Kathie Cooks!!!

Wow - I tell you - work and painting has kept me busy.  It's hard to get some blog time in.  I know I missed blogging about last week's New Food Night (think I will keep that as a draft for a while in case I let time get away from me again). Let me tell you about this week's New Food Night.

Last week before Rick came over I was looking on Pinterest trying to find something that looked good that was actually food. I tend to pin a lot of appetizers and breads and such.  I saw Chicken Bacon Lasagne Rolls.  Gary decided that since I chose that I could do the cooking!

WHAT!???  Me cook?  Well, okay - I can I just don't usually. I'm up for the task though, so let me tell you about our menu.

Since I was cooking I left setting the table up to Gary.  Don't you like our colorful table?  He used what I refer to as our 'sideboard' plates. You can fill these up and we always use them at Thanksgiving.

Mr. Rick was responsible for a salad.  He outdid himself when he brought over the makings for a salad bar!  Man - this was almost a meal in itself.  I love salads like this.

We had some iceberg lettuce, some fresh spinach, fresh mushrooms, green onions, carrots, slivered almonds, bacon bits, croutons. Man I hope I didn't miss anything here.  Don't you love a great salad like that?  He also brought some fresh fruit.

Now for the Chicken Bacon Lasagna Rolls.  I cooked up some chicken then shredded it into pieces. (We had enough left over for Gary and I to have Chicken Nachos later in the week). The filling consisted of sour cream, ricotta cheese, cream cheese, onion powder salt and pepper. Here are some of the ingredients for tonight's meal.

Take a pound of bacon and cook up. Gary prepared our bacon the night before so when it was time I took the bacon and chopped it up in pieces. I put this in a pan and added some diced onion and minced garlic to pan. I then heated up the bacon and cooked until the onions were tender.

There was also a Parmesan Cheese sauce. This consisted of butter and cream cheese melted with some heavy whipping cream. After this was melted and thickened up some I added half and half and continued to cook until thickened. Then I added parmesan cheese and fresh shredded mozarella.

While that was cooking I cooked some lasagna noodles in boiling water. I cooked them until not quite done, The recipe said two minutes less than cooking time. I hardly ever time anything when I cook so I just cooked them until I was almost ready to use them. I then drained them in colander and laid them on a paper towel to drain. Note to anyone wanting to try recipe - the noodles are very hot. Use tongs to remove them from the strainer.

Now for the assembly part of the process.  I took some of the Parmesan Cheese mixture and covered the bottom of the baking dish. (I am so glad that Gary got that new baking dish for his birthday. It has come in very handy). Divide the filling mixture among the noodles. Top this with the shredded chicken, then the bacon/onion mixture. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over this.

Roll up the noodles and place in pan seam side down. Pour the remainder of the Parmesan Cheese sauce over the lasagna rolls and sprinkle the rest of the bacon/onion mixture over this. Top with grated mozzarella cheese and bake in over for about 30 minutes. Let sit for 10 minutes before serving.

Man was this good!  Yep - I do know how to cook when I need to.

What do you have with lasagna? Well Garlic Toast of course!  Gary fixed some Cheesy Garlic Toast. Good stuff.

Miss Annette brought over dessert. She brought over chocolate covered creme puffs. One of my favorites!

There you have it. Our new food for the week and the opportunity to see that I can cook.  Aren't you wishing you had asked for a reservation at our table?

What do you want us try?  Give us some ideas.

Not Enough Coffee

You know I work at a Call Center for a college.  You know that this can be frustrating. I've had a couple of rough days of calls so think I'll just share with you

Student calls because she has not received an email from her instructor that she should have. I ask why she thinks she should have an email. Her answer was that the instructor was supposed to email her the syllabus. I explain that this is something instructors usually put on their Blackboard course site for students and I I ask the student if she has checked her Blackboard account.

After much talking back and forth and student telling me that she cannot even access her account I inquire about which browser she is using and advise that the recommended browser would be Mozilla Firefox. Of course the student does not have this browser and does not want to download it despite me telling her it works the best with our site. Student advises she prefers to use Internet Explorer and I advise that we do not recommend that one at all as she will have issues. Student says it is what she always uses.

Finally get her logged into her account and ask her to click on her Blackboard. Student tells me that it says 'unauthorized user'. I tell her this is typically a response when student is not enrolled in class and ask if she is certain she is enrolled. Her response is "Yes, they enrolled me". I ask who they are and she provides two names that I am not familiar with and says "They told me I was enrolled:.

