Not Nice Food

I'm not wild about it being this cold here. Last week I complained that it was too hot! Ever hear the expression, "She'd complain if they hung her with a new rope"? That's me. I'm a little bored and a little cranky and 4th of July is my least favorite holiday (too much noise and worry and alcohol for my comfort) so I can't even look forward to that. Hmmm..... I think I'll make fun of something!

Regular readers know that I like recipes (irregular readers should buy some of that Activia yogurt). In the search for good recipes, I come across some that could not possibly, in any way, be nice to eat. In my younger days, I could not easily tell the difference and cooked some of these. Once I made dinner for Paul (who was not yet my hubby) and his cousin Peter. It was a "Tuna-upside-down-casserole." You lined the bottom of a pan with lemon slices and poured a tuna-goop mixture over that, then a cornbread mixture. It was to be baked and turned out onto a platter. The problem was, Paul doesn't like cornbread and Peter doesn't like tuna and I don't like it when lemons interact with aluminum pans and make everything taste like tinfoil! I also made a dish that involved a kiwifruit sauce for Tilapia (fish). All I could get out of Paul was that it "wasn't his favorite". For a Minnesota Lutheran, that's a scathing indictment!

I was reminded of my lemon/tuna failure when I saw this recipe in the Hackensack Union Congregational Church Cookbook (1982). I have no idea how this cookbook came to be in my possession, but I could not get over how bad this sounded. Mary Ann (the boss) says she has eaten this and it is indeed awful. The person who made it for her (more than once, because Mary Ann is Lutheran, too, and too nice to retch in public) also added sliced black olives.

Tuna Salad

Mix and chill until syrupy:
2 pkg lemon jello 1 1/3 cups boiling water
Add:
1 cup Mayo 4 grated hard-boiled eggs
1 family size can tuna 4 Tbl sweet pickle relish
2 cups (!) chopped celery 4 Tbls lemon juice
Fold in 1 cup heavy cream, whipped. (that's right!) Pour into 9x13 pan and chill. Nice on lettuce.

I saw this one in an old cookbook at a garage sale. You were supposed to take a Shredded Wheat biscuit (the big ones, the size where 1 is breakfast) and cut off the top and hollow it out to resemble a treasure chest. Then you put a nice raw oyster inside, put the top back on and steam until the oyster was done and the shredded wheat was "tender" (soggy). EWWW!

Lest you think it is only seafood recipes that can go awry, here is one that maybe kids would like. You may not however, call it "salad". That's just wrong.

Cookie Salad

2 (3.4-oz) pkg instant vanilla pudding
2 cups buttermilk
1 (15oz) can mandarin oranges, drained
1 (16 oz) Cool Whip
1 pkg fudge striped cookies

Mix pudding and buttermilk. Mix oranges and cool-whip and combine mixtures. Crumble cookies adn just before serving, mix 3/4 into mixture and sprinkle 1/4 on top.

Foreign foods may be delicacies to foreigners, but to me, "Liver dumplings", "Lutefisk Pudding", "Red Bean Dessert Soup" and ANYTHING involving tripe is not nice food.

This one sounded so crazy that I had to try it. It wasn't as bad as I'd thought, but a little salty.

Velveeta fudge
1 lb velveeta cheese
1lb margarine
1 1/2 cups cocoa
4lbs powdered sugar
1 Tbls vanilla
Chopped nuts (optional)

Melt cheese and margarine in a microwave until melted and blended, stirring every 1-2 minutes. Mix in rest of ingredients and pour into buttered jelly roll pan. Freezes well.

Someone gave me a bunch of beets with greens. I am looking for a good recipe or two to use these up, but a lot of the recipes look nasty. The one involving bacon looks promising, though. It's hard to ruin bacon! Since I have given you so many questionable recipes, I will give you one that sounds weird, but is really good!

This uses kiwi to tenderize the meat. It's an enzyme in the kiwi that does it, so do not marinate too long, or the meat will have an unpleasant texture.

