I Can’t help myself!

My guilty pleasure is Hell’s kitchen.

Being a foodie with a son who chefs also has me scouring Gordon Ramsay‘s recipe books.

Currently I am working through the recipes in his fabulous book,

“Gordon Ramsay’s Family Fare”

Every recipe I have made from  lamb cassoulet to salmon seviche has not only turned out tasting amazingly yummy but has been pretty darn easy to make.

I have to give cudos to the f-bomb dropping kitchen nightmare Gordon Ramsay.

He is all that and then some.

Beef Casserole:

Ingredients:

 Ingredients:

BEEF CASSEROLE

“This casserole is the perfect winter warmer. Braising beef is slowly cooked with herbs and vegetables in red wine, which gives the stew a depth of color and a wonderful rich flavor.

1 3/4lb (800g) braising beef
3 tbsp all-purpose flour
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper olive oil, for cooking
7oz (200g) smoked bacon, cut into small cubes
2 medium carrots, peeled
1 small celeriac, about 1lb 9oz (700g), peeled
5oz (150g) pearl onions (or baby shallots), peeled
few thyme sprigs
2 bay leaves
9oz (250g) crimini mushrooms, trimmed halved if large
1 tsp tomato paste
2 cups (500ml) red wine
1 1/4 cups (300ml) beef or chicken stock
handful of Italian parsley, chopped

Instructions:

Heat the oven to 300°F (150°C). Cut the beef into bite size chunks. Season the flour with salt and pepper and toss the meat in the flour to coat.

Heat a little olive oil in a large cast-iron casserole over
medium heat. Sear the beef briefly in two or three batches until browned all over, then transfer to a plate and set aside.

Add the bacon to the casserole and sauté gently until lightly golden, adding a little olive oil if necessary.
Meanwhile, cut the carrots and celeriac into 3/4-inch (2-cm) cubes.

Tip them into the pan with
the whole onions, thyme, and bay leaves and stir over medium heat for 5 minutes until the vegetables begin to soften. Stir in the mushrooms and tomato paste and sauté for another 2 to 3 minutes.

Pour in the red wine and scrape the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon to deglaze.

Add the stock and bring the liquid to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for a few minutes.

Return the beef to the casserole and stir to immerse the meat in the liquid completely.

Put the lid on the casserole and cook in the oven for 2 1/2 hours or until the beef is very tender.
Check the seasoning, then scatter the chopped parsley over the stew.

As you can see from the picture there is no scattered parsley on top of the finished dish.
I also used a regular cooking onion instead of tiny pearl onions and bumped up the quantities of carrots and celery as well as beef.
You have to make a recipe your own by adjusting the seasonings to your own tastes and using ingredients that are available to you.
Don’t be afraid to be creative as long as the basic recipe remains intact.
For instance, using stew meat is a basic part of this recipe.Exchanging that for minute steak would not work.

The wine is also a basic element. You can leave it out if you have someone on anabuse who will be eating but you would want to exchange it with grape juice and a splash of vinegar.

If you keep a kosher kitchen as I do you can exchange the bacon for smoked meat.  I used lamb.

Lastly, I left out the bay leaves simply because the supermarket didn’t have them in the generic brand.
I wasn’t going to spend $4 for a jar of bay leaves from McCormick when I only use it occasionally.
Did not miss it one bit!

The casserole was simply amazing! Wonderful on a cold snowy October day.

WHAT? Snow in October??? Holy moly!!!

I think it’s time to take one last walk in the leaves.

Winter is coming!

Luckily Hoo and gmom loves us some snow!!!

this is gmom and baby Hoo

coming to you from beautiful Baltimore.

peace out.

Demolition of a small hut in our backyard.

It was a hard job.

Husband told me to leave it be.

But it was a fair Sunday,  and baby Hoo was sleeping.

So I took up a hammer.

Being unfamiliar with demolition I circled the hut a few times just swinging the hammer and thinking ,

“How do I do this?  How do I do anything?  I just do it.

Piece by piece.  Board by board.

Husband came home surprised to see the hut gone.

“You did that ? You couldn’t take down the hut!”

I could and I did!

It’s like my big sis taught me years ago when we got a rejection letter from a private school for one of my boys. She said,”What are you crying about, grow up, no does not mean no.”

Really?

She was right. I fought for an acceptance for my son and he went to that school.

Don’t tell me what I can’t do.

Oh but the  seismic challenges of the last few months.

A son losing his way.

A daughter walking into a relationship that was so very wrong.

The evil pain creeping from my back to my leg and settling in my foot.

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Let go and let God.

That I have learned, and this I know.

Challenges?

Get out of my f**king way.

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Son.  My beating heart.  Keep your head up.

Love and service, baby. Keep saying it.

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Pretty little girl will one day see that love knows no bounds. Only time and distance lets children scope the scene of their sad day when parent wrenched their sorry behind away from trouble.

