompany their wives to the grocery store to provide transportation and to reach things on the high shelf.

I feel for ya, Guys. And, by the way, thanks for getting that jar of Newman’s Own spaghetti sauce from the top shelf for me today.

I’m continuing to try and eat healthier meals, and found a delicious-sounding recipe in a Weight Watchers magazine. Last night’s dinner!

Beefy Skillet Penne

Ingredients
1 lb. ground sirloin
1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
½ lb. penne pasta, whole grain
2 c. roasted garlic pasta sauce
½ t. dried Italian seasoning
1/8 t. salt
4 oz. shredded Italian-blend cheese, divided
½ c. part-skim ricotta cheese.
Chopped fresh parsley

Process
Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add first three ingredients; cook 5 – 6 min. or until beef is browned, stirring to crumble. Drain well; return beef mixture to pan.

While beef mixture cooks, cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and add pasta to beef mixture in pan. Stir in pasta sauce, Italian seasoning, and salt. Reduce heat to medium.

Combine 2 oz. cheese Italian blend cheese and ricotta cheese in a bowl. Drop by heaping tablespoonfuls over meat mixture, and sprinkle with 2 oz. Italian blend cheese. Cover and cook 5 min or until cheese melts. Sprinkle with parsley.

Nana’s Notes: 6 Weight Watcher Plus points for a serving of about 1-1/3 cups.Very quick to prepare. I almost left off the ricotta cheese, but I’m glad I didn’t. It made the dish for me.

Eat Your Vegetables

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I mentioned that I did not make New Year’s resolutions for 2014; instead, I’m doing monthly challenges. My challenge for January is to drink eight glasses of water a day. I’m doing reasonably well. I’m probably not getting to eight each day, but I’m definitely getting to 6, and that’s an improvement. It will at least prevent me from drying up like a dandelion and blowing away.

Though it’s not a resolution (I did not make resolutions this year!), I intend, starting now (or maybe a little bit later) to eat healthier. I will forgo the goal of losing X number of pounds because that doesn’t really work for me (or really, anybody). But I definitely fell into an unhealthy eating habit over the holidays that made me feel less, well, healthy. Remember those couple of weeks of making Christmas cookies. Well, when you make them, someone must eat them. I did my duty.

My determination to eat healthier is, of course, a 180 degree digression from yesterday’s blog post in which I yammered on and on about those tamales (which, considering their yumminess, were undoubtedly made using lard). I am simply taking advantage of a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. Also, I weighed myself. Those tamales will be safe and sound in my freezer for a few weeks. I can eat them one at a time instead of in batches of THREE! (Just kidding. No I’m not.)

Bill and I started back at the gym Monday (and don’t my sore muscles reinforce that fact), and I joined the legions of others back at a Weight Watchers meeting yesterday, my tail between my chubby legs. I simply need to have someone remind me that there are options to snacking on Cheetos and Oreos all day. Apples, oranges, and pretzels, for example.

I refuse to count calories. I won’t even count WW Points Plus. It’s not rocket science after all. You simply need to burn more calories than you ingest. Smaller portions, more movement. Simple as that.

I made a really tasty vegetable soup that I ate for lunch, along with some turkey lunch meat. Mylee would be happy. Nothing that 3-year-old likes more than a turkey sandwich. And the soup was really good.

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients
1 T. olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 red pepper, chopped
1 fennel bulb, sliced thin
2 c. baby spinach
1 zucchini or summer squash, chopped
1 can fire-roasted diced tomatoes
4 c. chicken, beef, or vegetable broth
2 c. tomato juice
½ t. red pepper flakes
1 t. fresh thyme, minced
1 T. fresh basil, chopped
Salt and pepper

Process
Brown onion in olive oil until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about a minute. Add the red pepper and zucchini and cook for a few minutes. Add remaining ingredients and cook for about 45 minutes, or until vegetables are soft and flavors mingle. Garnish with basil when you serve.

Nana’s Notes: You can use whatever vegetables you have in your fridge. I sort of make this recipe when I have vegetables that are needing to be used or tossed. Carrots, celery, etc. all would work. The fennel (which I happen to love either raw or cooked) gives it a bit of an Italian flavor; hence, the basil. You could make it a bit Mexican by using cilantro instead and throw in a bit of avocado. It makes me – a devoted lover of soup – happy because it is filling and healthy and delicious.

Hey, Cuz!

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I have countless cousins. Well, that, of course, is not literally true. If I took the time, I could count them, thereby making them not countless. But my mother had 12 brothers and sisters that lived to adulthood, and she came from a good, Catholic family. So the 13 children resulted in many, many cousins for my siblings and me.

