"Overdone and Undercooked" Newspaper Columns©

FUN FOOD HINTS AND SURPRISES

 

Stuff a miniature marshmallow in the bottom of a sugar cone to prevent ice cream drips.

 

Use a meat baster to “squeeze” your pancake batter onto the hot griddle-perfectly-shaped pancakes every time.

 

To prevent eggshells from cracking, add a pinch of salt to the water before hard-boiling.

 

Run your hands under cold water before pressing Rice Krispies treats in the pan. The marshmallows won’t stick to your fingers.

 

Try using plastic bags (that come from the dry cleaners) under your throw rugs to keep them from slipping. It works like a charm.

 

I have just found a wonderful lint remover. Just put on a rubber glove and rub the garment. The lint comes off like a magnet.

 

Use cornstarch to clean fuzzy stuffed animals. Rub the cornstarch on the fuzzy part and let it stand a few minutes and then brush out the cornstarch and the toys are clean once again. Use the cornstarch as it comes right out of the box.

 

To get the most juice out of fresh lemons, bring them to room temperature and roll them under your palm against the kitchen counter before squeezing. Don’t throw away lemon halves after the juice has been extracted. They may be dipped in salt and rubbed on the bottom of your copper-bottomed pots for a few minutes, and they will gleam like new. Then pick up a soap-filled pad and scour the bottom of the pot lightly. This will leave a film on the pot, which will help prevent further accumulation.

 

Lemons also work on a cutting board. After rubbing on your pots, allow to stand for about one hour. Then wash the board under your hot water faucet with some good detergent and put out in the sun to dry. You will find that your cutting board will be bleached to a whiteness as never before.

 

This is a really nifty trick using good ole aluminum foil. Just wad up a piece of foil. After making a ball rub briskly over any rusted spots on your chrome furniture or chrome-plated bumpers. Get ready to take a deep breath of wonder as you watch that rust disappear.

 

Would you like to know a surefire method for keeping cut flowers fresh twice as long? Simply add an aspirin to the water in your vase.

 

To apply nail polish more easily, simply grasp an empty coffee cup with the hand to be painted. This makes it so much easier to steady your hands.

 

Husband used up all the rags. Got a messy project and don’t want to ruin your clothes? For shoulder-to-knees protection when painting or doing messy chores, cut a T-slit at the bottom of a plastic trash bag, cut holes at the sides under the fold, slip arms and head through the slits.

 

Here’s the fastest way to remove the core from the head of iceberg lettuce; bang the head, core side down, on to a hard surface such as your kitchen counter and the core should pop right out.

 

To remove pesky onion and garlic smells from your wood cutting boards, scrub the surface with a paste of baking soda and water.

 

Try saving the water from boiled peeled potatoes to use in your next bread mix. It adds the perfect flavor to bread loaves.

 

Neighborhood dogs won’t stay out of your garbage cans. This remedy works every time-pour a dash of household ammonia into garbage bags before closing them. The scent will deter those critters.

 

When forming meatballs with all of the gooey stuff included, put a few drops of vinegar on your hands every so often and the ingredients will not stick to your hands.

 

A teaspoon of salad oil prevents rice from sticking together and keeps water from boiling over. And speaking of boiling over, never put a lid on a pot that contains milk, you are guaranteed a mess.

 

When cutting hard-boiled eggs into dip your knife in boiling hot water first. This makes the most beautiful slice you have ever seen.

 

Have you ever wondered how restaurants make those cute garnishes? For a fancy carrot curl cut thin lengthwise strips of carrot with a vegetable peeler. Roll around your finger and fasten with toothpick. Chill in ice water. Remove picks before using.

 

To determine whether an egg is fresh, immerse it in a pan of cool, salted water. If it sinks, it is fresh- if it rises to the surface throw it away.

 

Spray your Tupperware with nonstick cooking spray before pouring in tomato-based sauces- no more stains.

 

If you accidentally over-salt a dish while its still cooking, drop in a peeled potato-it absorbs the excess salt for an instant “fix me up.”

 

If you’re a homemade cook and like to fix and freeze, remember these helpful hints. Cooked foods should be cooled before being put into freezer.

 

Keep food packages as thin and flat as practically, food will freeze and thaw more quickly. And if you run out of freezer containers for your homemade soup, let the soup cool and put it into freezer bags. They will freeze flat, and you can re-heat in the bag. Remember do that if you use freezer bags, the frozen mixture may not be as deep as a frozen block of food from a container. Therefore, the reheating time may be shorter.

