Simple Supper

Here's a photo of John's supper.  It is leftovers from the Endres family reunion yesterday.  Doesn't this look delicious?

NOT!

Beef tongue.  Be sure to click on the picture for a larger image so you can clearly see the bumply taste buds.

I'd intended to have the leftover taco salad, but John finished that off at lunchtime.  He probably saved me from a mediocre meal because the lettuce gets mushy and the tortilla chips become soggy in a leftover taco salad.  I ended up with a leftover chicken salad sandwich.  So much nicer.

Looking for Relief

And I thought last summer was too warm.

This July has set a 90-degree heat record: 27 of 31 days this month the high temperature touched or exceeded 90 degrees.  Not liking that.  The old record was in July 1921 when there were 25 90-degree days.

Among the 27 days this month were seven days when the high was at or greater than 100 degrees.  The average high this month has been 95.2 degrees which is 10.2 degrees above normal.

Although not a record, we’ve had only 0.61 inch of rain for the month.  It’s definitely a drought.

1936 looked like a miserably hot summer, too, with 15 days in the hundreds.  And no air conditioning.  That’s the one thing that has made this summer bearable.

I’m really looking forward to August when the temps just have to drop.  Please.

(source: The News-Gazette - July 31, 2012)

Mashed Butter

While sitting in the family room this morning, I witnessed John in the kitchen fixing his breakfast.  He poured out some cereal in a bowl, then discovered we had no milk.  He had used the last of the milk on his cereal yesterday morning so it shouldn’t have been a big surprise to see there was none.  He poured the cereal back into the box then moved on to Plan B.

Plan B was toast with butter.  He popped some bread in the toaster (sure hope he checked it for mold first), then reached in the fridge to bring out the butter dish.  That’s when the bottom of the butter dish fell out of the top, and the stick of butter landed on the floor.  He picked up the butter, put it back on the butter dish, and proceeded to butter his toast.  He then covered the dish and put it back in the fridge.

Here’s what the stick of butter now looks like.  Be sure to click on the photo so you can see a larger image.  Gross, huh?

One end has been mashed where it plunged to the floor.  There are little bits of debris on the top plus one very noticeable hair.  Yep, that’s what he put back in the refrigerator.

Having witnessed this stick of butter mishap, I recall several months ago taking the butter out of the fridge and seeing it in a very similar looking state.  I knew then that he had dropped the butter on the floor, but today I know why that happened.  He was carrying the butter dish by its lid without supporting the bottom.  The lid is not going to stay on while carrying it with a nearly new stick of butter.  You’d think he’d have learned the first time it happened.  Now I’m wondering how many other times the bottom has fallen out of the butter dish.

Mom's Crop Top

Or, From Whence It Came

T-shirts are meant to be loose and comfortable. A uni-sex t-shirt is basically a rectangle with a neck and sleeves. My 84-year-old mother -- from her senile point of view -- decided that the t-shirts and polo-type shirts that she received through church events were just too big. "I swim in them," she says. So to correct that problem, she cut the bottoms off and re-hemmed them. Unfortunately, they are now too short and will not tuck into her pants or pull down past her waistline. She created herself "crop tops."

The newly-created square t-shirt

One of my dear sisters gifted me with one of these crop tops. I am happy to report that it has been returned to its rightful owner ... God. Yes, while at OLL for a family wedding yesterday, the t-shirt inadvertently slipped out of my coat pocket and was negligently left behind in a pew when I exited the church. May the person who finds it enjoy the freedom of movement that their new Jesus crop top offers.

Wang have mercy.

Butterscotch Bars

Jane and I were at Mom's last week and prepared a supper for all of us.   We decided we needed something for dessert, and the discussion turned to brownies vs. bar cookies.  Jane  remembered a recipe from Aunt Agnes in the family cookbook that she had made.  I immediately knew which one she was thinking of: The one that she could prepare quickly after work.

We dug out the recipe and perused the ingredients.  We needed to buy eggs, but all of the other ingredients were available in the house.  We found a stick of margarine in the freezer, and that started the first of many wrangles: Should we set the margarine out while we went to the store for eggs or leave it in the freezer?  Jane: "It’s going to be melted anyway."  But my superior judgment prevailed, and the margarine was left out.

