Tostadas in 2020

Tostadas 2020

It will look like this without the toes.

Tostadas Ingredients (4 - 6 people)

1. Tortillas - buy the best quality you can find. 

2. Protein - Shredded Chicken works well. I also use Ground Sirloin or Ground Turkey. 

You will need about a pound. (Next time I'm going to try pork.)

3. One Medium Red Onion (Chopped)

4. 4-5 Cloves of Garlic (Sliced and chopped)

5. Bunch of Cilantro (okay... you can skip if you must!)

6. Two Serrano Peppers or One Jalapeño Pepper - fresh (Sliced)

7. Three Anaheim Peppers (Sliced and Chopped)

8. Fresh Ground Pepper (to taste)

9.  Lemon Juice (Or Tequila) 2 - 3 tablespoons 

10. Dash of Allspice

11. Can of Mushrooms. (4 oz - sliced)

12. Two to Three Roma tomatoes. (Chopped.)

13. Two cans of Pinto Beans. One can of Kidney Beans. One can of Black Beans. (S&W low salt.)

14. 6 smallish Tomatoes - the kind YOU like best. (Note: Do not add these to bean and meat mixture.)

15. Ripe Avocado (Halved and Sliced.) (One per two people.. more for more.)

16. Head of Iceberg Lettuce - Shredded

17. Can of Black Pitted Olives (medium to large) - Drained

18. Shredded Cheese

19. Sour Cream

To Create:

1. Cook Protein and drain if there is excess fat. (I hate all animal fat! ... except bacon...)

2. Add Beans, Garlic, Red Onion, Roma Tomatoes, Cilantro (or not), Anaheim Peppers, Serrano or Jalapeño Peppers, Ground Black Pepper, 2-3 tablespoons of Lemon Juice, Can of Sliced Mushrooms - drained, Dash of Allspice.

It should look like this:

Cook it down for about 30 - 40 minutes. 

(Don't worry if it turns a bit brownish. It should!)

3. Prepare the Tortillas: Pre-heat a large pan, add one Tortilla at a time for a minute, flip and let it brown for less than a minute. 

4. Assemble. 

    Put Tortilla on a plate.

    Put Shredded Lettuce on Tortilla.

Put a healthy amount of Bean and Protein Mixture on the Lettuce 

(2 ladlefuls at least.)

            Sprinkle the Shredded Cheese on top of Mixture.

The Cheese will start to melt (yay) because it is on top of the now hot Beans and Protein.

Next:

Put a Glop of Sour Cream on top. (Yes, I said a "glop.")

Chop the Beautiful Tomatoes you bought and spread them around the outside of the pile.

Place the Sliced Avocado around the Sour Cream.

Put some Olives on top of the Sour Cream.

The point is to make it pretty!!

You are done!

Voilà or Ta Da! or maybe: Está Bien! 

COLESLAW!

Mayonnaise has become anathema to me so I can not use it to make salads at this time. (This is a temporary chemo reaction, I'm sure.)

I've worked with a variety of recipes and have come up with this.. No mayo coleslaw.. It is SO GOOD!!

Simple!

Ingredients: 

1. 1/2 head of Cabbage. If you need to learn how to cut cabbage check it out...: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQhUhbTx9Do

2. 1/2 Yellow or Sweet Onion

3. 1-2 stalks of Celery

4. 2-3 stalks of scallions

5. 1/2 cup of White Wine Vinegar

6. 2 Tablespoons of vegetable oil. (I use Canola.)

7. 1 1/2 Tablespoons of white sugar.

8. 2 Tsp of Celery Seed

9. 1 Tsp of Ground Pepper

10. 1/2 Tsp of Sea Salt

11. 1 Tsp of Powdered Mustard (You can skip this.. it is a weird ingredient.. I just really like it.)

Okay!

That is the ingredient list!

This is what you want to do.. no really.

