DIY recipes for the pantry: Barbecue sauce

By Peggy | September 11, 2013 |

Oh, Aunt Regina. You had me at Southern Comfort.

BarbecueSauce

 

 

Barbecue Sauce

1/2 cup peanut oil
3 onions, chopped
1 cup bell pepper, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped

Stir.

1 cup fresh parsley, chopped

Stir.

2 tablespoons garlic

Stir.

3 cups steak sauce
3 cups ketchup

Stir.

1 cup Southern Comfort

Cook two to three hours.

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Remembering a visit to the E.R.

By Peggy | September 10, 2013 |

Researchers have come out with a protocol for emergency room personnel who find themselves caring for a person with autism. I’m glad to see this.

In January 2009, I took Sam to the emergency room in the middle of the night.

He got a bladder infection. He came home from the first day of competition at Chisholm Challenge and was passing blood, which alarmed him. I told him we’d skip the second day of competition and see a doctor in first thing in the morning. But, he woke me up at 2 a.m., shaking uncontrollably and a little panicked.

Even though he’d just turned 21, the pediatrician was still his primary care doctor. So I phoned the nurse on call. Because he was exhibiting signs of shock, she told me to take him in. By the time we got there, he had stopped shuddering, but his urine sample was brown.

We’d gone to Baylor-Grapevine, which was a fairly new hospital at the time. He was already familiar with it because an occupational therapist working out of the rehab center there helped teach him to drive. (Big shout out to Cathy.)

I remained concerned. Would it be filled with people? Would the sounds of arriving ambulances distress him? I was worried most about the staff. Would they be brusk and stand-offish? Would he be hustled around? I didn’t have time to prep them the way I had prepped the many other doctors, dentists and health care givers in his life.

With the first interaction, I saw the lightbulb go off in the ER nurse’s head. She immediately adapted. And everyone who followed after her knew to take their time, be calm and explain each step.

We were lucky, too, that it was a quiet night. The visit wasn’t much different from one at a doctor’s office, except for reams more paperwork and the occasional paramedic tromping down the hallway.

Here’s what the research recommends and what I noticed the folks at Baylor-Grapevine already knew to do:

·       Usher patients to a quiet, more dimly-lit room with less equipment

·       Avoid multistep questions and stick to questions that require only a “yes” or “no” answer

·       Communicate with the care giver or family member, if one accompanies the patient, to get an effective medical history

·       Keep voice calm and minimize words and touch

·       Let patients see and touch the instruments and materials that will be placed on their bodies

·       Use a warm blanket to calm a patient down and administer mild doses of medication rather than physical restraints to quiet a patient

 

Posted in health, Uncategorized

DIY recipes for the pantry: Hot sauce

By Peggy | September 1, 2013 |

I spent the day today with Mark’s Aunt Regina and his stepmom, Patti, at Regina’s house outside Kilgore. Patti had been telling me that the cookbook and recipe collection stuffed in the cupboard above Regina’s refrigerator was a treasure, and she was right.

We set aside two accordion files to go through today, hunting specifically for things Regina, or her mother (that would be my children’s great-grandmother), or Patti had written down. I ended up capturing more than 240 images this afternoon. And occasionally taking notes.

Sometimes Regina just had a list of ingredients and the barest of instructions. We talked through it all, to make sure we knew what we were hanging on to and what we were tossing.

I noticed, as I’ve often seen with older recipes, that most of them were quite simple. Regina clipped and saved a lot of recipes, but you could tell by the splatters which ones she used. Patti asked about one that had long instructions. “Did you make this?” she asked. “Oh, no!” Regina said. “When it takes two pages of instructions, no, I didn’t make it.”

I was the most excited to see some of her DIY recipes — salami and ravioli and brisket and hot sauce (below) and sweetened, condensed milk, “for those times when you can’t find it,” Regina said. There’s never been a time that there wasn’t sweetened condensed milk, even the nonfat variety, at the store when I wanted it for a recipe. But Regina is 91, with a life experience that transcends the Great Depression and several wars. That just gave me pause, thinking how much life can change.

We’ll start with the hot sauce. “It’s hot. You have to use gloves,” Regina says.

HotSauce

Hot Sauce

12 red peppers
12 green peppers
12 onions
Grind peppers and onions. Cover with boiling water and let set 5 minutes. Drain.

2 cup sugar
2 cup vinegar
3 tablespoons salt
Combine sugar, vinegar and salt. Boil until sugar melts. Add peppers and onions. Cook 5 minutes.

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Making your own way: Baked Oatmeal

By Peggy | August 27, 2013 |

I’ve racked up a lot of miles traveling to Iowa City and back the past two years. One small thing that’s always made it more pleasant was knowing at the end of the trip was a house on the hill with a comfy bed and fluffy towels and, in the morning, super-smooth coffee and an exceptionally good breakfast.

The house has the tiniest driveway I’ve ever had to maneuver my pickup into. I never would get there before sundown, but that was ok, because Ray and Shirley installed a motion-sensitive light to help out. The squeeze was totally worth it for another reason: the house was only a few blocks, walking distance, from the dorms where Paige lived at the University of Iowa for the past two years.

Mission House - Iowa City

Mission House – Iowa City

This year, we arrived for the fall semester with a new project: moving Paige into her first apartment. The morning of, I laced up the shoes and went for a morning run along the river, another pleasant part of the routine, and returned to see something I hadn’t noticed the night before. A big “for sale” sign in the front yard.

Bummer. Even innkeepers need to retire.

I’m glad I picked up their recipe book, so if I get a hankering for the way Shirley made eggs (they were never just eggs), I can do it on my own.

What was likely our last stay, though, she made baked oatmeal to accommodate a guest with dietary restrictions. I asked her to send the recipe to me, since it wasn’t in the cookbook, and then promptly adapted it to what I had in the house. It turned out terrific.

Baked Oatmeal

1 cup hazelnuts

1 cup Irish, steel-cut oats

1 large egg

1 cup fresh figs, cut bite-sized (you can substitute apples and raisins)

1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup canola oil

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

Toast hazelnuts in a 350 oven for 10-15 minutes until brown, wrap in kitchen towel to cool, rub skins off and set aside.

Bring 4 cups of water to boil, add oats and cook until soft, about 30 minutes. Let cool about 10 minutes. Combine egg, brown sugar, milk, oil, baking power, salt and cinnamon; fold in figs and then stir into oats. Spoon mixture into a greased loaf pan, cover and refrigerate overnight.

Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes before baking. Preheat oven to 350 and then bake the loaf 50-60 minutes until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Cut into squares, top with a handful of hazelnuts and serve with a small amount of milk poured over the top.

 

 

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