Visitors...

I have Feedjit over at the bottom of my right-hand sidebar. It tells me where my visitors are from and how they got here...via HGTV MBs, direct, via a search engine, etc. I try to check it every day. Once I had a visitor from the Vatican! You better believe that I blogged about that.

In the last day or so, I had a visitor from Port Chester, New York. He visited me via Google. This is what he was searching for:

"i got circumsized 2 weeks ago, i have a bubble between some stitches, is that normal?"

OUCH! I hope he got an answer somewhere out there! ;o)

Movies and Quilts

!!!!Okay!!!! Where'd the underlines come from???

I've seen some really good movies lately.

Blind Side... Okay. If you haven't heard anything about this one, you must be living under a rock!

Sherlock Holmes... I LIKE Sherlock Holmes. I watch the weekly series on LPB (my PBS station).

It's Complicated... Hilarious! Yet thought provoking.

Shogun, Have you made the molten cakes yet? Did you notice that the recipe on the box states that EACH cake serves 2?! Carol and I just laughed. They weren't really serious...such a fun-loving company! ;o)

I received a couple of comments on yesterday's post about the ONE hand-pieced, hand-quilted quilt at the quilt show.

I prefer a completely hand-made quilt. However, I have machine-pieced and hand-quilted. I've also learned to do some machine quilting on my regular sewing machine...for small items like tablerunners and placemats...children's quilts...and for people who appreciate my quilts, but may not take as good care of them as I would.

Of my two grandmothers, Daddy's mother was the quilter. She was a shoddy quilter. Everything was done on the sewing machine. Nothing met or matched. Even when she was using the old cotton batting that would ball up if you didn't quilt it close enough, her machine quilting lines were 4-6" apart. At a family reunion back in 2000, I asked my aunt and cousins if they had any of Ma's quilts. No one did. Except for my mother and me. Mama would run rows of hand quilting between the machine quilted rows while she was watching television. The one quilt Ma made for me...this one...
You can see how it twists...and some of the turtle feet don't match up at the intersections...yadda...yadda...yadda...

Mama told me not to get it dirty until I could either hand quilt between the rows, or could maneuver it on the sewing machine. When I was in high school, I did about two or three rows of hand quilting. Right. Row upon row of stitching 1" apart. Nah. I didn't have the patience or the 'want-to' back then. I opened up Mama's Singer one day and started machine stitching row after row after row...then turned it the other way and did the same. So that quilt is preserved. BTW, my other grandmother, Mama's mama...my Little Mama...embroidered some beautiful dresser scarves. That's hers (I think...or Mama's) in the above photo. Also in the photo...the quilt was a wedding gift to Mama and Daddy. The scissors on top of the scarf...Mama's oldest brother Harry bought those for her when she took home ec in high school. I used them in home ec too and have possession now. The little strawberry for needles was Little Mama's.

Little Mama's mama, my great grandmother, crocheted doilies and made quilts. I've quilted a few of the tops she made in her old age. I fingers touched every seam she sewed. Makes me happy just thinking about it.

She made this top for my cousin, Harry Wayne...he's in some of the family photos I've posted.
Mama handed me these blocks one day. I put them together for Jonathan.

Chocolate and Quilts

A much better combination isn't it?!

Carol and I had a blast while Sam and Elton were gone. Carol brought a bottle of wine. We raided my refrigerator for supper while these delicious cakes were baking.
Unfortunately, the interior wasn't molten. RATS!!
But when I baked the second pair of cakes last night...perfection.
After watching two movies...The Proposal and Murphy's Romance we went to bed.

PS...Just one glass of wine each.

The recipe for the Dark Molten Chocolate Cakes is on the back of a package of Baker's bittersweet baking chocolate squares.

1 package (6 ounces) Baker's Bittersweet Chocolate
10 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup flour
3 whole eggs
3 egg yolks

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Grease 6 (6 ounce) custard cups - I used ramekins. Place on baking sheet.

Microwave chocolate and butter on high for 2 minutes or until butter is melted. (I checked after 1 minute then every 20 seconds.) Stir with a whisk until chocolate is melted. Add powdered sugar and flour; mix well. Add whole eggs and egg yolks; beat until well-blended. Divided batter evenly into the custard cups.

