Allyson

“Drink a toast to my best friend, Samuel Colt!”

One of the things I’ve noticed in listening to the vast array of older music lately, is that most of it wouldn’t make it on today’s radio. This song, for instance, would be considered horribly violent even though it wouldn’t even be a footnote in an action movie. I’ve listened to a song about truckers showing up at a kid’s house to take him out for a ride while his mom was at work (Teddy Bear), another about a bunch of Boy Scouts sneaking up on Girl Scouts bathing nude (The Battle of Kookamonga), yet another about a guy who gets blown up running illegal liquor (White Lightning)… The one that made me giggle the most was Lil’ Red Riding Hood by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, which talks about how Red is “everything a big bad wolf could want.”

I love this music. Some of it is from my childhood. Some of it is from earlier. They all tell stories that would cause pearl clutching today. Perhaps that’s why I find them so amusing.

I discovered this recipe by watching an older Turkish couple in Azerbaijan on YouTube. They don’t share amounts, but the woman cooks on screen, and I made educated guesses about how much of everything to put in. She uses this recipe both to make these flat breads, and as a crust for meat pies. I’ve done both. This is my take on her recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all purpose flour, sifted
• 1/4 cup water, luke warm
• 3 tbsp melted butter
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 1 tsp active dry yeast
• 3 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• egg wash
• sesame seeds

Garnish:

• 1/4 cup olive oil extra virgin
• 1 tbsp garlic paste
• 1/3 cup Italian parsley, finely chopped

Whisk sugar, yeast and water in a medium-large size mixing bowl. Let it sit for 15 till the mixture froths and bubbles.

Add flour, butter, yogurt, and salt. Knead together using a wooden spoon or the bread hook of a stand mixer. When the dough starts to come together, drizzle in the olive oil, and continue kneading until the dough is combined with the oil and has come away from the sides. This will be a shaggy dough, rather than a soft and smooth one.

Pick up the dough and gently form into a ball shape. Rub some olive oil on the inside walls of the mixing bowl. Gently place the dough back into the the mixing bowl (do not knead anymore) and cover it with plastic wrap and towel or a lid. Place the the bowl in a warm place to rest for an hour or until it doubles in size.

Flour your working surface, and place the dough onto it. Divide it into several evenly sized pieces (two pieces for pie “crust” or four to six pieces for flatbreads), and make them into balls. Be very gentle, as you want all the little air pockets to stay inside the dough. Sprinkle each ball with dry flour lightly, and then cover them with plastic wrap or a moist, warm towel to keep the dough moist. Let them rest for 10 minutes before moving on to the next step.

For pie crust, take each ball and gently pat it down with your hands to flatten it. If you need, you can use a rolling pin to even it out into a circle. Add your filling in the center, and then lift up the sides and begin to pinch the edge together to make a side for your “pie.” This will be open topped, with a pretty crimp along the edge, sort of like the top of a fancy Asian dumpling. Don’t worry if it doesn’t look good. It will taste divine. Skip to the baking part below.

For flatbreads, pat each ball down with your hands to flatten it. You can use a rolling pin to make it even and either circular or oval, your choice. Leave the rest of the dough under the plastic towel while you work on each flatbread, so that the dough doesn’t dry out.

Preheat a cast iron pan or griddle on your stovetop, at medium heat. Place the flattened dough onto the heated pan for about 10 seconds, then flip it over. Cook the other side for about 20 seconds, then flip back to the original side for another 5 seconds. Flip one last time for 5 more seconds, and then set it aside.

Repeat the above pan frying for each of your dough balls. Let the bread cool for about 10 minutes, and then check to see if it’s properly cooked inside. If it isn’t, you can put it back onto the stove for a few more seconds.

Mix together the garnish ingredients above, and brush them over the still-warm flatbreads, and serve as soon as you can.

If you’re baking pies, preheat your oven to 375°F. While it’s preheating, glaze your pie dough with an egg wash (whisk an egg with a little water or olive oil and brush it gently over the exposed dough) or melted butter or warmed olive oil. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, if you like. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes, checking frequently after the 25 minute mark.

