I wanted to remind folks who come here that I work the weekends.

I skip and hop to work Saturday morning at 6am and work until 10pm; go home and sleep for a few hours- get up at 5am Sunday and drag and pull myself back to work for 6am for another 16 hours. Go home again, sleep for another precious few hours so I can be at work on Mondays at 6am…usually I get out at 2pm, but today I’m suffering from

WORK DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.

I’m still working and will be until 10pm. I am exhausted and more than ready for some REAL SLEEP- like 20 hours of it! The posts up from the weekend and today were all done on the fly- posted ahead of time and published at times I thought would be good. I’m not ignoring comments- I just haven’t had time to respond.

I will be back sometime tomorrow. After I sleep.

What to do with all those pumpkins?

You could do this:

(This picture is from an email I got and not one I took)

Or this….
Yummy. Is. All. It. Is.

This recipe will yield TWO LOAVES:
3 cups of mashed, cooked pumpkin
1 cup canola oil
1 cup honey
1 cup yogurt (plain)
2 eggs
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
4 tsps baking soda
4 cups flour

Preheat oven to 325F
Mix all the ingredients except for the flour, mix well; then add the flour a little bit at a time till well mixed ( if batter is too bland add more honey to taste). Pour into greased 9 X 5 loaf pan. Bake for one hour or until wire tester or toothpick comes out clean.

Pumpkin Butter
1 cup of mashed cooked pumpkin
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup molasses
1 tbs lemon juice
3/4 tsp of ground cinnamon

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan. Cook over med/high heat and bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Turn heat to low and simmer until mixture is thick (15 mins). Stir often as it can burn easily. Cool- then chill for at least one hour before using.

Another recipe from my collection. This is an old twist to a popular meal: Adding apple cider to a pot roast gives it extra tang and ting- it sweetens the flavor a little and adds a nice aroma. Some people like to add sliced peeled apples to the mix as well: I would use 3 Granny Smiths, pared, cored and sliced- add to the pot about half an hour before cooking ends. REMOVE any apple slices not eaten though! They turn to total MUSH otherwise.

2 tablespoons Oil
1 4 lb Bottom Round Roast (any cut will do- even cheap meats cook up well in crock pots!)
2 cups Apple cider
3 Onions, peeled- either cut up or sliced
6 Carrots, sliced diagonally
5 Celery stalks, sliced diagonally
8 Potatoes, pared — cubed
2 Cloves garlic minced
2¼ teaspoons Salt
½ teaspoon fresh ground pepper
2 bay leaves
1 1/2 cups cold water
¼ cup flour

Heat oil in dutch oven and brown roast on all sides. In a large crock pot, layer veggies, potatoes and meat in that order. Mix cider, salt, pepper and garlic in medium bowl. Pour over meat in pot. Place bay leaves on top… Cover and cook over low for 6-8 hours. About 30 minutes before cooking ends, remove bay leaves and 1 1/2 cups of liquid from pot- skim off fat; mix with the cold water and flour to make a gravy. Serve over the meal and enjoy!

Cooler days are here in my area. I like to use my crock pots for cooking on the weekends- and most other times too. I have dozens of recipes for CHILI.

This is very good and hearty and quite filling! AND EASY to make. I cooked the ground beef and bacon Friday afternoon and just threw it all into the crock pot this morning before leaving for work. When I get home tonight it’ll be all ready to eat. I sprinkle shredded taco cheese on top and let it melt…mmmm GOOD!

A lot of people like corn bread with their chili- we like sourdough rolls better.

4 pounds Ground beef
1 lb Bacon
3 tablespoon Shortening
2 cups Chopped onion
2 Garlic cloves; crushed
4 tablespoons Chili powder
3 Beef bouillon cubes; crushed
1 ½ teaspoon Paprika
1 teaspoon Oregano
1 teaspoon Ground cumin
½ teaspoon Cayenne pepper
½ cup Beef stock
1 can Tomatoes; 28 ozs.
1 can Tomato paste; 8 oz.
4 cans Red kidney beans; 1 lb cans

Heat shortening in skillet and brown beef, discard fat. Fry up the bacon or cook as desired (microwave, oven…) Cut strips in half lengthwise.

Combine all ingredients in removable liner, stirring well. Place liner in base. Cover and cook on low 8-10 hours; high 4-5 hours.

Surprised? This past week: Last week on Thursday I had my tonsils and adenoids removed. (Yea I’m a little OLD for that but…) Less than three days later I was eating, drinking and getting back to my normal self. I expected to be out of normalcy for a lot longer than that.

Blue green- many call them GRAY. I wish they were just one color!

A beanie BABY?? Oh come on!! I would be a little black bird. Named Raven.

I work out 5 days a week. And not just any ole work out; I use machines and free weights; I do the elliptical for 45 minutes and then the stepper for another 45 minutes; I work hard and my muscles prove it. I’m stronger and have more endurance than most men. I also run just about every day too. Or roller blade. 10 miles or so.
The other thing I do is drink. Lots. Of. Water. Gallons. It really helps keep me balanced.

I use Aquafresh. Always have and always will. I just like it and never get cavities.

An post over at the WSJ Health Blog caught my eye:

Nurses are beaten and abused, pinched and punched by deranged and demented patients.

The rough treatment of nurses by some of the people they care for isn’t an issue that gets much attention, but it should, Illinois doc Ben Brewer writes this his WSJ.com column. “Nurses get assaulted all the time at work,” he writes. “They get assaulted in small and large ways at every hospital and nursing home in the country.”

