Easy Beef and Onion Cheese Ball (A Quick and Easy Recipe)

New Year's Eve is almost here, and it's holiday party time!  I made this cheese ball recently just for the heck of it, and took it to my writing group.  They raved.  They said I could bring another one anytime.  They ate the whole thing - it's gone!  I'm going to make it again soon - just to have at home.  YUM!

Easy Beef and Onion Cheese Ball

8 oz cream cheese, softened
3 green onions, thinly sliced or chopped
2 1/2 oz dried beef (or chipped beef)
1/2 t celery salt
1 1/2 t Worchestershire sauce
1 c chopped pecans

Mix all ingredients, except pecans, together well.  Form into a ball, roll in the pecans until completely covered.  Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 2 hours before serving.

NOTE:  I used my stand mixer to make this recipe, but it's not at all necessary if the cream cheese is softened.  Maybe if you were making a BIG cheese ball or a bunch of them in a bigger batch.

Toys in the Kitchen - Part 2

This time, when I say "toys," I mean, literally, TOYS.

When you were a kid, did you ever have one of those little toy potholder looms?  You know, with the stretchy loops.  I remember getting one for Christmas.  The so-called "potholders" made on the seven-inch looms always ended up so small, nobody could ever seriously consider using them as potholders.

I was rooting through one of the kitchen drawers and came across two of the finished products from one of those looms.  I couldn't tell you whether they were made by The Boy or The Girl, but there they were!  They've obviously been in there a long time because the younger of the two is "pushing thirty," poor thing.

What I was searching for in that drawer was a coaster.  I spied these ancient, diminutive potholders, and I had a revelation - they are the perfect size for coasters!

One of my "new" coasters.

So now these poor, neglected objects have a useful purpose!

And I want to run out and buy myself a potholder loom and make some more coasters.  I'm such a child.

Have you ever discovered a use for something that originally seemed doomed to forever languish in the junk drawer like my "potholders?"

Rustic Italian Tortellini Soup (A Family Favorite from the Pantry)

I've been kinda sorta inventorying/reorganizing the freezer, and I found a package of cheese tortellini.  And a stack of packages of Italian sausage.  AND a package of shredded parmesan cheese.  Inspiration!

All the ingredients for this soup are things I try to keep on hand all the time.  It's one of those great fast go-to recipes that makes everyone stop and say, "What smells so good?"

Rustic Italian Tortellini Soup (about 8-10 servings)

1 lb Italian sausage OR ground beef
2 medium onions, chopped
6 garlic cloves, minced
48 oz chicken broth
2 15 1/2-oz cans tomatoes with Italian seasoning, undrained
18-oz pkg refrigerated tortellini
10-oz pkg frozen chopped spinach
2 T minced basil
shredded parmesan

Brown the sausage, onions, and garlic,  Add broth and tomatoes.  Bring to a boil.  Add the tortellini, turn down the heat, and cook the tortellini  7 minutes.  Add spinach and basil.  Cook for 3 minutes.  Serve, topped with parmesan cheese, if desired, and crusty bread. 

NOTE:   I try to buy the sausage uncased, but if it's not available, buy it as sausage links, open the casings, and discard the casings before browning the meat.

Toys in the Kitchen

Here's the unit itself.

Yes, I've been playing in the kitchen yet again!

A couple of years ago, I bought a cheapo dehydrator.  It's from a reputable company, Nesco/American Harvest, but it is the lowest priced one they made at the time (around $25.00).  I never got around to trying it out until a few weeks ago.  I'd never used a dehydrator before, so I wasn't sure what to expect.   Some friends from my Boy Scout days dehydrate their own backpacking food, and I was intrigued.

Well, I screwed up my courage, brought it into the kitchen and studied the instructions.  I figured I'd start with something easy and straightforward - apples!  Simple enough.  I cored and peeled the apples (Galas are my all-around favorite), sliced them with my mandolin into a bowl of lemon juice and water, arranged them on the racks, and plugged the dehydrator in.  It took a good twelve hours.

