October Five Fabulous Finds

1. Cauliflower Mac and Cheese

Sometimes you have had a hard day and all you want to eat is some good old-fashioned comfort food.  You try to combat these urges by telling yourself, "I will really regret it if I eat a huge plate of cheese fries or a big bowl of mashed potatoes or a whole batch of chocolate chip cookies."  And then, you open the refrigerator and you see two big heads of cauliflower staring at you.  They mutter things like, "If you don't eat me soon I will turn brown and smelly and maybe even liquify before your very eyes.  If I do that, you will regret even more having eaten those mashed potatoes or cookies instead of me."

Guilt wins and I decide it best to make something with the cauliflower.  As I poured over all kinds of cauliflower recipes, I came across one that had the potential to be a win-win - Cauliflower Mac and Cheese.  Mac and Cheese definitely fits the bill as an old-fashioned comfort food and I could use the cauliflower and thus keep myself from again being threatened by the cauliflower twins residing in my fridge.

The recipe that I used is an adapted version of the one by Michelle Obama that appears in her cookbook, American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America.

Ingredients

1 pound pasta  
1 cup 2 percent or skim milk
1 pound shredded cheese
1/2 head cauliflower, cut into florets
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
Salt and pepper to taste

These are the original ingredients.  I used farfale pasta.  It gives the dish that "grown-up" look.  I also used a cup of chopped kale instead of parsley.  And, the thing that I think sends the recipe over the top is using smoked gouda instead of plain ol' cheddar cheese..  I also added a few buttered bread crumbs  and baked it in the oven for a few minutes just to give it a little crunch.

1. Preheat the oven to 350º. Bring salted water to a boil and cook the pasta until al dente.
2. Steam the cauliflower until soft, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a blender along with a few tablespoons of the steaming liquid. Puree the cauliflower, adding more steaming liquid to thin the puree if necessary.
3. In a medium size casserole dish, combine the pasta and hot cauliflower puree. Add the milk, both cheeses, parsley, and season with salt and pepper to taste.
4. I added this step at the suggestion of another blogger.  In a small bowl, mix the butter and breadcrumbs with your fingers until it resembles damp sand. Sprinkle across the top of the pasta mixture, then place the dish in the oven for about 20 minutes until the top is crispy and the sauce is bubbling.

This was an awesome version of mac and cheese.  If I do it again, and I definitely will, I'll halve the recipe.  We ate dinner and several lunches from the batch I made.  As good as it was, I was tired of it after the fifth or sixth meal.

2. Capture Your 365 Idea Lists  (http://captureyour365.com/category/idea-list/)

I had a lot of fun over the summer with the Visual Cents Project.  I was surprised at the void left in my days once it was over.  With the extra time I had, I surfed the web for websites and blogs about photography.  I stumbled upon the site Capture Your 365.  It is a site that encourages you to take a picture every day of the year!  Suddenly, accomplishing my hundred days of pictures seemed so small. 

 What is really cool about this website is that its owner, Katrina Kennedy, publishes a monthly list of photo prompts.  Where was that back in August when I had photographed every duck and flower in Farmers Branch and was wondering where to shoot next?  The prompts are interesting, fun and leave room for one's own creative take.  The site also has a gallery where readers can post their images and look at how others interpreted the prompts.  Though I have not successfully kept up with a picture a day, I do stop by the gallery every day to live vicariously through those who are committed to the Capture Your 365 project.  I'm trying to decide whether or not I can make and, more importantly, keep that kind of photography commitment in 2013.  I'll let you know when I decide.

3. Gas Fire Logs

I have always been a purist when it comes to fires in the fireplace. Big hunks of wood fueled by wads of newspaper and empty cereal boxes is the only way I thought a fire should be built.  This poses a bit of a problem though because I am also afraid of fires inside.  Even lighting candles makes me nervous.  Outside is a different story.  I like campfires, bonfires, barbecue fires and citronella candles.  I can build a pretty mean campfire.  Maybe my fears stem from the fact that in a past life I was a pyromaniac that burned a house down or something.  I don't know . . .

Anyway, one of things that we have done during the whole house renovation is redo the fireplace.  It has gone from a brick facing to a stone facing, from no mantel to a beautiful hand carved wood mantel and from only a gas starter to a set of gas logs. 

