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Welcome to Sleeturday

139 Comments

So here it is, the first measurable amount of snow in the Twin Cities this season. Other areas around Minnesota are also getting some accumulation. Those who live outside the major storm track may have to make do with freezing rain this time around. Don’t worry. It’s only mid-November. Your storm is coming.

So it goes as our planet spins around the sun, changing it’s angles and plunging us into that uncomfortable place where, for at least 5 minutes and in some cases all day or all season, people cannot remember how to travel safely. If I could have 100 dollars for every fender bender in Minneapolis and St. Paul this weekend, I could open my own auto body shop. But it still wouldn’t be worth it. Let the finger pointing begin!

A major benefit of the first significant snow this year is that it arrives on the weekend. For those with Monday-Friday jobs and food in the cupboard, it means they can look out the window with smug satisfaction, thinking – there’s absolutely nothing to be gained by going out there. By taking most of the comfortable outdoor options off the table, nature invites the non-hardy among us to engage with the environment close at hand. Namely, all the inside tasks and pleasures we ignored while taking advantage of an unusually mild October and early November.

That game is up. For the cold-shy, the useable world just got smaller.

I plan to do some dusting and filing. Yipee!

How will the weather effect your weekend?

139 thoughts on “Welcome to Sleeturday”

  1. canceled my trip to iowa city to visit university of iowa with the football son (formerly the football son) they lost last night to a good brainerd team and now he has time on his hands. we were scheduled to play last night skip the film this morning that the teams reviews each morning after a game in preparation for the next game and head for iowa city with a 3 am departure. instead with all the scare and road talk i will have a free day to contemplate my navel and hang out. how nice.

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      1. you obviously know me better than i know me. i took my daughter to basketball 20 minutes away during the peak of the snow but before the traffic hit. only a couple cars in the ditch. then took her to home depot to see if a new spark plug would get the snow blower up and running again.( i left the duty of putting the magic stuff in the gas tank to an employee who didn’t do it when i tucked it away in the spring.) so i took it apart until my mom who i called yesterday up at leach lake and told to get her butt down here before the storm hit( she is going down to florida tomorrow with the 23 year old to soak up sun and relax in the sun for a week. my son broke up with his new girlfriend who was going to be the object of his florida focus until she turned out to be a schitzo and he was gonna go solo til he mentioned it to grandma and she said heck ya) well she came out to the garage and told me that she needed to be to the bank the post office and the target pharmacy. the bank and post office needed to be done before they closed at 12 and she didn’t feel comfortable driving ( it was 11:40 when she mentioned this)so we got that done. in the heart of the storm with all the pigs with roller skates on out driving around. (how i view all first snow storm drivers. even 4 wheel trucks with plows on. they to get adjusted too) i messed with the snowblower for as long as i dared before it was time to get to work and do the shovel instead. gott be done before the sun goes down and it all freezes solid. 400 foot long asphalt driveway that if you dont get it scraped pretty clean it turns into an ice slide and is impossible to get up. this snow cone mush snow, it may have been bestto shovel rather than try to blow it anyway. well that took from 2 til 530 or so and it was the heaviest muck i have ever shoveled since i used to walk to school three miles each day, uphill both ways. man… i am ill equipt to deal with all the physical stuff norske winters present. but i love them. i love this stuff. so now its time for phc and a bottle of wine. my wolf dog loves the winter but not this wet snow. picky picky picky for crying out loud. we all want it to be just the way we want it be and if its close instead if enjoying what we have we think about what elements are wrong and if only the temperature would drop another 20 degrees so it would be fluffy stuff life would be good. my wife did not congradulate me on the inseting of the reflectors in the ground pre winter or the leaves getting one last raking three days ago, or the paing finishing with time to spare,… she noticed a yard cart was still sitting along side the driveway and needed to be put into the storage area down below in the stash area.and the black tarp is under the snow and will be gone until the spring unless we have a melt to show it again. the ladder that i plan to use for painting the tall windows in the living room this winter was leaning up against the house on the deck where it was used for the last of the trim work just a couple of days ago and need to be put down on the ladder bracket on the back of the garage. i didn’t realize i had accumulated ladders to the extent i had i now have a 16 footer that used to be half a 32 footer, great aluminum solid ladder that is the right weight with half of it missing i have 2 24 footers a 36 footer and a 46 footer along with 2, 8 foot regular folding ladders with the shelf that you are not supposed to put a bucket of paint or your foot on, i have one of those folding w ladders that is used for all the weird stuff and some of the normal stuff as long as its there from doing the weird stuff already and then one more interesting one that has the steps bend in the middle and accordian into a folded state where the 4 8 foot tall posts in the corners get folded into the center and it is 4 inches by 6 inches and 8 feet tall with a velcro strap that wraps around it and make it the stand in the corner of the garage ladder that gets chosen unless i have a special application and need to walk to the collection. i didn’t realize i had this collection and then i realized i still have intentions of getting one that telescopes from 3o inces wide and 30 inches tall when it is all folded up to an 18 footer that the top step is 16 inches wide on. it goes up and up and up and up and up till it is full extended then collapses back down. click click click up and then back down very nice ( hey ladders in the ot comments again) i saw it in germany 17 years ago and loved it. it was too expensive at about 250.oo retail but now the patent ran out and it is available for 36 dollars and is a heck of an addition to anyones ladder collection. but before that… i think i’ll get the snowblower working. my back is gonna give me what for tomorrow i am afriad.
        your right dale, i do have a hard time sitting still i guess.

