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Spring, Are You Playing With My Emotions Or Not?

This is a sign that Spring is near.  After setting the clock ahead one hour last night except the one by my bed, I woke up this morning at 9 AM only realizing about a half an hour later that it was really 10:30 AM.  Talk about time flying by, right!  Given that the weather here in Connecticut is pretty nice today, I decided to celebrate my extra sleep with a little walk around the yard and forest here on Glen Road.  I quickly found these little crocus poking their heads up telling me that Winter is almost done.  Said another way, Spring is near.  This revelation made me more alert and I could see that life was starting throughout the garden and woods.  Proof was there if you paid close attention.

This Winter was very hard here on Glen Road.  Record snow and more ice than I can ever remember.  We bought a new snow blower at the beginning of Winter and decided that we could shovel and plow on our own now.  Let’s save money and cancel out of our plowing service.  Little did we know what we were signing up for with the record snowfall this year.  The worst was when we had to plow and shovel thirty inches of snow that fell during the night.  We also decided to do an addition over our garage during the Winter months which meant that we would need to park our cars outside for the Winter.  Snow on a car is hard enough, but getting an inch of ice off a windshield is beyond crazy.  The office I work in was closed five times this season due to the weather.  I never remember our building being closed.  This year’s Winter seemed to take a heavy emotional toll on all of us as well.  When you don’t see the sun for most of the season and can’t leave the house due to the crazy conditions outside, it’s easy to get a little stir crazy.  A little depressed, I guess.  I am so happy that Spring is ready to arrive.  I need to see the sun, the grass, leaves on trees, a tulip.  Then I walk a little further and a rude reminder hits me smack in the face.  SNOW!!  You are still here.  You could easily come back for one more visit, maybe more.

Is Spring playing with my emotions?  Is Spring teasing me or is Winter just being a bully?  Spring needs to get here NOW.  I need you to arrive.  No little hints.  JUST DO IT!  I know that it could still snow again.  I can’t take it.  Sign me up for a straight jacket.  I will go crazy if I see one more snowflake.  How sick of winter are you? 

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Friday Dance Party

This is another edition of Friday Dance Party on Acorns On Glen….live concert edition.  Before we dance, let’s give thanks for another week.  We are here, we are breathing and we are finally approaching Spring.  If you are flexible enough, give yourself a hug or pat yourself on the back.  We made it through another one, and now….let’s dance.

If you are a regular reader of the blog, you know this has been somewhat of a hard and strange week for me.  I’m not really in the mood to dance hard.  I just want to do a little sway back and forth and enjoy some slow music.  An earlier post I made this week was a sadder one than usual for Acorns On Glen and in it I mentioned my high school trip to French Canada in 1979.  After writing that and thinking about my trip to French Canada, I remembered that before, during and after the trip I had listened (over and over and over again) to Gino Vanelli’s “I Just Want To Stop”.  Remember the first line?  “When I think about those nights in Montreal, I get the sweetest thoughts of you and me”.  You know, Montreal>>French Canada.  You get the picture.  The song reminds me of a great trip and a trip that was the first time I traveled without my parents and the first time I left the U.S. (remember, my troubles started when I returned home!).  I worked hard for some live concert footage of Gino and found this from a concert video from 1979.  Sorry, I’m not sure what the angry part is all about at the beginning.

So, chalk up another week.  Get ready to sway back and forth.  I’ll be imagining I’m one of Gino’s backup singers that you see in the video.  Feel free to shake it if you want to do it.  I don’t care.  You deserve to dance to this song in any way you like.  I’ll be listening to this a lot over the weekend and trying to pick my hair out to get Gino’s stylish long afro in place on my own head.  Thanks for sharing another great week here with me on Acorns On Glen.  Are you enjoying your time here with us and do you have any feedback for us to make this site even better?

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When The Lid Blows Off The Pot – Another Way

This is an old-fashioned pressure cooker.  I had to laugh at a comment made by Kathy D yesterday about the title of my post.  She said she thought  the story would be about a failed pressure cooker experiment.  This reminded me of the things my mother told my brother and I when we were young.  The things that we were not allowed to do.  Only in my mother’s case, she would tell us not to do something, followed with a reason that would scar us for the rest of our lives.  Let me give you my top three “do not do this” warnings given to my brother and me from my mother which include her special twists for child terror.

