RDJ– Carrot-Oatmeal-Pecan Snack Cookies, 09-08-14

 

 

_______________________________________
Volume 17 Number 99

RECIPE DU JOUR
Simply the BEST daily recipe E-zine on the Web!
Delicious recipes delivered daily via blog/email.
Recipes, columns, and nostalgia.
Archives are at http://lists.topica.com/lists/rdj/read

To subscribe: Go to https://rdjour.wordpress.com/
and if you wish to receive email notice when new issues
are posted, click on the FOLLOW US VIA EMAIL box
(on the right side), and type in your email address.
_______________________________________

Carrot-Oatmeal-Pecan Snack Cookies

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup butter, softened
6 ounces reduced-fat cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 cups firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup egg substitute
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups uncooked regular oats
3/4 cup dried cherries
2 grated carrots
Vegetable cooking spray
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350F. Combine flour, pumpkin pie spice, salt, and baking soda.

Beat butter, cream cheese, and sugar at medium speed with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add egg substitute and vanilla, beating until blended. Gradually add flour mixture, beating at low speed just until blended. Stir in oats, dried cherries, and grated carrot.

Drop dough by rounded tablespoonsful onto baking sheets coated with cooking spray; gently flatten dough into circles. Sprinkle about 1/2 tsp. chopped pecans onto each dough circle, gently pressing into dough.

Bake, in batches, at 350F for 13 to 14 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in centers comes out clean. Remove cookies from baking sheets to wire racks, and let cool 10 minutes. Makes 48 cookies.

. . .
Nutritional Information
Amount per serving
Calories: 99 Calories from fat: 0.0% Fat: 2.7g Saturated fat: 1.3g Monounsaturated fat: 0.9g Polyunsaturated fat: 0.5g Protein: 2.1g Carbohydrate: 16.1g Fiber: 1g Cholesterol: 5mg Iron: 0.7mg Sodium: 70mg Calcium: 18mg
_______________________________________

AT THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
By Walter Mills

The Torrents of Youth

We drove through a storm that was like a precursor of our future under climate change on our way to deliver our older daughter to her new apartment in Boston. Somewhere on a highway in Connecticut, the skies opened up and lightning split the clouds. Torrents of rain followed us into Massachusetts.

The next morning we discovered that a tornado had touched down a few miles from where we had spent the night. Strange weather, but we can expect more of it in years to come the climate experts tell us. The weathercaster called for intermittent showers and temperatures in the high 80s on Labor Day, when we, along with a hundred thousand students and their parents, would converge on Boston for the city-wide move-in day.

The streets of the city were clogged with double-parked moving vans as we circled the neighborhood near Boston College looking for a place to park our overloaded rental pickup truck. Lucking into a spot less than a block from the apartment building on busy Commonwealth Avenue, we waited while the real estate agent showed up with the keys to the apartment, which our daughter would be sharing with two other Simmons College graduate students on the second floor of an attractive prewar brownstone.

We unloaded the truck for the next ninety minutes, making a few dozen trips down the street and up the stairs, jostled by movers and joggers, past Boston cops standing around welcoming new students and warning them about the perils of underage drinking while generally standing in everyone’s way. I was on the verge of heatstroke, my t-shirt as soaked as if it had been pouring rain, when the second roommate arrived with her mother, and we did it again.

When it was finished, I lay on the floor of my daughter’s large, high-ceilinged bedroom with a fan blowing across my limp body while the women unpacked and chatted in the other rooms. I thought about college and what it was like to be young and doing everything for the first time, the excitement of it and the anxiety. I remembered how it felt in the long ago days when I was I was a young student in Norfolk, Va., going to classes and hanging out at Ward’s coffee shop across the street from Old Dominion University with my friend Tim or drinking the thin brew you could legally drink if you were 18 in Virginia in the dark era of the Vietnam War.

Those days I heard from my parents in Florida once a month or so in a letter or an expensive long distance call. The technology boom that would put computers and instant messages in everyone’s pocket was still decades away. But I heard its first ticking on a new machine perched on the counter in Ward’s coffee shop in the form of a video game called Pong – a black screen, a white ball bouncing between two thin white lines that moved with a knob on each side of the machine. Students, like Tim, lined up to play it. I scoffed and read the English poets.

And then the war was always with us, a storm on the far side of the world that pulled us toward it while we held on by our fingertips and a thin piece of cardboard in our wallet called the 2-S student deferment. The excitement and the anxiety of it is read on my daughters’ faces and in their texts, heard in their phone calls, and in the other rooms, where the women come and go. I lie among unpacked boxes while the fan blows me away.

. . .
Read more of Walt’s writing at his blog:
http://americanimpressionist.wordpress.com/

(The above column is copyright © 2014 by Walter Mills. All rights reserved worldwide. To contact Walt, address your emails to awmills@verizon.net ).
_______________________________________

Do You Remember?

LES BICYCLETTES DE BELSIZE
Engelbert Humperdinck 1968

Turning and turning
The world goes on.
We can’t change it, my friend.
Let us go riding all through the days,
Together to the end, to the end.

Les bicyclettes de Belsize
Carry us side by side
And hand in hand we will ride,
Over Belsize.
Turn your magical eyes.
Round and around,
Looking at all we found.
Carry us through the skies,
Les bicyclettes de Belsize.

Spinning and spinning,
The dreams I know,
Rolling on through my head.
Let us enjoy them, before they go.
Come the dawn, they all are dead.
Yes, they’re dead.

Les bicyclettes de Belsize
Carry us side by side
And hand in hand we will ride
Over Belsize.
Turn your magical eyes.
Round and around,
Lookin’ at all we found.
Carry us through the skies,
Les bicyclettes de Belsize.
_______________________________________
_______________________________________

Recipe du Jour is made possible only by donations from good neighbors like you. If you enjoy receiving RDJ, please support us by sending a check payable to “Richard Rowand” for any amount to: Richard Rowand, PO Box 3385, Leesburg, VA 20177. Or use PAYPAL ( http://www.paypal.com ) and donate (via your account or their secure credit card site) directly thru Rich’s email address ( rich@recipedujour.com ). Thank you.
_______________________________________

Good Neighbor Recipes appears every Friday. To submit your recipe to Recipe du Jour’s Good Neighbor Recipes, simply send it via email to rrowand@gmail.com Use “GNR” and the title of your recipe as the subject; and you must include your email address in the text in case other readers have questions. Feel free to include some words about yourself or the recipe (please keep it short). Look at the format we use when we present our recipes and try to be similar. Do not submit recipes in “bulleted” or 2 column format. Be sure to be specific in your measurements (don’t just say “a small can” of something, give the amount). One recipe per email, please. We reserve the right not to print everything we receive. By submitting to Good Neighbor Recipes, you give us permission to publish your submission in our daily ezine and in any other format, such as a printed collection, without recompense now or in the future. WARNING: If you don’t follow the guidelines above, we won’t be able to use your recipe!

The nutritional analysis given with some recipes is intended as a guide only.

Recipe du Jour is strictly an opt-in service. We do not sell, lease, loan, or give our subscribers’ addresses to anyone for any reason. Our features are intended as entertainment only.

.

Read Full Post »

RDJ– Fruit Medley with Mint and Lime, 08-12-14

 

 

_______________________________________
Volume 17 Number 96

RECIPE DU JOUR
Simply the BEST daily recipe E-zine on the Web!
Delicious recipes delivered daily via blog/email.
Recipes, columns, and nostalgia.
Archives are at http://lists.topica.com/lists/rdj/read

To subscribe: Go to https://rdjour.wordpress.com/
and if you wish to receive email notice when new issues
are posted, click on the FOLLOW US VIA EMAIL box
(on the right side), and type in your email address.
_______________________________________

Fruit Medley with Mint and Lime

1 cup seedless green grapes, halved
1 cup seedless red grapes, halved
3 plums, cut into 1/2-inch-thick wedges
2 peaches, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch-thick wedges
2 nectarines, cut into 1/2-inch-thick wedges
2 limes
1 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
6 mint sprigs
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon grated lime rind
Mint sprigs (optional)

Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; cover and chill.

Carefully remove 6 (2-inch) strips of rind from limes using a vegetable peeler, making sure to avoid the white pithy part of the rind. Combine lime strips, water, sugar, and 6 mint sprigs in a small saucepan; bring to a boil. Cook until reduced to 1/2 cup (about 5 minutes). Discard lime strips and mint sprigs; cool. Stir in chopped mint, juice, and grated rind. Pour over fruit, tossing gently to coat. Garnish with additional mint sprigs, if desired. Makes 6 servings.