Notes:
When I use this as a pie crust, I use a finely minced meat, and all the other ingredients are also finely minced. This ensures the filling will cook properly by the time the crust is baked.

You don’t have to make big pie crusts. Most people like to have a pie to split, but if you want to make individual ones, flatten them out to a little larger than hand size, and then follow the recipe. This is a great recipe to play with!

We’re almost at the point in time when some of the seedlings you’ve planted should be going outside. Hardy greens like kale, cabbage, and chard will probably be able to weather the outside temperatures in the next week or two. This means there’s a lot of work to do!

The first thing you need to do is start hardening off your seedlings. This is a long but simple process that ensures your new plants will thrive once they’re in the great outdoors. Now that we’re getting a few days in the high 40s and low 50s (and sometimes warmer), you want to pick a day that’s slightly overcast and warm, with not too much wind. Take your flats or pots of seedlings and place them in a wind-free spot that isn’t in direct sunlight, and let them bask in the natural light for about an hour. Do this at the warmest point of the day, just after noon, if at all possible. Then bring them all back in. Repeat this every day, adding an hour or so a day to the time outside, until your plants have developed stronger stems and secondary leaves.

When the nights are all above freezing, you can leave your seedlings outside. Cover them up, though, because critters like raccoons and mice like to eat those yummy miniature plants. Once the plants are hardened off, you can wait for a nice, overcast day to plant your seedlings into the garden.

Before that, though, you have to prepare your garden. If you’re going to be using buckets and/or bins of any kind, they need to be readied for use. This means cleaning them out, bleaching them (to kill any bacteria that could harm your plants or transfer to them), and then rinsing them thoroughly. Drill, poke, or melt some holes into the bottom of each container. This allows excess water to drain. Some people do it in the bottom of the containers, but I find doing it about an inch above the bottom, along the sides, works best. That way, excess water can still escape, but there’s a “well” below the holes that continues to hold water for the plants on dry days.

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The art of the emotional appeal, aka “emotional blackmail,” is usually mastered by around age 3. The first time your child’s chubby little hands rise up and they pout, saying, “Pweeeeeze?” you can feel it, that tugging of the heartstrings. As responsible adults, it’s our job to teach our offspring (and local offspring in our vicinity) that you can’t get everything you want, and sometimes the answer is going to be no.

Saying no isn’t something that comes easily to the current crop of newly minted adults out there. Those who fall between the ages of 25 and 35 seem to have no concept whatsoever of “no” or “FAFO.” They’ve essentially never “found out” about anything, because they so rarely hear the word no.

While I don’t always put a lot of stock into certain theories of civilization, there’s one going around that seems to have at least some grasp on reality.

I don’t know if the dates are accurate, but it does seem to be grounded in factual research. Excuse the article I pulled it from; it was the only one with a decent enough graphic explaining it. The article is horrid, poorly written (imo), and not well grounded. But the theory that Ingraham’s study is based upon is real, and not too bad. If you want to really go down the rabbit hole, check out this post by Noema. You don’t have to do that, though. The graphic does a fairly decent job of making it easy to understand.

The general idea is that society, civilization as a whole, goes through these multi-stage cycles that last somewhere between 180 and 280 years in length. This is borne out by history, which does indeed seem to follow such cycles. They’re not perfect, but they are present, and they can be seen quite clearly. Drop in the history of Greece, and it fits. Rome, it fits. Early China, it fits. And so on.

The theory, followed through for America, states we’re in the end stages of one complete cycle. This isn’t too difficult to believe, considering we’re 248 years old as a country. Things were bound to break. After all, no one had previously attempted to run a country under a President, an elected official, prior to America. Our Constitution was radical in the most vast understanding of that word. The fact that so many other world leaders are now attempting to use our methods to run their countries is a testament to how well it has worked.

The thing is, though, I believe our Founders knew it wouldn’t work forever, as given. That’s one reason why they created the Constitution. It was created in such a way as to allow We The People to change and ratify it, as we became better as a People, and as we matured as a country.

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You may ask yourself, why is Allyson posting up songs from 1967 that weren’t even popular back then? Listen to the song. Sure, it’s a song about Snoopy. No question at all.

