Tamales

I bought these from a lady who sells homemade tamales out of the back of her van in our grocery store's parking lot. They are divine; perfectly moist, perfectly flavored, and utterly addictive. Biting into them was a sweet (well, savory) reminiscence of the Southwestern food that I miss and crave badly. These are comfort food to me, and one of the foods I want to learn how to make. (Due to a lack of really good Chinese food here in my corner of the mid-south, I have already had to learn to cook my own favorite Chinese dishes.)

I have spoken to some people here who aren't sure about buying homemade food out of the back of somebody's van. I understand why it might bother them, but I have no such reservations. In California, we bought the world's best burritos out of vehicles dubbed "Roach Coaches." If you have ever eaten a Roach Coach burrito, you know the misgivings are replaced with an incredible desire for more. I haven't lived in CA for 14 years, and I still miss those coach burritos!

So if you are in the area, and longing for a bit of genuine southwestern culinary cuisine, just take an afternoon cruise on down to Harps' parking lot Thursday-Monday and say "hola" to the nice lady who whips these up. You won't be sorry. They are mmm, mmm, bien!

Tonight I Made Some Fudge

I am not really a cookie person. Cookies require precise measurement. I don't like being that tedious with food. Cookies require supervision. I am going in too many directions at once, and almost always burn half the batch. Cookies require some planning to make sure all the ingredients are available. Ick. Therefore, I don't make holiday cookies. I prefer baking that only requires one pot or pan, and is all done at the same time. In fact, I prefer to not bake at all which is why fudge is such a viable option for me. Technically, it is cooking. I like to cook.

What I do instead of baking traditional Christmas cookies is wait until the last minute, and then whip together fudge. I was going to make two batches tonight (the kids want to take some to their teachers) and then that slight bit of preciseness fudge requires kicked in. The recipe calls for 1 small can of evaporated milk, and since I needed two batches I added two cans. Upon closer inspection, it was stated in the recipe to use the small 5 oz can. I had just dumped 24 ounces in my pot of melted butter and sugar. So I added the butter and sugar for another two batches and carried on.

I ended up with this... half a table full of confectionary yumminess. I have a large table. It can handle a lot of fudge.
I can't, though. I have been really pretty good about holiday sweets in my attempts to take off the weight I have found again this year.I did indulge in one small treat ,though. I let myself lick the spoon and scoop some of the leftover temptation from the pan.


It was delightful. Hopefully the teachers will enjoy receiving a pound of fudge a piece, because I am not letting all those calories sit in my house and scream out to me. They have more children to chase after than I do... they can burn it off faster!

A Thanksgiving Feast

We survived the Turkey Day. There were a couple of hiccups in the morning. I got to the church to make everything, and realized that one of the turkeys I had started cooking the night before was terribly, horribly, gaggingly rotten. Instead of being greeted by the rich aroma of tender turkey falling off the bone, it smelled like raw sewage being slowly roasted. We dumped that bad bird, disinfected the air, and cooked bacon. I think the smell of bacon can cover anything, and make any room smell good.

Then I finished cooking the rest of the food that wouldn't give our guests food poisoning. Here are some shots of some of the dishes. This is my favorite meal of the year. Turkey, ham, creamy garlicy mashed potatoes, dressing, carrots, green bean almondine, sweet taters, and homemade gravy.......mmmmmm. We ended up with 40 people there, and it was a nice afternoon.Josh and Mystery came.
My mom kept her leg propped up, and got down to the serious task of sorting through the Black Friday ads. Thanksgiving is the only day of the year that we buy the big city newspapers. Their police reports aren't any fun to read... they are too full of real crimes and other big city schtuff.
Chet spent the whole morning ignoring everyone with his nose in his book. This is such a heart-warming sight to me. I am thankful that this boy, who spent so many years struggling to read, has come so far and now loves to read.
As soon as dinner was served, everyone began to eat and chat. Chet ate nothing but meat and bread. He is such the meatetarian. You thought they were making that up in that ad didn't you? I am pretty sure some ad guy met Chet and was inspired by his anti-veggie palette.
Then I did something strange for me. I put my camera away and just sat there chatting and visiting with everyone. We talked a lot about Black Friday sales, and I would love to tell you about some of the good deals we got, but my children read this blog and Santa doesn't want me to ruin his surprises.

