I'M ALIVE! AND BLOGGING AGAIN!

This time, about one of my all-time loves: FOOD!
Please stop by and see me at my new blog:
http://clipsnipcook.blogspot.com/

Hope you are well and enjoying a happy summer! I promise to be blog faithful this time around. :)


All My Best,

Karen

Hello Again!, Chicken Soup & Glue Ghosts

I am sorry I've gone missing. I have missed you dearly.
I get so crazy in strong waves of what I want to do. Sometimes I am all about blogging and chronicalling my existence almost breathe by breathe. Other times I just go and go and go for over a month without really thinking about how the time has passed. I am not sure if it has to do with Mom being sick and being so cognizant for so long and needing to break free and live again like no one is sick for hope's sake. But, for whatever reason, here I am now.

Now that is turning to fall, I am all about soups, chowders & stews. I tried a new Tyler Florence recipe tonight for Chicken Noodle Soup that I came across in a family magazine put out by Scholastic, called Parent & Child. I somehow got a free subscription to it which is an added bonus. Knowing cold/virus season already seems to be setting upon us, I thought this is a nice easy, handy recipe to keep at the ready...great to make for a sick friend/family member or just good for a comfort food night.

Chicken Noodle Soup-- (This is a good base recipe. Makes a nice traditional mild flavored homemade tasting soup...without all the sodium of canned, but could easily be spiced up to add much more flavor.)

Ingredients:
1 store bought roast chicken
2 qts. cold water
2 carrots, cut into circles
3 ribs celery, roughly chopped
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic
1/4 bunch fresh thyme
kosher salt & freshly ground black pepper
2 c dried pasta noodles ( I used penne & loved it).
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/4 bunch fresh parsley, roughly chopped

1. Place whole chicken in stockpot. Add enough water to just cover chicken.
2.Add carrots, celery, thyme, onion & garlic. Place over med heat & slowly bring to boil. Simmer for 25 minutes. Remove chicken and shred meat.
3. Season shredded meat with salt & pepper. Put back in pot. Add pasta.
4. Gently boil pasta until cooked, add lemon juice & parsley. Serve! Makes 4-6 servings.



Also, looking for a super quick and easy for all ages Halloween craft?
How about Glue Ghosts?
We made ours in a jiffy after preschool today.
What you need:
Wax paper (ours was recycled from another craft. pardon our wrinkles.)
White school glue
Googly eyes

Spread out wax paper. Squeeze glue onto paper to create a ghost shape. Decorate with googly eyes (and any other adornments you might like). Allow to dry over night. Peel off wax paper, punch a hole through and hang at your window or in a tree outside!

And last but not least for those of you who have been following along with my mom's progress, here's an update:
Mom (Bev) completed her 7 weeks of radiation therapy. She, with her oncologists, decided that chemotherapy was not best for her concurrently, so she has not taken it yet. She is feeling good, all things considered. They did do a CT scan last week and found that there look to be new nodules (what spots on the lungs are called when under 1 cm in size) in both lungs. They can't tell if it is more cancer. She is scheduled for a PET scan on December 3. So, until then, we are just living life and praying and hoping. She so loves her cards & everything sent her way. Your kindness and love means the world to her & me both. Oops. I think that may be bad grammar. Sorry. :-)
Much love to you all!!

Facebook, anyone?

So, I finally cracked and joined facebook. Just a quick post saying that I hope any of you bloggy friends will look me up there, as I'd love to be able to keep in closer touch & facebook is a nice & easy way to do so...plus I can hopefully SEE you there, that is if you post a photo!
Here's my profile link-
Just send me an add friend request. That's it. All done!:-)
If you haven't tried it, be forewarned. It's quite addicting.
Hope to see you there!

When I'm 64............

A tribute to my dear Mom, Bev, as she turns the age the Beatles made famous....64, of course!
Thank you to all of you who have been so tremendously kind to send Mom greetings, cards, well wishes, handmade treasures, and most importantly your love, prayers & support as she goes through her treatment for lung cancer. I don't know if I can ever justly represent in my thanks just how much your generosity and kindness have meant to all of us. It really has made the difference in seeing us through this terribly difficult time. And for those of you who included a return address, Mom is steadfastly working her way through sending you a return greeting, if you haven't heard from her already! :-) And for anyone who hasn't had a chance to send Mom postcard or greeting, but would still like to, Mom would LOVE to hear from you. The mail makes her day!! Really!! Just email me using the link her for her address-

Mom is now in her 19th day of radiation treatment. Only 9 more days to go!! She gets the weekends off. So far the side effects have thankfully been minimal, and not nearly as bad as we worried they might be. She has recuperated quite well from the surgery. She's now 2 months post-op! She is still debating the merits vs. drawbacks of taking chemo for her specific cancer, stage and her own particular case.

