Good things from the garden - Knockwurst Lentil Soup

I could crawl back into bed, I really could, and be done with the day. This is a TBA day (Total Body Ache) and it has me feeling sad before I even get started. Having said that, I am very glad I did haul this creaky old carcass out of bed, into clothes, and down the stairs. Road trip!

We - Rob, James and I - took one giant step closer to completion of my urban garden. Another trip to Home Depot for all kinds of practical stuff, like trellises and plant stakes. And then the plants, oh the plants!

Roses

The bougainvillea and the crotons are going to give a finished look to the front corner closest to the parking lot. The other plants, together with the other vegetables I picked up last week, are going to feed my family. No, really.

Green peas

Cucumber

Radicchio

"Never rub another man's rhubarb"

Ichiban and Black Beauty Eggplants

Tomatillos and Onions

And of course, tomatoes, eight kinds in total, including Mr. Stripey. I hope to be able to get both ripe and green tomatoes.  Fried green tomatoes, oh my.

That's as far as I got today; there are limits, and I reached mine pretty rapidly, without doing any lifting heavier than a tomato plant. I did prepare a favorite soup, incorporating the first vegetable harvest of this planting season, one perfect jalapeño.  I'm also in the midst of revising and finalizing the planting chart so my helpers can place things where I think they ought to be.

Knockwurst Lentil Soup:

I have been making this soup for 40 years and it never fails me. I originally got it from Weight Watchers, the really old, pre-Point Weight Watchers when Jean Nidetch still owned the company and if we wanted to bake anything we started by turning our daily bread allowance into crumbs. This recipe stands out among all the other WW recipes we collected, because it was so normal; there's no trickery or transformation. There is also not a drop of oil added. Even though my Weight Watcher days are over, I love this soup.

I admit to you now that this is the 2015 version; the jalapeño is the giveaway. I had never bought, much less used a jalapeño in my cooking, circa 1975. Same for the fresh herbs. In fact, the only fresh herb I ever saw my mother use was dill for her chicken soup, and back then, the grocer gave the dill away. Now that was service. I still occasionally pine for Waldbaum's, especially their deli counter, full of pickled herring and lox that was sliced right in front of you. Yeah, I love New York.

1 large onion, chopped

2 carrots, finely chopped

1 large stalk of celery, finely chopped

1 large clove of garlic, minced

1 jalapeño, finely chopped

1 - 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes, undrained

2 Knorr chicken bouillon cubes, broken up

1 teaspoon chopped lemon thyme leaves

1/4 teaspoon granulated garlic

1/4 teaspoon dried thyme

1 pound of lentils, cooked according to package directions, drained and cooking liquid reserved

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1 bay leaf

2 Hebrew National knockwurst, thinly sliced

kosher salt

ground black pepper

flat leaf parsley and additional lemon thyme leaves, chopped

In a large pot, combine the first 10 ingredients and cook on medium-high for 10 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Stir often, and if this looks dry, add a small amount of the liquid from the lentils to prevent it from burning. 

Add enough water to the reserved cooking liquid to equal 5 cups, and add this liquid to the pot along with the cooked lentils, wine vinegar, and bay leaf. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat, cover the pot, and simmer for 30 minutes. Add the knockwurst, cover the pot, and simmer for another 5 to 10 minutes. Remove the cover and taste to adjust seasonings, including the salt and pepper. Stir in the parsley and lemon thyme.

If you can't get lemon thyme, use the regular fresh thyme, or just use a little more of the dried thyme.

Would you be my neighbor? - Yellow Squash Soufflé

A beautiful day for a neighbor,
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
It's a neighborly day in this beautywood,
A neighborly day for a beauty,
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?

I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you,
I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.

That lovely house next to mine, fronting on Clyde Street, is for sale. My neighbors moved out so fast, it was like watching an episode of The Flash. People, lights, and vehicles zooming about at super-speed. The day after the cleaning crew left, the sign went up. I hope the move was for a happy reason, like a well-paying promotion, but I guess I'll never know. Yes, none of my business and all that. If you are looking for a home or office space in downtown Kissimmee, it's worth a look. Olde Kissimmee Realty.

Today was the day I set for myself to work on my disability paperwork, and I did, and most of it is headed to their intended recipients.  I did not go to pieces, or walk away, or scream amd beat my breast. There was a brief moment that I wanted to spit back snarky answers, but I got control while laughing and treated the forms like the serious matter they are.  Endless questions - but almost all of them were relevant.I took my time, answered truthfully, and while rereading it, was surprised how screwed up my life has gotten because of my illnesses. 

