Variations on a theme; Golden Brown and Delicious

Since the pizza lasted all of 15 minutes, I decided I had better shop the freezer to make SOME thing that would last for the week or most of it.

Stuffing:

Defrost one large package of turkey stock with lots of turkey meat.
One half large chopped onion sauteed.
Add chopped carrot.
Add 3/4 left over green Bell pepper.
Meld together in large frying pan, simmer on medium.
Add some spices; garlic powder, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, Italian seasoning.

Pour bag of stuffing croutons in very large bowl.
Pour in simmered veggie turkey mixture.
Mix well.
Toss in beaten egg, one stick melted butter.

Pour in casserole dish, top with 3/4 cup shredded left over Mexican cheese mix.  Bake for 40 minutes in 350 degree oven. 

Sweet!!  Rave reviews.

Chambord de Chateau, didn't actually dream it but......

DREAM:


Last night I dreamt that I was in a large rambling building. I was looking for room 19. I believe the place was a cross between a castle/hotel/residence/artists loft. At the registration desk I was told to go to room 19 it was on the third floor to the left in the middle. In the middle of what? The first set of “stairs” consisted of very narrow ramps without handrails and carpeted in a green felt-like material and they were a bit shaky. The last ramp came to an end near a hallway. I took the hallway. The next portion of the building was more hallways and some very large empty rooms. At one point I walked into a space that had a couple of people in it doing something artistic. I spotted more stairs on the other side of the room and kept walking. The next level showed a set of spiral stairs on the right side. I went up those. I would meet people walking in the halls; once a small family. There was not a lot of furniture anywhere but the architectural features were very ornate and dusty.






Dream interpretation web site:

 Building:
To see a building in your dream, represents the self and the body. How high you are in the building indicates a rising level of understanding, awareness or success.


Nineteen:
Nineteen indicates independence and the overcoming of personal struggles. You will find that you often have to stand up for yourself. This number also suggests your stubbornness and your hesitance in accepting help from others.

 Stairs:
To dream that you are walking up a flight of stairs indicate that you are achieving a higher level of understanding. You are making progress into your spiritual, emotional or material journey. The dream is also analogous to material and thoughts that are coming to the surface. To see spiral or winding stairs, signify growth and/or rebirth.

TODAY was a lovely day in the neighborhood.

Husband begged me to make a veggie pizza after 2:30 pm today please because that is when he would resume careful chewing after having had a wisdom tooth extracted on Tuesday. 

Okay, I used JUMBO olives, dainty little cherry tomatoes, fresh mushrooms, chopped green pepper, chopped scallions and the sauce was sour cream mixed with teaspoon of garlic powder.  Cheese was shredded pizza mix.  Crust was one of those peel and stick kind that comes in a paper tube you gingerly open and it exploded and makes you jump anyway.  Pre heat oven 425, bake 17 minutes.  Hmmm, should have sprinkled corn meal on the pan and could have actually cooked it for15 minutes.  Sliced up okay, it was done in the middle and it didn't last long at all.  Delish!

My apologies to Thomas Gainsborough.

She is a lovely member of the English Aristocracy and looks to have a bit of an attitude such as "Veddy well, I SHALL have a cup of tea, you blighters!"

I am inviting everyone to play on my new blog created strictly for playing Daffynary diction. I have posted a security word there. Please go and give a purely made up and witty if at all possible definition that sounds as if it were quite true.  Please the word in a sentence. 

Ground breaking ceremony for the new hospital

Was today, above is an artist rendering of the south facing main entrance.  The current hospital us uphill and the current clinic is downhill.   In the back will be a helicopter pad and entrance to ER and underground parking.  They set up a couple of big tents on the lawn today and had speeches and golden shovels and photo ops. 

I also decided to try my hand at vegetarian Shepherds pie.  I assembled the carrots, onion, celery, lentils and chicken stock (oops there goes the vegetarian part).  I cooked the lentils in stock, chopped the veg and set aside.  I boiled 6 medium Yukon Gold potatoes and mashed them and added shredded cheddar and sour cream.  I baked a spaghetti squash in the oven until fork tender.

I dug out four glass pie plates because I keep using more and more pots and pans as the dish got bigger and bigger! 

I layered in the lentil mix on the bottom, next the cooked squash and then topped with creamy mashed potatoes.  Baked it at 400 for 20 minutes and then at 350 for 40 minutes. 

Taste test from husband "yummy!"  Hunger will do that to you.

One pie is in the fridge and the other three are wrapped and in the freezer.  

FALL FOLIAGE

This is what passes for fall foliage in my neighborhood, a big old holly tree loaded with red berries.  A couple of years ago a huge flock of robins stopped by for the better part of two hours and stripped off every single berry on the tree.  Salud!

There is a rather miserable looking Canadian Maple across the street, a bit on the young spindly side.   The other morning as the sun rose and shown through the red leaves it turned all iridescent ruby and was gorgeous.  Then a cloud passed over on a more or less permanent basis this being the southern Oregon coast doncha know.

SINGING IN MY DREAMS

Last night I had a very brief dream about singing.  I was out on the town with a lady from the business office.  We stopped in a bar to listen to the music.  There were a couple of guys on stage warming up and my friend sang the last phrase with them in perfect harmony.  They grinned at each other and handed her the microphone and she belted out the next stanza.  Then we got our coats and left.   As we were leaving one of the guys came to talk to my friend about signing with them so more.  And then I woke up.  I will visit the dream interpretation web site to see what it says and post it in the replies.  Coffee, I need coffee.