“Don’t play with matches”.  A simple request from any mother, right?  My mother started out right, “Don’t play with matches”, but then she would scare us to death with the rest of the story, “or you’ll end up catching on fire like I did”.  OK, it’s true, my mother did fall into a fire at a young age and was burnt very badly.  However, after we were warned, there was always a threat to whip up her sweater or blouse and show us where she was burned.  She’d come at us lightly tugging at the bottom of her top for added drama.  Although she didn’t say it, we knew what she was thinking.  Don’t you two even talk back and make me pull this up and show you!  It worked–she had experience with acts of fire….why would we go against her.  What kid wants to become a human torch?  My brother and I could not strike a match until we were taught around eighteen years of age.  Up until that point, the site of a match would terrify us.  We would tell everyone, “Sorry, we are not allowed to use a match, we don’t want to ignite”.  I’m still not good at lighting one to this day and can feel my hair melting off or my clothes going up in flames every time I light a candle or, god forbid, a bonfire.  That’s how much matches scare us, thanks to our mother.

“Don’t eat that fish until I check for bones”.  We would look up and then it would come “because if you get a small bone in your throat this will be the last dinner you see before you choke to death”.  Make mine a hot dog please!  Until almost fourteen or so, my brother and I would never begin to eat fish until my mother pulled it apart piece by piece and ensured that it was bone free by pinching it between her fingers.  To this day, I can be at the most expensive restaurant with a piece of fish in front of me and when I feel a bone in my mouth I panic knowing that this small blade is going to slide down my throat, ripping it to shreds until it lodges, and then end a pretty good life in a tragic fashion.  When they tell my mother of my demise, she would lift her head, wipe her tears away and say to my father “Didn’t I warn them?”

Now comes my favorite.  “Don’t ever use a pressure cooker and if you are around someone who is using one, leave immediately”.  Then the rest of the story, “You know that Coleen Jenkins (name changed to protect the innocent) was never right after her pressure cooker lid exploded in her face”.  In my home town, women cooked their asses off to please their man.  They baked, broiled, steamed, fried, roasted and pressure cooked.  Whatever it took to put a meal on the table.  What could be bad with chili in a minute or a 20 pound turkey in less than an hour?  I’m not sure that my brother or I ever met or knew Coleen Jenkins, but we could imagine her plight.  How could you not be damaged in some way by having a red-hot steel disc with attachments hit you smack in the face while it was traveling at the speed of light?  We would imagine her twisted mouth, dent in her forehead, slurred speech, one crossed eye.  That mental image was enough for my brother and I to picture in our minds to make sure that anything with a valve was not our friend.  I have a pressure cooker now.  When we use it here on Glen Road, I break into a cold sweat and run into the other room thinking out of sight, out of mind.  I pray, “Oh God, please don’t make us like Coleen Jenkins, I beg you!”

What can I say?  It worked with my mother–no matches, no un-pinched fish and no pressure cookers for my brother or me until early adulthood.  She did her job…..well, in a different manner than most shall we say, but she did her job.  What crazy things were you told not to do by your mother when you were younger?

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When The Lid Blows Off The Pot

This is me, circa 1979.  I was 15 years old and on a class trip to Canada.  I vaguely remember this photo being taken.  These were my friends at the time, but all that would soon change after we got back to the U.S.  I blurred their faces to avoid trouble and so I didn’t have to look at them.  This is my first serious post.  No one can be happy all the time.  Let’s start at the beginning……..

I have never liked Facebook.  I don’t get the walls, friends, saying you can or cannot be my friend–the whole process.  However, my number one reason for not liking Facebook is that I think it is a bit too personal for me.  You have to give too many specifics it seems–your name, where you live, etc.  Then the people start finding you.  Quite frankly, there are some people from my past that I do not want to communicate with no matter how many years have gone by since I saw them last.  Most of these people are from high school, which was a very hard time for me.  I struggled to fit in with the other teenagers.  I don’t want them finding me and then wanting to chat as if nothing had happened all those years ago.  Therefore, I am not a member of Facebook.  However, my mother did join.  She is not really active on the site but she does look at pictures of her current and past friends, classmates, etc.  She rarely writes to any of them.  She also has gotten some updates on my old high school classmates.  She was surprised at how some of them turned out and how some of them looked.  So, she and I thought it would be fun if I used her login and password to look around and see how my fellow classmates were doing and, not that I’m proud of this–what they looked like almost 30 years later. 