I did not cook - my back went out, and that is that - but nobody is starving here. I did not do any planting - same back problem, and besides, I need someone to take care of the 10-10-10 fertilizer - move a deceptively heavy bag, distribute it among the beds, and rake it in. Maybe I'll start tomorrow. Soon.

The squash soufflé was awesome! The only thing I would change is to increase the amount of squash I used. The original recipe called for 2 pounds, but I went forward with just the 1.5 pounds in the Green Giant package.  I would have liked that extra half pound to up the squash flavor. Despite that, it was delicious; the texture was exactly what I wanted.  Don't skip the steps separating the eggs and beating the whites, it makes a difference.

Yellow Squash Soufflé 

1 1/2 to 2 pounds yellow summer squash
2 tablespoons butter
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 large garlic clove, chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and chopped
24 Ritz crackers, crushed (I put them in a ziptop bag and use my hands to break them up)
1/2 pound grated cheese, Mexican blend (or cheddar)
4 extra-large eggs, separated
1/2 cup whole milk
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon sugar
ground black pepper, to taste
cayenne pepper, to taste

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. With butter flavor no-stick spray, coat an aluminum baking dish.

Cut the squash into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Cook in boiling, salted water until softened, about 20 minutes. Drain. Purée with an immersion blended.  Drain again, using a fine mesh colander. Let it sit in the colander until ready to combine with the other ingredients.

In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium heat and add the olive oil to heat up. Add the onion, garlic, bell peppers, and jalapeño and cook until the onions are brown and tender.

Beat the egg whites with an electric beater until you have fairly stiff peaks (add a bit of cream of tartar during beating). Set aside. With the same beaters, mix the egg yolks for just a few seconds. With a wooden spoon, mix the squash purée, onions, peppers, garlic, cracker crumbs and cheese. Stir in the egg yolks, milk, sugar and seasonings. With a rubber spatula, fold in the beaten egg whites. Pour into the baking dish and bake until the top is lightly browned and the center firm, about 50 minutes.

Passed Out On a Sunday - Cheatin' Eggplant Parm

I just inadvertently erased two whole paragraphs, damn damn DAMN! All about Chelsea suffering from terrible itching throughout the night, and me up with her trying to make her comfortable. Bottom line, I woke up later than I would have liked, in pain, in minor panic, and not able to do much of anything. So no shopping trip to the garden center, and certainly no planting.

Cooking? Well now that's a possibility, but even that is a stretch.  As you may have seen at the end of yesterday's post, I picked up the new Pioneer Woman cookbook that I had been waiting for, mostly patiently, to show up at BJ's. I definitely want to take my time going through all of her recipes, and who knows what will pique my interest?  I also have a couple of projects buzzing around like bees in my head.  Bees ... I need even more flowers to attract bees to the garden.

I'm definitely going to make my knockwurst lentil soup. And cheatin' eggplant parm.  Beyond that, I couldn't say. Well, maybe I could - squash casserole.  Crockpot spareribs. Oxtails? Paella?

The cheatin' eggplant parm gets its name because I bypassed the most labor intensive part of the process, the eggplant itself. No peeling, slicing, salting, rinsing, breading, or frying.  I buy a nice big box of good quality breaded eggplant slices - I think it's Michelangelo brand, available in BJ's - and I bake about 18 of the best-sized pieces in the convection oven at 400 degrees, after spraying the pan and the top side of the eggplant with a no-stick olive oil, until the slices are done and brown.

Layer the eggplant with sauce (and I use Hunt's, which is cheap and perfect for this dish) and a couple of cheeses - I had grated Romano, shredded mozzarella, and thinly sliced provolone - and bake until the cheese is melted.  Seriously, this is college dorm cooking, as good and easy today as it was 40 years ago.

Can anyone explain to me why I am having a panic attack? Damn thing snuck up on me while I was working on the squash casserole - squash soufflé, really, since we're down south and all. Why now, why me?

It was a good day, although not totally what I expected it to be. I got things done, not just cooking. I caught up on last night's Doctor Who (excellent!) and even had Breakfast with Baker. James finished filling in all the dirt, and also power-washed the house, so everything is ready for me to start planting. Before planting, however, I have to go through paperwork, both for state and for federal disability benefits. After much thought, I have decided to appeal the decision of the state, so there are some forms to deal with for that. Then I have extensive forms to fill out for Social Security. Huh. Maybe that explains the panic attack.