1. Cut up the Cabbage. (umm yum cabbage.)

2. Put it in a fairly large salad bowl.

3. Cut up about 1/3 of a large yellow onion.. Make slices out of the onion.. You can cut it up smaller if you prefer. Toss it on top of the cabbage

4. Get your left over and decaying celery out of the fridge. Use the last two decent stalks and clean them. Cut the stalks in half, length-wise. Chop the celery. Add to the bowl.

5. Clean and cut up two well-endowed scallions. Put both the white part and the green in the bowl.

6. Have a glass of wine or a shot. Really.. You've done a lot of chopping.. Time for a little break!!

Okay.. Better now...

7. In a measuring cup put 1/2 cup of white wine vinegar.

8. Add 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil. (I use Canola Oil.)

9. Add 1 1/5 tablespoons of white sugar.

10. Add 2 teaspoons of celery seeds.

11. Add 1/2 tsp of Sea Salt.

12. 1 Tsp of Ground Pepper

13. 1 Tsp of Powdered Mustard .. or not.

Using a small wisk.. wisk the vinegar, oil, sugar, celery seeds, salt, pepper, and powdered mustard. Wisk really well!!

Pour 1/2 of liquid over cabbage mixture.

STIR.. MIX IT UP!

Pour the other half over the cabbage mixture. MIX IT UP!

Put a cover over the bowl.  Turn the bowl upside down and shake that dressing into the cabbage!

Put in the fridge for at least 2 hours and, even better, over night.

SO GOOD.

You now have Mary's Coleslaw!! 

Ba Dum!

Kitchen Sink Pisketti Sauce (Quarantine Style) And a couple of tips...

The beginning..

Sauce is just being prepared and cooking.

Ingredients.

1. 1/2 to 1 pound of ground beef/turkey/leftover hamburger

2. Couple of Roma Tomatoes (or what ever you have!)

3. 1 medium onion or 1/2 large onion (Brown or Sweet or Red.. What ever you have!!)

4. 4 oz can of mushrooms. Or fresh button mushrooms or a big ol can of mushrooms.. What do you have? Or.. no mushrooms.

5. 1/2 Green Bell Pepper. (Or not. Or 1/2 a yellow or red bell pepper. Ha!)

6. 3 LARGE cloves of chopped garlic. Or a bunch of garlic powder. Who doesn't have some kind of garlic in the house?

7. Garlic Powder (la la)

8. Dried Basil

9. Fresh Basil or more dried basil

10. Cup of whatever wine you are drinking. I'm drinking Pinot Grigio. I like white wine in my spaghetti sauce but red is good too. You can use a little bit of water instead.. see below.

11. Paul Newman's Own Spaghetti Sauce. I use Tomato and Basil.. honestly you can use whatever brand you prefer.    

12. Pasta

13. Parmesan cheese for topping. 

Okay.. The cooking:

1. Brown and/or heat the meat. Season as it cooks with garlic powder and dried basil. Sprinkle and eyeball it! Drain the fat. 

2. Add tomatoes, onion, mushrooms, bell pepper, garlic, fresh basil or another sprinkle of dried basil.

3. Cook on low heat for a bit. (About 10 minutes.)

4. Add the Spaghetti Sauce. Oh look.. Lots left in the jar! Hmm. What to do? 

5. Add 1/2 cup of wine to the jar. Put the lid on. Shake shake shake the jar. Pour contents into spaghetti sauce. (Or you can use a bit of water to help get the last of the sauce out... Maybe white wine vinegar... I've only tried water, because then I can reduce the sauce.)

6. Repeat step 5.

Make sure you take off the labels before recycling!

7. Stir!

8. Cover and simmer on low for however long it takes to get the guests to the table and the pasta cooked. I've left it as long as an hour. 

Meanwhile.. There is wine left to drink!!

NEXT!!

Go ahead and cook your pasta.. Follow the directions on the package..

I do not like it al dente. I cook it softer. Maybe 3 minutes more.  Here is the thing.. sometimes all the starch in the pasta starts to boil over!

Oh no! .. Put a wooden spoon on the top and reduce the heat just a bit. It will all be fine!

