Corn on the Cob - An Instant Pot "Recipe"

I usually cook corn on the cob in the microwave.  It's 3 minutes per ear of corn, a little water in the bottom of a microwave-safe dish, cover with plastic wrap, and get it going.  But halfway through, you're supposed to uncover the dish and rearrange the corn, then cover it back up and continue cooking.  Have you ever tried to get that hot, steamy, plastic wrap back over a dish of hot food in the microwave?  I've fought many battles with plastic wrap.  New wrap, straight from the roll is bad enough, but once it's been used in the microwave, you're at a whole new level of frustration.  You might as well just get out a new piece of plastic wrap.

Enter the Instant Pot!

I was looking up something completely different and found instructions for cooking corn on the cob in the IP.  So easy and completely hands-off!  No rearranging things halfway through cooking.  No plastic wrap wrestling matches.

Here's the steamer basket.

I used an extra accessory, the steamer basket, which fits either the 6-quart or 8-quart (mine) Instant
Pot.  If you don't have a steamer basket, you can stack the corn on the rack that comes with your IP.

I used husked corn, but you can cook it in the husk, too.  Of course, you can get more in there without the husk.  So here's the process:


Corn on the Cob in the Instant Pot

water (1 1/2 c for 6-quart, 2 c for 8-quart)
ears of corn

Put the water and a rack or steamer basket in the pot. Stack ears of corn on the rack (no higher than the maximum mark) or stand them in the basket.  Close the lid and set the vent to seal.  Choose the "Manual" or "Pressure Cook" program, set the pressure to "High," and set the cook time to 2 minutes.  When the cook time has elapsed immediately release the pressure.  When the valve has dropped, open the lid, and serve the corn!  Total time from closing the lid is about 20 minutes.

Staying Home and Keeping Busy - Jigsaw Puzzles!

It seems that staying home during the pandemic, everybody has rediscovered jigsaw puzzles!  Facebook is full of posts with pictures of completed jigsaw puzzles. 

My mom LOVED jigsaw puzzles.  We'd get one out and work it on the dining room table.  We didn't eat in there most of the time, so it was a great place for puzzling!  When I vacation with my sister, we often take a puzzle to work on.  One infamous night, we got a puzzle out at 10:00 at night, "just to find the edge pieces," and we finished it around 3:30 in the morning.  There must be something terribly wrong with us.

Here's the infamous 1,000-piece puzzle that kept us up all night on vacation.
It looks likes it's been framed, but we worked it on a bamboo and glass table.

I've been wanting to work a puzzle, but...we have cats - naughty cats.  That's why taking puzzles on vacation is a great idea - the cats stay home!  I needed a cat-free zone at home in order to get a puzzle out and not have the pieces turn into cat toys that disappear under furniture and down heating vents.  I ruminated on the problem and finally figured out where I could set up a couple of antique side tables that, pushed together, are the perfect size for working jigsaw puzzles! 

I also have one of those puzzle organizer/storage caddies with a large area for working the puzzle and trays for sorting pieces.  If you have to move the puzzle or put it away temporarily, everything goes inside the caddy, the puzzle stays assembled, and nothing gets lost.  Then, when you're ready to work on it some more, you open it up, and there everything is, ready for you to resume the puzzle!

So I dug out my puzzle caddy (it's a really fancy one - HA! - made of corrugated cardboard) and found an empty puzzle box next to it.  I put it on the tables and opened it up, and found A PUZZLE!  Maybe a little more than half assembled.  It is TOUGH.  I've found an average of 5 pieces each evening this week.  At least I'm actually finding pieces.  The first night I worked on it I almost despaired of finding ANY pieces.  You'd think it would be easy to distinguish between the different colors of the trees.  You'd be wrong.  No wonder I put it away for a while! 

But by golly, I WILL get the whole thing put together.  All 1,000 pieces of it.

Here it is, in all its glory.  You can kind of get an idea of what the puzzle caddy is like.

It's SUMMER! Time for Fried Chicken!

Memorial Day has passed, and it's officially SUMMER, for all intents and purposes.  It used to be that a staple of picnics and pitch-ins was fried chicken, and NOT from a red-and-white-striped bucket.

