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 And speaking of all things country, a friend just sent me this article from the Wall Street Journal that had me laughing until I realized how sad it is!!! We have dairies in Oklahoma too and I’m wondering what our citizenry will do if WE have a milk spill. Imagine the disaster: In Western Oklahoma, our wheat farms would turn into giant bowls of cereal. In Southwestern Oklahoma, the windmill farms would churn it into massive quantities of butter that would clog all of the life-sustaining highway arteries between towns!! In Southern Oklahoma, a fisherman’s catch would come already dipped in milk and ready for breading! Here in Central Oklahoma, where our flour mill thrives and produces multiple mixes, people might be overtaken by huge masses of biscuit dough oozing through the streets like some whole wheat wall of lava. The visons are frightening! So get a load of what is being done in order to save us from these unimaginable ends: “President Obama says he wants to purge regulations that are “just plain dumb,” like his humorous State of the Union bit about salmon. So perhaps he should review a new rule that is supposed to prevent oil spills akin to the Gulf Coast disaster—at the nation’s dairy farms. Two weeks ago, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule that subjects dairy producers to the Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure program, which was created in 1970 to prevent oil discharges in navigable waters or near shorelines. Naturally, it usually applies to oil and natural gas outfits. But the EPA has discovered that milk contains “a percentage of animal fat, which is a non-petroleum oil,” as the agency put it in the Federal Register. In other words, the EPA thinks the next blowout may happen in rural Vermont or Wisconsin. Other dangerous pollution risks that somehow haven’t made it onto the EPA docket include leaks from maple sugar taps and the vapors at Badger State breweries.  The EPA rule requires farms—as well as places that make cheese, butter, yogurt, ice cream and the like—to prepare and implement an emergency management plan in the event of a milk catastrophe. Among dozens of requirements, farmers must train first responders in cleanup protocol and build “containment facilities” such as dikes or berms to mitigate offshore dairy slicks. ![funny cow:] Pictures, Images and Photos](http://i568.photobucket.com/albums/ss123/angelicab22/cow.jpg) These plans must be in place by November, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture is even running a $3 million program “to help farmers and ranchers comply with on-farm oil spill regulations.” You cannot make this stuff up. The final rule is actually more lenient than the one the EPA originally proposed. The agency tried to claim jurisdiction over the design specifications of “milk containers and associated piping and appurtenances,” until the industry pointed out that such equipment was already overseen by the Food and Drug Administration, the USDA and state inspectors. The EPA conceded, “While these measures are not specifically intended for oil spill prevention, we believe they may prevent discharges of oil in quantities that are harmful.” We appreciate Mr. Obama’s call for more regulatory reason, but it would be more credible if one of his key agencies wasn’t literally crying over unspilled milk.” By the way, if you make a cow laugh, does milk come out of her nose?  |
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Archive for January, 2011
That Crazy Government!
Thursday, January 27th, 2011
Two Dangerous Women
Tuesday, January 25th, 2011
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Proud  I am sure that you have heard of the Home and Garden Show that stations itself at every fairground in the US to encourage gardeners to grow pumpkins the size of a Smart Cars and to coerce nongardeners to envelope their homes in copper guttering which, at the price of copper today, will be removed within a week by some industrious n’er-do-well needing cash for a big screen tv. Well, my darling daughter had two exhibitors’ passes for this past weekend and she asked if I would like to go with her to this show of shows. Now, it’s a great thing to get to go to this yearly event, but for a daughter to actually be caught with her mother in public and on PURPOSE is a cause for celebration indeed! Of course, my answer to her invite was a definitive, “Do pigs fly?” which is a much more genteel response than the one asking what bears do in the woods even though it makes absolutely no sense at all. She knew what I meant.  And so we did what any two red-blooded, southern women do and bundled up against what we considered a life-threatening 32 degrees. We drove across town to the beautiful OKC Fairgrounds, parked the car and walked to the building that we decided was obviously the first of 5 total exhibition buildings. I thought it odd that the steps were full of men in camouflage, smoking cigarettes and huddling to discuss who-knows-what, but I attributed it to true southern gentlemen who had brought their wives to the show even though it would have taken one of the John Deere Zero Radius mowers, displayed at the show, to physically drag them into the actual building to look at the latest fiberglass hot tubs.  Now, I have to tell you here that there is a certain sense of power that goes with having “exhibitor” badges. One need only flash these jewels at the TSA wannabes manning the doors and you are waved through with an “Oh! Go on in!” as the poor slubs with tickets must stand there and watch you waltz through while they have their wrists stamped to prove that they are NOT exhibitors. Only, at that particular moment, our passes didn’t mean much. As we waved our badges, I instantly noted that it was almost all men in the building – men in camouflage – and there were tables and tables of every kind of weapon of mass destruction that any self-respecting varmint hunter would be proud to call his own. It was at that moment that I and the attendant announced at the same time, “Gun Show!” My daughter and I backed out and headed to the next group of buildings where we would find weapons equally as deadly to our pocketbooks and our health – waterless cookware, full goldfish ponds with 8 ft manmade waterfalls and German Cream Cheese Strudel. And you know what? When we finally found that first Home and Garden Show building, I thought it odd that standing on the steps to the entrance were huddled groups of men in camouflage, smoking cigarettes and discussing who-knows-what. Yep. This is good ol’ Oklahoma!! 