BRIGHT IDEAS

Dear Hollywood Or any other film/screen making entity:

I believe that if there were any BOOK READERS living amongst the moneyed and powerful media masters that they could mine a nearly endless treasure trove of film ideas.

I therefore humbly submit the following:



Dies The Fire by S.M. Stirling

 Big old EMP in1998 reduces civilization to living standards of 11th century England. There are survivors. Norman the Conqueror (Of Portland) meets Mike Havel, a superb ex-marine and his Bearkillers gang, Juniper McKenzies clan of warrior Wiccan farmers and a bunch of pissed off ranchers from Bend.



Dragons of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey


Disillusioned Star Trek generation leaves earth to colonize Pern a goldilocks planet in the Rukbat system. Everything is swell until they are visited by thread, which is a deadly rain of flesh eating organisms. The scientists quickly adapt some small local flying lizards and breed them to a much larger riding size. These dragons imprint on their riders at hatching and can chew a coal compound to produce phosphine gas that incinerates the thread. This series would be a good project for any studio that specializes in computer generation type films for the dragons doncha know.


Warprize by Elizabeth Maughn

Attila the Hun conquers all but the real Attila was never this interesting. His latest conquest is the land of X-something or other. The author really liked to name people with Xena names. Anyway the local X person is a very high ranking local girl who is also a healer. Her half brother, King X disapproves of her hobby and of her in general. The kingdom is defeated. Attila demands tribute and part of that tribute is the girl. Wait it gets better. The rest of the three books deal with the interaction and cultural misunderstandings between the girl and the entire horseback riding nation.


Oh yeah for the horror filmmakers? There are any of the Jane Austen-like stories that have been adapted to feature zombies, ghouls, vampires and intelligent sea monsters, etc.

Look up, look way way up!

We haz downspouts

IIt was a beautiful day in the neighborhood....

For the nice painter lady to come and paint the new siding. She offered to knock off 200 dollars if we just had her paint the trim white not blue like we had planned. I hated that dumb blue color anyway. Uh..yeah, paint everything white! They will come back tomorrow and put up the down spouts. Then let the monsoon advance.

Also there is a paucity of parked cars at the triplex next door, can all of the subsidized evicted people had possibly left the building!?!

Then husband and I went out for dinner at the Chinese place, I had General Tsaos Chicken and husband had Marfar chicken.  Yummy, lots of left overs to take to work. 

UPDATE ON NEIGHBORHOOD BREAK IN

Heard it through the grapevine this morning, that they found out who had broken into their car. It was a kid but the kids' girlfriend dropped her cell phone. It took a little longer than usual because the local cops were able to bust a meth ring with information provided on the cell phone. Very cool. A few other car break in's have been solved with this one fell swoop.

Also on the nearly department next door neighbors: About 3 o'clock this morning I woke up to Bam Bam bam bam bam bam "You #$(% @)$$!" shouted repeatedly several times, more BAM bam bam bam. I got up and Tim was awake and the cops were outside. Eventually they handcuffed the young man and took him away. A co-worker tells me that this little family had been served eviction papers by the Sheriff, so at least ONE of them has moved out last night. I hope the rental agency picks better tenants next time, the building is now completely empty.

Shepherds Pie

I decided to make a Shepherds pie, I used fresh ground turkey, frozen corn niblets and left over boiled new potatoes.


I chopped an onion and fried it off and then added the turkey, added a few spices, some pepper flakes,salt, pepper, some fresh grated nutmeg.


Added a can of cream of mushroom soup.


Mashed the potatoes and added milk to soften a bit as well as half a stick of melted butter.


Layered the casserole with turkey mixture, layer of corn niblets, layer of mashed potatoes, layer of Parmesan. Bake in 350 oven 30 minutes, crank up to 45 for 15 minutes to get a bit of brown crust. Not bad.

And NO, I did not run out of black olives.

OMG you GOTTA go watch this show....

Say Howyadoin' to Nadia G. star of "Bitchin' Kitchen" Fer real.

She is Jerseylicious, pierced, tatooed (I think) talking the talk in a wacked out kitchen. My favorite implement? That red spatula shaped like a guitar.

She speaks perfect Brooklynese with an occasional dip into French and English.
The show has a theme, last night was "Bag 'em and tag 'em" Sure fire dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner to get your guy...for awhile.

Breakfast was Pan Purdue with Caramel sauce seasoned with Fleur De Sal;
Lunch was crab pasta in cherry tomato cream sauce.
Dinner was shepherds pie.

Click on picture to make big, enjoy the details, the padded cupboards etc.
Trust me the floor has a zebra stripe. I love the demi-lune cooking surface.

She also shared her great grandmothers secret on how to tell if Mr. Perfect for right now is Mr. Forever. Sniff his arm pits, if the pheromones are compatible and do not disgust, grab him.

I so want to go right out and get some bling!

Excitement in the 'hood.

My neighbor across the street, who also works at the same place I do, hailed me at work.

Neighbor: "You guys lock your car up at night?"

Me: "Yeah, it is locked 24/7, why"?

Neighbor: "I decided to take Patty's car to work, I went to get into it and it had been trashed and some CD's taken. So I went back in to tell Patty to call the cops and I took my truck to go to work."

Me: "So what happened next?"

Neighbor: "The cops came, checked things out and asked if the cell phone they found was ours."

Me: "Was it?"

Neighbor with big evil grin, "Nope."