Happy Halloween!

Just a quick post today.  Things are still a bit crazy here.  Ugh.

Halloween is heaps of fun, and I LOVE to decorate for it, but for the past few years I haven't been able to do much of it except for maybe a pumpkin or purple strings of lights.  Nothing really cool, though.  This year wasn't any different - just the purple lights.  

Cleavers and knives and bloody hatchets, oh my!
Just the kind of grandmother you want for your
small children, right?

However, I made a cake for our Halloween - a RED velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.  The fun part is I'd found some Halloween cake decorations at the grocery and couldn't resist using them.  Just another manifestation of my twisted sense of humor.  It's like the game, Clue - it was me, in the kitchen, with the hatchet!

So here's my recipe for delicious homemade cream cheese frosting - so easy!

Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz cream cheese
1 c butter
2 t vanilla extract or lemon juice
4 c confectioner's powdered sugar

I let the cream cheese and butter sit out on the counter for half an hour before starting.  Using an electric hand-held or stand mixer makes mixing much easier and sifting the sugar unnecessary.

Start with the cream cheese and butter in the mixer bowl.  Mix at a low speed until well combined.  Add the vanilla extract or lemon juice and mix some more.  Add sugar, one cup at a time.  Turn the mixer to medium to medium-high speed and beat until smooth and creamy.  

Hello, It's Me...

Here's a leaf from our
front yard.

No, you CAN'T get rid of me.  I'm back to torture you.  Sorry.  (Not really!)

A friend texted me two months ago wondering what was going on because I hadn't posted anything here since early May.  Up to now, nothing for FIVE months.  What a slug.

That's not right, though.  It wasn't laziness, but depression, pure and simple.  It's hard enough to do the caregiving thing when it has a definite endpoint, but when it's open ended and you don't really KNOW when it will be finished, well, it wears you down.  I didn't feel much like doing anything beyond those things that absolutely MUST be done.  You know - laundry, meals, housework.  Vacuuming seemed particularly obnoxious, as was putting away clean laundry - YUCK.

Plus, there was the festive COVID pandemic.  The proverbial cherry on top.

In my last post, That Knee had once AGAIN gone septic, necessitating a trip to the emergency room and surgery to remove the "hybrid" knee replacement (a temporary prosthesis) and install yet ANOTHER antimicrobial spacer (the fourth one).  Life felt like a neverending not-so-merry-go-round.  We were back to home health care provided by ME - another six weeks of administering intravenous antibiotics, to be followed by a TENTH surgery on that same blasted knee.

We had a surgery date scheduled and went to the pre-op appointments, and the infectious disease specialist dropped a good news/bad news bombshell - six additional weeks of  IV antibiotics and no surgery until after they were finished.  The New England Journal of Medicine had published a study a couple of weeks earlier indicating that joint replacements plagued with persistent infections appear to do better with twelve, rather than six, weeks of IV antibiotics.  

Well, DUH.  What genius came up with THAT revolutionary hypothesis???  When I've had sinus infections that didn't go away with one round of antibiotics, what do they do but give me ANOTHER?  I mean, REALLY?  It's just common sense - you'd think,

I DO get it though.  I know how insurance works.  Without a published study, it won't cover a treatment that isn't part of the usual "standard of care."  So the timing was perfect for the additional round of antibiotics.

So I was still kind of tied down.  BUT...  Because the surgery was postponed for an additional ten weeks, That Knee was allowed to more fully recover from the previous surgery and build up more muscular strength again, allowing a longer time of more normal activity than after the other surgeries.

AND... We had a MONTH between the end of the antibiotics and the surgery, so we both went a little crazy trying to accomplish as much as we could, plus fit in some fun stuff before That Knee went under the knife again.

So the surgery behind us, ORAL antibiotics were prescribed for twelve weeks (the first time AFTER a surgery), and, after five weeks...so far, so good. I don't want to jinx it, but That Knee APPEARS to be healing well, and That Man says it feels better than it has in over two years.

Although in some ways it doesn't LOOK so hot - kind of like a relief map of the Grand Canyon - it WORKS, and the leg is straight - correctly aligned.  Amazing.

In the meantime, lots has happened, and I'll be catching you up on it all, but not all at once!  (I bet you're breathing a sigh of relief!)

