What a can of beans can do...

When life gives you canned beans make a killer soup!

Times are tough and we are all struggling one way or another. Peyton Manning is resorting to reffing and I am working at a baby products store because I just can't beat myself up enough for not having my dream of loving husband, five kids, two dogs, three fish and a rabbit.

But in the real world, folks are really struggling. How to make a box of boxed, canned and shrink wrapped food products last their family of four a week is real tough math folks. Just because life has given you canned beans, it doesn't mean the end of the culinary world.

Let me share with you what a can of beans can do!

Here is what you will need to assemble:

15-20 Cherry Tomatoes (depending on size) – I used Campari because BiLo Had them on sale for buy one get one free cartons. And, they are delicious.

Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper

Chorizo Sausage (the ground kind you find next to the Queso and tortillas in the supper market)

1 onion

2 cans of white beans (Navy, Northern, Cannelloni)

3 cups of chicken or vegy stock

If you have Balsamic Vinegar and fresh parsley, all the better.

1 good pan/pot.

After you have rinsed your beautiful tomatoes, drizzle them with olive oil and liberal doses of salt and pepper. Roll the tomatoes around so they glisten all around like so:

Then roast them in your 375 degree oven for 15 minutes or so.

In your stove top pan begin to heat a light sprinkling of oil to cook your sausage. Careful, 'cause this sausage can fill your house with a crazy good smell just by popping it opened. On medium high heat it only takes 4-5 minutes to get it to where it needs to be. After it has cooked, I take a paper towel and blot the sausage and pan to take back some of the excess grease, but to each his own. Then add your chopped onion and toss it with the sausage and lower the heat. Allow those two love birds to marry.

Once the onions soften, you can drain your beans – I use two cans but it can be made with just one. I like it to be more smooth and creamy in the end, but if you would rather have more tomato and spice taste then all you need is one can.

Then you add your stock.

Once the 15 minute bell rings take the tomatoes out of the oven. Drizzle with Balsamic – no more then a tablespoon, and help it to blend with the tomato juices created from roasting. Then throw it all in the tub:

But don't take a picture at the same time you are tossing, that will just make the picture blurry.

I am an incredibly lazy cook, so I lightly press on the tomatoes as I blend them into the soup and as they cook a little longer with all their new friends, they remove their own coats and it makes it very easy to just snag those skins right out of the pot.

Now, you can go one of two ways, based entirely on personal preference. You can remove a couple of cups of the soup and puree in a food processor then blend back into the rest of the soup; or you can do like I do and wait for the soup to cool slightly and put it all in the blender. Some people just like the different textures. Me, I don't like surprises.

Drizzle a little more balsamic and add some fresh parsley in either case.

I am obsessed with the color of this soup!

After blending, return the soup to the pan and heat back up. Serve with a good crusty bread. This soup is great with a mix of salad greens just loosely tossed with a lite vinaigrette.

This is gourmet canned food, ya'll!

How Great Thou Art

The weather is overcast today. Light rain, chilly; just like it was 15 years ago on this date. It was 11:30 in the morning and Daddy was gone. His battle tested body lay still. Like he was getting the good night sleep that had alluded him for so long. For my whole life he went to war daily with the insurgents attacking his body. They were relentless and cruel and countless.

Today at 11:30 a.m. we met at the church; my siblings and I, the grandkids and my mother. When I arrived, I went to find my brother and when I did I saw him helping his son don the alter server gear.

“No Dad, that is too tight. No, it isn't supposed to go like that. Don't button that Dad. Dad, you don't know how it is supposed to look....”

“Son, is that too tight? OK buddy, you want that over? You don't want it buttoned? OK, that looks good. Uh, yea I do bud, I used to be an Alter Boy...”

They didn't need me there.

So I go find my niece Katie. She is singing at the meditation time after Communion; a solo for her Grandpa whom she never met. She just finished rehearsing. She is good to go. Such a little pro.

Eventually, we all settle in to Dad's pew. The front one on the left. He always sat in the front so he wouldn't have to see 'the hooligans who show up in shorts and mini skirts'. The Mass begins and I get teared up at the sweetness that is Alter Server Wade as he escorts the priest thru the congregation. I want to kiss him and hug him and whisper in his ear, “do you know just how proud your Grandpa is right now?”

The Mass is being said for the Repose of the Soul of Wade Bortle Sr., the greeter announces, and I wonder where Dad is with that. The priest talks about making sure we do what we are supposed to be doing in our short time on this earth and then I surmise my Dad is well at peace.

Communion commences and I am curious, when I should be praying, why did Daddy like this pew? Eventually you gotta see everyone as they come to receive the body and the blood of Christ. There are mini skirts, torn jeans, untucked shirts galore. But, since Dad was living his life the way God intended, I am sure his head was down, eyes closed and his heart and soul were deep in prayer at this time. Such big shoes for me to fill. Wait, cute boots, is that distressed leather! Oh God, I am going to hell.

When Katie made her short walk to the piano for her solo, I could not contain my tears. They flowed in odd tracks down my face with great speed, not at all keeping time with the music. When the opening notes of How Great Thou Art began I reminded myself that this tiny angel with the big voice never met her Grandfather; but she has every ounce of his goodness; his thoughtfulness ~ but way better pitch.

I am flanked by my nieces Catherine and Jessica and we embrace as the song soars. I am desperate for Daddy to see them now.They are beautiful and vibrant. I want the Mass to be said for someone else. I want Daddy in his Pew, beaming with pride as his granddaughter sings and his grandson serves.

