1 lb. of your favorite breakfast sausage
6 eggs
1 package shredded hashbrowns – 20 oz.
8 oz. shredded cheese.
Preheat oven to 425. Cook sausage, drain. Put hash browns, sausage and cheese in 9×13 baking dish and mix until all ingredients are evenly distributed. Mix eggs in separate dish and pour over the baking dish until evenly distributed.
Put in oven. After 35-40 minutes check doneness w/ toothpick. Dish is done when eggs are set/toothpick poked in center comes out clean.
Variations/extras:
2 oz. milk
1 T basil (or other herb you like with your eggs – thyme, chives, etc.)
3 cloves garlic
1 Medium yellow onion
2-3 oz. shredded parmesan
Smash garlic with the flat of the knife, mince, and put to the side (don’t use garlic press). Dice onion. Cry. Put that to the side.
Once sausage is done cooking, put hot pan back on stove and cook onion and garlic in pan over med-low heat until onions are soft – remove before garlic browns – and put in baking dish with sausage, basil, hash browns and other ingredients except milk & eggs. Mix well. Add a sprinkle of seasoned salt, Jane’s Crazy Mixed-up Pepper or fresh-cracked pepper across dish, if you wish.
Add milk to eggs for fluffier eggs. Pour mixture over cheese, sausage, hash browns mixture. Cook as above.
Note: If you like to make your own hash browns, soak them in cold water and pat dry with a clean towel before adding them in with the other ingredients. Yukon gold works well.
"Results: The Peep showed no adverse signs to smoking this cigarette, although it expressed concern that it might someday be forced to huddle outside public buildings in the snow. Of course, it can quit anytime it wants to..."
For more information on this important study, go here.
Micah, if you’re reading, I want to let you know that you were one of the true pioneers of peep research. In a field that has been inundated with flawed and inaccurate studies, you were one of the people who broke ground in investigative peep work with emperical data.
The post yesterday got me thinking about flowers, and what is my favorite and why I like them.
Mountain Laurel
This flower reminds me of hikes to out-of-the-way places in the mountains with friends. This isn’t as common as its cousin, rhododendron (both in the Ericaceae family), and it doesn’t (from what I’ve seen) proliferate in the same way around here.
When you come upon a single bush of mountain laurel standing by a stream, and take a look at the buds and the blooms, it makes you feel like the bush has been there for years waiting to meet you. Hi-yo.
The patterns inside the petals are very interesting to me, especially the ring around the area where the filaments reach the receptacle. And the combination of pink and white feels fresh.
State flower of Connecticut and Pennsylvaina, but we won’t hold that against them. Thanks to PlantCare.com for the photo.
Jewelweed
This guy is a weed and actually useful. Jewelweed.
They say that it helps with poison ivy, and from what Wikipedia says, it has active ingredients that are found in preparation H.
Eh, I just think they’re pretty flowers that remind me of delicate instruments and soft, hidden places. They do grow in moist soil, near streams, after all. And the name Touch-Me-Not has to come from something. In all honesty, I’m not sure where the name comes from for this flower. But check out that color!
There was a stand of this growing near the driveway of a house where I lived once, years ago, when I was in college.
It’s interesting to me that I can now begin to measure my life in terms of decades. I guess that’s what getting old does.
Men are tuned to run a little hotter. Women just like to be warm.
In college I didn’t have a real working heater at my last house – a cabin on a west-facing hill in the Appalachians. The coordinates of the house are important because the weather around Boone tends to come in from the west and that means more exposure to elements, snow and wind for west-facing homes.
This cabin was wonderful in the summer. Cool with a nice porch and cozy green rhododendron, oak, daylillies and jewelweed. You would be comfortable in a t-shirt while everyone else in the Southeast burned away in the Piedmont and coastal plains.
The summer mountains brought afternoon showers that would blow through and become thunderstorms as they headed eastward to the ocean. Rarely was it humid. And if it got too hot, a mountain swimming hole wasn’t hard to find.
A favorite, as flowers go. Jewelweed can also be used to treat poison ivy.