Mom isn't usually a ponytail wearer, but it has become her hairdo of choice due to its ease of effort while recovering and not feeling 100%. I have to say, I think it looks quite cute & girlish on her. She belies her 64 years!

Happy Birthday Mom!! We love you and hope to celebrate many, many more happy birthdays with you!


When I'm 64

When I get older losing my hair,
Many years from now.
Will you still be sending me a valentine
Birthday greetings bottle of wine.

If I'd been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door,
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four.

You'll be older too,
And if you say the word,
I could stay with you.

I could be handy, mending a fuse
When your lights have gone.
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings go for a ride.

Doing the garden, digging the weeds,
Who could ask for more.
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four.

Every summer we can rent a cottage,
In the Isle of Wight, if it's not too dear
We shall scrimp and save
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera, Chuck & Dave

Send me a postcard, drop me a line,
Stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, wasting away

Give me your answer, fill in a form
Mine for evermore
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four.

20 Years.........What?!?!

Twenty years. It's hard to believe even seeing it in print. How does time fly by like that? Really?! I still feel like I am in my 20s, so it's super hard to convince me that the postcard that arrived in my mailbox announcing my 20 year high school reunion was actually intended for me. Well, I guess the inclusion of my name alongside my overly eye-shadowed, senior year photo helped, but still I deny.


After a lot of back and forth, yes I will, no I won't, I finally decided that yes, I will make the leap & attend.

In a unique twist, my husband and I graduated from the same class. No, we are not high school sweethearts, rather, we hardly knew the other existed back then. My husband did remind me we sat at lunch together (amidst a group of people) for an entire year, which somehow I forgot? Seems strange now, considering I am married to the man and have borne his children.
Oh well.
In all honesty sometimes I still forget that we've had lunch together, but now it's more likely due to early-onset Alzheimer's.

Apparently that same year we "lunched", I must have asked him to sign my yearbook. Back then I had a pair of riding style boots that had a vintage-y o-ring harness type detail. Think vintage Frye with a bit of an English riding twist. Quite cool. I'd still wear them if I still had them.

Evidently my now-husband had a thing for them (but not for me). He went so far as to comment on them in my yearbook? Strange for a sixteen year who is purportedly straight, yes?!? I concur.
But, what I didn't think strange was when I read this comment aloud, courtesy of some fairly lousy penmanship: "Well, chemistry has been a great class and so has lunch, talking about your boobs and all."
Boobs?? How forward! Maybe he did notice me after all!!
Funnily enough, it was less weird to me for a teenage boy to comment on my (non-existent then & now) boobs than my boots.

So now here we are, 20 years later, together, boots, boobs and all, gearing up for our 20th reunion. Any other "Class of 88-ers" here? Would love to hear if you are going or not, or if you already went and how it was?

I am tempted to sign up as a temp banquet worker for the night so I can go, but be a fly on the wall...or maybe a disguise..bearded lady anyone?
August 30th is the big night. I'm excited one minute and filled with dread the other. :-)
Wish me luck...(in other words, please don't let me have the smallest boobs and biggest butt).

Older, yet wiser.

Ode to Jell-O

So, Jell-O. That's where it's at.
Can you tell I am a product of the 70's?
Actually something about summer gets me all hopped up on Jell-O.
It doesn't have to be crazy, fancy, swanky Jell-O like that which bedecks this hipster scene-
Oh, to only look 1/2 as glam as the lady in the striped dress.

Actually, I'm a simple girl with simple dreams. Just Jell-O, with fruit mixed in, pretty much rocks my world.
My all-time favorite is orange Jell-O with crushed pineapple and mandarin oranges.
Oh heavenly, fruit juicy goodness!
Lime with pineapple is pretty up there too.


