Recipe ......day # 13

Oops! I missed the normal Wednesday Recipe again. Maybe there is something about that #13 thing. Well I'm not normally superstitious about these things, so I will proceed with the Recipe after this brief disclaimer. We were very busy on Wednesday with a trip to the airport. Kari will be participating in the wedding of one of her best friends who lives in Sweden. I'm sure she will take the opportunity for some vacation activities with her friends and family as well. Here we are at the airport just before boarding the flight to Sweden.

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When the rest of us left the airport we went back into Houston for a visit to the Farmer's Market on Airline Drive, to eat lunch at The Spaghetti Warehouse in downtown Houston, and to take a brief shopping trip before our return home. Some of the produce items we bought at the farmer's market included fresh green beans, new potatoes, and onions. I cooked the green beans, thus we get the following recipe:

Farmer's Market Green Beans

2 -3 "handfuls" of fresh green beans, snip ends and peel strings if any

8 - 10 new red potatoes, whole or cut in half

1/2 onion, sliced or coarsely chopped

4 slices bacon, cut into 1/2 to 1 inch pieces

1 clove garlic, thinly sliced or minced

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

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Prepare first 3 ingredients as described or as you prefer and set aside. Combine the remaining ingredients with the onions in a large pot and heat on medium high on your cook top. Cook these ingredients until the bacon is done and the onions are translucent (5 - 10 minutes). Add the remaining ingredients to the pot with enough water to completely cover the ingredients in the pot. Raise the heat as needed to bring the water to a boil and continue to boil until the beans are done and the potatoes are soft (20 - 40 minutes).

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This recipe is original and was not copied from any particular cook book. I did refer to several different cook books for suggested recipes and cooking ideas for fresh green beans. These are the books which I have previously cited for some of the recipes I have already shared with you in this blog. Feel free to follow this recipe or change it as you desire according to your own tastes or preferences. You may copy, edit, and share this recipe with you family and friends as you desire. Please enjoy your Farmer's Market Green Beans and reply or comment with any changes or additions you might suggest to the recipe.

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Hello Dolly

Oops! Wrong Dolly.

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Tropical Storm Dolly has been upgraded to Hurricane Dolly. At this point the storm seems to be coming ashore well south of our location. We will continue to monitor the situation and remain vigilant to any changing conditions. Pam and I have weathered a number of these storms and we always try to prepare in advance with supplies of food, water, batteries, and other emergency items. Our most notable hurricane experiences were with Alicia in 1983 and Rita in 2005. We rode out Hurricane Alicia in our home and the eye of the storm passed directly over our house in the early morning hours of August 18. With visions of that event in our mind we decided to evacuate on Wednesday, September 21 for Hurricane Rita. The hurricane itself was pretty much a "non-event" but, the evacuation became the most grueling and tiring experience I can remember. What would have been a 3 or 4 hour drive in normal circumstances turned into a 28 hour driving ordeal with a caravan of 4 cars full of our valuables and each member of the family, including 2 friends of the family and their dog as well as our own 3 dogs, 6 cats, 2 chinchillas, and 2 cockatiels. Our only stops were for gas until we reached our destination. We are still thankful to my brother and his family and to Pam's brother and his family for putting us up in their homes for the few days we stayed away before returning home.

Summer Time Blues

No, I'm not referring to the "Summertime Blues" (1958), a 12-bar blues standard song by Eddie Cochran and Jerry Capehart about the trials and tribulations of teenage life in America. (Song and artist information is from Wikipedia.)


I'm referring to the beautiful blue water in the swimming pool.

Janna has been inviting all of us over to her apartment to swim in the pool.

Kira has been going for 'Water Babbies' lessons at a local swimming pool. Do we have a potential olympic swimmer?