In hellish winter, the upstairs part of this cabin became frigid with its single-pane windows, uninsulated log walls and single gas log fireplace for heat. A friend once said that Boone was the only place he’d been where the wind blows in every direction, all the time.
The best snows were the first one, the biggest one and the last one. The first one was nice because it was before the serious onset of winter happened and the white livened things up a bit. The biggest one allowed for sledding. And the last one, because, well it was the last one. By March, most people are about done with snow and the ski mountains are shutting down.
All the other weather was a combination of cold rain, ice, snow dustings and general frigidness – even on sunny, clear days.
During these times, the cabin became a not-fun-place-to-be.
My roommate and I battled back. We created a false wall to insulate the place by hanging 1 mil sheeting from the rafters and attempting to seal off the room from the kitchen.
Then we hung tapestries from the rafters to make the plastic a little more bearable.
The room looked cozy, but was still cold. Nonetheless, we refused to turn on the gas logs. Heating the place was expensive. And drafty. So it felt wasteful.
When either Calvin or I wanted to warm up, we went downstairs to the half of the house that had the women-folk roommates. Their part was surrounded by earth on three sides, and generally kept warmer. Because the space was inhabited by women. And women want to be warm.
Is it the nurturing instinct? Is it the difference in muscle mass? (Muscles tend to generate heat – that’s why you shiver in cold weather as a physiological response to warm up. Men, by and large, have more muscle by percentage than women. Not that I’m complaining about that.)
What is there to understand? Men are from Mars. Or some other frozen, tundralike planet where the inhabitants wear Crocs without socks (“I’m just putting out the trash”), drive the kids to school with no coats (“It’s supposed to warm up later”), and sleep with the windows open on 20-degree nights (“We need the oxygen”).
Hear, hear, says Thompson.
“I can’t stand to be cooped up. The oxygen makes me feel so ALIVE,” Thompson explains of the open-window effect.
But honestly. Crocs without socks? In winter?
“I LOVE Crocs. They just feel so good. Have you ever worn them?”
Women, on the other hand, are from Earth, where room temperature is 75 degrees, heated seats were invented for a reason, and windows, like shoeboxes containing white sandals, are never opened past Labor Day.
This is how humans have thrived through the ages. By taking shelter, creating warmth, protecting their young. Could it be argued that women are simply following their survival instinct?
No telling.
But last night I turned the thermostat down before crawling into bed with Kathleen.
The squishy discolored heart on the shelf to my right has been there since I began working in the News & Record’s downtown office.
It appeared as the result of losing my squishy green brain.
Back in Danville, where I worked covering local bands at the R&B, one of my co-workers gave me a stress-ball in the shape of a brain that was neon green. She handed it to me as the result of a long day and my stressing unnecessarily for some deadline-related reason. I appreciated the kindness at the time.
Her name was Joy, and she had the dry manner of someone who handled obits for the newspaper. Over time I learned that she wasn’t much of a driver. Across town and back, sure, but longer trips and traveling more than 45 mph intimidated her.
So, this brain was part of the desk bric-a-brac (or however it’s spelled) that made it with me from the Register & Bee to the N&R Rockingham Bureau and on down to Greensboro when I moved my desk here.
Shortly after my downtown move, the brain went missing. This brain was a part of my desk’s specially maintained kitsch – the stuff that makes others in my working world know who I am. I thought it was ironical, but others may have thought it was pretentious.
Or because the slightly-smaller-than-fist-sized green brain had the name of a prescription drug on the side for some type of psychological or neurological condition, co-workers probably thought I was nuts.
We’re all partly right.
So the brain goes missing one day. I’m mildly distraught, but play it up a little for a chuckle from my co-workers.
Our photo editor begins to find squishy balls and such to drop by my desk. One of them, one day, was a heart. Sun or age has affected the heart in the two years that I’ve had it. Now faded to pink from red, the heart sits to my right, in place of the brain. A globe-shaped squishy ball is next to the heart. Its colors are still fresh.
Ignore the urge to draw some meaningful insight from this story.