I pulled out my cast iron skillet and made fried chicken a couple of days ago, and it always gets the same comment from That Man - "This is better than KFC!"  I used split chicken breasts instead of the skinless boneless Chick-zilla breasts I usually buy, but darned if those split breasts, which were even from a different company, were still HUGE - 2 1/2 pounds, and only TWO breasts in the package.  I had to cut them in half with my trusty kitchen shears.

Fried chicken really ought to be made with bone-in chicken with the skin on, but you can still make it with boneless, skinless breasts or thighs.  It's up to you, of course!

I used to just buy one of the prepared fry mixes, like Drake's or Kentucky Kernel, but I always ended by doctoring them up.  This recipe for my fry mix should be enough for 5 to 6 pounds of chicken.  I used half for those two monster split breasts, and there wasn't more than a spoonful left, so I just sprinkled it over the chicken pieces once I had them in the pan.


Fried Chicken

5-6 lb cut-up chicken (rinsed and patted dry with a paper towel)

1 c all-purpose flour
5 t seasoned salt
1 t pepper
1 t paprika
1 t poultry seasoning
1 t Montreal grilling seasoning for chicken
1/8 t ginger
1/8 t MSG (optional)

1 c Crisco shortening (one stick, if you buy it that way)
1/4 c bacon fat (optional, but everything's better with bacon!)

If making the full recipe, you'll need two 12-inch skillets with lids, or a large electric skillet with a lid.  Melt the Crisco and bacon fat at medium-low heat while you make the mix and dredge the chicken.

In a medium bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients.  Dredge each piece of chicken in the prepared mix, coating each piece thoroughly.  Set the coated pieces on a sheet pan while you finish dredging all the pieces. 

Turn up the heat to about medium.  Start with the first piece and dredge each piece in turn a second time.  After all the pieces have been dredged twice, place them in the skillet(s) skin side down (if you're using bone-in chicken with skin), or what would have been the skin side down (if you're using boneless skinless pieces).  Cover the skillet(s).  Turn down the heat to somewhere around medium-low, so the chicken is gently sizzling.  You may need to turn it down a little more.  Cook 20 minutes on each side.

Using tongs, transfer the chicken from the skillet(s) to a paper-towel-lined sheet pan to catch any excess fat.  Dig in!

teeny tiny watercolor fun

A couple of weeks ago I posted about how I had put away my "good" paints and paper and was learning to PLAY with a set of Crayola kid's watercolor paints (here).

I'm still PLAYING with my kid's paints, and here are my latest efforts - teeny tiny watercolors.  All but one are right around 1 inch by 2 inches, except one, which is a whopping 1 inch by 3 inches!

As you can see, I've been having BIG fun making TINY paintings!  It doesn't take much, does it?

I was playing with laying down a wash,
and then "lifting" some of the color.
Not exciting, but a pretty shade of blue!
(1" x 2")

Just seeing what happened when I dabbed
some colors onto wet paper.
(1" x 2")

Again, just dabbing some
random colors onto wet paper.
Psychadelic, man!
Groovy!
(1" x 2")

An "accidental" landscape.  Just messing around
and a sunset (sunrise?) over water appeared!
(2" x 1")

Again, just messing around with dabbing and streaking, and an
area of bare dirt appeared in the grass!  But what are those
strange magenta blotches?  LOL!
(3" x 1")

French Onion Soup (A New to Me Slow Cooker Recipe)

It's spring, and that means IT'S VIDALIA ONION TIME - YAY!

And what do we do with those sweet, delicious, extra-special Vidalia onions from Georgia?

ONION SOUP!

French onion soup is one of my favorites (yes, I have so many), but in the past I've only eaten it in restaurants.  Caramelizing the onions takes some time and attention, and I know me in the kitchen - I'll try to multi-task and suddenly - burnt onions!  Not a nice thing to have stinking up the house.  So I have ignored the siren call of onion soup thus far.

Until last week, that is.

I was surfing the food porn sites and something caught my eye - SLOW COOKER French onion soup.  What the what???  Could such a thing really work?  I had to save that one for future reference.

Well I'm here to tell you oh-my-goodness it does!

On a foraging trip to the grocery I saw 5-pound bags of Vidalia onions,  I snagged one.  SCORE!  The very next day I got started.

I pulled out a knife, the cutting board, and the food processor.  Five pounds is a lot of onions to cry over, so I needed all the help I could get.  I peeled all those lovely globes of oniony goodness and cut them to fit the processor's feed tube, and away we went!  They filled the processor's 14-cup bowl twice.