Recipe Wednesday #12

This week I found a recipe in one of those advertising inserts from the Sunday newspaper. It was one of those inserts with all the grocery and other coupons and other advertising for most national name brand products. This recipe looked like a quick and easy recipe and something which might be good to prepare and cook out on the grill for great weekend or family event. It was found in the insert with an ad and a Manufacturer's Coupon for Owens Fresh Roll Sausage. You may follow the link for more information about the Owens company, their products, and more of their recipes. Here follows a recipe for:

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Owens Backyard Burgers

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1 lb. Owens Original Roll Sausage

1 lb. ground beef

2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 tsp. ground pepper

8 hamburger buns

Lettuce, sliced tomato, sliced onion (suggested toppings)

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In a large bowl, combine first five ingredients. Form into 8 patties. Over medium heat on grill, cook burgers on each side until done (no longer pink), about 10-15 minutes. Serve with buns and favorite toppings.

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Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 10-15 minutes

Yields: 8 burgers

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I hope you have an opportinity to try this or any of my other recipes and have a pleasant eating experience with your family and friends. Enjoy!

ISP - Internet Service Provider (or Problem?)

Ah, this technical age. Ain't it Wonderful? We have all been led down this merry path about how wonderful this New Technological Age is today. Why with cell phones, computers, the internet; what else could you want or need? All these new gadgets are supposed to bring us closer together, save us time, and expand our opportunities to learn from and interact with each other. Hey, all this is fine and good, as long as it is all working. Last week I was having a variety of problems with my computer and the internet. The computer kept "crashing" by shutting down and rebooting with that little message that I could restart in "safe mode" and find and fix this problem. Easier said than done. No I don't have an IT or programming degree. I must muddle through the process the best I can with the Help screens provided along with the computer and the software and most of them are now internet based. They want to go off onto the internet for connection to some server where all that information is conveniontly stored for instant access. Yeh right, as long as your internet connection is working properly! That is when I began to notice that the internet didn't seem to be working properly. Now I am not only trying to figure out the problem with the computer, but I have to check my wireless router and the cable modem as well. I know what happens when you call the Internet Service Provider, they go through this whole set of questions about whether you have rebooted your computer, if you have reset your wireless router, and if you have checked your power supply to your modem. Heaven forbid that I insinuate the problem may be at their end. Well I go through the "safe mode" scenario and restore a previous setting for the computer and all seems well. Next I unplug the wireless router, and then the modem. I wait a few mintes and plug them back in according to previous instructions given when I went through this process in the past. Still no go! I repeat this process again and while I have everything unplugged I go back and check my computer. I also turned on another computer which I sometimes use which has a direct wired connection to the router. After reconnecting all the cables and power supplies I get the computer connection to the wireless router established and all seems well. Whoa, not too fast. There is still no internet connection. Now it's time to call the ISP. Well you probably now how this works. You listen to one of those recorded messages, you make your selections and after a number of overlapping menus you finally get told "your call will be answered by the service technicians in the order in which it is received". I always get ideas of banks of telephone switchboards with a number of operators sitting and waiting to switch your call to the proper technician to handle your own particular problem. When I was a kid my mother worked as a telephone operator for Bell Telephone and later for a large retail store, Montgomery Wards, and after that she worked for a large insurance and service provider in Texas. I remember seeing pictures of her sitting at one of those switchboards with a half dozen or so other operators answering and switching calls to their proper destination. I know it doesn't work that way any more, but I still get that picture in my mind when I call a large company with some problem, a complaint, or even to just get some information about their products or services. Well anyway I finally spoke with someone who seemed knowledgable, pleasant and most helpful. I explained my problem and the steps I had taken to solve it. He politely explained that a number of other people in my area have been having similar problems because of a recent series of thunderstoms we had been having. Before returning the modem for replacement he suggested that I do as I had done previously except that I wait approximately 30 mintes before replugging power supplies to each part of my system. I thought 'sure, like the modem and the router can tell the difference between 2 or 3 minutes and 30 minutes'. I am skeptical but I try it as he has suggested. Success! The internet is restored and the computer seems to be working for now. Now I can finally do that Blog which I wanted to get posted for this weekend. Now, what was I going to write about? I can't remember! One of the principals I have worked with called this "Old Timers Disease" but that is another topic for another day. I find that sometimes I have to get away from something for a while and then I will remember what I was doing before I started working on that other ISProblem.

