Only God Can Make A Tree - Joyce Kilmer

To quote the poem:

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

This sycamore is majestically offering her branches to a dislocated and homeless robin family.

The tree in front of the offices was spreading roots below the foundation of the building.  It was decided that the tree must be cut down and cut down it was.  The only problem being that in the spring the robins would nest in that tree.

Hopefully the spreading leaves of the sycamore tree offered enough of an invitation to become the new home of the robins and that tree can become their new home.

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

We are once again bounding into spring when the tree will abound with buds for the coming season and to welcome back the robins.

What a wonderful example of what Joyce Kilmer saw in God's creation of a tree.

Gnocchi or Stuffed Shells for Dinner

Gnocchi is the Italian form of Dumplings and is normally cooked in a tomato or cheese sauce.  The tomato sauce is basic and is not used for pastas. 

There is a knack for making homemade gnocci and I've linked you to the recipe. But if you aren't that adventurous you can buy the gnocchi at the store or the Italian Store and go from there.

This gnocchi is made from ricotta cheese and the ricotta gnocchi recipe comes from my web surfing.  This recipe sounds simpler to make and only takes an hour to make. 

making crepes

Now for stuffed shells you start with your basic crepe recipe.  Once you have your crepes you stuff them with Ricotta Cheese mixed with eggs and grated cheeses.  Put a spoonful of the cheese mixture onto your crepe and roll the crepe into a shell shape.

Crepes filled with ricotta and baked

  Place the shell into a baking dish and continue until you have your baking dish full.  Cover the crepes with your basic marinara sauce.  Cover your dish with foil and bake for about an hour at 350 deg.

Again, you can be lazy and just buy the large shells at the supermarket but you still have to soften them by boiling them part way before you stuff them.

Chuck Roast and Leftover Recipes

Sunday dinner should be special but with this recipe you can do a pulled beef for summer sandwiches.

Beef Roast made into Pulled Beef

All you need to do is pull out all of the vegetables around the roast and then pull out the beef into wonderfully small pieces.

When I was a youngster, my grandfather always bought the meat for our Sunday dinner.  He was not what you would call rich but he shopped at a local butcher shop and came home with the best cuts of meat for Sunday's dinner.  He always came home with a roast or whole chicken and Sunday's were always special.  I remember hearing my mother say each time she made a beef roast that chuck roast was the best tasting of the beef cuts.  I can honestly say that I do remember there being something a little more flavorful when the cut of meat was a chuck roast and the leftovers were tastier.  You know the second day is better after the meat has time to marinate overnight.

Beef Pot Roast

My mom would put the roast into a roaster that the bottom was lightly lined with bacon grease and little water to prevent the meat from sticking to the bottom of the pan.  The cover was put over the pan and it was lined with onions and celery to add to the flavor.  I'm not sure if that added to the flavor of the entree or the ensuing gravy but that was the reason for the vegetables around the roast.  About an hour before the roast was done peeled potatoes were added to the pan.  The vegetable was always something that was cooked on top of the stove and I don't remember there being any carrots in the roasting pan.  The result was a delicious tender roast.

Beef Roast in Crock Por

OK!  With all those nice instructions, here is my same recipe but done in my modern-day style.  I don't use my oven to make my chuck roast.  I put the cut of meat into my crock pot that has been lined with a little water to prevent sticking.  I start the roast with onions and celery cut around.  I normally start the roast on the high setting just to get the meat going.  I sometimes use pearl onions that I buy the in freezer section of the store.  In about a half hour, I add carrots, unpeeled red potatoes and about a cup of water and then turn the crock pot down to slow cooking on the low setting.  I leave this go for anywhere from three to four hours or until we can't stand the aroma any more and are too hungry to wait.  The result is the most tender meat you have ever tasted.  It just falls apart as you cut it.  If I'm being really lazy, I do the above but instead of using all the fresh vegetables, I open a bag of frozen stewing vegetables over the meat when I start it and let it cook slow for the whole two to three hours.

Beef Pot PIe

I buy a larger roast than I need for one meal and if there is any left over, I use the juice from the crock pot to make gravy and the next day the leftovers are cut into smaller pieces and cooked with the gravy for beef stew.  This recipe is the same as my Pork Pot Pie recipe but you just replace the pork with beef cubes.

