FISH ON FRIDAY: The Tuna Casserole Project

This week's revolting casserole might as well have saved the money on that flat-leaf parsley garnish because did you ever see the likes of a plate of linguini covered with TUNA GRAVY? No, I thought not. You want the recipe? I'm not going to help you with a link because, really, you need to think this over before you click, for about six or seven months at least. Google "Tuna Gravy" and you'll find a number of recipes at Cooks.com, one that will even allow you to add "canned peas (optional)."

I just called my husband over to take a peek at the image and he peered at it, frowned, looked a little closer and then said in an offended voice, "Why would you make me look at something like that?"

Because misery loves company, baby.

Please feel free to call me honey

I went to Aldi today to do the weekly food shopping and I went alone for once. I usually take at least one of the girls with me because Aldi is one of those bag-and-tote-it-yerself places and it's always nice to have an extra set of hands when you're sacking it all up and stowing it away in the car. But today I was on my own, which means I am free to enter into conversations with total strangers, a character trait which the girls discourage, my mother completely understands and my brother finds utterly reprehensible.

"I suppose you're one of those people who talks to people in line at Disney World and the movie theater and in the waiting area of the Outback," he said superciliously.

"Oh, yes," I replied. "I am particularly friendly at the Outback because I'm usually working on a Foster's draft."

I wasn't drinking a beer at Aldi when I was standing in line with my shopping cart full of groceries, but I struck up a little conversation with the elderly man behind me who was holding a gallon of milk in each hand.

"Why don't you go in line ahead of me?" I asked. "Your hands are going to get really cold standing there holding that milk and I've got an awful lot of stuff in this cart."

"Why thanks!" he said, smiling and nodding his head affably. "My hands were already kind of cold and I'd just got to the line."

He went up ahead of me and we chatted about the deliciousness of the Aldi brand green tea as compared to the way more expensive Bigelow and Lipton brands. When he was ready to leave, he turned and called out, "Thanks again, ma'am!"

It was kind of odd being called "ma'am" by someone who was clearly old enough to be my grandpa, but I smiled and said, "You're welcome."

Evidently it struck him the same way because he went toward the automatic doors, but paused and turned back around. "Ordinarily, I would have called you honey," he said apologetically, "but my granddaughters tell me I'm not supposed to do that anymore."

The cashier and I both giggled. "You can call me honey anytime you want to, honey," I said generously.

"Me, too," offered the cashier.

"Aw, it's just a good old world, isn't it?" he asked engagingly, and left with his milk.

NUNDAY: How to have fun during Lent

These sisters chose to work a picture puzzle during their recreation time on Ash Wednesday and it looks like the postulant in the foreground just got caught hiding about five of the thousand pieces up her sleeve.

It is COMING. It CANNOT BE STOPPED.

These may be daffodils. Or maybe tulips. For all I know, they could be flesh-eating plants from the Little Nursery of Horrors - I don't know which flowers are what kind until they're blooming and sometimes not even then. All I do know is that these are GREEN and they're poking THROUGH THE SOIL and they aren't frozen stiff or buried in snow, so that can mean only one thing: The television programming is, like, all basketball, all the time.

You thought I was going to say "Spring has sprung" didn't you?

Sorry.

FRENCH FRIDAYS WITH DORIE: Salted Butter Break-Ups (Broyé)

Kayte, Katie and I have been really inconsistent in our posting of recipes made with the internet cooking group French Fridays with Dorie, which uses Dorie's lovely book Around My French Table and I am very relieved that FFw/D is not one of the more uptight cooking groups on the internet where if you fail to post a recipe on the assigned date, the other members of the group hunt you down and beat you with their spatulas. This week, however, we were all at the top of our game and made these weird little....cookies? Crackers? I don't think we've figured out exactly what they are yet; Dorie calls them "Salted Butter Break-Aways," but in France, they're called broyés, which means "crushed" or "crumbled."

This was one of the easiest recipes I've made so far -- uhhm, not that I've made that many from this cookbook -- but since it was a simple matter of flour, sugar, butter and sea salt, it was kind of hard to find a reason not to. So I did, and they're a very unusual....cracker? Cookie?....anyway, nothing like anything I've ever eaten before.

The recipe sounded as if they'd be something like a Lantz Captain's Wafer, you know, those little rectangular butter crackers that you can get in individual cellophane wrappers at salad bars? Or like a Keebler Club cracker: crunchy, slightly sweet, slightly salty. As it turns out, the broyés are not really like either of those things. For one thing, they're not as crackery, being crumbly yet more pliable and less dry than what we Americans think of as a cracker. Secondly, with two-thirds of a cup of sugar, they're much sweeter than any cracker we commonly eat, but with one teaspoon of coarse sea salt, they're much saltier than any cookie found on the aisle of any grocery store you care to name. In short, these coo-...er, ...cra-...whatever they are, simply can't be defined in terms of American tastes.