The squash soufflé came out pretty darn delicious. Recipe and commentary tomorrow. Oh, and there is a cruise or three in our future. Things are looking up. I ate the squash for dinner and it stayed down. Booyah!

Keep Calm and Get a Pedicure

It has been a long time since I threw you folks an earworm - I guarantee you will be hearing Marni Nixon's sweet voice in your head for days.

I feel pretty, oh so pretty
I feel pretty and witty and bright
And I pity any girl who isn't me tonight

I feel charming, oh so charming
It's alarming how charming I feel
And so pretty that I hardly can believe I'm real

About once every six weeks I allow myself to be pampered by Tammy at Decent Nails with a pedicure. I don't consider the nail fill to be pampering - that's a necessary, like a haircut, but unlike the self-administered haircut I can't apply my own acrylic nails. The pedicure, though - I could do that myself, but then I wouldn't get to sit in the massage chair while the nice lady applies moist heat and massages my feet and lower legs. Also she has that exquisite patience necessary to properly nip and shape my ugly little toenails, whereas I am likely to whack them off to the quick because they annoy me. When I leave here at the end of 2 hours, still unable to speak one word of Vietnamese, I will feel relaxed and pretty and for a little while will have forgotten about fibromyalgia, anti-semitism, and Trey Gowdy's hair.

I came across this article today on Facebook and I will tell you that I was so horrified I did not click on the link. In fact, I changed the title of the article for the purposes of this blog, and I am not providing the link: "Woman Defiles Jimmy Dean Sausage in Walmart Bathroom."

At one level, it is hysterically funny - typical Walmartian behavior, I can hear some people chuckling - but then I realized this spoke to a much bigger social problem, maybe more. First, chances are this woman is seriously mentally ill - okay, I'm stating the obvious here, but that being the case, does she really need to have her name and embarrassing behavior headlined by the media, and made to go viral over the Internet?  How does a therapist help her deal with that?

Second, and perhaps more importantly, why are our young people being exposed to articles like this, in the mainstream or even tabloid media?  How do we raise our children to respect privacy and modesty when we're all okay with prurient details like this being published? I am reminded of my abject horror, courtesy of the Supreme Pervert, Kenneth Starr, when a generation of very young children learned about oral sex leading up to and during the impeachment proceedings of President Bill Clinton.

I also remember a time when woman's sanitary products could not be advertised on TV, and when the media did not report on a President's personal peccadillos. Ads for Viagra and Cialis, with their blunt talk about 4-hour erections, or obsessing on the nitty-gritty details of presidential affairs, this offends me. Yes me, a child of the sixties, raised in the era of free love and cheap drugs.  I remember that there were always rumors, but they were not reported in the media.

We baby boomers may have invented the phrase "let it all hang out" but all the wildness was for the very young, and then we all outgrew the silliness. Baby boomers grew up, graduated college, got jobs, got married, and raised children without allowing them to be exposed to the sex lives of strangers. We got old. We retired.  Some of us got downright crotchety (mea culpa).

Did the President really veto increases in pay to the armed forces? Well, two out of three ain't bad ... what I am referring to is the President's remarks expressing concern over the death penalty and his request to deemphasize testing in schools. On these matters, I can get behind him 110%, which is totally unusual for me. But denying pay adjustments to our military? He just slid back into the "big dope" category.

The birthday party was lovely ... I certainly did not look as good at fifty as my friend Laura.  I had to take a nap earlier in the day to ensure I could make it to the party. So I did, and I did, and it was grand.  

No cooking today, but we did do a bit of shopping at BJ's earlier in the day, and I have Plans.

Rage of Angels - Go Scratch Green Bean Casserole

Wednesday - Nothing went the way I planned. Oh, I got things done, but totally out of order.  And while I was out shopping, the pain hit in a new location, and proved itself resistant to Zantac. Always pain of one sort or another, and pain is a distraction. But I'm not disabled, says the State of Florida. Pain and fuzziness shift from hour to hour; oh sure I can do a TPR trial! Good thing I won't take opioids, eh? Oh sure, I can draft a Final Judgment from a two week trial, to be checked and criticized by Attila the Hunny.  And I can certainly put in day after day of court hearings and be expected to stand there with a poker face, parroting back every single thing that ever happened in the case, causing us to have to work 2 hours late every day, because I have my cane to lean on. And when Attila throws one of her patented hissy fits, I've got 25 years experience and some drug with a weird name to keep me from having that panic attack which is going to fracture whatever composure I have left ... except the drug is really for depression, so at least I won't be depressed about going to pieces in a public arena.

