S.C.U.M.Y

It's going to be a SCUMY weekend for Mensa Boy and our oldest son Nate. They are going to the beach for the South Carolina United Methodist Youth Convention. Preacher Tony boy is going along as a chaperone, too. The youth group at church has really grown. I have no idea how many kids are going, but I know it's in the double digits. Pretty good for a small church like ours.

So Taylor and I are batchin' it this weekend. I bought King Crab Legs for supper as a surprise. I did this a couple of years ago and we had them with neighbor Mary. This year Taylor's buddy Freddy may be with us.

Earlier this week Nate did some job shodowing with a biology professor at the University of South Carolina-Lancaster. He liked it a lot. Didn't come home saying he wanted to teach at the college level, but he did think that whole teaching thing was pretty cool.

My buddy who works for the county picked Nate up that morning and took him to work with her, and then ran him over to the campus at 9:30. During the 40 minutes they were in her office, she had him do a task for him. Stuffing envelopes. Here's what transpired:

"I'm not licking these shut, right?" Nate asked.

"Nope. That's someone else's job," she replied.

"Well, I guess I'm done then. What else would you like me to do?"

"There is nothing else. You should have paced yourself."

"Well, what else do you do all day?"

"Hmmm...at 11 I go pick up the mail." (it was 9 a.m.)

Off, On

School.

It began with the power unceremoniously blinking off at 6:40 a.m. One never knows the extent of an outage until the cold is braved and the neighborhood is scoped out. It was obvious from the start that it involved at least our street...everyone's porch lights were out.

Mensa Boy left for work and when he called a few minutes later I asked if he could tell how far the outage went. "Just past the school," he said. The building had some emergency lights on, and the traffic signals ("red lights" in southern-speak) were out.

Then buddy Rena called. "No school today," she said. "We can take the kids to school but they will sit in the gym until the power comes back on around 10 or so." She said if the kids don't come today they will not be counted absent. She took hers back home.

So I decided to go to the school to pick up Fred, the little guy who comes to my house after school each day. I knew his mother had dropped him at school.

But when I arrived, the lights were back on. Everything back to normal.

So I called Rena. She was just leaving the house and circled back to the get her kids again. I picked mine up and took them to school. Passed Rena at the 4-way stop by our house. She was delayed getting her kids back to the school because she'd already had them change into play clothes. "I told them they could wear those school clothes (uniforms) tomorrow, so to change to play clothes," she said.

So now it's 8:40 and things appear to be back to normal. Except that I appear to have pulled a muscle when I tried to keep the garage door from sliding down on my head.

A.M. and P.M. Yoga

I wrote about Candelight Yoga the other day. I still don't have that DVD...it's supposed to arrive at Barnes & Noble sometime today (and since I'm such a procrastinator, I'll have to get the guys' Valentines when I go pick up the DVD).

I was very stiff and sore Friday night and just felt like I needed to get some sort of yoga thing going before the other DVD came in. So I checked out several on Amazon and found that this one is the top-selling one. Lots and lots of great customer reviews.

And every one of them is well-deserved. This is truly a wonderful DVD.

The A.M practice is done by Rodney Yee...the guy on the cover. The P.M one is done by Patricia Walden. The music is very good and I've found myself leaving the disk in the player turned on and letting it loop as I get ready for bed. Both instructors are a joy to watch and have great, soothing voices with no weird stuff. They don't get into a lot of mystical conversation and they don't have funny ways of pronouncing words. Yee is on a beach in Hawaii and Walden is in the desert, so the scenery is very relaxing, too.

What I like is that the practices are really part meditative as well as the physical stretching. Julie and I did a meditation CD while I was there and I found it to be very relaxing (although we had a hard time not cracking up at the way the guy said the word "warm"). But you'd have to carve out time to do the yoga and then time to do the meditation. This DVD pretty much wraps it all together and you can get done in 20 minutes.

Pulling the Plug

The other day I received copies of Mom and Dad's wills in the mail. I was talking to Mom on the phone and I had asked her if Dad happened to mention that I was hoping to get 2 of her 10 wineglasses that she brought back from Germany. She said he'd mentioned it, but that she didn't want to part with any of them.

"You can't take them with you, you know...," I said.

"I know. But I want them for as long as I'm around," she replied.

I told her I would be too old to taste wine by the time she kicks the bucket at 110. She said she didn't care.

So later in the conversation I said that the wills had arrived.

"No living wills?" I asked.

"No," she said.

"I wish you had done those," I told her. "I won't have trouble with the other two when you are cold and dead in the ground, but I'll have to work hard getting them to let me pull the plug."

