Tag Archives: cookbook

One Thing, Then Another!

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It’s been a while since I posted. I finally got through January and I had just a couple of days to go before February was in the rearview mirror when all of a sudden my lower left molar decided it was going to give me a hard time. I babied it for a week and then Sunday evening the pain was so intense I thought I might cut my own head off!

I was able to get an emergency dental appointment on Tuesday morning. I’m a big baby when it comes to the dentist. I just don’t go unless I have to. I may have gone more often had I known my insurance covers some (but not a lot of) dental services. I was told a long time ago that they didn’t cover dental at all. Ugh. Anyway, I opted to have the tooth pulled because a root canal was not covered and I can’t afford that cost. I have already resigned myself to the fact that I will eventually lose all of my teeth. Seems like when my legs start giving me new troubles, I have problems with my teeth. It’s all connected they say. I believe it.

So, onwards and upwards. The tooth extraction was unlike the other two extractions I have had in the past. This little shit of a molar decided it was going to be stubborn as hell. The dentist had to cut it out and remove it in pieces! The sound of the dental saw (which wasn’t really a saw, just high-powered water) almost caused a panic attack. I breathed through it but it was awful! Two hours later, the tooth was out. I was swollen and so glad to get out of there. I was exhausted and went to sleep as soon as I got home. They gave me Vicoden, which I didn’t really need but I took it twice Tuesday and one before bed the next 2 nights. My gums are still a bit tender but the pain is minimal. I was on a soft food diet for several days and I’m done with that! I feel so deprived!

On to more exciting news! Before the dreaded tooth extraction, I was working diligently on my cookbook! I have nearly all of them typed out and organized. I’m not sure but I think I may not need recipe testers. Most of the recipes in the cookbook have been “tested” by me, friends, and family through the years. That’s enough testing, yes? Anyway, I still may call upon friends to test a couple recipes that I’m not sure about; for example, my Grandmother’s recipe for Light Bread. All of the ingredients and amounts are listed except for the flour! My oven doesn’t work so I can’t make the recipe to figure it out. I guess Granny knew exactly how much flour to use!

Also, I have decided that I won’t be adding too many photos. I don’t think it’s necessary, although photos do make things look appealing! I have some photos, which I will use but honestly, everyone knows what a stuffed bell pepper looks like, or a bowl of salsa, guacamole, biscuits, or potato soup. Right? Besides, I won’t be listing this cookbook with online retailers or libraries. The cookbook will not have an ISBN. I will be selling through word of mouth, to friends, family, and others interested. Nothing fancy and most likely not perfect, just a book of the recipes I’ve collected over the years.

So, friends. Please refresh my memory on who was interested in recipe testing. I may call upon you for your help. Please use this FORM to send me your email so that I may contact you in the next couple of months.

I thank you all for reading this silly blog and being patient with me over the last couple of years while I work on the cookbook! Have a great weekend!

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What’s Eating Aunt Debbie?

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Joe Biden is too old? Give me a break. We have a Vice President who can take over if anything should happen to him. That’s why we have a Vice President. Why is Biden too old and Donald Trump is not? There’s only 3 years difference! 

Some say we don’t have a gun problem. I call bullshit. No one wants to take away your damn guns, so give it a rest. I’m all for the right to own a gun to protect your home, family, and possessions. I get it. There’s nothing wrong with that. Everyone in this country has the right to own a firearm BUT not everyone is responsible enough to own one. Lock your guns up. Keep them away from your children. Don’t allow anyone to have access to your guns. Be responsible. Don’t solve your problems with violence! We need to do something about the mass shootings we have nearly every day in this country. Do you know how many mass shootings there have been this month in the US? Do you know how many shootings there have been since January 1st? Take a look here! 

I don’t know about you, but I’m sick to death of this Trump bullshit. Lock him up for God’s sake and throw away the key! If you don’t want to do the time then don’t do the crime! And yes, he DID do the crime(s)…we all know it. Why should he get away with it? You might be on the warpath now about Hunter Biden, blah blah blah. Well, if he broke the law then he should be held accountable, too. NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW! Trump seems to think he can do anything he wants regardless of the Constitution, regardless of the LAW. Why the hell would you want him as President AGAIN?? Mark my words, if he’s elected again, we will never get rid of him. He wants to be a dictator! He will turn this country inside out and our lives as we know it, will never be the same.