The end product.

I was going for a crispy apple-chip-type thing - SUCCESS!   The problem is, I like them so much, they're almost gone!  I'll just have to make some more, I guess - darn!  Ha!

Now that Christmas is almost here, I'm in a cookie-baking mood.  So out came the chocolate chips, peanut butter, and oatmeal.  But instead of the typical oatmeal raisin cookies, I want to make oatmeal "craisin" cookies.  I was about to put Craisins(TM) on the grocery list when it occurred to me that there was a boatload of cranberries left from Thanksgiving, just languishing in their bag in the fridge.  Hmmmmm...  The dehydrator manual does indeed have instructions for drying cranberries - YAY! 

The pretreatment for cranberries is to dip them in boiling water until their skins split.  Well, that sounds pretty easy.   I was in for a surprise, though.  I got the water boiling and dumped in the first bunch of sorted cranberries. 

Here they are - homemade "craisins!"

Well!

In about thirty seconds, it sounded like I was fixing popcorn!  When a cranberry's skin splits, it happens suddenly, and with a loud POP.  The first couple made me jump!  HA!  After the popping slowed down (just like with popcorn!), I poured everything into a colander to drain and started another pan of water.  I spread the berries on the dehydrator racks.  This was messier than the apples because when the berries split, they spilled their guts a little ("All right, youse guys, talk!").  I filled all the racks and plugged in The Machine.  They took longer than the apples, but they look pretty official to me.  Next - cookies!

STILL (A Five-Minute Friday Post)

The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.  (Exodus 14:14 NIV)

How can you be still?  The way things are now, it's difficult to find a place or time to be quiet, still, and centered.  With 24-hour news, entertainment, and connectivity, there's no place to hide!

My place to be still is in nature.  In the woods.  On the water.  On a trail.  In a park.  Sailing.  Running.  Hiking.  Camping.

I turn off the phone and get away from the TV.

I go alone.

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This post is part of the Five-Minute Friday link-up.  Today's writing prompt was "STILL."  For more information on Five-Minute Friday, click here.

BALANCE (A Five-Minute Friday Post)

I had to think about this one for a bit, so I'm late posting.

There has been so much written about work/life balance in the past several years, and I've found it an elusive thing.  Everybody's chasing it, and nobody thinks they've achieved the magical state of perfect balance.

Well, we all know there's no such thing, so why do people keep writing about it?  And why do we devour the books and articles supposedly giving us the answer?  Are we crazy?  Unbalanced?  (HA!)

So if it's unreachable, what do we do?

First of all, we need to redefine what "balance" is.  The books and magazines and seminars make it sound like we need to balance our time every day, or at least every week.

I've decided it's a lot of hooey (that's a highly technical term, if you didn't know).

Life goes through stages, and overall, if you're paying attention, it does balance, eventually.  Think about it.  When you have small children and you're working, I'm sorry, you're just naturally going to be focused on small children things, and it's difficult to focus on your spouse (if you're married) and work at that stage.  Oh, you're focused on work, too, but really, it's a vehicle to provide for those small children.  And the spouse should be focused on the kid stuff, too, and take some of the pressure off.  Some weeks, you'll have to have kid stuff in the front of your brain.   Other weeks, you'll be all work.  I used to travel for my job, and I'd be away from home overnight from time to time.  We figured it out.

When the kids were older and into sports and Scouts and stuff, I got involved in their activities, and my weekends and some weeknights were full of that stuff - meetings and practices and games.  I chose to be involved in those things.  I took vacation days from work to go to Boy Scout or Girl Scout camp.  But when I was at work, I worked like mad.  And on the weekends, That Man did the kid stuff, too.

Just because you can't be there all day doesn't mean you're a bad parent.  Everybody does what they can with what they have.  Some stages are easier, some stages are harder.  Eventually, some of your time becomes yours again.  You can work, and advance, too.  But you have to pick your battles and decide what you're willing to do, and what you're not willing to do.