Here they are, before cooking.
See how full the crock is?

All those onions nearly almost reached the limit of my 6 1/2-quart slow cooker.  After cooking several hours, they took up about half the space and I had beautiful, golden, caramelized onions.  With the rest of the ingredients added, it looked like, yes, like French onion soup!  Amazing. 

Here they are, after cooking.

*The original recipe directs you to ladle soup into ramekins, take a baguette of French bread, slice it up, and toast the slices in the oven or under the broiler, put two slices on top of the hot soup in each ramekin, cover with shredded Gruyere cheese, and then bake it in the oven for 20 to 30 minutes, then put it under the broiler for another 2 to 3 minutes.  Well, I didn't have a baguette, but I DID have some leftover hamburger buns.  I threw them into the toaster, put them, insides up, on top of the soup, covered them with cheese, and proceeded as directed.

It turned out REALLY well!  But I found out I didn't need to do the baking part first - going straight to the broiler worked better, in my opinion.  But maybe with a crusty baguette, it might be better to bake in the oven.  But I doubt it would make much difference.  I guess it depends on how much you want the bread to soak up the soup.

Oh!  The onions don't HAVE to be Vidalias - any generic big sweet yellow onions will do.  It's just that Vidalia onions are so freakin' AWESOME!

So here it is...


Slow Cooker French Onion Soup (10-12 servings)

5 lbs sweet yellow onions, peeled, quartered, and sliced
4 T butter, melted
1 T brown sugar
2 sprigs thyme (or 1/2 t dried thyme)
1 bay leaf
6 c beef broth
1/4 c flour
2 T balsamic vinegar (yes, it must be balsamic)
1 t black pepper
3 T brandy or red wine (optional)

Place the onions in the slow cooker.  Pour the butter all over the onions, as evenly as possible.  Sprinkle the brown sugar over all.  Place the thyme and bay leaf on top.  Cook on high 6-8 hours, until they are golden brown and soft.

Remove the bay leaf and thyme sprigs.  (I could only find one sprig; the other must have disintegrated into the soup!)  Whisk the flour into a cup of the broth, and add it and the remaining ingredients, except the brandy, to the slow cooker.  Cook on high 30 minutes, then add the brandy, if desired.

*Arrange an oven rack in the upper third of the oven and heat to 350 degrees.  Ladle soup into oven-safe ramekins and place on a rimmed baking sheet.  Top with toasted slices of a French bread baguette and shredded Gruyere (or Swiss) cheese, about 1/3 c per ramekin.  Bake 20-30 minutes, until cheese is completely melted, then broil 2-3 minutes until cheese is bubbling and slightly browned.  Remove from oven, let cool a few minutes, and serve.

This is Not (Quite) What I Ordered...

With the shelter in place and stay at home orders during the past couple of months of the coronavirus pandemic, FedEx, UPS, and Post Office people have been mega-busy all over the country.  And Amazon has become my new best shopping companion.  LOTS of Amazon and other online shopping.

However, sometimes there are foul-ups.  My sister ordered something that simply never arrived.  At all.  She eventually had to cancel the order and request a refund.  A couple of friends had packages delivered to their address that they hadn't ordered.  The address on the package was theirs, but it wasn't intended for them.  And a couple other friends had to track down a package of theirs that got delivered to the wrong house.

I must admit I've only had a couple of shipping malfunctions, but they were doozies!

I ordered a few plants (NOT seeds) from Burpee - nothing exotic, and not a lot of them.  Six plants in all - three tomatoes, one bell pepper, one rosemary, and one basil.  I already had seeds.  I had ordered the plants quite a while ago, but I didn't worry - Burpee ships them so they arrive when it's the right time to plant.  So you could order a whole slew of plants and they would come in several packages.  You might get part of your order in March, part in April, part in May, and the rest in June.

I finally got the shipping notification.  My plants were coming via UPS in two packages - one a week ago Friday, and one the following Monday.  Oh, was I excited!  Friday came, and there was my package on the porch - upside down!  Oh good grief.

I opened the box, and there was potting soil everywhere.  UGH.  About half of it was still where it belonged, but that was just dumb luck.  I salvaged what I could, watered the baby plants, and brushed as much dirt off the leaves as I could.

So Monday arrived, and I saw the UPS truck pull into the driveway, so I was ready!  There was the second package on the porch - UPSIDE DOWN.  AGAIN.  What the heck???  Again, potting soil all over.

