Hoo-whee! Cajun Gumbo

Last night I was watching a video of an old cooking show I used to watch ALL the time.  It was Justin Wilson's New Orleans Cajun cooking show.  Too bad he's not alive anymore, he was a real original. Now with the weather chilly and rainy, I feel that gumbo is in order for dinner tonight.  Justin's pretty funny if you can understand what he's saying.  I have been making his cajun gumbo for years and it's a success every time.  I have modified a tiny bit on occasion but only by adding shrimp and replacing balsamic for the steak sauce because I can't have the soy sauce in it.  Sometimes I put okra or cutting down the hot sauce a little so the kids can eat it.  The most important things that can't be changed is cajun style roux (very very dark) and the hot sauce.

I cook it in the slow cooker, low and slow and add shrimp at the 20 minute mark before I serve it.  When we eat it, we eat it with big fat potato rolls.
Hoo-wee!  Dat's fo troo, I GARONETEE!

Just search on YouTube for Justin Wilson Gumbo if you want to hear him.

Chicken and Andouille Gumbo

• 3/4 cup olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 large garlic clove
• 4 cups water
• 4 cups wine
• 2 tablespoons worcestershire sauce (or balsamic vinegar  if you can't have soy)
• 1 teaspoon Louisiana  Hot Sauce or Tabasco (to taste)
• 1-2 lbs Chicken
• salt to taste

In a large pot, heat the oil over a medium fire, then add the flour and make a very dark roux, like coffee with no cream, just this side of burned.  It should take about 45 minutes. Add the onions cook, stirring constantly, until the onions are clear. Add the garlic, water, steak sauce, hot sauce and wine, then drop in the chicken and sausage. Stir to combine, then let it cook, covered, for 2 or more hours.

Peace, Love and Chicken Grease. 

Lazy Day

With my cold, my son's cold and the girls just getting over theirs we've been attempting to rest and relax this week.  Today is a good day for it, it's cold and rainy.  So, we watched/ are watching Arthur Christmas (we're currently on the third viewing for the day).  I started bread in the bread maker and apple banana bread in the oven and we went outside in the rain and kicked leaves up and down the yard and street.  Then we came back in and I made some cookies, delivered the 2 loaves of apple banana bread to two of our neighbors and came back in and watched the movie again with warm milk and cookies.  We're on our 3rd viewing and all snuggled up on the couch with bread baking in the bread maker.  The house is cozy and it smells soooo good.   Happy Thursday Y'all.

Chow Chow and Squash

No, I don't mean the dog food.  I'm fixin' to give you all a little edification.

I do the CSA (community supported agriculture) box.  It's less time consuming than going to the farmer's market and better tasting than going to Safeway.  The box gives me season fruit and veg which gives me veg that I wouldn't normally buy myself.  We are drowning in apples.  I think I've made everything I can make with them: apple sauce, apple pie filling for the freezer, baked apples, apple/banana bread, apple donuts, apple cider, poached apples for pork chops...  The apple sauce my kids snarf up on a regular basis so that's not  so bad since we need it all the time.  Luckily, we have a chest freezer so whatever I make I can jar and freeze.  Last week we got some guavas in the box that turned into some tasty guava jam.  We also were getting delicata and butternut squash. We kept getting cabbage which was fine with me because we were also getting padron peppers so I prepped it all and froze it so I could make some Chow Chow when the tomato season here stopped for the green tomatoes.  Hey all y'all, it's chow chow time!

Chow Chow is so super tasty.  It's my favorite relish and I use it on all beans, cooked greens, soups, sausage and hot dogs.  For the uninitiated,  chow chow or 'piccalilli is a relish made from the end of summer vegetables so nothing from the garden gets wasted.  Because I lived in North Carolina and half my family is from there and lives there, I favor two specific kinds.   It's a chow chow you can get hot or not and it has cabbage, green tomatoes and mustard seed.  My other favorite has fennel instead of cabbage but all the other ingredients are the same.  To make the hot version, jalapeños are added.  I had a favorite brand too and my mom used to send it to me once I moved out here to California because I couldn't get that brand or version of it anywhere.  I tried looking online and nobody had that type of Chow Chow.  It's just like North Carolina barbecue, there were many chefs and restaurants here in the Bay Area that claimed to have it on their menu, but it wasn't really North Carolina barbecue.

