Well, It's Definitely SPRING

Here's the flooded driveway.

You can always tell when spring has arrived - the NOAA weather radio gets busy with severe weather warnings.  We had a line of thunderstorms come through Saturday afternoon and was it exciting!

I like my thunderstorms, but this was ridiculous.  We got quarter-sized hail and torrents of rain.  Our front yard flooded.  Lake Williams reappeared.  A river ran across the driveway.  The trees stood on tiny islands.  The gutters overflowed, not able to handle the flood of water coming from the roof.

White bolts of lightning split the sky and the rain came down in sheets. The hail pounded my backyard stick pile and tore it to shreds!  Little stick pieces flew all over the patio.  We lost power for several seconds, so I had to reset some clocks.

Water's flowing into the
crawlspace vents - oh joy.

The water that overflowed from the gutters ended up along the front of the house and found the crawlspace vents, so that's all wet, too. 

As I sit here writing this evening, it's started up yet AGAIN.  The lightning looks like a strobe light on the houses across the street.  The rain is rattling against the siding.  Just now, a big bolt of lightning and a CRACK of thunder, and the lights across the street have gone out.  It sure looks empty over there.  We got a flash of no power, but I'm not resetting anything.  Well, the cable is restarting itself - "Welcome.  Bienvenido.  Bienvenue." 

Good times!

Chicken Tortilla Soup (My Own Made-Up Pantry Recipe)

What with doing home health care and everybody staying home for the Coronavirus emergency, I've been cooking a lot, especially easy everyday recipes, and here's another one! 

This recipe grew out of a recipe for a chicken burrito filling!  It was okay as a burrito filling, but I decided to add some stuff to it and make it into chicken tortilla soup instead.

Chicken Tortilla Soup (Stove Top)

For Soup:

1 15-oz can chicken broth

1 15-oz can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 15-oz can whole kernel corn

1 10-oz can Ro-Tel (Hot)

1 15-oz can tomatoes and green chilies

1 lb cooked chicken, shredded (or 2 12-oz cans white meat chicken and eliminate the broth)

1 packet taco seasoning

1 T lime juice

1/2 t cayenne pepper

2 t cumin

For Toppings:

Tortilla chips, coarsely crushed (the one at the bottom of the bag work great!)

Shredded cheddar cheese

Sour cream

Green onions, chopped

Dump everything except the tortilla chips in a 3- or 4-quart saucepan or dutch oven, bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer 20 minutes.  Serve with your choice of toppings.

Chicken Tortilla Soup (Slow Cooker)

Put 1 lb of fresh chicken tenders or breasts (instead of the cooked or canned chicken above) and the rest of soup ingredients above in a slow cooker.  Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or high for 4 hours.  Remove the chicken and shred using two forks, then return it to the slow cooker, stir, and serve with your choice of toppings.

Sweet and Sour Chicken (or Pork) - A New-to-Me Vintage Recipe

One of my friends posted a recipe on her blog, and it sounded so delicious I just had to try it!  I used a dutch oven, but a wok would be better.  I even have one, but I didn't think about it when I made the recipe.

She says she found this recipe years and years ago on the back of a can of Dole pineapple.  Sometimes recipes on food packages aren't all that good.  Not this one!  YUM!  The original recipe called for 3 tablespoons of soy sauce, but so many times I've followed a recipe to the letter and the soy sauce seemed to overpower the dish, so I made the executive decision to halve the amount of soy sauce, which made it just about perfect (to me).

I actually doubled the recipe the first time I made it because I only had a 28-oz can of pineapple!  It worked just fine.


Sweet and Sour Chicken (or Pork) - from a Dole pineapple label

1 lb chicken breasts or pork tenderloin cut into 1" cubes
1 T canola oil
1 medium onion, quartered
1 clove garlic, minced
2 carrots, sliced
1 medium bell pepper, cut into chunks
1 15-oz can pineapple chunks, undrained
1/4 c vinegar
3 T brown sugar
3 T catsup
1 1/2 T lite soy sauce
1 T cornstarch
1 t ground ginger

In a large skillet or wok, heat the oil and brown the chicken.  Add the onion and garlic and cook until the onion is translucent.  Add the carrots and bell pepper and cook until the carrots are tender.

In a separate bowl, combine the remaining ingredients, then add to the cooked chicken and vegetables in the wok and bring to a simmer.  Cook about 10 minutes until the sauce has thickened and become translucent.

Serve with rice.

I Scored Potatoes and Onions This Morning!

Onions and potatoes seem like odd things to get excited about, don't they?

Well, I'm the designated forager, so I hit the stores yesterday to pick up some milk, bread, and a few other things.  They were busy, but not absolutely jammed like they were on Friday.  Friday was hit by kind of a double whammy - not only were people stocking up for the coronavirus emergency, but the forecast for Saturday was for 3-4 inches of SNOW, piling one stressor on top of another.

