Hope Springs Eternal

See that plant there?  That plant in the middle of the picture..the one with 5 leaflets.  That my dear friends is the Texas Bluebonnet "Lupins Texensis".  Doesn't look like much now, but come spring it will be beautiful with blue and white flowers.  It is also for those that do not know...the state flower of Texas.

But what I wanted to point out in these next pictures is for you to look closely at the ground from which it springs.  Notice anything???  Maybe a lack of soil for one.  This wonderful little flower springs from some really rough terraine and the worse looking the better for this beauty.  It also takes water, but not just water any time...no, water in the fall and winter around here will make for a beautiful show of flowers in the spring. 

So after a spring and summer last year literally from hell with 90+ days of 100+ temps and no rain to speak of...we've had some rain, not a lot mind you, but enough to make the bluebonnets appear.  So it gives me hope that we will have a wonderful spring with lots of wildflowers.

This is one hardy wildflower.  It doesn't transplant well, many have tired and few have succeeded.  It has a really tough seed coat that needs to scarafied with heat or water in order to make it germinate. 

This small hill on our property doesn't look like much, but come spring it will be covered with Bluebonnets.  You can't see them now but if you walked this hill you'd see that it was covered with Bluebonnet plants.

So with that in mind, I think about my mom.  She takes a licken but keeps on ticken.  She got some good news from her Dr. this past week.  The new meds that she is taking are working.  We know that we will lose her at some point but for right now...with the right meds, at the right time, she will continue to bloom. And that's enough for me to hope for. 

Happy Birthday Chickie!!!

Fifty two years ago, on my 5th birthday, my sister was born.  At first it was a novelty and I was pretty excited.  But when she came home from the hospital it wore off pretty quickly.  She cried and wanted attention all the time...or so it seemed to my 5 year old brain.

As the years went by it seemed like we were always at odds with one another.  She was still a baby at 5 and I was a pre-teen at 10.  She was a pre-teen at 10 and I was practically a High Schooler at 15.  It probably didn't help that we always had to share a room, so tastes and need for privacy tended to keep us at odds with one another. 

My mother would say to me at times, "you should be nicer to her, you're going to miss her someday".  I'd look at my mother like she was out of her mind.  But you know...she was right.  My first year in college was in Virginia and my family was in England.  And for some reason I began to miss hearing her voice and listening to her talk about her friends and her day.  I was surprized as anyone to realize that she was such a big part of my life and I couldn't just pick up the phone and call her like you can today.  At that time there were no cell phones and if you wanted to make an overseas call you had to wait for an overseas operator.  This was not easily done on a phone in the hallway of a dorm and that doesn't even include how much money it cost...and you'd have to have it in change.  Yes, I missed her big time. 

I think that we started to begin to see each other as equals when I began to talk of getting married.  She'd had a steady boyfriend for a while and although they were both finishing up college, they knew that they would be getting married as well.  We both had very strong ideas about our weddings.  I wanted something simple and no fuss and she wanted the church and the dress.  Both of us got exactly what we wanted and it was perfect. 

She and her husband have been married now for almost 30 years.  They have 2 wonderful daughters, one who is a second year Vet student studying at Texas A&M and the other who is finishing up her senior year at Sam Houston State majoring in communications.  Both wonderful women in their own right. 

But my sister is the rock that I lean on.  There is no one like her.  I love her so fiercely.  She's a great mother, wonderful friend and someone that I know will be there for me anytime or anywhere. 
We share a birthday now for many years gladly and  one of us will call the other sometime today and sing the Happy Birthday song.  It has been our habit for decades now. 

So Happy 52nd Birthday, my sister, my friend.   I love you truly. 

The Staff of Life

Bread.....homemade bread...the very staff of life.  I've been making bread once or twice or even 3 or 4 times a week for almost as long as I can remember. 

My love for cooking and baking goes way back to my Junior High School days.  I can remember when I had my first Home Economics class and I was so excited that you could take raw ingredients and mix them together in certain ways and make something of them.  It was miraculous to me.  And when I got home that afternoon I was beside myself with joy as I recounted what we had done in class to my mother.  She smiled to herself and told me that if I wanted...I could pour through her cookbooks for desserts and I could begin to make desserts for our school lunches.  I would need to make out a list of ingredients for what we needed and I could use the kitchen on Sunday afternoons.  She would be close by if I needed help but that it was really all up to me.  Well, let me tell you what a joy it was.  We had some pretty interesting desserts.  I made the usual cakes, pies and brownies but I also made cream puffs, and Boston Cream Pie and doughnuts!  I'm sure there were some flops although I don't remember any but what I do remember is that this is where I wanted to be for the rest of my life. 

