I Found My Thrill - Monticello Blueberry Muffins

Today - If somebody can explain to me how having a five pound bag of bread flour hit me in the head is a positive thing, now would be a good time.

Sounds of elevator music:

Picture of clock showing time ticking away:

Uh huh, I thought so.  Hearing no takers, let's just move on to me in bitching mode.

Yesterday - a Friday, it was for those who are interested in such things - was particularly horrible.  Waking up to aches, pains, and a black depression.  Somehow I dragged myself into the office, just a trifle late, trifle being a relative term.  What followed was rapid-cycling CPS (chronic pain syndrome)   which left me exhausted - passing out and can't get up from the couch exhausted.  Too tired to get out of the car exhausted.  My mood ran from laughing at Facebook while eating a Whopper with cheese no lettuce (I finally gave in) to wanting to hang my head out the window and throw up.  No fast food jokes, folks.  That Whopper was GOOD.  There were times I could zoom around and get a lot of substantive work done,  immediately followed by pain and a deep sense of regret that I could not accomplish more.  I can't control this thing; it controls me.  All I can do is live in the moments it allows me to live.

Because I crashed on the couch, I actually missed seeing the Orlando Magic win in overtime, over the LA Lakers.  I don't like the Lakers, and I don't know why my favorites, the LA Clippers, should have to share an arena with them.  Kobe who?

The Magic lost their last 10 games, which added to what is the worst record in the NBA.  Finally, a year too late, the head coach was fired.  A very nice man, Jacque Vaughn, a class act by all accounts, and a great dresser, but a terrible coach.  I don't supposed it helped him that at every home game, while most people were chanting "let's go, Magic", a very vocal contingent was harmonizing with "Fire Jacque Vaughn!"  You can see how those would go together, right?

So here is the first game under interim head coach James Borrego, and my boys pull it off, and I sleep through the whole thing.  I really really REALLY hate fibromyalgia.  Chronic pain syndrome.  Whatever.

I'm stepping out of bitching mode now.

Today, a Saturday, I finally got around to preparing those blueberry muffins.  You HAVE to try these.

Monticello Blueberry Muffins

1 box white cake mix

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2/3 cup sour cream

1/3 cup canola oil

3 large eggs

1 dry pint fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Wipe the top of the muffin pan with a paper towel sprayed with Pam.  Place a paper liner into each muffin cup.  

Set aside 36 of the blueberries. 

In a large bowl, combine the dry cake mix, baking powder, flour, sour cream, oil, and eggs, and stir together with a wooden spoon; don't worry if there are some lumps left.  Fold in the blueberries very gently with a spatula.  Let the batter sit for five or six minutes, then use the spatula to fold a few more times.

Scoop into the lined muffin cups, dividing the batter evenly between the cups.  Place three of the reserved blueberries on top of each muffin, gently pressing in to the batter.  Bake for 21 minutes in the preheated oven.  Let cool a few minutes, then remove the muffins to a metal rack to cool completely.

Makes 12 muffins.

Okay, this seems a good time to discuss just how many muffins or cupcakes my recipes yield.  I use Wilton muffin tins, which have a fairly deep well.  I have other muffin tins, dating back to the early days of married life, and I noticed that while the diameter of the top of the wells is standard, the depths of the wells are not.  So depending on the muffin tin you use, the yield will differ.  I like a nice deep muffin with a high muffin top.  This pan works perfectly for me.  

Why "Monticello" Blueberry Muffins?  Happy summer memories of picking buckets of blueberries at Camp Anawana in Monticello, upstate New York.  Wonderful Catskill years.  Lots of blueberry hills.

Mi Sheberach - Crockpot Potato Squash Gratin

Yesterday I had to use my cane for part of the day.  I haven't needed to use it in a long time, and I found it to be demoralizing.  My trial did not finish as expected.  It is difficult to know exactly how long a witness will take on the stand (although expert witnesses are pretty predictable) and I have no idea how long a defense attorney is going to need for cross examination.  I'm not sure they know either, until they hear what my witness has to say.  Bottom line is that estimates are just that, and our trials involve complex matters arising from human nature.  I try to proceed with respect for the feelings of the parents as well as the family members I often have call to testify against their own, and that takes time and a gentle touch.  I can't always anticipate how many objections defense is going to raise, or how the services of a foreign language interpreter will affect my timing.  So in addition to the damn cane, I found the fact that my trial did not finish to be demoralizing.  It was that kind of day.

