snowangel

Back in the days when we thought Heidi (read about her Here) might be able to talk, we thought her oral motor problems were the culprit. One day, her SLP (speech therapist) showed up with a jar of nutella and a popsicle stick, and we painted her upper lip and that area just above her upper lip with Nutella. She, who had never licked her lips before, licked every bit off. The, she and I attacked the jar with a spoon. Next time I bought a jar, I also bought a can of redi whip (hangs head in shame). Now I whip the cream to go with The Jar of Nutella. In honor of her first day of summer vacation from school, I bought a jar and we almost polished it off for breakfast. It was 2.5 servings. Who do they think they kidding on that nutrition label about serving sizes?

The Shrek mini's are mighty fine instead of chocolate chips in cookies. The cookies are goine. We are all happy.

Plus, you can save all of that energy thawing stuff, fifi. What sides will you serve? I'd just as soon just eat brisket, but think that the rest of the people will think I'm lazy if I don't serve sides.

$.99/lb! Yes, gentlewomen, start your smokers. Yes, trimming is an abomination and a waste of time and perfectly good fat. It also takes away from beer-drinking time. All of that washing hands. Yes, I will cut into two pieces. What kinda wood would be best?

Barbara Tropp's Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking has a few great chicken salad recipes. No mayo in any of them.

Whole, untrimmed briskets are on sale at my local meat market for $1.99/lb. Guess what I'm smoking this weekend? And, it's time this thread returned up top again. Smoked brisket. Yum.

Divorce Salad dressing This recipe is entered at the suggestion of balmagowry, in response to a post on her Bio thread. I quote below from my response: "Lisa, one of your divorce vignettes reminds me of someone I knew -- Linda. Linda was married for many years to an utter and total cad. When they had been married for about 10 years, her MIL shared with her The Totally Secret Family Recipe For Some Damned Salad Dressing with the admonition "this recipe will NEVER go outside the family; do you understand." Actually, the dressing was quite good (a lot of anchovies and garlic). Anyway, some years after the sharing of said recipe, the Total and Utter Cad got worse and worse and worse and it was divorce court (he had 9 Other Women on the Leash). Lots of fiscal stuff involved, and actually, the Total and Utter Cad ended up going to jail (fraud), but his parents still blamed Her. The first thing she did was distribute said recipe to every person she had ever met. She said it felt almost better than The Day In Court." I did call Linda, and she gave me permission to put this on e-Gullet, and she did so with pride. 8 oz softened cream cheese 1 c Salad oil 1/3 c Tarragon vinegar 1/4 c Sliced scallions (including some of the green part) 6 Slices Bacon 3 cloves garlic, minced 4 Anchovies Salt and pepper to taste Fry bacon until crisp, drain on paper towels, crumble and reserve. I like to use thick-sliced bacon for this. If I'm using oil-packed anchovies, drain. If salt-packed, rinse and remove bones. Reserving bacon and scallions, whiz everything in the blender until smooth. Add bacon and scallions. Use with a sturdy green like romaine. If you've made it just before serving, it is thin enough to toss with forks or salad thingies. If it has been fridged, you'll need to dig it out with your fingers and use your fingers to coat the leaves. Keywords: Salad, Salad ( RG1072 )