Bake 14 to 15 minutes or until cakes are firm around the edges but soft in the centers. If you do this, they will be over cooked. Check after 10 minutes!! My first two baked only 12 minutes and were cooked solid. Let stand 1 minute. Run a thin-blade knife around cakes to loosen. Carefully invert cakes onto dessert dishes. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and garnish with raspberries, if desired. I didn't have any raspberries, but a drizzle of chocolate syrup didn't hurt a thing! ;o)

Make ahead: Batter can be made the day before; pour into prepared custard cups. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. When ready to serve, uncover and bake as directed.

To continue...Sam and Elton decided to drive up to Springfield Missouri and back. Knowing me as well as they should (see below post about the .357 Smith & Wesson)...there was no sneaking around when they got back about midnight. Parked the pickup with their goodies in the shop. Made plenty of noise when they opened the door. Went to the appropriate bedrooms and fell in to bed with the appropriate wife. ;o)

Carol and I were up fairly early and thought we might get out before they were up. Didn't happen that way. Carol made sure Elton had some coffee. I told the men that the refrigerator held bagels and cream cheese and a little milk. We headed out to the quilt show in Jefferson.

This was our favorite quilt. The ONLY hand pieced and hand quilted bed-size quilt on the premises! Can you believe it? I have one I intended to enter but never got a hanging sleeve on it. I would've gone home with no less than a 2nd place.

We shopped (looked) a bit. Ate lunch at a really great bistro-type place. Antiqued and junked some. IF I were into collecting old machines AND had a place for them...these two machines were only $75 each!


I also saw a similar treadle machine in a cabinet. I think it was a Minnesota. Never heard of that before.

Food and Politics

What a combo, huh?!

Thanks for the drooling y'all did over yesterday's post. If you all could've come for lunch, I would've used a whole fryer! Even though I cut the recipe down some, I still had sauce left over. It went into the freezer for later use.

After doing a bit of research on the internet, I found out I mispronounced mirliton. It's been a few years since Jerry told me how to pronounce it. me lay taw is what I found - in one place anyway. It is a member of the gourd family, and from what I understood from Jerry way back when, it grows on a vine. Seems he described it similar to a potato, and I guess raw, it is. Very, very mild flavor...almost non-existent. Raw, it also has the texture and consistency of an apple and can be used in salads or even just to munch. Cooked. It is rather bland...neither bad nor nothing good to 'write home about.' It really needed more than just salt and pepper. I should've put some of that Louisiana seasoning on it. But that cheese sauce on top...I'd almost...and I did type ALMOST!!! would consider eating liver. On second thought...NO WAY!

Down to the politic section of this post and if you don't want to read it you won't hurt my feelings. ;o)

We received something in the mail yesterday. A non-lifer politician is running for Congress in my district. He says he will:

1. Vote pro-life
2. Defend our 2nd Amendment rights
3. Fight government-run healthcare and protect Social Security
4. Support our veterans (He is a veteran)
5. Protect provate property rights
6. Defend traditional marriage
7. Support term limits to stop career politicians
8. Oppose earmarks

My stand:
1. I do not believe in abortion as birth control. There are way too many other methods out there that if used properly prevent pregnancy in the first place. And, yes. There are some women out there who have had multiple abortions...using it as birth prevention...because evidently they certainly do not have any control. Unwanted babies...people are lined up to adopt.

I am not 100% anti-abortion as some right-to-lifers are. If the mother's health is in danger, either physically or mentally, if the pregnancy continues. That decision is hers to make. Along with her doctor and husband if there is one...but ultimately it is her decision in that case. In the case of a teenager in the same circumstance, that decision is hers and her family's along with the doctor. In the case of rape, a grown woman has the right to do what she feels is best for the situation. In the case of rape or incest of a minor...that is between that child and if she has no supporting parent, a judge...to make that decision.

2. I have a 30-06, a 20-gauge shotgun, and a .357 Smith & Wesson. Does that answer your question? I have been trained to use them. I have hunted. And I would not hestitate if someone broke into my home, and I was here alone. My life or theirs? No question about it. (I might need counseling later...But forget that, "If you take one step closer" business.)

3. What a sticky-wicket! Health-care needs overhauled. But the government has so screwed up Social Security since LBJ and the then sitting government opened it up to be raided (I could've typed 'raped') consistently. How do you think government-run healthcare is going to fare?

4. AMEN!

5. Developers want to tear down those quaint seaside neighborhoods that are not diseased with poverty and drugs so that new condos can be built?! I think not!

