Author Archives: patty

Insanity is the Mother of Invention

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When dawn broke, they started to wander about the forest, seeking a path, but all hope soon faded. They were well and truly lost. On they walked and walked, till suddenly they came upon a strange cottage in the middle of a glade.

“This is chocolate!” gasped Hansel as he broke a lump of plaster from the wall.

“And this is icing!” exclaimed Gretel, putting another piece of wall in her mouth. Starving but delighted, the children began to eat pieces of candy broken off the cottage.

“Isn’t this delicious?” said Gretel, with her mouth full. She had never tasted anything so nice.
Clearly Hansel and Gretel had never been to our home the day after Thanksgiving!

Dearest Boo,  when you were in kindergarten we started a tradition that lasted until you went to high school.  A story you enjoyed was “Hansel and Gretel”, so I had the brilliant (?) idea of making a gingerbread house.  We had so much fun going to all the different stores in town looking for all kinds of candies to put on our “house”.  You were able to invite one friend to help us decorate.  The first year you invited Derrick.  Derrick and his family were one of my most favorite of people we knew.  His parents and I were church youth leaders until your senior year of high school.  We chaperoned so many of your church trips/activities.  You and I  just loved this family.

One memory that pops instantly into my mind took place at Derrick’s graduation party.  It is the memory of you and their uncle having a meatball eating contest.  Child, I don’t think that there were any meatballs left for the rest of the guests to eat!  The eating contest results carried over into the next day, as we flew to Tulsa to help look for an apartment for me to live in while I was working there for the next year.  You were not a happy camper.

I am pretty sure if Norman Rockwell were to come back alive and wanted to paint the All American family he would pick that family.  We were all such better people for knowing them and having them in our lives.  LeAnne and Dave had the most perfect marriage; one that I so envied.  I so miss her bright, shiny smile, her cheerful attitude and her willingness to serve our God.  My wish is that some day you will find that kind of marriage.

Anyway, back to the gingerbread house.  Before Derrick came over we baked the gingerbread house, made the frosting, and laid out all the candies.  Once Derrick got there we set about to build the house.  Try as best I could I could not get the house to stay together.  I would frost the edges and hold them together until they would appear to be sticking together.  Once I took away my hands the sides would all come tumbling down.  Bless your hearts.  We would all work together to hold up the house frame, thinking that it just needed more even pressure to be a bit more stable.  Before you could say “huff and puff and blow your house down” that was exactly what happened.  We just had a pile of gingerbread covered with a ton of frosting.  I was beside myself, as I just could not disappoint the two of you.  Both of you were so looking forward to decorating the house.  What was a Mother to do???  Now, this is the point that Insanity became the Mother of my Invention.  I ran to get my “silver bullet”, my never fail answer to everything wrong.  I got my trusty hot glue gun!  Yes, I know that it was a bit drastic, but I needed that gosh darn house to hold together.  We had such a fun afternoon gluing and sticking on the candies.   It was during the next year that I discovered the little fact that I was not supposed to use buttercream frosting; I needed to use Royal Icing.  For the next ten years we used Royal Icing, I promise, and the houses/decorations were perfect.  I had no worries or illusions about our first house.  I never figured that anyone would eat it; we made it strictly for decoration.

We held our yearly party for families on New Year’s Eve.  For us holidays were about family and as you grew older we wanted to you see that you did not have to drink to have a good time.  Getting together with friends was not about the food and beverages you served.  You don’t need alcohol to get high; you can get high on life by surrounding yourself with people that were dear to you.  And we did have a wonderful time that year, too .  That is until that year when two of the young girls came upstairs chewing on some peppermint sticks.  My heart fell into my stomach as I realized that the only place that we had peppermint sticks was on the gingerbread house.  The house that had candy hot glued to the surface.  I raced over to the girls, ripped the candy from their little hands and flew down to the dinning room faster than a five year old Christmas morning!  What an idiot I was to have the gingerbread house on the buffet table!  Of course any normal person would assume that it was safe to eat.  Who in their right mind would ever use glue to hold it together?  I quickly scooped up the house and moved it to a safe spot.  Kind of like being in the witness protection program.  It looked the same, but it was in a place that no one could or would find it ever again.

Although I knew about Royal Icing and it’s power for gingerbread houses, I never tried it on cookies.  Why my mind never made the connection will forever be one of the great mysteries of the world.  This year I took the leap and used Royal Icing on my sugar cookies.  For a first time I would say that I was pleasantly pleased with the results.  Could they be better – of course.  It is true, practice will make better.  Check back for Valentine’s Day.  Joy Rising!