Divorce Salad dressing This recipe is entered at the suggestion of balmagowry, in response to a post on her Bio thread. I quote below from my response: "Lisa, one of your divorce vignettes reminds me of someone I knew -- Linda. Linda was married for many years to an utter and total cad. When they had been married for about 10 years, her MIL shared with her The Totally Secret Family Recipe For Some Damned Salad Dressing with the admonition "this recipe will NEVER go outside the family; do you understand." Actually, the dressing was quite good (a lot of anchovies and garlic). Anyway, some years after the sharing of said recipe, the Total and Utter Cad got worse and worse and worse and it was divorce court (he had 9 Other Women on the Leash). Lots of fiscal stuff involved, and actually, the Total and Utter Cad ended up going to jail (fraud), but his parents still blamed Her. The first thing she did was distribute said recipe to every person she had ever met. She said it felt almost better than The Day In Court." I did call Linda, and she gave me permission to put this on e-Gullet, and she did so with pride. 8 oz softened cream cheese 1 c Salad oil 1/3 c Tarragon vinegar 1/4 c Sliced scallions (including some of the green part) 6 Slices Bacon 3 cloves garlic, minced 4 Anchovies Salt and pepper to taste Fry bacon until crisp, drain on paper towels, crumble and reserve. I like to use thick-sliced bacon for this. If I'm using oil-packed anchovies, drain. If salt-packed, rinse and remove bones. Reserving bacon and scallions, whiz everything in the blender until smooth. Add bacon and scallions. Use with a sturdy green like romaine. If you've made it just before serving, it is thin enough to toss with forks or salad thingies. If it has been fridged, you'll need to dig it out with your fingers and use your fingers to coat the leaves. Keywords: Salad, Salad ( RG1072 )

Pity sought. As I stated earlier in this thread, we are in a new-to-us-house, with a negliected yard, owned previously by people who liked (?) overgrown arborvitae (which have been eradicated and lots of landscaping rock. Why people by rocks, I'll never know, by that's my opinion. Anyway, I have taken plants from my former garden. Friends have donated. I have tons of stuff heeled in. But, it won't quit raining. Every other day we get an inch or two. No window in which to get the tiller out, till up the soil, till in some good stuff, and plant a real garden. Everytime it's almost dry enough to till, it starts raining again. Yes, I know rain is a good thing. But a break long enough to get the garden tilled would be appreciated. And, outside of one day above 90 degrees, the weather has been behaving like it's April. Meantime, I am frustrated and energized by the pics that all of you post. I do have dirt under my nails -- from removing the tons of rock in my yard -- bucket by bucket. The kids get $.50 for each bucket they dump.

The chuck eyes we grilled last night (rare) were outstanding!

Thanks, Janet, for the "food for thought" in both courses. Nice that they were posted in and around the "Cooking For the Disabled" course. You have given me much to ponder. For Heidi, senses are everything. Far much more so than for the rest of us; most of us can isolate or assimilate the different textures and tastes. This is not the case for everyone; for some, the senses as individual senses, not integrated, rule. I will look at her likes, dislikes, obsessions and extreme dislikes in a different way, and consult your classes frequently!

BINGO! All of us have special needs. Heidi's special needs are different than mine. They are different than those of Diana's and Peter's. Different thatn Paul's. Her "special" needs are no more or not less important than anyone elses. Nor is her education. Thanks, Ingrid, for this reminder. I'll get off my soapbox before I go into the education thing.

We have decided against returning to The Cabin this weekend. This goes against our grain, but it has been very cold and very rainy Up North. Keeping Heidi out of the lake is difficult, and she does not understand hypothermia. So, we will stay in town for the next couple of weeks and put in a fence, to keep Heidi safe. And, till up a garden to keep me sane. At that point, the water will be warm enough and the kids will be out of school so we can do the cabin thing right. Not runs up Friday nights and runs home on Sunday evernings, but runs based on weather and orthodontia appointments. Once we take care of things like the fence and school, our time is ours (except for Paul, who will mow, work and pay the bills). In the meantime, and in anticipation of the coming season, I have posted my recipe for Blueberry Pie on RecipeGullet. It is a good recipe which combines the best of fresh and the succulent of cooked. This recipe also works for raspberries, but with the latter, the cooked mixture is best sieved to remove seeds.