6. A marriage is between a man and a woman. Aren't things backwards when so many men and women are foregoing the marriage ceremony and same-sex couples want to get married?!

7. See my post 2 or 3 down.

8. I gotta look into this. The only thing I can thing about earmarks is when hog farmers notch their pigs' ears in a certain pattern so that they all know whose pigs belong to whom. ;o)

Y'all have a good day!!

Cajun Cooking

I got up this morning and got ready for school. Walked in and the secretary looked at me. "You're not scheduled today." I think I'm the one who made the error, but no problem. I dropped by the library and did a couple hours volunteer work. Stopped by the grocery store for a bell pepper. FINALLY! I spotted some mirlitons. Huh? You ask. In our stores they are called by the Spanish name...Chayotes...a squash. And the best that I can spell the pronunciation of the Cajun French mirliton is: mur' lay tawn Be sure to say it with a Cajun French accent. ;o)

When I got my Cajun cookbooks, I noticed some recipes for mirlitons. I asked my Cajun co-worker and Jerry told me what they were. Anyway, I purchased a couple along with the bell pepper and headed home. When I got home, Sam was in the shop. I called him and told him that lunch would be ready about 12:30. Of course I had to explain what I'd done.

Menu
Chicken Sauce Piquante
Mirliton Au Gratin
Rice
Orange stuff ;o)

Chicken Sauce Piquante
3 or 4 lb. hen, cut in pieces
cooking oil
2 small onions, chopped
1/2 bell pepper, chopped
2 buds garlic, minced
2 ribs celery, chopped
1 large can tomato paste
1 can mushrooms, medium size
salt, red pepper, black pepper
1/2 cup wine
Fry pieces of chicken in oil until brown. Remove chicken from pot. Add onion, bell pepper, garlic, and celery to oil and cook until transparent. Add other ingredients and chicken. Add seasoning. Cook over medium heat until tender, will take from 45 minutes to 1 hour. Serve with rice.

Just two of us, so I reduced the amount of ingredients. I intended to use some thighs I purchased, but they were in the freezer, and these two boneless skinless chicken breasts were in the refrigerator.
I put all the vegetables in the oil except for the fresh mushrooms. I'm not much on canned mushrooms. After the vegetables were almost transparent, I added the mushrooms.

Jonathan gave me this seasoning (from New Iberia, Louisiana) when he visited a loooong time ago it seems. It is very good on poultry.
The chicken piquante is simmering on the back burner. Time for the mirlitons.

This
is a mirliton.

Mirliton Au Gratin

mirliton
medium white sauce
buttered crumbs
salted water
grated Cheddar cheese

Wash mirliton and cut into cubes. Boil in one inch of boiling salted water until tender, about 10 or 15 minutes. Drain. Place in buttered baking dish. Cover with white sauce and sprinkle generously with grated cheese and some buttered crumbs. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and bake at this temperature for about 15 minutes.

I kid you not. That is the recipe as printed in the cookbook. I HATED recipes like that when I was learning to cook. At least this one doesn't say "bake in a moderate oven until done." Sheesh.

This is what I did:

2 mirlitons. Sam asked about peeling them but the recipe didn't say to peel so I didn't. I tasted it raw...very, very light squash flavor.

Medium White Sauce
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk

Melt butter in a saute pan, whisk in flour and cook a few minutes so the white sauce won't taste like raw flour. Whisk in milk and cook until slightly thickened. (Okay...this is called "white sauce." I'm from Texas and call this gravy.) Add a little salt and pepper. Some people don't like the black pepper flakes in this and use white pepper. I don't have white pepper.

I added about 1/2 cup grated cheese to the sauce.

I haven't made bread lately and have NO bread crumbs. So I crushed a handful of saltine crackers. It didn't brown, but everything was bubbling, so I pulled it out of the oven. Ready to plate.Ready to serve.
The recipes came from this cookbook:
Oh...Almost forgot the Orange Stuff.

1 package of orange Jell-o (Regular or sugar-free) Do NOT make Jell-o
1 carton Cool-Whip (whichever variety of plain that you like: regular, fat-free, sugar-free)
About 1/4 pound cottage cheese
2 cans Mandarin oranges, drained

Pour the dry Jell-o over the Cool-Whip and stir until the Jell-o is incorporated into the Cool Whip. Spoon in the cottage cheese and orange slices. Stir. Refrigerate.