She agreed that they should do those.

"I'll be rushing to get that plug pulled, you know," I said.

"Why?" she asked.

"SO I CAN GET THE WINE GLASSES!" I told her.

My New Fun Thing-Yoga

While I was visiting my friend Julie, we tried out a couple of yoga DVDs. We'd talked about it before I came...plotting to attend a class or two during my visit. But we weren't able to find a class that fit in with our schedule. What does that tell you? We didn't have a schedule! The yoga options in Rochester, Minnesota are kind of limited.

Anyway, after we had supper Friday night, Julie remembered that she'd not checked the mail. When she opened the front door, she found a gift from some one of her husband's coworkers...a yoga DVD called "Candelight Yoga." What great timing!

So, despite our having full stomachs and at least one glass of wine already, we trooped down the family room to give the DVD a go.

It was EXCELLENT! I've ordered my own copy from Barnes & Noble now.

I've only done yoga a couple of times. There is a small class that meets here in Indian Land at our Boy Scout hut on Mondays at 3:30. But that time does not work really well for me. And I kind of hated to get all excited about it because it only meets once a week. The class was quite hard, too, as it's an hour long and some of the stretches are held for very long periods of time, which tended to make me sore at the end.

This practice is 43 minutes long. I'll use it for days when I don't go to Jazzercise as a "long practice." It was easy to follow and the instructor is not annoying. She's in a class so you can see other students, some of whom are doing slight variations based upon their abilities. There is also a short "energizing" practice that I liked, too.

MP3 Challenged

I think God doesn't want me to have an MP3 player. Well, I'm actually pretty sure God doesn't care. But he's sure not waving any magic dust that allows me to overcome MP3 obstacles.

It all began with Napster. Have I mentioned that I love Napster? Oh yeah! Here (ignore the menopause drivel), and here and here...it goes on and on.

So Napster? I'm happy with. The $50 MP3 player I bought when I joined? Not so much. I've actually burned through 2 of them now. After a month or so of enjoying them, they tend to freeze up or go blank. Napster has cheerfully replaced the first one and they say they are cheerfully replacing the second one, although it hasn't shown up since my conversation with the Napster person on January 9.

But it gets worse. I appear to have burned out my son Taylor's IAudio player, too. It's certainly not a big deal to him...it was not compatible with Napster and so we'd bought him a new player for Christmas.

I was planning my trip to Minnesota and thought I should carry along some tunes. For the plane, you know. Or those middle-of-the-night stints of wakefulness. It took the better part of a day to go through our CD collection, load the music onto the guy's computer and convert them to MP3 files, meticulously naming all the songs (for some reason the track names would not convert). I had this little 1 MB player completely full of great music. Everything from Trace Adkins to R. Carlos Nakai, Go Fish to Adie. I was excited.

I used it for the flight to Minnesota. Put it away. The battery was low. I plugged it into my friend Julie's computer to charge it back up and it froze.

On.

The screen was lit, a song was listed (K T Tunstall: "Another Place to Fall"), and it just stopped. No navigating, no nothing.

Just a few minutes ago, as I started to write this missive, I decided to try plugging it back into the guy's computer, now that I'm back home. The software for it is on there. Maybe it will just come back. I doubt it.

But usually I'm not the technologically challenged. I can't figure it out.

Somewhat Clueless at Times

I'm ashamed to admit how long it sometimes takes for me to notice things.

Today for the first time I noticed that the Harris Teeter grocery carts have these cool wire rings soldered on them for coffee cups. I noticed it today because I considered buying a cup of coffee at Target and decided not to because it would be too hard to navigate my grocery cart with one hand.

Duh.

But there are times when I realize others can be as goofy as I. Like when I send a text message to multiple recipients about mormons and later realize they thought I said "morons!" I'm still chuckling over that one.

Today I'm making Mardi Gras King Cake and a pressure cooker Chicken Gumbo for a food story I'm writing this weekend. I'm going to encourage people to have a Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday party. I'll post photos and recipes later.

Just How Cold Was It?

So. I'm back home now and it's much more reasonable here, temperature-wise. My smarty-pants friend Julie said to me today in an email:

"It is still flippin’ cold here. Below zero again. Do you want to know how much below? Ha."

This got to be a bit of a joke with us. I basically froze my toes from the time I landed there until I landed in Atlanta on the way home. I tried not to complain too much, but these things have a tendency to just slip out! So of course Julie was concerned the entire time. She wanted me to be comfortable. Offered me a robe. Offered me socks. Built nice fires in the fireplace for me to roast my feet.