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  2. Rise and Hunker Down Babooners:

    I doubt that the sloppy stuff will affect my weekend much. Two weekends ago we planted our bulbs which, other than putting the storm door glass where the screens are, was our last big Fall Chore. I’ll worry a bit. My husband went to Decorah, Iowa to visit his dad yesterday without checking the weather. He is returning home today sans boots, winter gear, etc. He just called saying it is blowing and raining there, but he is leaving for home soon. I’ll spend the day doing some art work (Angels for the grandkids and a book for my mom) for Christmas gifts, etc. and obsessively checking the blog to see what is going on.

    Happy Day.

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  3. Morning–

    Going to be a quiet weekend anyway…
    Wife is in a warm sunny place….
    Son was at a church ‘Lock-in’ all night so will be sleeping…
    Daughter and I can play dolls.

    I have some outdoor chores yet; driveway markers and snow fence but there’s time for that…

    I’m hoping to do some laundry and maybe finally put the glass in the front storm door…

    …but I was planning doing all that anyway regardless of the weather. It will just seem more cozy this way.

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      1. I love the little balls… Still no clue what they are called, doubtless a Googling will clear that up. I think I had Italian Wedding Soup for the first time in the Abbott-Northwestern Hospital cafeteria.

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    2. Mulligatawny

      3 quarts chicken stock
      1 c lentils
      1/4 c mild vegetable oil
      2 lbs chicken thighs, boneless
      1 bay leaf
      2 medium carrots, sliced
      1 large onion, diced
      2 ribs celery, diced
      1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and diced
      2 tsp each ginger root, ground cumin seeds, coriander & curry powder
      1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
      2 tbsp all-purpose flour
      4 c hot, cooked rice

      In a medium-sized soup pot, bring 2 quarts of stock to a boil; add lentils; return to the boil; turn down heat to medium-low and simmer covered until lentils are soft, 45 minutes to an hour. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat; add the chicken pieces and brown lightly on all sides. Transfer chicken to a heavy soup pot. Pour the remaining quart of soup stock over them and bring to a boil; turn down the heat to medium-low, add the bay leaf and carrots; simmer, covered. In the oil used to sauté the chicken, sauté the onion until it is soft, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the celery and apple. When they are soft, stir in the spices and cook on medium-low heat until the spices are fragrant, about another 3 minutes. Sprinkle with the flour and smooth it in. Gradually stir in 1 c of the stock dipped from the simmer chicken-stock pot. Stir to smooth the flour and spices into the stock, scraping the skillet. Raise heat to medium and cook, stirring, 2 minutes. Pour this spicy blend over the chicken. By now the lentils should be done. Add them to the chicken pot. Continue cooking over low heat, covered, until chicken is very tender, about an hour. Correct seasonings. Serve over rice. This soup freezes well, but you have to keep the rice separate

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      3. thanks for the recipe; i have one for mulligatawny soup too, without the lentils, but adding a cup of apple juice, and i sometimes put dumplings on the top…awesome winter comfort food. will try yours!