I don't want Katie to stop singing. I never want this song to end because I can feel the warmth of my father's hands and the generosity of his presence. I am sitting on his lap; we are making the relish tray; we are singing in rounds She'll be Coming Around the Mountain; he is bouncing Amanda on his knee. We are taking a Sunday drive; he is making his chili. He is saying, Jesus Christ Almighty, and not in a good way; we are playing hookey and going to get Chinese. I am holding his hand as he cries and he is holding mine as someone breaks my heart. That was MY Dad.

How Great Thou Art, indeed.

The Doritos & Cheese Sandwich Years

I have gone from cross country travel to backing up and punting. It is not my finest hour. Sure I could have done things differently or not made such bold statements but then I wouldn't have lived so loudly these last few months and I wouldn't be so sure that 92% of my recent decisions have been spot on. But, none the less it is 4^th down and I am a long my from the end zone.

Do you ever think that it is so unbelievable that you could have things you dream about that you probably sabotage yourself more then you strive to set yourself up for success? For those of us who understand this there is always the voice inside our insecure selves that is completely sure we don't deserve to be happy. Life can be fine or OK. But is can't be great. That is the acre I live on.

Well, I have not given up my quest to change that. I am just slower at it then I thought I would be. It is like my dreams and my vision are up on the horizon and my timing belt just broke down here in the valley where my weary heart is stuck .

I need to remind myself that this is just a punt, however. In just 4 more crashes to the turf, I will have the ball back.

In the meantime; I am on a budget. And with all great budgets come creative recipes. I remember when I was 17 and moved to Atlanta with three girlfriends from high school after graduation. My main meal consisted of wheat bread, mustard, cheese and Doritos (mashed between the bread). It was the most de-lish sandwich. Accompanied by a cold beer or some Moonshine concoction we could score, it was particularly tasty. And oddly slimming. I lost 20 lbs my first 2 years in the 'real world'.

I don't know why it is ever referred to as that. It is disrespectful to young people who live in the real world well before their due date.

Now, some 20 lbs later, I realize how much I miss that Doritos & Cheese Sandwich. How perfectly simply and lovely a time it was when that sandwich reigned. Working two and three jobs with no direction. Going out on a Tuesday to some club in the city where we had to flaunt false ages to attend and then high-fivein' the paper-boy on the way in Wednesday morning as we scrambled to don work clothes for our 'real world' dalliances. I never realized until now; but each one of us, my room mates and I, were living an element of escapism in these early years. We flew by the seat of our pants and laughed and played as we had been denied by household responsibility or expectations for years before. We were free to be free for the first time in our young lives.

Now, we are grown ups. I am a grown up. But I still dream and I still want to be free. Free to eat Doritos & Cheese Sandwiches on Wheat w/ golden mustard and a cold beer. Free to be free again...

Only the Lonely...

The realities of a single girl are these:

You are more akin to the moon then you are to anyone in your family.

You don't always make the bed just to prove you answer to no one. And then you cry about it.

You have to take your own trash out and you have to check your own oil. And then you cry about it.

The rare occasions where a man holds the door for you, you stand back and look to see who they are holding the door for.

Generosity is your Achilles heel.

You spend countless nights perfecting your pot roast because you still believe this is the way to a man's heart. So as John Wooden preached, you will get ready, and then, perhaps your chance will come.

Yesterday I took the chuck roast from the freezer. I had bought it at Christmas thinking I should have it on hand in case anyone comes to visit me for the holiday. I would whip up a lovely Beef Bourguignon if I had a few hours notice and some red wine. So I also hid the Merlot in the dry sink.

Today is January 14^th. .

I take out my favorite pan and sprinkle it with olive oil and turn the burner to medium high. Rummaging around in the fridge I find half a shallot and some mushrooms. Do mushrooms really last this long?

I chop the shallot and watch it change to the color my face powder claims to shed on my face; then add the garlic. While that melds I go to the porch and steal the happiness away from a Rosemary twig that was basking in the sun. The petals get ravaged into tiny particles and forced to marry the onion and garlic. But like Livvy in The Magic of Ordinary Days; Rosemary begins to realize her true purpose and spreads it around the landscape.

The chuck roast gets strategically cut into thoughtful chunks of husband material; they are drowned in salt and pepper and optimism. This roast alone could yield five opportunities.

I lay the ways into the hot pan and let the flavors form a beautiful crust on all sides. The caramel color forming brings out the color in my eyes, sans the smudged, two day old mascara. It smells like a marriage; well no it doesn't. It smells like 1950's family programing, with Merlot.

I add the wine and allow it to evaporate; just like every Saturday.

Then, I bathe the hopefuls in beef broth and gently cover the favorite pan with foil and take to the already heated 275 degree oven.

And then I wait.

Aromatics fill my little gray house, but still I wait.

The hopefuls are basted, and still I wait. The clock has moved from 4 to 7 pm.

In the still I take a sauce pan and melt some butter and sprinkle some flour and momentarily it says fill me up. I add a splash of Merlot and bits of mushroom. Then sprinkle salt, paper and drippings from the pan of hopefuls. They await their finest hour.

There is a pot of boiling water to the left; I fill it with egg noodles that swim in anticipation. Within minutes I hear Mario and I drain them....but don't rinse. They go back in the pot that brought them as all ladies should.

After three hours I assemble  a presentation for 'to go guests'.

First, lay a bed of the noodles, then grab pieces of the hopefuls that fall apart at your beck and call and top the noodles. Then drown it all  in the Finest Hour.

I package up the meal in Tupperware and tin foil and wait for pick up.

Oddly accomplished I take to watching the Saints and 49'ers game searching for icing on the proverbial 'I am a good catch' cake!

The realities of a single girl....

Morning Song

A diamond of a morning

            Waked me an hour too soon

Dawn had taken in the stars

            And left the faint white moon

O white moon, you are lonely

            It is the same with me

But we have the world to roam over

            Only the lonely are free

            ~Sara Teasdale