The past few weeks have been hectic as I settle in to being an old man, starting a new job and putting new energy to good things.
In short, I’ve gotten some much deserved flack about some truly corny status updates on Facebook.
Eh, it’s all positivity, man.
I’ve been working on dropping some old definitions of what it is to be badass and adding some new ones. And it’s hard work to resit urges to go raise hell because it seems like the cool thing to do.
Anymore, those old cool things aren’t that much fun. Oh, there will be times for sure, but there’s time for much more, too.
Specifically, physical fitness, mental acuity, creativity, knowledge and enjoyment of family and friends.
Speaking of, the holidays so far have been fine-fine. Thanksgiving was with my fiancee and her family (I like saying that), and Christmas will be with mine.
Neato!
… the expression reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut. Today I’ll leave you with some of his words:
“Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn’t mean we deserve to conquer the Universe.” – Hocus Pocus
“Many people need desperately to receive this message: “I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people don’t care about them. You are not alone.” – Timequake
“* I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
Armistice Day has become Veterans’ Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans’ Day is not.
So I will throw Veterans’ Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don’t want to throw away any sacred things.
What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.
After doing a little work at the house work tonight, I decided to start my vacation.
So, it’s official. I’m engaged to married, about to start a new job, and about round another decade.
When I do things, I like them to be big. And in threes. Not necessarily in that order.
These thoughts about the goings-on of day-to-day life folded into big commitments, new horizons and depth of love do bop around in my head, and none of the three make me nervous or anxious – as some others may profess in the medium of a blog. You know, because these are narcissistic spaces, after all.
Nope, all three are sources of challenge, satisfaction, hard work and happiness. You can’t have one without the other.
10 Words says: Woody Harrelson wants Twinkies, and whacks zombies with a banjo!
Hippies will be happy to know about my latest problem. Too much beer. Not an abundance of beer, but a plethora. And in this time of plenty, in one of my favorite holidays of the season, I feel that I’m simply playing my role in what should be good about a holiday. I’m keeping in season. See, after a little zombie flick this evening I stopped by the Harris Teeter for veggies, eggs and a big beer.
Zombieland is worth seeing in a theater. Especially if you live in Greensboro and are into a fun, mindless zombie flick. Like zombie movies should be. I’ll put it up there with Shaun of the Dead. Thanks, In 10 Words, for the Zombieland photo.
So lunch for Kathleen and I is done tomorrow – I’m going to make some fake pho: Sautee/soften Brussels Sprouts in a saucepan with carrots and garlic and a touch of butter. Pour in water, boil, add flavor packet from ramen Oriental flavor, a squirt or two of Siracha, noodles, top with bean sprouts. Filling for a rainy day and healthy if you don’t drink all the broth (too much sodium). Add a little smoked salmon.
I was quasi-inspired by the NPR story I heard the other day about instant ramen and what goes into it, how it was invented and what others put into ramen. Neato! New perspectives that aren’t from here! Exchanging ideas! Globalization is good!
Maybe I’ll surprise her for lunch, I think, while I’m shopping in Harris Teeter. As for the fakeness of the pho, I have no idea. A friend told me when he did it, now I’m telling you. So there. Pass it on. Teach somebody something today.
So I’m full of zombie love, and freshly finished with listening to a hot Phish set through my iphones while ishopped. I arrive home to put up the on-sale potatoes and some animal cookies and then to sick my Arrogant Bastard Ale in the beer fridge (this shows the household commitment to beer).
And see that my old sticker-covered college fridge nearly full! Brimming! Full of sweet, sweet love from Heaven! This is a good thing.
Oh, there are a few others, homemade wine and some Belgian outtake of some sort, but I’ll stop.
Now, we’re not drunks over here, but lately the house has begun to accumulate beer. Not that it’s a bad thing. Let’s dig into the list, though. See, half of those are from N.C. – and if you count High Life, which is brewed in Eden, most of those are N.C. beers.
Hot damn!
I chose to go with the Duck Rabbit Porter, which compliments the chocolate animal cookies that I bought nicely. The Arrogant Bastard kind of set me off, and I have options, so why not?
