All I Wanted Was The Recipe!!!

Lately, I have been trying to change it up while cooking.  I don't want to fix the same dishes again and again.  So I have been searching the internet for recipes.  However, I keep coming up with the same problem.  People keep wanting to tell me their life story, and not give me the damn recipe.  This is what happened.

For legal purposes, below is the link as my reference source:

https://www.melskitchencafe.com/skillet-zucchini-and-yellow-squash/

So I searched for, "yellow squash and zucchini recipe."  The link above had a great recipe, but here's what I was thinking as I was reading.

Website:  This skillet zucchini and yellow squash recipe is so easy, delicious, and healthy, it is bound to become a summer side dish staple.

Adrian:  "That's great!  I have an abundance of yellow squash and zucchini.  Let's see what ingredients I need to cook."

Website:  Considering this is the side dish we eat four or five times during the late summer months, I feel it's time to share my feelings about the gloriousness of sauteed zucchini and squash and then leave you to get on with your day and life.

Basically, it's easy (10-15 minutes max.)  It literally can be served with anything (and I mean anything.)

Adrian:  I don't need your life story.  I just need the damn recipe.  I don't want your feelings.  If your feelings are getting in the way of my day and life then skip them, and give me the recipe.

Website:  And it's so yummy, I can't be trusted alone with the skillet (no really, I'll eat the whole thing.)

Adrian:  It sounds like  you need to see a therapist or dietary specialist.  I'm not your shrink.  I just want the damn recipe.

Website:  It's my favorite summer side dish, and I love that there aren't any frills or secret ingredients or squash pretending to be gormet here.

Adrian:  You could have skipped that last part.  Can we just get to the recipe?  You are wasting my time with your blather.

Website: For those of you that have already been doing this for, like, 100 years already, I’m happy we’ve been on the same page for so long.

You know, great minds and all that.

But if you haven’t, you should definitely be hopping on board while the squash lasts.

Whatever you do, remember to let the skillet get piping hot before adding that squash.

The delicious brown caramelization on the tender outsides of the squash is exactly what you are going for. Flavor, flavor, flavor.

As noted in the recipe, I love the addition of a tiny smattering of freshly grated Parmesan cheese at the end.

It takes a rather simple (and terribly delicious) skillet zucchini and yellow squash number and gives it a little pizazz.

Adrian:  Okay, now you're starting to fucking piss me off.  None of that had anything to do with the recipe.  Who are you trying to sell to?  I don't need your fucking life story.  I just need the fucking recipe!

Website:  I love all of your comments on this recipe!

You’ve shared many variations on this simple side dish and each one sounds delicious!

If you are in need of further inspiration, read through the comments to see how to change this up a little bit here and there.

For instance, Michelle commented: This is one of our fav summer dishes too!! We usually add potatoes to it as well. On lazy summer days, I throw in some kielbasa and broil some garlic bread and call it dinner!

Others have you have added fresh corn kernels, diced tomatoes, potatoes, and of course, lots cheese.

Adrian:  You ain't gonna like my comments.  Where's the recipe?  So far it's just been you blathering about yourself and some nonsense.  Give me the god damn recipe or I will fucking cut you!

Website:

Simple Skillet Zucchini and Yellow Squash

Yield: 6 servings as a side dish

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

• 1/2 tablespoon butter
• 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 small zucchini, ends trimmed and diced
• 2 small to medium yellow crookneck squash, ends trimmed and diced
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Sprinkle of freshly grated Parmesan cheese (optional but yummy)

Instructions

1. In a 10- or 12-inch nonstick skillet, heat the butter and olive oil over medium heat until hot and rippling.
2. Add the zucchini and yellow squash in as even a layer as possible (it should sizzle as it hits the skillet) and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Let it sit without stirring or moving for 2-3 minutes so it can get nice and golden. Give it a good stir, add a touch more salt and pepper to taste if needed, and let it continue to cook, stirring only every now and then, until the squash is browning here and there and tender to your liking, about 5-7 more minutes.
3. Season with salt and pepper to taste and top with freshly grated Parmesan, if desired. Serve immediately.

Notes

Infinitely adaptable, this dish can be dressed up with chopped tomatoes, fresh herbs, and a million other tasty ingredients so feel free to experiment and add-on wherever your heart leads. 99% of the time, I make it just like it's written and keep it quick and simple.

I prefer using the little zucchini but if you have some the size of baseball bats, they work fine, too. Halve them the long way and scoop out all the seeds/innards before dicing. Try to cut all the squash into similar-sized pieces for more even cooking. All in all, I usually use about 4-6 cups diced squash (combination of zucchini and yellow squash).