I'd planned a St. Patrick's Day dinner for us - corned beef, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, and Irish soda bread, plus I wanted some rye bread and sliced Swiss cheese so I could make Reuben sandwiches with the leftovers.  Well, no potatoes, onions, cabbage, or rye bread most places.  Hardly any sliced cheese of any kind anywhere.  I did find one loaf of rye and a few onions.  I caught sight of some toilet paper, but it wasn't on my list.  Still no rice or dried beans - also not on my list.

I did get a little tickled walking down the boxed dinner aisles - no boxed macaroni and cheese, which I expected, but I also noticed that the shelves for Hamburger Helper were nearly empty!  I don't know exactly why I thought it was funny, but it just struck me that way.  Still plenty of ice cream and wine, though!

Anyway, I had a few potatoes at home, but they were starting to look poorly, so that was one thing I really wanted.  I was able to use those sad-ish potatoes with the corned beef because they would be boiled, but they wouldn't be good enough for roasting or baking or mashing.

Last evening the grocery ads arrived and looking through them, I saw POTATOES and ONIONS advertised!  So I planned to hit Kroger this morning.

I got to the store about an hour after they opened.  SCORE!

I was able to buy two five-pound bags of potatoes and a three-pound bag of onions, so we should be okay for those things for a couple of weeks.

The stores still have low stocks of many things, but the situation is improving - the supply chains are starting to catch up.  So be patient!  It's on the way!

Why I'm Not Prepping for the Coronavirus (and Other Thoughts on the Emergency)

So the coronavirus is an official national emergency. 

We've all heard the recommended steps to prevent its spread - avoid crowds, stay home if possible (self-isolate), avoid touching your face, clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces, don't shake hands, stand six feet away from others in public places, change clothes when you return home from public places, and WASH YOUR HANDS FREQUENTLY.

Here's a meme making the rounds of social media:

The YouVersion app on my phone sends me a daily Bible verse.  Yesterday's was amazingly current:

"Come near to God and he will come near to you.  Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded."  (James 4:8, NIV)

Wow!  That kind of tickled me!

I went shopping yesterday to pick up a few things that were on my list - ice cream, soda, salad mix, celery, apples - you know, just STUFF.

It was a revelation.

Walmart wasn't crowded (everybody was at work), but certain aisles had been decimated.  All the toilet paper and paper towel shelves were completely empty.  There were three small jugs of bleach in the laundry aisle.  No antibacterial wipes, hand sanitizer, or medical gloves.  No bags of rice.  A few bags of dried beans.  No dry milk.  No eggs.  No bananas.  A few cases of bottled water. 

Later, I hit Kroger, this time after 5:00.  WHOA!

Everyone must have stopped there on the way home.  The parking lot was completely full - all the way out to the street!  Everything missing at Walmart was missing at Kroger, plus, people trying to check out were lined up all the way to the back of the store.

I'm happy to report there was plenty of ice cream, however!

Both places, most people had loaded their shopping carts to overflowing.  I had a handbasket.

I wasn't stocking up because I don't need to.

For example, I keep two of the largest packages of toilet paper in each bathroom.  When the second one is opened, toilet paper goes on the shopping list.  I keep between fifteen and twenty pounds of hamburger in the freezer.  I have the equivalent of several cases of assorted canned tomatoes in the utility room.

Am I some kind of doomsday prepper?  No!

I'm just an extremely LAZY shopper!  I want to be able to cook what I want without having to run out and buy a bunch of stuff first.  I'd rather buy my groceries when it's convenient instead of as needed.

I keep my grocery list on the front of the refrigerator.  When I use something from the freezer or pantry, I write it on the list and buy it the next time I go to the store.

Besides, we have tornadoes and ice storms here.  If there's a weather-related travel advisory, I have what I need right here at home.  If there's a power outage, we have a boatload of candles and some oil lamps for light and a little heat.  I've used my backpacking stove to cook hot meals when we've been snowed in with no power.

It's really not hard to get started.  When you're doing your "normal" shopping, buy one or two extra things.  Or decide to spend ten dollars a week on things you want to keep on hand.  If you're low on storage area, there are websites devoted to finding space.

I'm just saying that having a reasonable stock of food in the house allows me to have a more relaxed outlook when emergencies happen.

So...

Keep Calm and Stock On!

Toys in the Kitchen - Part 3

Here it is!  This is the
8-quart model, and it is BIG.

Because I'm spending more time at home, I've been cooking more often, so I've gotten interested in alternative cooking methods and different kitchen gadgets and equipment.

After reading reviews and recipes and blogs, I finally took the leap and bought an Instant Pot.  I've only used it a VERY few times, so I'm still learning what it can do.  