. . .
Nutritional Information
Amount per serving
Calories: 122
Calories from fat: 4%
Fat: 0.5g
Saturated fat: 0.1g
Monounsaturated fat: 0.2g
Polyunsaturated fat: 0.2g
Protein: 1.5g
Carbohydrate: 30.6g
Fiber: 1.9g
Cholesterol: 0.0mg
Iron: 0.7mg
Sodium: 2mg
Calcium: 17mg
_______________________________________

TAKE TWO
By Walt Mills

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy

Up the street was the hole-in-the wall comedy club called The Holy City Zoo where it was common for him to drop in unannounced toward closing and try out some new material. I used to go there now and then, hoping to see him, but I never got that lucky.

San Francisco in those days seemed like a small town, neighborhoods like little villages. Everything was right there within a short walk: bars and restaurants, bookstores and mom and pop groceries, movie houses and coffee shops. When I moved from Clement Street, across the Golden Gate Park to the inner Sunset District, it was much the same. Now instead of Zhivago’s and the Holy City Zoo, there was the Owl and Monkey Café, with music on Friday nights and the paintings of local artists encircling the large room with its funky wooden tables.

It was at one of those tables, sitting all on his own, that I saw the short, barrel-chested man with the large hairy forearms and mobile face. He was drinking coffee and was he reading a book? I don’t recall. It was before laptops and cell phones, so whatever he was doing he was completely there. I glanced his way a time or two but didn’t make eye contact. I recall that he sat there for a half an hour or so, and nobody came up to him. Everyone just let him alone, even though by this time he was famous for his manic comedy routines and that show where he played an innocent alien.

It was a couple of years later, and I was out on the Marina Green near the San Francisco Bay. I had ridden my bike there to get some sun, along with a few hundred others. Robin Williams and a dark haired, pretty woman holding a baby were walking a dog on the Green, and he would stop every few feet and carry on an animated conversation with the sun worshipers. He passed nearby, still talking, and he seemed happy enough. But who knows?

Running across someone with his talent and fame gave the city glamor beyond what it already naturally possessed. It was like bumping into Hemingway at a café in Paris when he was working well and before the legend changed him. I don’t know that Robin Williams ever succumbed to the curse of fame, but something dark must have hung around him like it did with Hemingway. Something that made them decide they had had enough.

Dylan Thomas, the great, doomed Welsh poet, talked about true poetry as being like a well. He would dip far down into the well of poetry to bring up a single true line or verse. Out of these descents into the depth of his unconscious, he would fashion the sounds and images of his genius. But the well ran dry and poetry became hard. His great poems lay behind him.

Maybe Robin Williams felt his manic energy fading. Some artists use themselves up in their art. Some use their art as a defense against their dread. A few go along happily and lead long and peaceful lives. I don’t know anything about him except that he lived in the same city as me at a time when we were both young, and that it was a more interesting place to have him in it.
. . .
Read more of Walt’s writing at his blog:
http://americanimpressionist.wordpress.com/

(The above column is copyright © 2014 by Walter Mills. All rights reserved worldwide. To contact Walt, address your emails to awmills@verizon.net ).
_______________________________________

Link of the Day:

There are plenty of diet sites out there, most of which will try to fit you into a pre-packaged program. Here’s a site that helps you build a diet based on your own specific needs, will generate a diet plan for you based on the number of calories you want to eat and the number of meals you want to eat them in.

Not sure how many calories you’ll need? Use its handy calculator. Sign in with a free account and you can also build your own diet meal by meal, food item by food item, and then save it as well as generate a list for grocery shopping. It can also generate diets using preset modes from some popular diets, such as Atkins and Zone.

http://swole.me/

from Wendy
_______________________________________

Do You Remember?

A Day In The Life
The Beatles

I read the news today, oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well I just had to laugh
I saw the photograph.

He blew his mind out in a car
He didn’t notice that the lights had changed
A crowd of people stood and stared
They’d seen his face before
Nobody was really sure
If he was from the House of Lords.

I saw a film today, oh boy
The English army had just won the war
A crowd of people turned away
But I just had to look
Having read the book
I’d love to turn you on.

Woke up, fell out of bed,
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup,
And looking up I noticed I was late.

Found my coat and grabbed my hat
Made the bus in seconds flat
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke,
Somebody spoke and I went into a dream.

I read the news today oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancastershire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.
I’d love to turn you on.
_______________________________________
_______________________________________

Recipe du Jour is made possible only by donations from good neighbors like you. If you enjoy receiving RDJ, please support us by sending a check payable to “Richard Rowand” for any amount to: Richard Rowand, PO Box 3385, Leesburg, VA 20177. Or use PAYPAL ( http://www.paypal.com ) and donate (via your account or their secure credit card site) directly thru Rich’s email address ( rich@recipedujour.com ). Thank you.
_______________________________________

Good Neighbor Recipes appears most Fridays. To submit your recipe to Recipe du Jour’s Good Neighbor Recipes, simply send it via email to rrowand@gmail.com Use “GNR” and the title of your recipe as the subject; and you must include your email address in the text in case other readers have questions. Feel free to include some words about yourself or the recipe (please keep it short). Look at the format we use when we present our recipes and try to be similar. Do not submit recipes in “bulleted” or 2 column format. Be sure to be specific in your measurements (don’t just say “a small can” of something, give the amount). One recipe per email, please. We reserve the right not to print everything we receive. By submitting to Good Neighbor Recipes, you give us permission to publish your submission in our daily ezine and in any other format, such as a printed collection, without recompense now or in the future. WARNING: If you don’t follow the guidelines above, we won’t be able to use your recipe!

The nutritional analysis given with some recipes is intended as a guide only.

Recipe du Jour is strictly an opt-in service. We do not sell, lease, loan, or give our subscribers’ addresses to anyone for any reason. Our features are intended as entertainment only.

.

Read Full Post »

RDJ– Uptown Figs, 08-03-14

 

_______________________________________
Volume 17 Number 94

RECIPE DU JOUR
Simply the BEST daily recipe E-zine on the Web!
Recipes, columns, and nostalgia.
Archives are at http://lists.topica.com/lists/rdj/read

To subscribe: Go to https://rdjour.wordpress.com/
and if you wish to receive email notice when new issues
are posted, click on the FOLLOW US VIA EMAIL box
(on the right side), and type in your email address.
_______________________________________

Uptown Figs

24 dried figs
1 (3-oz.) package softened cream cheese
2 teaspoons powdered sugar
2 teaspoons orange liqueur
24 roasted, salted almonds

Cut a slit in large side of 24 dried figs, cutting to, but not through, stem end. Stir together 1 (3-oz.) package softened cream cheese, 2 tsp. powdered sugar, and 2 tsp. orange liqueur; fill each fig evenly with cream cheese mixture and 1 roasted, salted almond. Press figs to secure filling. Makes 24 servings.

*You can make this recipe ahead of time and store the figs in the refrigerator. Before serving, let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes.

. . .
nutritional info not available)
_______________________________________

AT THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
By Walter Mills

Ancient Churches of England

If there was an unintentional theme to our stay in England, then it must have been those ancient churches. We think of our own little church at home being old because it was built in the late 19th century, but these churches keep the record of their succession of pastors and their years of service that date back to the Middle Ages. One morning, we walked to the tiny village of Morland, a mile or two away from the cottage where we were staying, and visited the chapel with its Saxon tower and walked among the cemetery stones for an hour. Then we took the long, long way home through the beautiful Eden Valley, lost for a few hours between Great and Little Strickland west of the River Leith and looked down upon by the Cumbrian mountains.

Then there was Dove Cottage, where Wordsworth lived with his wife Mary and their children and sister Dorothy, all of whom are buried in the graveyard of St. Alban’s Church in Grasmere. We visited the cottage and the graveyard, and walked the shoreline of the lake that Wordsworth could view as he sat by his window composing the poems I once knew by heart.

Then on our way to London, we stopped at Haworth, a small town on the Yorkshire moors, where the Bronte sisters, Charlotte and Emily, are buried in the church next to the family pew. This burying of people below the church floor was common across England, though it seems strange to us here. In the great church of Westminster Abbey in London, I got a shiver as I looked at the floor where I was standing and saw that the bones of Isaac Newton were buried beneath me.