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Dehydrating Series Pt IV
Monday, January 24th, 2011
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I’m sitting here listening to my sweet hubby laugh his head off as he is pulling up YouTube videos of “Carl” (Billy Bob Thorton) from the movie Slingblade making prank calls to restaurants and asking the clerks for “French fried pertaters and biscuits and I like some mustard with those biscuits, uh-huh”. The clerks are attempting to take this order with as much grace as possible. I have to admit that I’m laughing too. I guess I’m remembering the phone calls I used to make, from our church phone on Wednesday service nights no less, to Weigel’s Dairy Store in Knoxville, Tennessee to tell the clerk, in high pitched squeals, “Your cows are out!” immediately hanging up the phone. Real smooth, huh? Kinda like the phone calls my grandparents used to receive in the ’30’s, at their grocery store, where a voice asked if they carried Prince Albert in a can and with the answer in the affirmative, young voices would yell, “Then let him out!!” We are so brilliant when we are young. However, it seems that Mr. Thorton is still brilliant – he’s entertaining my husband, anyway!  There is nothing I enjoy more than putting a piping hot meal before Mr. Fix-It after a long day’s work. I especially love him because he loves soup and that is one of my favorite things in the whole world on these cold days. But I’m weird. I love it on warm days too – homemade that is. When I go to Olive Garden, I’m the “Never Ending Soup and Salad” kinda gal. Therefore, it is really pleasant to have all of the ingredients for soup right at my fingertips, dried and ready to reconstitute for any quick, hot meal. In this fourth and final in my series on dehydrating, I’ve got a recipe for broccoli cheese soup that will leave you craving more. Let’s go! 1 Tbsp Olive Oil 1 Tbsp dried celery (1 stalk fresh chopped) 1 tsp dried bell pepper (tbsp fresh) 1 Tbsp dried onion (2 Tbsp diced fresh onion) 1/4 tsp dried garlic (1 tsp fresh, chopped garlic) 1/3 cup dried potatoes (1 cup cubed fresh potatoes) 1/2 cup dried broccoli (1 1/2 cup chopped fresh broccoli) 4 chicken bouillon cubes 4 1/2 cups water 1 can milk or 3/4 cups half and half 1/4 lb Velveeta Cheese + or – 1 Tbsp corn starch + 2 Tbsp water              |
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Dehydrating Series Pt III Peppers
Wednesday, January 19th, 2011
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Part I Part II Pepper  Another vegetable that is fast and easy to dry is the bell pepper. All peppers can be dried, including jalopenos, but that is one pepper you will want to process in the garage or outside. Your eyes and nose won’t be able to stand the fumes while drying!! Here’s a fast rundown on drying peppers.       Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ Company on Facebook
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Vacuum Sealing Jars
Saturday, January 15th, 2011
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Dehydrating Series Pt II – Potatoes
Thursday, January 13th, 2011
 I’m going to get right to the point today as a continuation of Part I with photos of how to dry potatoes. Potatoes are one of my favorite garden items and I devote an entire bed to both red and Yukon Gold spuds. These “new” potatoes take a little longer to dry than the traditional Russetts which I am demonstrating here. Also, at the end is a recipe in which to use the sliced and dried potatoes. My next post will be about drying peppers and then you’ll get a recipe for broccoli cheese soup made from all of your dried veggies that will have your family licking the pot. So keep following!              (Or as my friend Janis calls them, “Old Rotten Potatoes”) 1 pkg Shawnee Mills Country Gravy Mix 2 1/4 cups water OR make 2 cups of your own white sauce from your favorite recipe 1 cup dried sliced potatoes 1/2 medium onion 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese 2 tbsp Hormel Real Bacon Bits or 3 slices bacon chopped into pieces French’s French Fried Onions          |
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Dehydrating Series Pt I – Celery
Monday, January 10th, 2011
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Here in Oklahoma, most of us are tough old birds. We’ve learned the only thing predictable is that there is nothing much predictable in this state. One minute you can bake a chicken in your car and the next minute you’re trying to figure out how to get that car out of a snow drift. Of course, the car can get cooked in one of our prairie fires as well. Ice storms can paralyze daily life for a week and tornadoes can change lives forever. And then of course, there are the hail storms. So, we Okies have pretty much figured out that you don’t need a government commission on emergency preparedness to tell us to be prepared. We’ve been prepared since the days of the Land Run when barrels of beans, flour and sugar and a crock of sourdough starter meant protection from starvation when the WalMart shelves were empty. Unfortunately, there ARE some city dwellers here who have either forgotten these facts or who moved here from some foreign country, like Los Angeles, who get caught with their rations down. But for the most part, we’re a pretty prepared and flexible lot. I got tickled the other day when a 30 minute program was aired to remind us that we have the likes of tornadoes and such here in Oklahoma. Ya think? A body would have to be living in a cave 24/7 to miss that little bit of reality. Anyway, the Oklahoma preparedness program has been called “Red Dirt Ready” and the name symbolizes the fact the Okies immediately jump in to help after a disaster, getting all covered in Oklahoma’s famous red dirt. That’s true. We do. It’s what makes this state great.   