Apple Salad

Last recipe to share: My Mom's Apple Salad 1 apple (she uses Red Delicious) 1 banana 1 bunch of red grapes (the purple kind and my Mom prefers the seedless kind) 1 container of Whipped Topping Cut fruit into bite size pieces and mix together in a bowl. Add whipped topping and stir around to your satisfaction. Viola! My Mom's Apple Salad my family loves to eat when we get together at holidays.

Chicken and Noodles Recipe

Today's Recipe: Chicken and Noodles (Not Chicken Noodle Soup) Mom's version feeds family of 6: Step 1: Place a whole chicken with skin (or several pieces of chicken with skin) in a pressure cooker and fill with water to cover chicken. Place on lid. Turn on stove top burner and boil chicken until cooked (stops being pink). Cooking time will depend on how much chicken you put in, but usually she boiled it for about an hour on medium heat. Checked the internet and a whole chicken take 90 minutes to boil and 6 chicken breasts take 30 minutes. Step 2: Remove chicken from water and place in a bowl. If any skin is left on chicken, remove it and put in the water (the fatty skin is needed for the broth otherwise you just have chicken water). Put in chicken flavor bouillon cubes that can be found at grocery stores in the water following directions on box. Chicken flavor cubes provide the onion, parsley, thyme, etc. to flavor the broth or it will be just chicken water. Step 3: Broth is complete when the cubes are dissolved and stirred into the water. Then, put in noodles and cook in the broth for about 20 minutes, or until cooked. Large noodles take longer to cook than Medium size noodles. Step 4: While noodles are cooking, cut or rip apart the meat off the bones into small bite-size pieces to your liking. Step 5: When noodles are done, put in chicken pieces, and stir around. Voila! You have my Mom's chicken and noodles.

My version about 3-4 servings depending on my appetite since the fad is skinless chicken at the grocery store. Step 1: Buy a box a broth (I like Swanson's Chicken Broth) and pour the whole thing into a large pot. Place in noodles 3/4 of the broth. Large noodles take longer to cook than medium size. Step 2: While noodles are cooking without the lid on pot, cut up pieces of chicken to bite size and place in the pot (I prefer tenders cause more flavor than breast meat). I use about 5 or 6 tenders, but you can use whatever you like. Step 3: When done cutting up chicken, put lid on pot and in about 20 minutes noodles and chicken should be done. And Voila! My version of Chicken and Noodles.

French Toast Recipe

Today's recipe: Jordan's French toast. It's been approved by niece and nephew when they used to spend weekend nights with me. Weekends I cook fancy breakfasts. Makes 3-4 slices 1 egg (size doesn't matter but I used a medium egg today and got 3 slices, large egg might stretch it to 4 slices) 1/2 cup milk (whatever milk you put on cereal) 1/4 teaspoon vanilla Ground Cinnamon Sliced bread (whatever kind you eat) Step 1: Put a skillet (size doesn't matter) on stove top and turn on burner. This is called Preheating. Step 2: In a dish that is wide and flat, I use sandwich storage container, crack the egg and drop the yolk/white in dish, toss the shell. Remove any egg shells that fell in the dish (now you know why I crack eggs first before adding ingredients). Sure people like my mom use a separate bowl for cracking eggs into, but I hate doing dishes so my way dirties less dishes. Step 3: Put in milk, vanilla, and 2 dashes of cinnamon. If your cinnamon container doesn't have the normal holes like a salt shaker, then 2 pinches will do. Step 4: Mix ingredients with a fork. If you never made scrambled eggs before, then beat eggs in a circular up and down motion that is quick and makes it bubble. I believe some cooks use a whisk instead of a fork to create more fluffy eggs. Use whatever suits your pleasure of air bubbles in your egg mixture. Step 5: Place a slice of bread in bowl and quickly flip it over with fork. Lift from center with fork and let excess drip off. Place bread on skillet. Don't leave bread in mixture very long or the bread will absorb the whole mixture. Also, wet bread is soft so don't stab it and pick it up cause it will likely fall apart. Step 6: Skillet should be hot by now so set the bread in the skillet and flip over when stops sizzling. If not hot, it won't sizzle and will take longer to cook. Remove from skillet when cooked (aka brown). Step 7: Continue with other slices until mixture fails to cover both sides. On last slice, put the slice covered in mixture on bottom of skillet and pour the rest of the mixture on the dry side, using fork to spread around on the bread. Step 8: Optional, sprinkle powdered sugar on slices you eat like you sprinkle regular sugar on cereal. I noticed a restaurant put powdered sugar on their waffles and French toast so I copied it. Enjoy!

