Shrimp and Scallops Athena

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SHRIMP AND SCALLOPS ATHENA

 1 lb. peeled, deveined, cooked shrimp

1 lb. scallops

(if you chose you can do two pounds of either one)

1 stick butter

2 Nice big lemons-juiced
Zest one of the lemons-it is easiest to zest before you juice.

1 tbsp. chopped fresh garlic

2 bunch of fresh. chopped Italian parsley

2 tsp dry oregano (if you have fresh double the amount)

1 Cups white wine

2 cans artichoke hearts, packed in water and drained

2 Cups crumbled Bleu cheese

1 lb. cooked fettuccine al dente

2 Cups finely chopped pistachio nuts

In a large fry pan saute scallops in butter until almost done, add juice of 2 lemons, white wine, garlic, oregano and parsley. Add cooked shrimp and coat with butter. Spread cooked al dente noodles over bottom of large baking dish.

Spoon seafood on top of fettuccine and pour all pan drippings over entire dish. Cut artichoke hearts into chunks and sprinkle over seafood.

Sprinkle crumbled Bleu cheese over the top and bake in 350 degree oven for 10 +/- minutes to melt Bleu cheese. Garnish with more parsley, nuts and serve.

Medusa-Not the Girl Next Door

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MEDUSA

Greek mythology describes Medusa as the daughter of Phorkys and Keto, the children of Gaia (Earth) and Okeanos (Ocean). She was one of the three sisters known as the Gorgons. Medusa was the only mortal out of the three; momma always liked the immortals best. Medusa was very beautiful and lived far in the north were the sun doesn’t shine.

Being a curious archetype, she wanted to see the sun, and asked the Goddess Athena for permission to go south. Athena refused to allow the trip and Medusa who had already packed the sun screen and had a bikini wax was angry.  Medusa accused the goddess of being  jealous of her beauty. That was it!!! Athena was angered and punished Medusa by turning her best feature, her rich thick hair into snakes and cursing her by making her so ugly that any one who looked into her eyes would turn into stone. Some deities you just don’t mess with, but a mop of unruly snake hair is a punishment beyond the Geneva Convention.

Medusa translates to sovereign female wisdom, which suggests she was more than a spoiled girl with a snappy comeback.  There seems to be a political message here about going against power unprepared.  She actually has a more complex and deeper mythology.  Historically Medusa had been an archetype for the nasty mother and  female mysteries.  She represents the cycles of nature and life as the guardian of the threshold and the area between heaven – earth – underworld. She is destroyed in order to create balance and purity.  Medusa is the ultimate truth and wholeness.  Snakes coil around her arms, legs and are entwined in her hair.  They don’t just hiss, but often are shown whispering into her ear. The serpent is a totem of the cycles of life, death and rebirth and the seasons. It is the connection to the fertile earth and to the underworld.

Turning men to stone is a particular talent that would reference of looking to the mystery of women and their unknown powers, scary business. I’ve seen my sister turn a few to stone, but rum was also involved.

Perseus was sent  to retrieve the head of Medusa.  This is a task that takes the utmost male courage and one of those snake handling sticks. On the way to her place he notices several stone statues, possibly more clues he may need help. He came upon the sleeping Gorgon sisters, and Athena still a little miffed over the beauty wise crack held her shield to work as a mirror. This made it possible for Perseus to cut and run, with a very unwieldy trophy. Athena made Medusa’s hell on earth possible, as well as her hasty dispatch to Hades.  The defeat and besmirchment of the older mother goddess, as well as her replacement with a new modern hunter type, sounds like a new HBO series.

 

Colonial Apple-Cranberry Pie

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COLONIAL APPLE-CRANBERRY PIE WITH CORNMEAL CRUST

Crust

2 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cut yellow cornmeal

5 tablespoons sugar

1 1/4 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons solid vegetable shortening, room temperature

6 tablespoons (about) buttermilk

Filling

1 cup fresh cranberries

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

3 pounds Pippin apples, peeled, cored, cut into

1/2-inch thick slices

1/2 cup dried cranberries (Craisins)

5 tablespoons all purpose flour

Buttermilk

For crust: Mix first 5 ingredients in processor. Add shortening and cut in until mixture resembles coarse meal. Blend in enough buttermilk by tablespoons to form dough that begins to clump together. Gather dough into ball; divide in half. Flatten each half into disk. Wrap each disk in plastic and chill 45 minutes. (Can be made 1 day ahead.)

For filling: Position rack in lowest third of oven and preheat to 375 F.