Electricity can be a problem around here. It is not unusual for us to be without for a couple of days and in many areas that can run into a number of weeks. That wreaks havoc on one’s frozen vittles if one hasn’t a generator and so it is nice to have plenty of stock that requires no refrigeration. That would seem impossible for such things as fruits and veggies, but not so! The age old art of dehydrating comes in really handy to offer up a pantry full of wonderful and healthy treats that will last a looooong time. Having a garden each year, I dehydrate stuff yearly, but lately, I’ve been a dehydrating fool. I have been challenging myself to see what I can dry next and how best to use it. I’ve decided to do a series on using a dehydrator with recipes. Today I’m demonstrating celery and broccoli drying. I was inspired to do the celery because our local store, Firelake Grocery, had celery on sale, 3 large bags for $1. The broccoli was on sale as well – two good sized heads for $1. I use a lot of both. Now, I need to sidetrack here for a sec because I realize that these are not organic items coming from a local grocer. However, with food prices soaring, many people can’t afford the more expensive organic foods and I want to let them know that it’s ok. This is where my faith comes into play. I see 3 large bags of celery for $1 as a blessing and I see God as my provider of blessings. Therefore, I just trust that all I can do is the best that I can and trust God to take care of me. In other words, I eat as healthily as I can and leave the rest up to the Lord. Shoot, I used to break thermometers when I was young and chase the little balls of mercury around on the table for hours with my friends! I promise, I don’t glow in the dark – although I do have very white hair. Do you suppose – – – ? Back to the celery and broccoli. The long and the short of it is that I bought 16 bags of celery and a lot of broccoli. Neither of these items is anything you can keep for any amount of time unless you dry them or freeze them. I like to freeze celery by chopping it, leaves and all, and spreading it onto a cookie sheet, freezing it hard and then taking it off of the sheet to place it into freezer bags. That way the pieces stay separate and don’t clump up. Frozen celery is a quick addition for sautéing and putting into chicken salad. However, as I said, frozen is useless when there is no electricity. Plus, I don’t have that much freezer space! I froze one bag of this celery and all of the rest I dried.              So there you have it. That will keep you busy for a couple of days and by Thursday, you’ll be ready for a recipe. I’ve made a New Year’s Resolution – I’m going to do my dead level best to post twice a week, hopefully Mondays and Thursdays. Just remember what happens to New Year’s Resolutions – they’re kinda all dried up too. |
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Egg and Muffin Sandwiches
Monday, January 3rd, 2011
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“De-Serve” (A Recipe To Serve!) OK, so that was kind of a crazy thing to write, but I was thinking about that place with the golden arches and their old slogan. Remember? It was that catchy song about what you deserve – you know – like a break today? However, as I grow older and older I am finding that what I think I deserve ain’t all it’s cracked up to be! I bet you can’t get that song out of your head now, can you?  In my youth, I had the “prestigious” honor of being a “crew member” of the McDonald’s Restaurant team – aka, a “hamburger flipper”. I lived, breathed and literally ate McDonald’s. I don’t know how it is now, but back then, McDonald’s was run like the army and there was a real pride in the job and a sense of ownership in the company. Each year there was a competition for all crew members in order to become part of the “All American Team”. The more All American Team members at a store, the more prestigious the store in the eyes of the corporation. Competition was fierce and hard and not just a little scary. It was like participating in the Olympics, only instead of swimming you were waiting on and serving customers in under a minute, or in place of throwing the shot put, you were assembling, wrapping and tossing cheeseburgers onto a warming tray to a stop watch. The competition went on during the day while customers were actually being served and “The Suits” were there watching your every move. The one year that I decided to take the plunge, I competed at the cash register and outside the restaurant in grounds cleanliness. I won. I have proof. But I’m still waiting for the endorsement offers.  