Big mistake!

High school was not an easy time for me.  I never felt like I fit in that well.  I’m sure I’m not alone with these feelings.  In later years, I would need to find myself and feel confident about the man I had become.  In high school, I felt lost.  Only a couple of close friends, feelings of isolation, feelings of being different.  I got picked on a little.  Thank god I had my brother around to protect me.  I couldn’t wait to graduate and get out of there.  I also think it didn’t help that in a small farming town, I didn’t like sports but instead was smart in school and loved to read books and play my trumpet in the band.  Think “Friday Night Lights” from TV, but I wasn’t on the football team.  In my mind, these feelings started after I returned from our Canadian school trip and the friends in the picture no longer wanted me in their group.  I used to call this event “Chapter 1 in Loneliness” when I was in therapy a long time ago.  I know they didn’t do it on purpose, but for some reason, they left me behind–they didn’t call to talk, they didn’t invite me to go with them to the movies, we didn’t hang out anymore.  Did I do something, did I have something they wanted or didn’t have something they needed, was I too strange or was I too smart for them…..What was now different?  Why didn’t they like me anymore?  I remember sitting outside and watching them gather and leave on a Saturday night without me and feeling hurt.  I would struggle to get over these feelings for most of my young adult life.  There are lots of “ideas” on what had happened from various “experts” who I have talked to over the years about these feelings and strategies on how to get over them.  God knows I have discussed it with clergy, discussed it with shrinks all over the country, read hundreds of self-help books and went to as many lectures.  I thought I had gotten over my feelings from high school.  I understood what had happened and I had filed it away and moved on to better things.  I got it already.  It was over!

Then the lid blew off the pot. 

When I saw this picture on Facebook, the same feelings that started over 30 years ago came back hard and strong.  Feelings of hate, loneliness, sadness, regret.  I felt them pouring out of my chest at a million miles an hour.  I wept for that little boy in the picture after those feelings resurfaced.  His life was about to drastically change.  He would be forever altered.  He didn’t even realize what was about to happen.

He is not who I am now, not even close, but he is a part of me.  He has always been there somewhere deep inside of me.  He must have been hiding.  I guess it was his time to be seen again and I now know that filing him away was not the right thing to do.  It’s time to deal with him once again and the feelings that he brings.  Life is a crazy game–you never know what it is going to hand out to you at any given second.  So here is what I want to ask you:  Do you think that we ever get over our issues, especially those that happened when we were young? 

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iPad Brownies

This is a pan of cream cheese brownies right out of the oven.  I have never met a pan of brownies that I didn’t like.  What made these different is not the addition of cream cheese or any special chocolate.  What made these different is that this is the first time I found a baking recipe on an application from my iPad and used the iPad throughout the process to make the brownies similar to how I would have used a cookbook.  Just like it has for regular books, the iPad has brought cookbooks into  the digital tablet era. While I still like the look and feel of a book and a cookbook, a digital recipe is nice especially if you are looking for something to make in a quick fashion.  That’s the story of these brownies….I needed to make a fast dessert for dinner with friends.  Join me as I make these cream cheese brownies for my dinner party: 

Ingredients:

  • 10 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces, plus more for pan
  • 1 cup plus two tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
  • 4 ounces room-temperature bar cream cheese
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 4 large eggs

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brush a 9-inch square baking pan with butter.  Line bottom and two sides with a strip of parchment paper, leaving a 2-inch overhang on the two sides.  Butter paper, and set pan aside.  In a small bowl, whisk 1 cup flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt; set aside.  Place 8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter and chocolate in a large heat-proof bowl set over (not in) a saucepan of gently simmering water.  Heat, stirring occasionally, until smooth, 2 to 3 minutes; remove bowl from pan.

