I have completed cooking for the month prior to my travels. I am in full leftovers with casserole, lasagna, meatloaf, chicken in sauce and rice, and my company's gifted spiral cut ham for the holidays.

 

the lasagna

Side note: this is my mom and aunt's recipe. It works well. It's a ground beef and various tomato stuffs layer, a cottage cheese, egg, parmesan, and parsley layer, noodles, and mozzarella cheese. I have flirted with making the top layer shredded mozz, because it doesn't fork cut well, but there's a recall on shredded cheese that just ended, so I did not do it this time.

 

John - Most excellent you have a nice supply of leftovers - that's one hell of a smorgasbord of leftovers. The lasagna looks fantastic. I routinely use ricotta cheese rather than cottage cheese. I might sometime try cottage cheese instead .

 

Norm, I have pictures of my mom's recipes, some 48 that I took about 6 years ago. I wrote them all down on my master travel list for 2025, so I know which ones I have. I intend to photo more.

For your entertainment, I have recipes for:

chop suey cake , wassail , turkey casserole , conrbread dressing , chocolate chip cookies , lemon bars , rice casserole , ham loaves , cranberry salad , mayonaiise , coconut macaroons , celery seed dressing , yeast rolls , Baked chicken rice , taco salad , baked prok chops , sloppy joe , lasagna , meat ***** , chicken in wine sauce , baked pork chops 2 , spaghetti , stuffed peppers , chicken cordon bleu , Fish almondine , vegetable soup , pizza , Ruth's rolls , Rich Potato Salad , Banana bread , Rhea's chicken , coney sauce , persimmon pudding , Rhea's chicken salad , Thin chocolate cake , peanut butter fudge , Michelle's Chinese salad , Creamed corn casserole , Pecan pie , Pie dough , spinach salad , meatloaf , persimmon cookies , Dr. Hand;s Chicken , Cheesecake , sweet potatoo souffle , key lime pie , Oatmeal cake ,

Bold is stuff I have tried. Ruth is my aunt, Rhea and Michelle are cousins, Dr. Hand's wife and my mom were close friends. I also have some recipes elsewhere from grandmother Anne, stepgrandma Zelva, stepaunt Judy, godmother Marsha, and some others. The cheesecake is from one of my dad's hygenists. There is a quiet army of middle class American women who are damn good cooks, and you only find out about it if you get in the club.

 

John - You've certainly been busy in the kitchen, extremely impressive! Very nice you have all those family/friends recipes to use. 👍

 

John - You're correct - you need to be in the club. I consider myself a certified professional member of the club. My collection of recipes was obtained from several family tribunals on both sides of our family dating back to the grandparents. Mom's tired & old Betty Crocker loose leaf (binder) cookbook became too cumbersome for collection of recipes she had written down through the ages. She decided to compose/transcribe all her tribunal recipes onto 3" x 5" index cards. Reason? Dad (who worked for AT&T/Illinois Bell) had access to the many pieces of furniture AT&T/Illinois Bell/Bell Labs/Lucent, etc. needed to dispose of when new furniture replaced older furniture. One day he brought home this solid oak index card cabinet for Mom. Mom was in hog heaven - it became the recipe safe. I was pretty fascinated w/ cooking, baking, etc. from an early age - vigilantly watching Mom cooking/baking. And, the recipes weren't limited to cooking & baking. Lots of recipes for canning, pressure cooking, & making various beers & wines - many (most) from scratch dandelion wines, various berry wines, malts, hops, etc. We had a huge 1/2 acre (war) garden. Not uncommon for us to have 40 - 50 tomato plants of various varieties. Some weekends you could find between 3-4 pressure cookers on the stove intermittently trading places with metal/enamel pots boiling water sterilizing several cases of Bell Mason Jars. Not uncommon for our family to have 30 - 40 quarts jars of tomatoes downstairs in the finished basement. We purchased all our meat products from Mom's brothers who owned farms in Wisconsin - two 16 cubic ft freezers in the basement were jammed with swine & bovine products. I recall the 1st year Mom began canning meat - I thought WTH? Yep, recipes for canning meat. Her brothers (owning farms) also supplied us w/ some tasty venison - it's basically like 'farmer's choice' when you own a farm. Marinated/Canned venison makes some really, really tasty homemade chili.