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      4. any suggestions as to what to sub fr the chicken i figure tofu marinated in some terriaki/blamic sauce or something aiming at the ginger corriander end of the pallate.

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      1. Yep, just went out and measured. I can see by the radar track why so much here and it looks like it will keep piling up right here, unless the cell moves east.

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  7. I’m stranded in my apartment, might as well make a rare appearance on here. I was at MPR HQ Tuesday and had a nice chat with Bob Collins, the author of the great News Cut Blog. We had snide remarks directed at King Kling, among other stuff. I want to request a song…maybe Dale you can do a weekly podcast. That would be nice

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    2. good to hear form you aaron.snow tires aren’t all they are cracked up to be. cozy up and wait for it to blow over. kling knows a good thing when he sees it. mpr is great and he had somethong to do with it. now he sees an opportunity to be the news connection. i know a lot of business’ won’t let you retire from them then come a sell stuff to your former colleagues. government and mpr certainly don’t work that way though and senators and bill kling make fistfulls because they can.

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      2. we did waffles right after basketball this morning. pulled the waffle iron down and gave the 9 year old a refreshed waffle making session.

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      4. I miss waffles…. my daughter has Celiac Disease; allergic to wheat gluten and yes, they do make gluten free waffles, they aren’t the same…. and yes; sometimes we make them for the rest of us… but it’s been awhile and I miss them.
        Call me lazy.

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  9. Well, it’s not sleet here in Waterville…. it’s very heavy snow. There are about 4 inches on my deck railing and the pines and cedars are already bending into snow laden arc shapes. Hundreds of chickadees, juncoes, sparrows, finches, cardinals and other unidentified species are making serious use of the feeders I hurriedly filled yesterday. There’s a squirrel on one of the finch feeders now and Pippin is whining and groaning frustratedly at the window.

    We walked outside for Pippin’s morning constitutional and he just FREAKED and frolicked in the snow in his little red jacket until he was covered with balls of snow almost the size of baseballs. He had to be rinsed off in warm water because his little red jacket was frozen to his legs. How cute is that?

    The snow really is wet and heavy. I’m dreading the chore that’s coming later today.

    My plan was for house cleaning today anyway. I’m really glad I got those windows washed. I also plan to attend the Bothy Folk Club concert in Mankato tonight – “My Sweet Patootie” is what remains of what used to be Tanglefoot. If it’s really bad I might not go – older and wiser I guess. Also, more willing to go to bed early.

    For those of you who posted about splinters yesterday, I got it out! I used brandy, warm soap and water, a needle, a lighter, more brandy, the flamed needle, a Victorinox pocket knife tweezer, more brandy, back to the needle, brandy, the tweezer… success! It was about the diameter of the needle and almost 1/4″ long!! It went straight in. It’s still a little sore and there’s still a slight hard lump there but it’s much better. Good luck with the fiberglass splinters, tim. I’ve had that kind too. I kept washing dishes and they sort of soaked away. I wish I had better advice on that one. I know they’re irritating.

    Keep warm, babooners!

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    1. Glad like the splinterectomy was successful. Good thing you did not try to incorporate a pulley into the process.

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    2. Glad you got the splinter out. If you have any (or have access to) the green goop that Burt’s Bees makes (can’t remember the exact name…comfrey ointment maybe?), I find that to be a comforting thing to put on wounds. Helps ’em feel better and helps the wound heal.

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      2. keep an aloe plant around for just such occasions. break off a chunk and squeze the aloe onto the cut. magic for cuts scrapes and burns.

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    3. Krista: It’ll melt in several days. This would be a good day to procrastinate!

      Anna and I had a thumb amputation planned for today if you did not get the splinter out. Glad we don’t have to come over there and take care of things for you.

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    4. OK, this baboon needs to know — was the brandy for sterilization of wound or for imbibing for liquid medicinal courage? Inquiring minds want to know …

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      1. It was used liberally for anesthetic purposes. I found it was quite effective. The problem was that the splinter was in my right thumb and I’m right-handed. So, with brandy and my left hand…. I didn’t make too big a wound though. I think I might survive.

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  10. Good morning and lots of luck with those indoor activities,

    The abundance of nice fall weather has allowed me to get most of my outdoor work done. I wish that I had finished digging the carrots, but there is still time to finish this job because they can be dug as long as the ground isn’t frozen solid. There is plenty to do inside.