You had ONE JOB - keeping it rightside up!

I really don't understand this.  The boxes were clearly marked, "Live Plants" and "This End
Up."  I did get on the UPS website and sent them a "question" through the email link after clicking "Contact Us."  I haven't heard back.

In a different vein, I ordered two identical single items from Amazon.  I got the order confirmation email and an "it's shipped" email with a Post Office tracking number.  I checked the tracking number, and yes, there it was - the label had been made and the Post Office was waiting for the package to arrive so they could start it on its way to me.  Woo hoo!

I hadn't heard anything more a couple of days later, so I checked the tracking number.  The label had been made and they were waiting to accept the package.   Hmmmm...

A week later, I checked the tracking number and got the same package status.  Hmmmm...

I kind of put it on the back burner and got busy with other things. A couple more weeks went by.  I checked the order status on Amazon and it said the package was scheduled to arrive "TOMORROW."

I checked the status the next day, and it said the package was scheduled to arrive "TODAY," and if it didn't, that I could either cancel the order and try again or I could continue to wait.  Well, I was in no particular rush; it wasn't something I needed immediately, so no big deal.

Another week went by, and I received an email from Amazon saying that apparently the package was lost and they were going to refund my money.  Fair enough, right?  It went further, saying I could try ordering it again if I wanted, or not, and just wait and the original order might show up after all.

Just three days later, I got a notification that the Post Office had received the package, and the expected delivery date was in two more days.  I thought, "Yeah, right.  Tell me the one about the three pigs."

Well, no fairy tale!  A package landed on my porch, and there were the items I ordered - FOUR OF THEM.  I didn't WANT four.  I don't NEED four.  But I CAN use four, and they didn't cost me anything.  Oh my.

As Dad would have said, "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth."  So I won't.

Apple Crisp (From Mom's Recipe Card File)

I'm trying to make one homemade dessert a week, just because I'd gotten out of the habit of even THINKING about making desserts.  Oh, I've made my shortcakes for strawberries, and apple strudel when I'm feeling particularly Deutch-ish, and dump cake in a camp dutch oven, but cakes, cookies, brownies, pies, and all those "normal" kinds of things have pretty much fallen by the wayside.  

Because calories.  UGH.

But...NO MORE!  I've decided to just EAT, by golly!  Life's too short to do without dessert.  So, that's where my kinda-sorta resolution came from.  I'm going to explore and rediscover DESSERT - what a concept, right?

I'm starting out with an old standby, Mom's apple crisp.  No pie crust to fuss with, so it's fairly foolproof and fast (don't worry, I'll get to pie crust eventually), and it doesn't last long in our house.  I bake mine in an eight-inch square CorningWare dish I've had an embarrassingly long time.

It's great warm and topped with vanilla ice cream, of course.

Apple Crisp

4-6 large apples, peeled and sliced (1/4")
1/4 c water
1 c granulated sugar
3/4 c flour
2 T apple pie spice (or 4 1/2 t cinnamon and 1 1/2 t nutmeg)
6 T butter, softened (NOT melted)
1 t salt

Set the oven rack in the middle position and preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Spread the apples in a sprayed 8-inch square baking dish and pour the water over them.  In a medium mixing bowl, place the rest of the ingredients and work them together with a fork or pastry blender until crumbly.  Spread over the apples evenly.  Bake uncovered for 45 minutes.


That's all there is to it!   Nothing fancy, but oh, it sure makes the house smell heavenly!

I Took THE TEST (What It Was Like)

Do you have COVID-19?  How do you know?  I mean, you could be asymptomatic, right?  Have you been tested? 

Because testing has been opened up, I jumped on the State site and signed up for an appointment the following morning.  (When I say I jumped on it, I mean I JUMPED on it!)

The testing location wasn't terribly close to home - about 25 miles, but pretty close to a straight shot without many slowdowns or traffic lights.

So I drove up to Elwood (Red Gold Tomatoland) for my test.  That Man grew
up there, so it was a familiar drive.  I told him the address and described its map location, and he said there used to be a Harvest Market right about there.  He has a good memory!  I turned off the main street at the Harvest Market, went a couple of blocks farther, and there it was - the National Guard Armory.  Well, that makes sense!

I walked up toward the door and stood (6 feet) behind another person waiting to enter. 

