Japanese Chicken Salad

Sometimes you just want a light meal.  This one fills the bill.

Japanese Chicken Salad (good as a main dish with rolls/bread on the side)
1 head lettuce
6 green onions
1 cup cooked chicken, diced
1 pkg Top Ramen noodles (break in bag, don’t use spices)
2 T sesame seeds
½ cup slivered almonds

Brown top ramen, sesame seeds and almonds in 2-3 tablespoons of butter. Mix with other ingredients

Dressing (add just before serving)
2 T sugar
1/4 cup rice vinegar
½ tsp MSG (optional)
1/4 cup salad oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sesame oil
½ tsp white pepper

Enjoy!

Holiday Road!

I cannot get the youtube link to work but if you click here you can listen along to Holiday Road

Yesterday the middle child had a trip to go to the amusement park with a group.  However, sending her wasn't enough.  The rest of us had to make the trip too.  And I just can't help but giggle over the song.  So you know me, I had to share!

Fortunately for us, our great trip down Holiday Road meant a trip to a great amusement park/water park.  I won't lie and make it something it wasn't;  it never is as much fun as it looks on the commercials but that's probably because we aren't big fans of heartstopping rides.  At one point we lost track of a couple of kids--we knew the area she and her friend were in but couldn't find them--and then not an hour later another one got separated from the rest of the family.  That about did me in!

But on the upside, the kids did get to talk with the park owner who was just out wandering among the crowd.  She saw the girls looking over a map and asked if they needed help finding something.  The looks on their faces as they realized who it was talking to them was just priceless.

In the end we came home tired and a little sunburned but I think we'd all call it a successful trip!

D-Day June 6, 1944

D-Day.  The day 156,000 soldiers from the US, Great Britain and Canada stormed the beaches of Normandy.  It was the start of a battle which lasted for just under a week.  And it was the start of the end of WWII.  By August of that summer, Paris was liberated.  Germany surrendered the following May.

Today we pause simply to remember again the sacrifices made by those before us.  The men and women of that generation are certainly entitled to the nickname "The Greatest Generation."

Franklin Delano Roosevelt's D-Day Prayer June 6, 1944

My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest-until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

And for us at home -- fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas -- whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them--help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too -- strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God.

Amen.

Source http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odddayp.html

Cheese Scones = Red Lobster Cheese Biscuits?

I am not a huge fan of seafood so a trip to Red Lobster isn't a huge thing for me.  Except for those little cheddar cheese biscuits.  Those make the trip worthwhile for me.

The other day my girls had a sleepover and asked me to make scones for breakfast.  They prefer chocolate chip scones but I was looking to make something with cheese because I was more interested in savory rather than sweet for breakfast.

The result?  Truly yummy and enough like the Red Lobster cheddar biscuits that I decided I should share this one in case anyone else really craves them.  My basic recipe is one I clipped from Parade Magaine back in May of 2009.

Basic Easy Scone Recipe
1 large egg
1/2 c milk
2 c all-purpose flour
2 1/2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
6 Tbsp cold butter, cut into bits
3/4 cup of your preferred mix-in (chocolate chips, finely shredded cheddar jack cheese, raisins, craisins, blueberries, etc)

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Whisk the egg and milk together in one bowl and the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in another.

Drop the butter into the flour and using your fingers , cut and rub until the mixture is pebbly.  Poru in th emilk and egg.  Mix with a fork until the dough is evenly moist.  Add your "mix-in" and give the very sticky dough a few more stirs

Spoon a dozen mounds of dough onto a baking stone (or foil-lined baking sheet) and bake for 20-22 minutes or until the scones are golden brown.  Cool for a few minutes.  Serve with butter or jam, or a little of each.

If you follow this recipe and use raisins, the following nutritional analysis applies:
Makes 12.

Per Scone:  170 calories, 26 g carbs, 3 g protein, 7 g fat and 35 mg cholesterol.

Things I know. . . .

In no particular order:

1. You can lead a horse to water but you seriously cannot make that animal drink if he doesn't want to drink it!
2. A clean house makes me happy.
3. Other people who live in my house seem to not care if it's clean or dirty.
4. Refer to #1 again.
5. You should always read through the whole recipe before you decide "I think I'll double that" because otherwise, you might end up with a lot more English muffins than you were planning to make.
6. Wrap-around porches rock.
7. Air conditioning rocks even more.
8. Friends with swimming pools are good to have in the summertime.
9. I always thought I was a people person.  Turns out I just might be more of a loner than I ever thought.  Give me a good book and some quiet time and I can be happy for many many hours.
10. Pinky promises work.

Only Love Can Break A Heart

More Saturday music from my childhood!  Poignant song.  Odd choice for a kid to pick as another favorite but then again, who ever said I was entirely normal?  I grew up in the 70s in a thoroughly 1950s house with a stay at home mom and a delightfully sheltered life that included weekend visits to family farms or a convent.  What can I say.  It made me the girl I am.

(PS, I do hope one day my kids will say that they had the luxury of growing up in a house that was stuck in the 1950s in a good way.  Even if I can't be a full-time stay at home mom, I manage to play that role for several weeks at a time for my family.)

An Economist Gets Lunch

Economics--the dismal science.

And yet I am absolutely intrigued by how economists think.  Their brains work in ways I can't even imagine.

My new read is Tyler Cowen's An Economist Gets Lunch which my husband mentioned as a possible read for me.  The review by Dwight Garner for the New York Times was definitely not full of praise.  However, Jerry Weinberger is more complimentary in his article here.  I admit, I'm not through the book yet.  It's still intriguing to me.  Who blames Prohibition for all the bad food in America?  Tyler Cowen.  That's who.  It's not entirely Prohibition's fault though.  He acknowledges other forces at work such as the rise of TV, the American style of parenting (which revolves around catering to the bland tastes preferred by children),  Emergency Quota Act of 1921 (which limited immigration greatly, thus reducing our food choices) and even the fact that the United States got to be really good at food production, storage and transportation.  We do not have to depend on the freshest ingredients grown locally because we can store and ship all kinds of foods.

It's an interesting perspective on why we love the foods we do and why we don't have more choices.

To read more by Tyler Cowen, visit his website or pick up his book