 

Do you have any crazy recipes that your friends and family are amazed by the ingredients? You know like “Brown paper bag apple pie” or 7-UP cake.

I would love to feature your favorites next month.

 

 

Teens lives filled with adventures.

Teen Talk with Braiden Eilers

 

Parlez -vous francais?  Well, Inglemoor senior Josh Taylor certainly does.  He spent a year in an exchange program in Meise, Belgium, north of Brussels.

“Taking chances and seeing new things, “is why Josh wanted to do the exchange program.

Also, it was a different opportunity where he got to experience a new culture and speak a new language.

Josh had three years of French before going on his adventure.  He said the language was very, very hard to understand, and that made his classes very difficult as well.

He stayed in Belgium from August to July.  It wasn’t until Christmas that he became good at the French language.

What was his best memory from Belgium?  “The first night I dreamt in French, that was really cool, he said.

He just woke up one day and everything clicked.  And that day he went to school and could actually communicate and understand everything.

He didn’t get very homesick because he prepared himself for what he was going into—11 – 12 months without seeing family or friends.

He did miss his family, especially on holidays and on his birthday, but he kept a great attitude and wasn’t negative about it.

“The people there were very willing to talk to someone else,” Josh said.

‘You say hello and good-bye to everyone with a kiss on the cheek.   So, it gave you personal contact with them. It made it easier to be open with them after getting to know them.”

I think Josh puts his whole trip into perspective for us when he says “I wouldn’t trade anything in the world for this experience.”

If you want to learn more about doing an exchange program, you can contact AFS, American Field Service, the organization that Josh went through, or just talk to your language teacher.  I’m sure they have all the information that you need!

Note: Teen Talk was my daughter Braiden.

 

She was in High School, and I had a column, Overdone and Undercooked.

 

Today Braiden is an Emergency Doctor.

Teens Lives Filled with Adventures

Teen Talk with Braiden Eilers

 

Alison Edwards seems to be a pretty normal senior at Inglemoor High School.

But how many seniors can say they have been to boot camp.

This 17 -year-old went to Army Reserve Basic Training in South Carolina for nine weeks this last summer. I talked to her to see what her experience was really like.

‘It was something that other people haven’t done, it was an adventure,” Edwards said.  “And …you get something to fall back on when you enter the adult world.  It also doesn’t hurt that you get paid to do it!”

Her typical day was getting up at about 4:45 a.m. sometimes 4:30 to do drill, followed by an hour of running, sit-ups, and pushups.  Next was breakfast, and then an all-day trip, which was basically marching with weapons and ruck-sacks.

You have lunch outside, standing up, and it was not very appetizing.

It could be hot dogs, or chicken soup, and it would all taste the same,” she said.”  After going home, you shower then do more exercises/training review the day, and the go to bed at about 9:30 to 1O:30pm.

Her best memory of boot camp was coming home.  She grew up during this experience, and she earned respect and how to give it.  One the downside, Alison’s worst experience was having to go through the gas chamber.

In the gas chamber you learn what it is like to be the enemy. “All your pores just open up, your skin burns, it’s hard to breathe, and your nose runs, “she explained with a shudder.

When asked if she would go through it again, se said she would, but if it was a choice, definitely not.

Basic training made a big impact on her life as you can see.  It also gave her stability for civilian jobs, and she got to earn all about computers while she was there.

She still trains once a month – on the first weekend of each month at Fort Lewis.  Also, twice a year she and the other reserves are tested on how fast they can run two miles, and how many sit-ups and push ups-they can do.

Are you someone who is interested in the adventure Alison took?

If you are 18 and up , go and sign up! If you are 17, you have to get a guardian’s consent.  Then in the summer, between your junior and senior years, you go train like Alison did.  Then next summer you go to advanced individual training for 12 weeks in the south.

Are you up to it!

 

Note: Teen Talk was my daughter Braiden.  She was in High School, and I had a column, Overdone and Undercooked.

 

Today Braiden is an Emergency Doctor.

FAMILY SNEAKS KITCHEN UTENSILS

 

 

Flat on my belly on the cold linoleum and shoved against the mop head, the pantry shelves above me, I had not been able to move a muscle for three and 1/2 minutes.

 

Listening intently, I was a waiting the thieves who entered my kitchen. You know the ones: Husband, alias utensil robber of spatulas, cooking pots, butter knives all snuck out of the kitchen drawers and led directly into …The Garage.

