Baldur

In any case Baldur bought the photo and thus added a couple of grandma's sisters to the family tree.
Through the years I added many other photographs, some wildly eccentric, some very dignified, rich, poor, multiethnic. My parents would be horrified to see what our my family has become.
The men all tend to be bearded, the women buxomy.
One of my favorites is a withered looking old crone dressed in a black shawl and long black skirt that sweeps the dirt road she is standing on.
In each hand she is holding a huge mushroom that she had obviously just picked in the woods directly behind her.
Her name is Kapustina Rutabagaitus, which would be a perfectly plausible Lithuanian name meaning 'little cabbage soup-rutabaga lady.

Baldur

correct, also:

really -L =realy as you stated, but realy -a =rely which is the correct correction

matthew

That my friend, is a great name... I will suggest it to my daughter in law who is trying to get pregnant... (I wont suggest it while she is in the middle of trying)...

Baldur

It's good to see that you have had your coffee matthew, or are you still awake from an overnight shift?

matthew

ROFL... too funny... Matthew is off to get coffee himself... correction corrections are new for me...

matthew

Twas off last night... slept well for a change...

Baldur

We are getting ready to go out to le Spoon Greasee for breakfast, though I won't ever drink coffee there.
They have the worst coffee Baldur has ever encountered.
It's rather like battery acid mixed with used 10W40 oil

Baldur

Then we are going to 'GhettoMart', the cheapest supermarket around here to do the majority of our marketing for Thanksgiving dinner.

This is the kind of place that you never go to on the first of the month, because of the crowds, and where they don't give you bags, you scrounge for boxes or bring your own bags.
Chez Baldur has been using fabric tote bags for years now, so this is no big deal.

The fun part about GhettoMart is that many of the labels are not printed in English. So it's part shopping, part adventure.

Baldur

Well I must leave, enjoy your morning.

Feel free to pirate the station for a couple hours.
Baldur out.

I am not responsible for anything matthew might say, my apologies to my audience, in advance.

matthew

Before we get started, I would like to wander off aimlessly...

Baldur

Baldur has returned.
GhettoMart was a joy, though we could not get our slaughtered fowl for next Thursday there. They had quite an array of dead birds but they were far too expensive
Baldur would not pay 89c per pound there when all the major supermarkets had them on special for 47c per pound.
Indeed one market had them for 40c per pound, but that was about 30 miles away, so we went with the 47c price.

Baldur

I was hoping for a 20 pounder but ended up with a 16.24 pound turkey. The next size up was 26 pounds which would have been far too large.

Dragon

Had to laugh at Kapustina Rutabagaitus. I actually know someone who had the last name Capusten. I wonder if it means cabbage soup?

Dragon

-d +s = has

Baldur

Here is as good a place as any to talk everyone through my Turkey Dressing recipe, having bought everything I need today.
Baldur's prepares this vegetarian style as it is the main thing going on my plate, but it's easy enough to substitute dead animal products if you'd prefer.

Baldur

in Polish and Lithuanian the 'Kapust' prefix refers to cabbage

Dragon

All this talk of turkey makes me long for turkey dinner. My step-dad actually de-bones the turkey before stuffing and cooking it. When it's stuffed it looks almost undecernable from a regular turkey but before it's a little sad and flat and rather deflated looking. It makes carving it a breeze. Alas, my folks have been without a proper kitchen for a good 3 years now (due to renovation nightmares galore) and haven't been able to do a big turkey dinner for that long. Hopefully they will soon have an oven. Really I think they're just pleased to finally have a kitchen sink again as doing dishes in the bathroom is a pain in the ass!

Baldur

Baldur's Turkey Dressing sans Turkey

Several days beforehand take a large loaf of firm white bread and cut it into 1" cubes. Spread it out on a large baking sheet and place it into your oven to dry out. Ignore it until needed.

peel and chop several large onions
decapitate, clean and chop an entire bunch of celery
Saute' both together in a bit of olive oil in a large pot
When they are somewhat translucent add about 6 cups of veggie broth (you may substitute chicken or turkey broth) and simmer everything until the veggies are quite tender
Remove the pot from the heat and add 12 ounces of hamburg style veggie crumbles (or you may instead brown 1 pound of ground beef or turkey in a skillet until well cooked, drain off every bit of grease and add that instead).
Now to this you add
1 tablespoon of ground sage
1 teaspoon of crumbled thyme leaves
a good handful of chopped fresh or dried parsley
1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder
lots of freshly ground black pepper
Stir well
Now gently fold in the dry bread cubes.
If the mixture is very and sloppy and wet cut up more bread and add it to correct the problem
If the mixture is too dry add a bit of water
Taste it at this point and adjust the seasonings, adding salt if necessary.
Baldur finds the broth rather salty, often that is plenty already.
pile the dressing into a greased baking dish and put it in the oven until brown and crusty on top.
marius had wondered if baldur added fruit to his recipe. Robert does not like fruit in his dressing, but the addition of a cup of raisins and a couple peeled and diced apples added with the bread would work exceedingly well.

Baldur

Tonight I am making a beef dish for Robert

Baldur's Braised Beef in Beer

Chop a small onion and saute' it with olive oil in a medium sized soup pot.
When it is quite brown peel and smash a large clove of garlic and add it to the pot, stirring it around briefly
add 1 pound of stew beef cubes and continue stirring until they are browned on each side and have stopped trying to glue themselves to the bottom of the pan
pour enough water over the beef to cover it by 1/2"
pour a bottle of beer over this
add 3 beef bouillon cubes
a small bay leaf
one cleaned and chopped rib of celery
a pinch of ground cloves
ground back pepper
1/2 of a can of tomato paste.

Allow this to come to a slow simmer and cook for at least 2 hours until the beef is quite tender
Add more water as necessary, the level of liquid should never go below the level of beef cubes
You may add a dribble of Gravy Master or other browning liquid to correct the color
When the beef is tender take 2 tablespoons of flour whisked into 1/4 cup of cold water and stir it into the bubbling mixture. Simmer it until the gravy has thickened a bit

Serve with crusty bread.

Baldur often turns this into a full fledged stew by adding sliced carrots and cubed potatoes, often with a small handful of frozen peas added in the last couple minutes of cooking.
But you may also add sliced mushrooms midway through the cooking process

Baldur

It's time for Baldur's helpful kitchen tip.

Very often Baldur needs less than a full can of tomato paste in a recipe.
The remainder will end up going moldy in the refrigerator.

The solution?
Baldur takes any unused tomato paste and places it in a zipper style plastic sandwich bag. Then it gets flattened into a neat pancake of paste and put in the freezer.
Whenever you need tomato paste you can flex the bag and break off as large a chunk of paste as needed, returning the rest to the freezer.
No more waste!