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P. S. I can't find that picture of my mother at the switchboard. If I can find it I will post it for all to see. Perhaps my brother has that picture in his photo album. He regularly posts old family photos. See his Blog, Horst Household Happeninmgs.

Recipe Wednesday #11

The Unknown Recipe

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While looking for a recipe this week, I came across a handwritten recipe on a sheet of paper taken from a tablet or pad of paper. At the bottom of the recipe there was a brief note written "For Pam". I did not recognize the writing and it did not seem to be a recipe familiar to me. I asked my wife, Pam, to whom the recipe seemed to have been directed. She was not familiar with the recipe and she did not recognize the handwriting either. We are not sure where the recipe came from or who may have given it to Pam. So this week we will have the The Unkown Recipe "For Pam":

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Corn Casserole

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1 Tbs Sugar

1 Can cream style corn

1 Can whole Kernel corn, drained

1 Can Rotel, chopped & drained

1 1/4 cup cracker crumbs

1 egg

1/4 C to 1/2 C chopped onion

1/2 C chopped green pepper

1 small can evaporated milk

1 large cheese whiz or 1 lb. velveeta, cubed

1 stick butter melted

Mix well, pour into greased baking dish. Bake forty minutes at 350 degrees. (Knife inserted should come out clean.) If not done, turn off oven and leave casserole in for awhile.

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For Pam

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Well, there it is, The Unknown Recipe "For Pam", Corn Casserole. I hope that you have an opportunity to try this recipe and that you find it pleasing for yourself and your family.

Independence Day!

Waiting for our neighborhood 4th of July Parade.

Start of the Parade.

Houston Mayor, Bill White.

The end of the parade.

Have a Great 4th of July!

Recipe Wednesday #10

While looking for a recipe this week I found a sheet printed from a computer printer which was a recipe printed from a website. The recipe is printed on the page below a brief story explaining the circumstances behind the recipe, very similar to what I do here on this blog. Instead of simply giving you a recipe, I try to give you the story behind the recipe. Rather than simply reprint the recipe directly into my blog post I thought it might be interesting to simply add a link and let you follow the links to get the recipe. (As I was typing the website into my browser I'm thinking how similar this is to one of my brothers new blog sites, Links 2 Oblivion. I believe the title makes it self evident about what the site is about so I won't explain that here. You may follow that link to learn more about Web Oblivion!) Now, back to the recipe story. . . I was completely surprised when the web page came up in my browser window. What I saw was the entry page into an Adults Only website. I quickly checked back to the the recipe page and I checked the web address I had typed into my browser. I even opened a different browser to see what would happen with the site in another browser. Oh yes, the same results. I looked again at the page I had with the printed recipe. I had typed the web site into my browser correctly but, the date was printed at the bottom of the page. It was somewhat difficult to read since the printer settings had cut it off partially because it was printing near the margin. I could just make out what appears to be the date, 10/30/00. That made this original site almost 8 years old. Knowing that things may change quickly on the internet, I figured that someone else must have acquired that URL Address. Boy, what a shock for moms with their kids who may be innocently searching for a cookie recipe! Not to be undone by this shocking glitch, I tried a different approch to see if I could find this recipe at a link for you to follow. Success! As I reread the introductory paragraph on the recipe page I noted that the recipe stemmed from an Urban Legend. (Again, I won't go into that story here. Maybe my brother will do that in his new blog.) I tried a search using the words "urban legend cookies" and I found what I was looking for:

Urban Legend Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Please follow the link above for the recipe and the story. I believe you and your family will enjoy the cookies from the recipe, as well as the story about them. Incidentally, the recipe sheet I have simply titles them as "Legendary Cookies" and a brief story about the urban legend. Enjoy!