Stuffed to the Muff

Dear Self (and anyone who ever celebrates Thanksgiving),

Pioneer Woman's Cornbread Stuffing recipe is amazing.
It is even more amazing with this cornbread recipe.
Which is even more amazing when you mill your own fresh cornmeal from popcorn.

Then, turn it up to eleven and add green apple and pomegranates.
This is the stuffing you serve people you love. The kind you eat to be stuffed. "Stuffed to the muff" stuffed.
It's stuffing to the muffing.

Stick with this recipe, and you can't go wrong,
Meg

Why is This Popular?

What's with everyone having their portraits taken on railroad tracks? Does anyone else find this fad totally disturbing? For example, Newborn portraits....why? What possessed the mother to lay her baby on the train tracks and have his picture taken? Postpartum depression?

Graduation pics are another baffling example. My guess is that the average student graduating in 2012 has never taken the train in his/her life....with the exception of big cities, but we're not talking about the subway. Nooo...nobody is having their senior pics taken on the subway. They're on a rural train track out in the middle of nowhere, and they've chosen this spot to represent their arrival to adulthood. With train tracks. Cuz that's realistic.

And while we're being realistic, why not traipse on down to the tracks in your wedding gown for some bridal shots. To me, these say, "I'd rather throw myself in front of a train than get married, today."

Anyway, why the railroad tracks? Someone please help me out here. I don't look at a train track and see, "Let's cherish this moment forever..."

I see, "...or at least until the Union Pacific charges through and kills us all."

I admit that I am a terrible photographer, so maybe I am not artsy enough.
I get that you need some kind of background, and that society is moving away from the "stand in front of the fireplace" backdrop that has served the holiday card gods for the past 50 years. I mean, if you see a cool bridge, group of trees, or the texture of a building would make a cool background, I'm all for that. But the railroad tracks...I just don't get that one.

And while I am glad that long gone are the days of the matchy matchy denim shirts and khaki pants family pictures, there are still some new trends that I just don't understand:

"Barefoot and pregnant... and freezing because I'm standing in this river."

and the bridal shot variation of this same picture:
"We're getting married and got in the river with all our clothes on because there's nothing like standing thigh deep in wet jeans and kissing to say, 'Hey! Come to our wedding!'"

another common family picture:
"Our family lives in the city, but we thought this old barn was cool, so we are standing in front of it for our Christmas card. Plus, it was right there, conveniently next to those cool railroad tracks we drove out to post on for our school pictures.

"We went to the beach to stand in the ocean and hold hands and jump. And we all wore white."

"We don't wear shoes when we take walks through urban alleyways"

and the worst photo prop fad:
"Hey look! It's our bed! It's randomly plopped down in the forest! Let's have a leaf fight and jump on the mattress!" Now, I do understand the bench, chair, and even the sofa (The Cranberries officially made that one cool in 1994) as part of the photo shoot. I mean, if people've gotta sit down, might as well use a beautiful furniture for seating.
But a bed? This makes no sense to me. Veto.

Don't get me wrong, if you live near the tracks/farm/barn/ocean/lake/river/bridge/alley/orchard or if it has some kind of significance in your life, well then...go right ahead. It makes total sense for you to pose there. (Except the railroad tracks. I don't understand that one at all, unless it's for comedic purposes. If it makes me laugh, it's ok.)

It's the country hippie people that pose on a city roof top, or the city people that pose on a cattle fence. It feels like misrepresentation...at least for the photo that goes out to x amount of people in the "this is what my life is like" annual card. Am I wrong?

Feel free to chime in here, with your opinion....especially those of you who take pictures.

Hmmm...I know you are all dying to see OUR family picture this year, now, so you can make fun of us and get even. Fair enough. Except we haven't taken ours yet. We're waiting for the perfect opportunity, and searching for the right spot.

Like on some railroad tracks that go through the ocean.
Top that one, cool people.

Roach Coach

It's the holiday season.
I am a bit (read: a lot) homesick.
The odd thing is, every time I think about my family, Ca, the ocean, and the gorgeous California weather, I crave tacos.

It's a pavlovian response. Thanksgiving = Family, Family = California, California = Super Taq, Super Taq = Tacos.

Or, to shorten the trail, Thanksgiving = Food, Food = Tacos.

I'm pretty confident that I could play "the Kevin Bacon game" with just about anything and end up with tacos in less than 6 degrees of separation.