I had a toy baking oven & stove when I was a pup. Then came the chemistry set. Did you ever have one of those toy/kid baking ovens & stoves?

 

Hooking up this flat-screen Smart TV I reviewed several of the 'marketing' (sales) features. One which caught my eye was 'dts-x'. I was never a big fan of recording in Dolby - any generation or Dolby format - lost a great deal of good sound quality, IMO. Like John, I've been somewhat of an audiophile for many years. So, this dts-x is a novel approach to audio. It's basically similarly aligned w/ Dolby Atmos. What separates Dolby Atmos & dts-x recording/playback technologies from other technologies is the use of those two technologies in the surround sound playback arena/theater. These new surround sound (arena/theater) systems e.g. surround sound Dolby 9.2.4 & dts-x have speakers mounted in the ceiling (in addition to other locations if you like). But, the sound is supposed to be exquisite when viewing playback of an overhead helicopter, airplane, missile, water fall, birds, etc. (nature) and any other sources of sound. That's just insane - well sorta. My gawd we're up to surround sound 9.2 & 9.2.4 with Dolby Atmos & dts-x. Soon they'll be placing speakers in the flooring. These newer surround sound systems are all designed in a 3D array along an x,y,z axis focal point. No more basic front, rear, center, left, right recording & playback. It's more like physical engineering for surround sound.

 

WTH! It's 2:45 am. I'm like that commercial "I made the donuts".

 

Anybody remember the dish soap commercial with the "professional dishwasher" ? He had a missing tooth and said something like "Us professional dishwashers recommend Joy " (or whatever brand it was). There was a bunch of soap suds and he was in a white apron. I'm gonna say late 60's- early 70's. We were out w/friends and they were talking about the old ad where Madge the beauty shop operator. had her customers soak their fingers in a dish detergent but no one else could remember the "professional dishwasher". I also think about Alka Seltzer ads- belly of cement hammer operator bouncing, and of course- "pop pop fizz fizz...."

 

That was Ajax. Squeeky clean!

Madge. Who the hell just walks into a place and puts their hands in a dish of green goo.

 

Okay good morning everyone.

Why are we back at the grind? Do we feel as though we are being ground into the dirt or do we have a perpetual axe to grind with our jobs? It's been a pretty good morning so far. I haven't had very much work but I've talked a lot. Three people brought donuts. I've about had it with donuts.

Mom has discovered Stouffer's lasagna. She says it's so easy and she likes it. It is good but it's not hers. Once in a while she'll make lasagna and that's the one I really like. She used to bake up a storm around Christmas but not so much anymore. Makes me sad.

John where are you traveling to? For work? Are you bringing all your leftovers with you? It gets tiresome eating in restaurants for every meal when you're on the road. When I'm in Australia at the car show we always get the big room with the kitchenette and we go to the store and buy food and prepare regular meals. Way better and less expensive. Plus my friend is an excellent cook and she enjoys it.

Short week for me. I'm off Friday and going to my friends' in Alabama for the weekend. Should be a good time.

Okay it's breaktime, don't want to miss that. Hope everyone has a good day.

 

Norm - I never had an "Easy Bake" oven or stove, but I know my Sister had a couple different ones. I did have a chemistry set, and a mineral/rock tumbler/polisher.

Greg - Madge was the spokesperson for the green Palmolive dishwasher liquid. I don't remember the dishwasher guy commercial. In addition to the Dunkin Donuts commercial Norm already mentioned, a couple that stand out in my mind are Mr. Whipple for Charmin bathroom tissue, and of course the Maytag Repairman.

 

Madge was played by Jan Miner. If you watch this commercial note the cuckoo clock. Dad's Mom had an original cuckoo clock from Germany which was 100% functional. It rang a bell every single hour (w/ the appropriate number of rings), the door opened, the bird came out and went "cuckoo". As a kid I found that clock fascinating. Us kids slept on the pull out living room davenport & the clock was mounted on the wall directly above the davenport. Oh my, the memories.