Kiwi Teryaki

2 kiwi, peeled
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 clove garlic, peeled
1-2 tsp peeled, grated fresh ginger
1 tbls oil

Yep, whomp it in the blender and pour over a couple pounds of round steak (other meats work too, but cut down or eliminate the marinating time). Marinate round steak 30 minutes, then broil or grill, brushing on more marinade. Watch it so the sugary sauce doesn't burn.

Hey, I feel better! Who will I make fun of tomorrow?

May we see your photos, please?

We have returned from the Boundary Waters! It was a great trip! The worst thing that happened was when the canoes came untied from the roof of the truck while we were speeding up 35W. The Weenonah swung out at an angle right into the next lane! Luckily, nobody hit us and we pulled over and retied everything. (And then I threw up!) (Almost).





The lake is like glass in the early morning.











One of the best things about going so far north (almost to the Canadian border), is having time to reconnect with each other.










This beaver lived right by our camp on Basswood Lake. He was awake all night and splashed and chewed and made a racket. At least I blamed every noise I heard on him, I'd rather think it was him than a BEAR!








Lucy loves to go to the BWCA. She jumps in the lake every 5 minutes to get a drink (why she needs to be up to her belly in water to get a drink is beyond me!). She doesn't jump out of the canoe, though, she likes to nap on top of the Duluth packs.








At our first campsite, we had to evict a Red Eared
Slider. It spent the whole time we were there just floating offshore and watching us. I think it was eating ants by the firepit.











At every campsite after that, we were watched by turtles. This is the head of an enormous snapping turtle that had the last day's watch. We called this the "Turtle Surveillance Network". They may have been spy drones controlled by the park rangers, or else all the forest creatures are in it together. We knew we were being watched and followed all the rules.






Nick makes his pizza, his favorite camping meal.

















This is the latrine. A person was in danger of being carried away by mosquitoes (or dying of blood loss) just by getting near it. I wore complete rain gear and LOTS of DEET.
















Remember the spaghetti sauce? Here it is re-hydrating. (It was delicious!)












Nick caught a walleye! He caught quite a few, actually.












Nate caught fish, too. This is a perch.


















Look, I caught fish, too! This is a Northern and a Walleye. They were delicious! Almost as delicious as the swim I took that afternoon.
















Paul is pumping water through the filter for us to drink. We don't want to get Giardia or some other awful disease.











I made Lucy a backpack so she could carry her own food. She looks pretty cute in it on the portages.











Washing dishes in the rain. It only rained twice, both times at night.

I hate this picture, (I'm posting it on the fridge) but I am comforted knowing that I actually LOST weight on this trip. (Maybe if I carry the canoe around the yard every day.......)







Nick demonstrates the use of the "tump-line" on the Duluth packs. The portages we went over were for canoes AND boats. The boaters slip wheels under their boats and haul them over the land. We kept paddling until we were out of the area where boats are allowed.














Nate carries a canoe over the portage. These were portages around waterfalls.

















We left the woods and went to the big city of Ely. Sadly, our motel had our reservations wrong, so we had to go to the (Ultra-plush) Grand Ely Lodge! They have cushy queen-size beds and lots of pillows, yay! After a very long shower, I slept like a log. Probably because I didn't have to listen for bears all night.







On our way home on Sunday we stopped for lunch in Cloquet. If you ever go through Cloquet, stop at "Gordy's Hi-Hat" for burgers. They are soooo goood! I had to march around the backyard with a canoe on my head for a long time to work that off!

