Marvelous Meatloaf

And yes, there is such a thing.  Especially if Beth is cookin' it.

Singing the praises of a good meatloaf to a vegetarian would pretty much be a waste of time. But for those of us who enjoy this comfort food, you'll enjoy it even more the next day as a sandwich (with ketchup please), read on…

The players:

1 lb Lean Ground Sirloin
1 Medium Onion
1 Egg
1/2 of a Small to Medium Green Pepper
Oil (how much?)
1/2 cup Stuffing Mix (StoveTop)
1/2 cup Hot Water
1 Beef Bouillon Cube
1/4 tsp Pepper
1/2 tsp Hot Sauce
2 tsp. Worcestershire Sauce
1- 8oz can Tomato Sauce
Oregano

Does this look good or what?!!!

Pull out a Tissue - Don't Cry (at least not over the onions), then chop, chop, chop up the pepper and the onion.

Until it is really good and chopped - and pretty too!

Then saute it in a skillet and breathe in that wonderful aroma.  Can't you smell it already?  I can. 

Add the beef bouillon to the hot water

Pour the stuffing mix into a mixing bowl.

Add the hot water and beef bouillon mixture to the stuffing mix

Scramble the egg and add

Add the onions and pepper from the skillet to the stuffing mixture in the mixing bowl

Add the remaining seasonings - hot sauce

And Worcestershire sauce

All this talk about hot sauce is making Beth thirsty for a Bloody Mary.  "Hey Beth - can I have that celery with some peanut butter?  What do you mean 'No?'  hmmmm, Beth said I wouldn't eat my dinner if I filled up on celery and peanut butter.  Darn, I'm hungry."

Add the ground sirloin to the mixture.  Now really get into it with your "clean" fingers and squish it and mash it and squeeze it, and then grab your drink and sip.  Maybe you shouldn't grab the drink, you might get raw sirloin all over it and that would be nasty.  Just sip it instead.  Use your teeth if you have to.  Then squish and squeeze and mash some more.  This is the fun part folks.

Spray your casserole dish with cooking spray like Canola Oil or Pam

Then be creative.  Sculpting class comes in handy during this step.  Make it pretty now.  Stick that hunk-a-thing in the oven and bake for 30 minutes at 375 degrees.

Not done yet!  Now pour the tomato sauce all around the hunk-a-thing and then sprinkle some oregano on top and bake at 375 degrees for another 20-30 minutes more.

Done.

Now serve that hunk-a-thing with mashed potatoes and a veggie like Beth did.  Doesn't that look delicious? 

Psst.. If you’re wondering what to do with the rest of that container of Stovetop Stuffing, crush it in your food processor and use it as a coating for your baked chicken, OR make stuffing one night!

Caution: Don't eat a big, delicious meal like this after 9pm or you'll have some serious dreams - or nightmares - that all depends on what kind of mood you're in when you finish eating.  Then again, if you eat this, you will probably be havin' dreams about how satisfied you feel.

 

 

The Easiest and Best Fresh Blueberry Pie

Beth sent me this delicious recipe for Blueberry pie with some very nice pictures too.  Yummy.  You should know that before Beth was the cook, her mother was the cook, and this is the recipe her mother used to bake this delicious blueberry pie when Beth was growing up.  No wonder Beth is such a great cook!

So, are you enjoying the Olympics?  They’re awesome don’t you think?  Go Michael Phelps!  Go Dara Torres!  And while you are cheering for your favorite Olympian, this Blueberry pie can be chilling so you can enjoy it while sitting around the television with your family.  Beth tells me that it is fast and easy to make too – hey, sounds like my kind of dessert.  Fast. Easy. Yummy.

The Players:

1) 3/4 cup sugar
2) 2-1/2 Tblspns cornstarch
3) 1/4 tsp salt
4) 2/3 cup water
5) 3 cups fresh blueberries
6) 2 Tblspns butter
7) 1-1/2 Tblspn lemon juice

 
Begin by rinsing the blueberries and draining them well.

 
Prick your pie crust with a fork all over.  (Of course I had to call Beth – because you see, I am an idiot when it comes to cooking and baking and I wanted to know if she had to bake this pie crust.)

Me: “So, Beth – you bake this thing, right?” 

Beth: (laughing) “Yes, you bake it to the specifications on the package while you are preparing the blueberry mixture – or before hand – whatever.”

Me: “You mean you didn’t slave to prepare this shell by hand?  I’m so disappointed.”

Beth: “Well, since Mrs. Smith makes a good one, why the hell would I be a slave to a pie shell?”

Me: “I dunno, for baker’s martyrdom?”