I took these pictures one after the other. The wooden spoon works.

Finally... Presentation!

Yay!!

This is such an easy dinner and so good!

m.

Black Holes and All The Rest.

Hi.

All my friends and siblings say at the end of every conversation.,"What weird times."  We have family plans that are now not so stable. I had plans to attend. I have too many doctor things going on  (my appendix! What?) I need to hibernate with my dearest husband. (Sounds like I have several.. I'll let you decide.)

Because I've been staying away from most folks for at least two years with my compromised immune system this is not that weird for us. Phil is a homebody and seems happy to do the shopping and go puttering around the house. . He has projects. We are fine and we are mostly happy. We get to leave the house for my chemo and my other doctor appointments.. Not a great reason but the drives are nice. No. The drives are stunning!! (We get to drive to Thousand Oaks. My goodness. Feels like a vacation.)

My cancer drugs are working! Yay! But.. now I have Chronic Kidney Disease from the drugs. Also I've torn something in my hip.. The MRI showed my torn thing in my hip but also turned up a tumor in my appendix. Great. Now I need a colonoscopy and then surgery to remove my appendix. I also am now making kidney stones.. So .. I have a urologist.. LA LA LA. (Appendix surgery in June.)

Hard to get all this stuff taken care of  because the docs are seeing folk via facebook or what ever. (I have a gynecology appt. on  June 5.  It is on facetime. Wondering how that will pan out.. Yikes. Honestly Laughing Out Loud.  ]

Hard to get all this stuff done because surgeries like this have been postponed. Bummer. I just want to be left alone.

But.. I find I am full of joy. I know we will get through this. I love spending all the time with my husband.

I am hoping y'all will stay SAFE and stay WELL.  And we will all get together again.

I love you my friends.  I love talking to you.. I love Zoom and Facebook. Let's do it again.

xoxox

Mary's Garlic Bread (Easy Peasy)

Mary's Garlic Bread!

Ingredients:

1. FROZEN Bread. Whatever! (I like San Luis Bread, sometimes sour dough.) Trust me on this.

2. Spreadable Butter.

3. Garlic POWDER (I use McCormick California Style)

4. Shredded Parmesan Cheese.

5. Tequila if necessary.. to drink.. don't use on the garlic bread!

Directions:

1. Freeze bread

2. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

3. Butter bread (The bread will not tear now.. It is frozen! Yay.)

4. Sprinkle garlic powder over bread.

5. Sprinkle cheese over bread. (Trust me, Parmesan is the best for this. You really need a dry-ish cheese.)

6. Put in pre-heated oven.

7. Watch carefully. 5 to 10 minutes. You could put it under the broiler but don't leave it very long!! 

8. Check desired doneness! (Let the cheese melt. Check the sides are crusty.)

9. Serve! YAY..

My Refrigerator Snores.

1. My refrigerator snores.

2. I put on sun-block if I’m going out.. even in the car… even for 5 minutes.(I have very soft hands for an old lady.)

3. I wash my hair every two days if I’m going out. Every 3 days if I’m not. (How dirty can it get?)

4. I take a shower every day. True! Gross, if you don’t.. For Gosh Sake’s TAKE A SHOWER!

5. I make my bed, hmm. Like never. Also true. Really.. Why?

6. I try to make dinner every night but sometimes we just eat frozen pizza.

7. I think I like hanging with my husband more than he likes hanging with me. 

8. Calling Angels on Broadway for the first time was a fucking trip.

9. My sisters, my brother and my dad call to check on me.

10. Some of my best friends email me just to check in. I love that!

11.I have some N95 masks. We bought them months ago to protect us from the California Fires. I gave one to my oncologist. She said, “This is the BEST GIFT EVER!”

12. I didn’t know how much I liked tequila.

13. I need to stay away from Amazon.com. We have Prime.. so ..free shipping.

14. I’ve just been ripped off by a China company for $30. The website for the purchase has disappeared. Alas.. Not buying from China anymore..  Wait…. Is that even possible??? 