So, I am about to settle in and make mine that I've been making for 4 years now.  I have some jalapenos  that came in the box last week; I scavenged mine and my neighbor's green tomatoes since the plants are done for the season.  I make both cabbage or fennel (not both in the same batch) with brown mustard seed, jalapenos and padron peppers and green tomatoes.  Then I jar it and eat it!

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Now then, on to the squash.  I love butternut squash and delicata squash, not to make soup (although that's good too), but, because I love to make stuffing and chili with them.  Both can be roasted, but I like the delicata squash most because you can eat the peel.  If you roast it until it's just carmelized you can slice it and eat it just like that.

The lovely delicata has a peel that can be eaten so it's not quite the labor intensive squash that butternuts are.  You can deseed them and roast them, then dig out the flesh and mix it with cooked rice or lentils, sauteed veg and sausage.  Stuff all of that back into the already baked shell and put it back into the oven to heat it all up again.  It's so good, just typing about it makes me drool.

You can do the same with a butternut, but you can't eat the peel so it's way more labor intensive if you want to make soup or anything with it.  Still worth it though.  Soup is the least of things this squash can do.  I like to make black bean and butternut squash chili with it.  Oh! and my favorite, also good for Thanksgiving, butternut squash, blue cornbread, jalapeño, chorizo stuffing.  

peace out

Confessions of a Sugar Fiend

Why is it that I can quit smoking but I somehow can not control myself when it comes to sugar?  If candy is in the house, I devour it by the handfuls.  Halloween is, in that aspect, the worst holiday ever.  I had one unopened bag of a variety pack of mini candy bars intending to return them to the store and get my money back.  I didn't do that errand soon enough.  The bag sat on the island in my kitchen for too long and last night I probably ate three handfuls, about 15 mini candy bars.  Then this morning I grabbed about 5 more and ate them with my coffee.  I feel pretty gross and yet I can't seem to stop eating them.  This is why I can't have candy of any sort in the house.

I've managed to quite all other vices I had in the past, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes but candy seems to be my downfall.  It's a slippery slope too.  I eat one cookie/jellybean/candy bar/lollipop and suddenly I'm hunting down the source.  When I locate the bag or box I just eat them all day and before I know it, the bag or box is completely empty by the end of the day.  It's not uncommon for me to buy something and eat half of the box or bag while in the checkout line.  Two weeks ago I was craving sugar so badly I bought a box of Nutter Bars and ate three double bar packages out of the box while I was checking out.  I couldn't even be bothered to stop eating while I loaded everything from my cart onto the conveyor belt.  I loaded stuff up one handed while I held the nutter bar I was eating with the other hand. *sigh*

When I was pregnant with my oldest and with the twins, I was even worse.  I didn't think I could be worse.  With my oldest, if there were no sweets in the house, I would make brown sugar butter balls and just stand in the kitchen chowing down on them.   When I was 8 months pregnant with my oldest, my husband came home to find me sitting in the middle of the couch with my feet up watching the Food Network surrounded by opened bags of Oreos, HoHos, oatmeal cookes and jelly beans with a 2 liter bottle of caffeine free Coke on the table.

When I was 5 months pregnant with the twins I would make the Pilsbury tube of giant cinnamon rolls that you open up and bake with the little container of icing.  Then I would proceed to to watch some chef show and eat all 6 of those cinnamon rolls in one sitting and lick the icing container.

I've been known to buy a tub of icing and then use a candy cane to eat it with while we watch a movie.
Sometimes it's stress that drives me to snarf sugar with abandon, sometimes not.