 Add 1 1/4 cups sugar; mix to combine.  Add 3 eggs, and mix to combine.  Add flour and cocoa mixture; mix just until moistened (do not overmix).

Prepare cream-cheese mixture:  Whisk bar cream cheese with 2 tablespoons room-temperature butter.  Whisk in 1/4 cup sugar, 1 egg, and 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour.

Alternately spoon chocolate batter and cream-cheese mixture into pan; with the tip of a paring knife, swirl to marble.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, 50 to 60 minutes.  Cool in pan for 30 minutes.  Using paper overhang, lift brownies out of pan; transfer to a rack to cool completely (still on paper).  On a cutting board, using a dampened serrated knife, cut into 16 squares.  Store in an airtight container at room temperature, up to 2 days.

Needless to say, my friends devoured the brownies.  Quick, fast, easy, delicious.  The way a recipe should be.  Try this recipe and also investigate the different baking and cooking applications available for the iPad.  Do you have a favorite quick dessert recipe you would like to share with us on Acorns On Glen?

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Meatball Mania With Sauce

This is how to make real Italian meatballs based on a recipe from a real Italian grandmother.  It wasn’t a simple task.  There are no measuring cups or spoons utilized.  There is no recipe filed away in a drawer.  It’s all done from memory and how much something weighs in the palm of her hand.  This recipe comes from the memory of a real Italian grandmother.  A Brooklyn Italian grandmother–the best kind.  She has been making these meatballs most of her life.  It is second nature to her.  She can quickly prepare this meal until I asked her if I could tag along and take pictures, write the ingredients and steps down in recipe format, measure in cups and spoons and then post the recipe here on Acorns On Glen.  Not only is the finished product delicious (I ate seven), it also illustrates a way to wear rings and bracelets while making meatballs and not get them dirty.  Go figure!  We made the meatballs and sauce at the same time, so be prepared to jump back and forth between the meatball and sauce sections.  If you follow our steps below, you will be fine….and also be named an honorary Brooklyn Italian grandmother for the day.  See how we made them:

Ingredients for the Meatballs:

  • 2 pounds of ground sirloin
  • 1/4 cup of Italian parsley, chopped (Brooklyn Italian grandma alert–it has to be Italian parsley; no curly allowed)
  • 1 cup seasoned bread crumbs
  • 3/4 cup of grated Pecorino cheese (we used a lightly smoked Pecorino cheese that we bought from a local cheese shop)
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 cup milk
  • 6 cloves of garlic, minced
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Ingredients for the Sauce:

  • 1 large or 2 regular hot Italian sausages, cut into 2 inch pieces (you can use sweet Italian sausage if you prefer.  We bought our sausages from the local butcher)
  • 1 35-ounce can of crushed tomatoes
  • 1 35-ounce can of plum tomatoes in juice
  • 1 can of tomato paste
  • 6 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
  • 3/4 cup of chopped onions
  • 1 cup of torn basil leaves (you can add more if you would like, to taste)
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 1/4 cup of olive oil for the meat, plus 3 tablespoons for the sauce

Begin by mincing the garlic cloves for the meatballs.  Garlic is a key ingredient and some people like it finely minced, while others like it a little more course.  You decide according to your taste. 

  Jewelry optional!

In a large bowl, add the ground sirloin and eggs.  Crack eggs in a bowl one at a time to make sure they are good and don’t contain any shell and then add to the meat.

Add the chopped Italian parsley, bread crumbs, grated cheese, milk and salt and pepper to meat and egg mixture.  Now get your hands in there and mix all ingredients until well combined.  Don’t mix too much after ingredients are combined as you want lighter meatballs and too much mixing will make them too heavy.  Less is best.

 Insert fingers to the top of your rings.

After the mixture is combined, heat the 1/4 cup olive oil from the sauce recipe in a large skillet.  When it is heated, add the sausage pieces and brown them well.  When the sausages are well browned, put them on a plate lined with paper towels to absorb the excess oil.

In the sausage flavored olive oil, let’s start cooking the meatballs.  With your hands, take the meatball mixture and form a meatball into a size that fits in the palm of your hand.  Have a bowl or glass of water nearby to dip your fingers into when you start to notice that the meat mixture is sticking to your fingers/palm.