Raspberry Pie Like my Blueberry Pie recipe (also on RecipeGullet), this comes from that wooden box that was an inheritance from my great grandmother. Some of the recipes are almost too faded to read. But, this one is another winner, and like the Blueberry Pie reciipe I've submitted, inludes both cooked and raw berries. This one is best if the cooked berries are wilkd and the raw berries are cultivated. The latter have less seeds, the former more flavor. Head to northern MN late July/early August to learn about he flavor of wild berries. Anything in quotes below comes directly from my great grandmother. DO NOT substitute frozen berries. This is a once a summer treat. 4 c Raspberries (divided) 1 c Water 1 c Sugar 3 T Cornstartch 1 T Lemon juice 1 Pre-baked 9" pie crust Place 1 cup berries in a saucepan with 2/3 cups water. Simmer until the berries loose their color, about 5 minutes. Place in sieve over a bowl and "press on the stuff in the sieve to get us as much of the good juice as you can but leave the seeds behind." Mix sugar with cornstartch and add to a the saucepn with the raspberry juice. Cook, "stirring vigiganly" over a medium heat, until thickened and clear in color. Turn heat off and add lemon juice; set aside to cool. While cooling, put remaining berries into pie shell. "When you are ready" (reminder that great grandma was also busy making and taking ham sandwiches and potato salad to the men working in the field, washing cloth diapers, canning, dressing chickens, etc.) pour the cooked mixture over the berries in the pie shell. Keywords: Easy, Dessert, Main Dish ( RG1060 )

Raspberry Pie Like my Blueberry Pie recipe (also on RecipeGullet), this comes from that wooden box that was an inheritance from my great grandmother. Some of the recipes are almost too faded to read. But, this one is another winner, and like the Blueberry Pie reciipe I've submitted, inludes both cooked and raw berries. This one is best if the cooked berries are wilkd and the raw berries are cultivated. The latter have less seeds, the former more flavor. Head to northern MN late July/early August to learn about he flavor of wild berries. Anything in quotes below comes directly from my great grandmother. DO NOT substitute frozen berries. This is a once a summer treat. 4 c Raspberries (divided) 1 c Water 1 c Sugar 3 T Cornstartch 1 T Lemon juice 1 Pre-baked 9" pie crust Place 1 cup berries in a saucepan with 2/3 cups water. Simmer until the berries loose their color, about 5 minutes. Place in sieve over a bowl and "press on the stuff in the sieve to get us as much of the good juice as you can but leave the seeds behind." Mix sugar with cornstartch and add to a the saucepn with the raspberry juice. Cook, "stirring vigiganly" over a medium heat, until thickened and clear in color. Turn heat off and add lemon juice; set aside to cool. While cooling, put remaining berries into pie shell. "When you are ready" (reminder that great grandma was also busy making and taking ham sandwiches and potato salad to the men working in the field, washing cloth diapers, canning, dressing chickens, etc.) pour the cooked mixture over the berries in the pie shell. Keywords: Easy, Dessert, Main Dish ( RG1060 )

I've used smokey stock for Pozole. Yum.

Blueberry Pie My grandmother made this pie. My mother-in-law makes this pie. Why, do yo ask, did you include this as a "main course." Simply because it can be a main course. Especially good for breakfast. The blue berries I made this with are picked by us, in the wild of the Northern NN cabin so documented in "The Cabin" thread on the Heartland forum. The plants are amazing in that they grow in almost no dirt, perched on granite outcroppings that have been recently logged. Unlike supermarket blueberries, these are small, and pack a powerful flavour-punch. This pie is unique in that it features both cooked and raw berries; sweet of the cooked, punch of the raw -- both in terms of taste and texture. It was a winner at a recent Twin Cities EG gathering, accompanied by Betts bitter orange ice cream. Betts ice cream did make a better match than the traditional whipped cream, and made a blueberry pie lover out of those who were skeptical. Cabin viewings and activities noted in recipe are optional. Note: If you use frozen berries, this pie will be runnier, but still good. This recipe comes from a very faded card in my great grandmother's recipe box (which is MINE). Spidery handwriting and all. 3/4 c Sugar 3 T corn startch tidge of salt (1/8?" tsp) 1/4 c water 4 c blueberries (divided) 1 T butter 2 T lemon juice 1 pre-baked 9" pie crust Combine sugar and cornstarch and salt in saucepan. Add water and 2 cups blueberries. Cook over medium heat (stir constantly while looking lovingly at the lake) until mixture comes to a boil. It will be quite thick and clear. Remove from heat, add butter and lemon juice. Set aside and let cool. Go out on dock and have a cocktail. Return to cabin, place 2 (or more) cups of blueberries into pie shell. Top with cooked berry mixture and chill. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream. Or just a glass of milk. Keywords: Vegan, Dessert, Main Dish ( RG1059 )