 

And here’s the clincher. Once in the garage, these precious kitchen utensils instantly become grease scoopers and oil drip pans. And, worse of all, leather rippers. As a result, I have self-described him as a “kitchen utensil junkie.”

 

The other thieves? Children. From toddlers to teenagers, they are pilfering the kitchen scissors, twine, and spoons. Anything their little mugs can get a hold of and sneak upstairs to their rooms.

 

I had confronted, accused, and questioned to NO avail. All I ever received was denial. “I didn’t do it.” “I did NOT take it.” “What would I want with that…duh?”

 

This week, I made my biggest, most rewarding discovery in a time-honored way: watching and waiting, waiting and watching.

 

A couple of days before, I hunted in the teenager’s room. It was blatantly lying on the floor—number one: Evidence: of my kitchen scissors. I took a Polaroid shot. I continued the hunt with new appreciation, having now seen the competition.

 

Another Polaroid snapped in the garage under the car-my stock pot-with car oil dripping in it.

 

I waited until Saturday’s chores were completed. I’ am ready now for the confrontation. I dropped the ax on this one-time-only opportunity.

 

The tribe sat in a circle as I slowly revealed the pictures behind my back as evidence. They all sat there silently contemplating their destiny.

 

“This is proof of what I have been saying that you are thieves and have conspired to deplete me of any kitchen utensils.” I shouted.

 

“I know your trick, you think you have learned to be crafty by putting the dishes away in mysterious places. Well, you cannot throw me off the trail any longer I am on to you! Several behavior studies (I threw this in as their attention began to lag) says that…”

 

If you want to know the truth, I glimpsed around the room where they were captured, pinned down, stunned.  It was great.

 

“The closest you will come to life on this planet (home) I continued, is to admit to fault and I will go easy on you.” No one quarreled, no one disagreed. Call me cautious, but I’m always suspicious when everyone is so agreeable all at the same time.  All at once.

 

I thought the case was closed until today, when I went to the cabinet to pull out my Jell-O mold…it was missing. I looked out the kitchen window and there it was full of dirt…with a spoon in it.

 

For obvious reasons, I’m resigned to the fact that my pantry is too small for stakeouts, and I have learned to cook with…

 

NO UTENSILS NEEDED RECIPES:

 

CHICKEN -HAM PINWHEELS

 

2 chicken breasts

 

1/8 teaspoon salt

 

1/8 teaspoon dried basil leaves, crushed.

 

Dash pepper and dash of garlic salt.

 

3 slices of ham

 

2 teaspoons lemon juice

 

Paprika

 

Pound chicken breasts 1/4 inch thickness. Mix salt, basil, pepper, and garlic salt; sprinkle on chicken. Cover each chicken breast with 1-1/2 slices of ham; roll up length- wise. Place, seam side down, in 10×6-inch baking dish. Drizzle with lemon juice; sprinkle with paprika. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes. Cover; chill thoroughly. Before serving, cut chicken rolls into 1/4-inch slices. If desired, serve with bite size rye bread spread with softened butter and mustard. Make 24 slices.

I stopped on the top step of the Marriott Hotel entryway and sucked in as much fresh San Francisco air as I could.

In my hand I held a check made out to me, Shanna, for $1 million dollars.

Winning the Pillsbury million-dollar bake-off was as nerve-racking as a teenager out past curfew, as painful as a root canal, and as difficult as preparing your taxes.

I ought to know, I can now afford to chuckle, but up until this minute, I vowed never to be so humiliated again.

You might think a cooking aficionado, such as myself, would be thrilled and honored to participate in such a wonderful time-honored event. But cooking is not without its dark side.

This is what happened to me.  This is my story.

Last December, 100 Bake-Off entrants were notified that their recipes had been selected for the contest finals, which were held last month.

For me, this meant an expense-paid trip to the competition finals in San Francisco, the opportunity to win $1 million and most importantly national recognition.

If only my Aunt Maddie had lived to see this-she had won every blue ribbon at every state fair for the last 60 years of her life for her famous apple pie!

If she had found out I put her recipe in the Pillsbury Million Dollar Contest she would have throttled me.  She was a mean old bat.

Only on her death bed, when all the relatives were lined up around the bed, did Aunt Maddie point her crippled, arthritic, 90-year-old finger at me.