We waited.  And waited.  And....

WAITED.

Finally a State Trooper came out, told us they just weren't set up yet, asked us which cars we were in, and said he'd come out to our cars to tell us when to go in.  Fair enough!

Back to the car.

Waited.  And waited.  AGAIN.

Then out came the trooper, stopping at each car in the parking lot.  The nurse who was supposed to do the testing hadn't shown up, so a different one was on her way.  He said we could come back in the afternoon at any time and get tested if we wanted.  I told him I couldn't come back that day because I had another obligation (That Man's physical therapy appointment) in the afternoon.  So he gave me a phone number to call to reschedule the test.

I drove home, and when I called the number (just past 10 o'clock in the morning), I got a recorded message saying the office was closed at this time, the hours are 7:00am to 8:00pm Central Standard Time, and please call during those hours. 

Wait a minute - what???  It was 10:00 Eastern Standard Time which would make it 9:00 Central. I was WELL within their office hours!  But if they're not there, they're not there.  Nothing I could do about that.

I tried again around 1:00 - and got a recorded message saying due to high call volume, all representatives were busy, I could probably get faster service on their website (except the website isn't set up for rescheduling!), or I could stay on the line for a LONG time and speak to a real person.  So I plugged in the phone, put it on speaker, and proceeded to putz around with other things until my call was answered. 

Well.

I got a lot of little things accomplished; I was on hold for nearly an hour!

I was, however, able to get rescheduled for the same time and place on the following day. 

So through the country I drove, up to Red Gold Tomatoland AGAIN.  To the Armory.  Up to the door, and...

They let me in!

Of course, I had to wear my homemade mask, and upon entering the front door, use hand sanitizer.  I waited at the closed door to the drill hall until a nurse waved me in.  The previously tested person had just left by the back door.  The nurse stood behind a clear vinyl curtain attached to a PVC pipe frame and asked to see my driver's license, and then to step around to a table to the left, where she placed a form for me to sign.  No contact.

A nurse wearing a face shield waved me over to her for the actual test.  Out came the dreaded SWAB.  Of course, I had to uncover my nose for these indignities.  Up one nostril - WAY up.  "Do you need a tissue?  Some people say this makes their eyes water," she said.  Well, I could definitely see WHY!  Up the other nostril - again, WAY up!  Eeyow!  It was uncomfortable, to say the least.

It wasn't all THAT bad, but when you don't know what to expect and you're a little nervous it's difficult to stay completely composed!  It didn't take long, though, and soon I was shown the back door, back in my car, and heading home. 

If it hadn't been for the nurse being a no-show the first day, it would have been a quick, smooth process.  But you know how the first day of anything is - glitchy!

I got my results in less than 72 hours - NEGATIVE! 

Now we KNOW.

Santa Fe Beans and Rice (A New to Me Recipe)

For years and YEARS, one of my favorite individual frozen entrees has been the Weight Watchers Smart Ones Santa Fe Beans and Rice.  Lean Cuisine has its own version, too, but the taste of the Smarts Ones entree just seems better somehow, even though they appear to have pretty much the same list of ingredients.  I don't care about the calories or Points or whatever; it just tastes really good.  I like to eat it as a dip with Tostitos Scoops.

Since it's sometimes difficult to find everything on my shopping list during the pandemic, I thought I might be able to make it at home, so I googled it just to see what I could find.  There were several slightly different versions, so I started with the common ingredients, like the rice, taco seasoning, black beans, sour cream, and cheese, and checked them against the commercial Smart Ones package.  So this is kind of a fusion of three or four separate recipes that looked like they were the closest to what I wanted.


Santa Fe Beans and Rice

4 c cooked rice (2 2/3 c water + 1 1/3 c rice + 1 t salt)
I use medium grain white rice, not Minute Rice or converted rice

1 15-oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 15-oz can red beans (NOT kidney beans!), rinsed and drained
1 15-oz can tomatoes and green chilies
1 15-oz can whole kernel corn, undrained
1/2 c salsa picante (medium heat)
1 pkt taco seasoning
1 c sour cream
2 c shredded mild cheddar, divided
1 t salt
1/2 t pepper