We toured St Paul’s Cathedral on Ludgate Hill with its splendid views of the City of London, if you are willing to climb hundreds of narrow steps to its dome. We stood at the windswept railing and looked at a thousand years of history spread out like a postcard and never wanted to leave.

. . .
Read more of Walt’s writing at his blog:
http://americanimpressionist.wordpress.com/

(The above column originally appeared in the Centre Daily Times and is copyright © 2014 by Walter Mills. All rights reserved worldwide. To contact Walt, address your emails to awmills@verizon.net ).
_______________________________________
_______________________________________

Recipe du Jour is made possible only by donations from good neighbors like you. If you enjoy receiving RDJ, please support us by sending a check payable to “Richard Rowand” for any amount to: Richard Rowand, PO Box 3385, Leesburg, VA 20177. Or use PAYPAL ( http://www.paypal.com ) and donate (via your account or their secure credit card site) directly thru Rich’s email address ( rich@recipedujour.com ). Thank you.
_______________________________________

Good Neighbor Recipes appears every Friday. To submit your recipe to Recipe du Jour’s Good Neighbor Recipes, simply send it via email rrowand@gmail.com Use “GNR” and the title of your recipe as the subject; and you must include your email address in the text in case other readers have questions. Feel free to include some words about yourself or the recipe (please keep it short). Look at the format we use when we present our recipes and try to be similar. Do not submit recipes in “bulleted” or 2 column format. Be sure to be specific in your measurements (don’t just say “a small can” of something, give the amount). One recipe per email, please. We reserve the right not to print everything we receive. By submitting to Good Neighbor Recipes, you give us permission to publish your submission in our daily ezine and in any other format, such as a printed collection, without recompense now or in the future. WARNING: If you don’t follow the guidelines above, we won’t be able to use your recipe!

Please tell others about the unique experience of Recipe du Jour.

The nutritional analysis given with some recipes is intended as a guide only.

Recipe du Jour is strictly an opt-in service. We do not sell, lease, loan, or give our subscribers’ addresses to anyone for any reason. Our features are intended as entertainment only.

.

Read Full Post »

RDJ– Coconut Tapioca Custard w/Glazed Apricots, 07-19-14

 

_______________________________________
Volume 17 Number 93

RECIPE DU JOUR
Simply the BEST daily recipe E-zine on the Web!
Recipes, columns, and nostalgia.
Archives are at http://lists.topica.com/lists/rdj/read

To subscribe: Go to https://rdjour.wordpress.com/
and if you wish to receive email notice when new issues
are posted, click on the FOLLOW US VIA EMAIL box
(on the right side), and type in your email address.
_______________________________________

Coconut Tapioca Custard w/Glazed Apricots

Custard:
2 1/4 cups whole milk
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup uncooked quick-cooking tapioca
1 teaspoon salt
2 (14-ounce) cans light coconut milk
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons white rum
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon coconut extract

Apricots:
3/4 cup apricot preserves
2 tablespoons white rum
1 tablespoon water
1/4 teaspoon salt
10 apricots, each cut into 4 wedges

To prepare custard, combine first 6 ingredients in a medium saucepan, stirring with a whisk. Let stand 5 minutes. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Cook for 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Stir in 2 tablespoons rum and extracts, and pour the mixture into a large bowl. Cover and chill 2 hours.

To prepare the apricots, combine the preserves and remaining ingredients in a medium skillet; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer for 5 minutes or until the apricots are soft, stirring occasionally. Serve over custard. Makes 10 servings.

. . .
Nutritional Information
Amount per serving
Calories: 289
Calories from fat: 22%
Fat: 7g
Saturated fat: 4g
Monounsaturated fat: 1.2g
Polyunsaturated fat: 0.3g
Protein: 4.7g
Carbohydrate: 53.3g
Fiber: 1g
Cholesterol: 50mg
Iron: 0.8mg
Sodium: 363mg
Calcium: 81mg
_______________________________________

AT THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
By Walter Mills

White Nights in Albion

We went to England in late June expecting fogs and rain, but it was cool and clear most days, seldom getting above 70 degrees. We had not considered how deep into the evening the light would persist. Northern England, where we stayed in the tiny village of Newby in the beautiful Lake District, is farther north than all of the U.S. except Alaska, and the light comes early and stays late.

We wore long pants and layers and carried umbrellas that were seldom used. The narrow country lanes were largely empty of traffic and we walked between hedgerows and used public footpaths across neat fields of sheep and cows. Sometimes we would see a farmer far away on a red tractor or mowing his field of hay. There were wooden steps to climb over gates and we walked between villages, each one with its ancient church and historic pub. Albion, the original name for the British Isles, was all around us in the lingering daylight.

The sun rose early, well before 5 a.m., but we dithered around the cottage, making tea and English breakfast, fried eggs and sausages, thick bacon, toast, often with beans. Dairy Cottage was neat and highly efficient. Every outlet had its own breaker and the washer and dryer were in one small package. The girls slept in twin beds under a skylight and we had a larger room with a double bed. Our window looked out on the neighboring dairy farm, though we were on one of the short main streets of Newby.

One morning we took a short drive and visited the cottage where William Wordsworth lived with his wife and sister Dorothy. Dove Cottage was small and dark, though comfortable enough. He discovered the cottage, a former inn, on a walking tour with his pal and Lyrical Ballads collaborator Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It looked down on Grasmere Lake and off to the hills. He and Dorothy moved in to the cottage and planted a garden, and a few years later, Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson and filled the cottage “edgewise” with children and notable guests, like Ivanhoe author Sir Walter Scott and the Opium Eater Thomas De Quincey. We sat on the bench on the hillside behind the cottage where Wordsworth composed some of the most beautiful poems in the English language and his sister worked at her journal that details the life of a place and the poets who lived and visited there.

We walked down the road to the lake and circled it on a quiet path near the shore. Grasmere is touristy, but in an old fashioned, pleasant enough way. We bought sandwiches made of local cheeses and chutney from a small shop, and ate in a park across the road. All during our trip we bought interesting sandwiches or packed them ourselves and often ate our lunch outdoors. Many afternoons we stopped in tea shops for a light meal and pots of tea, and for the first time I understood why the British are so fanatical about tea. Later, in London, we visited the original Twinings tea company store, a long, narrow shop in the old City with shelf upon shelf of boxed teas, with a sign out front that gave its founding date as 1706. Maybe Samuel Johnson, whose house was a few blocks away, strolled in to buy his tea while Boswell hung at his elbow, jotting down Johnson’s witticisms.

We spent a week at Dairy Cottage, exploring the Lake District, with a daytrip north by rail to Edinburgh, Scotland, where we wandered through the old alleys near the Castle and visited the National Gallery and the Library of Scotland. Then we headed for London, with an interesting stop along the way.

Grasmere Lake

 

. . .
Read more of Walt’s writing at his blog:
http://americanimpressionist.wordpress.com/

(The above column originally appeared in the Centre Daily Times and is copyright © 2014 by Walter Mills. All rights reserved worldwide. To contact Walt, address your emails to awmills@verizon.net ).
_______________________________________
_______________________________________

Recipe du Jour is made possible only by donations from good neighbors like you. If you enjoy receiving RDJ, please support us by sending a check payable to “Richard Rowand” for any amount to: Richard Rowand, PO Box 3385, Leesburg, VA 20177. Or use PAYPAL ( http://www.paypal.com ) and donate (via your account or their secure credit card site) directly thru Rich’s email address ( rich@recipedujour.com ). Thank you.
_______________________________________

Good Neighbor Recipes appears every Friday. To submit your recipe to Recipe du Jour’s Good Neighbor Recipes, simply send it via email rrowand@gmail.com Use “GNR” and the title of your recipe as the subject; and you must include your email address in the text in case other readers have questions. Feel free to include some words about yourself or the recipe (please keep it short). Look at the format we use when we present our recipes and try to be similar. Do not submit recipes in “bulleted” or 2 column format. Be sure to be specific in your measurements (don’t just say “a small can” of something, give the amount). One recipe per email, please. We reserve the right not to print everything we receive. By submitting to Good Neighbor Recipes, you give us permission to publish your submission in our daily ezine and in any other format, such as a printed collection, without recompense now or in the future. WARNING: If you don’t follow the guidelines above, we won’t be able to use your recipe!