I ask student if she herself ever logged into her account and clicked on the enrollment process and actually enrolled in the course. Student says "No - they told me I am enrolled". I advise student to go to the My Account section and see what courses it says she is enrolled in. After much prompting of what to do student says that it says she has no classes. She then says "What does that mean?"  I tell her "It means you are not enrolled in a class".

Student continues to insist that 'they' enrolled her and she is enrolled. I advise that we do not show her as enrolled in a class and if she really thinks she is that perhaps she should go to campus to make certain everything is in order as summer classes start in two weeks. Student continues to insist that 'they' enrolled her and she is enrolled. She does not want to go to campus but the class fills up quickly and she needs to get into the course.

Twenty minutes later student is still insisting that she does not want to go to campus but needs in the course and 'they' enrolled her.  At this point I realize that we will probably have numerous calls from her throughout the coming semester.

Next day I receive a call from a student saying that he did not realize if his financial aid was not in place that he would be dropped from the class for not paying. He says "No one told me that". I advise that as he is enrolling in class before he can ever get to site to look at the available classes he has a page telling him in RED letters that he must read and acknowledge before it will allow him to continue. That page tells him that he has one hour after enrolling to set up a payment plan of some sort. He is not allowed to go any farther until he marks that as acknowledged.

Student says "Well no one told me that and I was dropped from the course and the course is now closed what are you going to do?" I advise that there is nothing I can do - if the course is closed that means it is closed and he cannot enroll in it. Student insists that something must be done because he did not know he had to pay for the course and now it's closed and he wants in. I continue to advise that there is nothing I can do. If he wants he may go to campus and talk to Enrollment Services but most likely they will not be able to do anything if the course is already full and showing as closed

Oh, trust me, this was not what the student wanted to hear at all. The next words out of his mouth were, "So you want me to just give up?" No, I did not say that at all, I said that if the course is full there is nothing we can do for you. There are no spots available for the class. If you enrolled in the class and did not set up your payment option plan as you had to acknowledge that you understood then you were dropped. The course has since filled up and is no longer available for registration. There is nothing I can do for you.

Student says, "So the machine makes all the decisions then and you want me to give up." No what I actually want would be for you to take a few lessons in responsibility and common courtesy.

And then the mother who calls because she wants questions answered about her sons account. I ask if he is available for me to speak to. She says no but it's okay because she has a FERPA agreement on file giving her permission to talk about his account. I politely explain that unfortunately over the phone I cannot verify her identity and will need to speak to  her son. She then says, "So that paper is no good at all then?"  "No ma'am the paper is valid IF you go to a campus where your identity can be verified. Over the phone there is no one who will be able to speak to you regarding your son's account."

After some discussion the mother asks if she can have her son on a three-way call. I advise that yes - as long as we can speak to him and verify then we can discuss his account. She said, "Then can you put a note in his account that it's okay to speak to me over the phone?" Again - NO we cannot verify your identity over the phone. We will always have to speak to him regarding his account.  Her response was "Well, I will be doing everything anyway he knows nothing and doesn't even know what questions to ask."

Perhaps you should make a list of the questions 'you' want answered so that when he calls he knows what to say,  Or better yet -- let him be the adult and take care of his own business!  We refer to these parents as 'helicopter parents'.

Okay - rant over for the day but if this is what the start of Summer semester is like I do not look forward to Fall Semester. Think I better take a big carafe of coffee to work with me tomorrow

Company Cups

I'm a coffee drinker. 

I admit it. I love coffee and I drink a lot of it. I come from a coffee drinking family. My parents drank coffee when I was a kid and I did too. The coffee pot was quickly put on when company came.  My brothers all drink coffee. Sadly, only one daughter has taken after me but I have my grandkids and several of them are coffee drinkers as well.

I have several mugs and cups I can choose from at my house.  Currently at work I use this mug which I just received from my son for Mother's Day.

He said he was trying to think what to get me and thought 'Oh, Mom can always use another mug.' He's right - I can.  He had a little teddy bear in the mug too because he said Dad told him not to feed me any more candy. (Let me just note here that the reason Gary told him that is because Gary knows I am trying to lose weight and have quit eating sweets, chocolates, etc.)