Start by cooking the rice.  If you don't have a rice cooker, here's how to proceed;  Before you start cooking the rice, put it in a 2-quart saucepan.  Add water to the rice, swish it around in the pan, and pour off the water.  Rinse the rice several times in the same way until the rinse water is clear (it's going to take several rinses - maybe 20).  Rinsing will ensure the rice doesn't taste odd.  Drain the rice as much as possible, then add the measured water and salt.  Bring the rice to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer until all the water has been absorbed, about 20-25 minutes.  While you're waiting for the rice to cook, gather the rest of the ingredients and rinse and drain the beans.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix all together except 1 c shredded cheese.  Transfer to a sprayed 2 1/2-quart baking dish.  Bake uncovered for 30 minutes, then sprinkle with the remaining cheese and bake an additional 5-10 minutes until all the cheese is melted.  Remove from the oven and let sit 5 minutes before serving.

Keeping Safe and Busy at Home

I hadn't done much sewing for a long time, and then suddenly...the coronavirus pandemic! 

My first two masks - one that ties, and one with elastic.

When the pandemic began, face mask patterns were posted all over the internet.  How else were we going to get any, when they were difficult for medical facilities to find?  But how could we make our own when the craft and fabric stores were closed?  And the craft and fabric departments of the big box stores like Walmart were pretty much emptied of appropriate materials.

I got out my sewing machine and found a couple of barely-used sheets in the linen closet, and a little seam binding, medium-weight interfacing, thread, and elastic in my sewing supplies.  There was only enough interfacing for four masks, so I got online and found some on Etsy.  I had to move fast before it disappeared!  I found a FEW packages of seam binding at Walmart.  The guys wanted masks with ties rather than elastic, so that ate up the seam binding pretty quickly.  In the end, I was able to make thirteen masks.

Since I was in the sewing mode, I got out some old "craft cuts" I'd stashed in the antique dresser in our guest room and unearthed a few months ago.  Craft cuts are lengths of cloth with toy or decor patterns and instructions printed on them.  These included a flowery teddy bear, a Humpty Dumpty, two fairly realistic loons, two cuddly "Victorian" sheep, and a coyote and cactus.  I thought why not FINALLY get around to making these items (I've had them in my stash for only about 25 years) and getting them out of the dresser and into the paws of The Grands.  All I had to do was buy a monster-sized bag of Poly-Fil(tm) to stuff them with.  There were two at our local Walmart - what luck! 

Humpty Dumpty was super simple.  The loons were a little more involved, but not much.  The bear was a BEAR to assemble!  So.  Many.  Pieces.  And lots of easing to do to make the pieces match up correctly.  He still has no face at this time.  I had to order black embroidery floss online; there was none to be found in the stores.

I'd post pictures of the stuffed stuff, but I'm still working on them - only the coyote, cactus, and sheep to go.  And the bear's face, of course!

Shortages - What We're Doing (Part 2)

We've all been dealing with shortages of all sorts of everyday items for the past 8 weeks.  Just this week I finally was able to find Charmin toilet paper and Bounty paper towels - the good stuff!  Of course, for a long time it was almost impossible to find ANY toilet paper or paper towels, and it's still iffy.

It's not only things for us humans that have been scarce.  Luckily, just before all this started, I'd stocked up on cat food.  Litter, on the other hand...!  Cats are finicky about EVERYTHING.  About a year ago, the cat food I usually buy went through a packaging change, and for once, I'd waited until I HAD to buy food.  Well, I went to the store and searched the shelves.  No salmon and rice cat food.  Chicken and rice, yes.  Salmon and sweet potato, yes.  Just about every flavor BUT salmon and rice, the only flavor the cats will eat.  Oh, I was unhappy, but there wasn't much I could do.  I was already out of the preferred flavor, so we just had to make do with the chicken and rice.  The kitties were NOT happy, but they muddled through.  We finally got the right stuff, and things got back to normal.

But here we were again.  I couldn't imagine going without our normal litter.  I mean, cats are known to avoid using the litter box if the litter wasn't acceptable.  Oh, GOODY.  I tried Kroger, then Walmart, then Meijer.  Nuthin'!  We had enough for a couple of weeks, but a couple of weeks goes by awfully fast!

Then I had a brain wave - Chewy.com!  As luck would have it, Chewy.com DID have our litter (not some others, though!), so let's order some!  Well, I'm not fond of paying shipping, so when I order stuff online, I make sure I order enough to get free shipping.  I ordered the litter, got the confirmation email, and the tracking information.  We'd have litter in just three days - perfect!