Beth: “Susan, go back to watching the Olympics.”  (laughing)

 
Mix the first five ingredients (sugar, cornstarch, salt, water, and only 1 cup of blueberries) together in a saucepan over medium heat.

 
While your first 5 ingredients are heating in the saucepan, slice a juicy lemon.

 
And juice it the old fashioned way. 

 
Check on your mixture.  Stir and bring to a boil.

 
Cook until thick and the berries have popped.

 
The mixture will become dark blue/purple.

 
Speaking of dark fruit…(Beth, this is becoming an expected addition to your recipes. Just as long as I’m not responsible for making you drink.  Ha ha hee hee.)

 
Remove from heat and stir in the butter and lemon juice.

 
Then fold in the other 2 cups of fresh blueberries.

 
Doesn’t this look like Beth slaved to prepare this perfect pie shell?  Not.  Thank you Mrs. Smith.  Oh, and she baked it first.  LOL.

 
Pour mixture into your pre-baked, cooled, Mrs. Smith’s pie shell, or one that you’ve slaved over yourself, or Mrs. Smith’s deep dish or regular pie shell that bakes up great, or one that you slaved over, or Mrs. Smiths, or one that you slaved over, - aw heck, just get the Mrs. Smiths and be done with it.

If you use the deep dish shell, it will give you room to decorate with whipped cream, whereas the regular sized pie shell will fill right to the top.

Now, refrigerate until it is completely firm!

Serve with Vanilla Ice Cream and/or decorate with whipped cream.

 In Beth’s case – she chilled it overnight and today, she and her son, Evan, wolfed it down. 

Me: “Looks delicious Beth!  You mean you didn’t save any for me?!!!  Darn.  Now I have to make it myself.”

 

 

How to Strip Wallpaper Without Losing Your Mind

I was tempted to call this post  "How to Strip," but then I thought better of it.  I don't know why, since my humor borders on the ridiculous at times, but since I prefer stripping wallpaper to stripping off my clothes (for obvious reasons),  I didn't want my Big Bear to get any rip roaring ideas when he got home from his business trip.  This subject is getting way off the mark.  I better get down to business and strip off this wallpaper....  There is one thing I hate to do - strip wallpaper.  I don't particularly care for stripping either, but that's a subject I don't care to elaborate on.  Ever.  Since we moved into this house,  stripping wallpaper has been an ongoing nightmare.  Just about every room had dizzying wallpaper, and there were some rooms with 2 layers of wallpaper, and other rooms that were painted over the wallpaper.  If you like wallpaper, this was the house for you.  If not (like us) it is your worst homeowner nightmare.  

We had a wallpaper party the first month we moved in, and it was so frustrating trying to get the stuff off the walls, that our friends never returned.  No matter how much beer and pizza we offered, our friends disappeared - literally.

 

We never did get all the wallpaper stripped, as you can tell from our recent experiences, but, if I had known the secret to stripping wallpaper like I discovered in the last few days, maybe it wouldn't have been such a frustration.

I also wouldn't have torn apart the drywall underneath had I known this very simple trick.  Isn't this a lovely job of ripping off wallpaper?  I thought you'd say that.  Hey!  You can't blame a gal for tryin'!  I get an "A" for Attempt and an "F" for not calling a Factotum sooner.

You see, I went to Home Depot (I swear we should have stock in this place - that, and Lowes), and I purchased a wallpaper stripper steamer thingy.  Well, it takes about 15 minutes to heat up enough to create steam thru the hose and into the flat plastic square handle on the end that you press up against the wall until the paper loosens.  The problem with this method is that it also causes the drywall paper to rip from the wall making one big mess.  (See above if you need more proof)  Of course, if the wallpaper was applied properly in the first place, this likely would not have happened.  A Word of Advice to Anyone Applying Wallpaper: 1) Don't.  2) If you must, be smart and prime your walls beforehand.  If you don't prime, and you get sick of the paper, you will be cussin' up a storm trying to get it off the walls - unless, of course, you follow this simple tutorial that I just learned courtesy of 3 guys who have been painting my house for the last week.  Then, you'll only cuss a little bit. Now I know I am a bit of a weirdo, but did you ever have a sunburn when you were a kid and then when you started to peel, you would strip layers of skin off your arms and legs?  Didn't that feel good?  Especially when you peeled off a big section?  I know, sick analogy, but it's the same feeling peeling off the wallpaper - properly.  And another word of advice - Don't buy this steamer stripper.  It is a waste of money and will ruin your drywall.  There's an easier method and it is a heck of a lot less expensive too. You will need: Drywall scraper, putty knife, whatever you call the dang thing.  You know the thing that you use to scrape the walls, fling drywall mud at your husband, scrape your sloppy paint splatters off the hardwood floors and windows, patch the hundred holes in the wall where you were trying to hang your picture in the right place without measuring.  Yeah, that thing.

