Fresh Green Beans and Smoked Ham Hocks and St. Patrick's Day

🎻😹😇A Belated Happy St. Patrick's Day!  I have always loved SPD, and have worn green of some kind every since I can remember.  The Celts and Greeks, after all, new each other well  The early Celts used the Greek alphabet for their language, and Celtic history is taught all over Greece, as far as I know, to this day.




Leprechaun from Dr. E's Doll Museum

All things Celtic intrigue me, and in my heart, I am with them.   Years ago I wrote about them, and have done poems on Boudicca nad the Warrior Queens.   So, when I can take it out, my teddy bear sweater with shamrock's and green leprechaun hats comes out, or my green velvet dresses, or my sweaters and skirts, and my Irish jewelry and sweaters.  When I can, I buy a shamrock.  This year, we made the traditional corned beef and cabbage, boiled with spices, potatoes, carrots, onions, and cabbage.

Miss Bangles Sipping a St. Patty's Day Cocktail

Our son used the leftover vegetables for egg drop soup. I don't eat much meat these days, but I make an exception for St. Pat's.  I also love my Farside cartoon of, yes, St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland, literally.  The snakes, of course, whine and complain; are we there yet---I have to pee!!  Ah well, for more serious fair, I recommend Rainbow, by Parke Godwin, which retells the story of the young St. Patrick.


Today, for my son, I made fresh green beans boiled with smoked ham hocks, in ham flavored bouillon.  Boil the ham hocks 30 minutes per pound, and then add green beans, washed, with 20 or 30 minutes left.  Drain and serve.  I also made chicken salad today, simply, with may, salt, pepper, a little Beaumonde seasoning, chopped onions, and chopped queen green olives, stuffed with pimento.




Public Domain Image Green Beans

Ah, domesticity.  I spent Friday cleaning out the fridge, and picking up the house and kitchen , beginning to organize, toss, and battle immortal ants.  Mr. Wilson, O Ant Whisperer, where are you when we need you!!!


Life goes on, however sad and fleeting.  I go on, however difficult.  "The woods are lovely, dark and deep--And I have promises to keep ...And miles to go before I sleep--And miles to go before I sleep."


It's just bad, and there is never much peace. 

So, I write, and I gaze at eagles on my way over the bridge. I wonder what the hawk atop the street sign is thinking, and the deer and I have conversations.  Today, we saw a mosquito.  No, a source of panic, but when I was growing up, a source of annoyance.  Now, I see them as sister females in some way, miniature vampire queens, sucking nourishment for their children. My mother has a little gold mosquito charm my dad bought her on the way back from a trip to New Orleans, indeed shades of Faulkner and Mosquitoes.


It's one of my favorite charms. Oh, for time, to look for heirlooms, to make memories, to write, to pull my puppet strings back together, before I'm hopelessly entangled. 


Go in peace.

Things that give me Peace

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Cheeseburger Soup Casserole and some Musings

1 can chunky cheeseburger soup, Campbell's is a good choice
2 TBSP mayonnaise
1 regular can tomato soup, any kind
About 1 c skim milk, whole milk or Lactaid would work
3 pats butter
1 lb egg noodles
2 eggs
3 Italian sausages sliced, or 1 c. browned hamburger or soy crumbles
1 can green beans or other vegetables
About 12 c shredded or grated cheese
Bread crumbs, Italian style or any brand
paprika
Queen green olives stuffed
********************************************************
Boil noodles, drain, and set aside
In a large bowl, combine cheeseburger soup, tomato soup, mayonnaise, eggs [beaten]
Spray a large baking pan with cooking spray, and preheat oven to 375 degrees


Layer bottom of pan with sliced sausage or browned meat that has been drained
Add can of green beans, drained, or other vegetables
Pour soup mixture over all
Mix
Dot with pats of butter
Sprinkle with cheese and mix again
Pour enough milk to fill about 1-4th of pan
Mix again
Cover with bread crumbs and sprinkle paprika
Garnish with green olives


Bake in oven at 375 degrees covered loosely with aluminum foil for 30 mins.










What a month, and what a year.  The blustery cold of this first of March brings bitter sweet memories.  The eagles pop up occasionally on the bridge, and red tailed hawk sat over a kill in our neighbor's yard.  Was that an omen, I have to wonder.


This year, I lost my dearest friend, Rosemary, to cancer.  She was barely sick two years, and determined to beat it.  She gave her life to care for others, and in the end, I was miles away, and she had to care for herself.  The joke was that we would go to the home together, preferably one she found in Yosemite, but it was not meant to be.


This past year I've been swallowed in the maze of alleged caregiving and nursing home and hospital frauds, with Fiendish Manor, the so called five star facility where my poor dad did rehab, to bad hospitals that didn't diagnose his stroke or the fracture in his back.  I have to wonder how much worse health care can get, and how long the elderly will be terrorized and silenced by the charlatans of the home health care industry, quick to make a buck at someone's expense and dignity.  I only speak of my family's experience, and I think it was far worse out west, but we need reform in a bad way, of  nursing homes and how they lie to people, and of lawyers like the family friend who tried to cheat us with his little stable of busybody social workers.  He will answer for his behavior one day to the ethics committee and disciplinary commission, if not the courts. Fee splitting with nonlawyers is not allowed, and his refusal to talk or given accounting for our money is abominable.


For anyone in my position, advocate constantly and keep your family at home as much as you can.  People go to these facilities to die, and if  you must go there, hire private aides, and stay away from home health care corporations.


I intend to write more the Feloni family chronicles and the adventures of that most desperate, sleazy housewife of all, BM Feloni and her talented daughters, Alley Cat Felony and Belladonna Feloni.


If I ever get the chance, volume two of The Bathory Chronicles will be on Kindle.


Peace, may it come to all of us.  May we all find the chance to pursue our passions and keep our families close.  Happy spring.