Adrian:  About fucking time.

The Angry Chef And The Tale Of The Tinfoil Dinner

I'll admit, I'm a bit of an angry, neurotic chef.  I talk to myself when cooking.  I am always on the move in the kitchen.  I like keeping a tight time.  I also don't take kindly to an invasion of my kitchen.  That's right.  I said, "my" kitchen.

I tell a lot of tales from my past on this blog.  After over 550 or so blogs I thought I would have told this tale.  However, today I realized that I had never written this story down.  It is the story of how I threw my own Grandmother out of my kitchen.  But first, let me start with what I was cooking.

When I was in the Boy Scouts of America we had a great recipe for the ultimate complete dinner.  It's called tinfoil dinner.  Basically, here's what you do.

Lay down some aluminum foil.  Place down some leaves of cabbage.  Place thinly cut potato slices down over the cabbage.  Add cut carrots.  Then place down some thawed out hamburger meat.  At this point you can be creative. 

You can add onions, but feel free to add whatever onions you like.  I also like to add bell peppers.  There are many types of mushrooms you can add.  Then you cover those back up with the rest of your raw hamburger.  Sidenote:  It actually works better with higher fat hamburger.  In other words, the cheap stuff.  At this point I like to add Heinz Beef Gravy (Savory Flavor.)  It's wonderful.

Then you go in reverse from there.  Add some cut carrots.  Put more thinly cut potato slices over them.  Then cover it in some more cabbage leaves.  In fact make sure you cover it completely with cabbage. 

When you are adding layers make sure to salt and pepper.  You can also be creative and use garlic salt and Italian seasonings.  If you like it spicy, by all means add your favorite spices. 

Then you wrap it up in aluminum foil, and then wrap it some more.  Why?  Because you are going to put it directly on the hot coals of an outdoor fire.  Leave it there for an hour.  You want it nice and hot.  The hamburger (and if you added gravy) juices will cook everything with a wonderful flavor. 
Since you have it in a nice fire, it will also have that nice campfire smoky flavor. 

When I was a young teen I described this meal to my family.  They asked me to make it for them.  I had to think about it.  How would I make it at home?  So I decided to take a cookie sheet, lay down the foil on it, and do the same thing I would normally do. 

Since I didn't have a fire, I decided to cook it in the oven.  I set the oven to 500 degrees, and cooked it for an hour.  It worked out wonderfully. 

Since I decided to write this blog about the tinfoil dinner, I made sure to take pictures.  Here they are.

As you can see it is covered pretty well in foil.

Here you can see all the cabbage.  You know you did a really good job when the cabbage is just a little bit singed. 

I've pulled the cabbage away, and you can see the nice mixture of meat, potatoes, carrots, onions, etc.

And here it is on my plate.  It tastes wonderful.  It really does. 

So now that I have explained how this dish is made, I will clarify my angry chef situation.  So as you know, I am king of my domain in the kitchen.  My grandmother is queen of her domain in her kitchen.  In fact, she thought she was a great cook.  (She's not.)  Her specialty was baking bread.  (You better have water or you would choke on it.)  She thought she was creative.  (She wasn't.)

So I was asked to make tinfoil dinner for everyone when my grandparents were down to visit.  She comes into my kitchen, and starts trying to tell me what to do.  I wasn't having it. 

She started making suggestions.  Things like adding tomatoes to it.  I halfway screamed, "What?"  Then she said I should add shredded cheese.  I really did yell, "At 500 degrees for an hour????!!!!!  Do you know what that will do????"  She just looked at me like a deer in headlights.

That's when I blew my fuse.  "Out!  Get out of my kitchen!!!"  I was not having that.  There's a reason I spent most of this blog teaching how to make this dish for a reason.  I wanted to show just how hot and how long this dish needs to cook.  Tomatoes and cheese would just be destroyed in that much heat. 

Besides this is not an Italian dish.  Grandma liked to make Italian baked dishes.  Her version of "spaghetti" was made in the oven.  My Uncle Jimmy called it, "awful."  It was something he did not look forward to.   It's true, her bad cooking was the stuff of legend.  That's one reason I really blew my top. 

I was not going to be given bad advice in my kitchen while I was working hard to feed six people.  My B.S. meter just went through the roof.  So, I threw her out of my kitchen.  I don't regret it.  My grandmother would tend to push people until you stood up to her.  You had to let her know where the line was.  And I did just that. 

Now that's not to say I didn't care about my grandmother, but she could be very trying at times.  She had mood swings and a very sharp tongue.  As I became older we had come to an understanding.  And part of that was my kitchen was my territory. 