The subject comes up occasionally in the medical literature (see this study, for example), but for the most part everybody assumes it happens and there’s not much to do about it. Nurses are the infantry of the health-care system.

Brewer rolls out one example after another. The young nurse with the long scar on her forearm, where the surgeon went in to fix tendon damage after a patient violently twisted her hand and bent back her fingers. The ICU nurse with a deformed finger and nerve damage from a patient’s bite. The nurse who got punched in the ear.

He notes that patients are restrained less often than they used to be, but he suggests that more frequent use of restraints probably wouldn’t do any good. “Usually it’s the one you don’t see coming that gets you,” he writes.

Yea? Let’s talk about this rough treatment:

Nurses and aides are:
Hit
Punched
Kicked
Bitten
Pinched
Held semi captive by hair pulling
Picked up and thrown
Targets of objects being hauled across rooms- everything from a simple hair brush to entire hospital beds.

…and otherwise roughened up and abused by our patients.

On a daily basis.

Read the rest of this entry »

mmMMmm.
New England Cranberry Pot Roast

This is cranberry pot roast- an old family recipe my Mom got from her Mom…it’s been passed down through my family for decades. I decided to make this for the afternoon meal since my daughters are home. Serve it up over homemade biscuits with brown sugar butter- REALLY- it’s GOOD. I altered the recipe a little several yrs ago by adding the canned cranberry sauce- which just makes the meat more moist and…you only need a fork to eat it.

2 tablespoons All purpose flour
1 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Onion salt
¼ teaspoon Pepper
4 pounds Pot roast
2 tablespoons Shortening
4 Whole cloves
1 2″ stick cinnamon
1 lb fresh cranberries
1 8oz can cranberry sauce
1 tablespoon Vinegar

Combine first 4 ingredients; rub into roast,using all flour mixture. In Dutch oven,slowly brown meat on all sides in hot shortening.

Remove from heat; add cloves, cinnamon, cranberries and 1/2 cup water. Cover tightly and simmer about 2 1/2 hours,or until tender, adding water if necessary.

Spoon off fat. Mix cranberry sauce, vinegar and 2 tbsp. water; add to meat. Cover and cook 10 to 15 minutes more. Remove cinnamon.

Make up some biscuits from you’re favorite mix or from scratch. We serve this with candied carrots and green beans. A very hearty and satisfying meal- probably not the healthiest but SO GOOD on a cool day. The aroma of the roast as it cooks is wonderful too!

Pass pan juices with meat for the biscuits. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

I don’t DO the IPod anymore…I’ve been a fan of Creative for about two years now. I’ll never go back to IPod either. This article calls Creative the underdog. I don’t understand WHY? I absolutely love their products and I’m a hard sell with extreme standards.

NEW YORK — When Marybeth Miller decided she wanted a digital player to carry around music from her massive collection, she had one important rule: no iPod.

My stance has nothing to do with being obscure. It has everything to do with quality. Creative makes a better product for a lot less money; the players are sturdier and don’t break when dropped (which I tend to do often)…and the products are much more user friendly and the battery life is MUCH longer. With Apple you’ll need to send your Pod off to get a new battery sooner than later…with Creative you buy the battery at a drug store and change it yourself. Also, the charge is better: I can listen to 15 hours of music before the product needs a charge. Try that with an IPod.

You get more bang for your buck!

This product- the Zen Stone- is Creative’s answer to the IPod Shuffle. It’s the same size yet offers more storage: The IPod Shuffle allows about 250 songs and nothing else. The Zen Stone can hold 1000 songs, has an FM radio receiver with 32 presets, AND is a stop watch…which is perfect for me. For roughly $20.00 more, to boot. One thing I really like about Creative Zen products is the lack of need of ITunes. I can download songs in any format; I copy songs I’m hearing on the radio; I don’t have to install fancy software to do all this. I can download music from a friends computer to my Stone without any hassle- no need for THAT computer to recognize my device. My music will last forever too- unlike ITunes which has a limit of how many times each song can be copied to computers. A lot of people don’t know this.

I’m very active. I run. I work out, hard. I roller blade. When I had the IPod I constantly dropped the damn thing- it’s securing devices never worked well. A friend owns a Shuffle and she dropped it and the cheap metal “clip” broke off! The device still works, but it must be placed in a pocket. With the Zen products I have rarely dropped them and when I have- the things didn’t break, chip, scratch or skip over songs. You can buy “skins” for all the MP3 players- and the Stone is no exception. It comes in 6 colors too. I carry my Stone on my keychain- you can buy a skin with a clip for this. I don’t know what the article is whining about when it comes to accessories. I have no problem finding what I need.

I also own a Creative Zen Vision M, which holds 60 GB of music (or 15,000 songs+-). I LOVE that as well.

I’ll never go back to IPod. Ever. People should really check out the competition and get a superior product that costs less and is easier to use.

I went out for a run around my property late this afternoon and got a couple cool pictures.

A bunch of ferns and pine trees on the edge of my land-in the deep woods- this scene was pretty green until recently.

…and the river, raging wild and natural- this is about a half a mile from my house- it turns into a smaller brook:

I love autumn in my area. It’s refreshing, colorful and crisp. Right now the colors are really starting to ripen and I could spend endless hours outside just looking and peeking and being in total awe of Mother Nature.

This time of year brings out the weirdo in me- I purchase dozens of bags of this stuff. It goes into one of those really small crock pots, with apple cidar and what an experience- the scent of fall lasts all day with no effort.