    Most of the indoor work is stuff that I really don’t want to do such as cleaning, paper work, and filing. I do enjoy cleaning seeds and I still have some of this work to do. I do a lot of my seed cleaning sitting in front of the TV. I enjoy the hand work involved in cleaning small batches of seed and this keeps me from falling asleep in front of the TV and turning into a zombie.

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      1. For the large seeds, I just separate them by hand from the pods and other debris. Small seeds are separated by hand as much as possible from the debris and then screens and blowing air are used to clean away most or all of the rest of the debris. A little more hand cleaning is done if the screens and blowing air don’t remove all of the debris. There is some seed cleaning equipment that can be used for larger batches, but I don’t produce enough seed to justify the use of that equipment.

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      2. one of my early trips to china i was up in the north in the chinese boonies. the only things around were farms and little tiny towns of about 50 people. the farms were a football field wide and a mile deep. that ws the size everybody got. kind of a share cropping deal. i used to drive my director crazy with questions about the everyday stuff he would take for granted and i would ask about and then ask why and try to figure out how this tradition came to pass. he would laugh and tell me i made his brain hurt. we were driving up to a factory and the farm folks en route were harvesting something like wheat and bringing it up to the roadside and as we drovem by they would scurry and get the crop out on the road and we would drive over it and they would scurry out as soon as we ran over it and do something like putting it in a shovel and throwing up in the air. it took a while to realize we were running over the grain and seperating the wheat form the chaff and they would throw it up in the air the wind was blowing the chaff into the ditch.
        i always pick the heads off the black eyed susans and coneflowers with the idea of separating them out but seldom do. i have 3 bags for the spring from the target gardens at the minneapolis instatute of arts and a couple of perennials i ahve and enjoy in my garden. plus bags and boxes i have acquired over the years here and there.
        and then there was a product i wused to seperate the seed out of on a cookie sheet with a credit card to pull the seed up and let the product fall. a couple of those seeds would start up a new crop of minnesota green come spring time. i still try to collect excellent varieties of some of those seeds too.

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  11. Here in Efrafa we are forbidden to have any vehicles on our aprons for snow plowing. But my pickup is out (should have sold that by now) and I have the garage set up for the tool sale next weekend (should have done that sooner). So do I put the set up away or leave the pickup out and let them kick me out?

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    3. Is there any place you can put the truck other than the garage? Some people around here would just park it some place on their lawn but that probably wouldn’t look very good and might not work with the six inches of snow. We just have a thin layer of very wet snow here.

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    4. The guys plowing worked with me on it, but about 10 other people had a vehicle out, including the difficult board member. But did something quite bad to my hip. Measured the snow on my pickup roof at 19 inches.

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      1. Clyde, I hope you are not suffering too much from the injury to your hip. That doesn’t sound good. 19 inches of snow!!! We only have one or two inches and we are only about a one hour drive East and a little South of Mankato. I’m glad you were able to work with the guys doing the plowing.

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  12. I’ll likely be in and out this weekend. Daughter is already outside in her new snow boots, snow pants (zipper has already broken on the new snow pants – leaving me with a task for tonight), and long new mittens that claim to be waterproof. Coat, bought big last year, still seems to fit. We’ll see how long she’s out there. Last I checked she was starting on a snow man (ah – now I see she is dragging a stick – much like Peter in “Snowy Day”). Dog has his nose pressed to the window, but seems content to watch the snow rather than play in it.

    I’m off to a conference this afternoon, but it’s only a short drive from here to there. If I don’t stay too long at that (we’ll see how useful the different panels are), I may need to come back and put on my own snow pants to play with Daughter.

    Stay warm and dry all.

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      1. i thought canada was supposed to be snow covered year round. must be global warming. are there icebergs nearby for the polar bears to hang out on?

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      2. tim – didn’t you hear? It was so warm the parliamentary igloo melted.

        Found our local little ski hill today (ski swap
        in progress). The cross-country folks were saying the season usually starts around Christmas. Christmas!

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  14. What a great morning to sleep in! Only reason I have to step outside today is to fill those bird feeders, wish I’d done like Krista. Biggest job though will be deciding what to read in the newly created Library (latest furniture move involved the entire downstairs).