Coarsely chop cranberries with sugar and pumpkin pie spice in processor. Transfer mixture to large bowl. Add apples, dried cranberries and flour and toss well.

Roll out 1 ball of dough between sheets of waxed paper to 13-inch round. Peel off top sheet of paper; invert dough into 9 1/2-inch-diameter deep-dish glass pie dish. Peel off paper. Fold under overhanging dough to form double-thick edge. Crimp edge. Roll out remaining dough disk on lightly floured surface to 1/8-inch-thick round. Use a cookie cutter or sharp knife to cut designs from the dough (leaves are suggested.). Slightly mound filling in pie dish. Arrange leaves around edge of pie and all over top, overlapping decoratively. Brush pastry all over with buttermilk.

Place pie on baking sheet. Bake 45 minutes. Cover pie with foil and continue baking until juices bubble thickly and crust browns, about 35 minutes more. Transfer pie to rack and cool 1 hour. Serve warm or at room temperature with ice cream.   Maybe that is what Jane Champion did wrong. Turned violent when she found she didn’t have a food processor and a freezer for the ice cream. Puritans are known to have been unforgiving on electrical appliances.

BOSTON BROWN BREAD

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BOSTON BROWN BREAD

2 cups milk

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

1 cup cornmeal

1 cup rye flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 tsp baking soda

2 cups molasses

1 cup raisins

Preheat oven 375 º

Mix together milk and vinegar. Let mixture set at room temp for 15 minutes to allow the milk to sour.  You don’t want spoiled pasteurized milk just soured.

In a separate bowl, spoon mix dry ingredients together. Add molasses and raisins to the milk. Add liquid mixture to dry ingredients. Beat until blended.

Divide batter between 2 well buttered 1 pound coffee cans or other cans of 5 cup capacity or a baking dish, but you lose the cool shape.

Cover with dome shaped rounds of aluminum foil, buttered on the down side. Secure with rubber bands. Stand cans on a rack in a large or roasting pan.  Add enough water to reach 3/4 of the way up the cans but not enough to float them. Cover whole thing and simmer for 2 hours to steam the bread. Remove bread from pan and let stand on a wire rack until cool enough to handle. Remove bread from the cans and serve warm.

 

 

Half-Baked Tart Squash

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HALF BAKED TART-SQUASH

2 (1-pound) acorn squash

3/4 cup fresh or frozen cranberries

3 T orange juice

3 T brown sugar

2 T butter

1 tsp lemon juice

 

Wash squash and cut in half. Remove seeds and place cut side down into a shallow baking dish containing the water.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. While cooking combine other ingredients, in a sauce pan, cook over medium heat.  Don’t be alarmed if you have fresh berries when the pop.  They are not shooting at you, they just have an air pocket that needs to escape a lot like Joan.

Turn cut side up. Put equal amounts of the sauce into the partially baked squash, and return to oven and bake 15 minutes longer.

Chicken and Scandalous Dumplings

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CHICKEN AND SCANDALOUS DUMPLINGS

 

5 c. chicken broth

6 carrots, peeled and sliced

2 stalks celery, sliced

1 c. chopped onion

6 half-chicken breasts, skinned

1 bay leaf

2 tsp. poultry seasoning

1 2 C Frozen peas

1 tsp. salt Fresh ground black pepper

Dumplings: 

1 1/4 c. flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp.onion salt

1/4 c. minced scallions, including green tops

3 tbsp. chilled butter or vegetable shortening

2/3 c. milk

In large wide soup pot or deep skillet, combine broth, carrots, celery, onion, chicken, poultry seasons and bay leaf. Bring to simmer, cover and cook 20 minutes while making dumplings.

In bowl, combine flour, baking powder, onion salt, scallion, and butter. Use your fingers to work ingredients together until butter is about the size of small peas. Add milk and stir just until a soft dough forms. Add peas to simmering chicken, and then drop dough by rounded tablespoons into simmering stew. Cover and simmer over low heat for about 20 minutes until dumplings are cooked through. Season with salt to taste and generous grinding of black pepper. Serves

Jane Champion the first of many

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Jane Champion
?? – 1632

 Society has had a difficult time executing women.  That doesn’t mean they didn’t do it, just suffered over the choice and then BLAMMO!  Jane Champion was just the beginning; the only thing we know for sure was she was hanged in James City, Virginia, 1632.  Her crime has been forgotten, but her name lives on.  There is a huge variety of crimes that could have taken Jane to the gallows.  Even thought the laws regarding the death penalty varied from colony to colony the Laws of New England had not gone into effect as yet

Margaret Hatch was hanged in 1633 for murder, and in 1638 Dorothy Talby was hanged in Salem Massachusetts for the murder of her 3 year old daughter, Difficulty.   We will not enter into the expectations this mom had for her daughter from the day of her birth by the name she chose.  The youngest person hanged in America was Hannah Ocuish who was 12 years old and was described as a half breed Indian girl. She was executed on December 20, 1786 for the murder of a 6 year old girl whom she had beaten to death during an argument.  A time out wasn’t sufficient, so to the gallows.   