Most of my cousins lived in or around the area of Nebraska where we grew up. One of my mother’s brothers ended up in Minnesota, along with his large family, but the rest, as I recall, lived near us, at least as children. We rarely, however, gathered together as one group. We might gather one family at a time, but it was very uncommon for the entire family to gather, as it was quite formidable.

The one exception was our (almost) annual family picnic. We would get together, usually at a public park. Each aunt brought delicious picnic food; each uncle brought a more-than-sufficient amount of beer. Let the festivities commence! The adults would laugh and reminisce and gossip and drink and eat, getting livelier as the beer diminished. The kids would group together and run and play all sorts of games. The picnics were great fun. Even as adults, my sibs and I will occasionally talk about those picnics.

I thought about those picnics yesterday afternoon-into-evening as we were all together at yet-another celebration, this one a joint hullaballoo for my brother (with his year-end December birthday) and three of his children, with birthdays throughout January. My sister-in-law offered an amazing assortments of more unusual Mexican dishes – posole, menudo, and tamales made with Monterey Jack cheese, spinach, and green chili.

One thing about my Arizona family – if you give a party, they will come. And bring their kids. So much fun. So, the children – at least the ones joining us yesterday – ranged in ages from 8 to just over one month. Let’s see if I can get this right: one girl at 8, one girl at 7, two boys at 6, one girl at 4, two boys and one girl at 3, one girl at 1, and one baby girl just over a month. I think I’m close in those ages. You can sort of figure out how they paired up, though I did have occasion to see the 3-year-old boys playing with the 6-year-old boys. Or rather, the 6-year-olds were teasing the 3-year-olds mercilessly by keeping the ball away from them. Boys!

The weather was perfect – high 60s, so the kids played mostly outside, making up games as they went along. Later in the evening, one of my nephews lit up some logs in the firepit, and the inevitable cry, “Do you have any marshmallows”? rang out, to no avail, I’m afraid. Still, there was plenty of birthday cake to go around. For my part, I simply held my breath and prayed that none of the children would fall into the fire as they worked at finding a place to sit. Bill suggested he would dial 9-1 on his phone to be ready for the seemingly inevitable accident, which never transpired to my surprise. I missed my grandchildren immensely. They would have had fun with their cousins.

The whole scene made me think back on my days as a child with my cousins, as well as the days when all of my nieces and nephews gathered at my mom and dad’s house in Dillon, Colorado, every summer. The activities then were very similar. Cousins rock. They are like built-in best friends.

Until last night, I had never eaten posole. Posole is a soup made with pork and hominy (basically dried corn). The photo is stock, and is not of her soup. Most posole recipes use slowly-cooked pork shoulder as in the photo, but she used ground pork, which I thought was delicious.

New Mexican Style Posole from New Mexico Cookbook by Lynn Nusom

Ingredients
2 T. olive oil
1 medium-sized yellow onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, run through a garlic press
1 lb. lean, ground pork
1 t. salt
1 t. dried oregano
2 T ground cumin
1 c. chopped green chile
1 can (#10)white hominy, with the juice

Process
Heat oil in a frying pan, saute onion and garlic until soft. Stir in ground pork, add salt, oregano, cumin and green chile, and cook until pork is brown.Pour hominy (with liquid) into a large pot, stir in pork mixture and cook, covered, over low heat for at least one hour. Serve in soup bowls with Red Chile Sauce on the side.

Nana’s Notes: You may have noticed I said very little about the menudo. My sister-in-law didn’t make the menudo; she got it from a friend. I love all things Mexican, but I couldn’t make myself even try the menudo. The smell, donchaknow. Oh, and the pig’s hoof that was floating in it — a treat for my brother who enjoyed it with great relish. Well, it was his birthday celebration after all. As for the posole, Sami didn’t serve it with Red Chile Sauce on the side; instead, she used a seasoning mix she found in the Mexican section of the grocery store — a mixture of chili pepper and oregano and probably other spices. She thinks it was called menudo seasoning.

New Year, New Challenges

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When we arrive in Arizona right after Christmas, we surely do hit the ground running. We generally have a bit of a second Christmas with nieces and sisters, my brother’s birthday is Dec. 28, one great-niece has a January 1 birthday, a niece has a January 2, and then, of course, one of us hosts the family for a New Year’s Day bash. All fun. All involve a plethora of delicious food. Time to hit the gym. Big time.