 I was afraid that the whole cozy fire ambiance might lose something with "fake" logs.  It doesn't. They are pretty darn amazing!  (This photo doesn't really tell the true story.)

And, coincidentally, we had them installed the very day that the cold front waltzed through Dallas and dropped the temperatures to the upper thirties!

4. Mr. Potato Head Pumpkin

When the girls were little, Halloween was the big kiddie celebration at our house.  We had a big party with kids in costumes, games, crafts, food and pumpkins.  We did it right!  This was mostly because the girls' birthdays are over the Christmas holidays; we could't count on their friends being available for a party during that time of year. 

 In my effort to do it right,  I made all of the girls' costumes, a feat that both of them have thanked me for in the last couple of days.  I'm glad that they remember and appreciate that I did that.  They seem genuinely grateful that I never dressed them in "one of those lame store-bought costumes." And Erin made me promise that I would do the same for her kids some day because she doesn't sew.  I think that I might be better off teaching her how to sew rather than committing to another generation of handmade Halloween costumes!  Although, I did enjoy making all those crazy costumes . . .

I also liked to carve jack-o-lantern thought I have not done that in years.  Carving pumpkins is a great deal of work and generates a great deal of mess.  I thought about doing it this year, but quickly realized that I really didn't have the time to dedicate to it but I really wanted a Halloween pumpkin.  

Walking through Target the other day, I came across Mr. Potato Head pieces for a pumpkin.  How cool is that?  Or, maybe it is just lazy.  Whichever the case, we bought one.  With a screwdriver (for punching the holes) and a few minutes l ended up with this.  Isn't he handsome?

Yes, I was deprived of handfuls of seeds and pumpkin slime all over.  I also avoided the very real possibility that I would slice some portion of a hand or finger with a sharp knife.  I think the trade off was worth it.

We are becoming fond of our Vampire pumpkin.  We'll look forward to seeing him again this time next year.

5.  Peace Through Music 
Click on the title above link to see and hear an amazing tale about the power of music.  The video is nearly twenty minutes long so make sure you have time to watch it if you click on it now.  If you don't have twenty minutes right now, make sure you come back and watch it when you do.  It is well worth the time.

On a similar note, here is another opportunity to see how music impacts the lives of others and the world around us.  Those of you in the Dallas area should come hear Resounding Harmony on Saturday November 17th at 8pm at the new Dallas City Performance Hall..  The concert benefits the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundations.  For information about Resounding Harmony and to purchase tickets for our upcoming concert visit our website www. resounding harmony.org.  

Like the above-mentioned video, this concert is also well worth your time.  You'll enjoy a fun-filled evening of music and children living with brain tumors will benefit from the proceeds of the concert.  Another win-win situation.

I hope you all enjoyed October and Halloween!  Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and Christmas are just around the corner!

A Scary Story

It was a dark and stormy night . . .

and . . . Oh wait, that is the wrong scary story! 

 Let's try this again.

It was the middle of a sunny but crisp October afternoon, just ten days before our next presidential election.  I was at home making chili and butternut squash bread to take to a Halloween party later that evening.  Weber had a few errands to run.  While he was out, he decided that he would exercise his right to vote - early.  He made his way into a packed parking lot at a branch of the public library.  It quickly became apparent that many people had early voting on their Saturday agendas.  Weber finally spotted someone getting in their vehicle and about to vacate a parking space.  He stopped, giving this person enough room to back out, and waited patiently.

While he was waiting patiently, someone came up behind him, stopped briefly and then went around him.  Weber watched as this person circled around and maneuvered himself back into the same lane where Weber was, but facing the opposite direction.  You can probably see where this is going.  This person managed to cut Weber off and take the parking space.

Rather than fight this guy for a spot, or, for that matter, the rest of the traffic in the parking lot, Weber just came home - without incident and without voting.

As he finished telling me his tale, I said somewhat sarcastically, "I bet I can guess who that person was going to vote for."  

Weber said, "I don't have to guess; I know.  He had a Romney/Ryan sticker on his Mercedes."

Why is it that stories these days are so predictable?  

Falling Fall

The weather front that is supposed to drop our temperatures thirty degrees today is looming in the background.  A sky full of gray clouds is heralding its arrival.  As I walked home from school today at lunch time, however, it was still quite warm.

I passed this tree on my way.  For some reason, I found this image beautiful and comforting.