Everyone raves about how easy and convenient the Instant Pot is.  I'm all about ease and convenience!  I'd tried ribs early on, using a recipe that used the Instant Pot for every step - searing the meat, browning onions, cooking the meat, then finishing it off with sauce.  The problem was you had to put the ribs in and out of the Instant Pot more than once.  To me, that's not convenient.  And what a mess!

Once again, I was rooting around in The Magic Box and came across three packages of ribs, frozen hard as stone.  It was the early afternoon, and I didn't want to deal with trying to thaw the meat, so, sort of remembering seeing something about cooking meat from the frozen state in the Instant Pot, I searched for "bbq frozen ribs in instant pot."  Voila!  Google to the rescue!

Quick and easy, and with the delay timer on the machine, I stacked the ribs in the Instant Pot at 2:00, pressed the button for the meat program, checked the cooking time, and set the delay for two hours.  We had delicious ribs at 6:00, and I spent the intervening time doing just about anything besides messing about in the kitchen!

So here's the procedure - I can hardly call it a recipe because there are only three ingredients other than the barbecue sauce!  So many recipes call for a spicy rub, but it really wasn't necessary, because the sauce I used was plenty spicy.


Instant Pot Barbecued Ribs

Ribs (your favorite kind), about 4 pounds (however many you can fit in your Instant Pot below the pressure cooking maximum fill line)
2 c chicken broth or apple juice
1/2 t Liquid Smoke (I used hickory)
Barbecue sauce of your choice (I used Sweet Baby Ray's Sweet 'n Spicy)

Set a silicone trivet or metal rack in the bottom of the inner pot so the meat doesn't sit in the liquid.  Add the broth or juice and Liquid Smoke.  Stack the ribs on the trivet up to the maximum fill line (or if they aren't frozen, you can curl them around the side of the inner pot in kind of a spiral). 

Close the lid, close the pressure valve.  Press either the meat program button or the pressure cook/manual button. make sure the pressure is set to high, the mode to more, and the time to 45 minutes.  It doesn't matter whether the meat is frozen or thawed; the cooking time remains the same.  It will just take longer for the temperature and pressure to reach the point where the cooking time will start if the meat is frozen.

When the cooking time is finished, either open the pressure valve after 20 minutes or just let it release naturally.

After the pop-up valve has dropped, open the Instant Pot, remove the ribs and place on a broiling pan that has been coated with non-stick spray.  Spoon barbecue sauce over each rib and spread it around a little to cover.  Place under the oven broiler with the top of the meat about 4 - 5 inches below the broiler and cook 4 - 5 minutes  If it starts to smoke, it's done! 

Take it out!  Serve it up!  Eat it up!!!

The Knee That Went Bad and Easy Black Bean Soup (A New-to-Me Recipe)

That Person With the Infected Knee Replacement has kept me super busy lately, so I've been semi-absent from this blog.  After several months of being hooked up to a wound vac, and the knee becoming more and more painful, the decision was made:  the replacement would have to come out.  So a couple of weeks ago, the surgeon removed the old prosthesis and put in a concrete spacer.

Yes, that's what I said - CONCRETE.

This spacer is impregnated with antimicrobial stuff to fight what's left of the "indolent" infection.  (Indolent:  sounds like lazy bacteria!)  It also has no joint, so it doesn't act like a "real" knee replacement.  It squeaks and creaks and pops (sometimes REALLY loud).  It's not cemented in, so it moves around some.  You should see the kneecap travel when it pops.  Eeeeeewww!

The spacer is painful, and That Person can't put much weight on it, so a full-leg brace and a walker are required for trips down the hall.  Going upstairs is doable, but coming back down is a real issue, so That Person sleeps, eats, and does exercises in the living room recliner.  I do a lot of fetch-and-carry work.

So I'm back into full-time caregiving mode.  Back to giving intravenous medicine again, this time twice a day instead of once, and it takes nearly two hours each time to administer instead of fifteen minutes.

But lucky you!  I'm back, yet AGAIN, and with another recipe.

I opened The Magic Box and found a package of chorizo sausage.  What to do with it?  In my copy of The America's Test Kitchen Quick Family Cookbook (the one with the orange cover) I found a recipe for Easy Black Bean Soup.  I make a lot of soups because I like them, they're easy to make, and the leftovers heat up well.  Remember, I'm all about leftovers - make once, eat twice (or more).  Good for the current meal prep trend, too.

Although I thought it was really good, I'm sorry to say this soup was NOT a hit with the rest of the household.  I'll admit it is not the prettiest dish to look at.  Not much color.  Well, black beans - duh!  Anyway, if you like beans and sausage, you'll probably like this one!

You can see there's not a lot of color
here, other than the red bell peppers.