First step was melting the margarine and adding the brown sugar.  "Be sure to pack the brown sugar while you’re measuring."  "Of course, I will, you moron.  I know how to measure brown sugar."  

That led to a debate of how long and how much the ingredients should "bubble" over the burner.  I stirred the bubbling concoction with a metal spoon.  And the bickering continued:  "You’ll burn yourself when the heat radiates up the spoon handle."   "It’s bubbled long enough."  "Has hardly bubbled at all."

The next step was to remove the melted ingredients and to let it cool slightly.  Jane then handed me a rubber spatula to stir in the remaining ingredients.

Jane wanted to add mini-M&Ms, but I didn’t want them.  I wanted to add coconut – as directed by the recipe – but Jane vetoed that.  We did agree to throw in mini-chocolate chips.  And we finally compromised by pouring half the mixture into the baking dish, stirring in coconut to the remaining mixture, and pouring the remainder into the dish.  One last compromise was to sprinkle mini-M&Ms over the half of the batter that did not contain coconut.

We laughed when we read that Aunt Agnes had said she could whip this dessert up quickly when she got home from work.  We think a committee of two sisters arguing over each step of the process couldn't be responsible for getting any recipe prepared quickly.

With the batter now safely in the baking dish we discovered that the end of the rubber spatula was missing.  My goodness! the heat of the bubbling margarine and brown sugar must have melted off the end.  Now what?

We did what anyone else intent on eating bar cookies would have done . . . . . we baked the bars.  The bars looked beautiful when they finished baking, and we couldn't wait to eat them.  We did approach the tasting with some trepidation considering the rubber spatula had melted and contaminated our dessert with all manner of rubbery particles.  But we persevered, and the bars were delectable.

 

Later that evening we decided we needed a pick-me-up snack, and in cutting further into the bars, we found the rubber end of the spatula baked into our butterscotch goodness.  Jane had a laughing fit that necessitated a fast run to the bathroom so she wouldn’t pee her pants.

Here’s the recipe.  Please use the correct utensils when preparing it.

Girls Gone Wild II

Earlier this month, we five sisters celebrated Sister #4's 50th birthday by spending 3 days and 4 nights at her home in eastern Tennessee. We traveled from Illinois and Virginia and invaded. Her husband and son bravely greeted us, then stayed clear of the noise and silliness.

Wednesday, May 4 –
traveled with Martha and Amy
arrived around 4 p.m. eastern time; Jane already there sipping wine with Susan
supper: home-made lasagna, garden salad, focaccia bread with olive oil and Parmesan cheese, Key lime bars and 7-layer bars

Thursday, May 5 –
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
lunch: Old Mill Pottery House Café & Grille, Pigeon Forge
supper: pasta with tuna salad and/or leftover lasagna
movie: “The King’s Speech”

Friday, May 6 –
Andrew Johnson National Historic Site, Greeneville
lunch: Cracker Barrel
supper: LaParilla Mexican Grille
movie: “Love Actually”

Saturday, May 7 –
drove around and shopped locally
lunch: Lakeside Tavern
crafting with Susan: mini photo albums
supper: M&M BBQ – pulled pork, chicken legs, green beans, macaroni & cheese, potato salad

Sunday, May 8 –
breakfast: Pillsbury cinnamon rolls prepared by Jim
travel

Things I learned:
don’t choke your chicken
Jesus is a Cheeto
how to say a Christian prayer in Chinese
tube steak
Amy served a stint in the Navy
galloping consumption
bearded clam
how to plunge a toilet

Tuna Salad . . . . Two Ways

I prepared another gourmet supper last night: tuna salad.

I made myself a sandwich. When I looked at the amount that was left, I was pleased to see there would be plenty for John’s supper as well as enough to make me a sandwich for lunch today.

Then John made his sandwich for Friday supper . . . . . and used ALL the remaining tuna salad. I told him I hadn’t planned for him to take it all, but go ahead since it looked like that was what he wanted.

John ate his 4-inch thick sandwich with plops of it falling out of the sides.

Half an hour later he ran to the bathroom and barfed it up.

I was left thinking: “There goes my Saturday lunch sandwich a second time.”