Do you use Walmart’s curbside service? I do, because I’m disabled and it’s easier for me to have someone else do the shopping. The hard part is unloading it when I get home. My biggest complaint is that some of the shoppers don’t know how to shop. For example, last week I ordered a head of iceberg lettuce. What I got was a flimsy, airy head of lettuce that was so void of substance that I was lucky to get 2 single-serve salads out of it. One time I got a bell pepper with rotten spots all over it. Another time, when I went to unload my groceries, I found the bread crammed into the trunk organizer with a huge bag of canned goods. Grrr…. I just wish they’d take more care when shopping and loading. I know it’s just a job to them and not a career, but it’s important to many of us who can’t go inside the store. I need this service!

I was working on a jigsaw puzzle last week, and I was shocked to find that the outside pieces weren’t very distinguishable from the others. I mean, some I could tell were outside pieces without a doubt but there were too many that had flat edges that weren’t outside pieces! I love a hard puzzle but geez, I like to be able to tell the difference between the inside pieces and the outside pieces! Oh, and then when I finally got the outside put together, there were several pieces that didn’t interlock because they had flat sides so the border wouldn’t stay together! 

I finally got to meet my youngest grandbaby! He doesn’t travel well, not even the 15 miles to come visit us, so we stopped by to see him. I hadn’t done this before because my son’s house has steps, front and back. I really can’t do steps, but it was too hot to stay outside so I put my big girl panties on and hoisted my fat ass up the steps. They aren’t little steps either. They are deeeeep! If there hadn’t been something to hang onto, I’d have never attempted it. I suffered afterward for it, that’s for sure! Anyway, Elias was in a happy mood so I got him to smile. His big brother, Hudson, who turns 5 on September 1st, is very proud of his baby brother! He was also proud to have a broken arm – yep, not even 5 yet and he broke his arm doing flips or some shit in the house!! But it wasn’t a serious break I guess, because the cast came off after just a couple of weeks. 

Jack’s Pack, is now only a pack of 3. As you may know, we lost Honey Bear in July. It’s been extremely quiet around the house. Honey was very vocal and the others aren’t – except for BobCat when he’s playing with his toy snake. He walks around the house with it in his mouth, meowing as if he’s calling the others to come play. But it’s still quiet. If I were able-bodied and younger I’d consider getting a kitten. Kittens are so much fun to play with and to watch! When they get older they don’t play much. BobCat is still pretty young; around 3 years old I think. He was a stray and outside for a long time so he didn’t have toys nor did he know the joy of playing. He’s making up for lost time now! 

I’m still chugging along on my cookbook. I’m now trying to find some of the recipes I missed so I can include them and last week I was working on my Granny’s recipes. Oh boy, what a mess. One of her bread recipes is incomplete! There’s only a list of ingredients – and she left out how much flour to use! There’s no oven temp or instructions so I have to figure that out if I want to include it in my cookbook! Back in her younger days, she worked in a bar/restaurant and she made some salad dressings in large quantities; her recipes call for #10 cans, gallons, and such. These recipes I will have to break down because most of us don’t want gallons of dressings sitting in the fridge taking up room or going bad! Unless you have a super large crowd to serve, it would take a long time to use it all up! Anyway, I’m hoping to get organized to the point that I’ll be calling on my volunteers to test recipes! If you’d like to volunteer, be sure to let me know in the comments! 

Well, that’s what’s on my mind this morning.

A Freebie For You!

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Some of you may remember that I have been working on a cookbook…for several years now. Ugh. Actually, it’s been in the back of my mind for 30 years or so! I’ve been collecting recipes, making notes, and saving the best since I was around 17 years old!

Over the years I have tried and tried to make a homemade sweet and sour sauce and I have a stack of recipes with notes all over them! None of them were ever quite right. One was too sweet, or one was too tangy. One might have had too much ketchup (for color) and one might have had too much onion and not enough bell pepper. You get the idea.

Today, I decided to give it another shot. I took all the notes I wrote on all the other recipes and put them all together in my feeble mind. I wrote my own recipe and made Instant Pot Sweet and Sour Meatballs. I even made a batch of sauce to save for later! The sauce was the best I’ve ever made!

It may be a bit too sweet for you, or it may have too much onion or too many chunks of pineapple. But the thing about recipes is that you can tweak them to your own taste!

Here’s my recipe and I hope you like it. Call it a freebie before my cookbook is finished!