Certain mugs I like to use for coffee and there are others that make great tea mugs and some specifically for chocolate. Some are for certain times of the year.

How do you drink your coffee?  Do you want a great big mug of coffee that is like never-ending?

Now that is one big coffee cup!

Here's a more normal sized coffee mug.

This is about the size of the coffee mugs I normally use on a day to day basis. Holds enough coffee to really enjoy it without having to refill it every 5 minutes.

Or perhaps you prefer a more delicate looking cup that you can sip from?

Doesn't this make you think of quiet Victorian times?  I have some good friends who recently gave me a collection of cups and saucers that I cannot wait to use for a tea party (after I finish my house painting LOL).

I love these!  I had been wanting an assortment of tea cups  and now I have them!  How fun!  Plus, they always make me think of an aunt who usually had a pretty cup or two around to drink coffee out of - just because she liked them.

I use my dishes. I do not  hesitate to pull out my good china or special tea sets to have a tea party with my granddaughter if that is what she wants to do. Sometimes I just pull them out for myself and make a pot of tea and drink it from one of my special tea cups.

This is what I refer to as my 'tea mug'. I have several of these - don't use them much any more but have them in the cabinet. They were my mom's and I remember as kids my brothers and I always drank hot tea from them in the winter time. Just a note - these are great for hot chocolate as well.

I have a family member who was talking to me on the phone a few months back and we were discussing my parents. She commented on the fact that no matter what time they stopped by my mom would always put the coffee on and give them a cup. She then said "and she gave us a real cup of coffee. Not one of those company cups but a real coffee cup. I always loved that about your mom."

So for the most part at my house you won't be getting your coffee served in a 'company cup'. You are going to get a cup of coffee that we can settle in with and have a good long chat.  Now, if you happen to want to use a company cup, I certainly won't mind at all.  And remember that aunt I mentioned who liked her 'pretty cups'? She had regular cups as well.

So tell me - do you have company cups or do you plan on having people 'sit a spell' when they come to visit?

Couple of Favorite Foods

New Food Night!  We choose last week to have Monte Cristo sandwiches and French Onion Soup this week. These are two of my favorite things to eat when I can find them on a menu. I was looking forward to the meal. Now, it has been raining here for the past month. That's a lot of rain for Oklahoma. A. Lot. Of. Rain. I don't have my pool up yet, Ground is saturated. You get the idea. It also means that when New Food Night rolled around it was a cooler day than normal for this time of year. Perfect soup and sandwich weather.

French Onion Soup.

Oh this is so good! I don't like to eat soup out and don't very often. I have pretty definite ideas of how the soup should taste and it usually does not live up to my expectations. Except for French Onion Soup.  There is just something about all that melted cheese and the onions and the croutons or bread that is in it.  It screams my name!

Miss Annette made the soup base and brought it to our house to finish up the cheesy crouton part of it.

The base itself consisted of beef broth, butter, flour, onions, water, wine, Worchesterhire sauce, and of course onions.  Is your mouth watering yet?  She put some French bread croutons in the bottom of the soup bowls, ladled the broth over them and then topped with cheese. This was then put in the oven for the cheese to melt.

How good does this look?

I wish you could smell this through the blog. My mouth was watering from smelling this as we bowed our heads in prayer.

Look at that melted cheese.

And then we paired it with Monte Cristo sandwiches.  I LOVE these things!.  You can't always find them on the menu but if it is there, I usually order it.

Take a 'hearty' bread and spread generously with a dijon mayo type spread. Add some ham slices and cheese.  Gary used a Provolone cheese.

This is then dipped in an egg mixture and fried.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve. (Be certain that you are using powdered sugar not flour. These two ingredients can and have been mistaken previously). 

Wow!!  Was this ever a good meal.

But wait!  We aren't done yet. We had dessert also. Mr. Rick brought over a vanilla Bundt cake with strawberry frosting.

What a great spring like cake. And it was soooo good.  Are you hungry yet?  If not I'm not sure why not.

There you have it. A couple of my favorite foods.  And what a combination they made.  Any one have a food challenge for us? Or maybe a favorite food you like but haven't made because you aren't sure how it will turn out?  Let me know. We are always up for the challenge.

International Night

Let me just start this off by saying: we don't let the calendar dictate our food choices!  Yes, New Food Night was on Cinco De Mayo but we didn't have Mexican. We chose Chinese!  Keep in mind that on St. Patrick's Day the choice was Italian.