15. One of my best friends made Phil and me masks! 2 each!! Really beautiful. Art.

16. My sister made us each a mask. She put Phil’s initials on his and it is black.. So fashionable. (He looks very hip!!)

17. Red lipstick and red shoes are the bomb. Try it. Everybody comments.

18. I tore a weirdly placed tendon in my left hip. No one can figure out how. Très painful. Seeing an Ortho Surgeon (by phone) on Thursday, because .. what else do I have to do?

19. I really need to stop watching so much news.

20. Netflix, CBS streaming, and Amazon Prime streaming are so cool. We will never get through all this programming. But it is nice to see my actor friends once in a while. Ha.

21. We’ve lost some good friends and colleagues in the last couple of weeks. One was especially close to us. We are grieving alone. 

22. Phil dusted behind the bookshelf. It was quite a project.

23. My blind 95 year old dad called me today to tell me his barber (88) came to my dad’s house and drove him to the barber shop and gave him a haircut and a shave. They are very good friends. I hope they are both free of the virus. Loony old men.

24. This virus is not going to “disappear.”

25. I am committed to doing whatever I am able to do to help. That is a bit limited.

26. At my chemo infusion today City of Hope finally required us to wear masks the entire time. All the infusion chairs were six feet apart. NO guests, even in the waiting room. My husband waited in the car.  =[

27. I am voting for Biden.

28. I spend time telling stories to myself with my tiny ting displays and with my stuffed animals. Makes me happy.

29. People are really stupid and I hate them. (Not You.)

30. Crescent Center Stage. Actors Fund..  Curtain Up Fund  DONATE!

31.  My refrigerator is snoring right now.

To Corwin

I had a dream last night that seemed fairly long and involved. I was stage managing Lady Day at The Emerson Bar and Grill. You came in to give me sound cues. For some reason I didn't have a prep week and was also laying out the floor. I was doing it from memory from the show with Karole Foreman. Charlayne was there. It was the first day of rehearsal! Daniel Sullivan was directing but he wouldn't be there for two weeks so Charlayne and I were starting without him. (This actually happened on another show. I didn't remember that in the dream.) Because I had an old floor plan the door to backstage was set at centerstage and looked like the front door of the club. Charlayne wanted the door to be really ornate. Wooden with curly cues. It suddenly occurred to me that the door needed to be a door to backstage. Oh yeah! We both remembered it was off-centered. To the SL. We talked about a door again and you said.. "Hey, hey, hey! I'm right here." Oh yeah! In my dream you were also the Set Designer. (Sorry Ed Haynes) You helped us fix the problem. See! Jobs where none seem to exist! (My mind.)

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Steak Stew.

Okay.. This is all about things in my fridge. I have a very complete stew recipe. This isn't it. 

Ingredients:

1. Steak you think is too cheap and too tough to eat as a piece of steak. Maybe 1.5 lbs?

2. A medium onion.

3. 4-5 cloves of garlic.

4. garlic powder.

5. 5 Bay leaves.

6. 1 Can (or more) of tomatoes. (NOT stewed, NOT flavored.)

7. 2-3 cups of water.

8. 1 cup of frozen farm style hash browns.

9. 2 large Russet potatoes.

10. About a pound of cut up carrots.

11. One bunch of celery.

12. Some pearl onions. (I had some in my freezer.)

13. Maybe some canned mushrooms you have in your pantry?

14. Two dashes of Allspice.

15. Paprika

16. Pepper

17. Sugar 1/2 tsp.

18. NOTE: you don't really need salt in this recipe. There is plenty in the canned mushrooms and the canned tomatoes.

19. About a tablespoon of lemon juice.

20. About 2 tablespoons of Lee and Perrins' Worchester sauce..More to taste.

DIRECTIONS: 

 1. Slightly freeze the steak. It makes it easier to cut.

2. Cut up the steak. Cut off as much fat as you can. I hate fat.

3. Spray cooking spray on the bottom of a Dutch Oven and add meat.

4. Cook until it just starts to turn brown. Add one sliced medium onion.

6. Once meat is browned add canned tomatoes. (I only had one can so I added 2 cans of water too.)

7. Simmer for 1/2 hour. Add about 12 ounces of cherry tomatoes. (Again.. what I had in the house.. Add whatever tomatoes you have! I cut them in half.