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My personal enemy? The creeping fire.  Pain.

I will walk through it to drop to my knees so baby boy Hoo can reach me,  and I him.

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It was a fair Sunday.

The hut needed demolition.

I took up the hammer and brought the hut down.

Just let me pull nails, and crack wood.

Let me struggle under the weight of heavy wood.

This is gmom,

peace out.

Fell off a moped during the final afternoon of labor day  beach vacation.

Broke both right forearm bones.

” Road Rash” up and down her legs.

Drove her back to Baltimore to Union Memorial Hospital and the best upper extremity surgeons on the East Coast.

Now she has some hardware in her arm. A plate, pins and screws pulling the broken pieces all together. It’s been a long couple of weeks.

Before her surgery, she cried. I spoke softly to her and said the prayers from her childhood to comfort her.

After her surgery I slept by her. Gave her the pain medications, help her with all her needs, took her to the doctor and made repeated calls to him when she had questions.

I wiped her tears as she saw the track surgical scar run down her arm and the new shape of the back of her hand.

I handled the insurance company, her school medical leave letters and hooked her up with a decent physical therapist.

Now it’s 3 weeks post-op and the girl is back to normal.

Offended if I ask her if she wants me to cut a tag off the back of her shirt.

The cuddle-muffin who lay in my bed night after night is angry that I appeared at her PT appointment.

Miss Independent is back and I am left wondering if that momentary bond we shared when she was in pain and scared ever really happened.

Hoo started to attend a Montessori daycare program.

Can you say “Baby Yoga”?

It’s a step up from his earlier daycare to be sure.

Great facility, well run with trained staff.

Could we ask for more? Uh uh.

His late afternoon caregiver is a very serious Russian woman who takes her responsibilities very seriously.

Each day I get a “poop-report”.

How Hoo napped, what and with whom he played with and his general disposition.

Today when I picked him up she gravely intoned in her deep Russian accented voice,

“Hoo deed not eet hees lunch. Hoo only eht hees rahzohns.”

She somberly shook her head.

He only ate his raisins?

(Yikes!)

I’m not quite sure what to do with this information,

but it sounds like Hoo is off to the gulag if he doesn’t get his noon chow down.

Husband took gmom away for an escape to a seaside hotel ala waterfront view. Good food, nice amenities and a jacuzzi.

A lot to be said for stepping out of the fray of home life however brief. It was 48 hours of him and me. Hmmm.

We are a couple that are family centric. Putting out fires continuously with our kids and business. Keeping the American dream in site but damn if it’s always out of reach.

But for 2 days, we slept late, and turned off the phones, did just what we felt felt like.

Watched the water.

The sun setting on the bay.

I found my balance reflected in his eyes and he didn’t flinch or turn away.

My heart beat slow again when I felt his warmth surround me in the night.

This is gmom.

Renewed and a happy camper.

Peace out kids.

Say something Cujo

For the second time in as many weeks a young woman showed up unannounced at my door. The first time she came she  said she was returning a CD that was borrowed long ago. She lingered (in the middle of my workday) until finally I asked her if she was running away from home. Lingering? I don’t know what to do with. Running away? I can handle. She left quickly after I asked. My kids always say I’m too blunt.

Today when she showed up  there was no CD to return. It was just her.

“Running away again?”

Can I just come in for a while. I just need a place to cry and have some quiet.

I sat with her for a moment while she pet ‘Cujo The Dog’.

“Do you want to talk?”

No, but can Cujo stay with me?

I showed her to the den, gave her a box of tissues and a drink.  She patted the couch next to her and Cujo jumped up and settled in by her side (traitor).  Furry traitor.

About 2 hours later I heard her call to me that she was leaving.  She smiled as she bid her farewell to ‘Cujo The Dog’.

I don’t get it. Cujo is alright as dogs go but when I share my problems with him he lies on the floor and puts his head under the couch.

“Hey, You’re suppose to be helping me here, not hiding under the couch!”

Oh well, that’s life in the fast lane. What we can’t do for each other we can sometimes do for a stranger.

This is gmom and Cujo ( The Traitor Dog),

peace out.

When China was a little bug, (my daughter not the country), her sleeve caught fire. We were lighting Hannukah candles when she reached over the burning flames. I slapped the burning sleeve out. Husband and I examined her burned sleeve and her arm amazed that the flames never touched her skin.

Something similar happened to Egg, (my second daughter not chicken fetus). We do a lot of candle lighting in our religion. She wanted to blow out the Sabbath candles when her hair caught on fire. My mother standing nearby and I brushed the fire out as fast as it started. Egg was fine.

She turned her 3-year-old self around and smiled at us wondering why we were patting her head. She never knew how close she came to setting herself on fire.