Salmon Patties Recipe

Today's recipe: Salmon Patties (makes 4 small patties or 2/3 large patties) 1 egg (white or brown or size doesn't really matter) 1 can of salmon (most are 5 oz.) Saltine crackers Step 1: Turn on stove top burner on medium and place a skillet (any size will do) on it. This is called Preheating the Skillet. Step 2: Open can of salmon (can opener may be required unless you get the cans with the pull tab). Place lid on top of meat and squeeze out the water into a bowl to feed the cat or drain it in the sink. Step 2: Scoop out salmon from can with a spoon into a bowl, add the egg. Stir around. Step 3: Take a few saltines at time and crush between fingers to drop in bowl, then stir. Keep adding saltines until the yellow yoke isn't viewed and still moist (if add too many, the patties will be dry and not stick together). Step 4: Scoop out small balls and mold in your hands like a snowball, place on skillet outer edge, and squish flat with your hand or spoon. (Yes, your hands will get DIRTY). Keep placing patties on skillet not touching each other and stop when run out of room. Step 5: If skillet is hot by now, the patties will sizzle. Flip over patties to cook other side when one side stops sizzling. If skillet not very hot, these will take longer to cook. Also smaller patties cook faster than larger ones. Cook time is short so flip over every minute until done (aka brown). Step 6: Remove from skillet when cooked and Enjoy my Mom's salmon patties.

Tuna and Noodles Recipe

Since everybody is sharing cook at home recipes, I will share some of mine. Tuna and Noodles (Serves 2, though if hungry I'll eat the whole thing) 2 Tablespoons Margarine/Butter 2 Tablespoons All Purpose Flour 1 cup milk (whatever milk you put on your cereal) 1 can of tuna (most cans are 5 ounces) Several handfuls of Medium Egg Noodles (Large egg noodles take longer to cook but can use instead) Step 1: Fill medium size pot half full of water and add at least 3 dashes (shakes of a salt shaker) of salt (salt alters the boiling point to heat water faster). Set on stove top burner under medium heat. Put on lid crooked so steam can escape. Step 2: Either wait for water to boil (bubbles) and then add noodles to cook for 20 minutes, or put in noodles right away and cook for 25 minutes. Noodles will expand as they cook so fill pot with noodles 3/4 of the water. Step 3: In a small sauce pan (lid to the side), pour in milk and add 2 dashes of salt. Also turn on stove top burner to medium heat and set sauce pan on it. Watch the noodles so don't boil over and if water get lots of foam in pot then lift lid of pot and turn down the heat a little. Be sure to stir noodles occasionally so don't stick to bottom of pot. Step 4: Add margarine/butter and flour to the milk. Be sure to constantly stir (flour will burn and not dissolve well if just leave it sit floating on the milk). Be sure to squish the clumping flour against the sauce pan to help it dissolve. Step 5: While everything is cooking open the tuna can (this requires using a can opener) and use the can lid to squish the can water either into a bowl to feed the cat or into a sink. Step 6: When the milk sauce comes to a boil (bubbles), then add the tuna and stir around. Turn off the sauce pan burner and remove the sauce pan to cool down with the lid on. Step 6: Once milk sauce is finished, noodles should be ready. Drain noodles in a colander (aka large strainer made of plastic instead of metal) or hold the lid to drain the water out of pot (2nd way does take some skill not to let out the noodles to lose them going down the sink). Rinse noodles in cold water to cool down. Step 7: Mix noodles and milk sauce together and Viola!, You have my Mom's Tuna and Noodles. Enjoy.