 The New York Colony instituted the Duke’s Laws of 1665 which made several puritanical offenses punishable by death.   In Puritan society young women, indentured servants, blacks, slaves, and the very young were at risk, they were not often allowed a defense.  There is a certain amount of wealth and social status mixed with a religious message often resulting with the harshest penalty.  Our modern society is still working on dismantling that custom.

 566 women were executed from 1632 to 1900 by various methods, usually hanging.  The majority was for murder, witchcraft, improper behavior, hiding an illegitimate pregnancy, striking a parent, and denying the true god. Women’s executions constitute approximately 3% of the total since 1608, but the statistics are changing.  The instance of violent crimes by women is escalating at an incredible rate playing havoc with the age old statistics.  Not what was expected from the female empowerment and equality.  Getting the vote in 1920 was to change American justice, so maybe the next step is to use the vote. We have come a long way baby!  Maybe when we get there we won’t be called baby. 

CHECKERED PAST COOKIES

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CHECKERED PAST COOKIES

1 ounce (square) bittersweet chocolate, chopped

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

3/4 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

3/4 cup butter, softened

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. almond extract

2 C chopped nuts

Melt chocolate in double boiler over low heat and stir until smooth. Remove from heat.  Sift together flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.

 In large bowl, cream butter or margarine and sugar together, beat in eggs, then almond extract. Gradually add flour mixture and mix well.

Divide the dough in half and put one half into another bowl and blend the melted chocolate into it and the nuts. You now have half chocolate dough and half plain dough.

Divide each of these in half. You now have four pieces of dough, two chocolate and two plain. Roll like a dirty rotten snake in the grass and square off each into a log.

On a large sheet of foil place one chocolate log and one plain log next to each other, Brush each with water. Place remaining plain log on top of the chocolate side, and the remaining chocolate log on top of the plain side. Wrap the four logs firmly in the foil and refrigerate at least 8 hours or overnight.

     (if you want something fancier, make more rolls and show us what you can do)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Remove dough from foil and cut into 1/4 inch slices. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8 – 10 minutes or until lightly browned.

Cole Younger Slaw

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COLE YOUNGER SLAW

This can keep for up 3 to 5 (weeks) in refrigerator confinement.

1 head cabbage (Shredded)
1 large green bell pepper (very thinly julliened)
1 C shredded carrots
1 C green grapes can substitute golden raisins

Dressing:

1 teaspoon salt
2 tsp white pepper (black if you have outlaw tendancies)
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1 C Mayo
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon celery seeds 
3 tsp brown or stone ground mustard
1/2 teaspoon turmeric

Top with 1/4 C (more or less) cashews to garnish

Shred the cabbage or chop very fine, if you have a food processor you know what to do. I like it chopped course, but that’s just me.  Set aside.

Chop the bell peppers shredded carrots and toss with cabbage, also a generous amount of grapes and set aside.

Combine remaining ingredients (except the nuts, you nut) for the dressing in a separate container, whisk together mayo,  sugar, salt, celery seed, mustard, and tumeric. Taste this mixture and add more sugar or what ever seems to be calling.  Pour over the cabbage mixture.

Top liberally with nuts, just before serving.

This was the first empty dish at a Blues festival.

WILD WEST BAKED BEANS -Campfire optional

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WILD WEST BAKED BEANS

1 pound dry pinto beans

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 pound salt pork or bacon

1 medium-size onion -coarsely chopped

4 T sugar

1/3 maple syrup

3 T brown mustard

1 tsp Worcestersire Sauce

2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

Soak beans overnight. In morning parboil them for ten minutes with a teaspoon of baking soda. Then run cold water through the beans in a colander or strainer. Dice rind of salt port one inch squares, same if you are using bacon if that is what you rustled up. Put half on bottom of bean pot with all the chopped onion. Put beans in pot. Put the rest of the pork on top. Mix other ingredients with hot water. Pour over beans.

Put in 300-degree oven for six hours. Or over a roasting campfire until tender and toasty.