On My Mind

Leek and potato (this is from La Cuisine Familiale Française, so if it sounds odd blame my clunky translation)

3 fat potatoes (it doesn't say to peel them but I wouldn't dream of not peeling them!)
3 leeks (size not specified)
1 ½ litres = 2 ½ ish pints water, boiling
100g = 4 oz butter
salt
slices of toast

15 mins prep
1 hour to cook

Wash the vegetables. Chop the leeks, cut the potatoes into pieces. Melt (half?) the butter* in a big saucepan or flame-proof casserole, put the leeks in and fry them until they just turn colour and go "golden", stir in the boiling (or just boiled) water, throw in the potato pieces.

Add salt to taste. [Don't skimp, but don't forget you can always add more but you can't take it out]

Leave it to cook over gentle heat for an hour.

Put it through a vegetable mill if you have one. If not, any liquidiser or hand-held blender will do just as well.

It says to pour the soup onto your pieces of toast in a tureen, which is nice if you like it like that, then add the uncooked butter.

* I'd never noticed this before. I guess what they mean is... Do your original leek-cooking in one or two ounces of the butter, then stir the rest in at the end, or use it to butter your toast.

It's nice, anyway! - even though I've apparently been getting it slightly wrong for 35 years.




Maman* Blanc's vegetable and chervil soup

It is important to get the slices really thin so that the vegetables cook fast. The easiest way is using a Japanese mandolin, but if you have a food processor that should have a fine enough setting on it. Doing it by hand takes pretty good knife skills if you ask me!

20 minutes prep
10-12 minutes cooking

1 onion, cut into teeny weeny dice
1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed
2 large carrots, peeled and sliced ⅛" thick
3 celery stalks, sliced ¼" thick
2 leeks, with their two outer layers stripped off, cut into slices ½" thick
½ oz unsalted butter
1 large zucchini, halved lengthways and then cut into slices ¼" thick
2 ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 ¾ pints boiling water
a large handful of fresh chervil, roughly chopped (flat leaf parsley is fine if you can't get chervil)
salt, freshly ground white pepper

to finish, optional - crème fraîche or more butter

1. Sweat the vegetables. Large saucepan, medium heat, melt the butter, put in the onion, garlic, carrots, celery, and leeks, cover the pan, turn the heat down low, and leave them for five minutes. They should only soften, you don't want them to take on any colour.

He says: season with 8 pinches of sea salt and 2 pinches of white pepper. I love Raymond Blanc dearly, and I have never eaten anything at his restaurants that wasn't delicious, but to me this amount of salt is insane and I use half that amount at most. Add gradually and taste it, I should.

2. Cook the soup. Now add the courgette, tomatoes and boiling water (it must be boiling hot to reduce the cooking time and to help keep the colours bright). Boil fast for 5-7 minutes, until the vegetables are just tender. Stir in the chervil, or whatever herbs you like, at this point.

3. Whisk in the crème fraîche or butter (or both!). Taste and correct the seasoning. If you like your soup smooth you can blend it but it looks much prettier as it is.

*Raymond Blanc's Maman, that is.

Countrymouse - yes, please and thank you. Soup sounds terrific. If you can send, the Maman Blanc vegetable and the Leek and potato sound great. Wow, thank you.

Soup is nice. Also quick (most of them), and tastes so much better than even the best you've ever bought. Also cheap - so if it does (I can't think how) go horribly wrong at least you haven't wasted much money.

French onion? Maman Blanc's vegetable? Tomato rice? Leek and potato? I can send you a recipe if anything there tickles your fancy.

Every trial, every tribulation, every frustration, every tear I shed is a small price for
the reward of seeing you smile. I love you, Mother.

Musing about I need a good hobby. I thought of knitting, but then figured I didn't need all the extra hats, mittens or scarves that would come of it. I have allergies so gardening is out. Maybe cooking? Nothing fancy just mastering some homemade things from scratch.

Dec. 5th declared a National Day of Mourning in the U.S. for a past president. Some Federal offices will be closed.
My dH has to work.

Hubs made a great effort to put up the lights. Yay!

Comment on the landline; we have to have it out here in the middle of the country (middle of nowhere, actually), in order to get internet. We DO have the old square office desk type phones, and they do work during power outages.... just say'in!

"Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken." Oscar Wilde

Send, hope you are back safe!

Going on an "adventure" now to pick up hubs in the worst traffic!
Sure that I will receive traveling mercies....

“An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” — G. K. Chesterton

“Physical strength is measured by what we can carry; spiritual by what we can bear.”
–Unknown

You deserve a break Barb. And a celebration!

Congrats, Barb!! Do you have any personal projects or ideas of things you want to do...? Or are you going to settle into the new routine and think about what else you'd like to do with your extra time?