More upsetting has been the recent spate of serious illnesses and surgeries and chronic illnesses plaguing a number of folks that I like, and some of whom I care for very deeply.  On a purely personal level, I pray for many things at various times, and so I have been praying for each of them.  Generally speaking, I am not a formal prayer kind of person, although I am definitely not opposed.  I figure God listens to me, no matter what the form of delivery.  Blogging my prayers are a new one, but I'm sure they will get to the right place.  Being a bit more formal today (I'm typing this during my lunch break at work, and so I am wearing pantyhose, which for me is very formal) I am saying the Jewish prayer for the sick, the Mi Shebarach.  (The Reform version, in case you couldn't figure that out.  Hello, Matriarchs!)

May the One who blessed our ancestors
Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
Matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah
bless and heal the ones who are ill:
Terry, Chris, Donna, Barbara, Carol, Cristina, Steve, George, Rick, Margie, Kaleb.

May the Holy Blessed One
overflow with compassion upon them,
to restore them,
to heal them,
to strengthen them,
to enliven them.

The One will send them, speedily,
a complete healing - 
healing of the soul and healing of the body
along with all the ill,
among the people of Israel and all humankind,
soon,
speedily,
without delay,
and let us all say:  Amen!

Work in progress.  That's all I can really say about the recipe for the potato squash gratin.  Despite what I consider to be a nice combination of flavors and textures, the finished product lacked something.  My tastebuds are always suspect especially in the evening, so I asked Cory what he thought and he said it was good, not the superlative I was hoping for, but at least a positive starting point.

There are things I might do differently next time, starting with cooking it in the oven rather than the crockpot, and uncovering it for part of the cooking time.  Definitely more cheese, one that melts better than the feta and also imparts more flavor to the dish.  More basil, plus other herbs like thyme and oregano.

3 medium yellow squash
2 large zucchini
4 medium red potatoes
4 very large whole mushrooms
3 tablespoons olive oil
small amount of crockpot caramelized onions
4 ounces crumbled feta cheese
kosher salt and black pepper
2 tablespoons butter
2 cloves garlic, cracked and peeled
1/2 cup half and half
1/8 teaspoon Raging River Five Pepper Blend (optional)
3 medium basil leaves, chiffonade
1/2 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese

Use a mandoline to slice the squash, potatoes, and onions into very, very thin slices. Toss the sliced vegetables with the 3 tablespoons olive oil in a large bowl.  Spray or oil the crockpot lightly.

Place 1/3 of the slices in the bottom of the crock - no need to layer them neatly, just spread evenly -then season with salt and pepper.  With a fork strew a few tablespoons of the onions on top of the vegetable layer, then scatter over half of the feta cheese.  Repeat with another 1/3 of the vegetables, seasoning again with salt and pepper and topping with more of the onions, and the remaining feta cheese. Finish by layering on the final 1/3 of the vegetables, season with salt and pepper, and a few more onions.  

In a small saucepan, melt the butter and add the garlic cloves.  Cook for a minute or so over medium low heat.  Add the half and half, the Raging River, and the basil chiffonade.  Turn the heat to low and let the half and half simmer for a brief while to infuse flavors of garlic and basil.  Take off the heat and allow to cool for about 5 minutes.

Pour the half and half over the gratin, cover the crockpot and cook on high for 4 hours.  Cool for 15 minutes before cutting and serving.

Oops, I did it again

You see my problem is this
I'm dreaming away
Wishing that heroes, they truly exist
I cry, watching the days
Can't you see I'm a fool in so many ways
But to lose all my senses
That is just so typically me
Oh baby, oh

Oops, I did it again

Sweet God of mercy, WHY am I such a procrastinator?  All I do is stress myself out!  I should know better.  I DO know better.  Great googly moogly, why do I do this to myself?

Don't ask what I procrastinated about.  It's just one more in a very long line of my death defying deadlines that set my heart racing and my heartburn churning.  And here I was feeling good about some of the things I had managed to accomplish - I got my blood taken for testing; I went to my doctor's office and got another referral for the colonoscopy I've managed to avoid for 12 years; I zipped into Publix and picked up the cake mix I needed to make the blueberry muffins; and I got my nails done, just before it would have been too late to salvage them.  I even picked up dinner for the family, having had a huge debate with myself over whether I should personally indulge in a Big Mac or a Whopper Jr. with onion rings.  I have this debate at least twice a week, and I never give in.  I didn't give in this time either, instead picking up a family meal at Long John Silver's.  All deep fried, I admit, but deep fried to order.   Then I came home to a house temporarily devoid of humans, and cleaned up after the dogs and cat.  Took me a while and that's all I am going to say about that, or my hair may catch on fire.