Middle of Summer

Sorry it's been a while since I have posted. Not much happening job ended in April 15. We also got powdered sugar snow that day after that melted once the sun came up. Welcome to Spring in Iowa. No damage to my tulips. I planted 6 tulips plants last spring and only one sprouted this year. Sigh. Got daffodils, hyacinths, roses, irises, lilies, and peonies planted in my yard. Got my stimulus check and it went straight to the credit crads. I owe $17,000 to my 4 credit cards so $1200 didn't mean much. Then it snowed agin Aril 16. Ferrets had a good time playing in the snow (ferrets love snow and dig tunnels when it gets deep enough). Signed up for unemployment. When the warmed up, I started eating breakfast on the patio. Watch the bird feeder with the cats who insist on sitting on my lap as I eat. I love you furbabies, but I can't pet you all day. Put away the Easter decorations and got the summer decorations out. Teenage Nephew was eager to make money mowing my lawn. He has issues of other lawn chores like pulling weeds if he can't use the weed whacker. He loves machines so much I wonder if he will grow up to be a mechanic. My teen niece and nephew applied for jobs, but nobody has hired them. Guess there was just too many applicants for them to compete. I got tickets to see the Elton John concert, that was cancelled thanks to the Corona Virus. Have to wait until next summer to attend it. I received the message that all tickets will be honored. Tossed an old sweatshir with a stain on it (charities don't take stained items they can't resell) and put it in the ferret room. It is now the ferrets favorite sleeping spot.

I got a job interview last week and received the rejection. Oh, all you did as accounts payable clerk was sort out invoices and send them to their proper departments. What exactly did this person think Accounts Payable clerks do all day? It's the Accounts Payable Specialist that matches purchase orders with invoices to okay the payment and codes it into the general ledger. I believe the cash department cuts the actual checks and send them to the proper recipients. Since I've been sittign at home with no place to go during encouraged quarentines, I shared recipes on my social media. I can put them on here too. Pruned my rose brushes and watched them grow. At least those came up.

I joined Instagram and immediately had scame artists messaging me. The "My wife died in a terrible crash, single parent with kids in boarding school, born in one country, work in another country, but I'm in the US Military so a USA citizen" is good giveaway they conning me. They must read the same textbook on romance scams cause they all give the same script. Then their only conversation they are capable of is telling me I'm beautiful 20 times. That is not a conversation and from my 15 years of customer service I know I'm being conned. Nobody tells a stranger 20 times they are so beautiful unless they want something.

Next came the high adventure of receiving emails of newly opened online accounts and one already created online account requested to change my password. I didn't open any of these accounts and called the companies to close them as "unauthorized account" and then changed the password of my prior used account cause I had to get on it. Then my credit card messaged me to call them about strange activity. I called the credit card 800 number and stated something weird was going on with someone opening online accounts using my email address and requested a password change on one account I already had. I did figure out somebody reactiviated an online I had closed last year (free trial was over) and got my credit card number that was saved on that closed account. The credit card closed my account and issued a new card so had to redo the saved credit card on my utilities (like water, phone, internet, etc.). When I got my card statement, I had to dispute someone's shopping spree on my credit card days before they called me and received emails stating they determined the disputed charges were not me. Hopefully that adventure is over.

To continue the adventures of being me, I took lots of photos of my pets and flowers to share on social media. Even took some videos of the ferrets wrestling in the living room. Enjoyed looking at photos of my great-niece's 1st Birthday Party in the living room cause they can't go anywhere. She was born on Star Wars Day so they got a Baby Yoda cake. Mother's Day was traumatic for my Mom. For weeks the retirement community kept them locked inside and my sister had to deliver the groceries to the receptionist desk cause she wasn't allowed beyond that. Poor Mom went stir crazy without any activities and visited her friends' apartments to play cards. No swimming pool, no exercise room, no supper with other residents (meals are brought to their door), and no hair cuts. Around Mother's Day Day, the residents were allowed outside so my sister cut my Mom's hair for her at my sister's apartment. I drove up to the front door and Mom sat in my car for a good half hour for her Mother's Day visit. I gave her flowers and her card to then show her photos on my smartphone my niece posts of her children on social media. Mom loves photos of her great-grandchildren who live in another state.

