Chicken Spaghetti - Not Waffles

I've had a rough week. My mother went to the emergency room Monday with her COPD (emphysema) - she had to go by ambulance - she couldn't get her breath. She's still in the hospital, but hopes to go home tomorrow. I stayed with her the first three nights and my daddy's stayed the last two. It just doesn't do to be in the hospital without a loved one there to get help when you need it.

That brings me to the chicken spaghetti. It is the only casserole my mother will eat. She is a very picky eater. I've made this before and she loves it. It's Pioneer Woman's version. Without the green peppers and pimientos. So I'll put it in containers and freeze it and they'll have a few meals. I made spaghetti and meatballs for them recently - I am happy when I can fix something they'll actually eat. I also try to make it a habit of picking up some Sheridan's frozen custard - chocolate, of course!

So instead of waffles, chicken spaghetti. I don't want to overdo it in the kitchen. I was inspired to make banana nut waffles, but the guys are a little burned out on waffles and it's just as well - it would've been too much for my miniscule kitchen counters.

I'm going to see Last Chance Harvey (Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson - love her) with my friend Jennifer today. We'll get an early dinner afterward. I'll be at the movie instead of watching the biggest basketball game of the year - Memphis v. UT. I hope the Tigers will pull off a victory against their biggest nemesis. Last year, I think they were the ONLY team we lost to during regular season. I think it's a psychological thing. It certainly puts a damper on the atmosphere around here when we lose to them, but it sure is happy when we beat them. We've only ever beaten them once in football - I think it was 1997. That was a day that will go down in history.

Gotta close - lots to do before Jennifer picks me up at 12:30. Maybe this week will be a little easier.

Paris in February

Just the thing to help me make it through the winter. A trip to Paris. To be honest, the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas. I'm meeting my two closest (remaining) friends from high school there for a weekend in February. I reconnected with Hope (in Phoenix) and Edith (in Cupertino, CA) after losing Gladys in August. Gladys lived in Jackson, TN and we were very close. We'd fallen out of touch with the others (we were our own little nerdy clique) but we spent so much time laughing and reminiscing about our wonderful high school experience. So when Gladys died, a techie friend helped me locate Hope and since she'd kept in touch with a few others (including Edith) it was just a great and comforting thing to reignite these very old friendships (almost 30 years since we graduated, if you can believe that). Others I've reconnected with include Darrell, who lives near Atlanta, Chip, who's here in town (had lunch with him yesterday) and Tommy, who's on his way to the Middle East to serve our country again (he's a captain in the Navy Reserves). It's like it was yesterday, they way we've picked right up where we left off. If you make the effort to get in touch with friends from school, I think you'll find that it adds a whole new dimension to your friendships - people who knew you when you were still a kid know you in a way your newer friends from your adult life can't know you.

Back to Paris. It was Hope's great idea for the three of us to meet in Vegas for our own little reunion. Edith goes there pretty frequently, so she knows her way around - best hotels and tricks to save money. Biggest one was to get a Harrah's rewards card (Paris Hotel is owned by Harrah's) in Tunica - I got a $77/night discount for the room Hope and I will be sharing. Edith is a bit of a princess and wanted her own room. I guess that's the payoff for devoting yourself to your career and not having kids - lots of extra money! I have a feeling one of the hotel rooms will be very empty since I'm expecting a 48 hour, two night slumber party for adult women! Edith is treating us to the Cirque de Soleil show, and of course, we'll eat, gamble, eat, drink, walk around, and did I mention eat? Calories don't count on this trip.

The pictures are of the "landmarks" in Las Vegas. The Eiffel Tower is half scale of the one in France. It'll make for some great photos. We'll get a monorail for the strip so we can see all the great themed Casinos. Almost like Epcot's World Showcase (for grownups). I'll be watching Oceans 11, 12 & 13 and any other light movies set in Las Vegas. And maybe CSI. We're all so excited!

On to waffles. I haven't made waffles in a long time (my son has turned into a health nut) so I haven't been blogging lately. My good friend Julia recently asked me why, so I thought I'd get back in the saddle. When I pulled out my 22 year old waffle iron, I realized that I'd forgotten to ask for a new one for Christmas. This one is impossible to clean since the cooking surfaces can't be removed. So I just pour some batter (before I add blueberries) and cook a throw away waffle to remove the burnt-on blueberry remains from the time before. I guess it's no worse than cooking on a grill - the heat kills any germs, right? The copious quantities of Pam I spray keep the waffles pretty clean.

Oh, I tried something new today. I added vanilla extract which I brought back from St. Thomas this summer. It's different from what we have here - it smells and tastes kind of flowery. It made my waffles smell great. And of course, I used buttermilk. Kiddo decided he would try some buttermilk the other day, and he was unpleasantly surprised at how bad it tasted. Does anyone really drink the stuff? It's great to cook with, but I can't imagine anyone drinking it straight up!