And yet, for all that concern, she somehow felt compelled to ANNOUNCE THE TEMPERATURE every time it occurred to her!

"It's -4."

"really?"

[time goes by]

"It's -9."

"hmm..."

When someone is so cold that it's pretty much more than 50% of what they think about, it's not really that wise to keep reminding them exactly how cold it is.

I'm Baaaack! (maybe)

Well, my other blog is pretty much dead. I poured a cup of coffee into my laptop (of course it was by accident, silly!) and now I am unable to update my "Gone to Carolina" blog.

I thought about giving up blogging altogether, but I seem to be missing the writing exercise.

I'm still not sure that this is where I'll land, but at least it's somewhere for me to write my thoughts and adventures until I decide what to do.

This blog, "No Food Left Behind," is titled after my food column that I do perodically for our weekly newspaper. My intention with this blog originally was that it would just be photos and recipes. But I'd gotten hopelessly behind on that since July, too, so it's been just lying dormant for half a year.

Today I am writing from Rochester, Minnesota, where I am visiting my friend Julie. We have been hanging out in the subzero temps since Friday morning, mostly consuming wine and sitting in front of the fireplace. But also we've eaten out a couple of times, cooked together at home, and done some yoga and pilates. Right now I'm waiting for my friend Lis to hit town. She's coming down from the Twin Cities to spend the day and night with us before taking me back up with her to drop me at my sister's.

It's -10 here. The first email of the day was from my friend Don, who informed me that highs at home on Wednesday will be in the 60s. My response?

"Shaddup!"

Peppered Tuna

This is about as quick a meal as you can make. It is, however, a bit tricky to get the fish cooked just right...done all the way through without being overdone.

Peppered Tuna
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic.

4 tuna steaks or other firm, meaty steaks, approximately 3/4 inch thick (6-8 oz each)
Coarsely ground black pepper
Kosher salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup dry red wine
2 tablespoons minced or chopped garlic
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
Juice from 1 orange

Liberally cover the tuna steaks on both sides with pepper and salt, pressing into flesh. In a large, heavy skillet, heat oil over high heat until shimmering. Add tuna steaks and sear for 3 to 4 minutes on each side. Remove tuna from skillet, reduce heat to low, and add wine, garlic, vinegar and orange juice, scraping to loosen browned bits. Cook until mixture is thick and syrupy, 3 to 4 minutes. Return tuna to skillet and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, turning once.

From “The Saltwater Cookbook: Fish and Seafood from Ocean to Table,” by Tim Lauer. 2004 Creative Publishing.

For The Lancaster News

Fiery Cajun Shrimp

Cajun Shrimp
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic.

This is a dish you just don't get over. Once you have it, you just have to have it again. But I don't use all this butter every time.

2 cups (4 sticks) melted butter
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons ground pepper
2 tablespoons hot sauce (recommended: Texas Pete)
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons salt
5 pounds unpeeled medium shrimp
2 lemons, sliced thinly
French bread for dipping

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Stir together the butter, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, pepper, hot sauce, garlic, and salt. Pour half this mixture into a large heatproof dish (9 x 13). Layer half the shrimp and half the lemon slices in the dish; then form a second layer with the remaining shrimp and lemon slices, and pour remaining sauce into the dish. Bake, uncovered, for 20 minutes, or until the shrimp are pink, stirring twice. Pour off the sauce into individual serving dishes. Serve the shrimp with plenty of French bread for dipping in the spicy butter sauce.
Note: This recipe can be easily halved or even quartered. Alternatively, use peeled shrimp and then toss it all with pasta for a main course.

This is a Paula Deen recipe.

For The Lancaster News

Apricot Pineapple Gelatin Salad

I'm not really a big jello fan, but Mom did this for the Easter feature I did for the paper. It wasn't too bad, but I think I'd not put in chunks of cream cheese.

Apricot Gelatin Salad
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic.

1 small box apricot gelatin
1 cup hot water
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup crushed pineapple, well-drained
4 oz cream cheese (optional), cut into a small dice
1/2 cup pecan pieces
9 canned apricot halves
Salad dressing, such as Miracle Whip, for garnish

Dissolve the gelatin in the hot water. Add the cream. Do not whip. Stir in pineapple, cream cheese and pecans. Pour into an 8-inch square casserole dish. Arrange apricot halves in the gelatin, so that each serving has one piece of fruit. Cover and refrigerate until set, 2 hours to overnight.
To serve: Cut into 9 pieces, place each piece on a plate and dollop with a 1/2 teaspoon of salad dressing. Add more pecan halves or fruit for presentation.
Cooks note: This is also delicious with orange gelatin and/or mandarin oranges.
Recipe courtesy Mary Goetsch, mother of “No Food Left Behind.”