Blueberry Pie My grandmother made this pie. My mother-in-law makes this pie. Why, do yo ask, did you include this as a "main course." Simply because it can be a main course. Especially good for breakfast. The blue berries I made this with are picked by us, in the wild of the Northern NN cabin so documented in "The Cabin" thread on the Heartland forum. The plants are amazing in that they grow in almost no dirt, perched on granite outcroppings that have been recently logged. Unlike supermarket blueberries, these are small, and pack a powerful flavour-punch. This pie is unique in that it features both cooked and raw berries; sweet of the cooked, punch of the raw -- both in terms of taste and texture. It was a winner at a recent Twin Cities EG gathering, accompanied by Betts bitter orange ice cream. Betts ice cream did make a better match than the traditional whipped cream, and made a blueberry pie lover out of those who were skeptical. Cabin viewings and activities noted in recipe are optional. Note: If you use frozen berries, this pie will be runnier, but still good. This recipe comes from a very faded card in my great grandmother's recipe box (which is MINE). Spidery handwriting and all. 3/4 c Sugar 3 T corn startch tidge of salt (1/8?" tsp) 1/4 c water 4 c blueberries (divided) 1 T butter 2 T lemon juice 1 pre-baked 9" pie crust Combine sugar and cornstarch and salt in saucepan. Add water and 2 cups blueberries. Cook over medium heat (stir constantly while looking lovingly at the lake) until mixture comes to a boil. It will be quite thick and clear. Remove from heat, add butter and lemon juice. Set aside and let cool. Go out on dock and have a cocktail. Return to cabin, place 2 (or more) cups of blueberries into pie shell. Top with cooked berry mixture and chill. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream. Or just a glass of milk. Keywords: Vegan, Dessert, Main Dish ( RG1059 )

jeniac42, I will have dinner this weekend with my cousin, deaf since birth, and working in a chaotic environment, and will pose your questions to him. However, from spending a lot of time in Heidi's classroom, I can second what specialteach has said. It would probably be a good idea for everyone in your kitchen to spend a short "not too chaotic" time working with earplugs. Part of it can be clues to this person. My cousin who is deaf lived in our house for quite some time, and he and I had a signal -- a tap on his left shoulder for me -- to let him know that he really needed to look at me (he reads lips). I will let you know what Brian has to say about "hearing" things in a noisy environment.

Hope he lives on a farm. Nope, less than an acre in suburbia. I guess he likes to pretend it's a farm, though. Actually he informed me it's 140 tomato plants. And what does he plan to do with the 1,000's of tomatoes? Do you have a really big freezer? Jeez, we just worked our way up to 16 plants, and I haven't quite used up the puree that I froze last year. You're scaring me. We have two chest freezers in the basement...and we will be having BLTs every night for dinner...the garden is located at a house that he rents out, so the tenants better like tomatoes too! I tried canning them the last time he did something this crazy, but I didn't do a very good job. I will try again this year. Canning? Why bother. Do the easy thing. Just toss the ripe tomates into the freezer. Skin on. Take what you want from the freezer, run under water and the skin pops right off. Plus, you can take out just what you need. Why stand over a hot stove in hot weather steaming up the kitchen when you could be out having a cocktail, smoking ribs, doing something summerlike? My grandmother was liberated once she got the chest freeze. No more canning tomatoes in 90 degree heat with 90% humidity at 2:00 in the morning.

Twin Cities, Minnesota. The Costco is located in shopping hell. One of those shopping areas that has a ton of stores but isn't a mall. I do small. I do small stores really well. I don't do big. My tiny local Target give me the heebie-jeebies. So, I drive up to Costco. It reaks shopping hell. And, for that, I have to pay "admission (membership)." If I pay admission, I expect to be entertained on an order that I don't think I'll be in a Twin Cities suburb. I've tried to park three times. Really. But, I just can't. Small and local for me. I'm out.