"Heads will Roll" Skull Quilt

I found this great fabric at Joann's a couple of years ago. It was sparkly and flowery and had big colorful skulls on it and yet it seemed "happy". It came with 2 background colors, black and pink, and I bought some of both. Because of the size of the skulls, it was perfect for a "stack-and-whack" treatment. I own the book "One Block Wonders" by Maxine Rosenthal and most of the quilt is made of the hexagonal blocks made by cutting 6 identical triangles from the fabric.
Then I appliqued skulls I cut out of the rest of the fabric onto the quilt. For some reason, I thought this quilt needed to show skulls rolling off a cliff and collecting in a pile at the bottom of the cliff. I believe this fabric is a Mexican "Day of the Dead" design. This is a day that is celebrated the day after Halloween (All Saints Day). It is a happy family festival when families get together and clean and decorate family graves and eat skull shaped treats and remember loved ones. From what I read, this day is an interesting mixture of Christianity and ancient beliefs. Since quite a bit of the history of how western Europeans treated the indigenous people is a bloody mess, I think that all stewed around in my brain until this came out. This is the first quilt I have made that I didn't feel that I controlled. I started to say things like, "The quilt wants fringe (like on a pinata)". (I talked the quilt out of that, I tried it and it was too much.)

This is a close up of the hexagon blocks, all jammed up against each other. I like how it swirls and moves, and quilted it to emphasize the spinning.

There is the whole thing. I quilted "bounce lines" into it so you could see where the skulls bounced off the cliff before landing at the bottom.
There is the pile of skulls. My feelings were not hurt by being called a "sick puppy" by the people at the quilt show. The ladies who did not "get" it were a couple of generations older than I am and I don't like every quilt I see, either. Lots of people said, "OOh, cool!" too, though. At this same show was a quilt with large (12 inch!) rubber centipedes sewn on it, so I think I'm in good company. I've made a lot of quilts that look just like the pattern, and I like them just fine, but the ones that are one-of-a kind are that much more special and have more of "me" in them (for better or worse!).

I am happy to say we had a great trip to the BWCA and as soon as I get the 35mm film on a cd, I will post photos of that. I love my Canon AE-1, it takes better photos than the digital and has a killer telephoto lens, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to get this film developed, or even to buy it!

Quilt Show!

I went to the MN Quilter's show in Duluth today. It was a long drive up and back, but it was worth it. I go to this show every year, it is so inspiring. I come home with my head so stuffed with new ideas that there is no room for anything else.

This was a small (wall hanging) quilt. All those little lines are quilting. This much tiny quilting in swirly lines is called "McTavishing" after a Duluth quilter. There are also lots of beads on this one. Very fancy!



Here are 2 nice quilts with good use of color, especially turquoise. I like to use strong colors in my quilts. (Turquoise is always good!) Other people make beautiful quilts with pastels and lots of browns, but I couldn't stand to spend that much time on something that did not have colors I love in it.







Paul likes this picture. As an engineer, he is attracted to straight lines (really attracted. Really straight lines.) This quilt is done in reproduction 30's and 40's fabrics.










This is a detail of the previous quilt. For some reason it reminds me of my friend Gretchen, who makes beautiful cards. I find myself wishing that some paper would be available as fabric, and that some fabric would be available as paper! I like to scrapbook, and most of that equipment and supplies can be used for cards. Problem is, my brain just doesn't work that way. I was talking with a friend who sews clothes the other day. Same supplies and equipment as quilting, but she just couldn't fathom why you'd want to cut the fabric up into tiny pieces and then sew it all back together again. (Likewise, I HATE to sew clothes, it's too HARD!)








There was more than one President Obama Quilt. People really put their hearts into their quilts. The most meaningful quilts (to me) at this show were about Alzheimer's disease. Photos were not allowed or I would have taken a picture of every one. They were about loss, loss of loved ones, loss of one's self, loss of lives lived with joy. These quilts, although not technically as perfect as the art quilts were the best thing about this show.











This quilt was eye-popping in person. Purple and green are secondary colors and look good together (I think). Look how sharp all those points are, I think they were paper pieced.
















Look at this bear! It was all made with tiny pieces of fabric. I don't know how many pieces, but a similar one of a wolf had over 13,000 pieces!

















Close up of the bear quilt, with my fingers to show size. I am not touching the quilt, however, that is strictly forbidden.
















This quilt is based on a photograph. The trees are made by "Thread Painting", using the sewing machine to apply color like paint.
