Today is my last day of work!!!!!!!!! Retirement is a wonderful concept.

Isn't that the truth, Smeshque. Can you please keep posting these? I don't know where you're finding them but I like them. Everyone could use a good word a day.

Welcome back, Lu. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have tv or internet. Probably finally read a book again, haha.

“Caregiving often calls us to lean into love we didn’t know possible.”
― Tia Walker

It was rough cwillie and my dH only wanted to watch shoot 'em up bang,bang shows on our 1 TV like Mannix and Cannon and The Fugitive that I hope I never have to watch again.I kept trying everything I could think of on the computer everyday,but nothing worked and I realized how addicted Iv'e become.I definitely had withdrawals.

Wow Lucky, no screens, you must have been going through withdrawal - I'm not sure I could survive returning to pre tech life.😲

My dear friends,here on AgingCare,
I sure have missed you~
Everything is A-ok here.We just lost 2 of our TV's,the phone and my computer for a whole week when somehow,we lost our connection to it all,the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. We still had the den TV but my dH hogged it.It was niceto have him eat dinner with me in the den though instead of him being back on his bed watching his TV in there for a change.
I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving ~
Thank you for wondering if I was alright.That's mighty kind~

“Sometimes you have to lose all you have to find out who you truly are.”
― Roy T. Bennett

“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses.” 

― Alphonse Karr

Most of my family has gotten rid of their landlines. Unfortunately, the landline phones are sophisticated that … when we have power outage (from typhoons), the phone dies out, too. No power, no phone. Same applies to our work phones - all connected to the internet and the power. When the UPS dies, the phone lines die. I keep forgetting to search Ebay for the regular old fashion phones for the house. Cell phones - ugh! On the last typhoon we had that knocked out the power for days, I had to go find a coffee shop that wasn't crowded and all the power outlets taken. My cellphone and iPad batteries were dying and needed recharging. Bought a smoothie and prolonged drinking it while recharging my devices. Took about 2 hours... smoothie melted... next time, I will order iced tea...

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”

– Hellen Keller

6pm and can't stop yawning. Must Not Lie Down On Sofa or will be a sorry insomniac bunny tonight. Not even for "forty winks..."

I think the On My Mind serves a purpose. It allows someone to say if they're going to be absent from the forums for awhile, and it leaves it as a pinned post. On the longer threads, maybe some read it but some do not. And certainly some (me) do not remember even if they did read it.

It's just a useful feature.

And CW and CM, I relate to the idea that the younger generation has instant solutions to everything. Eyeroll. There's a reason I have been hired into an industry I haven't worked in 20 years, and within a short time I'm assuming quite a bit of responsibility for my company. The young ones just haven't got it all quite as figured out as they think they do.

I'm not a fan of road trips to visit family, either, but I'll do it once a year... at least. What is concerning me right now about an upcoming Christmas trip away is that... I don't want to leave the cats completely alone for a week or more. All the extra food set out and extra litter box and all of that... I just don't think it's a good idea. Not sure what I'm going to do. I'm close to getting a roommate but I'm not trying to rush that decision and who knows, maybe they will want to go on their own holiday trip.

But besides the cats, I hate driving hours over the road.

So I can only imagine that it doesn't get any easier.

And landlines are helpful, they just are. As are the simpler, unbreakable landline phones.

Gershun, I read this recently and think I will revisit it. It's helpful advice to me. Now, to put it into practice... But many of these I was already doing because they help me to chill my over-thinking mind. It's an article on huffpost dot com with the title -- 17 'Small,' But Significant, Lifestyle Changes That Help People With Anxiety

Why can't the title be: "Outta My Mind"??

Heard from Luckyku, she is okay.

Keeping my land line.....
Bashing away at like, like, like.

That tapping noise you can hear from x000 miles away is me bashing away vigorously at Like, CW.

How do you put it nicely when what you need to say to your endearing little best-beloveds can only be accurately expressed as "f*** RIGHT off!!!"

I'm beginning to get a feel for what it is like when the younger generation is intent on forcing changes without taking into account the needs and desires of their elders. It is a bit much when every conversation includes an admonition to buy a smart phone and get rid of your land line followed by a guilt trip that none of us put in enough effort to visit the little one. I don't care how you do the math I am not convinced that dropping the land line phone will save any of us money, and I honestly CAN NOT HEAR half of the conversations from my younger relatives on their cell phones. As for driving to visit - the only routes that do not involve four, six and eight lane highways add at minimum an hour to the trip. Toss in driving phobia (me), health problems (BIL), just plain unwilling due to stress (sister) and it isn't as simple as they believe it should be. 😒