For The Lancaster News

Hot Cross Buns

Yeah, I know this is a traditional Easter dish. And I wrote about these in my Easter feature for the paper. But I'm still trying to catch up with posting the recipes from the paper. These are really good any time of the year. They are a nice, sweet breakfast roll, but not so sweet that you go into sugar shock.

Hot Cross Buns
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic.

3 1/2 to 4 cups all-purpose or bread flour
2 packages active dry yeast
1/2 to 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup cooking oil
1/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
2/3 cup raisins
1 slightly beaten egg white

In a large mixing bowl combine 2 cups of the flour, yeast and cinnamon. Heat milk, oil, sugar, and 3/4 teaspoon salt until warm (115-120 degrees). Add to dry mixture; add eggs. Beat at low speed with electric mixer for 1/2 minute, scraping the bowl. Beat 3 minutes at high speed.
By hand, stir in raisins and enough remaining flour to make a soft dough. Shape into a ball. Place dough in a greased bowl; turning once. Cover; let rise until double (about 1 1/2 hours). Punch down. Cover; let rest 10 minutes.
Divide into 18 pieces; form the pieces into smooth balls. Place on a greased baking sheet 1 1/2 inches apart. Cover; let rise until double (30-45 minutes).
Cut shallow crosses in each; brush tops with egg white. Bake at 375 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes. Remove from sheet. Decorate with frosting crosses.

For The Lancaster News

Buttermilk Biscuits

Buttermilk Biscuits
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup shortening
2/3 cup buttermilk or sour milk
Preheat oven to 450 degrees

In a medium mixing bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, sugar, cream of tartar, salt, and baking soda. Cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Make a well in the center of the dry mixture, then add buttermilk all at once. Using a fork, stir just until moistened.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly-floured surface. Quickly knead the dough by gently folding and pressing the dough for 10-12 strokes or until it is nearly smooth. Pat or lightly roll dough to a 1/2 inch thickness. Cut dough with a floured 2 1/2 inch biscuit cutter, dipping the cutter into flour between cuts.
Place the biscuits on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until they are golden brown and delicious.
Makes 8-10 bisuits.
From http://www.cooks.com

For The Lancaster News

Bean Soup

Bean Soup
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic.

1 package 16-Bean Soup Beans
2 small onions, chopped
1 small or large can diced tomatoes
Water
1 package Polska Kielbasa or other sausage

The night before, wash the beans and check for foreign material, such as small rocks. Soak them in 4 quarts of water in a bowl overnight. Reserve the seasoning packet from the bean package.
The next morning, drain the water from the beans. Place them in the slow cooker with the seasoning packet, onions and tomatoes. Add water until the cooker is almost full, leaving about 1-1/2 inches of space on the top.
Cook the beans on LOW for 8 to 10 hours, or on HIGH for 1 hour and then LOW for 6 to 8 hours.
About 30 minutes before serving, slice the sausage into bite-sized slices. Brown the sausage in a skillet and then add the slices to the slow cooker.
Serve with cornbread.

For The Lancaster News

Asparagus Fontina Tart

Asparagus Fontina Tart
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic.

1 1/2 bundles fresh asparagus spears, tough ends snapped off
3 large egg whites
1 large egg
3 tablespoons milk
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
16 sheets frozen phyllo dough, thawed
Cooking spray
1 cup shredded fontina cheese, divided
Salt and Pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Whisk together egg, egg whites, milk and nutmeg in a medium bowl. Set aside.
Spray a large baking sheet with cooking spray. Place 1 phyllo sheet on the pan and lightly coat it with cooking spray. Repeat the layers of phyllo dough, spraying each layer. Gently press the sheets of dough together.
Fold the edges of the phyllo dough in to make a narrow crust, about 1/2 inch. Sprinkle 1/2 cup of the cheese evenly onto the dough. Arrange the asparagus spears next to each other on top. Pour the egg mixture over the asparagus. Some may leak out. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the tart.
Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. Check to see if the dough is browning and the cheese is melting. Check every 2 or 3 minutes until the top looks the way you want it.
Cut into slices and serve. Adapted from Cooking Light Magazine.