It’s more than that. I’ve been listening to bunches of OLD music (defined as pre-1970s, thank you very much… you know, EARLY 20th century) of late, and this one really struck me. On the surface, it’s just a silly song about Snoopy, our beloved cartoon dog. The lyrics aren’t particularly smart, but they scan nicely and the song is fun to sing.

But the Red Baron was a real person, and he really did take down 80 aerial combatants in 1917. Of course he wasn’t stopped by Snoopy; his plane was shot down by a combination of RAF pilots and Australian ground gunners. He was killed by a single bullet, and went down near Vaux-sur-Somme, France.

So why this silly song? Because it harkens to a time when this country actually cared about its position in the world stage. If the actions of Hitler in the 30s and early 40s were to happen today, we would do nothing. Today’s generation isn’t interested in fixing those kinds of wrongs. To misquote Karoline, the people in France would be speaking German. We can see this all around us. There are plenty of places where heinous things are going on, and we’re just not involved anymore.

I’m not sure we should be, because America managed to get itself listed as the world’s police, and that’s not a good thing. But at one time, when we stood up the enemy nations cowered with fear. Today, they just shrug and go back to messing with little girls and silencing women and killing the innocent.

There is hope. With Trump currently in office, military enrollment is up, exponentially. We see world bullies quietly standing down and skulking off to the shadows once more. The question is, can we keep it up? There is hope, but it’s going to take more than Trump’s four years in office to make it real.

I want to live in a world where we can make slightly off color jokes about stuff, and have folks chuckle. Most of the music I’ve listened to in the last five days would NEVER be permitted on the radio today. Too sexist, too racist, too … whatever. But they’re fun, and light, and frankly, no one gets hurt by listening to them.

So here’s to a world where we can cheer on Snoopy, and be proud of our troops, and stand up for freedom in our country… and then, when we’re in a better place at home, for freedom elsewhere.

Everyone in my house loves stir fry. I do all kinds of stir fry dishes, too. I make a great coconut Thai curry, and my ginger soy poke bowls aren’t bad either. Recently, I was in a mood for noodles instead of rice, though, and I went looking and found a recipe for using ramen noodles in a stir fry. This is my take on that!

Ingredients:

• 3 tbsp regular soy sauce
• 3 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 3 tbsp hoisin sauce
• 1 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 2 tsp sriracha or sweet chili sauce
• 1/4 tsp white ground pepper
• 3 packages instant ramen noodles (discard flavor packets)
• 1 lb skinless, boneless chicken breasts, diced
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil, divided (see recipe)
• 1 cup diced red bell pepper
• 1 cup sliced white button mushrooms
• 1/2 cup diced sweet yellow onion
• 1 cup broccoli florets
• 1 tbsp fresh minced garlic
• 1 tbsp fresh grated ginger
• 2 thinly sliced green onion
• 1/2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds

See those seedlings hardening off in the header image? Those are from a garden I was growing about a decade ago. They’re strong, healthy seedlings. They’re ready to be set into the ground to thrive and grow and make veggies for us.

And then there’s this specimen:

See how it’s falling over, and it only has a single set of leaves? Those aren’t even leaves, by the by. Those are called cotyledons, or “seed leaves.” They’re just there to get the plant going. By the time a seedling is as tall as this one is, it should have several sets of leaves. So why is this poor thing falling over and not growing better and stronger?

The first thing it’s lacking is probably light. Most of the time, when we’re starting seedlings indoors, we’re short on light. There are plenty of ways to fix that, of course. You can put them on a rack with a light right above them, and put a timer on it to give them 12 hours a day. That will fix the light problem, even if they’re cheap light strips. What if you don’t have a rack with light strips, though? Well, you can make do by giving your plants as much light as you can. I have a “daylight lamp” that I use in the winter to help with depression. This time of year, I no longer need it, so I give it to my plants. I move it around, so they all share in the glory of it. Any lamp put close enough to the seedlings will help.

Your seedlings also may be too cold, or alternatively, too warm. Most seeds like to germinate between 65 and 80° F, so if your home goes below that at night (or, like mine, never gets that high even in the daytime), you  may need to pick up a seed mat. The mats aren’t that expensive, and you just place your seed trays right on top of them. They keep the temperature warm but not hot, and convince your seedlings that it’s time to grow.