At a whisper Aunt Maddie said, ‘Tell the family the jokes on them (sickly cough.) The secret in my famous apple pie, (an extraordinarily long silent pause) I never used apples, (weak laugh). It was pears!”

I tore out of that room and immediately sent the recipe in.

Me and a zillion others were flown straight to an oven, where the immense pressure began.

Immediately, when I saw the new crust-free, stainless oven, I became confused and disoriented.  There was no messy kitchen attached to it.  There were no toddlers hanging on my ankles, nor teenagers yelling that they refused to eat that slop another night.

I announced to the group that I could not cook under these sterile circumstances, and I threw down my apron ready to walk home a beaten women.

If it wasn’t for Pills, the Pillsbury Doughboy, I–I don’t even want to think about it.   He was not considered a very smart cookie, wasting much of his dough on half-baked schemes.

Still, even as a crusty old man, he was a roll model for millions.  He persuaded me to stay.  I rolled up my sleeves and began to dirty up that oven.  I threw flour in all directions. I greased the burners and started a smoke fire.  Finally, I was comfortable enough to cook.

Panic ensued anyway.  Even a cool-headed cook such as myself began to succumb to a culinary meltdown.

Unfortunately, I set my finished creation, Aunt Maddie’s Apple Pie, onto the chair to cool, then absent-mindedly sat on it after hearing this doozy from a co-contestant:

My personal new best friend, Veteran Pillsbury spokesman.  The Pillsbury Doughboy had died of a severe yeast infection and complications from repeated poking to the belly.  He was only 71.

My co-contestant explained to me (she is from Jersey) “Hey, get over it! You’re not his only friend, ya know. I hear Mrs. Butterworth, The California Raisins, Hungry Jack, Betty Crocker, The Hostess Twinkies, Captain Crunch, and many others gonna be thar to help deliver the eulogy.”

Lucky for me, and so typical of Pills good nature, one of the rules he created was to allow for making the recipe three times!!!

I figured, good enough.  That is when I baked a new pie for the judges…it was the WINNER!! But naturally I knew this would happen because a dessert always wins. One top winner will be chosen in each of the four recipe categories: Yada, yada, yada. BUT first place is always the fourth category: desserts and treats.

What judge is going to remember that simple shrimp taco when dessert is coming around the corner?  I know I’m not alone here because what it boils down to is what does everyone remember about a meal–DESSERT!  What tastes best in a meal–DESSERT.  Why do you eat a meal–DESSERT.

I returned home to an ungrateful family. “Shanna, don’t you think you’re crying over split milk,” my husband said. “I can handle it!” I would holler. “Without Pills do you think I would have won? Huh? Huh?

I’m feeling stressed again.  Having money is nothing but work.  This is my last column. OVERDONE and UNDERCOOKED is POOPED and EXHAUSTED.

Besides, I don’t need the money. 😊

AN IRISH BLESSLING

May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face;

The rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again.

May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

It was Kathie Lee-or maybe it was Sara Lee-who once said, “Taking the highway to thindom has invariable been a bumpy road with a stop sign at the turn to dessert.”

Ever since I can remember any delectable morsel, that had the tag dessert, immediately registered: guilt and shame…following each bite.  Feeling deprived if not eaten, I had a continuous daydream, well more like a haunting novel, that some day, there would be a knock on my door…

My hero…with his palm gripping my doorknob, his heart throbbing in his ear, his free hand reaching for the sword that hung at his hip and his billowy white long-sleeved shirt, stuck to his perspiring chest, would kick the door in with his foot, sword thrust forward, and instead of grabbing me this modern day pirate sword turned into a plate of cookies!

Naturally, they would be low in salt, cholesterol and fat, high in fiber, several important minerals thrown in, and best of all–wouldn’t taste like a cereal box.  Guilt-free flavors of chocolate chip, brownie, macaroon and…

Pinch me.  Am I awake?  This is not fiction this is a fact!  Their is a super hero, Dr. Cookie-a.k.a., Dr. Marvin Wayne and Dr. Stephen Yarnall.

These medical professionals who believe wholeheartedly in a healthful lifestyle which includes desserts have written The New Dr. Cookie Cookbook.

“I believe that we can save more people with cookies and humor that we will with cardiology,” Yarnall stated when I talked with him recently at his cardiology clinic.

Dr. Yarnall”, a gregarious man with an impish grin, was sitting among walls lined with shelves of books and bright green magazine holders brimming with papers.

