This week I bought some baby artichokes at Rayley's. They were Raley's brand. It had a new recipe on it for suggested use.
Baby artichokes are the small artichokes that the plant makes after it gives up its prime and secondary blossoms and fruit. They are about 2 and a half inches long. The usual way most of us cook artichokes is to trim the points with some kitchen shears or a knife, re-cut the stems dump them in a round glass microwave bowl with some vinegar or lemon juice and microwave or boil steam them until the bases or heart is tender.
The new method, baby artichokes are more tender takes off in another direction. With lemon juice at the ready, peel back the leaves until only one third of the green is showing. Cut the stem area to smooth and dunk the newly cut stem area in the lemon juice. There should be little green rose looking artichokes bobbing in the lemon juice.
An onion and 3 garlic cloves are chopped in a half a cup of simmering olive olive (seems like a lot but it isn't) The baby artichokes are cut in half and added, first sauted and then allowed to cook on medium. Add later in the cooking phase a squirt of balsamic vinegar or some fresh lemon juice. Salt and pepper to taste.
The entire dish may be made in a a sauce pan. If you taste the artichokes before they are done you will be pretty disappointed as they need to cook thoroughly to turn around the bitterness. This goes great with some freshly made rice.
I threw in some chicken and sauteed the entire works with a little chicken broth. Some sauteed mushrooms are also added at the last moment. I would have like a little red pepper action on this dish, but you cook to your audience.
Sue had to have seconds on this dish.. so you know that it must have passed muster.
Baby artichokes rock!
: ) Pat
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Monday, January 3, 2011
Its Over But its not
Two weeks ago both pro football teams were eliminated out of the playoffs.
For the 49ers who have a team that should be in the playoffs it was a season of too many playoff bound opponents too early in the season. They had get their by beating early in the season the teams that eventually made the playoffs.The 49ers played and lost to almost all of the contenders in the playoff season early on. In each game there was a chance to win and in many games there the score was close to the end. The personnel for a winning 49er team was there. There were no major gaps on defense and the offense was a cracker jack. With a first round pick quarterback and another first round pick and Heisman trophy winner as a back up there didn't seem to be a reason that they should be second tier in teams. They were.
The reason for a poor early season was poor line management for the offense. The defensive lines in the NFL have become so big, tall, and fast that the only way that a quarterback can operate is with lanes that are provided by stunts and movement by the offensive line. These gaps provided by the offense are what allow the team to move down the field in 6 to 12 yard chunks. Next year these lanes will be there as this year's rookie line has a real chance of learning their jobs and what to do.
The Oakland Raiders looked very good early on this year. They were the team that should have made it into the playoffs. Their needs are in the defense. When a team could break through to the secondary, there was no raider their to meet them. Too much emphasis was placed on blitz defense. It seemed that every team was running a blitz defense every other play. This quickly speeds of the offense and timing pattern as very critical to success. Slants and two move running routs completely took out the Oakland Raiders this year.
Both teams could be contenders next year. It will be fun to see what the draft will bring and whether the bay area teams can patch their weaknesses.
: ) Pat
For the 49ers who have a team that should be in the playoffs it was a season of too many playoff bound opponents too early in the season. They had get their by beating early in the season the teams that eventually made the playoffs.The 49ers played and lost to almost all of the contenders in the playoff season early on. In each game there was a chance to win and in many games there the score was close to the end. The personnel for a winning 49er team was there. There were no major gaps on defense and the offense was a cracker jack. With a first round pick quarterback and another first round pick and Heisman trophy winner as a back up there didn't seem to be a reason that they should be second tier in teams. They were.
The reason for a poor early season was poor line management for the offense. The defensive lines in the NFL have become so big, tall, and fast that the only way that a quarterback can operate is with lanes that are provided by stunts and movement by the offensive line. These gaps provided by the offense are what allow the team to move down the field in 6 to 12 yard chunks. Next year these lanes will be there as this year's rookie line has a real chance of learning their jobs and what to do.
The Oakland Raiders looked very good early on this year. They were the team that should have made it into the playoffs. Their needs are in the defense. When a team could break through to the secondary, there was no raider their to meet them. Too much emphasis was placed on blitz defense. It seemed that every team was running a blitz defense every other play. This quickly speeds of the offense and timing pattern as very critical to success. Slants and two move running routs completely took out the Oakland Raiders this year.