Change

Well...Massachusetts made a change didn't they.

HURRAH!!!

The next change that should be made is term limits in the Senate. Then perhaps those old fogeys who have totally lost touch with reality will not continue to be re-elected 'just because.' Yeah. I know. Don't hold my breath.

Ta-Da!!!

My cornsticks didn't stick! I put about 1/2 teaspoon of bacon grease in each depression. (More in the sectional pan.) Then put them in the oven as it was preheating. The bacon grease was good and hot and sizzled when I spooned about 1 1/2 tablespoons of batter in each section of the cornstick pans. I divided the rest of the batter in the sectional pan.

The cornsticks were so crunchy on the outside. Eat your heart out Nancy!

I finished sock #1 of my latest pair and started on sock #2 last night. Got quite a bit done, and worked on it more this morning.

Okay. Y'all need to lock me in a rubber room. I am amazed that I didn't burn myself baking the cornbread. eyeroll I opened a can of fruit yesterday. One of those cans you don't have to use a can opener on. Pull up the tab and peel the lid back. The lid boinged, and I felt a sharp stinging ouch. Looked and blood was pouring. Pure shock! I am right handed. How did I pop a knuckle on my left hand?

Today for lunch I opened another of the same style can (soup this time) so paid close attention. I hold the can with my right hand and open it with my left. I'm backwards. LOL At least it explained the ouch to a finger on my left hand. I am soooo glad I didn't repeat the boing...ouch! ;o)

Of course it is right in the bend of the knuckle. I can press on the ouch and it doesn't hurt, but when I bend my finger or rub it against something...especially rub it against something or bump it. OUCH all over again.

Sam may have to lock the knives away. ;o)

Week's Almost Over

I subbed at high school every day this week except for Monday. Because of slipping on the ice on Sunday, I told the secretary that I couldn't go down to the fifth and sixth wing and explained why. I had three very light days. ;o) Friday was full, but I still didn't do any harm to my leg.

Oh, my! That heating pad still feels so good wrapped around my left calf and foot. What little swelling there was is now gone. Just feels a bit achy at times. Other than that...I could run a mile...if I really, really wanted to. Well...not really run a mile, but I could walk it rather fast. ;o)

Thursday, I subbed next door to the home ec kitchen. I had a brownie and a slice of chicken pot pie. Those kids did a great job. Funny thing...I've been trying to make chicken pot pies all week. I have not cooked one meal at home. The chicken HAD to be worked up. (It was fully cooked and frozen. I put it in the refrigerator to thaw, so at least it hadn't been refrigerator temperature all week.)

So...I had chicken pot pie for lunch AND supper! Now how often does that happen in real life?

This is the last photo because I forgot to take one of the fully cooked pies. Even the bottom crust was flakey and crispy! Lard!! I rolled out the cut-off dough into a rectangle. Buttered it and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. Rolled like for cinnamon rolls and cut in 1" pieces. Baked those. Sam (me too) eats them as if they were good. Well...they are.

A friend, THANKS NANCY!, gifted me with a cast iron cornstick pan. She has not used it in years because she had to scoop the cooked sticks out with a spoon...they stuck.

My guess is she just didn't put in enough bacon grease, LARD ;o), Crisco, or oil. I'm going to give it a try today. I cleaned it - didn't need much cleaning - smeared it with LARD and put it in the oven after I got the pot pies out.

It's a Wagner. Good USA brand.

Speaking of Ice...

Once upon a time in a land far, far away... ;o) Sometimes it feels like that.

We don't get snow or ice very often in my corner of Texas. I generally say something like once every five to ten years. When it snows, we get wet snow. Not that dry stuff they call powder at the ski resorts. As long as the temp stays below freezing, we do pretty good. BUT the temperature does NOT stay below freezing the second day. Then when the temperatures drop below freezing at night, we get black ice on the roads and white ice in the yard.

Hard, white ice. I have fallen several times. Seems that the first one was before Jonathan. We had horses (and dogs - mostly redbone coon hounds) that had to be fed. I carefully skated out to the storage building and filled the buckets. Gingerly stepped out of the storage building, went behind to the stalls and fed both horses. I'm smiling. Too soon. As I round the corner of the building to put the buckets away, I slipped. Which would've been bad enough, but I banged into a 'pry bar' Ron had stabbed into the ground. It was as firmly in place as if it had been cemented in the ground. Not one bit of give. Oh...a pry bar is a piece of solid steel. You can comfortably wrap your hand around it. The other end has been flattened into a wedge-shape. Truck drivers who work in the oil field industry use it to pry or break loose the pipe loaded on their trailers to start it rolling off the trailer and onto the racks.