If there isn't enough beef left over to make a whole meal the next day, I make the beef stew but instead of simmering on top of the stove I make 8 or 9 inch pie crusts and make a pot pie for the family to enjoy.  The beef stew is put into the bottom crust and covered with the second crust.  The pie is baked at 350 deg. for about 30 to 45 minutes. 

If you feel like being fancy, you can make the pot pie into a shepherd's pie by making mashed potatoes for you top crust and baking it the same way.  For both pies your gravy needs to be a little on the thick side.

The point is the roast may be a little expensive (but remember I got a buy one get one special) but you get more than one meal out of that piece of meat.

Yesterday, TODAY, Tomorrow

What lies ahead?  The Answer should be, "Don't know, don't care."  I say that because if you are constantly living in the future or what you want to be your future, you will have missed the most important time of your life, "The Present."  Today, was given to you as a gift and you should appreciate the special time it affords you to do just what you were intended to do with your life.  For some, that is bringing joy to others through service and caring and for others that is giving the care giver the opportunity to extend their special gift in life.  We are afforded exactly enough time to be what is important which is an article of significance to those around us.

What makes me think this way?  I don't know but I do know that I'm where I'm supposed to be when I'm supposed to be and that I only meet those along the way that are supposed to have a significant part of my life.  When my Mom passed, I stated that she had now passed on the baton and it was my turn to take over.  My husband gave me the biggest compliment for being able to recognize the significance of the passing on of responsibilities through death.

Take time to smell the Roses.

The catch phrase is, "Take time to smell the roses."  If you are not aware of your place in life, you can't do that.  My whole theory is be happy with what you are and where you are even if that means sitting on the porch in a rocking chair. Yesterday is gone.  Tomorrow may never come.  Today is a gift to be used to the fullest.

It's My Way Or None

The title of this article has a bold ring to it.  In my world, I only have to cater to myself since I no longer have a husband.  Yes, my son did live with me, but he was every bit as opinionated as I am when it comes to personal needs and habits.  We co-habituated but we each did our own thing.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am very opinionated and have an opinion on just about anything and everything.  That's one of the reasons why I write this blog and post to other media.  It's just my opinion and you are free to disagree with me.  After all the Bill of Rights guarantees our right to freedom of speech.

I love carrots raw cut into sticks or baby carrots, but I have an aversion to cooked carrots.

Baby Carrots with Ranch Dipping Dressing

 They are too mushy for my taste.  It's something to do with the consistency rather than the taste.  I can eat some cooked carrots in stews or soups as long as they are cut small and there isn't an overabundance of them in the mix.

From the time I was a small child, I could not eat beets in any form.  I don't know why.  It could be that they have the same mushy consistency.  But just seeing those hard boiled eggs in beet juice turns me off and I love hard boiled eggs.

I spent many a long evening sitting at the dinner table until bed time with a plate of something in front of me because I would not or could not eat what was on it.  Oysters was another of those but I loved the warm milk they were served in and oyster crackers in it.

I don't like what I call designer coffee products that you can buy at most coffee stands or delis.  I drink black coffee but only black coffee.  I prefer Maxwell House, "good to the last drop" in their Master Blend.

Maxwell House Master Blend

Today, it took me half an hour to find the latest version of that blend since they continually change the packaging and I had to find it.  They now package it as Master Blend, Light.  They have stronger versions that are Medium and Bold. I don't like what I call designer coffee products that you can buy at most coffee stands or delis.  When I was younger, I tried drinking coffee as a courtesy visiting my first husband's home.  I tried it with sugar.  I tried it with milk.  I tried it with both.  Unforturnately, I didn't try it black until I was stuck in a snow storm one day on the way to work and black was all that was left in the coffee machine.  I've been drinking it that way ever since.

When I was growing up I had a best friend.  She was every bit as opinionated as I was and had no qualms about telling you what she thought.  I bring her up because a lot of my best recipes came from her family and a lot of my best memories went to rest with her just before Christmas in 2013.

One such memory was the wonderful Fudge that her Aunt Grace used to make.  It was just the right consistency that melted in your mouth with just a hint of the chocolate coated sugary granules melting into your taste buds.