Vanilla-Almond Sugar Cookies

Prep time:  15 minutes

Bake time:  10-12 minutes

Oven temp:  350 degrees

Ingredients:

  • 3 c unbleached, all-purpose flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 c sugar
  • 2 sticks unsalted butter
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 1 egg
  • ½ tsp pure vanilla extract
  • ½ tsp pure almond extract

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  2. Combine the flour and baking powder, set aside.
  3. Cream the sugar and butter in mixer; add egg and extracts mixing thoroughly.
  4. Gradually add the flour mixture and beat until just combined, scraping down the bowl to be sure everything is mixed together.
  5. Roll onto a lightly floured surface to desired thickness and cut into shapes.
  6. Place on parchment lined cookie sheets and bake for 10-12 minutes.
  7. Let sit a few minutes on the sheet, and then transfer to a cooling rack.
  8. Frost cookies as desired with your favorite frosting  (I used Royal Icing).

Oh the weather outside is frightful; Mother Nature is so spiteful

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Dearest Boo, what a Christmas we experienced! Since Tuesday night, the 22nd, we have been under a storm watch. Tuesday night we had brief showers, which turned into ice. Luckily, that was only about 1/4″. Wednesday more of the same, but then that afternoon the snow and wind started. We had snow and wind until Saturday afternoon. This was a full out blizzard. Blizzards are severe winter storms that pack a combination of blowing snow and wind resulting in very low visibilities. While heavy snowfalls and severe cold often accompany blizzards, they are not required. Sometimes strong winds pick up snow that has already fallen, creating a blizzard. Officially, the National Weather Service defines a blizzard as large amounts of falling OR blowing snow with winds in excess of 35 mph and visibilities of less than 1/4 of a mile for an extended period of time (greater than 3 hours). This being said, we must have had a blizzard times one million. I shoveled out the driveway at least three times on Thursday, four times on Friday and twice on Saturday. The weather report says that it was 10″ to 12″, but the strong winds kept drifting shut our driveway. I know that I shoveled the same snow at least seven times off the driveway.

If I never see another snow flake again I will be one happy little camper. The definition of snow is frozen water that falls from the sky. All snow flakes have six sides, but no two snow flakes are the same. Sorry, Mother Nature, but I was outside long enough shoveling to know that I HAD to have seen some double snowflakes, twins if you will – maybe even triplets! There is no way possible that there could be that many flakes and not have any alike.

Getting up this morning to the sound of the snow plows was not that exciting, as I knew that meant there would be a giant sized pile of crusted, heavy snow to shovel from the end of the driveway. Laying in bed, not wanting to get up, I had a light bulb moment. I am a Snow Dummy! We don’t have a snow blower, except for ourselves…….and you would think that I could remember how to shovel snow after all these years of living in Nebraska. But no, I must have had brain freeze when I was outdoors. I would shovel the snow up onto the yard, just at the edge of the driveway. Dummy, dummy, dummy. It was piled so high, that when the wind came blowing over it, the wind would just blow it all back into the driveway. I must have been shoveling the same 10″ – 12″ of snow for the past three days. And now I get to go back outdoors and shovel it again. However, this time I am going to be smarter than the average snow flake! First I will move the large piles of snow that is lining the driveway, to get rid of the “World’s Largest Snow Tunnel” that I created.

Boo, I know that your Christmas was made special because your BF, John, was able to be here for five days. Luckily, he was able to fly out for home on Monday. I say lucky for him, as if he had waited one or two days he would have been stranded here and not able to be with his family for Christmas. And really lucky for him, as if he were here he would be doing the one shoveling with me instead of you. Asking you to be outdoors in the cold wind always worries me, as I don’t want to trigger an asthma attack for you. You are always mindful of being ready to help, but I do still worry.

One of John’s gifts from us was to try to re-created his favorite dish from Macaroni Grill, Penne with vodka Sauce. No problem, I knew that your little friend, Giada De Laurentiis, would not let us down – and I was right. She had a recipe on her website. I fixed it for him the Friday night that he was here. It was easy and delicious – only problem being that it was not the same at all. What you did not remember was that it had sausage and was baked. Okay, okay – easy fix. So, Sunday, when I was in Omaha celebrating Christmas with my mother, siblings and their families, you were able to make the dish for him. I think that it was a success, not exact but pretty darn close. It is a dish that we will fix again. The picture is not all that good, but it shows how successful you were. The smell was so intoxicating that you both just chowed down, without taking a picture first. This picture is of the leftovers.  Oh, Italian food – Joy Rising!