Both teams could be contenders next year. It will be fun to see what the draft will bring and whether the bay area teams can patch their weaknesses.
: ) Pat
Monday, December 27, 2010
Gravy for the Biscuits
The all important pork sausage gravy for the biscuits
1 tube of Jimmy Deans low fat sausage
1 Cup of milk
2 Tablespoons of corn starch
Couple of squirts of Chulupa hot sauce to taste
pinch of salt to taste
Brown sausage until dry in a large frying pan. Save a quarter of a cup of milk out. Deglaze the pan with the milk poured in on top of the sausage. Mix saved milk out with the cornstarch. Add to the deglazed pan with the sausage and milk mixture. As the miture bubbles up, add Chulupa or other hot sauce to taste.
1 tube of Jimmy Deans low fat sausage
1 Cup of milk
2 Tablespoons of corn starch
Couple of squirts of Chulupa hot sauce to taste
pinch of salt to taste
Brown sausage until dry in a large frying pan. Save a quarter of a cup of milk out. Deglaze the pan with the milk poured in on top of the sausage. Mix saved milk out with the cornstarch. Add to the deglazed pan with the sausage and milk mixture. As the miture bubbles up, add Chulupa or other hot sauce to taste.
Biscuit Recipe
A "Double Batch"
Preheat oven to 450 degrees (very hot)
4 Cups of all purpose flour
2 Tbs Baking Powder
2 Tbs Sugar
1/2 Tsp salt
1 C Butter
1 1/2 C of Milk
In a big bowl (like a mixer bowl) stir together flour, baking powder sugar. Using a pastry blender cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Run fingers through mixture to smear any remaining butter clumps into the flour mixture. Make a well in the dry mixture and pour milk all at once into the well. Mix with a spoon to incorporate liquid into the dough. Roll out if desired on a a flat surface. Cut individual biscuits with a water glass.
Bake 10 to 12 minutes at 450 degree oven.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees (very hot)
4 Cups of all purpose flour
2 Tbs Baking Powder
2 Tbs Sugar
1/2 Tsp salt
1 C Butter
1 1/2 C of Milk
In a big bowl (like a mixer bowl) stir together flour, baking powder sugar. Using a pastry blender cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Run fingers through mixture to smear any remaining butter clumps into the flour mixture. Make a well in the dry mixture and pour milk all at once into the well. Mix with a spoon to incorporate liquid into the dough. Roll out if desired on a a flat surface. Cut individual biscuits with a water glass.
Bake 10 to 12 minutes at 450 degree oven.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Years of Hard Academic Work A Day to Celebrate
My youngest daughter, Linzi, received her Masters degree from the Sacramento State University this weekend. Her division had their ceremony at Arco Arena. These degrees are very different from undergraduate degrees not just because they represent a dignified body of academic pursuit and a thesis or a project but they usually represent in many of the students a re start of the academic process after obtaining and working in the field for a period of time.
For Lindsay this was most certainly the case. This graduate degree represented not only the pursuit of more academic endeavor after the Bachelors was granted by Sonoma State, put the continuation of a more specialized degree that enhanced her job while she was working in the field. It was not easy to work and get the this next degree and motivations for its pursuit had to come from within. Life coaches were hired and life continued past its easy phases, if there is ever one of those. Lindsay married Sean who has been very supportive of her throughout her pursuits. In the end it got down to her really wanting to finish this degree and the writing that it required.
In the quest for this degree Lindsay worked for the planning department of a major entity until budget cuts took her job. She practiced what she learned in the academic world. What the academic world could not predict was the catastrophic changes that came with reordering our economic where with all. What juiced our economy, real estate can no longer be dependent to finance our dreams or our desires.
The harsh realities have hammered this generation. It has temporarily set back this generation out of its middle class roots and required it to do some time in our parents generation. Single income households are the rule as only one can get work. This has happened with teachers as well as government employees.
It has hammered past generations too. We lost generations of teachers back in the 70s as education was not allowed to expand to meet the need of the growing populaiton. Jobs coming out of college were hard to find. A whole group of teachers were trained and never found jobs in teaching or business for that matter. It took us as a nation a long time to get to where we were planning again for a future. We are once again faced with similar issues. And once again a particular party has as its solution to the problem.. trickle down economics.. give me a break!