Tomatoes

Remember me crying, a few years ago, when I killed our smoothtop stove?
Learn from my (expensive) mistake and don't ever can on a glass stove. Ever.
I discovered the perfect solution last week. Two portable single electric coil burners.

Boo. I just typed out a fab tutorial on canning tomatoes, and my internet crashed when I tried to post it. I had to reboot my laptop and nothing was saved. Meh. I'm too tired to type it out again. If you want to know how to can tomatoes, just come over and I'll show you how.

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Enchiladas

1) Caramelize an onion: (ok THIS is the money maker. It makes all the difference in enchiladas. Or anything, really.)
1 1/2 TBS butter
1 small yellow onion (red works, too, but I always use yellow because we prefer the flavor)
1/4 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 tsp soy sauce
squirt lemon juice

Melt butter in a small non-stick skillet over med-high heat and cook the onions, stirring until they just begin to brown, 3-4 minutes. Add vinegar; reduce heat to med-lo and continue cooking for 10 minutes, stirring to prevent scorching.

Add soy sauce and cook 5-10 minutes longer, stirring. When done, the onions should be quite limp and caramelized brown, (and delicious!).

2) peel a large sweet potato and cut into 1/2 inch cubes

3) saute potato in 1TBS olive oil over medium heat for about 5 minutes, stirring continuously so the edges don't get too brown or stick to the pan. Then reduce the meat to med-low and cover the pan for a few minutes so the potatoes are soft (no one wants a hard, crunchy potato in their enchilada!)

4) cube about 4oz cream cheese (I made no claims that this recipe was healthy!) and add to potatoes.

5) drain and rinse 1 can black beans, add to potatoes

6) add 1 small can diced green chilies.
stir on low heat until mixture is warm and the cream cheese is saucy.

7) fill flour tortillas with bean/potato filling, top with a pile of caramelized onions, and a small sprinkle (1/2 -1oz, maybe?) of shredded cheese (I used med cheddar last time, but would have used pepper jack if we'd had any) I filled 12 small tortillas with this recipe. Roll tortillas and place in a row in a baking dish.

8) Pour 1 can red (med heat) enchilada sauce over the top of the rolled enchiladas.

9) Bake until tortilla edges are slightly crispy and garnish with a row of shredded cheese and chopped cilantro down the center of the pan.

10) Brace yourself for compliments. Yes. They're that good.

Purple Pinkie

Reese proudly marched herself to the rotary counter today to donate her dollar to the purple pinkie campaign at Cooper Elementary, today. Her purple pinkie represents a life of a child across the globe that she spared from the horrors of Polio. Way to go, girlie!

Putting other kids to shame since 2004

Yoga seems to be all the rage again. But you're only "cool" now if you're doing "hot yoga".
Do not be confused.
"hot" yoga does not necessarily = hot people.
"hot"or "bikram" yoga = sweaty and super stinky people.
...right. cuz "yoga people" weren't already stinky enough.

Anyway, I keep finding my kids in yoga positions. For no reason at all.

So I took some pictures to document it. Because it seems to be a fad around here, so the irony that their funny kid thing fad is an actual fad is just funny to me.

Oh, and to all the "experts" out there, be aware that the kids are both sweaty AND stinky, so you know...this is totally legit. The real deal ;)
Here we have the classic sibling "downward dog". Totally normal.Leading today's spontaneous yoga sesh is....wait.... Aaron?

Well, yes. Yes it is. What the crap happens in my kitchen when I am not supervising?!

It's weird, right?

Moving on, let's address the other fad I'm seeing everywhere: Planking.
Our children don't know it yet, but they're super cool. They effortlessly mastered the downward dog, so now, they've progressed to the the latest hip thing.
Behold, a few more candid shots of the Willys kid doing what they do best, being totally awesome.

I call this one "wheel barrow racing with furniture gets you nowhere."

And here, we have the classic "suspended between two furniture pieces, even though there is no way it is humanly possible for it to be more comfortable than sitting on just one of them" plank.

And the grande finale, the "hot lava plank".
Did you play "hot lava" when you were growing up? Where you couldn't touch the floor because it was lava and would "burn" you? If the answer to that one is "no", then you didn't have a childhood. I can only assume that the messy floor is what inspired the hot lava version of this game in the first place.

My kids are way more hip than I am.
Uh...Namaste?