 

I, as a kid, threw a ball in the house once, hit a stupid weaving, and it knocked a cuckoo clock off the wall. It was fine, but my dad decided I did it on purpose and was a violent ******* about it. One reason I don't have kids is that I am not sure I would be a better parent than he was, but I know I'd certainly need to be.

I'll probably end up with the clock. It does the whole door, bird, cluck, and a little reel of Swiss girls dancing to music. He has another clock I prefer, it does your choice of three sets of chimes, on the quarter hour, and then bongs for the hour itself after the full chimes. Westminster Abbey is one of them, and I can't recall the others, probably Canterbury Cathedral (pre-female archbishop and graffiti) and maybe the Tower of London.

 

Hi guys,

Norm - Cuckoo clocks are very cool! I like Grandfather clocks also. Many, many years ago, probably close to 40-yrs, my Mom found some kind of very good deal on Howard Miller Grandfather clocks and bought each of us kids one for Christmas. Mine's in our entry foyer.

So, I went out today to check Winter pressure in my truck tires and for the 1st time noticed some very fine weathering cracks in the sidewalls. The truck gets driven so seldom anymore I lost track of how old they were, especially since there is a ton of tread left on them, Goodyear Wrangler LT265/70R/17's. Got in my records and discovered I had put them on way way back in 2014, YIKES! I immediately got online and started looking for tires. I went to the Discount Tire site first to see what they had and they had a Mohave tire that I liked in my size called the Mohave Highway Terrain which is designed to be more of a road tire than an offroad tire. I was so pleased with my last Discount Tire purchase and installation that I went ahead and ordered them. All 4 tires installed including all fees and taxes totaled $604. No more than the truck is driven they should be fine. I'm having them installed this coming Monday the 15th. Not any fun racking up these tire expenditures right at Christmas and Tax seasons, but ya got to be able to get around and be safe while doing it!

Hope everyone is having a great day! 😃

 

Tis the season to be jolly...spend those green backs, baby.

 

Mike, home for Christmas. Leftovers will be eaten or frozen.

 

I'm doing a hell of a good job of it the last few days!

 

 

Yum! 😋

 

In the span of about 3 metal albums (I hooked my phone to a convenient old shitbox boombox there) I changed oil on the truck, then dropped the spare, put one of the 5 new tires on a road rim there, and jacked up and replaced the 4 drive tires with newly mounted ones on my other set of rims. I then cleaned up and got my Monte Carlo off blocks because the brake job won't be for a couple months at least, then went home.

I didn't check to see if I had the oil filter wrench (it came off by hand with a lot of heave) or the 20mm socket for the lugs. I used the car's own wrench and my spinner, then torqued manually with the jack's wrench. Came home, found a socket, and saw I was maybe 5 ft lbs under the 83 I set the wrench to, which means I am calibrated for old GM cars with their jack handle wrenches to hit 75 ft lbs pretty close by hand. Good.

The old Michelins had 80k and 8 years on them. Never rotated them. I could tell the difference between front and back, but it wasn't too bad. My plan is, since the "spare" is now a road wheel too, to rotate every 10k (yearly) and use up the 5th tire, too. Car has 310k on it now, I am not sure how many more tire sets I should reasonably expect to go through. Accessories are starting to die off, but the engine, trans, and rear are sound.

 

John - Nice work.

I was lucky if I could squeak 15K - 20K miles from a set of Goodyear red line bias ply tires on my '67 4-4-2 back in 1969-1972.

I'm in limbo w/ the new flat-screen Smart T.V. component reassembly hookups. CD & tape deck are piping through the amplifier & 5.1 surround sound - DVD & T.V. not so much. I have DVD & T.V. video but no audio from either DVD or T.V. A little more diagnostics this morning.

 

Still muddling through the hodge-podge of wires. Well, it isn't necessarily a hodge-podge, so-to-speak. There is logic being applied. The issue(s) is/are identifying the correct wire for each component as it pertains to both audio & video input/output. The challenge is employing high-quality "legacy" components w/ a new technology component (flat-screen Smart T.V.). It appears I have the audio sector component wiring setup correctly, it's now the video interface between the T.V., the DVD & the AVR (Audio Video Receiver). Brain is like a marshmallow at times.