See a piece of parsley on the finger right above the ring, but nothing on the ring?

Add the meatballs to the oil and cook until well browned.  Remove them from the skillet and place them with the sausage on the plate lined with paper towels.  Remember that they will continue to cook all the way through later in the process when they are added to the sauce.

Now let’s move to completing the sauce.  Begin by mincing the 6 other cloves of garlic and chopping the onions.

Wearing a ring while chopping onions will not make you cry during the chopping process (not true)!

Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a large pot.  When heated, add the garlic and onion and saute until onion is translucent.  Add the tomato paste and cook until the paste gets very dark in color.  At that time, add the two cans of crushed and plum tomatoes and stir to combine.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Now add the sausage pieces and browned meatballs and simmer on the stove on medium to medium low heat for about an hour ensuring that the meatballs are cooked all the way through.

Prepare the pasta of your choice (we used 2 pounds of linguine). 

 Notice that the ring is clean and not caked with meat or sauce.  Excellent execution!

Add the torn basil leaves to the sauce and let them cook down into the sauce.  Ladle the sauce over the pasta and make sure to put lots of meatballs and sausage on top and enjoy.  Grate more Pecorino over the top if you would like.  How easy was that?  Real Italian meatballs with gravy.  Thanks to our Brooklyn Italian grandma.  We will be bringing her back into the kitchen in the future.  She makes more than meatballs and sauce.  What Italian recipes would you like to see from our Brooklyn Italian grandma?

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Friday Dance Party

This is another edition of Friday Dance Party….country style with a twist.  First off, give yourself credit because we’ve made it through another week.  Give thanks for this accomplishment and all the great things that happened to you this week (think of health, family, friends to name a few) and when you’re done giving thanks…let’s dance.  We are switching gears this week and moving into a country line dance.  Think Dolly, Reba, Shania with a twist.  This week’s country line dancing is not only for fun but it is also for charity.  From now through April 8, GE wants to create the largest internet line dance in history and they need your help.  GE wants you and your family and friends to learn a line dance and submit a video of your team doing it.  Visit www.youtube.com/ecomagination for the details.  The site has everything you need to know, including the song download and line dance lessons.  If you decide to take GE up on their offer, every video sent of you and your family and friends doing the official line dance will mean that GE will donate safe, clean drinking water to various developing nations that don’t have access to adequate sources of water.  There is also great prizes to win as well.  Talk about keeping it real.  I hope this crazy video makes you laugh like it did for me (sorry for the little Google ad pop up.  If you see it, just hit the boxed “x” to close it).  See other great video episodes by going to www.youtube.com and typing Ian Is Bored in the search engine.  They are laugh-out-loud funny.  So whether you choose to participate or even if you don’t, let’s still watch the video and, as always, just shake it to the music.  You’ve “Walked The Line” (sorry, Mr. Cash) this week and made it through.  You deserve it.  Will you be submitting a video for charity or just shakin’ it in private? 

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Seed Catalogs Galore

This is where the seeds for my 2011 garden will come from this year.  These are the finalists out of many.  I have read most of the ones that were sent to me and the ones above offer what I feel I am looking for the most in seeds that I will buy and use to grow food for us to eat.  It is amazing that so many seed catalogs exist.  As a new gardener here on Glen Road, I have to say that a lot of trees go into the production of all the seed catalogs that are sent out over the fall and winter months.  Here’s hoping that most gardeners are also fans of recycling!  When I say I am a new gardener, I really mean that I’m a gardener who took a very long break.  My first gardening stint ended years ago when I left home to go to college and started back up when I moved to Connecticut and finally built a raised bed garden in 2010.  So not so much a new gardener, but more of a gardener that took a very long break from 18 years old to 47 years old. 

My parents and my grandmother were very big gardeners.  My parents moved from a small farm town with a big garden into a bigger city, but they still have a nice size garden that they tend to even to this day.  So, needless to say, I got into gardening from a very early age and being in the garden is one of my earliest memories.  I remember being very young and digging up horseradish and grinding it with my grandma on the picnic table in the backyard.  I remember joining the 4-H organization for gardening and winning a blue ribbon at the fair.  I also remember crying when my father ordered my brother and I out on a Saturday morning to weed the garden.