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Sweet and Sour Sauce

1 (20 oz) can pineapple chunks, undrained
1 green red or green bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
1/4 onion, cut into 1-inch pieces
3/4 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup rice vinegar
4 tbsp ketchup
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch in 2 tbsp water, to make slurry

Add all ingredients to a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Let simmer until the vegetables are tender.

Add cornstarch slurry and stir constantly, until thickened to desired consistency. Let the sauce cool before storing it in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Use it as a dipping sauce or with your favorite sweet-and-sour recipe.

If you want to make Sweet and Sour Meatballs, just add frozen meatballs during cooking but in the end, you may need a bit more cornstarch slurry. If you want to make this in the Instant Pot, add everything to the pot except for the cornstarch slurry. Cook on manual or high pressure for 7 minutes. Manually release pressure when the timer goes off. Add the slurry to thicken. Serve over rice.

If you like Sweet and Sour Chicken, add cooked (and still hot) breaded chicken bites at the very end and stir until coated, then serve over rice.

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Well, I hope you like this recipe! Let me know what you think if you try it!

aunt-debbie

What’s Eating Aunt Debbie?

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There’s so much on my mind lately. My brain gets so bogged down with thoughts and ideas, problems and solutions, and then there’s my pain and mobility issues…I barely get anything constructive done.

I’ve been working on my cookbook. My German Grandmother’s recipes are giving me a headache! Some of them list only the ingredients but not the process. Some are just simply confusing because what she calls one thing, upon research I found are called something else! I haven’t made all of her recipes myself; I will include only the ones I have made before. I’m giving myself until the end of July to get them all typed out. Maybe halfway through I can get my volunteers to start testing recipes. I’m starting some of the testing myself this month. I’m hoping by Christmas I can have it done but no promises because these things take time.

I’m disgusted and full of so much anger towards Putin. He needs to be taken out, if you know what I mean. Surely, they have some Special Ops team that can get that job done. And thanks to the aid of Tucker (the fucker) Carlson, the misinformation about the war on Ukraine has flowed into the US. It makes me sick. Just sick. As if we need more misinformation in this country! What Putin is doing is WRONG. He is a murderous war criminal. The pointless death and destruction…brings tears to my eyes.

I’ve missed blogging – but I just haven’t had the time to sit down and write or when I have the time to write, nothing comes to me. What the hell do you write when you can’t think of anything to write? So, here I sit. Just typing whatever comes to me. Is that stupid?

Thankfully, Winter is about ready to leave us behind. I’m truly tired of having to wash my hands in the bathtub. Hmmm…I bet you’re wondering about that statement, yes? Well, the plumbing in this old house is about as stupid as the electrical wiring. I’ll have to tell you about that in another post! The plumbing…well, during the winter it takes about 40 seconds for the water at the kitchen sink to get warm. It’s about 5 feet from the water heater, which makes no sense at all. The bathroom sink takes about 50-55 seconds to get warm. That sink is about 30 feet from the water heater. I try to remember to turn on the water before I do my business, so I don’t have to stand there waiting for the water to warm up before I can wash my hands but sometimes I forget. Most of the time I forget. So I wash my hands in the bathtub, which is about 6 feet from the sink and about the same distance as the sink from the water heater. Do you want to take a guess at how long it takes the water to warm up in the bathtub? It takes a whole 15 seconds, which is why I end up washing my hands in the bathtub. I have no patience and I’m sure as hell not going to wash my hands in ice cold water! Snort!

I’m looking forward to the Spring but I’m always disappointed. It seems to always rain and then we’re left with about 2 weeks of exceptionally beautiful Spring weather before it gets too damn hot to live! Ugh. Summer comes too fast.

Well, back to work I go. Or a nap. Ha! Take care of yourselves!

Signing off!

Guess What?

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Happy Monday, folks! I hope this week proves to be a productive one for us all.

I’ve accomplished something I never thought I would. I finished “The Ex Files” for my kids and it has been sent to the printer! By no means does this make me a published author because it’s a private printing, not to be distributed to the public. It does make me feel good that I have finished the book and now my adult kids will understand why I left their father and why he wasn’t a part of their lives.

My next project is “Aunt Debbie’s Best” cookbook that WILL make me a published author! Staying motivated will be the hardest part. I will be contacting a few people who have shown interest in testing recipes, in the near future. Wish me luck in this daunting project!

Nelson Mandela once said, “It always seems impossible until it is done.”

Now, on with Monday. Be kind and stay safe, my friends.

aunt-debbie