When the litter arrived, it was dropped off in front of the garage instead of on the porch.  One big box.  I grabbed a box cutter to open the box and spied a mountain of cat litter!  I hauled it all inside and piled it up in the laundry room.

I don't think we're going to have to buy cat litter any time soon!!!  LOL!

Shortages - What We're Doing

Finding things at the grocery is still hit or miss.

Several weeks ago, when the pandemic had just started, I had used the last of the chicken in the freezer and headed to Kroger.  No chicken.  AT ALL!  There was SOME pork and beef, but no chicken!  When chicken finally appeared in the meat department, there was a sign on its refrigerated case that said customers were limited to two packages of chicken.

That situation continued until a couple of weeks ago when all the meat cases were consistently full again.  Woo hoo!  Unlimited meat products!

Then some of the meat and poultry processing plants started shutting down because they had sick employees.  And now, the signs are back up.  I went to the store yesterday, and there was some chicken, but no skinless, boneless breasts.

And there is still no flour, sugar, yeast, dried beans, or rice.  There are canned beans, but not much variety.  You can make chili - there are plenty of kidney beans!  Hardly any toilet paper or paper towels - still!  I grab what I can find, and there are those signs - only ONE package of paper goods allowed.  There is bleach on the shelves, but just a few jugs.  At the beginning of all this, it couldn't be found at all.

Frozen vegetables have been hard to find, too, and not just recently.  Almost as soon as the pandemic was acknowledged, frozen vegetables in the stores disappeared.  You can sure tell what people DON'T like - that's what's left - lima beans, for one (yuck!), riced cauliflower, edamame (soy beans), broccoli cuts (which are mostly stems).  No peas, green beans of any kind, broccoli florets, cauliflower, mixed vegetables, corn, mirepoix mix (diced onions, carrots, and celery), or chopped onions.

I've been searching for chopped onions for a couple of weeks because I'm getting low (one package left).  Yesterday, I finally decided it would be a good idea to just buy some onions, chop them up, and freeze them myself.  There weren't many onions in the produce department, either!  But I did get some.  Better than none!

This afternoon, I took out the food processor and got started.  I filled five quart-size freezer bags with onions.  I had to process them in three batches, but I got it DONE.

Nine onions in these bags.

         

One large-ish cucumber.

I figured I already had the machine out, so what else needed processing?

One entire bunch of celery.

Well, cucumbers - why not?  That Man likes them on his salads.  I was on a roll.  And how about celery?  That can go on the salads, too, and some can be frozen for cooking.

So I sliced and chopped my way through a pile of produce.  FUN!!  Except all those onions killed my eyes - ouch.  Better than doing it by hand, though.  I got to play with my sorta new toy, plus I feel like I've accomplished something I needed to do.  Always a good thing.

Anyway, food shopping has become a competitive sport and I'm doing the best I can with what I can find.  I hope you're having luck finding what's on your list!

Toys in the Kitchen - Part 6, and Mashed Potatoes

In November leading up to Thanksgiving, stores carry a lot of kitchen gadgets and small appliances because, of course, everybody is going crazy getting ready for Turkey Day and the related cooking frenzy.  This past November I picked up a couple of inexpensive but really handy items.

Don't these look like torture devices?

I'd been wanting (needing!) a way to lift large roasts out of the slow cooker or roasting pan.  Using a couple of serving forks just wasn't cutting it - half the time the meat would fall back into the pot or pan, making a mess and getting myself burned. 

In one of those pre-Thanksgiving ads, I saw just the thing - turkey lifters - big ol' forks I sure wouldn't want to be poked with.  Since I bought them, I've used them on beef roasts, pork loins, corned beef, pork ribs, and yes, believe it or not, even a turkey!

The ricer - you'll develop a firm
grip using this gadget!

The other thanksgiving gadget I bought is a potato ricer.  I'd read somewhere that was the way to make the best mashed potatoes.  You boil the potatoes until they're tender, then squish them through the ricer, add milk and butter and stir them up.  They come out fluffy like mashed potatoes should, without lumps.  Using the ricer avoids overworking the potatoes and making them gluey.

Mounds of fluffy mashed potatoes!

We don't have mashed potatoes very often because I've never felt like mine are consistently good.  Well, no more!  Here's the last batch I made with the ricer.

Mom's old cookbook.
It still works - LOL!