Trivia Challenge:  Do you remember what the 4 H’s stand for in the 4-H emblem? 

Garden seeds were also one of my earliest entrepreneurial endeavors.  Back in Iowa, 10-year-old kids like me at the time could request a box of seeds from the Burpee Seed Company and then work to sell them to friends, family and neighbors.  In those days, the seeds weren’t sold for much and my profit margin was slim.  At the end of the spring selling season, you put your unsold seeds and your proceeds for seed packages sold  (less your profit) into an envelope and sent it back to Burpee.  I remember the box showing up at the post office and my heart pounding.  Inside were the usual seed suspects,: beans, cucumbers, lettuce, zinnias, spinach, to name a few.  I would then harass any adult I ran into to buy seeds.  I harassed adults to buy seeds that didn’t even have a garden.  Some people were forthright and said “NO, GO HOME NOW BEFORE I CALL YOUR MOTHER!” and others were very kind and bought four or five packets.  Knowing how bad I wanted to have a little money, I mainly remember my parents and grandma buying most of the leftovers and planting them in their own gardens.  I’m still waiting for Burpee to contact me and give me my “Seed Salesman of the Year” award.   

In looking for seeds for the 2011 garden, I made a very short list of what I was looking for in the companies I would use to buy seeds for the new growing season.  Here is that initial list (in bold type) lifted from a little journal I keep.  The journal is not like any diary of secret thoughts and loves lost, but more a journal of things I write down to remember later when I have the time to research and investigate.  My memory is sometimes a little cloudy these days!  Here is what I wrote:

  1. Seed companies I use should tell me that they have adopted the “Safe Seed Pledge”.  I have read a lot about genetically modified seeds.  I personally do not feel that a seed produced outside of normal reproductive methods is one that I want to plant, grow and eventually eat.  I can’t find any proof that they are good for us.  I can’t find any proof that they are bad for us.  So until I find out one way or the other, I don’t want them in my garden.  The “Safe Seed Pledge” tells me that the seed company is one that does not knowingly buy or sell genetically modified seeds. 
  2. Seed companies I use should offer a large selection of organic seeds and be able to provide a copy of their organic product verification form.  I most closely associate the term organic to be one that symbolizes that no chemicals were used in the raising and harvesting of the seeds I am using.  Chemicals are not good for the environment and not good for me.  I am sure there is much more to the term organic, but I always think about the non-use of chemicals.  I don’t want seeds that aren’t organic because I don’t want the chemicals inside of me or in the environment that I live in here in Connecticut.
  3. Seed companies I use should give me detailed explanations on how to sow the seeds and what I should do and expect during their growing season.  I am a perfectionist, which is not something I am particularly proud of in my life, but is something that I need to confess and accept.  I want my garden to look great and produce to the best of its ability.  I think that the plants are my babies and I want to do what is right for them.  I could spend hours doing research on the internet, but who has the time.  I want a company that spells it out for me in a concise manner.  God forbid that I should do something wrong!

So you have seen the finalists in the picture above.  Now it is time to announce the winner for seed catalog to use the most for Glen Road’s 2011 garden.  The winner is…..

Johnny’s Selected Seeds!  You can find them at www.johnnyseeds.com.  Johnny’s Selected Seeds is a privately held, employee-owned seed producer and merchant headquartered in Winslow, Maine.  The company was established in 1973 by Founder and Chairman Rob Johnston, Jr.  Johnny’s mission is helping families, friends and communities to feed one another by providing superior seeds, tools, information and service.  Their products include vegetable seeds, medicinal and culinary herb seeds, flower seeds, cover crops, farm seed and pasture mixes, fruit plants and seeds, and high quality, problem-solving tools and supplies. They carry sizes ranging from small to large to suit the needs of home gardeners and small growers as well as retailers and wholesalers.  Johnny’s Selected Seeds also meets my three criteria in a big way.  They adhere to the “Safe Seed Pledge”.  They offer a wide variety of organic seed and have the proper certificates.  The also give great “how to” information for this perfectionist.  I have placed the bulk of my order with them and will share my goodies with you when they arrive. 