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my vacation. Don’t expect too much of me over the next few days. I have some lounging to handle. And some beer sippin to do. Maybe a hike. Maybe a little book readin. Burn a CD or two. Whatever for the next three days or so.
You know, Zombieland got me thinking so much about zombies, I figured I’ll throw in some Shaun of the Dead for ya:
Let’s do some journalism, as my colleauge and co-worker Don Patterson would say.
This morning I consumed journalism like a regular person, scanning headlines, looking at news online with my copy of the News & Record (buy one, will ya?) next to me on the sofa.
I see a headline on my Yahoo! rss feed that talks of pirates, guns and attack. Well, I just gotta read this, I think. So I go to the link, and get this sentence:
Somali pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama on Wednesday for the second time in seven months, though private guards on board the U.S.-flagged ship repelled the attack with gunfire and a high-decibel noise device.
A high-decibel nose device? What the hell is that? This makes no sense at all. What are we talking about here, a house alram-type thing, a siren, some kind of roach and vermin alarm? Who knows? You know why? Because the device, whatever it is, is poorly described. Yes, the news is there, and it’s interesting, but as soon as the reader has a question (my editors say), said reader is lost. And I gave up.
And then I found this, from the NYTimes:
The United States Navy Central Command said four suspected pirates in a skiff came within 300 yards of the Maersk Alabama at 6.30 a.m. Wednesday about 600 miles off the northeast coast of Somalia as it headed for the Kenyan port of Mombasa.
But a security team on board the Maersk Alabama responded with small-arms fire, long-range acoustical devices painful to the human ear and evasive maneuvers to thwart the attack, the navy said in a statement.
OK. There’s a substantial difference beteeen the NYTimes and the AP. The AP has thousands of staff to tell breaking news. The story was even updated while I wrote this post to say that the pirate captain had died.
But a little thing, like the description of some deterrent tool, made a big difference in what the story meant.
Detail, description. Show, don’t tell. I had that beaten into my head as an undergrad, and as I think about writing more and more, it’s coming back.
Just like basketball, or pretty much anything else requiring some parts of talent and skill, a solid base of fundamentals will carry you far.
If you want to go one further with the whole difference-between-two-news-outlets thing, here’s my story on mammograms in today’s paper, and the NYTimes piece.
I’m stealing a self-posed quiz from here, where one of my soon-to-be-bosses writes, and giving it a shot.
What is your name? Gerald Witt
What is your running goal? To find a way to manage my various ailments (namely, a hamstring pull that’s almost healed and existing Achilles tendinitis) and get up to running a 5K. This, incidentally is the same goal I’ve had for the last two years.
When did you first start running? When I was 15, to try to make the soccer team. I wasn’t talented enough with footskills and was cut. Instead I ran cross country and track until I was 18. It’s been intermittent since, but I’ve been more on the ball about a regular fitness regimen since about age 27.
Huh. That’s a pretty big gap, considering how old you are now. (keeping Margaret’s line here) Bite me.
What Bob Dylan song best describes your running style? Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues. “I do believe I’ve had enough.”
Who would you most like to run with? Not sure.
We don’t know, but Viggo Mortensen probably is. Complete non-sequiter, but good to know.
How about you pick someone real. It would be nice to go for a jog with anyone who’s read something interesting.
Doesn’t another of your high school friends run? Micah Owens, these days. I hear he’s going for miles on miles. I’d like to run with him, I guess.
What was the most annoying part of your run on Saturday? I didn’t run Saturday, but I did Sunday. I had a weird strain on the right hip flexor that made me walk on the treadmill at the Y. Which always makes me feel like an asshole. Though these days, I’m over feeling like an asshole for much anymore. Pretty soon, people will just make excuses for me and I won’t have to worry about that, either.
What was your favorite part? The TV above the treadmill that shows the football game.
When do you run again? Probably Thursday.
You don’t seem to like running. Then why the hell are you training for a half-marathon? I’m not training for much of anything really, but not opposed to it sometime. I guess I’m running because apparently smoking kills, and the two do not mix.