Now, I need to remind you that cash registers at the time were not the electronic wonders they are today. Computers were something only ‘brainiacs’ even considered and, as far as we were concerned, still occupied an entire room with magnetic wheel thingys (my hubby tells me they were called column tape units and he would know) whirling synchronistically . If that isn’t a real word, it sounds good – can’t you just see it?? Yep, the cash box on which I registered counter sales was an upright mechanical monster with round, brown keys in rows all down the front of the unit. The first vertical row was for the cents, the second, tens of cents, the third, ones, the fourth, tens and so on. The number totals showed up in white on black placards, side-by-side, in a window above the buttons. In order to put in a monetary amount, one had to punch each row of places matching the numbers of the entry. I remember starting out punching one button at a time with one finger as the customer stood there looking at me like, “You moron, can’t you work any faster than this? My Big Mac is gonna mold before I get it.” However, I eventually mastered the beast and could use multiple fingers to put in a total all at once – three fingers for “$1.99” and the thumb and first finger to “enter”. I thought I was hot stuff. And, oh yes, I was there when the Big Mac was first introduced. I had a “Mac Attack” on a regular basis.  I learned to count back change. Those cash registers only told you what the total due was, not the total cash back. A $20 bill for that $1.99 order? A penny – two dollars, three dollar bills – three dollars, four dollars, five dollars, a five dollar bill – ten dollars, and a ten dollar bill – twenty dollars. Give a clerk today, if there is no computerized cash register, a ten dollar bill and a nickle for a $1.95 purchase and watch him slowly come unglued trying to figure out how much money you should be getting back!!! Crew members were required to be “versatile” and one’s pay scale and evaluation was based on just how many things one could do in the restaurant. That meant that I didn’t just work the front, but I cooked too and I loved it. It was a fascinating process and I am here to tell you that a McDonald’s hamburger or French fries are no more unhealthy for you than a hamburger or French fries that are fried at home. Food is food and frying is frying. Back then, however, there was one breakfast ingredient that seems to be missing these days and that was butter. But I’m getting sidetracked – back to versatility. Another job that was a requirement back then was being a morning host or hostess. That has gone by the wayside too, apparently, but it was a fun job that involved making sure tables were clean, visiting with the customers, refilling coffee and bringing extra food items requested. It is a job that taught me the value of a servant attitude. I found that the more gracious I was and the more willing I was to do for the customers, the kinder they were and the more appreciative they were. Even when I would get a real grouch, I found that if I didn’t take offense and just treated them kindly, their grouchiness didn’t bother me and they seemed to leave a little less grouchy. It’s a lesson to practice every day.  I never would have picked McDonald’s as my career of choice at that time. I was fresh out of college with a degree in Fine Arts, but there weren’t any jobs out there in “Art” even if one did think that one’s art was “Fine”. McDonald’s was the only job I could land. I found out however, that even though I was not getting what I thought I “deserved”, I was learning an enormous amount of information and wonderful skills that would serve me the rest of my life. I’ve found that to be true in everything I’ve done that hasn’t jived with what I thought I had to have. I have figured out that I really don’t know what is always best for me and that I just have to chill and let God do the leading to whatever “best” is. It has led to a much more peaceful life, believe me!! We are at the beginning of a new year and stress is pretty heavy in the country and in the lives of many individuals. Seeking to serve rather than to be served is a heck of a way to deal with stress. When we seek to serve, rather than focusing on what we think we “deserve”, there is a change in attitude and actions for everyone involved. Anyway, because with any life’s lesson there really has to be food involved, it is time for a recipe. The following is my way of using the homemade English Muffins, from the last post, for egg and muffin breakfast sandwiches. Your kids will love you for them! Sandwiches Per Sandwich: 1 egg or two egg whites 1 English Muffin 1 slice American Cheese 1 slice Canadian Bacon or 2 slices thin-sliced Smoked Ham Melted butter or olive oil              |
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Homestead Revival
Paratus Familia
Rural Revolution