It just looks like fall to me even though it doesn't have all of the wonderful colors of changing leaves that we most often associate with this time of year.  I love the restful spirit fall; nature is settling down.  The fall is by far my favorite season.

I took this picture with the camera on my phone.  I may have to go back with my "big" camera and see of I can do the whole scene a little more justice.

Happy fall!

The Bright Spot

Wow!  It is the 24th of October.  Where has the month gone?  I know that I have been busy but I didn't realize that it has been so long since I last posted.


One of the things that I have been doing over the last month is taking an online photography course.  It has been a great experience - low pressure and I have learned a lot.  I will share more on the class in a later post.  For now, I am just going to show you a few pictures.

I will spare you the technical details of the assignment for which I submitted this picture and instead share what this image says to me.

The majority of this frame is bright green and blurred.  If you look again, there is one brown and withered spot on the lower part of the branch.  This spot is the only spot of the frame that is in focus.

So often in life we are surrounded by things that are growing and thriving but, like this picture, the only thing that is in focus is the tiny "bad spot" in our life.  There is no arguing that if we look hard enough we can always find a spot that is not pretty, that has no life in it or that undeservingly captures our attention.  When this happens, our job is to look at the big picture.  When we do this, most of the time we will see that the "brown spot" is just a tiny place in the bigger picture.  It is surrounded by many bright spots.

Despite the fact that it is the 24th of October, the temperatures here are still in the upper eighties.  That seems kind of crazy.  However, rumor (and the weathermen) has it that that is going to change in the next day or so.  We are about to experience our first crisp fall temperatures.  But, because it has still been so warm, the summer flowers are still happily blooming.

This is a hibiscus that has been living on the back patio all summer.  It weathered the hot summer temperatures quite well.

This particular plant has spent two winters indoors.  It doesn't like being inside much but I think it may have to move to its cool weather residence this weekend.  This bloom may be its last nod to the summer of 2012.

Back in the spring we planted several small shrubs in an attempt to attract hummingbirds.  We figured it would be next spring before these little plants matured enough to bloom.  We were wrong.  Their bright yellow flowers provided a bright spot for us this week.

They seem to glow across the yard..

This one stands looking out into the sunshine.  I hope the changing temperatures heading our way aren't too tough on these plants.  We are looking forward to them being a bright spot for some hummingbirds next spring.

And on another note as far as looking on the bright side goes . . .there are 61 shopping days left until Christmas.

September's Five Fabulous Finds

Pencil Case (http://www.jetpens.com/Nomadic-PE-09-Flap-Type-Pencil-Case-Navy/pd/4414)

I am a sucker for pens and pencils.  I like to have certain writing implements for certain writing tasks.  This means that I usually have a selection of such with me - gel pens for journaling (black or blue), purple pens for grading (red is too harsh), highlighters  (yellow and green), Tricondaroga pencils (that necessitate their own sharpeners because they are triangular) . . .you get the picture.  Then there are the paper clips, sticky notes, thumb drives, and all the other small stuff that floats around in my backpack unless it is properly contained.  So, I began a search for the perfect pencil case.  After browsing various websites, I finally settled on this one.  

It has two pouches and a pocket with smaller pockets inside!  At present, it is the most perfect that I have found.

DYAC http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/category/best-of-dyac/

DYAC stands for “Damn You Auto Correct”

The other night I had the following text message exchange with Erin.

I should have ended it with LMAO, but I didn’t.  What I did do was discover that the Internet is full of hilarious screen shots of text messages that have gone to the dark side thanks to auto correct.  After reading some of those, Erin’s message seemed tame by comparison.  I spent more time than I am willing to admit LMAO.

I have often thought it would be funny to keep a list of things with which auto correct has tried to help me.  A week or so ago I was trying to send a student an email about a composition that had an ostinato bass line.  Auto correct wanted it to be “obstinate” bass line, which may also have been accurate, but not the word I was looking.  

(FYI   As I write this, ostinato is underlined in red.)

Cookies

I love cookies.  The problem is that I don’t eat them very; when I do, I hate to decide which kind I want.  Should I have one that is just OK so I won’t eat as many?  Or, should I eat a really good one so that the caloric sin is worth the guilt that accompanies it?  Still there is difficulty.  Chocolate chip?  Snickerdoodles? Peanut butter?  Oatmeal?