I have to take the car in for service today.  I tried to change the turn signal light on the front of the car myself and was forced to look online from the directions so I wouldn't force something and break it by accident.  I looked at the diagram and specs.  I would have to remove the front tire, remove the fender inside, unscrew the entire housing, THEN I can change the bulb.  The car has two recalls on it anyway.  I told the car, "fuck you car." I will be taking it to the dealer which just irritates me to no end and I will probably snarf the rest of this bag of mini candy bars as a result.

Yesterday the telco guy came and my kids were playing nicely outside and out of the way.  They had made a fort out of the outdoor furniture cushions and the metal framed bench.  I was in the kitchen; they were right outside the kitchen window.  The telco guy was about 10 feet away fixing something or other.  Then I hear:  "NAKED DIVING!!!"  I ran outside yelling, "NOOOOO" to where they were; but I was soooo slow like I was running through mud.  There they were, all three of them naked, all poised to jump into the pile of cushions with the metal bench underneath.  I envisioned lots of crying, bruises and blood...   The telco guy looked at me when I came back in, he said, "Did they yell 'Naked Diving'"  I said, "Um, yup."

Peace, Love, and Chicken Grease

Herding Snails

Because that's what motivating children (sometimes myself) is like even when it's something
they -want- to do, much less when it's something they don't.  It's a day for going down the list: work, chores, errands, waiting for the telco guy and the bug guy, paying bills, paying bills, paying bills...  We have a definite weekly pattern.  We run around manically on Mondays doing the things we ignored last week and over the weekend because Tuesdays are trash day.

*WHINE* It's just so HARD today.  It's a great day for procrastinating. It's sunny, warm and beautiful outside.  The perfect day for throwing open the windows, playing outdoors, going for walks or hikes and doing the outside chores.  I love living in California.   Let me leave you with this little scenario from September that I will embarrass my children with for years and years to come.  I'll set it up for you.  A young woman who regularly babysat for us, who is a friend of the family, was over for dinner before she went to southern California to finish her master's.  It was my husband and I, the three wild monkeys, and her.  Dinner finished and ran into bedtime which my husband usually does.  So our friend and I were chatting, attempting an adult conversation about 10 feet away from the bathroom where the twins were taking a bath with a complete view of the twins' heads and shoulders:

Killer: Keep an eye on the twins while they're in the tub, OK? 

Me: Sure. *walks down to the end of the hall where I can still see them but not -into- the tub* 

5 minutes later...

Killer: OMG! OH MY GOD!!! Why is there poop in the sink? WHY IS THERE POOP IN THE TUB! YOU TWO STOP THAT RIGHT NOW! No. NO! MAX, PUT IT DOWN!!!!

We could not stop laughing.  I couldn't help Killer because I was paralyzed with laughter.  I was laughing so hard I was crying, so hard I couldn't breathe, so hard no sound was coming out, so hard I actually had to lay down.   

I didn't notice because I could only see their heads and shoulders, not the water.  They were laughing and having a good time so I didn't think anything of it. 

Killer was so pissed at me.  It was a fine way to send off our friend too.  She'll have a great story and it was good birth control for her.   Peace out.

NaNoWriMo meet NaBloPoMo. Now Let's Party!

    I've entered myself into a writing marathon, as if I've ever committed myself to any kind of marathon much less a writing marathon.   I've committed myself to NaNoWriMo and also to NaBloPomMo.  I'm 3  4 days behind on the second "event", if you will.  "What," you ask, "are you blabbering about?" It does look kind of like gibberish.  The first is National Novel Writing Month and the latter is National Blog Posting Month.    
    NaBloPoMo will be the opportunity for me to quit procrastinating and actually update and regularly post to my flagging sad little neglected blog.   Maybe it's a bit meta to blog about writing.  We'll see I guess.  My intention is to blog daily of my experiences with life and life with my family.  Some inner, some outer, all posted.  Saundra over at Little Fisch in a Big Pond unknowingly inspired me to write and participate in NaBloPoMo; and, my reason is the same as hers as she put it, "...to find my voice and own it." Also, as a kind of brain dump to get everything I want to say about daily life out of the way so I can write my novel which only tenuously draws material from my life.  Although, I realize I just quoted someone else about their reason for NaBloPoMo in my own blog as my reason.  Maybe not such a great start, so far Me: 0 Everyone Else: 1.  So, here we go!
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    As of last night, I was forced to put in earplugs because my family's cold apparently doesn't realize when it should go to bed and shut the F up so I can get some shut eye.  I'm surrounded by coughing sniffling sneezing people and they all want to sleep in my bed.  It is incredibly difficult to write anything while they are making such a ruckus, but, I'm doing it anyway.  I have earplugs, and thank God for giving us the person who came up with these little squishy things.  Thank God for the brilliance of the person that packaged them in a jar.   Peace out.