Please tell others about the unique experience of Recipe du Jour.

The nutritional analysis given with some recipes is intended as a guide only.

Recipe du Jour is strictly an opt-in service. We do not sell, lease, loan, or give our subscribers’ addresses to anyone for any reason. Our features are intended as entertainment only.

.

Read Full Post »

RDJ– Frozen Hawaiian Pie, 05-03-14

 

_______________________________________
Volume 17 Number 84

RECIPE DU JOUR
Simply the BEST daily recipe E-zine on the Web!
Recipes, columns, and nostalgia.
Archives are at http://lists.topica.com/lists/rdj/read

To subscribe: Go to https://rdjour.wordpress.com/
and if you wish to receive email notice when new issues
are posted, click on the FOLLOW US VIA EMAIL box
(on the right side), and type in your email address.
_______________________________________

Frozen Hawaiian Pie

1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (12-ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed
1 (20-ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 cup mashed ripe banana (about 1 large banana)
1 large orange, peeled and sectioned
1/2 cup sweetened flaked coconut
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted
1/2 cup maraschino cherries
2 (9-inch) ready-made graham cracker crusts
Garnishes: chopped pineapple, maraschino cherries, chopped walnuts, whipped topping, toasted coconut, fresh mint sprigs

Stir together condensed milk and whipped topping. Fold in next 7 ingredients. Pour evenly into graham cracker crusts.

Cover and freeze 12 hours or until firm. Remove from freezer, and let stand 10 minutes before serving. Garnish, if desired. Makes 16 servings.

. . .
(nutritional info not available)
_______________________________________

AT THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
By Walter Mills

The Holy Streams

On Saturday morning a week ago, you could have found a dozen of us along the banks of Penns Creek in Spring Mills, tossing our empty lines into the glistening water, practicing fly casting. I was there with my younger daughter in the cool spring morning, learning about mayflies and water bugs from an entomologist from Penn State, and then about the art of fly fishing from a local fishing guide and ecology from a conservationist. It was a part of our church’s project to engage the community in ways that are not necessarily religious.

Except sometimes there is more holiness in the natural world than you find among pews and hymnals. Out on the banks of the stream I could feel the kind of passion I recalled from those revival meetings of my youth, the entomologist’s passion from 40 years of studying the book of nature, the guide’s reverence for the trout rising to the perfectly cast fly, and the passion of a man’s working with others to restore the watershed ecology, a process not unlike building a medieval cathedral that requires generations of selfless labor.

It seems a leap to compare a dozen people casting an empty line into the water to a religious experience, but the new eco-consciousness we see sprouting up all around us in communal urban gardens, local farmers markets, cycling to work, or sustainability movements of various kinds is a sign of the resacralization of nature, of putting the holy back into creation.

I have been reading a new book by historian and journalist Peter Watson called The Age of Atheists that crystalized these thoughts. This wide-ranging work is a compilation and explanation of the attempts to live without God in the decades since Friedrich Nietzsche declared that “God is dead” and Darwin shook the foundations of faith with the theory of evolution. Although many people, maybe a majority of people, disagree with Nietzsche’s statement, there is, nevertheless, a crack in the wall of faith, and many different pebbles of belief are being used to fill in the empty spaces. Watson says there are over 100,000 known religions, including 21 major world religions and all of those New Age cults and old religions resurfacing. He goes on to include psychoanalysis and the isms of the last century — communism, fascism, and nationalism — even poetry and dance as ways to fill a void left by secularism. Science itself is a belief system, telling us our origin story in the Big Bang, and claiming the primacy of reason. We seem to have an innate need to believe in something.

It is hard to come up with ultimate meaning, but preserving the Earth for future generations has those qualities that are the definition of meaning: being part of something that is larger than our selves; sacrificing for a future goal that is worthy of our sacrifice; invoking a sense of wonder and mystery; providing a sense of wholeness that the mechanistic reductionism of technology and science has broken. And that is only the short list.

I am not one to chain myself to a redwood tree. My own love of nature comes and goes pretty much with the season and the weather, but even I see the day coming when ecology will be second nature, when we will hear, along with the poet, the sabbath ringing slowly in the pebbles of the holy streams. In fact, I think I heard that sound last Saturday on the banks of Penns Creek.

. . .
Read more of Walt’s writing at his blog:
http://americanimpressionist.wordpress.com/

(The above column originally appeared in the Centre Daily Times and is copyright © 2014 by Walter Mills. All rights reserved worldwide. To contact Walt, address your emails to awmills@verizon.net ).
_______________________________________
_______________________________________

Recipe du Jour is made possible only by donations from good neighbors like you. If you enjoy receiving RDJ, please support us by sending a check payable to “Richard Rowand” for any amount to: Richard Rowand, PO Box 3385, Leesburg, VA 20177. Or use PAYPAL ( http://www.paypal.com ) and donate (via your account or their secure credit card site) directly thru Rich’s email address ( rich@recipedujour.com ). Thank you.
_______________________________________

Good Neighbor Recipes appears every Friday. To submit your recipe to Recipe du Jour’s Good Neighbor Recipes, simply send it via email rrowand@gmail.com Use “GNR” and the title of your recipe as the subject; and you must include your email address in the text in case other readers have questions. Feel free to include some words about yourself or the recipe (please keep it short). Look at the format we use when we present our recipes and try to be similar. Do not submit recipes in “bulleted” or 2 column format. Be sure to be specific in your measurements (don’t just say “a small can” of something, give the amount). One recipe per email, please. We reserve the right not to print everything we receive. By submitting to Good Neighbor Recipes, you give us permission to publish your submission in our daily ezine and in any other format, such as a printed collection, without recompense now or in the future. WARNING: If you don’t follow the guidelines above, we won’t be able to use your recipe!

Please tell others about the unique experience of Recipe du Jour.

The nutritional analysis given with some recipes is intended as a guide only.

Recipe du Jour is strictly an opt-in service. We do not sell, lease, loan, or give our subscribers’ addresses to anyone for any reason. Our features are intended as entertainment only.

.

Read Full Post »

RDJ– Chocolate Quad, 04-29-14

 

_______________________________________
Volume 17 Number 82

RECIPE DU JOUR
Simply the BEST daily recipe E-zine on the Web!
Delicious recipes delivered daily via blog/email.
Recipes, columns, and nostalgia.
Archives are at http://lists.topica.com/lists/rdj/read

To subscribe: Go to https://rdjour.wordpress.com/
and if you wish to receive email notice when new issues
are posted, click on the FOLLOW US VIA EMAIL box
(on the right side), and type in your email address.
_______________________________________

Chocolate Quad

1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup chopped pecans
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 (12-ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed and divided
3 (3.5-ounce) packages instant chocolate pudding mix
3 cups milk

Cut butter into flour with a pastry blender or fork until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in pecans. Press mixture onto bottom of a 13- x 9-inch pan.

Bake at 350F for 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool.

Beat cream cheese, powdered sugar, and 1 cup whipped topping at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth. Spread mixture over prepared crust.

Whisk together pudding mix and milk 2 minutes or until smooth. Spread over cream cheese mixture. Chill 10 minutes. Spread remaining whipped topping over pudding mixture. Cover and chill at least 1 hour. Cut into squares. Makes about 12 servings.

. . .
(nutritional info not available)
_______________________________________

TAKE TWO
By Walt Mills

High School Confidential

I was searching for information on the Internet the other day. As I was leaving a web site, a pop up advertisement lingered on my computer screen. This kind of advertising normally irritates me intensely, with its implications that someone else is in control of my computer, and usually I hurry to wipe it off my screen.

This time, however, the pop-up ad did its job, and I clicked on the link and followed it along down the rabbit hole of memory to Classmates.com. The Classmates web site is essentially a message board for linking up high school classmates. You have to pay for any of the extra services, but it doesn’t cost anything to take a look. I scrolled down until I found a listing for Norview High School, entered my graduation year, and added myself to a list of almost two hundred names that had already registered. Out of a graduating class of around five hundred, this was a fairly large percentage.

Out of the two hundred names registered, I only recognized a dozen or so. Of those, I could only put a face to five or six. Pretty bad considering that I spent three years in the same half-block-wide, three-story building with these kids. It’s like not recognizing the guy who was next to you on the chain gang.