I promised I would bake cookies to take to the knit shop the other day.  I thumbed through a cookbook that I had not looked at for some time and came across the perfect recipe, one that I used to make fairly frequently.  It is from the cookbook, Seasons of Santa Fe.  The cookies are Linda’s Outrageous Chocolate Chip Cookies.  What makes them outrageous?”  They contain chocolate chips, peanut butter and oatmeal.  What could be better?  And they are healthy too because they contain whole wheat flour:-)

Sorry, I have no picture; they didn’t last long enough.  The best I can do is the recipe.

LINDA”S OUTRAGEOUS CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 stick butter (room temperature)

1 cup creamy peanut butter

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons milk

2 large eggs

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup oats

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

2 cups chocolate chips

In a large bowl, cream together the white and brown sugars, butter, peanut butter, vanilla and milk. Add the eggs and mix well. In a medium bowl, combine the flours, oats, baking soda and chocolate chips. Slowly add to the egg mixture combining well. Chill the dough covered overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Form dough into 1 inch balls and place on parchment lined cookie sheets. Bake on the center rack for 12 minutes.

Eat and don’t feel guilty!!

There are lots of other tasty recipes in this cookbook, but it was worth the price just for these cookies!

Power Washer

You may remember a few posts ago where I chronicled the clogged kitchen sink, the holes in the kitchen floor, the corroded cast iron pipe, and the mounds of dirt in the middle of the kitchen floor.  If not, you can read about it here.

During that time, the house was filthy because of all the jack hammering and digging.  Trying to stay on top of the dust and dirt with the broom and vacuum cleaner was a futile effort.  So what did we do?  We power washed the patio.  I know, this probably sounds futile too, especially since we have the dog who mistakes concrete for grass.  That aside, power washing the patio brought immediate gratification.  We watched as the force of the water pounded away years of dirt.  It was amazing.  So, let me introduce you to my new best friend.

This is Paul’s power washer.  Hopefully Santa will bring us one of our own!

Bubbles

Sometimes you just need to play.  And, there is about no better way to do that than by blowing bubbles.  At the beginning of the school year, the teachers at Weber’s school drew names for a back to school secret pal.  They were supposed to give each other something that would start the year off on a happy note.  We got diet coke (per request) and bubbles for his secret pal.  When the secret pals were revealed, his pal stopped and told him what great fun she was having with her bubbles.

We usual have a bottle of bubbles at the house.  Every now and then we remember to play with them.

Several years ago, I wrote a more serious post about bubbles.  However, I recommend just having fun with them!

Outdoor Dining

Anyone who knows us knows that Weber and I are both suckers for God's furry creatures.  We have a particular fondness for strays.  We are the ones who share our home with a cat who was plucked off a busy street on a 106 degree day in Dallas and a dog who was scooped up from behind a shopping center on a 17 degree February day.  Needless to say, we don't like to see any animal hot, cold or hungry.  

The other night we noticed a scruffy gray cat in the front yard.  He/she seemed to be looking for a bed and breakfast spot.  We put a small container of food out for him/her.  A few minutes later we peeked out the front window to see the cat enjoying a nice meal.  The next morning, when we went out to get the paper, the bowl was completely empty.

When Paul (our contractor) got here that day he panicked thinking the bowl on the porch was because Frankie had gotten out and we were trying to lure her home.  When we confessed to feeding a stray, he was not surprised, being one who does the same thing.

The next night, there was an orange cat in the yard.  Word of free food travels fast in our neighborhood!  We think the orange cat may belong to our neighbor but we're not sure.  Again we filled the food bowl and placed it on the front porch.  And again, the bowl, which was actually a Rubbermaid food storage container, was completely empty the next morning.

How many times have we both been told that you should never feed strays or you will be feeding them forever.  Somehow that seemed OK.  So, we bought a real cat food bowl, one with two separate sides, and continued to fill it with food in water.  It went untouched for a few days.  Figures.

Then, a couple nights ago Weber wandered over to the front door before we headed to bed.  He said that we had a visitor at the food bowl and asked if I wanted to come see.  I asked if it was the gray cat or the orange one.  His response, "Neither."  

This is who was there . . .

 . . .a youngish looking raccoon!

