Anasazi Beans

I started answering Cousin J's comment with a comment of my own, but as usual I was too wordy and didn't have as much control as I do in the composing window, so here I am. J, you asked me previously what goodies I used in cooking my beans, and I replied with "not much" (or something like that). But, your question got me thinking and I decided that I needed to add more stuff...so for the next few pots of pinto beans I added bay leaves and maybe celery. This is what I did today.

Anasazi Beans

Washed the beans

Put the beans and a lot of water into the pot (we like a lot of pot liquor). I turned up the heat, but as soon as it started simmering I lowered the heat to keep it at a simmer. The lid was on, but tilted.

After only an hour the beans were soft enough that I could have eaten them then, but of course they weren't seasoned. I wish that I could give measurements, but except for half a large onion and 3 stalks of celery, nothing else was measured.

Here's what I added to the beans:

1/2 a large onion (I would have added more if I remembered the container of minced onion sitting in the fridge.) And not that they needed more, they were delicious. I just wish I had used the onions.

3 stalks of celery
I used the mini-chopper and minced the onion and celery pretty small. Wayne doesn't like to see evidence of veggies! Plus, this really thickens up the pot liquor nicely.

3 bay leaves

1/2 a small can of tomato sauce (I usually use ketchup but decided that the tomato sauce would be more economical. I probably could have used the whole can. Don't know why I didn't.

I ground some fresh pepper and tossed it and some kosher salt in the pot. It was maybe 3/4 to 1 tsp. salt.

I squirted some Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce in. Maybe 1/4 cup, maybe less.

I shook in some Louisiana Hot Sauce. Probably about 8 shakes. I don't find LHS to be very spicy, so I wasn't the least bit worried about it.

I also poured a little Worchestershire Sauce in. Maybe a tablespoon, maybe less.

I had some chicken broth in the fridge from last week, so I heated it and poured most of it in (about 1 1/2 cups).

I let it stay on a very low heat with the lid tilted for another hour and a half or so. I didn't use any garlic because Wayne doesn't care for it. If it were just for me, there would be garlic.

I spooned mine over rice. I also made a fresh pan of Golden Corn Bread and ate a piece of it with butter. Yummy! Wayne didn't show up, but Carolyn and Jax came over and she thought they were really good. We have been having beans and cornbread a lot! I found the beans in 1 lb bags at the local supermarket. They were a little higher than pinto beans, but still cheap. You Aggies out there should really like them. They're maroon and white! Actually, they look like little maroon and white Holstein cattle (without heads, legs or tails.)

Golden Corn Bread

1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
1/4 cup sugar 4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup cornmeal
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 cup oil

Sift together into bowl flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Stir in cornmeal. In a small bowl, beat eggs with fork, add milk and oil. Add all at one time to cornmeal mixture. Stir with fork until flour is just moistened. Even if batter is lumpy, do not stir any more. Pour into well-greased 9 x 9 x 2 pan. Bake in hot oven (425ºF) 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Since the main subject of this post is beans, I'll end this with a joke Dee sent me recently. Somehow it seems apropos.

And elderly couple is attending church services.
About halfway through she writes a note and hands it to her husband.
The note says, "I just let out a silent fart. What do you think I should do?"
He writes back, "Put a new battery in your hearing aid..."

What the Deuce?!!!

Okay, I didn't get up at the crack of dawn. There was a possibility that Gage was going to be delivered to my house at about 8:30 as he didn't have school today. Maybe a teacher in-service or something. So, I didn't set the alarm, but did manage to wake up by 8. Turned on my cell phone right away in case I had a message from Wendy letting me know for sure whether he would be coming or not. I did...he was.

He was, until he got invited to go to the Houston Zoo with the family of one of his friends. Much more fun for him than being here. Not to say he doesn't have a good time here. We usually play on the Wii. Last time it was Super Mario Brothers. I wanted to watch him play, but he insisted I join in...so I did. He's very patient with me, waiting until I catch up and explaining what's going to happen or what I should do. Just like he does with Zane.

Since Gage wasn't coming, I went on with my normal routine which starts with my diet breakfast. It's the diet and exercise program I might have mentioned in a much earlier post. I bought it after watching an infomercial on television years ago. It works for me and the good part is that the exercise is only done a couple of times a week. One day it takes about 20-25 minutes of (pretty easy) exercises. And one day takes about an hour or so of also pretty easy exercises. You increase the reps and sets until by the end of the 6 weeks that this program lasts you are doing the maximum reps and sets. Half of my time, especially in the first few weeks is reading and re-reading the instructions for how the exercise is executed, when you breathe, how you're supposed to position the apparatus, how many reps and how many sets.