“What is this?” I asked, spreading my arms out to make a wide circle. Pointing to the papers, he looked at me, and explained that it was his library of research for Dr. Cookie and his other passions, writing and travel.

“Robin Leach, on his new TV food cable network, (via telephone) first question was about our Hippie Cookies,” Dr. Yarnall remembered, as he reached for a cloth covered bowl and handed me a chocolate chip cookie. (It was very chewy and very chocolate!)

Inching closer, I whispered, “Robin Leach? What other celebrities do you know?”

“Well,” Dr. Yarnall said proudly, “Julia Child and I were on CNN, and she complimented me for being a doctor who felt butter and eggs were not to  be thrown out of our lives.”

This…a cardiologist-a man who knows about clogging arteries-promoting cookies.  Since the only conversations I have had with doctors is flat on my back wearing a hospital gown, I was feeling a bit emancipated, and vertical. I pluckily asked, “Doctor!  You are going to offer me inner peace, by saying, it is OK to eat dessert?”

“What the consumer need think about butter, cheese, and eggs,” Dr. Yarnall explained, in his opinion, “is not to eliminate.  But the key to good nutrition, which is directly linked to good health, is moderation.  We believe in enjoying life to the fullest.  And for us, that means eating desserts.  Eat your basic food groups, exercise faithfully, and enjoy dessert.”

“Desserts are sweet and filling.  They satisfy your appetite as no raw veggie can.  They are warm and comforting.  They are fun and celebratory.  Each recipe is carefully, lovingly, created for enjoyment, without the explosion of fats and calories,” he assured me.

Thumbing through his book, I asked what was his favorite recipe.  He said it was “Dr. Cookie’s World Famous Cheesecake.”  The recipe: One slice of your absolute favorite cheesecake.  One very special friend.  Two forks. Combine the ingredients. Savor every bite.  Talk about how wonderful it is to enjoy great food with even greater friends. Smile a lot.  And don’t feel guilty.

I liked Dr. Yarnall.

He is also known for “Doc Talk,” a monthly question and answer column he writes for Hope Health Letter.  He and his wife, Lynn (a 100-mile ultra marathon runner)enjoy giving lectures on Royal Cruise Line tours in his philosophy of dessert-ing your way to health.  They have fun by using magic tricks and optimism; they naturally share.

I hate to tell myself this, but there is no more excuse for daydreaming.  This book supports those of us that have had an unhealthy fear of eating desserts and can actually say, “It is the doctors orders.”

DR. COOKIE’S DIVINE ALMOND MACAROONS

1 large egg white (at room temperature)

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons sliced almonds

1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

Preheat oven to 350F. Coat baking sheet with non-stick cooking spray.

Beat egg white with an electric mixer set at high until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and continue beating. Gradually add the sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.  Add the almond and vanilla extracts and beat at medium speed just until blended.  Fold the almonds and oats into the meringue.

Drop the batter by rounded teaspoonful’s onto the baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes or until the cookies are lightly browned

 

My curiosity, such as it is, was piqued the other day as I glanced at a flyer in the Sunday paper.  Our own local Darigold was on a quest for a new ice cream flavor.

If you want to see a fragrant and spectacular violation of the known laws of physics, watch how fast a half gallon of ice cream can disappear when I am near.

So being the ice cream hound that I am, I immediately sat down and sent them 23!! flavors.

I thought I had been clever with fun names and whimsical ingredients: Maui Waui, Shanna Banana, Seattle Grunge, and was counting the days until September 20 when the finalist would be notified.

But as the count-down continued, the complacency gave way to the grim, clear-eyed reality that…. I lost.

Whipped into an emotional frenzy, I had almost succeeded in driving the thought of doing two of my favorite things–eating and eating ice cream good-bye, when I received this letter:

“Dear Darigold Concoction Contest Entrant: Congratulations!  While your ‘flavor’ was not one of the winning entries your letter convinced us that you deserve a seat on Darigold’s Feature Flavors Selection Panel as a VIP guest taster.

You will be sampling 48! different flavors of ice cream to help us select the flavors that will be included in next year’s Darigold Feature Flavors program.

I naturally was delighted, yet became delirious when Jan Roberts, consumer scientist for Darigold, informed me there were over 10,000 entries!