 I didn't think we had raccoons in the middle of suburbia.  Obviously I was wrong.  We watched for ten minutes or so as the raccoon ate and drank and washed its paws and ate and drank some more.  Frankie sat in the window and watched along with us.  Somehow the dogs, mighty protectors that they are,  were oblivious.

We know that it is not a good thing to feed wild animals.  It's not good for them to become dependent on humans for their food.  Now we were in a quandary.  Was the raccoon just a fluke?  Or, was it going to come back for more? What about the cats?

We decided to wait a couple of night before filling the bowl again.  Last night we gave in.  The bowl had not been out long when Weber checked to see if we had any diners.  Yes, yes we did, but it was not the raccoon or either of the familiar cats.

It was . . .

a possum.  Isn't it cute!

I have seen possums in the back yard running along the fence so it doesn't surprise me that one meandered around to the front for a little nosh.  If our next door neighbor finds out that we are feeding the local possum population, we will at the top of her s*#t list.  She is always calling animal control to come set traps to catch and remove the possums from her yard.  Frankly, that is a lost cause.  Unless of course, we keep feeding them and they relocate to our yard.

So now we are faced with the question . . .to feed or not to feed?

Who Do You Say That I Am?

Last week we got new mailboxes at school.  Our departmental secretary was responsible for placing our names on all the new boxes.   Typing and sticking all of those name tags must have given her an opportunity to think about names, something that i suspect we all do every now and then.

To me, names are a rather strange phenomenon.  From the time most little girls realize that they can one day have a baby, they have a list of potential baby names filed away somewhere in their heads.  Expectant parents spend nine months trying to agree on the name that their offspring will be known by for an entire lifetime.  This is quite a responsibility.  For most of us, our given names preceded our arrival in this world - we were named before anyone knew what we looked like, what we acted like, or before we had a known personality.  So, do we eventually grow into our names?  Did our parents have some premonition about who we should be?  Do our names and our personas really have any relationship to one another?

We have all probably known someone whom we have thought did not "match" their given name.  She doesn't look like a Tiffany or he looks more like a Bruce than Butch.  I wonder why that is.

Back to the secretary and our new mailboxes. . .

I walked into the office to pick up my mail when I heard the secretary say, "Your name doesn't fit you.  You should have a more exotic name."

No one has ever told me that my name doesn't fit me.  My name, Kris, well really Kristin, means "Christ-like.". Truthfully, I've never really thought about whether or not my name befits me, but when I heard her say this to me, I was startled.  Really?  My name doesn't fit me?  Am I not worthy of bearing a name that means Christ-like?  Maybe not.

The only response I could muster was, "I'm not sure that you thinking my name doesn't fit me is a good thing or a bad thing."

I was assured that it was a good thing.  With that I wandered upstairs to teach my class, not giving this conversation much more thought.

Apparently this was not true for our secretary.  I again passed through the office at the end of the day.  She said, "I figured it out.  Your name should be Camille!"

Camille?  Do I look or seem like a Camille?  What does the name Camille mean?  Thank goodness for my iPad and Google.  Within seconds I knew that Camille means "at the altar.". Hmmm . . .

I could live with a name with that meaning.  I often feel like I spend my life "at the altar."  But Camille sounds so feminine.  I don't perceive myself as being overly feminine.  To me, Camille sounds like a person shrouded in mystery.  Maybe that is part of what makes it sound like an exotic name.  I also don't see myself as being exotic, no matter how you define it.  I wonder what our secretary sees in me.

Over the weekend I was at a seminar where the following was part of a group prayer:

"Show me the hidden things.  Take me down to the spring of my life and tell me my nature and my name."

Okay, this is a little weird.  What is going on here?  Why all this emphasis on names, on my name?  I began thinking about the fact that monastics are given a new name when they leave their worldly life and give themselves to God.  This new name is given based on their true nature.  So what name would I be given if I became a nun?  Probably not Camille.  But Sister Camille does have a nice ring to it.

If the secretary's remarks and then encountering this prayer on Saturday were not enough, the Gospel reading on Sunday morning was from Chapter 8 of Matthew where Jesus asks his disciples, "Who do you say that I am?"

There must be some message in all of these nudges to consider who I am.  Is the person that I think that I am the person that others see in me?  Does my name define me or do I define my name?

Maybe my given name, Kris, "Christ-like", is exactly right because like Jesus I find myself wondering, "Who do you say that I am?"