I took this picture for Paul, who is a big Monty Python fan. The title is, "Every Sperm is Sacred" after a song in "The Meaning of Life". I love quilts that make people gasp. I did not have a quilt in this show, but I entered one last year. It was my skull quilt. I admit I hung around my quilt listening to comments people made. Apparently, I am "one sick puppy"! All I have to say is, wait until they see what I'm making for next year!

I love to see what is new in the quilting universe. This year, Kaffe Fassett fabric was all the rage at the vender's booths. I don't like it (it looks like what a hippie throws up), so I passed that by. Quilts are still being jeweled and beaded, but this year Angelina fibers and sheets were all over.
Everybody was selling totebag and handbag patterns, too.
I was able to hold myself back from buying too much fabric, I only bought 5 fat quarters (all batiks, of course), and 1 new pattern.

Good thing I got my janome (sewing machine) tuned up, I'm ready to quilt!

Boundary Waters Bound

We're going to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness soon. (Not next week, of course, that's when all the cops are staying here.)

So I'm busy, busy, busy getting stuff together. Now this picture may give you flashbacks, those of us who were troubled youths. (Not me, of course, and remember that drugs kill, kids). Anyway, these tubs of drink mix make 2 quarts. The Nalgene bottles we bring hold 1 quart. It's easier to divide the powder in two at home and put it into little ziplock bags, for mixing THERE.
Those little tubs leak all over the pack, too.

I'm dehydrating everything I can, as well. Campers are not allowed to bring cans or glass containers into the BWCAW. Plus we want it all to be as light as possible since we will have to pick up and carry (portage) all our stuff between lakes. Here I'm making spaghetti sauce into a "fruit-roll-up" type thing. It will be rehydrated in camp.

It's difficult to think of everything you need for a week and then get it to fit on your back. The food pack goes up into the trees at night, so as not to attract bears. I'm a little paranoid about this ever since the time we had a couple of bears in camp up on Rainy Lake. Christine and I played hard rock to scare them, but I think they liked it. I swear Mama Bear was dancing as she stood on her back legs and looked at us over the top of our tent. We got tired of banging the pots together all night (more scary noise) and made the guys move camp to a bear-free spot.

Just as important as the chow are the books I'll bring. I've been saving up magazines for weeks, so I can read them up there. I know I'm bringing "Twilight", cuz I've meant to read that for a year, but what other summer trash can I bring? I'm also bringing "The Shack" to counteract all the books full of sin! I won't bring all of these but I don't want to run out. There is nothing worse than a vacation without a book.




Last but not least, I always paint my nails a dark color for a week in the woods. (This makes it harder to see how dirty my feet are.) We will be swimming and washing (not washing in the lake, of course) but the layers of bug dope, sunscreen and dirt really take some scrubbing to remove. We like to stay in a hotel in Ely when we leave the woods, so we can scum up THEIR showers!

I keep notes on what worked each year (and what didn't). This syrup recipe is great, much better than trying to bring liquid syrup. My mom used to make all our syrup with Mapleine, and it's good, so the rest of the bottle won't go to waste. We like Krusteaz pancake mix and it is the kind that you only need to add water to, so I'm bringing that for one breakfast. This oatmeal recipe sounds good, too, so if I don't buy instant oatmeal, I'll adapt this one to use powdered milk.



BWCAW Syrup

1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp Mapleine maple flavoring
Put sugar into a zip-lock bag, pour Mapleine over sugar and mix around to coat the sugar with flavor and avoid lumps. At camp, add 1/2 cup water and boil to dissolve sugar. Makes about a cup of syrup.

Chai Oatmeal

1 1/2 cups milk
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp turmeric (Kellet would omit this, but might add a pinch of cloves, ginger and nutmeg)
A drop of vanilla
2 tsp honey
3/4 cup rolled oats
2 tbls oat bran

Optional toppings:
raisins, pistachio nuts, almonds, yogurt, milk

Pour milk into saucepan, add salt and spices and simmer without boiling for 5 minutes. Add vanilla and honey and stir to dissolve honey. Add oats and bran, stir, cover and simmer about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally until thickened and oats are done. Serve with toppings. 2 servings, supposedly.