Well, in between rain showers, we did it today. Exercised that little clause I put into the purchase agreement on our former house "reserves right to go back and get a rhubarb plant." When we pulled up, the new owners where there, and stated "take whatever you want." Good thing I brought far more containers than would house one single rhubarb plant. It is obvious that they aren't gardeners, so I liberated as many things -- largely parts of plants -- but in a couple of cases, more than "just a bit." But, they will be well loved and well tended here. We filled up the back of a truck with bits, pieces and whole lots of the perennials I so lovingly collected and tended over the course of 18 years. As I dug and pulled, I recalled when and with whom I collected all of this stuff. Remembered to whom I gave slips of this and that. Remembered who and when gave me slips of this and that. Over the course of almost 2 decades, this garden had become an integral part of my life -- not just in terms of green growing things and the place, but the people who have formed that patchwork of my life. So, when we returned to our new house, I spent the rest of the afternoon heeling in some of the plants in one of the VERY neglected parts of the back yard (as in no grass). And, took out a couple of garden hoses and have been playing with garden shapes and places. We do need to put a fence in (back yard, to keep Heidi safe), and may actually forgo yet ANOTHER weekend at the cabin to get the fence in (reserving that late June/all of July/all of August warm weather warm water time for the cabin); I'm hardpressed to start tilling and working stuff into the soil until the fence is in and I can see what things will look like with the fence in place. I will intermingle herbs, perennials, annuals and vegetables. My dad bought me several heirloom tomatoes which are happily growing in very large pots on his deck, but every time I see them, I can sense that they beckon for me and my yard. I can't begin to describe how wonderful it was today to get dirt under my nails and mud all over my legs. Fingers in roots. When we returned with the bounty, Peter looked at me and said "mom, you have that old sparkle in your eyes." It has been a very long winter, in more ways than one, and to dig was...WOW.

Adds to the appeal, IMHO.

Fifi, thanks for the report. My Butts were only $1.09/lb (did include bone) were worth every finger licking penny. To accompany them, I made the Slaw and Light Potato Salad recipes from Nigela's column in last Wednesday's NY Times Dining section. The former was a real winner. THe potato salad was great, too (how can you go wrong with a binder of bacon fat and a garnish of bacon), but is not a "fridge leftovers and eat later item" without some creative getting-to-room-temp. We ended the meal with angel food cake, strawberries (sliced, macerated with a tidge of sugar and some balsamic) and whipped cream. This was in honor of Heidi's 10th birthday, and she loves slaw. Almost as much as she loves whipped cream. We had 30 (friends and family). My butts were 6 and almost 4 pounds each. I wish they had been bigger because we certainly could have handled more leftovers. Never mind how much I ate while I was pulling. We drank beer, gin and tonics and/or lemonade. Other butt report would be appreciated. It rained off and on, so it was not a deck meal.

Since we didn't go to The Cabin this weekend, I started today out with a cup o coffee on the deck instead of the dock, and we had blueberry pancakes (buttermilk) for breakfast, using almsot all of the last of the blueberries we picked last year. Blueberry plants are amazing. Best picking, at least in our neck of the woods, is best on granite outcropings that have been recently logged. There isn't a lot of soil where we pick. The fact that these plants, and the pines growing nearby, can gain a foothold, much less grow, is amazing. The point next to our cabin has a few blueberry plants, but nothing ever more than a scant batch of pancakes. We are hoping for another good year. They seem to require: no deep freeze after the buds set; adequate rain after the fruit sets and starts to grow. In the almost 23 years I have been blueberry picking up north, only two years have been so disappointing we just cracked open half-warm cans of beer and called it a year. It seems that the more biting bugs there are, the more blueberries we will reap. The wild raspberries are usually in season at the same time which is a real treat. They are unbelievably seedy, but remarkably tasty. These things are late July/early August. My birthday is August 2, and we always plan a long cabin stay around this most auspicious of occasions. And, we can usually count on this to be blueberry season. It is also prime swimming and Northern Lights season. We return to The Cabin next Friday with the kids to celebrate our 23rd wedding anniversary. We honeymooned at The Cabin. Hopefully, the kids will be tired and go to sleep early and the water will be warmer than 46 degrees.