Rachael Ray Philly cheesesteak minis

I made these but didn’t use them as a snack.  I froze them in packages of 10 or 12, and would bring them out as needed and microwave briefly, either for a meal or a sandwich (2 will do it and press them down). I don’t know why it wouldn’t work as meatballs.

Ingredients

• 2 lbs  ground beef (1 lb per muffin tin)
• 1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
• 1 green bell pepper, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose biscuit mix
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 cups shredded provolone cheese, divided
• Salt and pepper
• Cooking spray

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Yields: 4-6 as a snack (fills 2 mini muffin tins)

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Preparation

Preheat oven to 400ºF. Put 2 mini muffin pans into the hot oven for a few minutes until hot. While mini muffin pan is preheating, prepare the Philly cheesesteak mixture.

In a medium skillet over medium-high heat, brown the meat. Once brown, add the onion, peppers and Worcestershire, and cook for 1-2 minutes. Remove from heat and cool.

In a medium bowl, mix the biscuit mix, milk, cooled meat mixture and 1 1/2 cups of cheese. Season with salt and pepper.

Pull the hot pan out of the oven and spray muffin cups with cooking spray. Use a small scoop to evenly scoop heaping scoopfuls of the biscuit mixture into all of the mini muffin cups. Top each scoop of mixture with a little sprinkle of cheese.

Bake for 15 minutes or until golden on top.

http://www.rachaelray.com/recipe.php?recipe_id=4877

Christmas Pretzels

Christmas Pretzels Recipe
Ingredients:
Small Pretzels
Hershey’s Kisses (unwrapped)
M&Ms...
Directions:
Top each pretzel with a Hershey’s Kiss, and place in a preheated 200ºF oven for 10 minutes. Remove and immediately press an m&m into the top of each kiss. Let cool completely! (If you don’t eat them all immediately, that is!) Would also work with fall or Halloween colors.

Not racism; just realistic

Nine years ago in October 2004 Mychal Massie in “Darth Democrat”  warned the nation about then Senator Obama from Illinois--his Chicago style, his lies, his Muslim and socialist sympathies, his distain for infants born alive during abortions, the way he could suck you in with a turn of a phrase. Few listened.

He nailed it.

He is eloquent, well spoken, with a membrane-thin veiled socialist agenda cloaked in flowery speech. But unlike Rep. Harold Ford, D-Tenn. – who had to be reminded by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., that while congressional blacks were no longer relegated to ticket taker in a cloakroom, they had better not forget their place – Barack Obama, D-Ill., is just the kind of black man elite liberals can use.

His positions on crime, sex education for grades K-5, homosexual marriage and taxes are out of the mainstream of the so-called liberal mainstream.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2004/11/27577/#r2Uxj6jE0Po16DXe.99

Massie is black.

Welfare is a disincentive to work

“The current welfare system provides such a high level of benefits that it acts as a disincentive for work,” Tanner and Hughes write in their new paper. “Welfare currently pays more than a minimum-wage job in 35 states, even after accounting for the Earned Income Tax Credit,” which offers extra subsidies to low-income workers who take work. “In 13 states [welfare] pays more than $15 per hour.”

“In Hawaii it is $60,590 in annual welfare benefits, once you account for the fact that welfare benefits are tax-free to the recipient, compared to work-related wages. That’s the equivalent of $29.13 an hour.”

Do you make that much?

Forbes

Tickle Me Elmo

My mother-in-law died 15 years ago. She was in a nursing home briefly before she died and my husband bought her a Tickle Me Elmo doll that talked, and since she had become rather child like, she just loved it. That toy was so popular when first issued scalpers could get $1500 for them. For 15 years it has sat in his office. This summer it has started blurting out it's message, and frankly the first time I heard it, it scared me to death. Imagine that weird voice coming out of nowhere and laughing . . .

We are leaderless, friendless and less much less under this president

His plan is working.