So, there are many things I want you, the reader, to take away from this.  First off, stay out of your chef's way.  Try a little tinfoil dinner now and then.  Don't add tomatoes and cheese to any dish at 500 degrees for an hour unless you want it to be goop.  And finally, you can learn some really neat things in the Boy Scouts of America. 

The Enemy Within

This story spans over a decade.  It is a tale of how long anger can last.  Anger is and always will be my enemy within.  It is something I have struggled to control.  Most of the important things in my life have been lost to anger.  This story will demonstrate that.

Back in 2004, I had a bit of a situation during a CUUPS service at the Unitarian Church.  And by "situation" I mean something I don't want to put in print on my blog.  Anyway, I was trespassed from the property by the main guy in charge, Ollis.

Now, I know what you are thinking, "What in the cold Hell do you have to do to get banned by a U.U. Church?"  I know, it's like Friday and getting fired on your day off.  I'll admit, I screwed up royally.  Which leads most people to ask, "No, seriously.  What the ever-loving fuck do you have to do to get thrown out by the most liberal religion in the U.S.?"

And again, I'm not going to talk about it.  Just know I was trespassed from the property, and have never been back in over 11 years.

I'll admit, I did have a problem with Ollis, the main guy in charge of CUUPS.  So, back then, I wrote Ollis an e-mail, and said that I was okay with the punishment, but other people should be thrown out too.  He never answered back.  All the crap fell squarely on me.

Back in 2011, after one of the services, I met up with some friends at the I-HOP across the street from the church.  Ollis and some of his group showed up.  We never spoke to each other.  It was cold.  I mean, there was some serious tension in the air. 

Back then, some of them wanted to ask Ollis on my behalf if I could come back.  I don't them not to bother because of the tension between us.  There would be no reason he would ever let me back.

So fast forward to October of 2015.  My friend Candie invited me to her wedding that would take place, (dah, dah!) at the U.U. Church.  So I have to tell her that I can't come since I am still trespassed from the property.  She said that she would talk to Ollis.  Low and behold, I was okayed to attend her wedding.

After the wedding I interrogated her on how it all went down.  Let's just say it didn't go the way I thought it did.  This is what Candie said happened.

Candie:  (Speaking to Ollis)  "Do you remember Adrian?"

Ollis:  "No."

Sidebar.  Wait a minute.  So all that coldness at the I-HOP?  It wasn't because of what he thought of me.  It was because he had no idea who I was.  He didn't know who I was.  I can't believe this.

Back to the conversation.

Candie:  I want him at my wedding.  It is alright if he attends?

Ollis:  Sure.

Sidebar.  So no wheeling and dealing?  I was really expecting some sort of wheeling and dealing, but no.  She got me there in what had to be the shortest conversation of her life.

Then, at the wedding today Ollis asks Candie, "Do you know that guy wearing the suit in the corner?"

She had to tell him, "Yes, that's Adrian."

He had no idea what I looked like.  So all this anger I've been carrying?  I figured that Ollis was carrying the same for me.  He wasn't.  He didn't even remember me, or remember what I looked like.  Wow.  I don't know what to think.  It's kind of changed my view on how one deals with anger.  I guess I will have to reevaluate mine.

Anger Rising

So I've been angry lately.  There's been a lot of stupid stuff going around, and I'm a bit sick of it.  So my anger has been a bit on the rise. 

But the question I thought to myself is, "how angry am I really?"  On a scale of .... oh who cares.  Scales mean different things to different people so it doesn't really work well.  I need a better way to express how angry I am.

So I thought about the one guy who was really pissed at someone.  That would be Zeus.  Now we are talking Greek God angry. 

I am referring to Zeus' anger at Prometheus.  No, not this guy:

On a side note I still want to kick Damon Lindelof in the nuts for what he did to that movie.  They said it was one of the best scripts Hollywood had seen in a long time.  It also answered all the questions that people had from the "Alien" movies.  But then Lindelof comes along, and decides to get it all "Mystified" and stuff.  Now we are going to have to have a second Prometheus movie to explain all the stuff that the second one didn't tell us.  But I digress.

I am talking about this Prometheus:

Prometheus was one of the original Titans who gave fire to humankind, and was punished for this by Zeus.  Which leads me to one of the biggest angry decisions I've ever heard of.  Zeus had Prometheus chained to a rock on a mountainside. 

Prometheus didn't get:

• Food
• Water
• Bathroom break
• Relief
• Exercise
• A Lawyer
• A one way ticket to Tartarus.
• Or anything that the U.N. would say he was entitled to.