The question in this era is how long with our recovery take? Will the recovery get us back to using these people in what they were trained? Have we laid off our expertise to plan us out of future fixes for a gut check based on current economic conditions? I hope not. Lindsay should be there with her academic and practical experience in planning to help us get to a sustainable future. Sadly I fear that we are a few years before we come to the place where this will be possible. What will be the fallout?
My hope is that we will figure this out soon and get planning our way to what we need and project a genuine future for the middle class the true strength of our nation.
Good luck Lindsay with our future in mind. I am so proud that you have another academic feather in your cap. It may take that for what you need to do for us in the future.
: ) DAD
For Lindsay this was most certainly the case. This graduate degree represented not only the pursuit of more academic endeavor after the Bachelors was granted by Sonoma State, put the continuation of a more specialized degree that enhanced her job while she was working in the field. It was not easy to work and get the this next degree and motivations for its pursuit had to come from within. Life coaches were hired and life continued past its easy phases, if there is ever one of those. Lindsay married Sean who has been very supportive of her throughout her pursuits. In the end it got down to her really wanting to finish this degree and the writing that it required.
In the quest for this degree Lindsay worked for the planning department of a major entity until budget cuts took her job. She practiced what she learned in the academic world. What the academic world could not predict was the catastrophic changes that came with reordering our economic where with all. What juiced our economy, real estate can no longer be dependent to finance our dreams or our desires.
The harsh realities have hammered this generation. It has temporarily set back this generation out of its middle class roots and required it to do some time in our parents generation. Single income households are the rule as only one can get work. This has happened with teachers as well as government employees.
It has hammered past generations too. We lost generations of teachers back in the 70s as education was not allowed to expand to meet the need of the growing populaiton. Jobs coming out of college were hard to find. A whole group of teachers were trained and never found jobs in teaching or business for that matter. It took us as a nation a long time to get to where we were planning again for a future. We are once again faced with similar issues. And once again a particular party has as its solution to the problem.. trickle down economics.. give me a break!
The question in this era is how long with our recovery take? Will the recovery get us back to using these people in what they were trained? Have we laid off our expertise to plan us out of future fixes for a gut check based on current economic conditions? I hope not. Lindsay should be there with her academic and practical experience in planning to help us get to a sustainable future. Sadly I fear that we are a few years before we come to the place where this will be possible. What will be the fallout?
My hope is that we will figure this out soon and get planning our way to what we need and project a genuine future for the middle class the true strength of our nation.
Good luck Lindsay with our future in mind. I am so proud that you have another academic feather in your cap. It may take that for what you need to do for us in the future.
: ) DAD
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Articles in the NY Times
On my daily walk I stop at Starbucks and sometimes read the left over copies of the NY Times. Today's read had some very interesting articles on Alzheimer and ADHD. The result of the research put together by US researchers and data collected in Italy seems to point to a breakthrough in discovery of the condition. Manipulating the condition is the tough part although you need to know the color and spots of the animal in order to hunt it down.
The NY times has a great article for reference for understanding the disease from a consumer's perspective. This article will give the reader a general understanding of the condition.
Sue and I had attended and interesting conference of our state speech therapist convention down in Long Beach about 10 years ago. Our field has been flooded with clients that think that they had Alzheimer and wanted specific therapies developed for it. A differential diagnosis had to be developed to differentiate between dementia and Alzheimer's disease. They were in the middle of doing studies with adult clients who came to the adult day care for their therapy, rehab, and social interaction. At that time and up to fairly recently the only definitive studies were done on patients that were deceased and allowed for their brains to be studied before death with very expensive MRI technology and cell studies after death.
The current studies are finding that some cells, the ones that allow us to multitask and to move to the daydream thoughts without focus do not get flushed out as quickly into the spinal fluid with clients with Alzheimer conditions as those with non Alzheimer pathology. So if medical research can find a way to enhance this action, it may be the key to maintaining directed thought in these clients.
This is an interesting movement in this field.
: ) Pat
The NY times has a great article for reference for understanding the disease from a consumer's perspective. This article will give the reader a general understanding of the condition.