I decided, reluctantly, to start the stupid program last Monday. I weighed, measured and started gathering the foods that I need. My heart isn't in it. Probably because my main inspiration...my annual visits with the endocrinologist and the gynecologist have already occurred. In March. It's not like I expect to look good in a swimsuit...that ship has sailed, but I would like to not have to buy the next size. And if I don't get my ass in gear, that will certainly happen.

Plus, I'm going to visit relatives in California at the end of May, and I'd like to look decent. Right after I get back from there we go to Schlitterbahn, then to Concan soon after that. Yikes! I really need to snap into shape!

I sort of did the diet last week, but no exercise (as easy as it is)! Obviously, my heart isn't in it yet.

Okay, I'm all over the place with this post. My title was meant to refer to the fact that after 3 hours, I had just gotten out of the kitchen long enough to get to the computer. I had started a pot of Anasazi beans at 9 and started rice in the rice cooker a little while ago. I set my timer for 35 minutes to go back downstairs to make some cornbread in case Wayne comes home for lunch. When I checked the timer just now, I found I have 1 minute to finish this up and get back to the kitchen.

Geez!

Fridge Clean-up Project

The front and sides of the fridge have really been getting on my nerves lately.  I was made aware of how messy it was when I posted the photo of Robin in front of the fridge last month.  Look at that jumble of photos, calendars, comic strips, appointment cards, notes to self, etc!  You can't see that both sides are just as crowded with more photos, schedules, business cards, magnetic letters for the Fridge Phonics...and more.
I decided today was the day to transform the refrigerator.  After breakfast, I began taking everything off the fridge.  I removed photos from their magnetic envelopes and I took all the letters off and cleaned them and put them in a large ziplock along with the Fridge Phonic.  Down came all the schedules, business cards, appointment cards.  Everything was off and I was able to actually wipe down the entire refrigerator.

Then came the job of deciding what would go back up.  I made the side away from view our "information highway."  Emergency numbers, business cards, notes to self and that sort of thing will be there.  The freezer door now has invitations and meetings posted.  The fridge door has only three sets of photos...the grandkids, naturally.  The right side has a couple of photos, Gage's Pee Wee League schedule, a saying I like (a philosophy I have embraced for years) and a few cartoons.

The philosophy that keeps me idling guilt-free.

When I finished, I stood back to marvel at the neatness.  It is neat...no question about it, but it has no personality.  It's a little too institutional looking, I think.

Cluttered?  Yes, but it has personality! 

This fridge looks like it's one step away from being in a rent house.

I love this...the voice of reason.

Hope you can read these.  Click on them to get a larger view.

Comment to Cousin J

This began as a comment to a post on Cousin J's blog.  She is going to start a project during which time she will make, instead of buy, all the bread  for her family for 40 days.  She will use all sorts of methods and recipes...using the bread machine when she wants/needs to.  My comment started getting ridiculously long, so I decided to post it on my blog, instead.

Oooh, I love homemade bread, too.  I used to make it fairly frequently, but then couldn't quit eating it.  Warm homemade bread and plenty of butter!  How good is that?  I couldn't even let it cool.  Maybe 10 minutes out of the oven was all I could wait.  Oh. my. god!  There is nothing like it. But mine was just plain old homemade bread.  That was in the long ago days before I took us off of white bread.

I did have a french bread recipe that came with an EKCO bread pan that looked like a rounded "W".  The recipe made two loaves...one for each side of the W.  I came across the bread pan a while back and wanted to make some french bread because I remembered we liked it a lot and it seemed like it was a bit faster than my other bread recipe. (Notice, no plural...I really didn't experiment much!)   I tore through lots of possible places for the recipe (choking on dust, occasionally), but never found it.  I knew it was probably still lurking here somewhere because that recipe was not something I would have thrown away.  I couldn't have discarded it accidentally either, because it was printed on heavy sort of magazine slick paper that was almost the size of a road map.

A couple of nights ago, in my shredding/dusting/vacuuming mode in my bedroom, I found it in one of the big plastic containers that had old prospectus (how do you make that a plural?) and charity requests (not the word I'm looking for) and drug monographs and lots of other paper & envelopes.  In the three or so containers I've already gone through, everything has been shredded or tossed with the exception of a few things I will go through later that now reside in one file folder.

