Trailer Park Karma

A Little This, A Little That. You Got A Fed Kid.

2012-02-17T07:20:00-06:00

The Little Editor is visiting. That means (besides a house full of giggles) The Editor and I are faced with the challenge of how to entice a smart, headstrong young boy to eat nutritious foods.

Fortunately, his mom (the same woman whose chicken liver recipe is the best I've ever had) left us with a list of Little Ed's faves. Only thing is, he's not eating in his natural environment. Or eating food that's prepared by the people he's familiar with already.

Good thing he's got a bouncy attitude, like most kids his age. And really, there's a lot to be said for an appetite that favors sameness, especially when you live on a budget like ours. And thank goodness for ketchup.

The other night, our special Valentine's Day dinner at home included homemade chicken nuggets. Winner winner winner! Whew. Today, we scored again. This time it was with one of his mom's recipes, altered to fit what we had in the cupboard. And they're tasty enough that I plan on making them again, even when the giggles have returned home.

The Little Editor's Cheese Pancakes

1 egg

1 & 1/2 cups baking mix (the kind that you use for everything from pancakes to dumplings to meat coating)

1 cup cottage cheese

2 tsp vanilla extract

splash of milk

Beat the egg well, then add and combine the baking mix, cottage cheese, and vanilla. Add just enough milk to make sure all of the baking mix is moistened. The consistency isn't like pancake batter at all. It's more like very lumpy, sticky dough.

Plop spoonfuls into hot, melted butter in a frying pan. Cook on medium low heat until the first side firms up a bit (about 3 minutes), then flip over carefully and mash down a little with the back of your spatula to make a flatter pancake. Cook until golden brown all over, adding butter to the pan as needed.

I made a couple of extra big ones shaped like hearts, then poked a few frozen blueberries in before flipping. Since they were so huge and already nicely browned, I made sure they were cooked through by sending them to the toaster oven for 10 minutes at 250.

The whole batch made just enough to serve the three of us. Served them hot with some sour cream and raspberry preserves on the side.

We're gonna miss the giggles. A lot.

In Lieu of a Recipe, Haphazard Gardening: What's This Green Thing?

2012-02-05T18:22:54-06:00

I know, I know, it's been ages since I put up a recipe. And believe me, I've cooked up a small storm. It's just I haven't taken the time to format and upload ingredients and directions. Call me busy.

BUT -- in the meantime, I need your help, oh Happy Trailer Park Tribe: What the heck is this that we're growing in our prolific backyard meadow? Hint: There's a ring of it around the bird feeder, and nowhere else.

Besides, what else you gotta do besides watch the Super Bowl?

For My Birthday, A Gift For You: Breath

2012-01-30T13:33:09-06:00

I love my yoga instructor. Well, not that way, although he is pretty cute. He's also young enough to be my son. Like a lot of folks, though, he seems to be older on the inside than the outside.
One of the reasons I chose to continue on with his classes after my coupon expired (you didn't think I just wandered in and paid full price, did you?!) was because of what he says in-between asanas (that's what you call a yoga pose.) Actually, he talks while we're twisted like pretzels and struggling to breathe, too. He talks a lot. But quietly, with warmth and equanimity in his voice.

Mostly, he talks about breathing.

Breathing is a big deal.
Just ask anyone who's ever not been able to do it.

I grew up with asthma before there were preventive medicines for it. Have I told you that before? Once a year, every year, usually during the first cold snap, I'd be bed-ridden for a week or two. Not completely debilitated, certainly not crippled, just trying to breathe. I never really thought much about my annual asthma experiences, since they were all I'd known, until a friend in 4th grade sent me a flowery get-well card. "I hope you're okay," she wrote. That got me to wondering...

Fourth grade is about the time most of us start pondering mortality, at least a little bit. By then, you've lost a gerbil (or two) to whatever kills gerbils. You've spotted a dead bird or cat or dog on the way to the bus stop. You might have even been to a funeral or at least stayed with a sitter while your folks went to one. And I was already a little too serious about everything by my 10th year. I recall the acute grief and depression that set in when I turned 10 because -- true story -- I was "a whole decade old and hadn't accomplished anything with my life yet."

I can't make that stuff up.

So I used to lie in bed in the burbs of Swamp City, with the humidifier pumping steam from the carpeted floor next to me (you health nuts can add up that equation), doing nothing more than trying to breathe. For days. Weeks. Imagine it. You're an otherwise super healthy kid with all the energy that entails. You like school okay. You love your friends. Even your family is cool. Plenty of reasons to be up and about -- except for that pesky inability to breathe. So you lie there. Some days you can barely even stay awake to read. And this was back in the day before TVs in kids' bedrooms, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have managed to keep my eyes open on those days anyway.

Heck, think about doing that now, in your old age. Kinda makes your skin crawl to imagine it, hours and hours and hours of just lying there, staring at the ceiling, listening to the radio, knowing that life was going on without you outside the room. Bless my sisters' hearts for occasionally coming in to make me laugh. Making me laugh was reason enough to make me laugh. I couldn't do it. And our funnybones were tickled as my lungs convulsed with the attempt. Remember those cartoon dogs, Muttley and Mumbley? Pretty funny, I was.

Once I got the idea from my 4th grade friend that I might possibly not be okay, and this on the heels of my Decade Despondency, a new friend entered the room with my asthma: anxiety about dying. I worried that if I let sleep overtake me during an asthma attack, I might not wake up. I never told my parents about the fear, but the thing is, if I had, they would've just lied to soothe my panic. You can't in all earnesty tell anyone that they won't die. You don't know. They don't either. I remember how floored I was as an adult when I saw the movie "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle." The scene where the innocent young mom dies, grasping for her inhaler? Yeah. I don't even remember the rest of the movie, I was too busy freaking out having seen that what I'd always feared as a child could actually happen. Nothing like a little fresh anxiety to spice up your existence, even if I'd outgrown asthma by then.

"Take in each breath as if it's your last," my yoga instructor said, "because it is the last one like that one. And let it all go in the exhale."

"Just stop thinking and do it. You have the strength." (More words of wisdom from the young yogi.)

Oh, the other reason I chose to continue with my yoga instructor? It's because he kicks our asses relentlessly. I'm well on my way to an unassisted forearm stand. Can't beat that for 51.