Tired Day Meal

Today I am absolutely exhausted and do not want to even think or move.  The problem with this extreme tired feeling is, I do not even desire to cook, but I need to eat.   This is where my need to eat conquers any desire to stay in bed and veg; if I do not cook, I will not eat. Since my stomach requires satisfaction, I found myself drowsily preparing a quick healthy meal.

Tonight's dinner: Lean burger patty, sliced portabella mushrooms and sliced avocado.

Pan fry the burgers, make them larger than bun size, the object is to not eat it on a bun. I seasoned mine with a season salt, Montreal steak seasoning and a bacon seasoning. Cooking it in a frying pan helps to seal the juices into the burger.  When the burgers are almost done, add sliced portabella mushrooms and a tablespoon of butter.  Cook mushrooms until they start to brown a bit.  When eating, serve burger topped with steak sauce,  mushrooms on the side and a sliced avocado.  Enjoy!

Dorothy’s Sugar Cookies

In days past, cooking Christmas cookies was a huge deal to me and my family;  now, as much as I love making and eating them, we do not need the extra sugar and fat in our diet.  OMG, did I really say that!  I must be a real Scrooge, or at least the “food police.”  Since my home will not be filled with the joyous smells of Christmas cookies cooking in the oven, I decided to give my faithful followers my famous sugar cookie recipe. These soft cookies were my fathers favorite.

Dorothy’s Sugar Cookies

Mix until fluffy:

1 1/3 cup of butter

1 ½ cup of sugar

Add and mix:

2 teaspoons of Vanilla

2 eggs

8 tablespoons of water

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon of salt

4 cups of flour

Make little 1 to 1 ½ in balls; squash the balls with a lightly sugared bottom of a glass.  (If you tap the bottom on the glass in some dough and then sugar will stick to the bottom.) Next:  place on a lightly greased cookie sheet and bake in a 375 F. oven for 10 to 12 minutes.  

I also like to exchange the vanilla for anise flavoring, plus some green food die.  After squishing the cookies with a glass, place red hots around the cookie for a wreath effect.

If you desire to make cutout cookies, place dough in refrigerator for a couple of hours; the cooler dough makes cutting out cookies easier.

Another Verison of Eastern Goulash

This last semester my friends and I went out to lunch about twice a week.  We often ate at Subway; otherwise, we went for a buck-burger at McDonald's.  After a while, I decided that I did not want to not eat at any inferior restaurants any longer.  To my amazement, the many McDonald's restaurants near Aquinas College do not appear to care about pleasing the customer.  Today, my faith in McDonald's was restored, at least to a limited degree.  I was craving a good old Big Mac with fries, and of course, Brian was willing as usual.  I knew that there was a franchise Micky D’s right there off the intersection of 44^th and Kalamazoo.  Our experience thre was so perfect today, I am giving them public credit, here and now.  In honor of Samantha, the manager, I offer the following: 

First, the restaurant was clean.  This is important to me because the kitchen will go the way of the dining area.  Second, the employees were nice, and when I say "nice," I mean they were downright cheerful; that actually acted like they enjoyed their jobs!  Third, the crew fills the French fry containers properly, and they were fresh and hot.  At the end our meal, I walked up to the manager and expressed how happy I was to have found a McDonald's that cares about their customer’s satisfaction.  Samantha’s face lit up like a Christmas tree; you and I know that she gets her share of complaints.  Today's Food For Thought:  Try to give someone a complement when they’ve done something right, you know you complain when it's not. 

For Dinner, Brian and I ate Eastern Goulash:

Place 2 lbs of stew meat in a bowl that contains flour, salt and pepper.  Shake bowl so that all the meat is covered by the flour mixture.  Put some olive oil in the bottom of a large soup pot and turn on the heat; let it heat for a couple of minutes. Add the stew meat to the pot and partially brown the meat.  Add: fill the pot with water so that covers 2 inches above the meat, two bay leaves, tablespoon goulash seasoning and salt and pepper.  Cover the pot and cook in the oven 350 oven for about two hours.  Next, add 4 cubed potatoes, 1 cubed sweet potato, 1 green pepper, one diced onion, 3 stalks of cut celery, 2 carrots cut small, one zucchini cut up into small pieces, 2 heaping tablespoon of marjoram, 1tablespoon of Cumin, 1 tablespoon of goulash seasoning, 1 small can of tomato paste,  and 1/8 cup of white vinegar.  Cook in the oven until the meat is tender and the vegetables are fully cooked, about 2 to 3 hours.  In a frying pan sauté: 2 diced onions and 5 large diced garlic cloves in olive oil.  When they are tender, sprinkle paprika, salt and ½ cup of flour over the top, brown and add to soup.  Cook in the oven for about an hour longer, add 1 cup of sour cream and serve. Enjoy!