Labor Day 1963—Monday Memories

Fifty years ago Labor Day was also September 2  and I went into labor—I remembered that today reading Abby Johnson’s account of a medication abortion (mifepristone and misoprostol), her second. She and her husband were getting a divorce, and she was a volunteer at Planned Parenthood, and “chose” this option based on what counseling she received and thought it would be easier than a surgical abortion (she’d already had one of those).  She was lied to about the amount of pain and bleeding she should expect, and she was afraid she would die as she bled and passed clots for hours.  Alone.  She returned to PP later and asked why she hadn’t been warned and was told that the pain and bleeding is played down, or no one would choose it (I suspect that medication abortions are much more lucrative, and don’t require qualified medical people to be on hand).

After 50 years, I’m a little vague on the details, but I do remember that my second pregnancy had been uncomfortable from day one. . . like someone were pressing needles into my abdomen.  In this photo I was about 6 weeks pregnant and not feeling good at all.  I can remember a few weeks before the miscarriage having sudden bleeding, going to the hospital in a taxi accompanied by a nice man (don’t remember his name) who worked down the hall in the communications office (University of Illinois), and he stayed with me in the emergency room being mistaken for my husband. But after a few hours the bleeding stopped and I was sent home only to have it happen again on Labor Day week-end when I was home.

My first clue that something was terribly wrong was that the stabbing needle pain I’d had for three months was completely gone when I woke up in the morning.  I think now the pain ended because the baby was dead and my body was no longer trying to reject it, for whatever reason.  After some hours on the couch, talking on the phone with my sister in Indiana who was an RN and my OB, we decided to go to the hospital.  I don’t remember if I was given drugs or not, but after a few hours of fairly mild labor pains, the nurse came in to check, and then showed me what looked like a bloody softball in the bed pan.  She pressed all over my abdomen to make sure everything was expelled and examined all tissues carefully before sending it to the lab. She hugged me, too.

Like Abby, I bled a lot too with my miscarriage, but was in the hospital, so although I knew I’d lose the baby, I didn’t fear for my life and I wasn’t lying on the bathroom floor covered in blood, urine, feces and vomit, violently ill from powerful drugs that induce a miscarriage. And I wasn’t alone.

For Abby’s account of her “safe, legal, and quick” medication abortion check her story.

Reconnecting back in Columbus

                 

We take our newer HD flat screen TV to the lake in the summer, and then bring it back. I've rescanned the channels because the lake area channels don’t work in Columbus (we can get Detroit, Cleveland and Ontario there), and am surprised at the additional programming I didn’t have when we left in June. Not sure they’ve been added, or I missed them in the original scan.  I now have 2 channels on zero, and am getting DIY and 2 more c-span than I had before (no box so the selections are limited) and a few more I haven't identified. I’m getting Me-TV which I didn’t have before and an Ohio sports channel.  Both Fox 28 and WOSU are coming in on 2 different channels.

Don’t let Obama waffle us or sweet talk us again

Zucchini-Sausage Split

Serve this tasty morsel for brunch, or with salad for lunch, or cut into quarters for hors d’oeuvures. We enjoyed this at the Idlewyld Bed and Breakfast in Lakeside, Ohio and I asked Joan for the recipe.

1 pound finely chopped zucchini

1 chopped onion

14 oz. jar of salsa (Chi chi)

1 pound grated cheddar cheese'

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup parmesan cheese fresh grated

1 pound cooked bulk sausage

2 beaten eggs

1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley

1 cups bread or cracker crumbs

Season with salt, ppper, oregano, or fresh herbs

English muffin halves

Mix all ingredients together and spoon over toasted muffin halves.  Broil until golden and serve hot.  Serves 12

Governor Gilligan

I was walking on the dock at Lakeside about 7:30 a.m. and met a neighbor. He stopped me and asked, "Why is the flag at half mast?" "Governor Gilligan died," I said. "I haven't had the news on or read a newspaper much this summer," he said. And so it goes. People just don't want to know, the news has gotten so bad. Gilligan's worst legacy just might be his daughter, Kathleen Sibelius, head of HHS who is helping Obama kill the first amendment. http://cnsnews.com/news/article/sebelius-decrease-human-beings-will-cover-cost-contraception-mandate

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/08/26/john-gilligan-ohio-governor-congressman-death/2703863/

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/public/2013/08/26/John-Gilligan-former-Ohio-governor-dies.html

What’s the appropriate response to the new parents of a baby with Down Syndrome?