What are the odds?

Lets talk about odd things. I see lots of odd things while I am out and about. For some reason the pet store is always full of things that make me ask, "What the hell why?"

Here is a nice set of doggie goggles. I don't know if they were for swimming or to be used as sunglasses, but I can tell you Lucy would have them off in 2 seconds.




Here is a doggie t-shirt (odd enough already) that features 2 dog's backsides with the caption "Tunnel of Love". No backside EVER should be captioned "Tunnel of Love". That's just nasty. Who is the target audience here?









This is a chenille mitt for drying off the dog after a bath. God forbid you use an old towel. Actually, though, it was very, very soft. I think they could sell more of these if they sold them for drying off mommies.









This (and I am not making this up) is a cat in a bag. It is a fake tabby fur "cat" that holds a hot water bottle. When you add batteries it purrs and has a heartbeat. It is supposed to comfort your new kitten, but again, I'm thinking I know a lot of women who would like a cat that keeps your feet warm but doesn't need to eat or use a litterbox. Good idea, bad marketing.






Last Saturday I went to the antique/flea market at the Anoka County fairgrounds. There was more odd stuff there than you could shake a stick at. (An odd expression, by the way and not just because it ends in a preposition).

This is a "breast ball". It is about the size of a softball and filled with a red gel. (I know it was red because several of them were leaking.) Yes, it has a nipple. The box says they have "I love you sound" whatever that is. I tried to get one to make a sound and that is when I got red gel all over my arm. EEEWWW. It did feel like a breast, though, especially because they were warm from the sun. Oddest of all, the box warns, "do not hit with bat"! Right. Because THAT would be wrong.






Here are more of the stalls at the "antique" sale. There was a child's quilt that had beanie babies sewn on to it. (The teeny beany, McDonald's kind). The maker must have thought that they stuck out too much, so she cut off the back half of the beany babies before sewing them on. They were then kind of flat. They looked like beany baby ROADKILL! The salesman looked kind of fierce, so I didn't get a photo, sorry.





Saturday was also my birthday, and Paul was out of town, so the boys and I went to Applebee's (their favorite restaurant). Nick told our waiter that it was my birthday, so several of the waitstaff came and sang a birthday song to me. (See? my face is still red). That was odd, but I got free ice cream!







Did you think I was done showing you the neighborhood pets? Not by a long shot. This is Izzy. I met her at (yep) a garage sale. She is a young African spur-thigh tortoise (or something like that.) She was found marching down Hennepin Avenue in Mpls a couple of years ago. The owners call her their reformed "Hooker Tortoise". Izzy is extra bumpy due to poor nutrition in her early years. She is now eating the finest veterinarian-approved diet. Her owners say she is quite curious.

Curiouser and curiouser! (also means odd).


I bought an odd book at the book store (brand new!) It is "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies". This is a VERY odd book. But I like it! Someone has taken Jane Austen's book and added zombies. You will be glad to know that Elizabeth is a kick-butt zombie slayer. So is Darcy, so they have that in common. They have it at the library, if you are interested. I should have picked it for book club, it comes with discussion questions.

I'm spoiled for choice in the "odd recipe" quest. I'm going to have to write a whole posting about that. Here, however, is my favorite birthday treat from my childhood and an odd drink.

Cherry Condensed Milk Pie

1 graham cracker crust
1 can sweetened, condensed milk (not evaporated)
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 can cherry pie filling

Stir together milk and lemon juice until thick, pour into crust, spread pie filling on top, chill before eating.


This drink is like a vodka mojito. I just like the name.

Poison Ivy

1 (6oz) can frozen limeade
1 (6oz) can vodka
10-12 ice cubes
10-12 spearmint leaves

Blend and drink! (Don't drink too many or you may behave oddly).