Of course a move (my father was in the Air Force) took us to England where the kitchen was small and I had discovered boys.  Occasionally I would wind up in the kitchen making a dessert for dinner or maybe for some lucky guy that I was dating but it didn't happen that much. 
College brought me back to the states but a dining hall took the place of meals and until I met some people who lived in homes I didn't get back into the kitchen until my Senior year of college and apartment living. 

My favorite roommate of all time was a girl who came from a small Texas town and had a love for cooking just like me.  We were happier than pigs in slop.  A kitchen to call our own and dinner parties to hold whenever we could afford it.  We made out grocery lists and poured over cookbooks checked out from the university library.  And what meals we had.  I learned a lot of great Texas recipes and she learned a lot of "northern" food.  My mother was born in Philadelphia, PA and so her cooking stems from that area.  I learned to fry and Vanessa learned to bake.   It was a match made in heaven.  And that's where the bread baking began in earnest.   It was small stuff at first...homemade bread and rolls.  But it progressed to croissants and puff pastry and whole grains and multi-grains and artisian loafs. 

If I had known then what I know now I would have taken a different path.  I would have gone to culinary school but for some reason that just did not occur to me.  I don't think that I would have ever wanted to run my own restaurant but instead I would have liked to have had a bakery.  I don't think the high stress level of putting meals in front of customers would have suited me.  But working early in the morning with yeast and dough appeals to me on so many levels.  The silky feel of working good yeast dough between your hands is akin to nervana to me. 

My husband has reaped the benefits of homemade bread from the time that we began to date because by then I had stopped buying bread altogether and was making my own entirely.

There is just something about taking a loaf of bread out of the oven and smelling that wonderful yeasty aroma that makes my soul sing.  I do it because I love it.  I do it because it fulfills me in a way that nothing else does. 

So here's a recipe for a simple loaf of bread that's easy to do...no muss, no fuss and maybe it will make your soul sing as well. 

 ALMOST NO-KNEAD BREAD
(makes 1 small loaf)
1 Dutch Oven with Lid
3 cups (15 oz.) all-purpose flour.  (I like King Arthur)
1/4 teaspoon yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons table salt
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons water (7 oz.)
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (3 oz.) beer...the worse tasting the beer...the better the bread.  I use Bud Light
1 tablespoon white vinegar
(This recipe can also be doubled, which I do quite often and it works out wonderfully.)

Whisk flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl.  Put water, beer and vinegar in a measuring cup and add one to the other. Fold the dry mixture into the wet mixture till you have a somewhat shaggy dough. 
Put plastic wrap over the top of the bowl and set it somewhere to rise...anywhere from 8 to 18 hours.

Next morning, take the dough out of the bowl and put it on a lightly floured piece of parchment paper.  Knead just a couple of times and turn whole piece of dough into a rough shaped ball.  Put parchment paper and dough into a small skillet or bowl.  Cover with cloth and let rise for 2 hours. 

About 30 minutes before baking, put the Dutch oven with the lid on into the stove and preheat to 500 degrees.  Once the two hours is up, take the dough and put it into the Dutch oven.  Be careful as the Dutch oven will be screaming hot and you don't want to burn yourself.

Immediately turn the heat down to 425 degrees, put the lid back on and bake for 30 minutes.  When the 30 minutes is up, take the lid off the Dutch oven and bake for another 30 minutes.  
Carefully remove the whole kit and kaboodle from the oven and remove the bread from the pot and transfer to wire rack and cool to room temp.  
Recipe adapted from a Cook's Illustrated recipe. 

I heart my husband!!!!

My husband and I have been together for almost 35 years....32 of those married.  And I have to say that I'm a very lucky woman.  Sure it's not perfect...who's is? and we have our moments but for probably 95% of our lives we have had no major problems and that includes building a house together. 

My hubby has this amazing ability to know what I want even if I don't know what I want myself.

So here's the deal...about a month before Thanksgiving I decided that I needed a new centerpiece for the table.  I really like having a fancy table at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I like the fabric tablecloths and napkins, the good china and good silverwear.  And every fancy table needs a centerpiece. 

I knew what I wanted....I just didn't really know how to express myself.  So I took pen to paper and came up with this design.

As you can see from my drawing.....my artistic skills leave a lot to be desired.  But I just knew that my husband who IS artistic could take this caveman drawing and make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. 