But, as I already know, when you own a house, you also own all of the problems that come with home ownership. Yesterday we discovered that we have termites. Apparently, with all structures in Arizona, it’s not a matter of if you get termites, but when. We will have someone come out and look today, but, in the meantime, euwwww. I am thoroughly convinced last night as I lay in bed that I could hear them crunching! At least I could picture them, and that’s even worse. Oh well. Before I know it the problem will be solved and we will be onto the next house problem. At least it isn’t scorpions. Yet.

I have given a lot of thought about 2014 resolutions. I have read that the key to actually keeping the resolution is to be very specific. In other words, don’t say I am going to save more money in 2014; say I will put $25 every week into my savings account. So my general “I will be more generous, I will cook and eat healthier, I will be more prayerful” just don’t cut it.

My niece Kate (who will kill me if I don’t point out that she actually goes by Jojo, but will always be Kate to me) does an interesting thing when it comes to resolutions. Instead of drawing up her list each January 1, she does what she calls monthly challenges, and she makes them pretty difficult. After all, it’s only for a month, right? Yesterday it occurred to me that monthly challenges make more sense than meaningless yearly goals. So I guess you could say my new year’s resolution is to have monthly resolutions. Hmmmm.

Anyway, she assured me no challenge is too silly, so my first challenge will be to drink eight glasses of water every day this month. I drink virtually no water, and very little of anything else. I have three or four cups of coffee every morning and my glass of wine in the evening, and perhaps a sip or two of a diet cola if we go out to lunch. That’s pretty much it Folks. My son has said to me, “Mom, I don’t know how you even continue to live drinking so little fluid in a day!” But I have. For 60 years.

So there you have it. I will fill up a 64-oz. jug with water every day and by evening it will be gone. At least for a month. Kate promises when you do something for a month, it becomes a habit.

Here are some pictures of our feast yesterday:

One of the standing rib roasts on the grill (the other was roasted in the oven)…

My niece Brooke (left), my niece Jessie (with her head cocked), and their respective friends Alex and Jennie….

Bill carves the roast beasts, and he is a master carver!….

My two nieces Maggie and Kate. Maggie’s baby is due any minute now….

Our buffet…..

I’m going to have a glass of water. Then go to the bathroom. See ya.

Herbed Rib Roast from Epicurious.com

Ingredients
1 7-8 lb. prime rib roast (3-4 ribs)
1 T. whole black peppercorns
2 bay leaves
1 T. kosher salt
3 garlic cloves
1 t. chopped fresh thyme
1 t. chopped fresh rosemary
1 T. olive oil

Process
Grind peppercorns and salt to a powder in an electric coffee/spice grinder, then transfer to a mortar. Add garlic, thyme, and rosemary, pound to a smooth paste with pestle. Stir in oil. Rub paste over roast. Transfer roast to a rack set in a small flameproof roasting pan. Marinate, covered and chilled, at least 8 hours.

To cook:
Let roast stand at room temperature 1 hour. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Roast beef in middle of oven 20 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350 degrees and roast beef until a thermometer inserted into center of meat registers 110, 1-1/2 hours to 1-3/4 hours more. Transfer beef to a large platter and let stand, uncovered, 25 minutes. Meat will continue to cook, reaching about 130 for medium rare.

Nana’s Notes: Because when we all get together, we are a huge group, my sister (who hosted) had an enormous roast that she cut in two (three bones each). She marinated each the same way, but prepared one as above in the oven, and one on the grill. To grill, prepare your grill for indirect heat. Place an aluminum pan in the unheated area, put your rack over the pan, and place your roast on that area of the rack. Bring your grill to 375 degrees, and cook for about the same length of time. Don’t open your grill! Both were delicious.

Looking Back, Part I

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Whew. We are looking at the final couple of days of 2013, and as always, it seems to have gone by quickly.

Bill and I left Denver on Christmas Day after spending the final few days before we left with three-fourths of our children (the other living in Vermont). We had a lovely Christmas Eve dinner with the oldest, Allen, at McCormick and Schmicks, and felt like real grown-ups as we didn’t eat until 7:30.

Christmas morning we got into our already-packed car and headed south. Bill’s engineering mind kicks into full gear when he packs a car. He utilizes every square inch of the trunk and the back seat, leaving just enough room for our goodie bag.

The roads Christmas Day were very quiet. We listened to Christmas music as we headed towards our first stop – Albuquerque. We checked into the hotel early evening where I’m pretty darn sure we were the only guests. (Thankfully I didn’t see Norman Bates.) We have this down to a science. We always pack one little bag for just those things that we need for overnight – pajamas, meds, toothbrush, and toothpaste. This time we also had a bag with our Christmas dinner.