Since I'm in such a domestic mood, I think I'm going to make tomato bisque and black-eyed pea salsa for dinner tonight. I had the best tomato bisque this week in the restaurant in Botanic Garden - Fratelli's. I have canned tomatoes and bought cream, but of course, it needs lots of other ingredients. Also, I need to get fresh cilantro and black-eyed peas. So if I can manage a trip to the grocery store and stay in the mood to cook, we'll have a great supper tonight. Oh, for the black-eyed pea salsa recipe (it's amazing), check The Pioneer Woman website. It's in my list of links at the left. Click on the cooking tab. Love this site. She does lots of great giveaways - great stuff like gift cards (big - $250 or so) and cameras, printers, KitchenAid mixers. To enter, you answer her simple questions, like "What are you doing for Thanksgiving?" or "What are you wearing?" or "What was your worst year in school?". Only thing is that she puts the contest up and it ends pretty shortly after she posts it - 12 to 24 hours, usually. I guess that's a great way to ensure frequent visits to her site. Not that she needs it - it's just so much fun. It makes me want to move out west and be a rancher's wife. She's madly in love with her husband and four young kids (who ride horses and castrate calves and help with lots of the everyday work of raising cattle). So it makes me happy everytime I go there!

Ok, I guess I should finish this post (waffles were finished some time ago) and get some stuff done. Oh, just to let you know, I think I have a new, weekly accounting gig (I should find out this week) and it's just around the corner from my house, flexible hours - just wonderful. This makes me so happy - went out on a limb when I booked the Vegas trip, and needed to figure out a way to pay for it! I'm expecting to pick up some other projects since this is the time of year when accountants are in demand. I CANNOT go back to preparing tax returns, but I'm happy to help people get their stuff organized for their CPA, or any other things that come along. I'm hoping my business will pick up this year and maybe I'll find projects I really love. I've come a long way since a year ago. December was VERY slow and I was getting discouraged, but of course, no one does anything during the holidays, except party and eat and shop... So things are looking up. I hope your new year is off to a great start, too! Over and out.

New TV Season!

Another waffle-making Saturday morning. It's been a while. Last time they were sticking, so this time I used a little more oil and that is helping immensely. I've gotten so I don't measure very precisely. Lately, I'm having that one little part of the circle that doesn't fill up. That's probably because I've been a little sporadic. There's definitely the intangible thing of getting a feel for something if you don't measure. For candy-making, it's essential. I was on pralines kick a couple of years ago and ran the gamut from ones that were too soft to those that hardened in the pan before I could get them onto the wax paper. As with most things, 1) practice makes perfect (or closer to perfect), 2) it's harder than it looks, and 3) nothing is ever easy. This last one seems to crop up all the time, especially in attempting new things on the computer.

I'm very excited that the new television season is starting up soon. Here are the premiere dates of my favorites, in order of how much I like them: Boston Legal - Sept. 22; Grey's Anatomy - Sept. 25; Desperate Housewives - Sept. 28; Survivor - Sept. 25; and Lipstick Jungle - Sept. 24. So not next week, but the next. This is according to AOL's website. I couldn't find the date for Grey's on the official ABC website. Seriously. See number 3 above - Nothin is Ever Easy.

Since I seem unable to multi-task this morning (too many burnt waffles), I think I'll close here and put my full attention on the rest of the waffles. I'm making a two batches - one to take to my parents. It's great to freeze them and just toast them. All for now.

Fruit is Good

I know...blueberries are a superfood, blah, blah, blah... or as those of us from the Seinfeld era like to say, yaddah, yaddah, yaddah...

These pictures, I swear, are taken on my kitchen counter. Mangos, kiwi, strawberries and blueberries. The blueberries, mango and kiwi are from Sam's and the strawberries were a great deal at Robilio's. The key is actually eating the stuff before it goes bad. The very hungry teenager actually remarked that the fruit was pretty (he didn't know I'd actually photographed it for this blog), so I'll take that as a compliment.

When I saw my doctor yesterday and hinted for diet pills, he weighed me and pulled out his calculator and told me 1) I looked ok, 2) his scale was forgiving - at least 5 pounds light, and 3) I should do Weight Watchers or Curves. Since there's a Curves a mile and a half from my house, I headed straight there. I hate the whole concept of a "program" and the commitment and all that goes with that, but I think I'm going to give it a try. They have a website (which costs an extra $20/mo.) which is really quite amazing. I'll add the link. If you need a coupon code for a free 30-day trial, let me know in your comments and I'll get one for you. I think that's long enough to see if it helps. If it helps, it'll be worth it, even though it seems like a lot.