None of that changes the fact that I am still going to have to deal with the fallout from my latest procrastination, which is probably going to involve falling on my sword and bleeding profusely into the carpet.  Sometimes I can pull the project off despite procrastinating past the point of no return, but this is not likely to be one of them.  Sort of like when I opened my calculus book for the very first time the night before the final exam.  That was procrastination at its highest level.  If there had been a contest for Queen of the Procrastinators, I would have left the competition far behind.  Before that crown sat too comfortably on my head, however, I failed the course, the only time I ever failed anything in school, from kindergarten through law school.  Therein lies the cautionery tale, my friends.

Wish me luck.

Just Gonna Toke Up With My Buddy

SUNY New Paltz had the No. 1 per capita rate of students with drug arrests on campus -- 13.9 per 1,000 students, or 105 on-campus drug arrests in 2013. The school was No. 107 in 2012, with 24 on-campus drug arrests. (Huffington Post, February 2, 2015)

In 1970, despite standing 91 in a class of 619 and graduating with an 88.42% average, nobody wanted me except New Paltz.  I had applied to exactly four SUNY schools - State University of New York at Stony Brook, Albany, New Paltz, and Oneonta - and by February of my senior year, I knew I was in.  All I really wanted was to get away from home, so this suited me just fine.

What I didn't know was that New Paltz was ranked as the number two drug school in the country, right behind UC Berkeley and just ahead of SUNY Stony Brook.  It wasn't the sort of thing I was looking for and certainly was not included in the information I pored over in my well-thumbed volume of  1000 American Colleges and Universities.

New, New, New Paltz...
New, New, New Paltz...
New Paltz is good enough for me.
I ain't gonna work and I ain't gonna study,
Just gonna toke up with my buddy,
New Paltz is good enough for me!!!!!!

In my sophomore year, we got a campus radio station with a theme song.  Quaaludes were really popular then, so much so that the following year I named my lab rat Quaalude Cannabinol.  My reluctant nod to the prevalent drug culture.  

I'm not sure who did the ranking, nor what it was based upon.  Not arrests, not then.  Nelson Rockefeller was Governor of the State of New York, and the SUNY system was one of the prize jewels of his administration.  The story was that at least state law enforcement knew not to engage in any on-campus drug busts.  I am guessing the locals were similarly advised.  At any rate, I knew of exactly one drug bust during the 2 years I attended the school.  Unfortunately, it involved my lab partner from chemistry class, a dude named Paul, who made the mistake of dealing dope off-campus. I never saw him again.  Never.

At this juncture in my reminiscing, let me assure you that at no point during this post am I going to confess to using drugs during my college years, or any year that I was in school (and since I was in school, one way or another until almost forty, you can guess where I am coming from.  I'm as square as they come, I admit it.)

With Monday's article, is proof of that old chestnut "the more things change, the more they stay the same."  Too bad.  I never knew anyone whose life was improved by slavish devotion to weed or powder or pill.  I could rant on ... another time.  I had good times in New Paltz, and made the type of friendships that last a lifetime. No pot heads.

Today's new is bad news.  Anti-vaxxers and a measles epidemic.  Crippling blizzards everywhere but Florida.  Islamic terrorists burning hostages alive.  What, beheading wasn't barbaric enough for them?  These are the worst kind of animals, beasts without any kind of conscience.  They are modern day Nazis, and I do not say that lightly.With all due respect, the President is wrong.  Dead frakking wrong.  Stupidly, stubbornly, arrogantly wrong.  Of course, former President Bush was also mind-numbingly wrong in delaying his attack on Bin Ladin and Al Qaeda so that Afghani tribal chiefs could help us find them. He should have carpet-bombed the region on September 12, 2001.

You cannot appease people like this.  Ask Neville Chamberlain's ghost.  Ask the six million Jews, and the millions of gay, Roma, Sinti, and handicapped people who were tortured, experimented upon, and murdered by Hitler's Nazi regime.  Ask the American soldiers who helped to liberate the Nazi concentration camps.