Vodka Penne Rustica

adapted from Giada De Laurentiis
Prep time: 20 minutes
Bake time: 20 minutes at 350 degrees
Serves: 4 – 6

Ingredients:

  • 1 quart marinara sauce  (we love the Sorrisos brand,  it’s from Nebraska)
  • 1 c vodka
  • 1/2 c heavy cream, room temperature
  • 1 c grated parmesan cheese
  • 1# penne
  • 1/2# ground italian sausage

Directions:

  1. Boil 4 quarts water in large pot with 2 T salt
  2. Once it boils, add in the penne.  Cook until al dente (this means “to the tooth” when you bite down on one of the penne it will have a bit of firmness.  It does not have to be completely cooked, as it will finish cooking in the oven) about 8-10 minutes.  Drain; let penne sit in colander.
  3. In a sauce pan drop in the ground sausage in chunks about the size of a quarter.   Remove from pan onto plate with paper towels to help drain away the grease.
  4. In the same sauce pan pour in the marinara sauce and vodka over low heat until this mixture reduces by 1/4, stirring often.  This will take about 20 minutes.
  5. Stir the cream into the sauce/vodka mixture.  Simmer over low heat until the sauce is heated through.
  6. Add the browned sausage into the sauce/vodka mixture.
  7. Stir in the parmesan cheese into the sauce/vodka mixture until melted and well blended.
  8. Pour the penne back into the pot and pour in the sauce.  Stir to be sure all penne is coated.  Keep it “loose” as the sauce will soak into the penne as it bakes.
  9. Spray 2 quart casserole dish with Pam; pour in the mixture from the pot.
  10. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 c parmesan cheese; you can add more if you prefer
  11. Bake for about 20 mintues at 350 degrees; just to melt the cheese and have it brown.    You may need to place it until the broiler for 2 -3 minutes, if your cheese did not brown.

Ground Hog’s Day

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My Dear Boo, whew! Family Christmas is now Christmas Past. Aunt Teri and Uncle Joey hosted all of us once more. They are so gracious and hospitable for having almost thirty-five people in their home. I would have been nuts, but they took everything in stride. Their home was perfect, the decorations were perfect, and the food was perfect.

It is always fun to get together with family and friends, especially around the holidays. It is amazing to see how much the nieces/nephews have grown, both physically and mentally. The three year old nephew that could not string together three words for a sentence suddenly is talking to you as if he were your college professor explaining that Schrodinger’s cat is a thought experiment, often described as a paradox, devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodinger in 1935. It illustrates what he saw as the problem of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics applied to everyday objects. The thought experiment presents a cat that might be alive or dead, depending on an earlier random event. Heck, all I wanted to know is what he wanted Santa to bring him!

The niece that was sporting braces, and glasses, and pigtails and who walked, talked and dressed like the Ed Grimley character from Saturday Night Live has now transformed into this stunning, poised, graceful young lady. All the teens and pre-teens were texting away and able to carry on three other conversations at the same time. And “talking” in some foreign language…..OMG LOL POS AML ASAIK RUF2T. I can hardly stay focused on one conversation and be able to respond with some intelligence. Crap! When did I get so old?

Since I have not been working this past month I feel like I am living the “Ground Hog’s Day” movie. Every day I would get up, stay in my pajamas, bake like crazy and fall into bed. Get up the next day and do it all over again. I must have brought at least two dozen of eight different kinds of cookies, Puppy Chow, Chex Mix, Winter WonderLand, Pretzel Toffee, pumpkin pie, homemade marshmallows, and S’More Pops. It took an Army of people to get my truck unloaded and all the goodies into the house. There is only so much that we can eat, so I would find myself going door to door in the neighborhood passing out the treats. The first week everyone was pretty receptive, however, by the end of the second week I did notice a change. When I would ring their door bell lights would suddenly go out, the television would suddenly go quiet, but that did not stop me. I would just leave the treats on the door step – much like the gardeners who have their abundance of produce in the summer and try hard to find someone to take it off their hands.

Now that the baking is finished my “Ground Hog’s Day” has varied a bit. I get up, fix some coffee, turn on the television and veg out all day, then get up off the couch and go to bed. I am becoming a slug and watching the FoodNetwork. I believe that I have watched all their Food Challenges. Yesterday’s challenge was to use cereal to build a bridge. Seriously?!! Maybe the Food Network execs are bored, too. Guess this means that my self imposed vacation is over and I need to start looking for a job – Joy Rising?

Sweet Toffee Pretzel Mix

Preheat oven to 250 degrees

Ingredients:

  • 6 c miniature pretzel twists
  • 4 c mixed nuts
  • 2 c light brown sugar
  • 1 c butter
  • 1/2 c corn syrup
  • pinch of salt

Directions:

  1. On a cookie sheet or jelly roll pan, combine the pretzels and the nuts.
  2. In a large saucepan combine the butter, sugar, corn syrup and salt. Stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves.
  3. Bring to a boil and cook until thickened (firm ball stage – 260 degrees F). Remove from heat and pour over pretzel mixture and mix until everything is coated.
  4. Bake in preheated 250 degree oven for about 20 minutes (stir about halfway through to be sure everything bakes). Remove from oven and spread out to cool on a sheet of parchment paper.

Variations:

Can add 3T pure maple syrup

Can add 2 c chex mix in place of some pretzels

Can add 2T cayenne pepper