I knew there would be no restaurants open Christmas night, so, at Bill’s suggestion, I packed a picnic reminiscent of those we had when we traveled through Europe a few years ago. I had salami and prosciutto, several cheeses, some vegetables, and of course, a bottle of wine. It made for a nice little dinner.

I’m always nostalgic at saying goodbye to one year and looking forward to the next. First of all, it means we are getting older and so are our kids and grandkids. That’s the cycle of life, of course. But I also always wonder if I accomplished anything important during the past year, or was I just a slug, using God’s resources and breathing God’s air and not contributing a single thing.

As I thought about 2013, I finally concluded that I didn’t accomplish anything in the finding-a-cure-for-cancer type of way, but I certainly feel like it was a good year, full of joy and family (which are really one in the same for me).

Here are a couple of things that were important to me in 2013:

Largely because of my job, I was able to travel around the United States a great deal. There really aren’t many major cities that I haven’t been able to visit. But my job (or my life in general) had never allowed me the opportunity to visit Savannah, Georgia, and that was definitely on my bucket list. This year Bill and I spent a week with my two sisters on Hilton Head Island, and we visited Savannah. What a beautiful city and what a lot of fun we had! We even had the chance to dine at Lady and Sons Restaurant, which was definitely a bucket list item (my bucket list is pretty simple, my friends).

I started this blog. I have always loved to write, but while my job involved a lot of writing, it was all business writing, and largely boring. Approximately 22,000 new widgets will be produced this year as a result of a stronger commitment to the environment, it was announced today by CEO Joe Schmoe at a press conference announcing new widget production. And so forth. I wanted to enjoy writing, and this blog provides that enjoyment. I hope to continue to grow and reach more people, and welcome any and all feedback.

This year at Thanksgiving, my whole family was together – a somewhat rare occurrence. Our daughter and family spent the week in Denver, and the visit was culminated by a joyous Thanksgiving dinner. I showed the family photo the other day to one of my nieces. She looked at it, shook her head in amazement and said, “Aunt Kris, I can’t believe you have that family when you just had one kid.” True, true, true. I am so blessed.

Today I am spending the day with my two sisters at a fancy, dancy spa (where I will likely have to unveil my bare, oh-so-white legs). This is a continuance of my birthday celebration, as it is a gift from my sister Bec. Fodder for my blog, no doubt.

I will reminisce about 2013 more tomorrow.

Last night we watched the Call the Midwife holiday special, and in its honor, I fixed Shepherd’s Pie – a British specialty. Here is the recipe from Simply Recipes.

Easy Shepherd’s Pie

Ingredients
1-1/2 lbs. ground beef
1 onion, chopped
1-2 c. vegetables (carrots, corn, peas)
1-1/2 – 2 lbs. potatoes (3 big ones)
8 T. butter
½ c. beef broth
1 t. Worcestershire sauce
Salt, pepper, seasonings of choice

Process
Peel and quarter potatoes, boil in salted water until tender (about 20 minutes). While potatoes are cooking, melt 4 T. butter in large frying pan. Sauté onions in butter until tender over medium heat, about 10 minutes. If you are adding vegetables, add them according to cooking time. Put any carrots in with the onions. Add corn or peas either at the end of the cooking of the onions, or after the meat has initially cooked.

Add ground beef and sauté until no longer pink. Add salt and pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and half a cup of beef broth. Cook uncovered over low heat for 10 minutes.

Mash the potatoes in bowl with remainder of butter; season to taste.

Place beef and vegetable mix into a baking dish. Spread mashed potatoes over the top. Bake in 400 degree oven until bubbling and brown (about 30 minutes). Broil for last few minute if necessary to brown.

Nana’s Notes: I did not make mashed potatoes; instead, I bought the already packaged kind. Very easy. I used fresh carrots that I diced and frozen corn. The Call the Midwife special was awesome!

Impatiently Waiting for Patience

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We’ve had a really pretty and fairly warm autumn. My heavy winter coat still hasn’t seen the light of day. But this morning we all woke up to snow and the temperatures probably won’t get out of the mid-teens. Thankfully Bill got most of the leaves picked up during the warm weather last week, and the snow will make certain the rest will come down this weekend. Our daughter and her family will be making their way from Vermont on Friday, and this weather, which is supposed to last the next few days, won’t be anything new to them.

As you can see, I don’t really have much in the way of a theme this morning. Yesterday Bill had his semiannual checkup with his neurologist/movement disorder specialist. He is always calm; I, on the other hand, am always a wreck. Having survived yesterday, my mind is kind of weary.

I’m happy to say that his appointment went well. His progression remains slow, and he was put on a different medication which is purported to be practically magical in how well it treats the symptoms! Keeping my fingers crossed.