They are good, though! You mix up the dough in the food processor as you'd do for a pastry, shape it into a flattish square and then chill it for an hour. At the end of that time period, you roll it out into a nice, flat sheet, score it prettily with fork tines (my favorite part) and paint it with a glaze made of egg yolk. Yes, that's right: egg yolk. Not egg white, which is the most commonly used glaze ever if you want to give your food a nice shine. Yolk.

I am not much of an egg person, have I ever mentioned that? Especially the yolks.

When you bake the broyés or break-ups or whatever you want to call them, they're supposed to come out crispy on the edges and firm-with-a-spring in the center, which is how mine came out. To serve, you just....break off a piece, whatever size you'd care to eat. Which is kind of fun. I liked all those funny, misshapen pieces and broke up the entire thing so that it would be easier to store.

I found that broyés go deliciously well with, say, a slice of Swiss cheese. Maybe a nice, sharp Cheddar? I didn't have any of that, nor did I have any Gouda, but both seem like they'd pair up very amicably. I also pictured some sweet grapes or a sliced apple and a glass of moscato; in short, the makings for a very nice little picnic at the park on a day in the spring, just you and your bien-aimé, who would probably eat, lean back on one elbow and then say, "That was nice, but how's about we pack all this up and go get a real lunch?"

If I were to do these crookies -- that's the only way I can think of to describe them -- again, and I probably will because they were good, I'd use only half the sugar (or maybe even less than that) and a little more salt, just a pinch. And I would definitely glaze them, but only with white of egg because yolks are just so yucky.

All in all, a success!

FISH ON FRIDAY: The Tuna Casserole Project

Here is this week's offering, shown to you because? At your Catholic high school? The cafeteria ladies hate you.

20th Anniversary approaching!

I just got a telephone call from my husband, who said, "You know, with our twentieth anniversary coming up in June, I thought it would be nice if we did something special, so I made hotel reservations in downtown Indy and got us a table at Ruth's Chris Steak House. How's that sound?"

How does that sound? Does this man know me or what? Downtown in Indianapolis with the Indiana Historical Society and the Indiana State Museum and noon Mass at beautiful Old St. John's and the Indianapolis Museum of Art just a short jaunt away, PLUS STEAK??!!

I am already packing my bags.

Skip on over to Etsy

These gorgeous keepsakes are available over at the Etsy page of St. Luke's Brush and have you ever seen such incredible work on humble eggs and wooden pegs? Featured in this picture are the eggs in the forefront of the picture, obviously, with rosary boxes behind them. In the last row are customized saint wooden pegs; any saint you'd choose to name, this gifted artist will paint. What great gifts these would make for Easter, baptism anniversaries, Confirmation....you name it. And I guarantee that they aren't nearly as expensive as you might be thinking they'd be for such amazingly detailed work.

The artist behind St. Luke's Brush is a father of four and "an aspiring commercial and fine artist," as well as being a member of the Catholic Etsy Artist's Guild (search "teamcatholic" to find other artists.) If you'd like to follow St. Luke's Brush on Facebook, copy and paste the following URL into your address bar: http://www.facebook.com/pages/St-Lukes-Brush/116907268367835?v=wall&ref=ts

NUNDAY: Pass the Cheetos!

You might recall that Pope Benedict XVI, who looks a great deal like my Grandad, visited the United States in April 2008 and that lots and lots of people went to see him, including these Domincan Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist from Ann Arbor, Michigan. The sisters had a chartered bus to take them from Michigan to Maryland, and just in case they got hungry on the long trip, they each packed a little red tote bag full of snacks. (Word has it that there was also reading material available to while away the time, as well as puzzle books.) I hope that their beautiful white habits weren't covered with orange Cheeto fingerprints by the time they saw His Holiness.

I would seriously love to travel with these sisters. Not only are they smiling and happy, they are serious snackers. My kind of people.

FISH ON FRIDAY: The Tuna Casserole Project

Today is the start of a new bit on InsomniMom that I'm calling the Tuna Casserole Project.* Just for some lighthearted fun, you know? Unless you're one of the four people in North America who really likes tuna casserole, and I have to confess that if you are, I just don't know what to do with you. Stage an intervention? Write to the archdiocese for the name and number of the nearest exorcist? Weep sorrowful tears over a can of BumbleBee? All three? I'm stuck.

Anyway, tuna casserole is funny. People have such BIG reactions to it. You hardly ever hear someone say indifferently, "Tuna casserole? Yeah, my mom used to make that. I didn't much care for it." No, with tuna casserole you get reactions like a belligerent, "DO NOT EVER SPEAK THOSE TWO WORDS TO ME AGAIN" or perhaps a quivering voice whispering, "Sometimes when I have a fever, I can still smell that smell....that terrible, terrible smell...." accompanied by hand-wringing and a facial tic.