Dagnabit! Spilled The Coffee... Again.

      Spilled my coffee, dropped my papers, juggled my keys, juggled the cups unloading the dishwasher, tripped over my own feet, I could keep going with this list.  It's like the shidt just jumps right out of my hands.  When I trip it's like air became solid for just an instant just so I could trip over it.  I have to say I've become adept at falling in ways that allow me to sustain the least amount of injury.  Sometimes I don't remember tripping, falling or running into anything until I notice the bruise later.  The kids distract me from everything.  But, seriously, what the hell is going on?  It's gotten worse because I don't remember this happening so much.  I guess they're seizures.

       Am I the only one that just heard that record scratch to a halt?  Say what?  Yep, seizures.  The list of things I have heard doctors say to me over the last 4 years: 

                     Oh, it's just pregnancy hormones.  Oh, you're just stressed out and tired because you're a mother of 3 small kids.  Oh, you're just sleep deprived because you have 3 small kids.  Oh, you're just depressed because you're tired because you have 3 small kids.  Oh, you have 3 small kids, everything wrong that you feel is normal because of them.  Oh, you had a tonic clonic seizure that wasn't a seizure but maybe it was, but that's fine.  Everyone has one sooner or later in their lifetime.  Oh, you're twitchy because you're tired because you have 3 small kids.  Oh, you're tired because you're doing too much and you have 3 small kids.  Oh, it's just pregnancy hormones even though your youngest children are 2 years old.  It's totally normal, the bleeding and constant migraines.  The pain in your gut and your inability to swallow is normal because you have 3 small kids.  Oh, you're stuttering and you can't find your words because you have 3 small kids. 

ENOUGH! NONE of how I have felt for the last 5 years is normal, not one single thing.  I advocated for myself and I feel good for the first time in 5-6 years.  By advocating for myself I learned the following: 

 1) I was not feeling the way I felt because I had 3 small kids.

 2) It does pay to have a PPO

 3) My OB/GYN and GI doctors are fantastic.  

 4) Sometimes scary symptoms are not scary diseases, but several simple conditions put together.

 5) I found out that my GP is shidty and I need a new one.  

"What the hell is wrong with you anyway," you might ask? Well, let me tell you.  I have 3 small kids.  I already had some conditions before the children that they completely exacerbated, except that I didn't know I had the conditions.  

I have: 

 a severe rice and soy allergy as well as a soy intolerance

 chronic migraines 

 a heart murmur

 problems with my lady parts: adenomyosis, cysts, polyps, and fibroids.  We evicted the offending  
     organ before it took over my lower half.  It needed to be stopped! 

 TLE 

 Ah, also I'm mildly nearsighted and have osteoarthritis particularly in my spine.  Thanks skeleton!

I know, I sound like a barrel of laughs.  That's because I AM. 

Prior to finally seeing a doctor because I felt like utter crap, I only knew about the migraines.     They were frequent.  By, frequent I mean more than 10 a month.  Everything else my doctors unraveled for me and thank God for wonderful doctors.  The epilepsy, in particular, explains EVERYTHING at least since I was 18 (I'm 37 now).   

    Seems like a lot, yes?  It kinda is, especially with 3 small kids.  Honestly though without the 3 small kids all of these conditions would have eventually gotten worse without my realizing I had them until I ended up hospitalized.  Monkey, PW, and Chuckles are my blessing.