There is no point in dwelling every day on why Bill has Parkinson’s. The reality is that no one knows why anyone gets it. I’ve never believed, certainly, that God sits up on his big white throne in heaven and points at people and says, “You’re going to get cancer, and you’re going to be in a car accident, and you’re going to get PD.” He put us on earth and we have free will and the way the earth was created leads to weather events and so forth. And, frankly, yucky stuff happens to people who don’t deserve it, and nobody understands why.

What I do spend a lot of time thinking about, however, is how Bill and I can handle our life and what we can we get out of it. Bill, for his part, handles his PD with absolute grace and dignity. He pretty much just ignores the fact that he has PD and lives his life, perhaps doing things different ways or asking me or others for help with no embarrasment. I am telling you, the man NEVER, EVER COMPLAINS.

I complain a lot, I’m afraid. Maybe not to others, but to myself, through impatience. But I believe that I am slowly but surely learning to be more patient. The other day I was walking down a narrow aisle behind a woman with a slight walking impairment who was moving quite slowly. I found myself getting so impatient, though I had nowhere I had to be. The good news is that I recognized my fault. She is clearly unable to walk faster, I reminded myself, and she likely wishes she could. Get a grip!

Patience is a virtue, isn’t it? It’s hard for me to wait to gain that particular virtue! (Wow. I crack myself up.)

I was tired after the appointment and knew I wouldn’t want to cook, so we made a stop at the grocery store and I bought the fixings for a really cheating dinner. I bought a half pound of ground beef, a bottle of good spaghetti sauce, and some spinach and grated carrots from the salad bar. At home I browned the ground beef and added the vegetables to the browned meat to soften. I added the sauce and served it over spaghetti. A one-pot meal! I didn’t even have to bother with making a salad.

Far Away Places (With Strange Sounding Names)

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One of my best friends is currently working in the Middle East country of Qatar. I only vaguely know the whereabouts of Qatar, but I know it’s very far away from Denver. She has been away since last June, and will be away for a much longer time. I’m trying not to think about how much longer she will be gone.

She is here on a visit, and we had breakfast together yesterday morning. Well, breakfast that ran into lunch, really, because there is a lot to talk about with a good friend when you haven’t seen her for a long while, and she lives in a country where I couldn’t even begin to read the street signs.

Really, it’s one thing to have a friend move away to, say, Boise, Idaho. It’s even conceivable that a friend could move away to London. But Qatar? A country with a name I can’t even pronounce? She, by the way, tried to teach it to me yesterday morning. That took about half of our time together. Something about having to use the back of my tongue. Whatever. I can say Boise, Idaho.

Anyway, we did a pretty nice job of catching up. We talked about my life (grandkids and blogging). We talked about her life (work and trying to figure out how to stay entertained in a country that Netflix doesn’t serve). We talked about what she missed most (pork, with her husband a close second). We talked about getting used to a life totally different from the United States, or even western Europe (e.g., weekends being Friday and Saturday).

Afterwards, I stopped at Steinmart to return a sweater I had purchased for my husband. Handing the cashier my receipt, I anticipated smooth sailing. He asked me for the credit card onto which I had charged the sweater. I dutifully handed my credit card over to him. “No, Ma’am, I need the card ending in 0087,” said the man pleasantly. Surprised, I told him that was the card, knowing that it’s the only card I ever use. He handed it back to me, suddenly looking very suspicious, and said he was sorry, but that isn’t the right card. I looked at the card, and discovered that though it was exactly like my card – Chase Preferred Sapphire – it indeed bore the name of the friend with whom I had breakfasted/lunched. We had split the tab, as we always did, each giving the server a credit card. We each ended up with the wrong card.

Why is it that when something like this happens, I feel compelled to explain every detail to the cashier? There can be no question in the young man’s mind that I was using a stolen card because I instantly began telling him about having breakfast with my friend who is visiting from Qatar and we had split the tab and each of us had given the server a credit card and can you believe her card was exactly like mine and I’d better call her as soon as possible so that we can get our own cards back. I’m sure I was sweating. My only saving grace was that there was no one behind me in line. That, and they didn’t have a security guard to lead me away in handcuffs.

Anyway, I called her and told her about our mix-up before she was placed in an embarrassing situation as well. As we speak, she is probably doing her Christmas shopping on Amazon using my Chase card!

Onto cooking….

While perusing my mother’s recipe box (Oy vey! Again with the recipe box!) I found her recipe for a broccoli/cheese/rice casserole that she always made on Thanksgiving. It came from the woman who had decorated cakes at our Nebraska bakery. I only tell you this because it wasn’t in my mother’s handwriting, and my sister had to remind me whose handwriting it was. More memories. Marie decorated a pretty cake.