Recently I picked up this Jell-O cookbook, less for me, and more under the (false) impression that it was worth something. Usually I have a good eye when thrifting, and a fairly good memory, which typically likes to serve me correctly. Not in this case. This book can be found pretty much everywhere for a couple of bucks, at the most, which is what I normally would have thought. But, for some bizarre reason I had this lightbulb flash while thrifting that I had seen it go for $15-$20 bucks on ebay recently. Not true. Maybe I confused it with "The Old Joys of Jell-O".
So now I am its proud owner indefinitely.

After having made fruited Jell-o, devouring it, only to make it again for three days straight, I realized this book is really where it truly belongs, not by chance, but perhaps by divine intervention.
I have to admit I've thought many times of hosting a retro themed party with a largely "molded" party spread...you know aspics and congealed salads galore.

With fabulous guests like this-
But with one caveat, it should be kitschy, but also good tasting. I am not into wasting tons of food just for the humor. The guilt is too great.

After thumbing through a few pages, I am now all giddy for this book. I want to experiment and see what retro food fare is worthy of a revival.

I do have to say upon first glance this recipe scared me. Barbecue Jell-O? I was almost certain it was going to contain meat, which freaked me out. Thank goodness I was wrong.

This is one I really will try-
Actually the fun & frothy little recipe above reminded me of my one time childhood fave, Jell-O 1-2-3-
Do you remember it too? The Jell-O dessert that magically separated into 3 distinct layers?
Then I realized that you can no longer buy Jell-O 123. Sad. And sadder still that it probably hasn't been on the market for 20 years or more, and I just noticed. I guess that's why they stopped selling it, customers like me. You can't quite make a killing on a product people think to buy once every twenty years or so.

But, wait!!!!

Now you can re-create it in your very own home--
Homemade Jell-O 1-2-3
What you need:

3/4 cup boiling water

1/2 cup cold water with enough ice cubes added to equal 1 1/4 cups
1/2 cup whipped cream
3 oz package any flavor Jell-O

What you do:

In a blender, mix the gelatin and boiling water together. Add the ice cube/water mixture and mix until the ice cubes are melted. Add in the whipped cream & mix for 30 seconds. Pour into dessert/parfait glasses. Refrigerate 30 minutes. Voila! Serve & enjoy!

Peace, love & Jell-O!

p.s. Does anyone else think one of those kids in the very first photo at the top looks like Quinn Cummings of "The Goodbye Girl", or is it just me?

Easy, Yummy Homemade Ice Cream in Five Minutes Flat!

So, what to do on a hot summer day?
Make ice cream of course. But not just any ice cream...
Five Minute Ice Cream
**The best kind of ice cream for toddlers to make, hands down. No patience required!**
Actually, this version allows young and old alike to be instantly amazed at the simplicity of forming their own ice cream without a machine or even the aid of a freezer.
I am sure there is some sort of science property being demonstrated here, but I am not entirely sure what it is....something to do with the salt and the ice (thermodynamics?). Sorry while technically I do have a Bachelor of Science, it is in Clothing, Textiles & Design, so I can't help you too much here. I did find this link though, which should help you understand the hows & whys.

Wanna try making it yourself?

Gather up the following:
* ice cubes
* 1/2 cup kosher, sea or rock salt
* 1 cup half-and-half or milk or whipping cream
* 2 tablespoons sugar
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1 resealable sandwich size bag
* 1 gallon-size resealable freezer bag
* dish towel

Now here's what you do:

1. Fill the gallon-size bag half full with ice. Add in all the salt.

2. In the sandwich bag, mix half-and-half (or milk or cream), sugar, and vanilla. Seal tightly.

3. Place the small bag inside the large bag. Seal the large bag tightly so it won't leak.

4. To protect your hands from the cold, wrap the dish towel around the outside of the large bag. shake for about five minutes, or until the milk mixture turns into ice cream.

5. Grab a spoon and enjoy! *Makes about one serving or one regular scoop.*



It's yummy! Can you tell?



Oh, and for a visual treat. This is my new fabric I thrifted in L.A. (that's Lower Alabama 'round these parts.) I love this fabric so much that I want to marry it..which is perfectly fine with 3.5 year old Amelia, as she's been begging me to let Daddy marry her instead of me anyways. We can't even hug lately without her bursting into tears. Talk about an Electra Complex---yikes!