Let me just preface the following by saying that my husband and I have been together a long time.  And for the most part we don't argue about much of anything.  We do however have a difference of opinion on when things should be done.  I am very conscious of time....ask me any time of the day what time it is and I could probably tell you within 5 minutes of the actual time.  And I do it without wearing a watch.  Let's just call that "My Gift".  My husband however  knows two times of day.  Daylight and dark. 

So Thanksgiving is fast approaching and I have no centerpiece.  I'm beginning to get a little worried as I see nothing that looks like it could even be the beginning of something resembling a centerpiece in his welding shop.  But low and behold...at the eleventh hour he appears in the front door with the following.

In a word....I was gobsmacked as my British friends like to say.  I'm sure these pictures don't do it justice but it is indeed EXACTLY what I had in my minds eye. 

There is height and depth to them.  I can't decide if I like the tea lights or the small votive candles in them.  But I wove an artifical grapevine through the piece and placed real squash at various spaces.  When the candles were lit it was magnificent.

Next to the bedspread that it is on....it appears to be gold but it is not.  My husband rubbed guilders paste on the "bark" so that is a mottled brown and green and the "holders" are a greenish brown as well.  
I am so lucky to have been with someone who knows me better than I know myself sometimes.   Thank you sweetie.  I probably don't say it enough but I love you!!!!

If you can't say anything positive.......

These past few weeks have been hectic, worrisome, scary, lighthearted and miserable.  There, I think that I've put it all in a nutshell. 
After 4 rounds of chemo and constant complaints of shortness of breath my mother collapsed at her home and EMS had to come and take her to the hospital because my father was not able to lift her off the floor. 
Dr.'s determined that she had fluid surrounding her lung which was making it very hard for her to breath.  Now she'd been complaining about this ever since she had radiation and even though chest X-rays were taken as well as a CAT scan there was nothing being done to correct the situation.  Well, to make a long story short...she ended up in ICU.  It was a very, very scary time for all of us as well as her.  To see the look in her eyes that she was afraid.  Not that she is afraid to die..she's just not ready to die.  She has a bucket list of things that she wants to see before she's done her time on this earth.  Nothing earth shattering mind you.  But her top priority is to make it to May 2014 to see her oldest grandchild graduate from Texas A&M University Vet School.  I think she'd like to see a wedding as well but the Vet school thing is a pretty big deal. 
Once mom got into ICU and stabilized they drained the fluid from around her lung.  It was a lot...almost a quart and it was bloody.  Now they told us it could be 1 of two things.  It could be cancer causing this or something else.   But when the test results came back it showed that there were no cancer cells in the fluid.  Now nobody is saying anything about the radiation causing this but the family is pretty sure that the radiation caused this.  She had a broken rib prior to radiation, then the radiation on her chest...I'm sure that the radiation caused a hemotoma on her lung which was irritated by the broken rib and viola..we have excess blood in the chest cavity.  Makes sense to us...apparently not to the Dr.s.  I think they are afraid in this day and age of a law suit...which wouldn't happen in this case cause my parents aren't those type of people but it would be nice if they would at least admit that we are in fact right about this.  And to top it all off...the next time they drained her chest they got less blood and they kept saying it would come back.  She had a tube inserted so that when she was released she and Daddy or any of us could drain her lung and we've done it a couple of times getting no more than maybe a tablespoon of liquid out.  Looks like whatever happened corrected itself.   But I think the worst part of this whole exercise was when a young Dr. came into my mother's room before she was released and told her to get hospice ready.  She had maybe 6 months.  What!!!!  This was news to my ears.  Who was this young Dr. and where does he get off saying this?  I'm a realist.  I know that my mother is going to die sooner than I would like to see her go...but 6 months....no, I refuse to believe it.
Her oncologist came in a while later and told her that she had lots of treatment options and she needed to get stronger before he could begin treatment...but mother didn't hear any of that...despite the fact that he has been treating her for over 15 years.  She trusts him because he too has had cancer...but she still didn't hear him...she only heard the young guy.  
Christmas to say the least was miserable in more ways than one.  She didn't get to shop for presents, or wrap anything and this is her time of year.  Christmas has always been so special because of her and the joy was taken out of it by some careless words said by an unfeeling Dr. 
The day after Christmas my sister and I went in to see my mother and she was all ready to get hospice set up.  She was talking about her funeral, what she wanted to be buried in etc.... We were both fighting the tears and daddy was beside himself.  But I also knew that she "was not there" yet.  I felt before anything about hospice was done that she should at least see her oncologist again.  Nope, she was not going to go.  But time can heal and by Wednesday she was ready to see the oncologist.  He told her again that he would tell her when it was time to call hospice.  He had another treatment that he wanted to get her started on and that all she had to do was get stronger so she could begin treatment again.  Well, talk about doing a 360....she even whistled on the way back from the Dr.s. office. 
If I was a guessing person...I don't know if she'll make it to May 2014, she's a strong determined woman of 81.  I'm hoping that she does because then I will know that she attained the number one thing on her bucket list and she could die knowing that she accomplished that. 