I have to say one other thing: We are International!  Yep, eating Italian on St. Patrick's Day and Chinese on Cinco De Mayo. I decided to just stay international tonight and go with a totally different centerpiece as well. I like to use different things and I didn't plan ahead so had nothing around to make up a Chinese centerpiece. Ended up with an Italian style, I kinda like it!

 So tuck your bibs into your shirt collars and prepare to drool.

Nothing major or fancy tonight. Typically we have several dishes in our meal. This week we had Orange Chicken.

Gary cut up the chicken in bite size pieces and dipped it in tempura batter of egg whites and cornstarch. This was then fried in our deep fryer for a couple of minutes and drained on paper towels. It was then fried again in the deep fryer for another minute to help 'set' the batter.

The chicken was then put in orange sauce made with orange juice, orange zest, soy sauce, brown sugar, freshly grated ginger, minced garlic, rice vinegar, and sesame oil. Thicken this up with cornstarch.

After it was done, Gary plated it up and topped with chopped green onions.

Miss Annette brought over some Basmati Rice. This is just a different type of rice and was very good.

And how do you finish a Chinese meal? With fortune cookies of course!  Mr. Rick brought us over two boxes. He wanted to make sure we wanted plenty of good fortune. We each read our fortune following my mother-in-law's rule of ending each fortune with 'in the water bed'. This was a new twist for Rick.

There you have it, our Chinese meal on Cindo de Mayo!

This next week we will be having one of my favorite dishes to order when I eat out. Anyone want to give us a challenge for the next week?

Happy Mothers Day

Mother's Day is this Sunday. A day to celebrate our mothers. I have not been able to do this for to many years, unfortunately.  However, I do celebrate my daughters on Mothers Day. I always send them a card. I thought I would write a blog for my children for Mothers Day as a thank you.

First of all -- THANK YOU! Thank each and every one of you for the joy you have given me. Thank you for the lessons you have taught me. Thank you for the blessing you have given me.

My mother had died before any of my children were born so I had no one to give me 'motherly' advise on how to handle a baby, raise a child, nurse a sick child, handle the teenage years, or any of the things most mothers pass along. I had people giving me their opinions but they weren't my mom so it was opinions. I trusted my instincts and did the best I knew to do and we muddled through. Each child has presented their own set of issues but every one of my five children have grown to be responsible, respectful, giving, hard-working members of their community.

Now for some of the lessons they have taught me.

They have taught me to love life and laughter.

This may seem mundane or trite but is so true. Life is to short so enjoy every minute you have and along the way LAUGH.  Enjoy yourself and the people you are with. You will be creating memories for your children and grandchildren. I hope mine remember the laughter.

They have taught me patience - to a degree.

I had much more patience when I was younger so it's a good thing I had my kids young. My patience was tested, stretched and strengthened when we adopted my youngest two children. I am by nature a very impatient person to some degree so any patience I was able to learn through raising my children has been a gift.

They have taught me love.

You've heard it said that there is no love like a mother's love and that is so true. The love I have for my children is boundless and without measure. It is only increased by the love I have for my grandchildren.

They have taught me giving.

I thought I knew about giving until my children came along. Not giving of material things but giving of ones self for another. I saw this in my girls when they were little in the things they did for each other and the way they always wanted to 'help' me. As they grew older I saw them giving of themselves for their friends. I see it even more as adults when they give up their lives to help expectant sisters or friends with anything needed No hesitation no questions just do what needs to be done. I see my son volunteering on his days off work (and sometimes on days he does work) at a local nursing home for the past 4 years since graduating.

They have taught me humility.

I don't know how to explain this but just having my children be who they are makes me humble.

They have taught me to be myself.

This one may seem like a given but many people try to be who they think others want them to be. They try to live up to someone else's expectations. Through my children I have learned - just be yourself and make the most of what you have. If it means being crazy and nutsy with them as you stay up late giggling and take goofy pictures do it.

Throughout this I have shared some photos. All of my children love to have their picture taken. After trying to find pictures of myself with each child I realized I need to make more of an effort to include myself in pictures. One of my children I was able to find several pictures of her and I (no names here but she is a Muskateer LOL).  No separate picture of myself and my youngest daughter Amanda. She loves having her picture taken just not so much with me and that's okay.

I want to encourage every one if you are able to call your mother and tell her Happy Mothers Day.