| Good morning my sweet one! I hope the sun is shining on your beautiful face and that the day has grabbed you will a desire to do all the things you want to do. For me, I began the morning chasing my dog through the horse pasture, he is blind and deaf and somehow found a fault in the fence and trotted off down the hill while I was fixing my coffee. So, had you been in my town this morning, you would have seen me in my pajamas with a cup of coffee in hand trotting down the hill in my cheetah slippers saying "FRANK! FRANK! FRANK!" to a dog who can't hear. Although, he did seem to slow down when I mentioned treats so maybe some of it is a put on. Anyway, a bit of encouraged exercise first thing in the morning isn't a bad thing. In my last note to you, I explained that Sarah and I might be on a bit of a hiatus or our recipes might be scattered for a bit because my mom was being transferred to an inpatient hospice situation. She passed on May 20. It's funny how God works in mysterious ways. About a year ago, I had scheduled for a group of my friends and I to climb Mt.Leconte in Tennessee. It's totally off grid and there's no phone reception hiking up or down. There's little once you are down. There is no way to get a message to someone on the trail, one just has to wait until they come back down. A month or more before the hike, I just got a bad feeling like I better not go. So, I backed out. My friends understood. And ironically, mom died on that very day. What if I had been on that mountain top? One of the people I most wanted to talk to about the whole thing was up on that mountain top. Most of my girlfriend support system was. I said all of that to say, "Always listen to your gut. Always". Anyway, that's where I've been. We will have the memorial service on Monday and then at some point, we will sprinkle ashes. But the main part of the services stuff will be past. If you would like to see the obituary, it is here: Judy Simpson But, enough about all of that. ON to the RECIPES! Last night, I had dinner with a friend at a lovely restaurant "6th and Vine" in Winston Salem. I had the Shrimp and Grits without shrimp (I'm allergic) and he had the Boneless chicken thighs and mashed sweet potatoes. Those sweet potatoes were DELICIOUS! My whole meal reminded me of these Southern Creamy Cheese Grits with a delicious chicken and gravy on the top with a bit of andouille sausage. If you combined those with some creativity, yum!
His whole meal tasted a lot like these braised chicken thighs with a cream sauce. Those delicious mashed sweet potatoes, I am thinking were roasted in the oven, then put through a ricer, then a good quantity of dark brown sugar, real butter and a touch of salt was added. They were fantastic! ________________________________ HOT COOKING TIP OF THE WEEK Did your mom teach you to rinse off the pasta after it cooks? Mine did. She boiled a kettle of water while boiling the pasta. As the pasta lay in the strainer, she poured the boiling water over the top. She said that rinsed off some of the starch that is so bad and fattening for you. I always thought, "Isn't most of the starch IN the pasta noodles"? Why try to wash off what little dusty powder might still be clinging to the noodles? Seemed like a useless step to me, but it's just what she did in the 1970's until she didn't cook pasta anymore because her diet changed to not allow pasta at all. She was very health conscious. Anyway, don't rinse the pasta off. The unrinsed pasta is a little more sticky and the sauce will cling to it better if you leave it as is. Also, don't coat it with oil (something else a lot of people do to keep it from stick to itself). Go ahead and mix the pasta into the sauce and give it a good stir. The pasta will absorb some of the sauce and give it flavor. The sauce will keep it from sticking together. It's a win, win, win. ___________________________________ THREE LITTLE THINGS I'm trying to be more thankful for the small things and that will hopefull remind me to also be thankful for the big things. - I'm thankful for the good work of hospice. It's not a small thing. I'm thankful for it.
- Thankful for my friends and family.
- Thankful for loving relationships in my life.
____________________________________ A FINAL WORD This is something that is on my mind and so I feel compelled to share it. Maybe it will make a difference for someone else. Tell whoever will be making decisions for you if you can't make them yourself (even if you are young, you could get hit on the head and be knocked out, unable to make decisions) what you want done in various scenarios. Entrust this job to someone you know who has the fortitude to do what you want done. Put that person on your checking account with you so that they can pay your bills for you if you can't do it. Put them on there as an actual account holder with you, not as a trustee. Put aside enough cash money so that you can pay your final expenses or go ahead and prepay them. Make sure the person responsible for your expenses can get to the money in case your accounts are shut down. That's unfair to put all of that expense on someone else when they aren't expecting to have to pay it out of their pocket (even if they can get the money from your account later once things have settled out). Go ahead and clean out your stuff as best you can now. If you have a lot of stuff that no one else will want and you aren't using it, give it to a charity. Leave as little stuff to clean up as possible. I'm doing that now and trying to live with as little stuff as possible and what I do have is organized so that it's easy to go through and box up. Honestly, less is more and makes me feel better mentally. It's worth trying. It's working for me. That's all. Not a rant, just some advice from my recent experiences.
See you next week with The Scroll, God willing and the creeks don't rise. Love you bunches! Wendi | 
No comments:
Post a Comment