I know that I knew more than a dozen people in high school. I must have sat next to students in biology and history, but I can’t recall who they were. What was the name of the boy in Algebra II who made me so angry that I took a swing at him in the hallway after class? I’ve forgotten, just as I’ve forgotten the name of the girl I actually punched when I missed him. Luckily it was only a glancing blow. “You almost hit him,” she consoled me. “Next time, leave your glasses on.”

Almost as soon as I registered, I began to have doubts. My name popped up on the list under the ‘M’s with a little note saying ‘new member’ beside it. I felt ridiculous, as though I were already at my high school reunion standing around with a glass of generic white wine and a shrimp on a toothpick, people coming up to me, looking at my name tag and saying, “Nope, don’t remember you.”

I never went back to any of my reunions, so maybe they are not like that at all. Or maybe they are just like high school, and the popular guys and girls are surrounded by crowds of their admirers the way that they used to be. I hope not, but the influence of high school lingers. Why else would forty percent of us take the trouble to sign up on a class web site?

Like a lot of other people, I expect, I never went back because I wasn’t going to risk a reunion until I had made something of myself. I wanted to be able to walk into the room and hear somebody say, “Isn’t that Walt Mills, the best-selling novelist?” To which someone else would reply, “Yeah, remember how funny his hair always looked in high school?”

It’s hard to get away from your past. High school is like that indelible stamp in your passport, the ugly photo on your driver’s license. You’ve been there and you carry the scars. Even if everyone has forgotten that you wore your pants too short and your ink pen was always leaking through your shirt pocket, you can’t forget.

A few days after I registered at Classmates.com I got an email from the woman who is in charge of organizing our next class reunion, which will take place next spring. I didn’t recognize her name, so I took out my high school yearbook, and sure enough, there she was. Never saw her before in my life.

. . .
Read more of Walt’s writing at his blog:
http://americanimpressionist.wordpress.com/

(The above column is copyright © 2014 by Walter Mills. All rights reserved worldwide. To contact Walt, address your emails to awmills@verizon.net ).
_______________________________________

Link of the Day:

Do you remember the old days of monochrome computer monitors, the glowing green text on the black background? If you’re feeling nostalgic, or you don’t know what the heck I’m talking about, check out this site. It’s an online word processor with a great retro theme. You can type and take notes, write novels, or small fun snippets. Visit the preferences to change the layout colors – if you prefer the old amber monochrome monitors – and even add typewriter sound as you type!

You can also print your work, save at as a text file or PDF, or share it via email. To save your work long term, sign up for a free account.

http://writer.bighugelabs.com/

from Wendy
_______________________________________

Do You Remember?

SEE YOU IN SEPTEMBER
THE HAPPENINGS

I’ll be alone each and every night
While you’re away, don’t forget to write

Bye-bye, so long, farewell
Bye-bye, so long

See you in September
See you when the summer’s through
Here we are (bye, baby, goodbye)
Saying goodbye at the station (bye, baby, goodbye)
Summer vacation (bye, baby bye, baby)
Is taking you away (bye, baby, goodbye)

Have a good time but remember
There is danger in the summer moon above
Will I see you in September
Or lose you to a summer love
(counting the days ’til I’ll be with you)
(counting the hours and the minutes, too)

Bye, baby, goodbye
Bye, baby, goodbye
Bye, baby, goodbye (bye-bye, so long, farewell)
Bye, baby, goodbye (bye-bye, so long)

Have a good time but remember
There is danger in the summer moon above
Will I see you in September
Or lose you to a summer love
(I’ll be alone each and every night)
(While you’re away, don’t forget to write)

See you (bye-bye, so long, farewell)
In September (bye-bye, so long, farewell)
I’m hopin’ I’ll
See you (bye-bye, so long, farewell)
In September (bye-bye, so long, farewell)
Well, maybe I’ll
See you (bye-bye, so long, farewell)
In September (bye-bye, so long, farewell)
_______________________________________
_______________________________________

Recipe du Jour is made possible only by donations from good neighbors like you. If you enjoy receiving RDJ, please support us by sending a check payable to “Richard Rowand” for any amount to: Richard Rowand, PO Box 3385, Leesburg, VA 20177. Or use PAYPAL ( http://www.paypal.com ) and donate (via your account or their secure credit card site) directly thru Rich’s email address ( rich@recipedujour.com ). Thank you.
_______________________________________

Good Neighbor Recipes appears every Friday. To submit your recipe to Recipe du Jour’s Good Neighbor Recipes, simply send it via email to rrowand@gmail.com Use “GNR” and the title of your recipe as the subject; and you must include your email address in the text in case other readers have questions. Feel free to include some words about yourself or the recipe (please keep it short). Look at the format we use when we present our recipes and try to be similar. Do not submit recipes in “bulleted” or 2 column format. Be sure to be specific in your measurements (don’t just say “a small can” of something, give the amount). One recipe per email, please. We reserve the right not to print everything we receive. By submitting to Good Neighbor Recipes, you give us permission to publish your submission in our daily ezine and in any other format, such as a printed collection, without recompense now or in the future. WARNING: If you don’t follow the guidelines above, we won’t be able to use your recipe!

The nutritional analysis given with some recipes is intended as a guide only.

Recipe du Jour is strictly an opt-in service. We do not sell, lease, loan, or give our subscribers’ addresses to anyone for any reason. Our features are intended as entertainment only.

.

Read Full Post »

RDJ– Coconut Pineapple Cake, 04-24-14

 

_______________________________________
Volume 17 Number 80

RECIPE DU JOUR
Simply the BEST daily recipe E-zine on the Web!
Delicious recipes delivered daily via blog/email.
Recipes, columns, and nostalgia.
Archives are at http://lists.topica.com/lists/rdj/read

To subscribe: Go to https://rdjour.wordpress.com/
and if you wish to receive email notice when new issues
are posted, click on the FOLLOW US VIA EMAIL box
(on the right side), and type in your email address.
_______________________________________

Coconut Pineapple Cake

1 (15 1/4-ounce) can crushed pineapple in juice, undrained
1 1/2 cups butter or margarine, softened
3 cups sugar
5 large eggs
1/2 cup lemon-lime soft drink
3 cups cake flour, sifted
1 teaspoon lemon extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pineapple Filling (recipe follows)
1 (16-ounce) tub cream cheese frosting
1 (6-ounce) package frozen flaked coconut, thawed

Grease bottom and sides of 3 (9-inch) round cake pans; line bottoms with wax paper. Grease and flour wax paper.

Drain pineapple, reserving 1/2 cup juice. Reserve crushed pineapple for Pineapple Filling.

Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy; gradually add sugar, beating well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating until blended after each addition.

Combine 1/2 cup reserved pineapple juice and soft drink. Add flour to butter mixture alternately with juice mixture, beginning and ending with flour. Beat at low speed until blended after each addition. Stir in extracts. Pour into prepared cake pans.

Bake at 350F for 25 to 30 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from pans immediately; cool on wire racks.

Spread 3/4 cup Pineapple Filling between cake layers and remaining filling on top of cake. Spread cream cheese frosting on sides of cake. Sprinkle with coconut. Makes one cake.

. . .
Pineapple Filling

2 cups sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 cup reserved drained crushed pineapple
1 cup water

Stir together sugar and cornstarch in a saucepan. Stir in pineapple and 1 cup water. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, 15 minutes or until very thick. Cool. Makes 3 cups.

. . .
(nutritional info not available)
_______________________________________

TAKE TWO
By Walt Mills

Hungry for Life and Pizza

It took me a long time to learn to like pizza, but I remember exactly when it happened. It was at a little place out by Chic’s Beach with red and white plastic tablecloths and a jukebox off in a corner. They served 3.2 beer by the pitcher, which it was legal to drink if you were eighteen in Virginia in those days, and that’s about all we were, eighteen. Richard may have been nineteen.

I was in my first year of college and he was working for the telephone company as a lineman and living in a trailer in Virginia Beach with a roommate with an extra 28 feet of intestines. This fact caused all sorts of complications for the roommate, none of them worth going into, but it provided us many hours of humorous, sophomoric fun at the roommate’s expense.

This was the year following the Tet offensive, when everyone in America woke up one morning to find that the Vietnam War had arrived overnight in their living room. For a long time we had lived with the fiction that our troops over there were what had been called “military advisers,” non- combatants who were there to train and advise our military friends, the South Vietnamese. But after the giant bloodbath of Tet everything changed, the drums began to beat along the Potomac, the draft swung into high gear, and people we knew were being plucked away from our midst in a kind of Rapture in reverse, sent to hell instead of to heaven.