Hershey Cocoa fudge

 She made her fudge from the Hershey's Cocoa Recipe and it was sent many times to Korea where her son was stationed and it arrived in tact rather than a pool of sugary drool.  She had perfected the ability to test the cooked chocolate by the small ball in water formula.  That is how I love to eat fudge.  I don't like the versions that so many of the stores carry that is smooth and creamy.  No one can get just the right consistency that Aunt Grace achieved which was not rock hard but slightly harder to the touch.

I have opinions on religion and opinions on politics but I have lived long enough to learn the value of keeping those opinions to myself.  It profits no one doing battle over those two subjects.  So I've lived my life as stubborn as they come because "it's my way or none."

Fourth of July Barbecue

Wednesday is the Fourth of July.  It's time to make plans for spending fun times with your family as well as to do the traditional patriotic things or visit the cemeteries.

Our house has always been patriotic since my Dad returned from World War II, the big one, and put me on his shoulders to watch a parade in Downtown Pittsburgh.  That was scary for a toddler watching those enormous tank wheels pass by but I was always a scardy-cat.

On the fun side of Fourth of July we always had a cookout and potato salad was the fare of the day.  Yum, my favorite.

In my adult years, I have to admit I was not one for cooking on a grill but God is good and he gave me a husband who loved to do just that.

barbecuing is open for the season.

In our house Bear was the grilling king.  He made opening up the grill and getting ready a real production.

In the old days we used a charcoal grill that took a long time to make enough burgers and franks for our family.  The real trick to doing the cooking on this type grill was getting the charcoal briquettes hot enough.  You had to light your fire earlier to get it going.  The most important thing to be grilled was the almost burnt hot dogs for Bear's Mom.  She loved those black delicacies.

As the years went by, he invested in bigger and bigger grills until he got a really big gas grill with a side table and it had a side burner on the other side for beans or a whatever pot.  I think the only reason this was so great was that it gave Bear more places to cook outside.  It wasn't that I couldn't cook the beans inside on the stove, it was the thrill of being able to do it all outside.  It also had two racks on top for heating up the buns or keeping the already cooked meats warm.

Before I was dating him, we belonged to a radio club that had a yearly picnic.  Bear would bring a grill to the picnic that was made out of stainless steel with a screened top to lay the hamburgers and hot dogs on for grilling.  Not exactly like the one pictured but similar since it was made by the people he worked with.  He delighted in standing over that grill while he drank his favorite brew cooking for the entire club.

At home the grilling started as soon as it was almost warm enough to stand outside.  He would start off with the hamburgers since they took the longest.  Even though we normally made our own burgers, we sometimes cheated and bought the frozen ones from the supermarket.

The buns were not bought in the store but the sandwich buns I loved to make for special occasions out of our weekly bread baking.  I learned this from experimenting with the recipe.  I was lucky to have a cousin who baked this traditionally every year and was a professional baker.

Then would come the hot dogs because they didn't take as long to cook.  Those were not as popular as the hamburgers but there was just one that had to be overcooked for Nunny.

bear's Mom loved her hot dog black.  As the year went by, some of the children started asking for a black dog but I think it was just to be cute.

Bear was creative when he entertained and I remember one cookout for his buddies from the tavern when he made shish kabobs and his friend brought a smoker to do a roast.  Our house was full of gadgets that went with the grill such as shish kabob racks to allow you to turn the kabobs without picking them up.

We have covered the grilling part of the barbecue, let's talk about the side dishes that are every bit as important as those hot dogs and hamburgers.

No barbecue is complete with out the potato salad.  My mother made the best potato salad and I have passed the recipe on down to my daughter who is now the potato salad queen.  I have never been fond of all the work that goes into it and whenever I can, I pass the chore on down to her.

Our other favorite cookout food is the fresh fruit salad or an ambrosia.

 Cold foods are now made safer outside with the invention of a blow up cooler that holds ice for the salads that are being served.

Our house was a conflict of what to drink when it came to soda since Bear loved Pepsi and I only drink Coke.  It was always bring your own drinks when the grill was on for a party or holiday.

Add your favorite beverage and there you go with a holiday Barbecue.  Remember why we are celebrating and thank a veteran at the Parade.  Happy Barbecuing.