Anyway, back to the recipe.  As I said, I found it upstairs in my bedroom among all that other stuff.  Weird.  So I took it to the printer and made a copy.  It's so big that even folded in fourths, the whole piece wouldn't fit on the printer.  No problem.  I copied the part I needed and then typed it into the Master Cook program that I have and printed out that recipe.  On the original recipe I had penciled in new amounts of ingredients.  Evidently, and I don't remember this, I felt like the loaves needed to be a little bigger, so I increased the amounts to 1 1/2 of the original.  In Master Cook I saved the original recipe and then adjusted the ingredient amounts and saved that one too.  I printed both recipes and placed them in a sheet protector with the EKCO  sheet between them.  Now I just need to get my cookbook fixed and things will be right with the world.

My cookbook (my notebook with all the recipes I have typed into Master Cook) fell apart recently and it makes me crazy to have to deal with it.  Yesterday I stopped at Walmart and bought 3 smaller notebooks with the idea that I would have a separate notebook for three different groups of recipes.  I haven't worked out what's going where and the number "3" was arbitrary anyway.  The notebooks are heavy-duty and were over $6 apiece and I just didn't want to buy a 4th one because I was being cheap at the time.  So there's a new project for me.  I just need to think about it a bit. And maybe buy another notebook.

And Cousin J, here is the recipe.  I'm pretty sure you don't have to have the special bread pan, although I wonder if one can be found on eBay.  I just looked on eBay and found it here and it's exactly the one I have. The recipes are on the back of the paper that's covering the pan.

French Bread


1 package dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water, 105-115 degrees
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon butter or margarine
4 1/4 to 4 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cornmeal

In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water.

Add sugar, salt, butter, and 2 cups flour.  Beat with a spoon until thoroughly mixed.  Gradually add remaining flour until dough is easy to handle.

Knead on a lightly floured surface for five to ten minutes or until dough is elastic and not sticky.

Place in a greased bowl; cover dough with plastic wrap.  Let rise in a warm place until double in size, 1 to 1 1/4 hours.

Punch down and place on a lightly floured surface.  Divide into two equal pieces.

Shape each piece into a long narrow loaf, about 14" long and 1 1/2" in diameter.

Lightly grease inside of EKCO French Bread Pan.  Sprinkle 1 tsp. cornmeal in each section.  Shake pan to distribute evenly.

Place loaves in pan.  Make sure the loaves do not come any closer than 1 1/2" to ends of the pan.  With a sharp knife, make three or four diagonal 1/4" deep slashes on the top of each loaf.  Do not cover.  Let rise in a warm place until double in size, about 45 minutes.

Bake in preheated 375 degree oven for 25-30 minutes.  Remove from pan at once.

Adventures in Housekeeping

I've been trying to get upstairs for over an hour.  But my kitchen had a few items that didn't belong in it and I wanted to get them stowed away.  They were there in the first place because they had been so filthy, McNasty in the spots where they were unearthed that they had to go to the kitchen for a scrubbing. 

Yes, I am still on my housecleaning/purging (now I'm sitting here trying to think of the word I want to use) binge (that's it).  This is probably the longest EVER for me.  Thank goodness Hoarders is still on television.  I think I might be able to keep going if I keep watching that. 

Back to why I couldn't get upstairs.  I had already started the upper oven on a self-cleaning cycle while I was eating breakfast.  I washed, dried and put away the intruding objects...except for one that is taunting me with its presence.  I need to just throw it away...it's just a jar that should have one of those plastic stopper/glass lids that plug into the top.  Supposed to be air-proof, I guess.  Don't know where the lid is and as I look at it I'm trying to imagine what I could put in it.  Now, that seems classic hoarder instinct to me.  That sucker is going in the trash as soon as I go back downstairs.

I noticed yesterday that the shelf between the kitchen sink and the windows looked dull again...which meant it was a little dusty.  So, I got the little one-step stool and wiped down the shelf and then the countertops on either side of the sink.  The stainless steel sink was next to get a couple of treatments.  I was putting something away in the non-food pantry...maybe I could call that the butler's pantry...how fancy, when I realized there were three shelves in there that would be more efficient if I rearranged them.  For one thing, I could move the Rabbit wine opener to a lower shelf, which would keep me from saying a bad word every time I needed it.  Removing everything from the shelf I had eyeballed in the first place gave me a chance to wipe it with a damp sponge, which it apparently needed. 