My own father had just returned from a year spent piloting an Army LST supply boat along the waterways of the Mekong Delta. Like everyone else I ever met who was there, he didn’t talk about his experiences. But it was obvious to me that he was shaken by his time “in country.” For a boy who had never seen his father, veteran of two previous wars, troubled by anything, it was a sign of serious disturbances in the continuum. He had aged ten years in the year of his absence.

On the night in question, Richard and I were arguing the pros and cons of Mexico and Canada as places to spend the rest of our lives rather than face the prospect of dying in a far country where even the “friendlies” hated us, when the pizza arrived.

“What is this?” I asked with deep suspicion, as though General Hersey, quasi-mythical head of the draft board, had placed a microphone on the table in front of us.

“It’s a hamburger pizza,” Richard said. “I ordered it on the way to the rest room.”

A hamburger pizza is the most innocuous form a pizza can take. It is probably not even on the menu in most places anymore, now that we have become accustomed to – even dependent on – pizzas to fill our inner voids. I pretended it wasn’t there.

The argument was not theoretical, it was urgent, with Richard’s draft notice on the table between us. Would I go with him? Canada or Mexico? When would we go? Tonight?

I had the lovely “2-S” student deferment in my wallet. I was a college boy, our hope for the future. America was only sending the soda jerks and gas pump jockeys, and the inner city head boppers. We were sending the kids who couldn’t afford college, the black kids from poor families, and a lot more often than I would have thought, the noble and patriotic kids from small towns who went because it seemed like the right thing to do. Within another year the lottery changed all that, took away the student deferment, and made us all equally bless or curse the day of the year we were born.

But for that night I was safe and Richard was not. Richard remembers that I said no, I would not go to Canada or Mexico. I remember that I said yes, I would go, and that it should be Mexico, the warm southland rather than the cold north country of Canada.

Whichever of us remembers rightly, I know it was that night, filled with a hunger for life, that my hand reached out for the pizza, and I ate it, and it was good.

. . .
Read more of Walt’s writing at his blog:
http://americanimpressionist.wordpress.com/

(The above column is copyright © 2014 by Walter Mills. All rights reserved worldwide. To contact Walt, address your emails to awmills@verizon.net ).
_______________________________________

Link of the Day:

After taking your digital photos, you might need to edit them as well. There are plenty of programs for this, but many are expensive or complicated.

Instead, fire up the simple, free Pixlr Editor. It allows you to edit photos right on the Web, so you can use it from any computer. Pixlr Editor supports importing images from your computer, a URL or even popular online libraries.

You can give the photo the full treatment, from red-eye correction to cropping to recoloring. You can even build an image from scratch with Editor’s drawing tools.

Note — you’ll need to latest version of FLASH to make it work correctly.

http://pixlr.com/editor/

from Wendy
_______________________________________

Do You Remember?

(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher
Jackie Wilson 1967
also charted by Rita Coolidge in 1977
Words and Music by Gary L. Jackson, Carl Smith, and Raynard Miner

Your love, liftin’ me higher
Than I’ve ever been lifted before
So keep it up, quench my desire
And I’ll be at your side forevermore

You know your love (your love keeps liftin’ me)
Keeps on liftin’ (your love keeps liftin’ me)
Higher (liftin’ me, liftin’ me), higher, and higher (higher)
I said your love (your love keeps liftin’ me)
Keeps on (liftin’ me, liftin’ me)
Liftin’ me (liftin’ me) higher and higher (higher)

Now once I was downhearted
Disappointment was my closest friend
But then you came and he soon departed
And you know he never showed his face again

That’s why your love (your love keeps liftin’ me)
Keeps on liftin’ (your love keeps liftin’ me)
Higher (liftin’ me, liftin’ me), higher, and higher (higher)
I said your love (your love keeps liftin’ me)
Keeps on (liftin’ me, liftin’ me)
Liftin’ me (liftin’ me) higher and higher (higher)
Awww

I’m so glad I finally found you
Yes, that one in a million girls
And I wish my lovin’ arms around ya
Honey, I can stand up and face the world

Let me tell ya your love (your love keeps liftin’ me)
Keeps on liftin’ (your love keeps liftin’ me)
Higher (liftin’ me, liftin’ me), higher, and higher (higher)
I said your love (your love keeps liftin’ me)
Keeps on (liftin’ me, liftin’ me)
Liftin’ me (liftin’ me) higher and higher (higher)

-various scat singing to end-
_______________________________________
_______________________________________

Recipe du Jour is made possible only by donations from good neighbors like you. If you enjoy receiving RDJ, please support us by sending a check payable to “Richard Rowand” for any amount to: Richard Rowand, PO Box 3385, Leesburg, VA 20177. Or use PAYPAL ( http://www.paypal.com ) and donate (via your account or their secure credit card site) directly thru Rich’s email address ( rich@recipedujour.com ). Thank you.
_______________________________________

Good Neighbor Recipes appears every Friday. To submit your recipe to Recipe du Jour’s Good Neighbor Recipes, simply send it via email to rrowand@gmail.com Use “GNR” and the title of your recipe as the subject; and you must include your email address in the text in case other readers have questions. Feel free to include some words about yourself or the recipe (please keep it short). Look at the format we use when we present our recipes and try to be similar. Do not submit recipes in “bulleted” or 2 column format. Be sure to be specific in your measurements (don’t just say “a small can” of something, give the amount). One recipe per email, please. We reserve the right not to print everything we receive. By submitting to Good Neighbor Recipes, you give us permission to publish your submission in our daily ezine and in any other format, such as a printed collection, without recompense now or in the future. WARNING: If you don’t follow the guidelines above, we won’t be able to use your recipe!

The nutritional analysis given with some recipes is intended as a guide only.

Recipe du Jour is strictly an opt-in service. We do not sell, lease, loan, or give our subscribers’ addresses to anyone for any reason. Our features are intended as entertainment only.

.

Read Full Post »

RDJ– Banana Pops, 04-12-14

 

_______________________________________
Volume 17 Number 74

RECIPE DU JOUR
Simply the BEST daily recipe E-zine on the Web!
Recipes, columns, and nostalgia.
Archives are at http://lists.topica.com/lists/rdj/read

To subscribe: Go to https://rdjour.wordpress.com/
and if you wish to receive email notice when new issues
are posted, click on the FOLLOW US VIA EMAIL box
(on the right side), and type in your email address.
_______________________________________

Banana Pops

2 bananas
1/2 cup light coconut milk
1/4 cup flaked sweetened coconut, toasted
Wooden Popsicle sticks

Cut the bananas in half crosswise. Combine the bananas and 1/2 cup of the coconut milk, tossing to coat. Insert a wooden Popsicle stick into the cut end of each banana half. Sprinkle the bananas evenly with 1/4 cup coconut, pressing to make the flakes stick. Place banana halves on a baking sheet lined with wax paper, and freeze pops at least 1 hour. Let them stand at room temperature about 5 minutes before serving. Makes 4 pops.

. . .
Nutritional Information
Amount per serving
Calories: 94
Fat: 3g
Saturated fat: 2g
Monounsaturated fat: 0.0g
Polyunsaturated fat: 0.0g
Protein: 1g
Carbohydrate: 18g
Fiber: 2g
Cholesterol: 0.0mg
Iron: 0.0mg
Sodium: 19mg
Calcium: 1mg
_______________________________________

AT THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
By Walter Mills

A Walk in the Spring Rain (from 2000)

I had made reservations at a hotel in Lewisburg, and my wife’s mother had agreed to come over and spend the night with our daughters. We packed a few things in a bag, said goodbye to the girls, and set out for our first night alone in too many years.

It seems like every day this spring has been wet or dreary, and the day we were to celebrate our wedding anniversary was no different. We drove through a light drizzle along Rt.45, through a green countryside that looked like Ireland in the mist, past cows and red barns, small towns and farmhouses. Although we had driven this same road many times before, now that it was a holiday it all seemed new again.

We ate dinner in a large room with high windows through which we could see the rain coming down on the street. It felt good to be away from the kids, and after a while we quit worrying about them and began to talk like a couple out on a date instead of like parents. We talked about our summer plans and about the garden. We talked about what we wanted to do with our lives. Then when we were finished eating, we went out and walked in the rain.