Some pics to help:

A. Cut the meat into smaller pieces and brown. Add at least 1/2 the onion.

 Meat with most of the onions browning.

Make sure you've cut off most of the fat:

 Ick.

When meat is mostly browned drain any excess fat and add a can of tomatoes.. and 1-2 cans of water.

Let it stew for about 1/2 an hour.

Add garlic, 3-4-5 bay leaves.. sugar, paprika, allspice, pepper, garlic powder, garlic, worschester sauce, lemon juice.. 

Add 1 potato peeled or .. as I did.. add a cup of shredded potatoes I had in my freezer. 

Stew on simmer for 1 hour.

Cut up 2 potatoes. (Again.. what I had in my house.)

Cut off any dark pieces! Cut into maybe 3-4 equal pieces per potato.

Add potatoes to stew.

Cook for another hour... on LOW simmer.

Cut up about a pound of carrots. (I had those baby carrots in the fridge. I cut them in half)

Cook another 45 min.

Add a bit more onion and fresh tomatoes...

I found some mushrooms in my pantry! Yay! Added them with the pearl onions.

 I threw in some celery leaves to add flavor.

Take this bread out of the freezer. (Of course you are just like me and have a ton of Arabic Bread in the freezer?!?)

 Here are the onions and mushrooms.

In the last 30 minutes add the cut up celery. 

The nice thing about stew is that you can clean up as you cook!

It is important to keep your stamina up!

 Some flowers and a bit of vodka. (I have to drink it in a plastic glass because I've broken at least 3 glasses in the last month! Yikes!)

Enjoy my dear friends~~~

Yay.. STEW.

(It was great.)

Burgers! A whole dinner!!
(meant to write this about a year ago.. but, well, you know!)

I've had some requests to talk about my hamburger recipe.
K. Here is one version. 

You will need:
1. One pound of meat.. I like Jennie-O Turkey 90/10
2. Mrs. Dash® Garlic Herb Seasoning Blend 2.5 oz. Shaker
3. 1/8 Green Bell Pepper, 1/8 Yellow or Orange or Red Bell Pepper
4. Red Onion
5. 2 Pieces of really good corn!
6. Crudités (Tomatoes, Carrots, Cucumber)
7. Packaged Pasta.
8. Frozen Peas.
9. Cheese. Sliced Swiss or Cheddar.


(Final Picture)

Mise en place:

NOTE: I like to use ground turkey. Jennie-O 90%/10%. You can use ground sirloin or other hamburger.. Be careful of the fat content. Try not to use less than 90 to 10 or you will have way too much grease.

Defrost your meat.

 

LOL

Form your burgers into patties. 

Push a depression into the meat:

Smooth it out. 

Get ready! Stuff the middle with onions and peppers.

 

Turn your burger into a patty covering the middle!

 

Place it into the pan. 

Season it well! I like to use Mrs. Dash. No salt! Yay!

Toss the extra peppers and onions into the pan. 

Cover and cook the meat! I like to cover and put it on low while I prepare the rest of the meal. Because there are vegetables inside the meat it will not dry out if you keep the temp VERY low! (Like on 2.)

  

For this particular meal I made some pasta and peas...

 directions on most boxes...

I also gently boiled some corn and cut up some crudités. You may add french fries or cole slaw or whatever... ha ha.

Before I serve the hamburgers I put a slice or two of cheese on top. Type of cheese? Your choice. We like Swiss, Cheddar, or Gruyere.

After the cheese, I add slices of either onion or peppers depending on the person eating!

Cover, turn off the burner and let the cheese melt.

Serve!! Yay!