For The Lancaster News

Asian BBQ Pork

Not really the best photo, but this is a super-fantastic pulled pork recipe. The Cooking Light recipe had 5 spice powder, which I don't keep around. I mean...really...you can make your own 5 spice powder from all the little jars in your spice rack. Why waste money having it already pre-mixed? Anyway...the pork...this stuff just gets better and better with each passing day.

Asian BBQ Pork
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic.

Marinade:
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
3 Tablespoons ketchup
3 Tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons minced ginger root
3 cloves minced garlic
1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon fennel seeds, crushed
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
Roast:
2 pounds boneless Boston butt pork roast, trimmed
Sauce:
1/2 cup chicken stock or water

Whisk together all the marinade ingredients. Place the roast in a zip-top bag and pour the marinade over it. Squeeze out excess air and close tightly. Place in the refrigerator for 2 hours to overnight, turning occasionally.

Place the roast and the marinade into a slow cooker. Cover and cook on LOW for 8 hours.

Remove the roast from the slow cooker using a slotted spoon. Cover it and let it rest for about 10 minutes. In the meantime, turn the slow cooker to HIGH and the stock or water to the meat drippings. Cover and cook for 20 to 30 minutes, allowing the sauce to thicken. Shred the pork and serve with the sauce.

Adapted from “Cooking Light Magazine,” March, 2006
*note: Hoisin sauce and dark sesame oil can be found in the Asian food section of your supermarket.

For The Lancaster News

Black & White Chocolate Cake

This was one of the recipes for a food feature about buttermilk. Buttermilk lends a fantastic texture and taste to baked goods. I don't know why we don't use it as much anymore. Anyway, I like this cake recipe because it makes a good, fairly impressive cake to take to a family or church picnic. The layers make people think you are really talented. But it's not that hard...the bottom layer is thick enough from adding the cocoa that it's not really that much of a challenge to spread the yellow layer over top.

Black & White Chocolate Cake
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic.

1 package vanilla cake mix
1 1/4 cups buttermilk or sour milk
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
4 eggs at room temperature
1 cup white chocolate chips, divided
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9 x 13-inch baking pan with non-stick foil or grease liberally with butter.

In a large bowl, combine the cake mix, buttermilk, softened butter, and eggs. Beat on low speed only until combined. Some small lumps may remain. Pour half of the cake batter into a separate bowl and set aside.
To one half of the cake batter, fold in 1/2 cup white chocolate chips, reserving the remaining 1/2 cup for later use.
To the other half of the cake batter, add the cocoa powder, mixing until combined. Fold in 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, reserving the remaining 1 cup for later use.
Pour the dark chocolate batter into the prepared pan and smooth to even it out.
Carefully spoon the vanilla cake batter on top of the dark chocolate layer. Gently spread to an even layer without disturbing the bottom layer.
Bake 35 to 40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove from oven and immediately sprinkle the top of the cake with the reserved 1 cup of semi-sweet chips. Wait 5 minutes, then use a spatula to spread the melted chocolate on the top as a frosting. Let the cake cool to room temperature. Sprinkle the reserved 1/2 cup of white chips on top and gently press them into the frosting.
From http://www.homecooking.about.com

For The Lancaster News

Layered Salad

Layered Salad
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic.

Salad
6 cups torn lettuce
2 cups frozen peas, thawed
1/4 medium red onion, thinly sliced
1 bell pepper(any color), thinly sliced
2 ribs celery, sliced on the diagonal
3 tablespoons freshly grated parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons real bacon bits (like Hormel)

Dressing
6 tablespoons lowfat mayonnaise
2 tablespoons plain, nonfat yogurt
3 tablespoons sugar

Layer the lettuce, peas, onion, bell pepper and celery in an attractive manner in a clear bowl.
Combine dressing ingredients and spread over the top of the salad. Cover, refrigerate for several hours or overnight. Prior to serving, sprinkle parmesan and bacon bits over the top.

Adapted from a recipe in “Empty Nest Cooking” by Family and Community Leaders of York County. Thanks to Denise Murphy of Indian Land for sharing it.

For The Lancaster News

Salty Fruity Summer Snack

Salty Fruity Summer Snack
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic.

1 3/4 cup dried fruit bits
1 cup M&M® chocolate candies
1 cup dry roasted, salted peanuts
3 cups Crispix® cereal
3 cups pretzel twists

Combine all ingredients. Store in an airtight container.

Suggested serving size: 1/2 cup.
306 calories, 7 g fat (19.5% calories from fat), 56 g carbohydrates, 3 g dietary fiber.

Recipe courtesy No Food Left Behind
For The Lancaster News