Sharing an umbrella, we walked along the street, stopping at each storefront to look in the windows. It was after nine and all the shops were closed. The rain dripped from the awnings, and we dodged puddles on the sidewalk. Across the street the Campus Theater looked like a 1930s movie house. An old man with a white beard passed us, smoking a pipe. I could smell the tobacco smoke trailing behind him. Once he was gone we were the only ones on the street.

We crossed the street and walked back toward the river, past 19th century houses turned into stores and apartments. The streetlights had an aura around them from their reflection in the raindrops. We saw a sign for a place called the Highlands Pub, and through the window it looked inviting. We went inside and sat down at the table by the window.

It was a comfortable bar, filled with people talking in small groups. Some looked like businessmen, some like grad students or professors at the local university. We listened to pieces of overheard conversation and speculated on who people were and what they did. Maybe at some other table, someone wondered the same thing about us. We felt self-conscious, a little awkward with each other, as though we were teenagers out on a first date instead of a middle-aged, long-married couple.

The next morning it was raining more heavily. We took two umbrellas this time, but our shoes were still soaked by the time we reached the bakery two blocks away where we could have breakfast. We drank coffee and ate omelets while our shoes dried out.

That morning we walked out onto the bridge that crosses the Susquehanna. The river is broad at that point and was gray in the rain. Below us we could see the long grassy backyards leading down almost to the water’s edge, separated from the river by a high stone wall. I wanted to live in a house with a yard that went down to the river with the neat flower beds and the garden benches we could see from up on the bridge.

Despite the gray sky, everything was vivid and all the colors a little brighter than normal. That was the way I had often felt as a teenager, as if all the edges of existence were so sharp I could cut myself on a leaf or cloud or the face of a pretty girl.

I could not be paid to be a teenager again, but it was good to shake off the routine, walk in the rain, and once again see the world bright and new. Late in the afternoon we drove home by a circuitous route, putting off until the last possible moment the joys and the duties of parenthood.

. . .
Read more of Walt’s writing at his blog:
http://americanimpressionist.wordpress.com/

(The above column originally appeared in the Centre Daily Times and is copyright © 2014 by Walter Mills. All rights reserved worldwide. To contact Walt, address your emails to awmills@verizon.net ).
_______________________________________
_______________________________________

Recipe du Jour is made possible only by donations from good neighbors like you. If you enjoy receiving RDJ, please support us by sending a check payable to “Richard Rowand” for any amount to: Richard Rowand, PO Box 3385, Leesburg, VA 20177. Or use PAYPAL ( http://www.paypal.com ) and donate (via your account or their secure credit card site) directly thru Rich’s email address ( rich@recipedujour.com ). Thank you.
_______________________________________

Good Neighbor Recipes appears every Friday. To submit your recipe to Recipe du Jour’s Good Neighbor Recipes, simply send it via email rrowand@gmail.com Use “GNR” and the title of your recipe as the subject; and you must include your email address in the text in case other readers have questions. Feel free to include some words about yourself or the recipe (please keep it short). Look at the format we use when we present our recipes and try to be similar. Do not submit recipes in “bulleted” or 2 column format. Be sure to be specific in your measurements (don’t just say “a small can” of something, give the amount). One recipe per email, please. We reserve the right not to print everything we receive. By submitting to Good Neighbor Recipes, you give us permission to publish your submission in our daily ezine and in any other format, such as a printed collection, without recompense now or in the future. WARNING: If you don’t follow the guidelines above, we won’t be able to use your recipe!

Please tell others about the unique experience of Recipe du Jour.

The nutritional analysis given with some recipes is intended as a guide only.

Recipe du Jour is strictly an opt-in service. We do not sell, lease, loan, or give our subscribers’ addresses to anyone for any reason. Our features are intended as entertainment only.

.

Read Full Post »

RDJ– Cake Mix Oatmeal Cookies, 04-05-14

 

_______________________________________
Volume 17 Number 69

RECIPE DU JOUR
Simply the BEST daily recipe E-zine on the Web!
Recipes, columns, and nostalgia.
Archives are at http://lists.topica.com/lists/rdj/read

To subscribe: Go to https://rdjour.wordpress.com/
and if you wish to receive email notice when new issues
are posted, click on the FOLLOW US VIA EMAIL box
(on the right side), and type in your email address.
_______________________________________

Cake Mix Oatmeal Cookies

1 (18.25-ounce) package yellow cake mix
2 cups quick-cooking oats, uncooked
1 cup sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 cup chopped pecans
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Combine first 3 ingredients in a large bowl. Combine oil and eggs; add to dry ingredients, stirring well. Stir in pecans and vanilla.

Drop dough by rounded teaspoonsful 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake at 350F for 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove to wire racks to cool. Makes 5 dozen cookies.

. . .
(nutritional info not available)
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AT THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
By Walter Mills

Highways of Glass

A few weeks ago I was at a meeting in Washington, DC, listening to people talk about all of the interesting things you could do with glass. There were scientists from around the world and top executives from the major international glass companies. Even the director of the National Science Foundation, the organization that passes out billions of dollars each year for innovative research, dropped by to give a pep talk and stayed for lunch.

Glass has always been an important material, ever since the Phoenicians discovered it building camp fires on the sandy shores of the Mediterranean a couple of thousand years ago. The modern world is so filled with glass that we’ve almost quit noticing it: from our computer and television screens, to the glass that keeps out the cold and lets in light in our homes and offices, to the great glass mirrors of the Hubble space telescope that brings us news of the far universe.

But scientists are starting to do new and interesting things with the ancient material. Already glass that can clean itself is on the market, and soon there will be glass windows that can regulate light, both visible and above and below the visible spectrum, so that windows will brighten and darken or let in heat in the cold months or keep heat out in the summer. Windows may soon be able to gather energy from light and use it to power electronics in homes or in automobiles. Glass may also make better storage batteries, miniaturized components in those hand held gadgets we seem to need, and even replace worn out joints and bones in the body. I saw one young graduate student bend a thin piece of glass like it was plastic, without cracking or shattering. Flexible glass opens up whole new fields of opportunity.

Among these glass scientists from around the world was an engineer from Idaho who knew next to nothing about glass. He seemed out of place among the university professors and graduate students, most of them pursuing small grains of understanding on the wide shores of science, hoping to win a grant from the government or a contract from industry to pursue their research, which might or might not ever lead to more than a few papers in a scientific journal. Scott Brusaw, the engineer from Idaho, was different. He wanted to change the world with one ambitious idea that he called Solar Roadways, highways of glass embedded with solar panels to absorb and transmute solar energy into electricity.

Two large problems face us in the next twenty years, and both are related to energy. The first is manmade global warming, which only the last few diehards are still debating. The estimate by a British government economist last year said that business as usual in atmospheric pollution will cost the world economy the equivalent of two world wars and a Great Depression. The second problem is the uncertainty of oil supplies in the coming decades. We’ve seen the dramatic spikes in gas prices at the pump the last couple of years. We don’t want to be fighting a war every couple of years to maintain our foreign oil imports.

Solar Roadways is Brusaw’s answer to global warming and foreign oil dependence. It is a kind of off-the -wall idea, and some of the scientists looked at him like he had a screw loose. Why replace cheap asphalt with relatively expensive glass, especially glass that had not yet been perfected? The answer, in Brusaw’s mind, was that our highways are obsolete and dangerous. They are part of the environmental problem in that they enable our oil-intensive economy to continue.

Enough solar energy falls on the earth every hour to power the entire world for a year. We now have solar panels that can capture 15 % of sunlight’s energy and turn it into electricity. They are not cheap, but every year they get cheaper. There are new materials on the horizon, organics, iron oxides, nanowires, that could revolutionize solar energy harvesting.

But Solar Roadways are more than energy harvesters. Brusaw envisions a totally new kind of road, one with many functions. The glass highway would be lighted from below, heated in cold regions to melt off ice and snow, self-cleaning, reconfigurable (no painted lines), with the ability to warn drivers of problems ahead. Electric cars would run on the Solar Roadways, eliminating the second major cause of global warming. While in the roadway’s lower section, the nation’s energy grid would be embedded, safe from terrorists or storms, blackouts or rolling brownouts.