Anyhoo, I made the casserole, and it was as good as I remembered. Even Bill enjoyed it, and he isn’t terribly fond of rice. Perhaps its because I told him he needed to eat his vegetables to be entitled to the last piece of Candy Pie.

Cheese Broccoli

Saute 1 large onion and 1 clove of garlic (chopped fine) in butter and a little oil. Add 1 pkg of frozen chopped broccoli, 1 can cream of chicken soup OR cream of mushroom soup, 1/2 c. milk, 1 c. Velveeta cheese (1 small bar), and 3/4 t. salt. Undercook 1 cup of rice (which makes 2 c. of cooked rice. Mix all of the ingredients in a baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Nana’s Notes: I cut the recipe in half and it was enough for Bill and me with a bit to have for lunch tomorrow. And,by the way, the title of this post — for anyone under the age of 50 — comes from a song that was sung by the likes of Dean Martin and Bing Crosby when I was a little girl. My family is familiar with the song because we had a little neighbor girl who stood at the end of our driveway one year as we left for vacation and sang that song to us. Funny memory. We weren’t (as the song suggests) going to China or Siam, but only to Colorado.

Kitchen Update

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Some friends of ours are selling their beautiful loft/condominium in the Golden Triangle area in downtown Denver. It’s interesting that some of the feedback they are getting is that the kitchen is supposedly in DIRE need of updating. The condo is 15 years old or so, and really lovely. The countertops are granite, the floors are hardwood. Apparently the fact that it has an electric stove and the appliances aren’t stainless steel makes it a no-go, my friends.

Bill and I recently talked about people’s varying needs to update their kitchens as we were discussing his mother’s cooking. Wilma, who is an amazing 96 years old, now lives in an independent apartment in a retirement community. Prior to that, she lived in their family home in a beautiful old neighborhood on the south side of Chicago. They moved into that home somewhere around 1952 or 1953. Envision the appliances in a kitchen circa 1952. Fast forward to the year 2000, and imagine that those very same appliances are in that house. And they all work perfectly. We were at a museum recently that featured a 1950s kitchen and Bill said, “Look, it’s Mom’s kitchen appliances!” And it really was.

This is not particularly a commentary on how in 2013 we all need the best and coolest kitchens available. It’s really more of a testament on how well things were built years ago compared to today. For example, Bill’s parents received a toaster as a wedding gift when they were married in 1939 or 1940. Until eight or nine years ago, Wilma used that very same toaster. It would break; Rex would fix it. Can you imagine taking the time to fix a toaster today? It was with great consternation that Wilma finally agreed to buy a new toaster. I remember Bill saying to her, “Well, Mom, you could call the manufacturer and see if they have the parts for a GE toaster, Series ONE.” She, as I recall, was not amused.

Bill’s father Rex loved nothing more than to fix things. Wilma has told me that when Rex would come home from work and she would tell him that her washing machine was making funny noises, he could hardly contain himself through dinner in his eagerness to get downstairs and start taking the washer apart. I can understand because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and Bill is a fixer himself.

Occasionally I will look at my quite dated kitchen and start thinking about updating it. Bill will listen to me, and then he will say, “WWWD?” That’s our code for “What would Wilma do.” My appliances work, the marks on my hardwood floor show it’s been well used, my kitchen table has knicks in it and stains on it because kids and grandkids have colored, played with play dough, pounded their baby spoons, and otherwise been comfortable sitting there. I guess I don’t mind the weathered look of the table.

No updates to my kitchen for a while.

This week I’m not really following a cooking theme; I’m just cooking what sounds good to me. And today Beef Stew sounded good. I saw Ree Drummond make a stew with root vegetables recently, and that’s the recipe I used. It was every bit as good as it looked.

Beef Stew with Root Vegetables, courtesy Ree Drummond

Ingredients
3 T. olive oil
1 T. butter
2 lbs. beef stew meat
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium onion, diced
1 can or bottle beer
4 c. beef broth, more as needed
1 T. Worcestershire sauce
2-3 T. tomato paste
1-1/2 t. sugar
½ t. paprika
½ t. kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 carrots, roughly sliced
2 parsnips, roughly sliced
1 small turnip, roughly sliced 2 T. flour, optional
Minced fresh parsley, for garnish

Process
Heat the oil and butter in a pan and brown the beef. Remove the beef from the pan, throw in the garlic and onions and cook until softened, about 3 min. Pour in beer, beef broth, Worcestershire sauce, tomato paste, sugar, paprika, salt and pepper. Then return the beef to the pan, cover and simmer on a low heat until the meat is very tender, 1-1/2 to 2 hours. If the liquid level gets too low, add more broth as needed.