Spray bottle filled with water.  It doesn't matter if it is hot or cold water, just as long as it is water and a bottle that has a good sprayer head.  And paper towels of course - lots and lots of paper towels.

Step 1)  Spray the wallpaper surface with water.  Find a corner, edge, something that you can start to peel.   Catch an edge with the scraper and start to peel off the "top" layer of the wallpaper.

Step 2) When you have loosened the top layer, peel it off.  Pay no attention to the bottom layer of paper still stuck to the wall.  Just peel off the top layer.  You're gonna feel like a champion when you peel off a big sheet from the wall.  My neighbors could hear me screech with joy when a huge 2 foot section came off in one swoop.  Yippee for big peels!  This one pictured was a little one, but that's because I had a camera in my right hand trying to photograph my left hand peeling.  Matthew did not want to take any more pictures of my butt or my wallpaper peeling exercise. 

Step 3)  Spray lots of water on the bottom layer of paper still stuck to the wall then take your scraper and scrape it off.  It should scrape off easily, glue and all.  If you fling it on the floor, you will be scraping it off the floor too, so have a trash can handy.  (I know, I've made this mistake all too often in the 3 years we've lived here).  Messy job. Now, repeat Steps 1-3 until all that ugly, disgusting, nasty, bad taste wallpaper is off your walls.  You'll feel so much better.  If only I had known that it would be this easy, I would have had this done a long time ago.  No steamers, no fancy wallpaper peeling machines, no need for fabric softener or all that other fancy stuff you've read about.  Just a few squirts of water, a scraper thingy, paper towels, and a big trashbag.  That should do it. Happy scraping and peeling.  You have my permission to squirt your hubby when he walks by.  Flinging wallpaper paste may get you in some trouble.

 

 

Homeowner Happenings

Thank goodness!  My home is finally being painted!  I thought this day would never arrive.  For 16 years and 3 homes, we have lived in a perpetual state of remodeling, reconstruction, repainting, re-landscaping - but never in a finished, comfortable home.  Maybe now we can start to sit back and enjoy our home and our surroundings - and so can the neighbors.  There is hope for us after all.  Yes, we live in a beautiful home - if you are looking at it from the road.  But, if you were to own it you'd have one serious headache, and one massive "money pit."   That baby (the money pit)  is so deep that if you look down, there is no bottom.  It is an endless pit.  More like a sucking reverse tornado siphoning every available dollar down the pit of doom to a dollar-eating dragon.

Since we've lived here (we moved in on August 4, 2005), we have:

       

Replaced all the plumbing throughout the entire house (poly-butylene to CPVC plumbing)
chi-ching chi-ching $$$$$$$$$$

Replaced the sink and cabinetry in the powder room $
Replaced all the plumbing fixtures, toilets, drains, connections for 3.5 bathrooms and kitchen
$$$$

Replaced the single sink and cabinetry in our children's bathroom with a double sink, new mirror, new cabinetry, new fixtures, new toilet, painted, cussed
New towels from Target
New mirror from Home Depot
$$

Replaced all the old, broken down appliances with new ones, of course - going grayer, scratching my head, lying on stomach on bed face down in a pillow,  pounding on headboard and talking to myself about how every inch of this house is supporting Home Depot.  Typing in run-on sentences.
chi-ching chi-ching $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ (and our kitchen still looks tragic)

Replaced all the carpeting
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
(Now this should be a story in and of itself)   We were forced to do this because our new home here in North Carolina had a flea infestation that sent 2 men who were ripping up the old carpet to the hospital and nearly sent all of us there too.  The fleas had nothing to do with us, but rather, the previous owners had a real problem and no one bothered to tell us about it.  It could have been devastating to our own pets.  It left permanent marks on our legs.

The fleas owned this house - every square inch of it.  Why the inspector never found it, I do not know, except to say that North Carolina has a few Yahoos that claim to be inspectors and plumbers, but don't know how to screw in a light bulb. When the workers were ripping up the old carpet, the fleas were jumping in their faces and hair and all over their arms.  It was tragic.  We sprayed, swept, vacuumed and then threw away a $500 vacuum because it was impossible to use it again without risk of a re-infestation of fleas.   Out it went.