If you are a parent then you know what I’m talking about.

You’ve swept food out of little mouths before they choked. You’ve caught your child mid-fall in the playground and set them on their feet to run and play.

For older kids. We fill the gas tank when we know they are going out. We check the tires. Twice.

The 17-year-old boy that comes to pick up your 14-year-old daughter for a date!?

That boy never makes it in the house! You know what I’m saying?

We watch out for the foreseeable problems our children are headed toward and run interference.

Kids, they are like the quarterbacks running with the ball. They may not see their teammates (parents) behind them tackling the opposing players, but they are there.

Funny. If a touchdown is made they dance around like monkeys. If an opposing team member takes them down they are just as likely to look around at their own team(again,it’s us,parents)  and say, “Where were you guys?”

It’s often a thankless job parenting. Until our kids have children of their own they may never understand why we do what we do.

“I’d catch a grenade for ya, put my hand on a blade for ya..”.  Heard that song?  It shouldn’t be a boyfriend singing to a girl.

It should be the parent’s anthem.

This is gmom.

peace out.

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My favorite is the beat-box rodent.

What’s yours?

This is gmom,

peace out.

Husband is home.

Mission accomplished.

I may be able to loan him out to FEMA. He is good.

It’s quiet in Baltimore tonight. Warm and sweet. Cujo and I are doing our usual patrolling of the grounds. Heat lightning is firing every few minutes.

Unless you live under a rock you have heard about the atrocity that happened in Norway on Friday. A lunatic planting bombs in Oslo then went on a killing spree at a youth camp.

Security is not tight in a country unused to such violence and better known for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize and mediating in conflicts, including the Middle East and Sri Lanka.

Breaks gmom’s heart.

Man dresses up like a police officer to gain access to the summer camp than mows down the kids with an automatic weapon.

In Boro Park, New York a few weeks ago, 8-year-old Leiby Kletsky walking home from day camp was picked up by a man who murdered and dismembered him. He put the boy’s body part’s in a red suitcase and kept the child’s feet in his freezer for himself.

In the search for Leiby, 3000 people hit the streets. A store’s surveillance camera caught the boy going with the man in to his car leading the police to resolution of the case. The boy was an orthodox Jew, the man he went with wore a yarmulke and looked liked an orthodox Jew.

Here in Baltimore recently there were 3 cases of men banging on residents doors saying, “Baltimore City Police,open up.” And the people did. People were tied up, men were shot, homes ransacked.

Use to be you could tell children if you are lost go to a woman.

(Now we have Casey Anthony on the street)

Use to be you could tell children if you are lost go to someone in a uniform.

It’s a different world.

What do we tell our children now?

This is gmom,

peace out.

Everyone likes to get a good gift. A gift that demonstrates that the giver really thought about what the the receiver would like.

Women are typically good gift givers. Men not so much.

So I’m doing you guys a favor and spelling it out for you.

Newsflash!  Flowers are not a gift. They are a thoughtful gesture or an accompaniment to a heartfelt apology.

Roses go really well with, for instance,… “I borrowed your car,

left the tank on empty and didn’t tell you.

I am fully accountable for you being late for your meeting.”

Newsflash!  Unless the girl is a teenager don’t give candy. Almost all women are watching their figures and don’t appreciate the sabotage.

It’s a classic blunder.

If we want chocolate we’ll buy it for ourselves.

Good Gifts:

1. Diamond stud earrings. Guys don’t try and get creative with all the pretty colored stone  jewelry out there.

The classic diamond stud can be had pretty inexpensively. Just one word of warning don’t buy the size for infants unless your wife is a dwarf, then it might be okay, I’ll check.

2. Gift Certificate to a spa. Most women will really appreciate your thoughtfulness. Showing your love by giving her some pampering is going to win you big brownie points.  Most guys think their gal wants to spend her special day with him.  I don’t know why guys think this.

3. Gift Certificate to her favorite shoe or clothing store. Don’t risk buying what you “think” she would like and worse yet, guess her “size”. That’s a night on the couch for sure. And don’t buy sexy lingerie guys, it’s so self-serving.

4. Short on time or inspiration? Buy a Kindle and a beautiful card with a return gift receipt. She will love it. Unless she is blind and only reads braille. Then you screwed up.

Bad Gifts. Very very bad.

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1. Membership to a gym. (Can you spell divorce court?)

2.Gift Card to Home Depot.

3. An Appliance.  Unless it’s something she specifiacally asked for, found the one she wanted and taped a reminder to your shaving mirror.

4.A home cooked dinner. No explanation needed right?

5. A mop. Thanks to Silverado for this one. Inspired.

Guys I just want to say, your welcome.

I know you needed this information.

Gmom is here to help. I’m just like that. I’m a helper person.

Now, what was the best and worst gift that you have received?

This is gmom the helper person,

peace out.