No, he was chained to a rock 24/7.  Then everyday a giant eagle (some say a vulture) came to the rock, and ate his internal organs (some versions specify his liver.)  That's right.  Every single day that bird would come and eat all of Prometheus' guts.  Every single day. 

Why every single day?  Well, since Prometheus was a Titan that made him immortal.  So every night his wounds would regenerate, only to be ripped out the very next day.  He wouldn't die and go to Tartarus.  He could only live, chained to the rock, damned to have his guts torn out by that giant bird.

On a funny side note, it was actually Hercules that rescued Prometheus from his bondage on the mountaintop.  So Prometheus did eventually get away from that situation.

But it makes me think.  That is some serious anger.  I mean that is beyond cruel and unusual punishment.  When they said that the Gods were cruel, they weren't kidding. 

If Zeus had a theme song for his vengeance, I assume it would be this:

Angel's Trumpet, Part 3, The Squeaky Wheel

To understand this post a little better you might want to read the first two posts about the Angel's Trumpet I wrote.

Part 1.

http://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2014/05/im-not-sure-how-i-feel-about-angels.html

Part 2.

http://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-angels-trumpet-plant-in-my-yard-is.html

Well, posting on the internet has done what a years' worth of bitching has not.  The Angel's Trumpet plant, tree has been cut back.  So now I can mow under it.  Not to mention that the grass underneath it can actually start to grow.

Here's the pictures.

So now I can get back to mowing without getting repeatedly smacked in the head by this dang tree.  Now I will concentrate on all the other plants in the yard that want to cut me up when I mow. 

And now that I know bitching on the internet will get things done, I will try it more in the future.

The Angel's Trumpet Plant In My Yard Is Mocking Me

I have written about this particular plant before.  Read this to understand where I am coming from.

http://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2014/05/im-not-sure-how-i-feel-about-angels.html

The problem with this particular plant is that, it is becoming a tree.  And it's not exactly supposed to do that.  Even Wikipedia says it's a plant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brugmansia

I wrote the first blog one year and nineteen days ago.  The main problem I have with this particular plant is that, it's more like a tree, and it is getting in the way of my mowing.  I know you are thinking, "Well dumbass, get a pair of trimmers and trim that thing."  Well, I've brought that up, and I was told I wasn't allowed to cut it. 

I was told I had to wait for it to free back during the winter.  Now if you notice the dates of these two blogs you will have noticed that winter came and went, and the plant (now as big as a tree) did not freeze back.  It got bigger.  Much bigger.

Here's a far away shot of it, so you can see how big it is next to the old oak tree.

Again, I know you might be thinking, "Well, that's not that big."  That's when I say, "Yes, but it's a plant.  Not a tree."

Here's what it looks like when you stand underneath it.

Here are some of the dying flowers on it.

Again, normally I really could not care about this stupid plant, but....

1.  It's gotten out of control.  What was supposed to be a plant has become a tree.
2.  I can't mow near it without it trying to decapitate me.
3.  It laughs in the face of being frozen.
4.  I am not allowed to cut it back. 
5.  I'm still afraid that the stupid kids in the neighborhood are going to try and get high off the flowers and end up killing themselves.  Really, who decided to plant this thing here?

One of these days something is going to have to be done about it.  And I will be there when that happens.

THIS! Is Not A Salad Bar!!!

I have a pet peeve.  I will admit it.  It has been the cause of many a fight among the household.  First off let me show you a picture.  Look at this:

Notice anything wrong?  Well, it comes down to the fact that I can not make a damned salad in this house.  Everyone gets all bent out of shape to what's in their salad.  I can only put lettuce and carrots in a big bowl, and then have to make a salad bar for all the other ingredients.

So why is this a problem?  Well for starters notice how much room is on the table?  There's no more room to put dinner on the table.  Due to the salad bar, I can't put anything else on the table.

Next, it creates much more work for me.  I end up spending more time than I should on it.  I am not a God Damned restaurant.  Shut up and eat!  I mean really?  Do I have to go through this amount of work for every single time I have to fix a salad in this house?

I think back to my childhood.  You know who doesn't raise a stink about what you are cooking?  Poor kids.

That's right, starving kids don't tend to complain about what they're given to eat.  I grew up in a middle class neighborhood that was going downhill fast.  The kids I ate lunch with never complained about what food they had, because they were frickin starved. 

My point being, the people in this house have gotten too soft, fat, and lazy.  As cook, I have the right to put a freaking salad in a salad bowl without making a salad bar.  This is not a restaurant.  This is my kitchen, and the cook is always right.  So shut the fuck up and eat.