Back to the story. The bruise! OMGosh! The side of my thigh was bruised from hip to knee. I thought I was dying! Needless to say, Ron was told about the pry bar being in the wrong place and it was removed. ASAP

December 1983. I believe we set a record that year. Twenty or more days that the temperature never got above freezing. I went into labor during that time. A normal 40-45 minute trip took about four hours because of the black ice on the roads. I did not fall that year. Ron would not let me out of the house unless he had a grip on my arm. He walked me from the house to the car...from the car to the office...and back.

Another time, the rural mailman pulled up in the yard and beeped his horn. He had a package that wouldn't fit in the mailbox. If I remember correctly, Jonathan was a baby or really small child at this time. I carefully walked out the back door and maneuvered the steps. Skated across the yard and just as I put my hand on the front fender of his car, down I went. I heard his car door open and shouted, "NO! Don't get out. There's no reason for both of us to hit the ground." I pulled myself up, got the mail, and skated back to the house. No damage that time.

While we were gone this past weekend, I was in the mall in Sherman Texas...poor pathetic mall. Didn't have much going for it. Anyway, Baby Brother Joey (once upon a time known as The Brat), called to tell me that he heard that Sean Connery had been voted one of the sexiest men alive.

Well DUH!

This is the first cookbook I had the privilege to work on.

Good for the Soul was compiled while I worked at U. S. Contractors in Clute Texas. Proceeds were for a charitable reason that I've forgotten now. I contacted the employees...in the main building, outlaying buildings, and the field...for recipes. They were typed, proofed, and bound at the office. The title was selected because not only was the food good for the soul, but blank spaces were filled in with Bible verses and hymns. (Family owned company...VERY GOOD people!)

We had such good cooks! Several employees in the main office had a Friday morning breakfast club. We rotated providing breakfast for the group; ie, four or five of us would cook for everyone this Friday...another four/five the next Friday...etc. This cookbook contains many of our favorite recipes.

I Almost Hurt Myself...

...really really bad.

Yeppers. I took a fall. My right foot landed on a patch of ice Sunday night. In the dark. Outside all by myself. No really close neighbors. We were visiting and I was 'home alone.' Their water had been frozen but as I walked in the house, I heard water running...turned the faucet off in the bathroom and checked inside the house. Everything was dry. As I brought our bags in, I noticed what I thought was water running across the yard...went back out to check. No water running and dummy me not thinking about the temperature hovering around 30 degrees...walked across the yard. As soon as the foot touched the stepping stone...down I went.

Unlike the above photo I snitched from the internet, both of my feet were not in front of me. Imagine my panic in those few seconds when I realized my left leg was folded behind and under me and not following the momentum of my body. I slightly rolled my body to the right and thank God, got the foot moving.

I was able to hobble into the house, pulled off my jeans and took stock of the situation. Getting in the house hurt like heck, but I could put my weight down on my leg with no excruciating pain. No immediate bruising (and it never did bruise). As I mentioned, I could put my entire weight on my leg with not much pain and could move it. But walking on it...I detected rather quickly it was a muscle problem. After finding no bulging muscle and just seeing a slight swelling, I decided it was a sprain.

Boy hidee am I sore! I pulled the calf muscle and since the foot was trying to bend the wrong way, the top of my foot... I sat with an ice pack the rest of the evening...and started all over again Monday morning.

Sam and I went for lunch in the middle of the day and I was holding his hand for support. I finally had to tell him to quit trying to pull me along. LOL Rushing me was NOT helping the situation! He's used to me walking faster...he strolls along.

Yesterday evening we arrived at home. I located the heating pad. Ah!!!!! Felt so good.

I subbed today. I told the secretary that I couldn't walk down the ramps to the lower wings but if it was on the main level that I could do it. I was achy when I got home this afternoon. But better than I expected.

The weather is milder...temps above freezing with a rain coming in Thursday and Friday. But some time next week the cold is supposed to hit again.

Cherry! Where is a good halfway point? I'm afraid it will be somewhere in the middle of the ocean!!