Sue and I had attended and interesting conference of our state speech therapist convention down in Long Beach about 10 years ago. Our field has been flooded with clients that think that they had Alzheimer and wanted specific therapies developed for it. A differential diagnosis had to be developed to differentiate between dementia and Alzheimer's disease. They were in the middle of doing studies with adult clients who came to the adult day care for their therapy, rehab, and social interaction. At that time and up to fairly recently the only definitive studies were done on patients that were deceased and allowed for their brains to be studied before death with very expensive MRI technology and cell studies after death.
The current studies are finding that some cells, the ones that allow us to multitask and to move to the daydream thoughts without focus do not get flushed out as quickly into the spinal fluid with clients with Alzheimer conditions as those with non Alzheimer pathology. So if medical research can find a way to enhance this action, it may be the key to maintaining directed thought in these clients.
This is an interesting movement in this field.
: ) Pat
Monday, December 13, 2010
Last day of Art Mondays
Today was the last day of Monday afternoon art for the semester.
My friend Kate Jackson has been teaching and coaching us all semester. Today was the last session.
Recently she has been experimenting with brilliantly colored alcohol based paints on non absorbent papers like dupo. The results have been pretty startling. Many of the works of art look like painting done on stain glass. Its a little hard to control but some level may be obtained with wax and other blocks. Wax always leaves a trace so it have to be correct the first time.
I have been working in a different media. I made a small print from one of my Glacier Bay National Park photos. I switched it over in photoshop to bas relief. The result was an emphasis on texture rather than color. There was certainly an abundance of texture in the print. I took this texture an started to paint the texture into a watercolor canvas. I used some acrylic marble texturing material for some of the relief. I still wanted the painting to look and react like a watercolor so its a combination of the two. Most of the painting was executed with two new colors for Chaap Joes. This company is putting out a nice mix of already mixed colors that produce a mood or a concept. The two colors I used in this painting are called coastal fog and coastal fog blue. The canvas allows for some very nice lifting. It has a tendency to muddy up when the watercolor meets the texture of the marble and the leftover graphite of the pencil. I think that I will be much more careful with the pencil the next time I use in on the canvas.
Today I was working on adding some more mountains with hanging glaciers on them and getting a reflection on the water of the surrounding mountains and the glacier that spills down to the tidewater basin. I used crumpled up plastic wrap to give me a non continuous look in the mountains. The mountains were the source of the glaciers as they headed down toward the sea.
When I brought it home Sue said that it was looking better each time I worked on it. That is good sign because I have a tendency to overwork the painting. I feel that it is very close to being done.
I ordered up and received by delivery three more very large watercolor canvases. It will be fun to think about what will go on them!
Here is to you and your future canvases what every they may be!
: ) Pat
My friend Kate Jackson has been teaching and coaching us all semester. Today was the last session.
Recently she has been experimenting with brilliantly colored alcohol based paints on non absorbent papers like dupo. The results have been pretty startling. Many of the works of art look like painting done on stain glass. Its a little hard to control but some level may be obtained with wax and other blocks. Wax always leaves a trace so it have to be correct the first time.
I have been working in a different media. I made a small print from one of my Glacier Bay National Park photos. I switched it over in photoshop to bas relief. The result was an emphasis on texture rather than color. There was certainly an abundance of texture in the print. I took this texture an started to paint the texture into a watercolor canvas. I used some acrylic marble texturing material for some of the relief. I still wanted the painting to look and react like a watercolor so its a combination of the two. Most of the painting was executed with two new colors for Chaap Joes. This company is putting out a nice mix of already mixed colors that produce a mood or a concept. The two colors I used in this painting are called coastal fog and coastal fog blue. The canvas allows for some very nice lifting. It has a tendency to muddy up when the watercolor meets the texture of the marble and the leftover graphite of the pencil. I think that I will be much more careful with the pencil the next time I use in on the canvas.
Today I was working on adding some more mountains with hanging glaciers on them and getting a reflection on the water of the surrounding mountains and the glacier that spills down to the tidewater basin. I used crumpled up plastic wrap to give me a non continuous look in the mountains. The mountains were the source of the glaciers as they headed down toward the sea.
When I brought it home Sue said that it was looking better each time I worked on it. That is good sign because I have a tendency to overwork the painting. I feel that it is very close to being done.
I ordered up and received by delivery three more very large watercolor canvases. It will be fun to think about what will go on them!
Here is to you and your future canvases what every they may be!
: ) Pat
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