That Darned KNEE and Another SOUP! - Tomato Cheddar Dumpling Soup (Two Ways!)

My posts have been kind of spotty lately, partly because I've been working on my so-called "home office" and just this past weekend because The Uncooperative Knee went rogue again and Somebody had to have surgery on it.  That's NINE since March of 2019.  So it's going to be back to home nursing once again.

Oh well.  It is what it is.

ANYWAY!  I thought I had already written a post about this particular soup, but I was WRONG.  So here it is!

I found this soup recipe when I was browsing the internet.  It sounded tasty and easy (two reasons to like it), so it was put into the soup rotation.  It's a pretty basic recipe - tomato soup with cheddar dumplings, and really easy, no matter which way you decide you make it.  It's just super fast and convenient one way, and not so fast the other.  Mostly common pantry staples either way.


Tomato Cheddar Dumpling Soup (Two Ways)

The Original Way

For the soup:
2 T canola or olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 c chopped onion
1/2 c chopped red bell pepper
3 T flour
28 oz whole canned tomatoes, undrained
2 c water
2 T minced celery leaves
2 T sugar
1 t salt
1/2 t pepper
1/2 t dried basil

For the dumplings:
1 c flour
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
2 T shortening or butter
1/2 c shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 c milk

In a 4-quart pan, heat the oil, and saute the garlic, onion, and bell pepper until fragrant.  Blend in the flour and let it cook about a minute.  Add the tomatoes and break them up.  Add the remaining soup ingredients.  While it is heating to a simmer, mix up the dumplings.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Cut in the shortening or butter to make loose crumbs.  Add the cheese and milk and mix until all dry ingredients have been moistened.

By this time, the soup should be at a simmer.  Drop the dumpling batter into the soup by tablespoons, or use a sprayed cookie scoop.  Cover and simmer 20 minutes.


The Convenient Way

For the soup:
Use your favorite shelf-stable tomato soup and prepare enough to make about 2 quarts of soup. Heat it to a simmer.  You might want to add some garlic powder and basil.  It's up to you!

For the dumplings:
1  7.75-oz box of Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuit or similar mix (Aldi has a good one)
1/2 c shredded cheddar cheese
2 T melted butter
1/2 c milk

Mix all the ingredients together, including the contents of the entire seasoning packet from the biscuit mix.  Treat the batter the same way as the Original Way, above.  By this time, the soup should be at a simmer.  Drop the dumpling batter into the soup by tablespoons, or use a sprayed cookie scoop.  Cover and simmer 20 minutes.

OR

1 c Bisquick or similar baking mix (Jiffy makes a good one)
1/2 c shredded cheddar 
1/3 c milk

Mix all the ingredients together.  Treat the batter the same way as the Original Way, above.  By this time, the soup should be at a simmer.  Drop the dumpling batter into the soup by tablespoons, or use a sprayed cookie scoop.  Cover and simmer 20 minutes.

That's all there is to it!  

Follow by Email is Being Discontinued!!! AARGH!!!!

This is a public service announcement for those of you who receive my blog posts directly in your email.  That service is being discontinued as of July 1, 2021.  

I am SO SORRY.  Because of the way Feedburner is set up, I don't have a list of subscribers' email addresses, so I can't shoot out a post via email myself.  I guess you'll all have to watch for the updates on Facebook or Twitter - of course, that can be pretty hit-or-miss.  

As an alternative, you can subscribe via an RSS feed.  There is a place on the full desktop site blog page to subscribe to posts and/or comments using NetVibe, MyYahoo!, or Atom.  If you click on Atom, you can choose to see the feed using MyYahoo!, Newsblur, Feedly, Inoreader, and The Old Reader.

So...I'll just keep plugging away.  If I decide I have to move to a different platform, I'll try to get the news out there to you.

Anyway, here's the notification I got a couple of weeks ago:

 FollowByEmail widget (Feedburner) is going away

You are receiving this information because your blog uses the FollowByEmail widget (Feedburner).
Recently, the Feedburner team released a system update announcement , that the email subscription service will be discontinued in July 2021.
After July 2021, your feed will still continue to work, but the automated emails to your subscribers will no longer be supported.