Frances Ellen Speaks!

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I have been a cooking fool today. You can always tell when I’ve been cooking up a storm–my kitchen is a mess. But the results are usually excellent. Here’s one of the things I’ve been cookin’.

Italian Beef Casserole

This one takes a little more time, but there is plenty leftover. It freezes well.

2 lbs ground beef, chop into bite size pieces while it’s browning
2 tblspns olive oil
1 med. onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp each of dried oregano and basil
salt and black pepper
1 green pepper, chopped
1-6 oz. can black pitted olives, drained and halved
8 oz macaroni or spaghetti
1-28 oz can tomatoes
1 can corn, drained
1 cup cheddar cheese, cubed
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1-8 oz can tomato sauce
Cook the macaroni/spaghetti. Cook 2 minutes less than box instructions

While the pasta is cooking – In a large pot or skillet, brown ground beef, garlic and onions in olive oil. Add the oregano, basil, salt and black pepper. Stir frequently. When meat is browned sufficiently, add green pepper, black olives, canned tomatoes, corn and the cooked pasta.

Blend in the cubed cheddar cheese.

Turn into a large casserole baking pan. Sprinkle top with parmesan cheese. Cover. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Remove from oven and immediately swirl the tomato sauce over the top of the casserole.

Serve with Italian or French loaf of bread. This should feed 8 to 10 hungry people.

Note: I like to serve a Caesar Salad to start off. That’s when I bring out the loaves of bread and sweet cream butter. Decadent, I know! But to make up for it, I serve assorted fresh fruit for dessert.

For those who are following my Chinese Zodiac series, see Year of the Rooster

Have you noticed whether your gas station is putting ethanol in their gas? Have you noticed that your gas mileage has decreased?

I get my gas at a Shell station and right there on the front of the pump is a sticker that says, Contains 10% Ethanol. My gas consumption has been rising by leaps and bounds lately, but I’m not driving any more than usual. Actually, because of the gas prices, I’m more selective about where I go and how I get there.

While I was pumping, I looked up at the sign to see if the price had come down since my gas was now being spiked with ethanol. What a joke! What made me think a gas company would dream of giving the consumer a break.

It appears I’m not the only person that’s miffed. Here’s an excerpt from Slow Food Waltz

Ethanol, isn’t it’s use supposed to lower gas prices? Huh??

Help me out someone, what am I missing here. I just noticed this Shell gas station uses 10 percent ethanol, but the gas prices are exactly the same as they are at other places. Will ethanol ever translate to a cost savings for the consumer??

Okay, so the price hasn’t come down. It’s still up there at $3.90 a gallon in my neck of the woods. To top that off, I recently purchased a fuel economy car, but now I’m getting less gas mileage. That’s a fact and I’m not the only one who’s noticed. See information from Punny Money.

It lowers fuel economy. That 10% ethanol being mixed into your gasoline might be helping to keep it 10 cents a gallon cheaper, but you’re probably getting 10-30% fewer miles per gallon because of it. Since all the gas stations around here switched to a 10% ethanol blend, my gas mileage has dropped by about 15%!

What is going on? I understand it’s imperative that we cultivate some type of alternative fuel, but why am I suffering while the gas companies are reporting record-breaking profits? Oh yeah, I forgot–I don’t have a lobbyist. Drat!

So, it appears that you and I will be at the pumps more often, paying the same ridiculous prices. And I don’t expect to hear too much squawking from anyone because the change is couched in “alternative fuel” rhetoric. I suppose the media will somehow find a way to make it sound unpatriotic if anyone speaks out against it, too. What a racket!

Following my Chinese Zodiac articles? Year Of The Sheep – Year of the Monkey

I’ve been recuperating from surgery and, believe me, it takes a lot of perseverance. I long to be 100% better, but recovery comes in small doses. It’s so gradual I can hardly recognize any change from day to day. I wish I could manufacture a little more patience. I admit I’m not known for a high patience quotient. I got to wondering how other people manage to persevere.