Remember, it's only temporary!  EVERYTHING is only temporary.  It's all about choices and what you do with them.  It all balances out in the end.

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This post is part of the Five-Minute Friday link-up.  Today's writing prompt was "BALANCE."  For more information on Five-Minute Friday, click here.

Scalloped Potatoes (A Microwave Recipe)

When That Girl and her husband bought a house earlier this year, I took her the full-size microwave she had had in her apartment when she was single.  The Other Half couldn't understand why anyone would want that big of a microwave.  "Nobody cooks in a microwave.  You just use it to heat up food for the kids."

She and I just looked at each other.

Yes, you really CAN cook in the microwave.  From scratch.  Not a from a box.  Like any other cooking method, some foods do better than others.  Here's one that made a believer out of me.  This recipe is from a hardback cookbook that was included inside the box with my very first microwave oven - Christmas of 1984!

Scalloped Potatoes

4 T butter
4 T flour
1 t salt
1/2 t pepper
2 c milk
4 c thinly sliced peeled white potatoes
1 large onion, peeled and thinly sliced

Place butter in a 1-qt measuring cup and microwave about 30 seconds until melted.  Blend in flour, salt, and pepper to make a paste.  Gradually stir in milk.  Microwave 4-6 minutes, stirring after each minute, until thick and creamy.  

Spray a 2-qt microwave-safe casserole dish.  In the dish, layer half of the potatoes, half of the onion, and half of the sauce.  Repeat the layers.  Cover, and microwave at 70% power for 20 minutes.  Remove from microwave and let stand 5 minutes before serving.

NOTE:  This recipe was originally developed using a super-powerful (at the time!) 750-watt microwave.  I've adjusted it for 1,100 watts.

Roast Beef (A Slow Cooker Recipe)

Christmas is coming!  One of my favorite things is the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss.  Part of the Whos' celebration in Whoville was a feast with "roast beast."  Something about the phrase "roast beast" tickles me, so for years, whenever I have roast beef, I call it "roast beast."  So, for all those Cindy Lou Whos out there, here's my really easy, no-brainer, delicious, slow cooker roast beast - er, beef.

No gravy this time!

Roast Beef 

3-4 lb beef roast
1 16-oz can diced tomatoes
minced garlic to taste (I use a heaping soup spoon)
1 bay leaf

Place the roast in a 3 1/2-quart slow cooker.  Pour the undrained tomatoes over the roast.  Add the minced garlic and distribute it evenly over the meat.  Place the bay leaf to the side of the meat.  Cook on low for 8-10 hours.  Turn off the slow cooker and let sit for 30 minutes before removing the roast and slicing it.  Discard the bay leaf.

If desired, you can add 2-3 tablespoons of flour to the liquid, mix well, bring it to a simmer and cook 5-10 minutes.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

This recipe is great for cheaper, tougher, less marbled roasts.

DEEP (A Five-Minute Friday Post)

When That Girl was in high school, when I'd get "definite" about some issue, she would say, "Calm down!  It's not that deep."   Of course, those issues often involved some misbehavior on her part!

But really, aren't most things we get all worked up about not all that important?  We have to learn to choose our battles, as they say.  Or, as I like to say, you have to choose your own reaction.  You can choose to be angry, or you can choose to say, "Well, it is what it is."

It used to exasperate That Girl when she'd say that someone had "made her mad," and I'd tell her, "No, you chose to be mad."  For the most part, people just do what they do, and they're too wrapped up in themselves to bother to purposely make you angry.  

That doesn't mean you have to accept, agree with, or condone whatever it is, but what good does it do you to allow yourself to be angry and start shouting, which blocks logical thought and civil discourse.  It doesn't do your blood pressure or your digestive system any favors, either, and you'll probably regret the things you say and the loss of control .  

Anger itself isn't good or bad, but rather how we choose to express it.  You have to figure out just how truly deep the problem really is, then decide how to go about changing it.