A third option is that you are not watering your plants enough, or that you’re over-watering them. You can tell if your plants have enough water by feeling the soil they’re in. If it’s dry and flaky, you need to water them, stat! If it’s saturated and dripping, it’s probably too wet. You need moist soil that clumps when you take a handful of it, but that isn’t dripping and sopping wet. It’s my strong opinion that the best way to water seedlings is from below. The containers your seedlings are in should have several small holes in the bottom (and if there aren’t, add some), or be made out of porous material like paper egg cartons. The containers should be sitting in a waterproof container, either one designed for the purpose or whatever you have on hand. Pour the water into the bottom of the tray, and let the soil suck it up from below. This encourages strong roots, which is important for your plant. If there’s a tiny bit of water in the tray, you’re fine. If it’s an inch deep, you need to drain it out. I also keep a mist sprayer on hand full of water, and each day I will spritz my seedlings. This helps prepare them for the rigors of a rainfall when they get outside.

The last option for helping seedlings develop strong stems and avoid them being leggy, is to blow a fan over them. This should be a VERY gentle fan, aimed above but not directly onto the seedlings. This simulates the breeze outside, which is part of what causes a plant to create thick stems and rigorous root systems. The fan, sweeping back and forth, will make your plants signal themselves to create more roots and stronger stems. Another method is to (GENTLY) brush over your seedlings with your hands each morning and evening. This need take only a couple of seconds, and should be done very carefully.  You don’t want to break or damage the plants.

If you get to the point where you need to thin out seedlings (an unfortunate thing but necessary), don’t pull them up. Pulling plants disturbs the soil and surrounding plants, possibly causing more than intended to die. Instead, cut them off at the soil line. The plant will die off and feed the soil, and you can feed the thinned plants to your chickens or bunnies (so long as they aren’t poisonous).

Not so much “behind enemy lines” today, as a mental dump.

There is a belief that the Republican and Democratic parties did an ideological flip around 1932 (with FDR). Some people claim it’s a fact, and others are less sure about that. Regardless, we know that Lyndon B. Johnson said his famous line in 1964: “I’ll have those niggers voting Democrat for the next 200 years.” He was wrong. It was less than a hundred years. Thank you, Pres. Trump.

For all I dislike Johnson, he did say a few things that really hit home right now (obviously gleaned from some MUCH less savory quotes):

• “[T]he vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.“
• “If we stand passively by while the center of each city becomes a hive of deprivation, crime and hopelessness…if we become two people, the suburban affluent and the urban poor, each filled with mistrust and fear for the other…then we shall effectively cripple each generation to come.“
• “Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men’s skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.“

These words, if they were the only words he’d said, are good words. It’s a shame that he sullied them by making so many other horrid statements.

Regardless, that brings me to today. I believe we’re seeing another shift of the party ideologies. Trump is at the helm, and many of us (still sounds odd to me to say that) are supporting him and his goals. He wants to drain the swamp, fix the financing, get us out of debt, stop us being the world’s police, and much more. They’re noble dreams, and I hope many or all of them come to fruition.

They’re also the dreams that belonged more to the Left of a decade ago. I watch some of the really old GOP folks getting their panties in a bunch over Trump’s takeover of the Republican party, and I have to smile. Being “on the inside” now, I can see more of what he’s doing. Let’s face it… Trump was considered a Dem until a little under a decade ago. There’s a reason Hilary didn’t have any issues with him running on the Republican ticket. She figured if she lost, if the Dems lost, they’d STILL have a Dem in the White House. Little did they know that Trump actually stuck to his moral guns. Shocking, I know. He took his campaign promises seriously.

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Sometimes known as American Chop Suey (no idea why), this dish has been served in American homes since the mid 1800s. It’s usually a macaroni based ground beef dish. This week, I made Orecchiette pasta with Chris last night, and we enjoyed it in my American Goulash. This is my own recipe, and I recommend it highly!