Look at this. It came from a blog written by William Biddle

Abraham Lincoln’s perseverance

1816, He had to work to support his family after they were forced out of their home.
1818, His mother died.
1831, Failed in business.
1832, Was defeated for legislature.
1832, Lost his job and couldn’t get into law school.
1833, Declared bankruptcy & spent the next 17 years of his life paying off the money he borrowed from friends to start his business.
1834, Was defeated for legislature again.
1835, Was engaged to be married, but his sweetheart died and his heart was broken.
1836, Had a nervous breakdown and spent the next six months in bed.
1838, Was defeated in becoming the speaker of the state legislature.
1840, Was defeated in becoming elector.
1843, Was defeated for Congress
1846, Was Defeated For Congress.
1848, Was defeated for Congress again.
1849, Was rejected for the job of land officer in his home state.
1854, Was defeated for Senate.
1856, Was defeated for Vice-President — got less than 100 votes.
1858, Was defeated for Senate for the third time.
1860, Was elected president of the United States.

Then there’s Louis Pasteur. He said, “Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity.”

So, alright. I guess I’ll try to persevere. Here’s one more example of perseverance. I know you’ll enjoy this one.

A small boy is sent to bed by his father. Five minutes later, he calls, “Da-aad.”
“What?”
“I’m thirsty. Can I have a drink of water?”
“No.”
Five minutes later, he calls again. “Da-aaaad.”
“What?”
“I’m thirsty.”
“I told you, no water. If you ask again, I’ll have to spank you.”
Five minutes later. “Da-aaaaaad. When you come in to spank me, can you bring me a drink of water?”

Well, that’s perseverance for you. It comes in all sizes.

If you are following my Chinese Zodiac articles, here are two more. Year of the Snake and Year of the Horse

When I was a young, precocious, probably not so well-behaved youngster, I often stayed with my grandmother while my mother and father worked. Every chance I got, when my grandmother wasn’t looking, I’d pick up the telephone and listen for voices. Back in the 50′s, most people had party lines, a telephone line that was shared between two or three people. I didn’t know it at the time, but it must have had something to do with the scarcity of phone lines. I loved that party line.

But here’s another point of view from a blog written by Gifford Neill

We could not get a private telephone line as there were not enough phone lines running up to East Hartland. So we had to get a party line, and the only catch was that there was a lady in town there who seemed to spend all her time on our phone line. I was forced to build a little battery operated phone line detector, that monitored wheter the line was busy or not. If it was busy, a red light would remail lit; when the lady hung up, you could hear the relay “click”, and the light would go out. I’d grab the phone quickly then, as that was my chance. This provoked the lady as she liked to make a series of long phone calls one after the other.

Anyway, as much as Mr. Neill hated his party line, I absolutely adored my grandmother’s. Of course, it took me a while to perfect the art of picking up the receiver very slowly so that the two people already using the line would be unable to detect my presence. You had to be careful not to breath into the phone, too, but sometimes the talkers still could sense another person on the line. I didn’t find out until much later that the extra line created a hollow sound, and that’s how I got caught on the line. Needless to say, I got shouted off the phone a lot, but sometimes the women were so involved in their conversation that I went undiscovered. What bliss! Listening to grown-up conversations. It was like stepping into another world.

It was good, that is, until my grandmother caught me. When she saw what I was doing, she’d do this outrageous, crazy dance, her arms flying wildly in the air, which translated into “hang up before I murder you.” If you assume that after I hung up, I received a thorough tongue-lashing from my grandmother, you’d be wrong. Oh, she took a shot at it, but it would go something like this. “I told you never to listen in on other people’s conversations. That’s a very, very bad thing to do. What did you hear?”

Yes, my grandmother was just as anxious to hear the neighborhood gossip as I was. Gosh, I loved that party line. Did you have one?

(For those people who are following the astrology articles I write for LifeScript.com, these are links to the Year of the Tiger, the Year of the Dragon and the Year of the Rabbit)

As I mentioned last week, I am currently writing astrology articles for Lifescript.com. If you were born in a Year of the Ox, or if you want to find out if you were, take a look.

I have recently become the Resident Expert on Astrology at LifeScript.com. So, instead of finding my usual post here, I will direct you to my latest articles at LifeScript. If you are interested in Chinese Astology, you might enjoy reading about predictions for the Year of the Rat.

Or you may be interested in Aura Colors . Take the Aura Color Test.