In rearranging, I came across a box of checks that might be for an account we don't have anymore, so that needed to go upstairs where I could check it out and then shred them.  Okay then, finished in the kitchen, I prepared to go up, carrying a bottle of all-purpose cleaner, the box of checks, a couple of dish towels that need to be washed and 3 paper napkins that looked unused but were out of the napkin holder...I figured I'd put them by my recliner upstairs.  Off I go, Miss Efficiency, I drop the dish towels in the laundry room and head upstairs.  I took the cleaner up because it didn't have very much in it and didn't want to spray out, so I was going to pour it into another bottle of cleaner.  Crap!  Not the same brand, so I decide that I'll use it in the powder room downstairs, which I had noticed needed cleaning.  Back downstairs I go, to the laundry room to pick up a rag and a micro fiber cloth.   I also put on my apron with the big pockets, into one of which I put the box of checks which I'm still carrying around...forgot to leave them upstairs.  I clean the powder room and then remember that I had noticed the dining room table was dusty.  Back to the laundry room to pick up the furniture polish, the dust mitt (which I really like) and a dust cloth.  I polish the table and chairs and am feeling pretty good about that when I glance up and Crap!  The hanging light fixture is sporting dust AND a few little web strands.  Cleaned it...not much got on the table.  I forgot to mention that while I was dusting the table, and the chairs, and all the legs of the chairs and the table which I had to crawl around on the floor to do, the damn box of checks kept falling out of the pocket of my apron, which caused me to use bad words.  While I was in the dining room, I decided to dust everything else in there.

During all this I couldn't help but think how hard (and never-ending) it is to keep a clean house.  And I'm really glad I haven't wasted much of my life doing it. 

The New Cows on the Block

Even though I've written about some cows who happen to live in the adjoining pasture, I don't want you to think I'm fixated on them.  Cows.  I can take them or leave them.  But, you can't help but notice them.  They either give you a condescending stare or a stupid look.  There might not be much difference between those two faces, come to think of it.  But, maybe I should use the positive intent tool I learned in a parenting class last year and imagine that they are a) simply interested in what I'm doing, or b) even worried about what I might do.

Anywhoo, our neighbors across the road have fenced in about 18 acres or so and planted grass...or hay grazer...or whatever you put when cows are going to live there.  After several months of preparation by them, I noticed recently that there are now 2 cows that have been moved in.  The first time I noticed them was when I walked out to the mailbox.  They were standing near the fence just a few yards away from my mailbox.  One watched me approach the mailbox while the other one freaked out.  Freaked out might be a little strong.  She just hippity hopped back a ways, like she'd been shot at.  I got my mail and said, "Hey..." to them and went back from whence I had come.

Every time I look out my front window (that I can actually see through now because it's a NEW window) they are in that same corner, near the road, fairly close to the mailbox.  When I walk out there now, they don't move away.  I usually say something, like "How's it going?" just to be friendly.  They just stare.  A couple of days ago, though, as I spotted them through the window I got the feeling that they still weren't comfortable in their new digs.  While I was looking they would leave their favorite spot, wander away a few yards, stand still and look at each other for awhile.  It actually entered my mind (strange little thing that it is) that they looked like they were in witness protection.  Like they had been dropped into a new environment and forced to learn a new occupation because they couldn't practice whatever skills they had learned during their earlier life.  Maybe they were just lonely.  So, I'll continue to pass the time of day with them even though I don't really want to become BFF's.

A Friend

The reason we were in town last night was because a friend had passed away and we went to the visitation.  This friend was quite a colorful character and I'm sure I could write on and on about some of the things he has said and done.

I remember reading the local newspaper a few years back in which there was an article about our friend and another fellow having a fist fight during which one of them pulled a knife.  No one was injured that I know of...our friend was probably in his 70's at the time and the other guy was in his 60's. It serves to illustrate how unpredictable and fearless our friend could be.

Our friend, okay...Tom, was a big supporter of the county fair, as is Wayne.  One day he and Tom were moving a building at the fairgrounds.  The building was jacked up and Wayne was underneath it.  Tom was telling Wayne what to do.  He would point underneath towards the back and say, "Take that jack plate and move it over there."  When he pointed, Wayne would look back at where he was pointing, trying to figure out what the jack plate was.  Every time he looked back, Tom would say, "Damn it, Wayne!  Look at me when I'm talking to you!"  So, Wayne would look at him and it would all start again. He'd point toward the back and shout at Wayne to move that jack plate and Wayne would again look back to try and see what he was talking about.   "Goddang it, Wayne, you s-o-b, look at me when I'm talking to you!  Take that jack plate and move it."  He'd point; Wayne would look.   Wayne said that happened about three times before he finally figured out what the jack plate was.

I would imagine there are hundreds, if not thousands of similar stories about Tom.  One of a kind...who will be missed by many.