“They had all been very clever,” she explained.  “Some went as far as sending ingredients with their recipe.  Out of all the entries there seem to be a trend towards coconut, pretzel, lemon, and mint flavors.”  And she continued chuckling as it was quite a challenge to narrow 10,000 entries down to four flavors: one for each category of fruit, nut, chocolate, and candy.

How long did it take to compose one of the four winning flavors?  Four weeks.

The flavor was sent to the manufacturer who took about a week with special instructions from Darigold.

A quart would then return to the consumer science lab where the staff would taste and approve the flavor. When approved, the design for the box would start and sample ice cream would be made for the VIP taste testers who would choose the winners.

First we started with fruit and used the two-spoon method.  I was ready for the big one spoon method, but rules are rules.

We had 20 minutes to take ice cream from a big metal spoon and put a scoop of ice cream on a little pink plastic spoon.

Savor the flavor (as many times as we wanted) then rate it on a scale of 1-5 for the overall reaction to the flavor, name and carton design.

I will not here or anywhere describe what I remember of eating 48 flavors of ice cream in 2-1/2 hours, which is almost everything.  Enough to say that having not eaten 48 flavors of ice cream in one sitting before, I was surprised that by the time we had reached the fourth category (candy) I wanted to shout, “Enough already! My teeth are getting fuzzy!”

But I did not because the four finalists and the 17 invited guests would have turned on me, and my lifeless body would have been found later in a butter vat, covered with tiny plastic spoons.

I was incredibly full.  Me–an ice cream addict who in a million years would never have thought ice cream could be filling.

But each taste was better than the last, every bite burst with creamy rich flavor; with wonderful ingredients and surprising names such as, Mud Puddle, Cloudy with a Chance of Cookies, Chocolate Freckles, Muddy Snowshoes and Cluster’s Last Stand.

The winning flavors for the four categories were: Mad About Chew (chocolate category) with chunks of brownies, mini candy coated chocolates, ribbons of peanut butter, and chocolate flavored ice cream; Red Hot Java (candy category) with cinnamon red hot candies, and cinnamon-coffee-flavored ice cream; Internut (nut category)with roasted almonds, white chocolate chunks, webs of chocolate fudge, and pistachio-flavored ice cream; and English Lemon Meringue Custard (fruit category) with lemon meringue swirl, pie pieces, and lemon-custard flavored ice cream.

They were all delicious.  My favorite, even though I am a chocolaholic, was the English Lemon Meringue Custard.  It was delightfully different.

As a parting gift, Darigold each gave us a talking Ice Cream Man scoop.  It yells, “Ice Cream” and then you hear bells ringing from an old-fashioned ice cream truck.

Unfortunately, we ice cream addicts don’t like a lot of noise when we are sneaking the last bites out of the box, so I think I will keep that hidden in the drawer.

On these chilly winter days nothing is more appealing than hot soup, a cozy fire and home.  Dill weed, garlic and other spices leave the room scented with their own sweet tangy perfume.  The soul of homemade soup that makes the tasty stock is the spices.

Did you know that an aluminum tea ball caddy can be filled with your soup’s spices and immersed when cooking?

After cooking re-move the caddy and your soup will be free of floating bay leaves, and spices will still have all the delicious flavor.

To remove any excess fat from soup just drop in a lettuce leaf let it remain until the grease is absorbed. Remove lettuce leaf before serving.

So simple and effective these little tricks make you feel more confident in your kitchen.

Here are a few more:

If you add mashed potatoes to any cream soup it will act as a thickener. Replacing the use of flour. It also adds taste and not as many calories.

To bring out the tang of your tomato soup, add a little sugar and for an instant cream sauce substitute one can cheddar cheese soup or cream of mushroom celery or chicken broth plus ¼ cup milk.

Try my favorite “sit at home and enjoy” soup recipes below. When their aroma begins to tickly your nose you will remember what is so special about these frosty winter days.

 

OYSTER STEW

1 PINT MILK

½ CUP CREAM

¼ CUP BUTTER

1 PINT OYSTER

1 TEASPOON SALT

DASH OF PEPPER

Heat milk and cream to scalding. Just before serving, melt butter in saucepan add oysters and liquid. Cook gently just until oyster edges curl. Add to scalded milk and cream. Season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately.