EASY BLACK BEAN SOUP

1 T canola oil
1 onion, chopped
2 red bell peppers, stemmed, seeded, and chopped
6 garlic cloves, minced
6 oz cooked chorizo sausage, halved lengthwise and sliced 1/4" thick
4 15-oz cans black beans, rinsed and drained
2 15-oz cans chicken broth
1 T fresh minced oregano (or 1 t dried)
1/2 t ground cumin
1/2 t chili powder
salt and pepper to taste
hot sauce to taste
1/2 c minced fresh cilantro

In a 4-quart dutch oven, combine the oil, onion, bell peppers, garlic, and chorizo and cook over medium-high heat until the vegetables are softened and lightly browned, about 5-7 minutes.  Add the remaining ingredients except the cilantro.  Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer 20-30 minutes.  Season to taste and serve.

Books I Read in 2019

It's early 2020 (not as early as I would prefer!) and time to look back at last year's reading accomplishments.

My goal this past year was again 100 books, and I did NOT even get close!  I read 59 books.  Again, I got irritated by several books - a lot more than last year (poor choices on my part, or misleading synopses, perhaps), and so quit reading them before I got all the way through, but I finished most of them.:

So here's the overview of my reading this year, plus some recommendations - both books to read and books to avoid, just like last year.

Memoirs were again a big part of my reading this past year - sixteen!  Last year, I read seventeen, but read twice as many books, so the percentage of memoirs this year has nearly doubled!  Recommendations:  Mr. Ding's Chicken Feet:  On a Slow Boat from Shanghai to Texas; Cleo:  How an Uppity Cat Helped Heal a Family (make sure you have a couple of skids of tissues for this one); The Old Ways:  A Journey on Foot; Thunder Dog:  The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero; and Don't Sing at the Table:  Life Lessons from My Grandmothers.  Memoirs to avoid at all costs:  Not Taco Bell Material (I got really tired of Adam Corolla); Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube:  Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North (I couldn't even make it through the first few pages - life is too short to spend on something like this); and Midnight Chicken:  & Other Recipes Worth Living For (not terrible, but not at all what I expected - an okay premise - cooking saved her sanity - but not well executed).

Shockingly, NO books on religion or kids' books this year!  I wonder why that is?  Have to cogitate on that.

As usual, lots of cozy mysteries.  I read a TON of cozies from M. C. Beaton and Marion Chesney (they're the same person!) - not great literature, but fun to read and a little addictive.  I'm still reading her stuff, especially the Agatha Raisin series.  The main character is kind of a train wreck, but I just can't quit!  I want to know what's next.

I got on a knitting kick later in the year, so there were several books, both fiction and non-fiction, with knitting/wool themes.  Recommendations:  The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society and At Knit's End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much (not as serious as it sounds - some of the entries were hilarious!).   To avoid:  Craft Activism:  People, Ideas, and Projects from the New Community of Handmade and How You Can Join In (how to make political and social statements with handmade items and to "bring awareness" to issues, but NOT how to actually HELP anybody as you might by making hats, gloves, and scarves for the homeless - pompous and self-congratulatory - UGH).

I read several non-fiction/history books.  Recommendations:  A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War (how WWI influenced the work of J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis); The Almost Nearly Perfect People:  Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia (the title says it all); The Indifferent Stars Above:  The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride (WOW);  Ravensbruck:  Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women; The Last Jew of Treblinka; and The Case for Nationalism:  How It Made Us Powerful, United, and Free (EXCELLENT!).  To avoid:  We Two:  Victoria and Albert:  Rulers, Partners, Rivals (this got really repetitious - okay, we get it - Albert was smarter than Victoria, and actually made most of the political decisions of her reign after they were married - geezo Pete).  

Again, there were some surprises, both pleasant and unpleasant.  First the bad.  The Curse of the Bridal Chamber is a mystery - both its plot and how it ever got published.  UGH.  Two spunky old ladies, their gay nephew and his partner, and a bulldog, set at a mermaid convention in Florida.  Sounds like fun, but...!  As I said in my Goodreads review, "the characters were all annoying and did illogical things. The dog was a prop, and contributed nothing to the story."  Just pitiable.  And I did read the whole thing.  My mistake.  I kept thinking it would improve.  Alas, no.

Gingerbread, by Helen Oyeyem.  What can I say?  Weird.  Just.  Too.  Weird.  A total waste of time, although there were plenty of fabulous reviews.  

Now for the good.  Several novels:  The Colors of All the Cattle (The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series - always a good choice!); Leopard at the Door; and A Column of Fire (Ken Follett - great as always).  And a collection of essays and articles, Things That Matter:  Three Decades of Passions, Passtimes, and Politics, by Charles Krauthammer.  Great writing.  Good humor and baseball.  Intelligent, insightful, and logical political analysis.  I actually got this as an audiobook from the library, and more than half was read by the author himself.  I thoroughly enjoyed them all.  Krauthammer died last June.  A great loss.

If you want to see the complete list of the books I read this year, click here.