(PS... Mom is now on the strongest antibiotic available. Hopefully it will make a marked improvement by tomorrow to keep her out of the hospital. She wasn't able to fly home today, so we are keeping her for another week. The plan is to get her to fall so madly in love with the mountains that she doesn't ever want to go back to Vegas. So far, the weather isn't cooperating. It is snowing, and my mom is a true-blue desert rat. Can someone come parade around as a Santa in a bathing suit to convince her it isn't that cold??? It would be much appreciated.)

Change of Plans

I have been looking forward to this week. My mom was coming out to visit for the week, and I had plans to take her places and introduce her to my friends here. On Sunday I drove up to Springfield to get her, and that was the last thing to go as planned.
On Monday she came to work with me, but was not feeling well. I brought her home, and she tried to shake it off.

On Tuesday, we were supposed to get the Tuesday Night Dinners put together and then take the boys for their Scout banquet. Instead, just as I was getting ready to head to the church, I got a phone call from the school nurse. Matt attempted to catch a fly ball with his nose, and it was broken. I rushed down to the school to get him, making arrangements with my friend Debbie to get dinner taken care of, while Jack got the other kids and brought them home.

I took Matt to the ER, where we spent a couple of hours making sure he was only as insane as he was before the baseball attacked him. With his wild mane and the newly crooked nose, as well as the hilariously (now) entertaining method he used to get it broken, the doctor couldn't help but laugh when he was taking care of him. We were all three laughing actually. Fortunately, he isn't in much pain at all, and although the nose is broken, all of the surrounding facial bones are still intact. I don't think Kyle is ever going to let Matt live this down. "Dude... why did you try to catch it that way????"
They did perform a CT on him, but wouldn't let me take pictures of the screen this time. If you have never seen scans of your child's body parts, let me tell you... it is weird. It is like seeing a digital dissection taking place.
Then we waited, and waited, and waited a bit longer for the results. Matt was bored so he started taking pictures of me. I was chewing on a cough drop in this one, thus the weird expression. I have had a really nasty bronchial infection I have been fighting this last week, which is throwing another monkey wrench in my plans.
Then he wanted some of both of us. The other night I dyed my hair dark red again to cover up the grey, but my family seems intent on finding ways to grey it even faster.
When I got home from the ER with Matt, my mom showed me her leg, which has become quite red and swollen alarmingly quickly. I would like to say she is just trying to get attention, but unfortunately it is getting fairly serious. So today I called and made her an appointment at the only doctor who was available right before Thanksgiving.
He drew lines on her leg (they go all the way up her leg) to see where the red is. He wanted to hospitalize her today to get an intravaneous antibiotic going, but she convinced them to give her a shot and start some oral ABs until Friday. I will take her back in on Friday, and hopefully the infection will be clearing up. If not, we will be spending the day I took off to spend with her in the hospital together. Not what we had planned at all! But Iwant her well, so if that is what we must do, then that is what we will do.
Now, if you think that red skin on her leg was scary, you should have seen this dog as we were coming home. I have never seen a naked pink dog before. And while it looks quite sad, it is incredibly ugly as well. I did try to call him over, but he was tucked his tail (I think it has a tail) between his naked legs and ran. I kid you not, I got parked at Walmart and the guy who was driving behind me pulled up to ask me what that ugly thing was. I couldn't tell him. All I knew was it was a dog, but is he supposed to be so naked and pink??
You know, I am tired. I have spent too much time in the truck and medical facilities in the last 24 hours. I am going to do something tomorrow I never get to do anymore. I am sleeping until at least 7:30. 7:45 if I am feeling really rebellious. Then I am going to make sure Matt is propped in his chair, and Mom has her leg propped on her couch, and I am going to the church to cook a really big community Thanksgiving dinner. But I am not setting that into stone too much since we all know now what happens if I really try to make plans. God laughs. A lot.

PS... Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!