#Yellow Bean Soup

I haven't posted for a while. Been busy with the yard and the garden. It's that time of year. The yard looks good. We raked the old grass from the winter, cut it twice now. We spread fertilizer and sprayed for those pesky dandelions and for now we have them under control. It is next to impossible to keep them out of our lawn. We are between neighbor that don't give a crap about their lawn. For whatever reason. One of them is against spraying because it isn't healthy. He just cuts the grass, never bags, which means all the weed seeds stay in the grass to make new weeds. I bag most of the time and take the grass to the dump where they compost it into soil.

Speaking of seeds--all of my vegetable seeds are in the garden. The lettuce is already sprouting as are the beets and the onions. I also planted 17 Kohlrabi and 6 Kale, but didn't get around to plant my peppers and tomatoes. That's a big job and with the rain these last couple of days I had to put that on hold. It is supposed to be sunny and warm for the next week so, hopefully, tomorrow I can do some transplanting. The soil is still too wet.

I spread nearly 2 yards of fresh soil onto the beds and mixed in plenty of 19-19-19 fertilizer. If everything goes well, we should have a bumper crop. So far, I've caught 4 mice in the trap, which is promising. It means they aren't too many out there. The last couple of years were terrible. The garden was infested with mice. They ate most of our beets. I set out traps and lost count how many I caught. The crows were happy.

Since it rained, I managed to make a pot of soup yesterday. A new recipe for me. I made it once before and I loved the soup. We still have frozen yellow beans in the freezer, which I used. I found the recipe on the internet, but I modified for myself and added different vegetables. The soup turned out well and it tastes great. Here is the recipe. Try it out. You won't regret it.

Yellow Bean Soup with Italian Sausages

Ingredients (makes 10 portions):
•    2 tablespoons of corn oil
•    500g yellow wax beans, cut into 1-2 inch pieces
•    1 medium onion, finely chopped
•    2 cloves of garlic crushed
•    1 medium potato, peeled and diced
•    2 carrots, sliced into disks
•    1 stalk Celery, chopped
•    1 – Parsnip root (chopped)
•    Small handful of frozen peas
•    900 ml Beef Broth
•    600 ml Broccoli water (or just plain water)
•    2 - Italian Sausages (sliced)
•    100 ml sour cream
•    1 teaspoon of corn flour (corn starch)
•    2 teaspoons of Hungarian paprika powder
•    salt (Hys) and pepper to taste
•    dash of hot sauce (only if using mild sausages!)
•    1 Bay leaf (optional)
•    Fresh parsley or dill to serve – optional
Method
1.    Clean and prepare the vegetables
2.    Boil Sausages for a few minutes. Pour off the water.
3.    Slice Sausages into small pieces
4.    Cook the onion and garlic on the oil till translucent
5.    Take off the heat and stir in the teaspoonful of paprika powder
6.    Add the vegetables and cook on a moderate heat for 2-3 minutes while stirring
7.    Pour in the water, add the sausages, drop in the bay leaf (if you have one), salt and pepper to taste, and cook on low heat till the vegetables are tender (50 minutes)
8.    Combine the teaspoon of corn flour and the sour cream evenly, ladle in some of the hot liquid from the soup to even out the temperature between the two, mix well then pour the sour cream mixture into the simmering soup and stir until thickens slightly.

It tastes as good as it looks. Hmmm--Yummy

#Who's Bad--the Michael Jackson Show

Last Friday we went to the Casino to watch the Michael Jackson show. The show was called ‘Who’s Bad’. There were two impersonators. One of them was better than the other one. He looked more like Michael Jackson and he had the moves down to perfection. His moonwalk was smooth and impressive.

Both performers did a great job.

That was the only good thing I have to say about the show.

For me, it already started out badly. The guy who sat in front of me blocked half the stage, he was so big. I could see the performers only either with my left eye or my right eye, depending on which side of his huge head I looked past him. It was one of my nightmares come true. I have this fear (and rightfully so) that a big person will sit in front of me when I go to a performance, even the movies. It happened too many times. It happened again this time. Even the people sitting beside us felt sorry for me.

Expecting the music to be loud, I took out my hearing aid. When the music started, I stuffed pieces of Kleenex into my ears, but it was still so loud, the noise echoed inside my head and my chest vibrated. You could barely hear the singers, because the drums and other instruments were overpowering.

To make it even more pleasant, the women behind us shouted and screamed most of the time. When they didn’t, they filled the time with chattering. Why do women scream at these shows? Don't they have any self-control?

So many women and girls ran to the front of the stage and danced, sang, and waved their hands over their heads to the rhythm (if there was one) of the music (translate: noise). I can’t understand this hand-waving. I thought they did that only in some of the churches in the South.

The other thing that annoyed us were the lights the lighting people constantly shone into our eyes. What is the purpose of that? I want to see the stage not the audience.

If I could have uttered the magic words ‘Beam me up, Scottie’ and they would have worked I would have yelled them out loud to escape Never-never-Land.

Even my wife, who is more of a fan than I, didn’t enjoy it. We left early and went to play the machines. We each had $20.00 of FREE PLAY. To ease the pain, we managed to leave the casino with $40.00 of winnings between the two of us. That lifted our spirits a little.

I am willing to bet that most of the people who go to these shows end up with massive hearing loss sometime in the future. They’ll all be wearing hearing aids.

We’ve seen great Michael Jackson impersonations when on holiday in Cuba and the Dominican Republic. We expected a similar performance. Unfortunately, we were disappointed. This was a waste of money and an evening.