 

BEEF BARLEY SOUP

2 POUNDS BEEF SHORT RIBS

5 CUPS WATER

1 LARGE ONION, SLICED

1 16-OUNCE CAN TOMATOES, CUT UP

1 TABLESPOON INSTANT BEEF BOUILLION GRANULES, SALT AND BASIL. SIMMER COVERED ONE AND ½ HOURS.

 

In Dutch oven slowly brown the short ribs on all sides. Drain off excess fat. Add water, undrained tomatoes, onion, bouillon granules, salt, and basil. Simmer covered 1-1/2 hour.

Add carrot, celery, green pepper, barley, and parsley. Simmer covered 45 minutes. Remove meat and bones. Chop meat. Discard bones. Skim excess fat from soup. Return meat to cooker. Season soup to taste with additional salt and pepper.

 
It’s a pleasant, wet and rainy day, and I am standing in a semicircle of approximately 133 “you cut ’em” Christmas trees.
 
My husband is running with a sawblade in his left hand, a blue tarp in his right hand, and a translucent look in his eyes.   Evidently, he has spotted yet another tree that might meet his specific conditions.
 
My 7-year-old daughter is lying on the ground at my feet, moaning deliriously that she is “tree sick.”  Her tiny limp body is lying quietly as she explains that after rows and rows of trees, she can no long muster the energy to walk another step.
 
I don’t know about you, but when I go to ‘cut’em” I don’t waste a lot of time. I stride briskly to the most attractive tree standing and shout, “Here!”
 
Your professional Christmas tree cutter (husband), on the other hand, does not even think about cutting until he has conducted a complete tree study of the site-circling the selected tree warily, as though it were an alien space-ship, checking it out from every possible angle, squatting and squinting, finger in the air checking the wind, feeling the needles, analyzing the distance from the road to the truck, back to the tree…
 
And so, amid an atmosphere of unbearable tension, comparable to not being able to find your car keys when you are already late to that very important meeting, my daughter and I wait, and wait, and wait.
 
By now our daughter is trying to make snow angels in the mud and I am unbelievably letting her.  I see other families in the tree farm.  They’re staring intently at trees way off in the distance, but I think they’re staring at us.  We have been here so long.
 
I think about grabbing my daughter’s hand and pulling her up to her feet and taking her down the hill for our third cup of hot cider and her second candy cane, but too late, she has been entertaining the crowds by holding her breath as she runs up and down the tree rows.
 
The more time that passed with virtually nothing happening, the more excited I got about that cider.  I started down the hill when suddenly I heard a loud, long, whopping yelp that I recognized as my husband.
 
I turned to see him stand up, wipe tree pitch off his hands, and in a voice that would have made a gold digger stop, announced, “This …is the tree.”
 
There it stood in all of its glory-all 14 feet of it.
 
“That’s too big,” I said.
 
“Not so,” he said. “I will trim off the bottom.  You’ll see.”
 
“Don’t you remember last year?” I asked.  “It was too big; you did not trim enough.”
 
“Did so.”
 
“Did not.”
 
“Did so.
 
“Did not.”
 
“Did.”
 
“Not!”
 
Like anything else, success depends on the proper tools, so in the back of our truck is an assortment of many saws, blue tarps, gloves, rope and any necessity to fall Paul Bunyan’s tree.
 
“Quick, run back to the truck and pick out the yellowed handled two blade milliliter saw.  Oh, and by the way, grab me a cider,” he says with a big smile.
 
Rolling my eyes back in my head and shrugging my shoulders, I approached the tree surgeon punched him in the arm where he pretended to be knocked into the fir tree, and I headed to the car trying to consider the many, many complex factors involved in the “you cut ’em tree man.
 
This is a once-a-year experience.  And this tree-prepare to experience a heart tremor- was home cut.  How were we going to get it in the truck, let alone through the front door?  At least when I finally do get home, I can make a nice hot cup of:
 
HOT SPICY APPLE CIDER
 
6 cups apple cider, 1 cinnamon stick, 1/4 cup honey, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, 3 tablespoons lemon juice, 1 teaspoon lemon rind, 1 can (2-1/2 cups) unsweetened pineapple juice.
 
Heat cider and cinnamon stick in a large pan.  Bring to a boil and simmer covered for 5 minutes.  Add remaining ingredients and simmer uncovered 5 minutes longer.
 
 
SIMPLY DELICIOUS EGGNOG
 
1 egg, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 cup chilled milk, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla.  Beat egg and sugar together.  Beat in milk and vanilla.  Serve cold in a tall glass sprinkled lightly with nutmeg.  Serve immediately.
 