Bitter? Hear that hollow laugh!  Why yes, I put a little makeup on my face and look a little better, so how can I be sick? What the fuck does "sick" look like?  What job can I do, oh might Division of Disability Determination, if I clearly can no longer function consistently and efficiently as a lawyer?              

I don't usually know where the rage comes from, but when it's there, it's not easy being me. This is killer anger, and when I hold it in to avoid being arrested on possible charges of aggravated assault or battery, I feel like my head is going to explode. That's where I am now, and that's where I was a half hour ago when I posted this on Facebook:

"Despite 10 hours of being grilled, yelled at, insulted, and lectured to by partisan Republican hatchet men (and women), Mrs. Clinton remained calm and non confrontational, answered every question put to her by this travesty of a committee, never trying to avoid the tough questions, even though there were many times the person barking the question at her began hollering over her answers so that it was hard to hear her. I don't know why anyone would rhapsodize about Trey Gowdy's skills as a federal prosecutor. I would say, however, he has proven himself to be an able persecutor. This travesty of an interrogation has to end before the Republican members of the committee do additional damage to US reputation abroad and at home."

It's not just the Benghazi committee-from-hell, you understand; when this happens, anything and everything sets it off. I don't know if this is a symptom of the fibromyalgia or something from my long-term emotional issues. I do know that it interferes with my ability to function. I hate this.

Boy, the mood of this blog post went south all of a sudden. Let's change that ...

Today (Friday) is my cousin Cary's birthday.  Happy birthday to my brother from another mother, one of the nicest guys around. Love you, cuz!

Go Scratch Green Bean and Mushroom Casserole

That should be "from scratch"- there's no cream of mushroom soup nor (sob!) French's French Fried onions in this multi-step, multi-pot casserole. Is it worth all the work? You be the judge (just not THAT judge. You know who I mean.) If it's not, I suppose you could tell me to "go scratch" or drop dead or even f**k off.  But I think you will be pleased, I really do.

Prepare:

1. Ree Drummond's Onion Strings (includes a soaking period, so start these first)

• 1 whole large onion, sliced super-thin and separated into rings
• 1 quart buttermilk
• Crystal Hot Sauce, to taste (this is my addition to Ree's recipe)
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon (scant) salt
• 1/4 teaspoon (to 1/2 teaspoon) cayenne pepper
• black pepper, to taste
• 1 quart (to 2 quarts) canola oil

Go to her blog by clicking on the link and then follow her directions.

2. Green Beans

• 1 pound of fresh green beans, trimmed and cut crosswise into thirds or quarters

Blanch in boiling water for five to six minutes, drain in a colander, and plunge into a bowl of ice-cold water to stop the cooking. Return to the colander and drain well. Set aside.

3. Mushroom Bechamel Sauce

• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 pound cremini or button mushrooms, trimmed, sliced about 1/4 inch thick
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
• 6 tablespoons flour
• 1 1/4 cup white wine
• 1 Knorr chicken bouillon cube
• 1 1/4 cup half and half
• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
• 1 tablespoon fresh oregano leaves
• Kosher salt
• ground black pepper
• ground white pepper
• smoked paprika

Melt the butter in a large skillet, and add the olive oil. Next add the mushrooms and cook on medium-high for about 10 minutes.  Add the onion and garlic and cook until the onions are translucent with some browning around the edges. Do not let the garlic get too dark.

Now add the flour, sprinkling it over all of the vegetables.  With a wooden spoon stir while cooking so that the flour coats all of the vegetables. You are making a roux here, so the flour will need a few minutes to cook out the floury smell.

Once that is done, add the wine and the Knorr cubes, and bring to a boil. Stir constantly; when the liquid has thickened, lower the heat and add the half and half and the remaining ingredients.  Cook until the sauce is heated through and well-thickened.  If it is too thick, add a small amount of half and half to thin it out.  Fold in the cooked green beans, and transfer to a baking dish.  Top the dish with about half of the onion strings, then cover with foil.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30-45 minutes until the casserole is bubbly.  Take the foil off for the last few minutes of baking if you like the onions extra crispy.

Yes, it is more work than the traditional casserole, but a real showstopper for your holiday table.