Replaced the vacuum $

Every article of clothing, every pillow, every blanket, every stuffed animal, every throw carpet, and anything that had fabric of any kind went to Long's Dry Cleaning in Charlotte. They came to our house with 4 (count 'em 4) huge vans and all of them were filled to the brim with anything and everything that could possibly have a flea in it or on it.  They cleaned everything for $900.  I know that sounds like a lot of money for a cleaning bill, but let me tell you something - If Mr. Long had charged us his regular rate which is still competitive for a dry cleaners, it would have cost us over $5000.  We are so happy to have met Mr. Long and family at Long's Dry Cleaning. They cared enough to help us through this crisis (like a horror movie) and worked with us to make it affordable.  Wasn't there a movie called "The Flies" or something?  Well, maybe they ought to make one called "The Fleas" instead.  Ours would have made the centerpiece for the filming.

Imagine this - Our family of 6 sleeping on Aerobeds because we have saturated our own beds with pesticide.  We have no pillows, no linens, no towels, and no clothes other than what was on our backs, and no clean underwear for a week.

Replaced both garage doors

Replaced both heating and air conditioning units (upper and lower levels)\

Ripped up the old, narrow, bumpy driveway made of brick with a wide concrete driveway and real brick apron.

This was another experience from hell as the guy who laid the new driveway had too much concrete delivered on a 100 degree day and it dried too quickly.  Then, we had a fireman who was visiting my hubby about something, walk through the wet stamped apron of concrete at the top of the driveway leaving permanent boot prints in the cement.  Oh, and the guys who did the stamping of the concrete for the apron were clueless.  They had stamp prints going in the wrong direction and crossing each other.  Some were even smeared.  And, if we tried to talk to them they "did not speaka engalis."  So, the contractor had to rip out all the messed up sections and re-lay the concrete, then we called our family in Tennessee who are masons and asked them if they would please do all the brick work for our driveway and sidewalk. 

Thank God for family like ours in Tennessee. David and a crew of about 6 came here and lived with us for a week.  The work they did on our driveway is magnificent.  I’ve never seen such perfection in brick work.  Thank you David!  Thank you to everyone!  You saved us!

They replaced the sidewalk to the front of the house too.

Bob completely tore up our front yard to put in 2 enormous 5000 lb concrete drainage systems to carry the water from the rain run-off under our yard and into the lake where it belongs
$$$$$$$$$

He regraded the front yard with 21 loads of dirt and top soil
$$$$

We put in an irrigation system in the front yard so that before the year 2020 we have grass.  We have discovered, however unfortunately, that the soil in North Carolina is quite different from the soil in Maryland and next to impossible to create a heavenly bed of grass.  On the other hand, maybe it is just impossible for Bob. (just kidding sweetie, I know you are working so hard on this – that was just the first thing that came to my mind).

We have a number of neighbors who have such beautiful grass and landscaping, though, that I just want to run through their yards in my bare feet if for no other reason than to refresh my memory as to what it feels like to have soft dewy grass between my toes – and ask them to please tell me what they did to get that beautiful grass.  I pray that this fall my hubby (aka Big Bear, Sweetie, Honey, Farmer Bob, Sugarbob, Love of my life) will have figured out what makes this soil tick so that we can have a bed of grass and not a bed of dirt.  Oh well, he sure is trying hard, and has been for 3 years.

We have succeeded in pissing off the neighbors with our state of disarray and discombobulation.  I think they want to be disassociated with the family that can't seem to get a grip on their grass, their door frames...

the state of their driveway, their weeds, their dirt, their tractors...

their farmer Bob contraptions, and yada yada yada.  God help us all.  You'd think we lived on a 100 acre farm or something.

Even the birds are looking in the windows wondering when, chirp-chirp tweet-tweet, this family is going to get it in gear and clean up this God-forsaken mess.

This bluebird stops by on a regular basis to check on the progress.  And that is no lie.

We sure are tryin’ to solve the state of this mess as quickly as possible, but that costs time and money.  Something that we never seem to have enough of these days.

The good news (very good,  yelling from the rooftop news) is that Ronald’s Painting is here with their crew painting almost every room in our home.

They got here Friday morning (which is why I did not post on Friday) and started to navigate around our chaos to start painting.  Friday and Saturday I was stripping wallpaper and drooling at the colors going on my walls...

 

and these guys have been painting like masters.  IT IS GORGEOUS!  We all feel like we are living in a new home.  Wait till you see the pictures of the finished rooms.  It is so bee-u-tee-ful that I may never want to leave home again.  I may even decide to learn to cook.

They have been getting here in the early morning and working long days.  They will be here next week to finish it up.  I am amazed.  We all are.  Thank you Ronald.  Thank you Ben.  Thank you to your team of men who are first-rate painters.  Thank you to my Big Bear's employer for a commission check that made it all possible.  I never thought I’d see the day when my whole house would be freshly painted – all at the same time.

Progress.  It’s a beautiful thing.