My daughter, the excellent
cook, has another great recipe which is a hit with
everyone.
Baked Potato Soup
12 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
2/3 cup margarine
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
7 cups milk
4 large baked potatoes, peeled and cubed
4 green onions, chopped
1 & 1/4 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
DIRECTIONS:
1. In a stock pot or Dutch
oven, melt the margarine over medium heat. Whisk in flour
until smooth. Gradually stir in milk, whisking constantly
until thickened. Stir in potatoes and onions. Bring to a
boil, stirring frequently.
2. Reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes. Mix in bacon, cheese,
sour cream, salt, and pepper. Continue cooking, stirring
frequently, until cheese is melted.
Leo (my favorite geek guru) said, on a phone
call with his KFI radio show last weekend, that if
someone goes on the Internet with their home computer on
a broadband connection without any firewall or router,
they will get the Sasser virus within 30 seconds. Whew!
This
one is going around the Internet. Thanks to Lil S. for
sending it to me. He will never live that down, will he?
Ha ha.
Also from Lil is this
recipe for Spanish Rice. It sounds good, especially with
the cheese on it. She says it is originally from Betty
G., an excellent cook. My husband loves cilantro, so any
recipe calling for it might be success with him.
Spanish Fried
Rice
1 & 1/2 cups cooked rice
1 (14.5 oz) can tomatoes - blend to a paste, set aside.
chopped or powdered garlic,
chili powder, oregano, basil and cilantro to taste
Cook until tender, then add rice and tomatoes, chopped or
powdered garlic, oregano, basil and cilantro to taste (I'm
not too good at deciding what is "to taste" so you might
want to measure the amounts of everything you put in, if you
are the same way) - probably just start with a pinch of all
those. Add 3
to 4 tablespoons chili powder. Simmer until well blended.
Add salt and pepper or hot salsa. Serve topped with grated
cheese.
I love my iPod. I use it in
the car, when I walk, do housework, etc. - nearly every
day, but I have one big complaint: I can't bookmark a
long podcast or book. It's a real pain if the place is
lost when I recharge (which often happens). Sure, the
place is saved when the iPod is turned off, but so often
the place is lost after recharging. Argh! I have to edit
a copy of the file and remove what I already listened
to.
I also look forward to
improved sound quality in future iPods. I expect this will happen
eventually. Along with XM Rdaio, I never listen to
"regular" radio anymore.
P.S. Tomorrow, the Space
Shuttle flies again! My husband and many others have
been working on getting it back to flight. We are
excited, hopeful and will likely not breath again until
it lands safely. I believe things are safe and hope to
see this continue for a long, long time. Humans need to
explore -- and we are gaining much from medical and
other experiments or work being done in a weightless
environment. Last year, I had a chance to talk to Pam
Melroy, one of the shuttle astronauts. They are eager to
return. There is much work to do.
This is good information for
using Photoshop to improve a digital
camera picture. Instead of first, as this article
suggests, I would use the sharpening tool last. I
haven't been shooting in RAW format much, but I have one
camera that could do it. Maybe I will get more into
that.
My daughter made a
successful crockpot of clam chowder. She loved the
simplicity. She doubles the clams, bringing the total
used to 4 cans. Here's the recipe:
Easy Crockpot
Clam Chowder
INGREDIENTS: 1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of celery soup 1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of potato soup 1 (10.75 ounce) can New England clam chowder 2 (6.5 ounce) cans minced clams 1 quart half-and-half cream 1 pint heavy whipping cream
DIRECTIONS:
1. Mix cream of celery soup, cream of potato soup, clam
chowder, 1 can undrained clams, 1 can drained clams,
half-and-half cream, and whipping cream into a slow cooker.
I found this link over at
del.icio.us.
These free screen savers
look very good. I love screen savers. I have a million
of them, several from DigitalMinds
(which cost but have free demos). My favorite one is
still ElectricSheep.org
(completely free and pictured here).
The animated image constantly changes. There is always
something new and very colorful. It is endlessly
fascinating.
I also love Drempels
(free), a constantly-moving screen saver or wallpaper.
You can add your own patterns if you wish. Another fun
one also doubles as an optional desktop wallpaper with a
space adventure going on in the background: Desktop Dreamscapes(they offer a free download version but the paid
version is well worth it). I found it very distracting
as a wallpaper, though. I wanted to stop working and
just watch what was going on.
We
just got back from this movie. Reviewers were only
giving this low ratings (1 out of 4 stars in our local
newspaper). They were wrong. This was a good movie. We
both enjoyed it. We sat with a great audience. I think
this will do well at the theater.
It's mostly about how they
develop their powers and what they do with them - all
interesting and there were plenty of funny lines. I hope
they make a sequel.
The original comic books
were great. I am so glad I grew up with
these characters, thanks to my parents who both liked
comic books and were always buying them for us. (I
remember "reading" a Tarzan comic back in 1961 at a
neighbor's house. I was too young to read so I just
looked at the pictures and tried to imagine a story.
::sigh:: If I had only kept it (I say that a lot). My
mother, who had some very old Disney comics from 1940's
or 1950's says that even more than I do.
I love my iPod. I use it in
the car, when I walk, do housework, etc. - nearly every
day, but I have one big complaint: I can't bookmark a
long podcast or book. It's a real pain if the place is
lost when I recharge (which often happens). Sure, the
place is saved when the iPod is turned off, but so often
the place is lost after recharging. Argh! I have to edit
a copy of the file and remove what I already listened
to.
I found this link over at
We
just got back from this movie. Reviewers were only
giving this low ratings (1 out of 4 stars in our local
newspaper). They were wrong. This was a good movie. We
both enjoyed it. We sat with a great audience. I think
this will do well at the theater.