Ingredients:

• 16 oz elbow macaroni or fresh pasta
• olive oil as needed for cooking
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 medium carrot, finely diced
• 1 stalk celery, finely diced
• dash of red wine
• 2 tbsp all purpose flour
• 28 oz (2 cans) diced tomatoes, any flavor
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup tomato juice or V8
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1 tbsp salt
• ½ tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce (optional)

Fill a large pot with water, add a dash of salt, and bring it to a boil. Cook the pasta according to package directions. If you’re using fresh, cook your pasta until it’s al dente, which can take anywhere from 3 to 7 minutes, depending on the thickness and overall size of your pasta. Drain the pasta, and set it aside.

In a heavy pot, add a bit of oil to the bottom and brown the ground beef. When the meat is thoroughly cooked and no pink remains, add the onions, carrots, and celery, and continue to cook until the onions soften and become translucent. Stir often, to make certain the mixture doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pot. If necessary, add a bit of olive oil or butter to the pot. Add in the garlic and cook for one more minute.

Drizzle in some of the red wine and deglaze the bottom of the pot. Make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom, and add more wine as necessary, but not enough to make it very wet. Sprinkle a tablespoon or two of flour over the ground beef mixture, and stir gently to incorporate it. The result should be a slightly sticky, somewhat gummy mass in the bottom of your pot.

Add in the tomatoes, sugar, Worcestershire sauce, and spices, and cook until it begins to thicken. Add in as much tomato juice or V8 as necessary to make the consistency similar to a thin gravy. Simmer for 2 minutes or so, until all the food is evenly heated. Pour in the cooked pasta, mix it in well, and add salt and pepper to taste. Let this simmer on a very low heat (or in your oven at 250°F) for about 15 to 20 minutes, checking often to be sure it isn’t sticking. If it’s too thick or dry, you can add a bit more tomato juice.

Serve this up with a bit of crusty bread or a side salad for a delicious and hearty meal.

BLUF: Miracle Gro is basically minerals salts and coloring, which can (but doesn’t always) help short term, but long term will destroy the beneficial things in your soil. It’s expensive and messy and can harm your vegetables. Free and low cost alternatives include animal manure, natural mulch, etc… all of which add to rather than depleting from the soil.

I’m not sure if any of you are aware of the demon Monsanto. Coming from the Left, as I do, I have a real hate for Monsanto. However, I also learned hate for them through local farmers who are very conservative Trump supporters. Monsanto is not a good company, for a LOT of reasons. I don’t want to write about them, so I am offering you an article to go read at your own pace (yes, the site is anti-Trump, but their information on this topic is not bad).

Now to Miracle Gro. There’s an incestuous relationship between Monsanto and Miracle Gro which makes me uneasy. Monsanto doesn’t own it Miracle Gro, nor vice versa, but there’s a lot going on between them. That alone is enough to warn me off, however, there’s more. MG was successfully sued for lying about pesticides in their bird food that they manufactured and sold, which led to the death of enough song birds to cause a lot of people to get upset. I realize one legal case by a rabid leftist isn’t enough to cause a conservative to flinch, as it could always just be one they settled out of court to get the suing party to shut up. So I present you with a tracking website keeping dibs on all the court cases MG has lost.

There are places for chemicals. I use chemicals in the garden from time to time. I use chemicals against wasps, because they’re stingy assholes and I’m allergic. There are times when it’s just right to use chemicals. But if you’re paying extra to get something free of chemicals, if you’re actively looking to avoid chemicals, and a company sells you something it says is chemical free and it is not… that’s just not right. And that’s what Miracle Gro seems to be doing.

It’s not even that it’s necessarily “bad chemicals” in their products. I believe that ever MG product has salt in it. While tiny amounts of salt can help add things to your soil that benefit your plants, at least in the short term, it destroys your soil in the long term. Ever heard of Romans “salting the earth” before leaving an area? That’s so the enemy couldn’t plant crops for 20 years or more. That’s how bad salt is for your garden.

If you want to give good fertilizer to your garden and improve your soil, pick up some bunny poop and make bunny poop tea, and use that to water your plants. Pick up some local well aged manure and shovel that in around your plants. Most of the time, if you’re dealing with local folk, it will cost you nothing or very little, because you’re saving those people from having to remove the manure themselves.