I had to look up exactly what to do, so I dug out Mom's old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, probably the most popular one at the time of its printing.  This is the 1953 First Edition, Eighth Printing.  It's older than I am!  As you can see, it's a three-ring binder.  In the Better Homes and Gardens magazine, the recipe pages were meant to be cut out and inserted into your cookbook, so it was a living document - a continual work in progress.

Here are the pages that describe how to make mashed potatoes.  Not really a recipe - just directions.  Leafing through the pages is like getting into a time machine like in Back to the Future.  Culture shock!

Playing with Paints

My home health care duties are changing - The Knee That Went Bad went to the hospital yesterday and came back with a NEW knee replacement.  No more concrete spacers!  YAY!  I posted about the spacer here.  It's still creepy to think about a hunk of concrete being deliberately put inside your body.

Because That Knee will be more and more mobile over the course of the next two or three months, my time should be a little freed up, and I intend to get back to some of the things I've kind of put on hold.  One of those things is my attempt to learn to paint watercolors.

Some of my attempts have been not terrible and I've even framed them and hung them in the living room.  Then there are the others - hideous, flat things with bad perspective and weird proportions.  Oh, well.

My new Crayola paints!

Here's the synthetic flat and
Crayola squirrel's hair brushes.

I was getting kind of disgusted and then I read an article that flipped a switch - if I wanted to have fun doing something, I needed to PLAY at doing it!

So I put away my artist's watercolors, brushes, and paper, went to Walmart and bought a box of Crayola watercolors, a synthetic flat brush, and some lower-end watercolor paper.  Then I went home and followed along with a YouTube video JUST FOR FUN.  No expectation of a picture good enough for the wall.  And here's the end result...

Even though the colors are kind of too bright for my taste, they're not terrible, and I like how some of the details came out - the weedy field looks weedy, the bushes look bushy, and the trees actually look like trees!  And the rock isn't terrible, either.  I'm not excited about the sky, though, and the one tree is smack in the middle of the picture where it really shouldn't be.  But it was FUN to try painting something with kids' paints.  From now on, I'll try to remember to PLAY more.

Toys in the Kitchen Part 5, and Blender Quiche

My friend Karen, whose blog I follow, posted a recipe for quiche a few weeks ago (see it here) and I was inspired!  Oh, her recipe sounded so good, but it makes too much for my measly 9-inch, 1-inch-deep aluminum pie pan, as compared to her monster 11-inch, nearly 2-inch-deep ceramic one.  I guess I could scale it down to my size pan.

But then I thought - duh!  I have two perfectly good quiche recipes in my card file.  I haven't made a quiche in years.  I have two Real Men living here in the house, and as those of us of a Certain Age "know," Real Men Don't Eat Quiche!  LOL!  But they like eggs and cheese and onions and BACON (bacon makes everything better), so...

I got out my trusty old Black & Decker Crush Master blender and went to town.  Because this quiche is mixed in the blender, lots of air gets incorporated into the mix, which makes the quiche light and puffy instead of heavy and dense.  That Boy even ate his entire serving without picking out the vegetables!

I got in a hurry and forgot to
flute or crimp the pie crust!
It still tasted good!

Blender Quiche

4 eggs

1 c milk

1 T flour

1/2 t salt

1/4 t pepper

1/4 t nutmeg

1/2 bunch of green onions, cut in 1"-2" pieces, including tops

1 1/2 c (6 oz) shredded swiss cheese

4 slices cooked bacon, cut into 1" pieces

1 unbaked pie crust

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and set the rack in the middle position.  Put the first six ingredients in the blender and mix well.  Stop and add the onions, cheese, and bacon.  Pulse until the pieces are about 1/2" in size (6-10 times).  Pour into pie crust.  Bake 35-40 minutes.  Remove from the oven and let sit 10 minutes before serving.

TIPS:  You can just spray the pie pan or dish if you don't want the calories from the crust, add mushrooms, use a medium onion cut into eighths for the green onions, substitute light or whipping cream for the milk, or substitute cheddar cheese for swiss. 

For Quiche Lorraine, use 12 slices of bacon (1/2 pound before cooking), 1 c swiss (Gruyere) cheese, 1/3 c onion, light or whipping cream for the milk, no nutmeg, 1/4 t sugar, and 1/8 t cayenne red pepper.  Keep the eggs, flour, and salt.