PS:  You can't put it in the refrigerator hot, but don't wait too long, because it has sour cream in it, and because The Bear will lift the lid and eat some every time he walks past.  I was suspicious because He kept going toward the bathroom, but isn't sick.  When I investigated, I found two large spoons on the counter, even though I had done all of the dishes.  It's true that soup is good food, but there should be a volume limit, all the same.  I wonder if The Bear will come prowling again after midnight.  (I'm flattered, but don't want to be flattened!)

(Low budget) White Elephant Exchange Christmas Party

            Friday we had a White Elephant party for my Nonfiction Workshop class mates from college.  We all had a great time, and I did not spend a lot on preparations.  This blog is dedicated to those who do not have any extra money to spend this Christmas, but they would still like to carry on with the Christmas fun.

 

            I once heard a woman on the radio say, “Women, I would rather visit a messy home, sit in the corner drinking water and eating crackers, than to never be invited over people’s homes.”  In the past twenty- five year, I have tried to live by these wise words.  I cannot tell you how many times my friend have visited my home, while the kids were young, chatting and helping me fold laundry or wash dishes.  Ok, my friends “always” got a good meal for their efforts.  Just because my home wasn’t as clean as I would like, didn’t mean that I could not cook a tasty offering for their help.

            Back to my party, we do not have any extra money for Christmas this year.  The recession has hit our family hard, and due to our choice to finish college, we live on a very tight budget.  Yet the desire to have my class mates over for a celebration was greater than the lack of funds.  You really can entertain a group fifteen to twenty people on a shoestring and feed them s tasty meal to boot.  In the end, I think I only spent a maximum of $25.  

            White Elephant party menu: Sloppy Joes, caramelize onion and bacon green beans, potato chips, and sugar cookies.  For beverages we drank pop provided by the kids, water, hot tea and coffee. (recipes in previous blogs)

The evening was filled with funny stories, food and the present exchange game.  Everyone being a poor college student, the required price on the gift was, “please do not spend money, find something around your home and wrap it.”  Everyone had to sit like Indians on our floor while playing the game, seats were limited.  As they sat down on the floor I told everyone that our living room makes you feel like you are in a Christmas tree. Reason being,  Brian decorated the windows, walls and doorways with lights and decorations; sitting on the floor gave the illusion of being inside the tree looking out.  In the end, humble food, accommodations and presents did not stop us from having a great time.  Hours later, the last guests left after midnight with smiles on their faces, thanking us for a great night. 

 

 White Elephant exchange:

Everyone bring a wrapped gift from home.  It is important that they do not spend money on the present.  The idea of the party is to re-gift something that you got in the past that you did not like, or give something that you want out of your home. Next, count how many people are in your home cut little papers and write numbers on the little pieces equaling up to the number of noses in your home.  Now, everyone needs to sit in a circle, start with “number one” and have the person who has that number grab a gift out of the center of the circle and open the gift.  Continue on to 2, 3 … . This is where the fun comes in, if someone desires a gift that is already open, and it is their turn, they can steal it from the person holding the gift.  Now the person less a gift gets to either steal a gift from someone else or select another gift from the center. You many not take a gift back that was taken from you.  We always provide a couple of extra gifts just in case someone gets a can of sardines or worse and is unhappy with their gift.  At the very end of the game we allow the biggest looser to exchange their gift for one of the remaining gifts.  Remember, this is a low budget party and you would like everyone to feel welcomed, putting a price limit on the gift will hinder those who are financially limited.  The object is getting together and having fun.

Brain Food

         In the last month, my husband and I wrote a lot of papers for school.  Some of them were over ten pages and some were nonfiction works.  Needless to say, we've been writing  a lot.  If there is one lesson to be learned in going back to school, it is that, while writing papers, leave the house and get a bite for a bit of fresh air.  At one point during the past month, I felt as if my eyes would gush out of their sockets,  my brain would explode and my wrists ached so bad that they cried, "Uncle"!  The only way to get a second wind it to take a good break and do something for ourselves for short break.  After talking a bit, we decided that Chinese food would do the trick, so off we went.   As we sat in our booth, our waitress ask us how our day was going?  We told her that we were busy writing papers.  She laughed and told us that we came to the right place to feed our brains.  Two weeks later, Brian and I walked back into our favorite Chinese restaurant for lunch.  Ted's buddies left over $17.00 worth of cans in his house and he gave the cans to us as a gift. We do not mind, it was enough to pay for our "finals are over celebration meal" and the tip.  Our waitress asked me what I got the paper I was writing a couple of weeks earlier? I told her an "A", she laughed and told me that it was because we ate good Chinese brain food.  Thinking upon this "brain food" idea, I decided that for now on we would go there for lunch whenever we had papers to write.  After all maybe there is something to it.