This Friday's offering is one that I named "Vomit on a Plate." I took a quick, holding-breath peek at the recipe and while it doesn't actually call for vomit, it does call for canned cream of mushroom soup and a great many peas and a generous amount of overcooked elbow macaroni. Plus the tuna, of course. By themselves, those things don't look vomity -- well, canned cream of mushroom soup isn't really what I'd call beautiful or anything, but still... -- but mixed all together and baked in a dish? It comes out looking like this and I'm not sure how you could get it onto your fork, let alone near your mouth. Totally yucktastic.




*These are images from the internet that have been deliberately posted by the people who made these casseroles. Yes, there are actual RECIPES for these things out there, but I'm not going to post them or even link to them because first of all, you don't really want to make something that looks like that, do you? And second of all, if you did make something that looked like that, let alone posted a recipe for it on the internet and served it to your family? Would YOU want to be outed? I think not.

I'm just as sick of snow as the next person, but...

I found this YouTube video of Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England, Will's hometown, on another site this morning and had to imbed it here. Because even though it's snow and winter is unspeakably vile, this is still Stratford, right?

There are several really great views of Shakespeare's childhood-into-adulthood home on Henley Street, some beautiful stills of the spire of Trinity Church where he was both baptized and interred, a few peeks at the snowy garden (absolutely radiant in summer) that marks the site of New Place, the house he bought and came to live in at his retirement, plus some nice looks at the Guild Hall, including a great shot of the second story windows that comprise the King Edward IV Grammar School where young Will learned his Latin and his love for Ovid. If you're a Shakespeare fan, it's a lovely mini-tour. If you're not, well, it's just a bunch of dreary snow and don't bother.

By the way, I don't think that slushie stand was there when Will was a lad....

It's official!! (Meditation on Lent at 12:24 a.m.)

I am sitting here in front of the computer when I should be sleeping. It's a perfect night for sleep -- chilly and rainy, with a chance of smooth, clean sheets on the bed -- and why I'm wide awake is something I wish I could change, especially since all this awakeness is only going to lead to Ash Wednesday being one REALLY LONG DAY.

Here's the thing: On the home schooling e-list I'm a member of and amongst my friends on Facebook, there's been an article circulating about, an article with an idea that many of my friends have said is "the perfect thing for Lent," as if we're talking about a really great necklace to accessorize a party dress. So I, being the nosey kind of person I am, and also piously hoping to have the Best Lent Ever! went like an idiot and looked at this article and immediately wanted to go off into a corner and, I don't know, maybe just DIE a little bit, not much, but reviving enough to go to 6:00 Mass today and get my ashes.

Here's the article. Read it at your peril, if you're some kind of person who is crazed with self-loathing or maybe just a grouchy old bat like me. I mean, I'm sure Mrs. Wittman is a lovely person, but oh my holy saints and angels, what kind of mind can come up with this sort of torture and even type Sunday is a Day Off! in bold type with an exclamation point? I would certainly think that Sunday would be a day off: you're going to need at least 24 hours to drag yourself to the hospital so that they can give you some glucose and some penicillin and some drug with plenty of codeine in it. All so that you can go back home on Monday morning and start the whole dreary business again.

All in twenty minutes, twice a day.

During that forty minutes, you have to do things like deep clean the kitchen, wipe down all light fixtures, clean out closets, organize the Tupperware, built a storage shed out back, hand polish each blade of grass in the front yard, clear the trash off at least three major thoroughfares in your city and climb to the roof of your church to personally inspect and repair each individual slate shingle.

Well, okay, some of the things on that list might have been slight exaggerations. But I'm not joking about the Tupperware! And I am also not joking that, down at the bottom of that list, there is an entry for Day 39 (Good Friday) that instructs me to "Prepare kitchen for Easter baking." Are you KIDDING me??!! All forty days of work and I still have to do something called "Easter baking"? At that point, I'm sure that all I would be baking is my own head, placed in the oven with a note pinned to my back that would read: "I JUST CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE. ALL THIS AND NO SWEETS - TOO MUCH!"

I do hope that my friends who have decided to undertake this challenge will meet with success, and although I insist on a clean and tidy house myself, I found as I read that list that I really don't care quite THAT much. I am okay with Fly Lady and her much more relaxed manner of dealing with dirt and clutter; I don't get that stressed-out feeling that I have now, the one that has totally wiped the sleep from my eyes as I contemplate Garage Week, Day 31 -- Throw out all unnecessary junk. I am completely unwound by that thought, and I don't even have a garage.