Add the carrots, parsnips and turnips and continue to simmer until the vegetables are tender and liquid is reduced, about 30 min.

If the stew is still too liquidy, remove a cup of cooking liquid from the pan and stir in the flour, Add flour mixture back into the pan and stir. Simmer for 10 minutes until the stew is thick. The meat should be very tender; if it’s tough, let it continue to cook.

To finish, add the parsley and stir through the stew.

I also made a batch of Kentucky Biscuits, from a recipe I found on Pinterest.

Kentucky Biscuits

Ingredients
2 c. flour
1-1/2 t. baking powder
½ t. baking soda
2 T. sugar
Dash of salt
½ c. butter
¾ c. buttermilk (Don’t have buttermilk? No problem, just add 1 or 2 T. vinegar to milk)

Process
Mix dry ingredients. Cut in butter, add milk and knead into soft dough. Do not over knead! Pat into an ungreased 6 X 6 pan. I use a pie pan. Cut into serving size portions before you cook. Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 min. or until done and golden brown.

Nana’s Notes: I halved the beef stew recipe for Bill and me, and it worked great. Enough for two large bowls of stew. As for the Kentucky Biscuits, they were delicious; however, I’ve never made them before so I have no idea if they were the right consistency. Mine were sort of like corn bread. Also, next time I would grease the pie pan. Very good drizzled with honey.

Spanx for the Memories

Posted in Main Course, Meat Dishes, Recipes by

My sisters and I were all born before 1960. Dressing up in the 50s and 60s meant something a bit different than it does now. For example, outer garments often included a hat and gloves, at least if we were going to church (which was generally the reason we dressed up).

For women of the 50s and 60s, undergarments included nylons with garter belts (which, for my sisters and me, were not sexy, mostly twisted and beige with age as they were inevitably Mom’s hand-me-downs). And of course, the dreaded girdle. As young women (meaning puberty and beyond) we, too, wore these restrictive undergarments because that’s what “ladies” did.

Yesterday I attended the funeral of an acquaintance. I generally only dress up on Sundays, and mostly I wear a pair of black pants with some kind of a jacket, blouse, or sweater. So I put on a pair of black pants and a brand new lightweight knit shirt.

I took a glance in the mirror before I went downstairs. Yuck. Panty lines. I could hear my mother’s voice in my ear saying, “Nobody is looking at you, Kris,” and knew this to be true. Still, panty lines. Yuck.

So I went to my drawer and dug deep for a pair of long-unused Spanx. You know Spanx: Torture device of the old and unfit. Purportedly good for slimming your abdomen and bottom. “It takes off 10 pounds,” according to the advertisements. Yes, but those 10 pounds have to move somewhere….

Mostly I was just trying to get rid of those panty lines.

I pulled them on and had no more panty lines. But it made me think about my mother as a young woman, likely wearing a girdle much more often than I and never complaining. It really was quite horrendous when you think about it.

So, I guess I won’t. And it sure was nice when I could take it off.

I don’t usually post a recipe on Saturdays, but I wanted to be part of the family and let you know what recipe I would have my mother make if I got that last chance for her good cooking. Spareribs and sauerkraut. Yum.

I’ve mentioned before that Mom was not big on recipes, unfortunately. She wrote down a few of her specific dishes, such as her cole slaw dressing or her gazpacho. But as for her regular main dishes, not many recipes. Sometimes I try to recreate her meals from memory, but mostly I call one of my siblings, go on the Internet or look at my cookbooks and see what I can find.

That’s what I did when I decided to recreate her baked spareribs. And I found my recipe in a somewhat surprising place – one of my Lidia Bastianich cookbooks!

The recipe comes from Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen, copyright 2002.

Spare Ribs Roasted with Vinegar and Red Pepper

6 servings

Ingredients
1 rack (about 3-1/2 pounds) pork spare ribs
Sea or kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/3 c. extra-virgin olive oil
12 cloves garlic, peeled
4 fresh or dried bay leaves
1 cup (or as needed) canned chicken broth
1 cup dry white wine
½ cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons honey
1 to 2 teaspoons crushed hot red pepper

Process
Cut the rack of spare ribs between the bones into single ribs. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Pat the spare ribs dry and season them with salt and pepper. Toss them in a roasting pan into which they fit comfortably with the olive oil, garlic, and by leaves. Pour in the broth and roast, turning occasionally, until the liquid is almost completely evaporated and the ribs are golden brown, 45 minutes to an hour.