Congratulations!, says this mother.

DEAR AMY: I’m responding to your answer to “Caring Colleague,” the person wanting to know how to respond to a friend’s announcement of his sibling’s new child with Down syndrome.

I felt your answer was well-meant but wrong. As a parent of a 7-year-old with Down, I received both wonderful and horrid responses to the news of my child’s diagnosis. The correct answer is “Congratulations!” Period.

At the birth of a typically chromosomed child, one does not temper their joy at the thought of the work involved, the possibilities of difficult times (think drug abuse, teen drama, car accidents, school trouble, etc.) ahead. That comes with being a parent.

Just because the challenges faced by parents with kids with Down are different than the planned challenges, there is simply no need to acknowledge the road ahead as tougher than anyone else’s road. It is more work; it is more worry. But the benefits of having a child with Down totally level the playing field here. The birth of this child is a joyful thing. End of story. -- Proud Mom

Amy Dickinson advice column, Washington post.

Just like the Afghanistan surge of 2009

Meaningless and very dangerous.  Obama plans to “punish” Assad, and make a strike that is “visually compelling?”  It’s like announcing in 2009 U.S. withdrawal date and giving the enemy excuses to keep killing (and they did).  What sort of military leader is this?  Not only had he lost more military in 4 years than Bush did in 8 (which the media is careful not to mention) with his dawdling and foot dragging in Afghanistan after he became “chief”, but he makes “red lines” and shots “across the bow” and “let me be clear” statements that are squishy and meaningless.

No one is listening, but over 60% of Americans think Obama’s hawkish moves are dangerous and ridiculous.  We heard all the WMD gossip before Congress agreed to go to war in Iraq.  And this “peace prize prez” doesn’t even bother to ask Congress.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/30/obama-opposition-mounting-syria-strike

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/29/obama-syria-oil_n_3839931.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/the-crossroads-on-syria_b_3839952.html

Obama plans to kill more Syrians than chemicals ever will. And at this point, no one even knows if or who is using the chemical weapons.

What happened to the little girl in the picture?

 

http://pjsaunders.blogspot.com/2013/08/do-you-know-what-happened-to-girl-in.html

The year of the bathroom

Earlier this year (seemed like it went on forever) we remodeled two full bathrooms in our condo in Columbus.  Then this summer we decided the wall in our only bathroom at our cottage needed more repair and fixtures than we knew (i.e. my husband) how to repair and repaint.  So we hired this one done, too.  We bought this house in 1988 when we were 49 and 50 and a lot livelier, and for 12 straight week-ends we drove here to paint and repair things, redoing the entire house, including carpet, curtains, window blinds, and since it was all done in the same time period, everything was coordinated around the colors, blue, pink and cream. The previous owner, a widow, had done a few things after her husband died, like put in whole house air conditioning and triple track storm windows. We added a deck, eventually replaced the roof, the furnace and the AC.   In the last few years, the sink, cabinet, floor and toilet in the bathroom have been replaced, and finally, the damage from showers just had to be fixed.  The reason you see a window in the shower/tub area is that when this house was built (1944) very few homes had showers, so it was never a very good fit. The shower was added probably in the 80s, and we’d had some of it repaired a few years ago. So here’s the “new” color—sort of the shade of the sky this morning under the sun as it rose over Lake Erie and I was walking on the dock—it’s deeper and richer than what shows in the photo. It will get a second coat today—after rescheduling this 3 times due to a variety of reasons, we got the most humid week of the summer. Owning a home is never an “investment,” it’s always expensive.  But owning a second/vacation home has no  tax advantages at all, unless you rent it out, in which case you have even more repairs.