    What’s great about this litle house is windows everywhere, so I see Winter Wnderland every time I turn around. Thick frosting on every little twig and remaining leaf, the clothes lines, the ladders (still up against what’s left of Box Elder), the lawn chairs… I agree about soup, that’s on the agenda.

    Have a beautiful day, ‘Booners.

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  15. Greetings! For some reason, Jim and I were surprised to see the snow this morning! The boys wanted pancakes, so I had to go to the store for eggs — yikes! I thought it would only be slushy and wet, but with the wind, it’s slippery, too. It’s only 5 miles to karate, but I already missed my 9:30am class. Trying to decide if I should get the boys to their classes at noon. There’s a couple inches of snow here, and it’s still falling heavily.

    Now that I’m working 40 hours a week, there’s lot of laundry, cleaning, mail, cooking, bills, etc., that I need to get done. But gosh, it’s nice to always have the weekends off.

    I need to see what I’ve got on hand to make some kind of soup — I didn’t have the presence of mind to get soup makings when I got the eggs — doh! I’ll probably have to make a trip to Target to get mittens, hats, car scrapers/brushes, etc. After moving, I can’t find those items yet. Have a great day everyone — it’s a winter wonderland!

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      1. It’s going well — just starting to learn the system that they want me to be working on. There’s a scheduled outage for 65 days in early spring, so they’re bringing in thousands of contractors to help out with the work they need to do while the reactor is off-line. Amazing amount of work to get ready for this — my part is mainly keeping track of new folks coming in and making sure we accurately track their training, credentials, qualifications, etc. They don’t let just any old riff-raff come in to work on this stuff, ya know … 🙂

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      3. glad to hear its going well. hey i had a guy asking if anyone knew an it guy. is jim still looking for good work or is he ok with where hes at?

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  16. I just got back from escorting my old blind dog through her first bathroom trip in the snow. She mainly relies on her sense of smell to navigate, and I knew that a snowfall would confuse her.

    As for myself, I pottered along slowly. I have neighbors who think I’m too old to mow my lawn and shovel my snow, and I have to teeter about to sustain that illusion when I’m where they can see me. 🙂

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    2. I guess it’s too late for me to try that — 3-4 nights a week I lug around my big karate gear bag and martial arts weapons.

      Although we did compete in a tournament last Sunday which was a lot of fun. A long day, but I got 1st in Traditional Form, Ben got 1st in Black Belt Sparring and Lucas got 2nd in Weapon Form. Ben and I also volunteered and helped out with judging and scoring.

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      1. Congrats Joanne!
        My son did karate for a few years; got about half way to black. Green maybe? I know it’s a lot of work getting there; good for all of you!

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      2. agreed, i had a son went to second level brown. just on step short of the black and then he lost interrest and a daughter who was good at skipping out to the mat to put on that foghting face and serious presentation.

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      3. That’s the belt I’m at right now — we call it Advanced Brown Belt. Getting my Black Belt is next. Either in March or September 2011. I need to talk with my teacher and see what he thinks. I’ll probably get his “it’s up to you” speech, but of course he’s the final decider.

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  17. A few months ago I won a contest sponsored by the company from which I buy health insurance, and they shipped me a big box containing a Wii, complete with WiiFit and WiiSports (probably trademarked, please don’t sue me, Wii folks). When I opened it I kept pulling out wires and remotes and installation guides and CD-ROMs and batteries (how can a thing have so many wires and still need batteries?) and I just groaned softly and shoved the many-tentacled beast back into the box. Perhaps this would be a good weekend to attempt to tame it.

    Although in general I appreciate modern technology, I really hate the set-up phase. All those tangled wires just give me WiiFits.

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    1. Wow — that’s a nice prize! Now you’ll have a fun way to keep your girlish figure and stay fit this winter. At least you only have to set it up once.

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  18. well, my little boy and i were surprised by the snow, since we don’t watch news. he came into my room to wake me up to look outside–a classic.

    the snow here is really sticking nicely to each branch and twig; looks really pretty (i always say that for the first snow, anyway).