 

x2

 

Norm - Good luck Norm! Better you than me, at least you have the knowledge/skill set to figure it out. I feel very fortunate that both my surround sound systems are Bluetooth'ed directly from the Smart TV with no wiring whatsoever to any of the speakers!

 

John, hell of a recipe list, and Michelin's are a great tire. Norm, I want to get ceiling speakers from Klipsch, but they don't list a price on their site, and want you to set them up with a certified installer. Not needed. It will be just a 5.1 system. Chris, that's cheap for a set of tires. I remember when Alka Seltzer was a stop action type of advertising with the character being an Alka Seltzer tablet. If I recall correctly, back then it was a two piece tablet.

 

 

Dan - Yes, the sets for both the Santa Fe and the truck were cheap. Those Mohave tires are cheap, I just hope they wear decently. I'm more worried about them on the Hyundai than the truck because we drive the Hyundai 95% if the time. I doubt we put 500-miles on the truck last year. The tires on the truck will wear out from age and just sitting out in the weather before they ever do from mileage.

 

Dan - Are you trying to drive me insane!?

EDIT: Never mind. When I clicked on the link it took me to some very far & creepy bunch of B.S. video. I tried it again & I see now it's the Alka Seltzer commercial - that was really weird.

 

Chris - I should be so lucky to have all my components be Bluetooth.

I'm getting closer. It isn't so much simply the component, it's how each function is configured on my Audio Video Receiver (AVR).

LOL I began to compose a sentence in an attempt to explain what's going on (or isn't). Forget that $hit.

 

Good call, I probably wouldn't have understood it anyway, although John probably would have enjoyed it! 😉

 

Major college coaching job has just become available...

 

x2 I had rather hand Christmas tree lights

 

Flat screen Smart T.V. cable integration into the A/V component array complete. Need to disassemble some cabling, reassemble some components inside the armoire, reassemble the cabling, zip tie the cabling, move the armoire back against the wall then move the ancient CRT T.V. out the front door. I'll use a hand dolly for moving the old T.V. It's awkward & weighs ~90 lbs. Picture quality is like comparing apples to oranges - it's awesome. All audio signal is digital. Video cable remains analog yet still an unbelievable increase in quality over the previous CRT T.V. I'll likely pick up an analog>digital converter for the video cable in the near future.

 

The Sherrone Moore case is becoming more puzzling. I get the firing/termination with cause as it pertains to U-M policy; but, then he gets arrested for supposed assault in a separate incident? Not sure how those two events are related &/or if they're related. U-M has some turmoil.

 

[QUOTE=Vintage Chief;1661742]
Flat screen Smart T.V. cable integration into the A/V component array complete.
QUOTE]

👍 on the integration of the new TV into A/V component.

I understand Moore's firing due to cause is a result of an inappropriate relationship with a Staff Member, but I haven't seen the info about an arrest yet. I'll have to look for that! Yes, their Football program certainly is in hot water for sure! I think their Basketball team is ranked #2 right now and their Hockey team is ranked #1 with no allegations of impropriety against those programs. I'm not going to throw the baby out with the bath water yet.

 

Sherrone Moore arrested amid assault probe after Michigan firing

Peculiar/Interesting timing of the arrest:

 

Looks as though this entire sordid affair w/ Moore is going to drag on for quite some time relative to news room & media highlights. It's likely his wife (Keli) has departed the house w/ their kids? I can't imagine she'd hang around. Oh, BTW, he was arrested under the suspicion of assaulting the woman he was having the affair with. Like Mark Sanchez - a couple of douche-nozzles. Nice to toss your marriage to hell as well as your overly paid A$$-WIPE salary. Good bye.

 

Agree 100% He's a real scum bag! I hope he gets everything he deserves!

 

Widow of my neighbor whom I purchased my home from (2001 - his [George's] parents owned the home) called to invite me to their Christmas brunch Dec. 20th @ 1 pm. I just attended their Thanksgiving dinner. Sooooo...nice of them to think of me each year.