Tomorrow I Race

Tomorrow I race in support of all those who are fighting Breast Cancer.  Tomorrow I race in celebration of all those who have won the fight.  Tomorrow I race in memory of all those who did not.  Tomorrow I race with the hope in my heart that a cure will be found and I will never have to race again. 
15 years ago this past August my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.  She was 66 years old, it was in one breast and in one spot.  They took 17 lymph nodes and it wasn't in any of them and she still had them take the whole breast.  Her feeling was.."I've lived with that breast for 66 years and I don't need it anymore."  Her oncologist told her that her breast cancer was estrogen receptive which means that it was directly related to her taking estrogen while going through menopause. She did not have to have chemo or radiation but she did take tamoxifen for about 6 years and in that 7th year we rejoiced.  We figured that we were out of the woods so to speak.  She was free of cancer and we could go on with our lives. 

So here it is 15 years later and she has breast cancer...a rare breast cancer that has attached itself to her liver and and ribs.  It wasn't supposed to happen. Her oncologist tells her that with radiation and chemo she has a good chance of putting into remission.  She's already done with radiation and she's had two rounds of chemo.  So far so good.
What's the purpose of all this...well it's to say that you can't ever be sure that you are completely safe.  Breast cancer...all cancers are horrible and I truly hope in my heart that in my lifetime they will find a cure and I will never have to race again!!  I love you MOM!!!

Kick Ass Beef Stew w/ potatoes and peas

Mom has chemo tomorrow.  So we've all be sort of taking our turn with bringing them casseroles and soups and stuff that they could just heat up and still eat fairly well.  I've made them my Chicken Noodle Soup which I have to say is a magic cure all for what ails ya.  How else can I explain that my father is in Full Remission from a cancer that your not supposed to get full remission from?  At any rate, here's the recipe:

Red Wine Beef Stew with Potatoes and Peas

2 lbs. beef chuck for stew, cut into 1-inch chunks
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper (I use the white organic stuff cause my hubby loves it better)
3 Tablespoons butter
4 Medium carrots, peeled, halved and cut into 1-inch chunks
3 small onions, diced
2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
28 or 29 oz. (depends on your cartons of Chick broth...mine are 28 oz.  I think most are) reduced or low sodium chicken broth
2 cups red wine...I happen to love Fall Creek Granite Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon..but use what you like to drink.
1 can tomato paste 6 oz.
Handfull of Rosemary and a Bay Leaf...a couple of bay leaves if they are on the smallish side
2 medium russet or Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 to 1 1/2 cups frozen petite peas or a handfull of fresh green beans.  What ever floats up your skirt.

Season the beef cubes lightly with salt and pepper. 

 Heat 2 tablespoons of the butter in a heavy 6-quart pot over medium heat. 

 As soon as the butter starts to turn brown, add half the beef and raise the heat to high.  At first, the beef will give off some liquid, but once that evaporates, the beef will start to brown. 

 Cook turning the beef cubes on all sides until the pieces are as evenly browned as possible, about 5 or 6 minutes after the water has boiled off.  If the pan starts to get too brown at any point, just turn down the heat a little.  Scoop the beef into a bowl and brown the rest of the beef the same way using the remaining butter.

 Scoop out the second batch of beef, then add the carrots and onions and raise the heat to medium-high.  Cook until the onion starts to turn translucent, about 5 minutes. 

Stir in the flour until it has been worked into the veggies and you can't see it anymore.

Pour in the Chicken broth,

 wine, and

 tomato paste. Mix it well, till tomato paste is fully incorporated.

 Toss in the rosemary and bay leaf.

 Then slide the beef back into the pot and bring the liquid to a boil.  Turn down the heat so the liquid is just breaking a gentle simmer.  Partially cover the pot and cook for 50 minutes.  Stir the stew several times while simmering so it cooks evenly and nothing sticks to the bottom.

 Stir the potatoes into the stew, cover the pot completely, and cook until the potatoes and beef are tender, stirring occasionally, about another 45 minutes.

 Toss in the peas or green beans and cook for another 5 minutes until the peas turn bright green and are cooked through. 

I like to serve this with a rustic roll that I make and will give that recipe at a later date.  My husband prefers to eat stew with crackers.