    The kid said yesterday after school that he was SO excited to just stay home this weekend, so that was already our plan, in general. we’ve got all the fixings for tacos, so will have a taco feast for lunch. we’re each in our respective bed with laptops, he visiting club penguin and me visiting trail baboon–like mama, like son, i guess.

    we’ve got a pile of books from the library, although i need to go pick up a reserved copy of the blevins book.

    we’ll try to make an art of indoor fun; maybe even swimming at the indoor pool, watching the snowflakes fall while sitting in the hot tub by the window….?

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  19. OK, ‘Booners, here’s a recipe I tried the other day, and it turned out really well if you like Thai (kinda spicy-hot) food… I added, in italics, some substitutions in case you don’t happen to have all these items in your cupboard and don’t want to go out today. Would change the taste, but I’m sure there’s some wiggle room with this one.

    Thai Creamy Carrot & Coconut Milk Soup

    3 T. olive oil
    4 cloves garlic, minced
    1 T. minced ginger

    1 ½ C. chicken or vegetable broth
    7 – 8 carrots, scrubbed and sliced (I grated mine)

    ½ tsp. red curry paste (or cayenne to taste)
    ¼ C. sweet chili sauce (or 2 T. of some kind of sweetener or jam)
    ¼ C. soy sauce
    Freshly ground black pepper

    1 C. coconut milk (or what the heck, the whole can; if you substitute regular milk or cream, wait till the very end to stir in)
    ¼ C. chopped cilantro (arugula works, too)
    Squeeze of fresh lime juice (or more!)

    In a heavy soup pot, heat the oil over medium heat and sauté the garlic and ginger for 1 minute. Add the broth and carrots and simmer until the carrots are tender, about 15 minutes. Allow to cool slightly and then puree the mixture in batches in a blender or food processor. (You may also use an immersion blender directly in the pot.)

    Return the pureed carrot mixture to the pot. Add the curry paste, chili sauce, soy sauce, and black pepper and simmer for 5 minutes. Stir in the coconut milk, cilantro, and lime juice. Adjust the seasoning with more curry paste and/or soy sauce.

    Serve drizzled with a bit of coconut milk and lime wedges on the side.

    Recipe by PCC Chef Lynne Vea, found in “Edible Seattle”, Jan/Feb 2009

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      1. There’s a lovely food quarterly, edible Twin Cities — “We’re a seasonal food magazine that celebrates the local farmers, chefs, home cooks, food artisans and businesses that help build our local food community.” (There’s also edible Seattle, edible Chicago… it seems all the big cities have one, I happened to pick that one up at a co-op when we were visiting Seattle area… ) I can’t seem to get the website links to work, but here’s facebook:
        http://www.facebook.com/pages/Edible-Twin-Cities/186520475814

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  20. I have a recipe for “Minnesota Mulligatawny Soup,” can’t remember where I got it. It also has apples, chicken and some pretty warm spices like curry and cayenne, as well as egg noodles, but no coconut milk. Your recipe sounds yummy, Steve.

    The power has gone out twice since my first post this morning. I’m hoping it doesn’t go out again… stay warm!

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  21. Just tried to go to the gym in Eden Prairie where we have 5-6 inches. I got stuck going up a hill, had to back down the hill and make several attempts to get enough speed to go all the way up. I turned around and came home. The treadmill in the basement looks good now. Then I’ll go look some more for the old story of my mom’s that I want to illustrate and make into a book for her for Christmas. But I’ve lost the copy. It is somewhere in her stuff that I reorganized and stored last winter. Don’t ever reorganize. Now I can’t find anything.

    St Anthony, St Anthony please look around.
    The story is lost and needs to be found.

    This recitation from a desperate Methodist invoking a Catholic saint.
    I think of it as ecumenicalism!