Been spending much of my unemployed and broke days working on a story I started a while ago. It's about Antebellum South and the Civil War. I'm sure nobody will read it cause nobody likes history plus with all the Black Lives Matter marching in every city my novel will be criticized as glorifying racism. Whatever. Never judge a book it's cover. With all this tearing down statues of Confederates over slavery, it makes me wonder: Is it really slavery that upsets people when they don't demand the 12 presidents who owned slaves be demonized by tearing down their statues and rename places named after them, like our capital Washington, or is it the violence against freed slaves and the Jim Crow laws that followed the Civil War is what that upsets people. And By the way, segregation and Black Codes took place in the north and west too. Our founding fathers took away Native American lands and massacred them when they fought back and many owned slaves, and they also founded our country's independence from Great Britain. Everybody has a good and bad side. Are we going to demonize everybody in American History books now? Visited my Dad and relatives on Memorial Day with Mom. I visit Dad on Father's Day and play Taps on my smartphone for him (he was in the Air National Guard).

Then came the Black Lives Matter movement protesting in my city's streets rioting and looting retail stores in their peaceful protests. Some people getting on TV declared their message is being highjacked. Well then, maybe you should not conduct your protests right next to a shopping mall or a shopping district where opportunists smash and grab under the cover of a protest, then complained about being tear gassed. One store I shop at got hit, then another. I'm just glad I was home at the time or I might be on the news from being attacked while grocery shopping. Single white lady loading her groceries into a car trunk would make a perfect target for assault. The city put out a curfew for the residents and removed it when the riots ceased for a week. The governor was on TV asking, "What do you want?". Apparently your message is not getting through if the top state official is asking this question. Many older people are hearing young people whining, not solutions being suggested. The state congress passed legislation hoping the protests would end, but they did not. In, fact, the protests continued and attacked police officers. Then got angry the police officers fought back to arrest people. Seriously, you actually expect not be pepper sprayed and arrested when you jump on a police car and cheer setting it on fire, or when you attack police officers at the state capital you actualy expect to stop an arrest from happening and call it de-arresting (What fantasy world do you people live in where you think you are in charge of the justice system?). I'm sorry to say it, but racism will never disappear. You can't control what people think, feel, and experience. You can only control your reactions to others. That's all I have to say about that.

Had a submersible pump replaced when started makign a ton of noise that I had to unplug it to get any sleep. More money down the drain. Lost my female Beta Andromeda. Got a new baby girl named Persephone. Had someone service the A/C to find out why it was running. Turned out the switch on the furnace was on "Off" so didn't get charge for the repairman to flip a switch. Must have gotten bumped. Sister moved into a new place so had to mow my own lawn since nephew was tired from unpacking. Watched the neighbor fireworks shows even though they prohibited in my city to set off, but you can buy them. Scared the bejesus out of my cats and ferrets listening to nightly booms for weeks. Spent the 4th of July at my sister's new place cause everythign but the fireworks shows was canceled. Made smore's over a candle. Bought a mask from a charity raising funds and wear them to the grocery store. The retirement place allowed Mom to finally have visitors so wore it visiting her. Niece and nephew won't hug because of the corona virus. I explained sitting at each other's homes that we already have shared germs and give a hug good-bye. My male Beta Aeneas Jr died and got a new male fish Ares. Mom had her 81st Birthday and celebrated at my sister's place. Niece and nephew made a cake for her. Then stayed to have grilled pork ribs and watch movie "Once Upon Time in Hollywood". Left when movie finished.

Well, nothing else to report. Post later.