It’s a big idea, maybe too big for this risk-averse modern society. We were once challenged to put a man on the moon within a decade, and it happened. I don’t know if it would happen again today. Only big and risky ideas will solve these two looming problems. I heard Brusaw talk in front of some young engineering students at Penn State a few weeks ago. They were excited, challenged by the scope and ambition of the engineering and scientific problems.

It may not turn out to be Solar Roadways. It may be putting mirrors in space or seeding the ocean with iron particles to grow plankton, but whatever is tried will be huge and expensive. Only not as expensive as wars and economic depressions.

. . .
You can go to http://www.solarroadways.com to learn more about the project and sign Scott Brusaw’s Encouragement List. I plan to stay in touch with Scott, and from time to time I’ll let you know how his plans are working out.

. . .
Read more of Walt’s writing at his blog:
http://americanimpressionist.wordpress.com/

(The above column originally appeared in the Centre Daily Times and is copyright © 2014 by Walter Mills. All rights reserved worldwide. To contact Walt, address your emails to awmills@verizon.net ).
_______________________________________
_______________________________________

Recipe du Jour is made possible only by donations from good neighbors like you. If you enjoy receiving RDJ, please support us by sending a check payable to “Richard Rowand” for any amount to: Richard Rowand, PO Box 3385, Leesburg, VA 20177. Or use PAYPAL ( http://www.paypal.com ) and donate (via your account or their secure credit card site) directly thru Rich’s email address ( rich@recipedujour.com ). Thank you.
_______________________________________

Good Neighbor Recipes appears every Friday. To submit your recipe to Recipe du Jour’s Good Neighbor Recipes, simply send it via email rrowand@gmail.com Use “GNR” and the title of your recipe as the subject; and you must include your email address in the text in case other readers have questions. Feel free to include some words about yourself or the recipe (please keep it short). Look at the format we use when we present our recipes and try to be similar. Do not submit recipes in “bulleted” or 2 column format. Be sure to be specific in your measurements (don’t just say “a small can” of something, give the amount). One recipe per email, please. We reserve the right not to print everything we receive. By submitting to Good Neighbor Recipes, you give us permission to publish your submission in our daily ezine and in any other format, such as a printed collection, without recompense now or in the future. WARNING: If you don’t follow the guidelines above, we won’t be able to use your recipe!

Please tell others about the unique experience of Recipe du Jour.

The nutritional analysis given with some recipes is intended as a guide only.

Recipe du Jour is strictly an opt-in service. We do not sell, lease, loan, or give our subscribers’ addresses to anyone for any reason. Our features are intended as entertainment only.

.

Read Full Post »

RDJ– Mango Coconut Rice Pudding, 03-29-14

 

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Volume 17 Number 63

RECIPE DU JOUR
Simply the BEST daily recipe E-zine on the Web!
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Archives are at http://lists.topica.com/lists/rdj/read

To subscribe: Go to https://rdjour.wordpress.com/
and if you wish to receive email notice when new issues
are posted, click on the FOLLOW US VIA EMAIL box
(on the right side), and type in your email address.
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Mango Coconut Rice Pudding

1 cup jasmine rice
1 (14 oz.) can reduced-fat coconut milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons rum or 1 tsp. vanilla extract, optional
3/4 cup sweetened shredded coconut
2 mangoes, peeled and diced

Preheat oven to 375F. Grease a shallow 2 1/2-quart baking dish.

In a medium saucepan, bring 1 3/4 cups water to a boil. Stir in rice, cover, reduce heat and simmer until all water is absorbed, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from heat.

In a small saucepan, during last 5 minutes of cooking rice, bring coconut milk, sugar and salt to a boil over medium-high heat. Cook for 4 minutes. Turn off heat and stir in rum.

Fluff rice with a fork. Pour coconut milk on top. Cover with wax paper; let rest for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, spread coconut in a single layer on a baking sheet and toast in oven, stirring frequently, until golden brown, 7 to 10 minutes. Let cool. (Coconut can be toasted up to 1 week ahead; store airtight.)

Serve rice pudding at room temperature or warmed slightly on stove top, topped with a sprinkling of mango and toasted coconut. Makes 6 servings.

. . .
Nutritional Information
Amount per serving
Calories: 323
Fat: 8g
Saturated fat: 6g
Protein: 4g
Carbohydrate: 60g
Fiber: 2g
Cholesterol: 0mg
Sodium: 426mg
_______________________________________

AT THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
By Walter Mills

Coffee at the Metro Diner

I thumbed through the little notebook where I write down stray thoughts and ideas for columns and came across the cryptic note – Metro Diner.

The Metro Diner is a pretty nice place on W. 100th Street in New York City where I ate breakfast once. I ate at the counter and had an omelet, toast and coffee and paid around $4.95. Nothing of any particular interest occurred at the Metro Diner.

I was supposed to meet Mike and Elizabeth, literary agents from San Francisco, at a hotel dining room up the street. I arrived a few minutes before seven that morning, and sat down in the small hotel lobby next to the dining room. I hadn’t seen Mike and Liz for over ten years and I wondered how it would feel to see them again.

They had once agreed to represent a novel I had written, and for a while I had felt like I was about to shoot up into the rarefied literary atmosphere where the Mailers and Doctorows dwell, but they couldn’t sell my book and the rocket sputtered and fell back to earth. Not their fault; I’m not sure who would have ever bought it.

I sat in the gilt and chintz lobby and the minutes ticked away. Every few minutes I got up and peered into the restaurant to see if they had slipped in through another door. At a quarter to eight I went farther into the restaurant and looked into some of the side rooms, white tablecloths and crystal and shining silver on the tables. I wasn’t used to that sort of thing anymore. I had lived in a small town for a number of years, and most places I ate breakfast used a paper place setting on a Formica table.

As I passed the host station the phone rang and I knew as soon as the man in the beautiful suit picked it up that it would be Mike or Liz calling to say they couldn’t make it. And it was. Mike was on the line, upset and apologetic that they had overslept. We arranged to meet later at the conference we were both attending and I gave the phone back to the host.

I thought I might as well stay and have breakfast since I had waited so long. I studied the menu that was hanging in a silver frame near the door. I didn’t get very far. Coffee $4 a cup. Continental breakfast, coffee, roll and juice, $16.95. I backed away and hurried out into the street.

Two blocks away I came across the Metro Diner and a man in a leather jacket talked on the phone and pointed people toward empty seats. Since I was alone he pointed me toward the counter. I sat with a line of other single customers, drank coffee, ate breakfast and read the paper.

Nothing much happened at the Metro Diner. I wonder why I left myself the note.

. . .
Read more of Walt’s writing at his blog:
http://americanimpressionist.wordpress.com/

(The above column originally appeared in the Centre Daily Times and is copyright © 2014 by Walter Mills. All rights reserved worldwide. To contact Walt, address your emails to awmills@verizon.net ).
_______________________________________
_______________________________________

Recipe du Jour is made possible only by donations from good neighbors like you. If you enjoy receiving RDJ, please support us by sending a check payable to “Richard Rowand” for any amount to: Richard Rowand, PO Box 3385, Leesburg, VA 20177. Or use PAYPAL ( http://www.paypal.com ) and donate (via your account or their secure credit card site) directly thru Rich’s email address ( rich@recipedujour.com ). Thank you.
_______________________________________

Good Neighbor Recipes appears every Friday. To submit your recipe to Recipe du Jour’s Good Neighbor Recipes, simply send it via email rrowand@gmail.com Use “GNR” and the title of your recipe as the subject; and you must include your email address in the text in case other readers have questions. Feel free to include some words about yourself or the recipe (please keep it short). Look at the format we use when we present our recipes and try to be similar. Do not submit recipes in “bulleted” or 2 column format. Be sure to be specific in your measurements (don’t just say “a small can” of something, give the amount). One recipe per email, please. We reserve the right not to print everything we receive. By submitting to Good Neighbor Recipes, you give us permission to publish your submission in our daily ezine and in any other format, such as a printed collection, without recompense now or in the future. WARNING: If you don’t follow the guidelines above, we won’t be able to use your recipe!

Please tell others about the unique experience of Recipe du Jour.

The nutritional analysis given with some recipes is intended as a guide only.

Recipe du Jour is strictly an opt-in service. We do not sell, lease, loan, or give our subscribers’ addresses to anyone for any reason. Our features are intended as entertainment only.

.

Read Full Post »