My back still feels like it is breaking, in part because I stood on my two little feet for the better part of three hours during my morning trial.  There will be no food shopping or cooking this evening. I have a mad craving for take-out Chinese food, but I'm not sure the stars are properly aligned to have that happen.  I hurt, I'm cold, my brain is sluggish although not foggy.  My office looks like my files engaged in raucous, illicit sex during the night and gave birth to an exploding population of more blue files, cluttering my desk, my shelves, my chairs, my floor.  Cognitive overload.  Too many notes, damn it.  I will be finishing my trial tomorrow morning, thanks to the Great Gods of Litigation.  Thereafter, I can jump right into preparation for my next two trials set for late next week.  Two termination of parental rights trials.  Very sad and that's all I'm going to say about that.

Before that, though, I just gotta do some cooking.  Coming home, curling up in my corner, watching the news, and knitting, just seems so darn decadent when it hasn't been preceded by some kind of cooking.  There's that Jewish guilt, lapping at my shoes. Or it could be Chelsea, lapping at my ankles.  In this household, one never knows.

For this evening, I'm going to continue knitting, because it's not like anyone is going to starve.  There are still a few meals worth of leftovers. Also, my son can, and does subsist on ramen noodle bowls that he fixes up with fresh garlic cloves and eggs, a pungent combination that makes my stomach juices curdle. 

Every man for himself.  Just this once, okay?

Ground Hog Day - Single Serving Alfredo Sauce

Super Bowl is over (happy dance).  Monday morning and I am waiting for my trial to be called (sigh).  It's also Groundhog Day, and I sincerely hope that Mayor DeBlassio hasn't killed another groundhog.

A groundhog and his shadow are a very famous pair 
They forecast the weather, together — a trick that is rare! 
The one little thing that bothers me when out of doors I go 
Now, does my shadow mean springtime or 16 feet of snow? 

Never know which, I just can’t remember 
Will it be warm — or make like December? 
The whole thing just confuses me and that is why I sing, “
A groundhog’s shadow just doesn’t mean a thing.” 

Yes indeed, today's ear worm is brought to you courtesy of Warner Brothers cartoons, and this is one I saw fairly often when I was just a cub and too young for Walter Cronkite or Perry Mason.  It's been in my head ever since and comes out every February 2, or whenever I watch the movie with Bill Murray.  I love Bill Murray.  

My trial will start tomorrow morning ... we really need to get back to time-certain trials.  Docket soundings don't really work, at least not well, when you have the number and variety of witnesses we tend to have.  So I am making lists:  of witnesses, doctors, dentists and laboratories to call, dogs to wash, food items to pick up, recipes to prepare and the hopeful entry for "nail fill and pedicure."  Yeah, right.

There's not a lot of time to spend on thinking and imagining and considering, due to having to finish up trial prep and otherwise work for a living, but I did find a few lunch time moments to think about the following problem:  what the hell am I going to do with those zucchini and yellow squash???  When I bought them, I thought I would steam them in the rice cooker while I also cooked a special rice blend I had in the pantry, but that idea never achieved fruition.  I baked those delicious zucchini carrot muffins, but only needed one zuke for the entire recipe.  I hate to waste vegetables, so I've been searching through the internet as well as my entire cookbook and recipe collection for inspiration, and more specifically, a recipe that doesn't include tomatoes.  I found something, but it involves goat cheese.  I hate goat cheese, right up there with hating blue cheese and very ripe brie.  I researched substitutes.  I have some good ideas.  What I don't have are the ingredients I need (except for the zucchini and squash, of course) nor the energy to do any food shopping.

Toward the end of the day, my back and neck started to feel broken, and I had to cut the day a little short and head home.  Even if I'd had everything I needed, I could not have stood on my feet long enough to prepare the dish, a lovely-sounding gratin which requires some time with the mandoline.  The only thing I was able to do was whip up a very small alfredo to enjoy over a very small amount of very small pasta.

Alfredo Sauce for a Small Planet

1/3 cup dry pasta (small, like ditalini), cooked according to package directions and drained
1 tablespoon butter
1 clove garlic, cracked
1/2 cup half and half
2 tablespoons Parmesan

Melt the butter in a very small saucepan and add the garlic.  Cook for about a minute.  Add the half and half and bring to a simmer.  Cook until the half and half is reduced by half.  Stir in the Parmesan, and season with salt and pepper.  Discard the garlic.  Add drained pasta and toss.  Transfer to a small bowl and immediately chow down.  This serves one.

You can also just forget the pasta and use this as a dipping sauce for garlic bread.  Ask me how I know.