Meanwhile, stir the wine, vinegar, honey, and crushed red pepper together in a small bowl until the honey is dissolved.

Brush all sides of the ribs with some of the vinegar glaze, and then pour the remaining glaze into the roasting pan. Continue baking, turning every few minutes, until the glaze is syrupy and the ribs are mahogany brown and sticky to the touch, about 30 minutes. Spoon off as much of the fat as you like before serving the ribs.

Nana’s Notes: I used a rack of baby back ribs instead of spareribs since they seem more manageable, and I was cooking only for my husband and me. It took the whole hour before the liquid came close to being evaporated. And I’m not sure my ribs were ever sticky to the touch, but they did turn a lovely golden brown.

Lidia’s recipe doesn’t include sauerkraut, but I just buy a package of the lovely, ice-cold sauerkraut you find in the deli case at the grocery store and add it to the pan towards the end or heat it separately. To be honest, I like it cold! At some point my mom started putting apples in with her sauerkraut, I assume to make the kraut less sour. I didn’t like this, and remember trying unsuccessfully to eat around the apple. So I served the sauerkraut without apples.

It’s been fun cooking with you all week, Mom!

Nana Love

Posted in Main Course, Meat Dishes, Recipes by

I never asked my mom the question directly, but I assume she liked being a mother. However, I KNOW she liked being a grandmother. You can see her pride and her love in this picture of Mom and Dad with my nephew and sister on the day of my nephew’s First Communion.

We are all many things. For example, I am a Catholic, an American, a Coloradan, a sister, a wife, a mother, and many other things. I enjoy all of my various roles. But unquestionably being a grandmother ranks high when considering what I like and do best.

I love all of my grandchildren. They all have their own unique personalities. Shockingly, I think they are all the smartest, funniest, cutest children on this earth. Each one of them.

Indulge me while I tell you a funny story about my precocious 3-year-old granddaughter Mylee (the same spitfire who wouldn’t brush her teeth in an earlier blog post). Yesterday morning her mother was hunting for the missing Mylee, and finally found her, totally naked, out on their deck enjoying Colorado’s unseasonably warm weather. “I’m hot,” she explained. She then came into the house and told her mother she needed a scarf. Apparently she understands, even at that early age, that scarves are the perfect accessory for any outfit.

I don’t think there is really anything quite like being a grandmother. My mother definitely understood this as well. Like me, she thought all of her grandchildren walked on water. As an example, when my son didn’t make his high school basketball team, it was really all we could do to keep her from marching over to the high school and making the coach aware of his mistake. She would have done the same for any of her grandchildren.

Mom died at the much-too-early age of 69. Though she has been gone for over 18 years, I miss her every day. I no longer mistakenly pick up the phone to tell her about something, but I very often am sad that I can’t. The story about Mylee is a good example. It would have made her laugh.

I take my role of Nana very seriously. I have very vivid and pleasant memories of the time I spent with my grandmother, whom I loved with my whole heart. I have always vowed to provide that same unconditional love to all of my grandkids so that they will remember me with joy, just as my son and all of my nieces and nephews remember their nana.

I often wonder where my mother got her recipes. She probably got many from magazines, and I know she got plenty of recipes from her sisters and sisters-in-law. Her recipe box also holds many recipes she gleaned from the recipe boxes of her children. I have no clue, however, from where this recipe came. She made beef stroganoff often when I was growing up, and it was delicious. My brother doesn’t even have to hesitate for an instant when asked about his favorite Mom-recipe.

Mom’s Beef Stroganoff (exactly as written on her recipe card)

Cut 1 lb round steak into 3X1 inch strips. Brown strips in 2 tbs shortening in large skillet. Add ¼ C cut-up onion, 1 tsp salt and ¼ tsp pepper. Blend in 2 tbs flour, then 1½ C tomato juice and, if desired, 4 oz can mushroom stems and pieces, drained. Cover and cook over low heat 1 hour until tender. Stir in a mixture of 1 small can evaporated milk and 1 tbs Realemon. Heat until steaming but do not boil. Serve over cooked noodles or rice.

Nana’s Notes: 1 small can evaporated milk = one 5-oz can. As with yesterday’s recipe, Mom always used the least expensive cut of round steak – thin piece of meat. My brother insists it tastes better than using a more expensive cut of beef. Though her recipe says it can be served with noodles or rice, I never remember a single time that she didn’t serve it over rice. I can’t imagine serving it any other way! Tonight I served it with a bottle of wine called Middle Sister, perfect for me as I am a middle sister!