Note:  This column was published in Sandra Haldeman Martz of Papier-Mache Press, anthology “There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays”.  Where I was welcomed by two different Barnes & Noble bookstores that held a book signing and reading.

They say that home is not where you live, but where they understand you. And everyone knows there is no place like home for the holidays. Even if you are surrounded by relatives who say all the wrong things, it is home.
 
Stuffed stomachs and flushed cheeks stagger from the Thanksgiving dining room table and toward the couches and soft chairs of the living room.  Too many people in a small room sacked out on the sofa or burrowed close to one another like biscuits in a tin. Thankful for another year.
 
It is at this time of year we were taught to be thankful for what we have and to think of others less fortunate. But how many of us have wondered what happens to those less fortunate during the rest of the year.
 
Something remarkable is happening–right here in Seattle–and it happens every week. It starts on Tuesday morning at 9:30 a.m. at the Josephinum Hotel in downtown Seattle. This beautiful building was built in 1906. The ceilings in the lobby are stained glass. The original lighting fixtures, huge orb shades, rise in the cathedral ceiling alongside the marble columns. In the lobby, next to the piano, the room embraces a group of homeless people. They all admit to being clean and sober and ready for a commitment.
 
They are about to begin a journey back.  Back before homelessness, hunger, isolation, and hopelessness, took them far, far away from home. They are about to take a tour of a facility called FareStart.
 
FareStart transforms the lives of homeless and disadvantaged men and women. They have a vision to transform our community, so all people have a sense of belonging, enrichment, and hope in their lives.
 
And it is working.  Combining the operations of the hotel restaurant, café and in-depth life skills instruction these people are given a chance to start over; to find a life.
 
The tour takes them inside the hotel’s restaurant. The front wall displays pictures of recent FareStart graduates, holding their certificates and wearing ear-to-ear grins.
 
After the tour-if they accept-they are given shots by the health department, housing, and a 16-week commitment of hard work which will prepare them for future food-service jobs.
 
“The first two weeks are the hardest,” says Lillian Hochstein, FareStart’s development director. “By then the true commitment comes out. Twenty-five percent don’t make it to the third week.”
 
Those lucky enough to make it to the third week begin Life Skills. Life Skills training takes place over three weeks with a licensed counselor. “Here everyone has a chance to deal with anger management, trust issues, being a capable person,” says Hochstein, a petite blond who rolls up her sleeves and tells it like it is. “They learn to butt up against it and deal with it.”
 
FareStart generates 60 percent of its annual operating budget through Head Start programs, daycare center meals, the restaurant, café, and a Guest Chef night.
 
Hochstein-a part-time grant worker-and volunteers raise the rest of the operating budget. They rely on individuals, corporations, foundations, and special events.
 
An extensive network of the area’s finest restaurants, hotels and institutions are eager to place program graduates. That is why during weeks 13 through 15 students spend time in Life Management classes.  Here they are taught resume preparation, interviewing skills, relapse prevention and job-placement counseling.
 
Hochstein gets a bit misty eyed when asked if the environment might get a little disheartening. “It is more heartening than not,” she grins. “That first student during his first week: no eye contact, head down, and to see him again at the end of the 16th week: upbeat, employable, chatting. To see the change is amazing. Homeless people feel very isolated and FareStart gives them the feeling that they are needed, especially when they see the amount of volunteers who care about them.”
 
Head Chef Cameron Orel of Yarrow Bay Beach Café volunteered her skills at FareStart when she was a Guest Chef.  Guest Chef night is every Thursday.  A different Guest Chef runs the kitchen producing fabulous meals and also giving the students the ability to work with a variety of chefs.
 
Orel remembers being very nervous.
 
Not because the students were homeless; her father instilled charity into her. When she was a little girl, her father worked near the Kingdome. She remembers his generosity to people on the street. “Never look down upon someone who has fallen,” he would tell her.

She was nervous about the students getting the food out in time. She was “floored.” Fifteen students with minimal experience and 15 personalities shined.
 
She remembers one student in particular who did exceptionally well. She hired him after his graduation. She recalls because it was such a gratifying personal experience.
 
She showed him how to present the plate. He asked if she would show him again. Then he remarked to her that the second time it was different. Orel replied that each plate you can make different designs. He was so excited to have the chance to be creative he was almost overwhelmed.
 
Over 2,000 meals a day are prepared and served. FareStart has doubled the students in the last three years and has added a double shift.
 
A home and understanding make each day at FareStart a Holiday.