So for now, I'll be posting pictures of healthy food. I promise I will not turn into a diet blog. Oh, included in the Curves website membership is a blog. It is so lame. They have two employees blogging very occasionally (every 2 or 3 weeks). Maybe I'll start a blog there!

For now, I'll do my best - I'll try to be the tortoise - slow and steady...

Waffle Talk - Double Batch

After another waffle-less Saturday, I'm back. Sadly, I spent last Saturday at the memorial service for my dear friend. We've been friends since high school and were very close. Just when I was recovering from the shock of her death, I spent three days at the hospital with my mother, who has emphysema. I won't go into all the physical (sleeping on the sofa in the hospital room) and emotional challenges (mother didn't want to stay in the hospital and had more than one meltdown, pretty much directed at me and the pulmonologist). My sister Debbie helped out immensely with getting my dad to and from the hospital and staying with him at night - all this on top of a full time job. She also provided comic relief. I spent yesterday grocery shopping and cooking for my parents (they don't eat enough) and helping my mother figure out her medical equipment. The pictures here show what happens when I'm AWOL from home for a few days. After a couple of nights of good sleep, I think I can tackle this.

I'm cooking today. A double batch of blueberry waffles. One for my parents to freeze and just pull out and toast for breakfast this week. I'm going to make chicken spaghetti - Pioneer Woman's version. Go to her link at left, and check out her cooking section. She has the most amazing and simple recipes!

My mother is a picky eater, but she likes this (without the bell peppers).

After an extremely challenging week, I'm feeling relieved, optimistic about my mother's health (now that she's finally commited to quitting smoking) and more confident about my ability to handle extremely stressful situations.

On to the laundry and the kitchen counters and sink...

Back from Cincinnati

Pictured are Gold Star Coney Islands. They are very small hot dogs topped with chili and mounds of cheddar cheese - plus I get onions. So yummy. Cincinnati chili is different. It has cinnamon - definitely more pronounced in Gold Star than Sky Line. I bought a few cans of each and wish I'd gotten more. I also brought back a recipe for the Sky Line version, compliments of my cousin. I made it early this week and we had a blind taste test. Mine was too thick and I couldn't get my ground beek as crumbly as they do, but I was pretty happy with it. I think next time I'll use less chili powder and more cinnamon. My uncle was impressed and told me I should open my own chili parlour. I don't see that happening, but I think my chili will find a regular rotation in our meal times. You can serve it on hot dogs, or on spaghetti, with crumbled oyster crackers to soak up the thinner sauce.

We brought my mother 5 pounds of Opera Creams between my uncle and me. I ate the better part of one pound and gave the rest away because the sugar was wreaking havoc on me - I don't do well with sugar (a little hypoglycemic).

I've had a busy week since getting back Sunday. School starts next week so we should settle into a more regular routine. I think I've finished all my travels until we do the college tour thing over fall break. I need to get busy planning that. I think we'll drive up to North Carolina and Virginia and try to hit as many colleges as we can squeeze in between here and there.

For today, I think I'm headed to Archiver's - they have a special Make & Take weekend. I always love those. I should take my many vacation pictures and try to do a little scrapbooking while I'm there!

One More Trip

After searching and searching for a reasonable airfare, I finally found a ticket to Cincinnati to see my Uncle Lee. He lives across the river in Covington, Kentucky, where he and my mother grew up. I haven't been there in 16 years, and then, just to see my beloved Aunt Babe shortly before she died. We used to go almost every summer.

This time, I hope to really explore the city. And of course, to eat chili three way - with beans, cheese and onions (I think). They serve their chili on spaghetti noodles. Steak & Shake has the closest thing you'll find around here. Another special thing is Opera Creams. They are kind of like a vanilla butter cream, covered in dark chocolate (best version and my mother's favorite), but not the same. It is my mother's very favorite thing. We buy them by mail-order for Christmas and Birthday and Mother's Day. Well, maybe not Mother's Day because you can only order them when the weather's cool. So when I bring back 10 pounds of Opera Creams in early August, it'll be a special treat!

Cincinnati's also home to the Reds, one of the oldest Major League Baseball teams. Unfortunately, they don't have any home games during my visit. Pete Rose is Cincinnati's equivalent of our Elvis. Seriously, they are fanatics about the guy. Even with his being banned from baseball from the betting on baseball scandal, way back when. He's from Cincinnati and played there his whole career - a very rare thing. He also holds the all-time record for most career hits. There's still a good bit of controversy about whether he should be allowed to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. I figure if they let any of these steriod-fueled stars in, good old Charlie Hustle ought to get in, too. I'm just sayin'.

I'll have a full report, complete with pictures, when I get back. That's a couple of weeks away, and in the meantime, we have lots to do, including celebrate lots of July birthdays. Oh, and it just so happens that I'll celebrate my birthday while I'm there - a good thing. Can't wait!