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This post is part of the Five-Minute Friday link-up.  Today's writing prompt was "DEEP."  For more information on Five-Minute Friday, click here.

Give Thanks for Pumpkin Pie - YAY!

As I wrote in an earlier post, we had Thanksgiving at our house, and that means PUMPKIN PIE.
Well, Thanksgiving is over, and Christmas is coming, and that means MORE PUMPKIN PIE!!!

When I was little, my mom used to make a no-bake pumpkin pie using unflavored gelatin and Dream Whip mix or something like that.  Those pies were cold and pale, but they were delicious.  That was the only kind of pumpkin pie I’d ever had.   Most baked pumpkin pies looked burned and unappetizing to me until I went to my sister’s house, she had made baked pumpkin pies, and we ate them WARM!  What a concept!  So here’s my pumpkin pie recipe.  I started with the recipe on the back of a can of Libby’s pumpkin, then tweaked it over the years until I came up with the flavor I wanted.

Pumpkin Pie (2 9” pies)
Filling:
1 28-oz can 100% pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie mix)
1 13-oz can sweetened condensed milk
4 eggs
1 1/2 c dark brown sugar
1 t vanilla
1 t salt
2 T flour
4 t pumpkin pie spice

2 unbaked pie crusts, crimped, in 9” pie pans

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Mix all filling ingredients together and divide between the two pie crusts.  Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350 degrees and bake for another 35 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack.  When you remove the pies from the oven, the centers will not be firm.  They will finish cooking as they cool.

NaNoWriMo is DONE!

Yes!  The 2018 edition of National Novel Writing Month is finished, and I WON!

Don't know what NaNoWriMo is all about?   Well, it's a month-long 50,000-word writing marathon.  It's a chance to write the first draft of the novel that's been floating around in your brain, but you've never committed to paper.

I know, 50,000 words sounds like a lot of writing, and honestly, it IS, but it is absolutely doable.

It all starts in September, when you're able to go to the NaNoWriMo website and give your novel its identity.  I hesitate to call it a title  (even though that's what the website asks for), because the actual title doesn't really matter.  You can name it anything - My Book for This Year, My First Novel, Random Stuff.  Whatever you want.  Just name the project and go from there.

If you're a planner type of writer, you can work on an outline before November, because an outline isn't the actual writing - it's just a roadmap.  If you're a seat-of-the-pants type, you can wait until November 1 and just start writing.  You have until 11:59 p.m. on November 30 to write your 50,000 (or more) words. 

Here's my progress graph from November 2018.
It's on the stats tab on the website.

To "win," all you need to do is write a minimum of 50,000 words.  You don't have to finish the novel by the end of the month.  You don't want to edit.  You want to simply spew sentences.  

You don't write on the website.  You write using whatever program you prefer.  Many writers use Microsoft Word™ or Scrivener™.  Then when you have reached the goal and are ready to confirm your word count, you select all, copy it, then paste it into a box on the website's validation page.

If you're a loner, you can participate all by yourself.  But if you need or want some community or encouragement, many areas have write-ins, often at a bookstore, library, or coffee shop.  They may be listed in the calendar in the "Regions" tab on the website.  Don't be shy!  Everyone is there for the same reason - to write!

If you're not sure you want to commit to 50,000 words in a month, there are two other times you can experience a sort of NaNoWriMo Lite - Camp NaNoWriMo, in April and July.  It's the exact same idea, except you are able to set your word count goal for the month.  If you want to aim for a goal of less than 50,000 words, that's what you enter.  It's kind of a nice warm-up to the "real" NaNoWriMo in November.  You get a feel for what it's like to write a lot of words over a relatively short timespan.  You get familiar with how the website works.  You have a lot of fun.

Yes.  

FUN.  

Well, maybe not necessarily while you're in the throes of the writing frenzy, but like running a marathon, the fun is in having accomplished something many people talk about but never get around to doing.

If you have a book simmering inside you, NaNoWriMo is a way to let it out.

Just do it!