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    1. Double Breakfast Biscuits
      Ingredients
      1 1/3 cups flour
      2 Tbsp. sugar
      1 Tbsp. baking powder
      1/8 tsp. salt
      % Tbsp. solid butter
      ½ cup milk
      Basil, garlic powder, cinnamon, brown sugar, soft butter.
      Directions
      Combine dry ingredients; cut butter into pieces and blend well until mixture resembles crumbles. Stir in milk and mix until smooth. Transfer to floured surface. Gently knead for 1 minute. Roll out into 6” x 6” square, cut in half, set one half aside.
      Roll first half into square about ¼” thick. Spread soft butter very lightly over dough. Sprinkle basil lightly over dough and garlic powder very lightly over dough. Fold in half twice and roll to ¼” thick. Spread soft butter light over dough. Fold in half twice or more until you have a piece about 6 X 8”. Place on Pam-sprayed cookie sheet. Cut dough into squares but do not separate pieces. Place sheet high in oven and bake for about 10 minutes until golden brown.
      Roll second half until ¼” thick. Spread soft butter lightly over dough. Spread brown sugar over dough in a thin even layer. Sprinkle lightly with cinnamon. Roll up dough. Cut into rounds about 1” wide. Place on Pam-sprayed cookie sheet and bake for about 8 minutes until lightly brown (but watch closely).

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  23. I’m sitting here typing with a fresh cup of coffee and fighting off fear. A day like this is only meant for hunkering down to my inside pleasures, but the power keeps flickering off and on. My greatest fear is that it may go off, leaving me with no phone service, no internet access and no cable TV. This happened last week for a 15-hour stretch and the only thing that saved me was several hours of blowing leaves outside. As a result, there are several 3′ high piles of leaves out there with 4″ of wet snow on top of them! I’ve discovered that Lifetime Channel plays good movies all day & night long on week ends. Most are chick flicks, which I love.

    Here’s hoping that all of you stay safe, maintain power, and, as another poster put it, relish nature’s decision to change out fall to winter activities:)

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  24. I got my bread starter out of the fridge today… I’ll be headed to the Cities on December 6th and could drop off some starter up there if anyone is interested in spreading Amish Friendship Bread around up there.

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    1. Ben, did your recipe ever make it into Kitchen Congress? I’d like to try it some time but not right now. It sounds wonderful and very friendly.

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      1. OK Anna; we’ll coordinate as the date gets closer… I can bring two batches.

        Dale, I posted this bread recipe some time ago… maybe it’s been a month? Is there a way you can do an easy search? Or would it be easier for me to repost?

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      2. This was the recipe that involved 21+ days and bouts of stirring interspersed with doing nothing, yes? Too bad I am not in the Cities!

        I have just been over to Kitchen Congress — while I love all your recipes, Ben’s burger recipe that starts with pulverizing Spam and adding butter has got to be my favourite.

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      3. Thanks MN in Sudbury! I think Foxburgers are on the menu for tomorrow again…. it’s a Sunday favorite.

        Yep; that’s the bread with lots of stirring and waiting… You can make your own starter: 1 cup milk, 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar. Mix it up and wait.

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  25. Something’s not working on this site – I get emailed posts, but can’t seem to find their place on the board! Ben’s 2:39 post is the only one below the one post I’ve made today. I’d wanted to reply to a post about snow-plowing that came via email but can’t find it?

    A guy I barely know but who knew about my cancer struggle just plowed out my entire 300′ driveway, shoveled the steps, brushed off my car and brought the mail to me. This generous act of kindness makes my day!

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    1. That’s really nice of that guy, Nancy. You’re fortunate to have nice neighbors. When I was out shoveling the end of the driveway where the plow pushed the heavy snow, some young kid came by and hit the gas and fishtailed right in front of me and sprayed me all over. I tried to jump back and fell over a huge clump of snow right into the wet melting snow. I got 100 percent soaked. So I came in to warm up and found the power off (again).

      If you can’t find the more recent posts, try refreshing your page! 🙂

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      1. I’m sorry that you endured an act of unkindness, Krista. I’d like to report back that this wasn’t a neighbor, but a guy who lives several miles from here. My actual neighbors never so much as brought me a meal or agreed to feed my cats when I was so ill.
        I do believe in karma, so this helps. I also learned that, beyond a doubt, those who give are receiving the gift of knowing that they stepped in when someone needed them. In this sense, my illness became a gift to everyone around me as well as to me.

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      2. I wonder if there are any other people, like me, who have trouble finding things like the refresh button. At least on my computer, I needed to use the right click button to find it and didn’t know that until a few months ago. Before I found the refresh button, I had to close and reopen Trail Baboon to refresh.

        Also, there is a situation in the morning where I need to refresh to get to Dale’s new entry for the day. I just keep getting the previous day’s entry if I just close and reenter from the favorite list on my Internet Explorer page and if I don’t close and reopen Explorer.

