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Baked Spaghetti Squash
This is a recipe I found on Yahoo Shine, which they got from Better Homes and Gardens. It’s sort of like a lasagna in that it’s baked, and sort of like a spaghetti in the taste. Like lasagna, there is some layering involved. Unlike lasagna, there’s no ricotta type cheese involved. Maya’s not a fan of lasagna, never liked it much and then had it when sick with stomach flu, and has never recovered. She likes this dish, though, and Ted and I love it. It’s yummy, warm and gooey and still pretty full of nutrition. I found the recipe here. Baked Spaghetti Squash Ingredients 1 medium spaghetti squash (2-1/4…
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Speedy Black Bean Enchiladas
Years ago, we received a cookbook from the Sargento cheese company, and there are a few recipes that are fall backs for us. One is the Soft Shell Chicken Tacos, and another is the Speedy Black Bean ‘n’ Cheese Burritos. The only thing I mind about the burritos is that, because they’re baked, sometimes the tortillas get kind of dried out. So I decided to make a quick and easy version of my favorite Black Bean Enchilada recipe. First, I started with the Burrito recipe, for the filling. Speedy Black Bean ‘n’ Cheese Burritos Ingredients 1 Tbsp. vegetable oil 1/2 cup sliced green onions 1 clove garlic, minced 1 can…
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Friday Randomness
(Lovely painting of our local mountain, Mt. Diablo, by Mary Lou Correia, found here) The weather here in Sunny California has been, well, mostly Bright and Sunny, so I’ve been taking a lot of walks. Often I walk along the bike trail to the grocery store, pick up a few things, and walk home. It’s 3 or 4 miles round trip, I think. One thing I’ve noticed on the trail is little plastic bags full of dog poop. At least, I ASSUME that’s what they’re full of….I don’t open them and check. But they’re the little bags that are dispensed periodically along the trail, often next to a garbage can,…
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Omaha Steaks
For quite awhile now, we’ve been sending my Grandma and Great Aunt Omaha Steaks as a Christmas gift. They’re on a very limited income, and this is an easy way to make them feel spoiled. A few years ago, I found out that my Great Aunt doesn’t really LIKE steak much, so now we mostly pick the seafood items, with a few steaks thrown in for Grandma, who DOES like steak, though she likes it so well done it probably tastes like a hockey puck. No matter. This year when I was planning my gift giving, I decided to send some Omaha Steaks to my brother, Richard, and his wife,…
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e-Reading
Almost 2 years ago, Ted got a Nook for his birthday. He’s an early adopter, and is always looking out for the next new thing. So he wanted to try it, and it has suited him very well. He can load books, magazines, and newspapers to his Nook, and bring them all to work with him to read on his lunch hour, with no real effort. Me? I’m a slow adopter. I resist change. I didn’t want an ipod, because my walkman was fine, thank you very much. I didn’t want a blog, what’s the point? I didn’t want Facebook, how stupid can you be? On all of these things,…
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Loving Your Aging Dog
There’s no two ways about it…Genevieve is an old lady. She takes 8 pills a day to keep her from having diarrhea, which sometimes works. She take 1 pill a day to help keep her from peeing uncontrollably. She takes 1 pill a day to help her appetite and cognitive function. She’s blind. She doesn’t leave the house anymore, except to go in the back yard to do her business. We take her out front sometimes, but after 2 1/2 years of being blind, I think it’s scary for her. I can’t leave her in the back yard, because she might get stuck behind the air conditioner unit or tangled…
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The Leftovers
Laurie Garvey hadn’t been raised to believe in the Rapture. She hadn’t been raised to believe in much of anything, except the foolishness of belief itself. We’re agnostics
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Looking Good
My mom was a big believer in reading. She was addicted to it. She read more than anyone else I have ever known. She loved to read everything, almost any genre, almost any book. LOVED it. When she was trying to figure things out, she would read to find a solution. Recipes, career advice, whatever. Parenting style. She loved her parents dearly, and she firmly believed that they did their best. But she also thought that they could have done better. So when she found she was going to have kids, she wanted to find out how to do things better than her parents had done. For the most part,…
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A Day in the City
Ted and I are both fortunate enough to be able to take the week off between Christmas and New Years, and it may be my favorite week of the year. Don’t ask me about that when I take time off in the summer, because I may change my mind, but for now, let’s say this is the best. The lead up to Christmas is one of hustle and bustle, with hurrying here and there, buying gifts, going to parties, wrapping gifts, sending cards, decorating the house, making latkes (for Hanukkah, which we also celebrate, because we’re atheists and can do whatever we want), enjoying Stollen Bread on St. Nicholas Day…
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Wordless Wednesday
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Young Adult
When I first saw the previews for ‘Young Adult’, I thought it looked like crap. Like another ‘Hangover’ or ‘Bridesmaids’ type film, but without much actual humor, and with a mean spirited protagonist. Then I heard that the people who made it also made two other films that I really liked, ‘Up In the Air’, and ‘Juno’, and I decided that I’d wait and see if the reviews were good. And they were, very good. Charlize Theron is Mavis Gary, a semi-successful writer of young adult books who lives in Minneapolis. We are shown a glimpse of her life, which seems to consist mainly of writer’s-block, drinking, trolling for men,…
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Tea Cake Sandwich Cookies
Saturday we celebrated one of my favorite holidays of the year: Baking Day. Baking Day is the day that the family all gathers together at Ted’s parents’ house, and we each pick a cookie (or other sweet treat) recipe, make it, and then we all take home an assortment of yummy goodness. I like it because it’s not a day for large meals and grand statements (like Christmas and Thanksgiving, both of which I love, but it’s really nice to have such a casual, fun day there in the middle), but instead it’s just a day to come together, bake delicious treats, and at the end of it all, counteract…
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War Horse
I’ve seen the previews for the film adaptation of War Horse, and mostly I wasn’t that excited. I love horses, but I’m not always sure I want to see a horse movie. I read an article in the local paper that pretty much changed my mind by saying that it was a ‘film to watch out for’. Oh, who am I kidding. I’ll see it. When I read it was based on a well loved children’s book, I decided that if I were going to see the film, perhaps I might want to read the book first. Luckily, my local library has it, and there was no waiting list. The…
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Movies
We’re a movie going family. Ted was a film major, once upon a time, and loved seeing any film, even if just to see what was wrong with it. I’m not quite (or nearly) so forgiving, but I do enjoy plopping down and enjoying a story, seeing what they might have to tell me, figuring out if it worked, all of that. So this last week, on our Thanksgiving break, in addition to seeing ‘Like Crazy‘, we saw three other new films, and one old one. First, on Wednesday, we went to see ‘The Descendants‘. I’ll admit that when I first saw the previews a few months ago, I was…
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Like Crazy
Jacob and Anna are a young couple who meet in college. They fall in love and spend a wonderful year together, before they graduate and it’s time for her to go home to England. She’s too much in love, though, and decides to stay through the summer before going home. Mistake. She’s violated her visa, and now she can’t get back into the country. So now what. He’s in Los Angeles, trying to start a business making furniture. She’s in England, trying to start a business doing some kind of writing. She can’t come to him, which she’s willing and eager to do. He could go to her, but he’s…