Here’s hoping for a great 2011 garden here in Connecticut.  I hope you will be with me every step of the way.  I’m looking at the raised bed garden I built right now through the window and it is still covered in snow.  Can anything grow there this spring and summer?  Let’s hope so.  It all starts with the right seeds.  Do you have any seed or gardening advice that you want to share with the “new again” gardener here on Acorns On Glen?

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JoJo’s Journal

This is JoJo’s  Journal….BARK!  I’m back and what a difference a week makes.  I spent most of the day on Saturday at the beauty parlor.  My salon is a very exclusive one called Bone Jour.  When I go there, my stylist takes me into the shop and bathes me, cuts my hair and then dries me very well.  She also cleans my eyes, ears and trims my paw nails.  Then I get to play with the other doggies that are there for the day in the playroom.  I know I’m spoiled, but please don’t tell anyone.  When I get home, everyone on Glen Road tells me how cute I look and then I have to take a nap.  All the excitement just wears me out!  When in doubt about grooming your dog (or any animal), a great website to visit is http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/dog-care/grooming-library.aspx.  The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) website is a great resource to use when you have questions about the care of your pets.  Now take a look at my before and after shots.

This is before:

This is after (don’t I like like a puppy again):

Side view.  This is before:

This is after (don’t I look like I’ve lost weight?):

Do you think I look pretty?  Let me know what you think in the comments section.  As well, tell me about your pets.  I would love to know about your little ones and make some new friends.  Do you have any pet grooming tips you can share or can you tell me what you would like to read about in my upcoming posts?

  Love, JoJo  xxxooo

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One Great Ribeye Steak

This is one great steak.  Last week, all of us here at Acorns On Glen made a delicious Spring Risotto and then shared the recipe.  At the same time we made the risotto, we also tried an Emeril Lagasse steak recipe that guaranteed an end result that is as good or better than a real steakhouse ribeye.  It was beyond fantasic!  Using the Emeril’s seasoning, some great ribeyes from our butcher, the butter topping and a combination of grilling and roasting made for one delicious night of eating.  We used a grill pan on top of the stove for the grilling part and then our convection oven for the roasting part.  As you know, I am not a big citrus fan in the cooking I do.  The compound butter recipe called for some lemon juice, but I omitted it.  If you like, you can put one tablespoon back in the recipe.  If you are a steak lover (and I think most of us are), you have to try this “to die for” recipe.

For the steak:

  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 1/2 cup Emeril’s Original Essence (available at most supermarkets…I got mine at Stop & Shop)
  • 4 (20- to 22-ounce) bone-in dry-aged rib-eye steaks
  • 4 (1/2-inch-thick) slices Maitre D’Hotel Butter (below)
  • 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, for garnish

In a small bowl, whisk together oil and Emeril’s Original Essence to combine. Rub oil mixture all over steaks and place in a shallow dish. Cover dish with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 4 hours and up to overnight.

Bring steaks to room temperature 30 minutes before ready to cook.

Preheat a grill pan to medium-high heat. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Place steaks on grill pan. Cook, turning once, 4 to 6 minutes per side. Transfer steaks to a large ovenproof skillet or baking sheet with a wire rack inserted into it; transfer to oven and roast until internal temperature of steaks reaches 140 degrees on an instant-read thermometer, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove steaks from oven and set temperature to broil.

Place a slice of butter on each steak; transfer steaks to broiler and broil until butter just starts to melt, 20 to 30 seconds. Serve immediately, garnished with parsley.

For the Maitre D’Hotel Butter:

  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1/4 cup minced fresh parsley (I always use Italian flat)
  • 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Place all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor; process to combine.  I just put softened butter in a bowl and mixed it together with a fork.  I didn’t think it was necessary to dirty the food processor.

Transfer mixture to the center of a large sheet of plastic wrap or wax paper; form a log about 1 1/2 inches thick. Fold the wrap over the butter and gently roll to form a smooth cylinder; twist ends to seal.

Refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour and up to 1 week. Butter can be frozen for up to 1 month.

Doctors tell us that eating steak everyday is probably not the greatest thing for your health.  Everything in moderation, right?  So when you do allow yourself the treat of steak, try this recipe.  You won’t be sorry.  What is your favorite recipe that you can share with us at Acorns On Glen?