Hot smashed potatoes

Ingredients
12 whole New Potatoes (or Other Small Round Potatoes)
3 Tablespoons Olive Oil
Kosher Salt To Taste
Black Pepper To Taste
Rosemary (or Other Herbs Of Choice) To Taste

Preparation Instructions
Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add in as many potatoes as you wish to make and cook them until they are fork-tender.
On a sheet pan, generously drizzle olive oil. Place tender potatoes on the cookie sheet leaving plenty of room between each potato.
With a potato masher, gently press down each potato until it slightly mashes, rotate the potato masher 90 degrees and mash again. Brush the tops of each crushed potato generously with more olive oil.
Sprinkle potatoes with kosher salt, fresh ground black pepper and fresh chopped rosemary (or chives or thyme or whatever herb you have available.)
Bake in a 450 degree oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

Might be a fun way to serve potatoes.  This was shared by cousin Sarah Strauss on FB.

Hitchhikers on the nerves—cancer of the head and neck

We see what we know. . .

HOMEMADE MOSQUITO TRAP

Items needed:
1 cup of water (200 ml water)
1/4 cup of brown sugar (50 grams)
1 gram of yeast
2-liter plastic bottle

HOW:
1. Cut the plastic bottle in half.
2. Mix brown sugar with hot water. Let cool. When cold, pour in the bottom half of the bottle.
3. Add the yeast. No need to mix. It creates carbon dioxide, which attracts mosquitoes.
4. Place the funnel part, upside down, into the other half of the bottle, taping them together if desired.
5. Wrap the bottle with something black, leaving the top uncovered, and place it outside in an area away from your normal gathering area. (Mosquitoes are also drawn to the color black.)
Change the solution every 2 weeks for continuous control.

This summer at Lakeside has been very wet—there was one point where we’d had rain 19 days in a row.  However, I’ve only had one mosquito bite.  So I’ll tuck this away for next year.  Since I don’t drink pop, I wonder if you couldn’t just add the yeast to some soda pop. Or are mosquitoes picky?

If you donate to Planned Parenthood, here’s what you support

Once again...
Planned Parenthood does NOT provide:
-Mammograms
-Prenatal Care
-Breast Biopsies...
-Breast Cancer Diagnostic Care
-Primary Health Care
-Diabetes Treatment
-Treatment for Elevated Cholesterol
-Treatment for Elevated Blood Pressure
-Holistic Medicine
-Obstetrical Care
-Pediatric Care
-Care for HIV Positive Individuals
-Infertility Treatments
-Natural Family Planning Instruction
-Care for Uterine Fibroids
-Treatment for Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome
-Adoption Placement
-Prostate Exams
-Uterine Laser Ablation
-Cervical Laser Ablation
-Miscarriage Management
-Bladder Disorders and Urinary Problems
-Prolapsed Pelvic Floor Concerns
-Laparoscopic Procedures
-Hysterectomy
-Treatment of Endometriosis
-Polyp Removal
-Endometrial Ablation
-BRCA Testing
-Bone Density Testing
-Treatment of Pelvic Pain
-Treatment of Vulvar Pain
-Molar Pregnancy Follow Up

Planned Parenthood DOES provide:
-First and Second Trimester Abortions
-Limited STD testing and treatment
-Pap Smears for Women in Child Bearing Years
-Limited Contraceptive Methods

Abby Johnson, former Planned Parenthood employee

What will they next call racist?

I’m thinking it might be wearing an apron, or serving pancakes.  I noticed at Obama’s inauguration dinner in 2009, all the servers were black.  Is that racist? Or just noticing it is racist.  Like noticing the difference in the way the media and the president treat black on white crime.  What will become racist is noticing how whites are treated. Here at Lakeside I watch Detroit local news in the morning.  Not good.

Keep in mind that we live in a nation with a black President and a black Attorney General. Furthermore, the government is legally allowed to discriminate against white Americans based on the color of their skin and it happily does so; yet you can't go a day in this country without hearing liberals howling about what a racist country they live in. It has almost become a circular, faith-based argument. America is racist because so many liberals say it's racist because they've heard other liberals say the country is racist. http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2013/08/27/15-moronic-things-liberals-call-racism-since-obama-was-elected-n1674131/page/full