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      3. Assuming you are using a PC with Windows XP, look at the pull-down menus at the top. Do you see one that says View with an underscore under the V? If so, click on that word and get the pull-down menu. You should see Reload a little way down. Or, if you’re a keyboard user, hold the Ctrl key down and press R.

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  26. I don’t have a well-stocked larder, but I had bought the fixings to make my Quinoa Tabouli w/Pomegranate — and pomegranates are in season! So I finally had a chance to make it this afternoon. I like to make this salad a lot while poms are in season. Still trying to figure out if I can make some kind of soup without going to the store!

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    1. There is something I call “Clean Out the Refrigerator Soup.” Starts with a bouillon cube, sometimes has some rice or pasta, and the rest you can imagine — it usually turns out great.

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  27. Yes, Jim! I mean – what’s a “refresh” button anyway????? I have the same problem with even finding this site. I have to google Trail Baboon first to find it.

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    1. What browser are you using? I don’t have Internet Explorer – I’m a Mac person – but if you’re using Firefox or Safari, I might have some tips for you.

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      2. In Safari. there’s a very useful thing in Preferences under the Safari menu. If you click “General” in the Preferences window, the second and third items are “New windows open with” and “New tabs open with”. You can set either or both of these to “Top Sites”, and Safari picks the twelve sites you use most often and arrays a small visual image of each when you open a new window or tab. (You can open a new window or tab under the File menu.)

        Usually I use this method to get to Trail Baboon fast, or if I type “dale” in the address box at the top, a window appears with Trail Baboon as the top hit, and I click on that.

        To place a bookmark, you can go to the bookmarks menu when you are on the main page, choose “add bookmark”, and place it either on the menu, or on the toolbar that appears just below the address box.

        Also, if you are looking for a specific comment, keep in mind that not everything on the blog is sequential by the time posted – something that is posted as a reply appears below the comment it was a reply to, as opposed to at the end of the blog.

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      3. Oh, and also, there should be a little circular arrow on the far right of the address box near the top of your screen. It’s probably next to a little gray box that says RSS. That’s the refresh button. Or you can choose “Reload Page” off the “View” menu, or hit command-R.

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      4. I’m too jealous of Mac users–as I was 15 years ago–to even offer any help, if I could, which I can’t; but I shall pout anyway.

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  28. So I made the soup, although it’s probably not authentic mulligatawny. Call it mulligatawny-inspired. I made many substitutions in Steve’s recipe, since I didn’t want to have to go to the store. I had no lentils, so I used canned black beans. I didn’t have fresh carrots, but I did have canned, so I took an idea from Barbara’s Thai carrot soup recipe and pureed the carrots. I did use the coconut milk. I didn’t keep the rice separate – one pot is good. It was exactly the right thing to have simmering on the stove when I came in from shoveling.

    Then I made Alanna’s 5-minute chocolate mug cake for dessert. I didn’t have chocolate chips, so I used peanut butter chips instead. I think I will always make it that way from now on.

    Thanks, Babooners, for the culinary guidance. What would I have done without you?

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  29. Wow, and I just now found Steve’s Mulligatawny recipe… Re: the lentils — does anyone else ever have a hard time getting lentils completely cooked?

    Glad we don’t have your driveway, tim, and I agree that this is the heaviest “snow” I’ve ever tried shoveling — we are usually able to use our neighbor’s snowblower, but none of us even tried it today.

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  30. I usually avoid using dried legumes of any kind unless I’ve planned ahead enough to soak them overnight, and even then I use a crockpot recipe that keeps them simmering away for 8 or 10 hours. You would think lentils would cook quickly because they’re so small, but they seem to take just as long as kidney beans. If I’m cooking something on the stovetop I just use some kind of canned bean.

    This snow is really a pain – whatever I put on my feet when I’m shoveling seems to just get soaked.

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  32. Well, I made some soup, but it just didn’t turn out very well. I sort of followed a simple pumpkin & apple soup recipe. Used water instead of chicken broth (bland), no fresh sage so I used dried, but probably too much (weird flavor), used a mix of squash and pureed pumpkin (from last year). Not sure how to fix it. I might add some coconut milk when I get to the store to buy some, but I’m not sure if other spices would help it. I should know better than to mess with recipes …

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