Holidays, Kitty Drama and Caregiving

The Thanksgiving holiday weekend is now over in the US. It was certainly nice having four days in a row off to veg. On Thanksgiving eve, I began my ritual of prepping food for the big day. Generally, I have a house full of family and friends, but this year was different. Things came up which prevented friends from coming for dinner and to visit, but that didn't stop my food ritual. On Thanksgiving eve (last Wednesday) I prepared tons of food - marinated tofu, vegan green bean casserole, tofu pumpkin pie and vegan scalloped potatoes.

Since the week had been rather hectic, I was cool with the lack of company as that meant I didn't have to find the time to add house cleaning to the schedule. Thanksgiving morning rolls around and the first thing I did after making a cup of coffee was to pop the pie into the oven. I was in the kitchen and so was my sister (she was making our mom breakfast) when my little 14 year old Louie let out a loud and guttural yell. Not once, but twice, and something I've never heard come out of him before. At first we didn't even know where that came from.

My sister and I realized it was Louie and the other cats were disturbed by this sound. We followed Louie and he went to a cat box, but could not go. I said to my sister that I was going to wash my face and take him to the vet. He was "constipated" and clearly in pain. My sister washed up too, and we ran him to the vet. Being the holiday, I wasn't able to call in a regular appointment so was stuck with the "emergency" fee. That was fine as I only wanted my baby well.

Louie at the vet on Thanksgiving

We spent about two hours at the vet and then left Louie there while they did x-rays and gave him an enema. After about three hours, I called to check on him and found out that he still hadn't "gone" and they said to call back in two more hours as they were going to give him another enema. Poor baby.

Louie at the vet on Thanksgiving

My sister and I cooked the prepped dinner and did laundry while my mom kept asking for updates on Louie. When I called back the second time, the tech said he still hadn't gone but the vet said he could go home. My sister went to get him while I finished our Thanksgiving dinner. Louie came home with a huge bottle of liquid stool softener and we enjoyed our dinner and monitored him that night. The vet felt that he wasn't comfy enough to go and would probably be able to once home. He finally did! Thank God.

Louie's x-rays showed that his intestines were pretty full and needed to be "evacuated". The vet sent instructions home to give him a tablespoon of pumpkin pie filling (from the can and sans all the sugar and spice) daily as that is a good "cleanser". Turns out Louie LOVES pumpkin and will eat it right off of a spoon!

He's doing better now and I'm so happy about that. Wasn't quite how I had planned my day, but, do daily plans ever 100% materialize? The food did come together though, and was really good. The art I planned to work on, didn't really happen. Sigh. Louie's OK and I can work on art in the weird wee hours of the night. That does tend to interfere with sleeping though.

So now I just have to get my art going so that I can hopefully supplement my lost income with art sales. My day job work hours were cut after I moved my mom in. Maybe I can learn something from the "mommy preneurs"! I've got to do something! The difference between me and "mommy bloggers", probably not much. They are caregivers to little kids and I'm a caregiver to my mother and my cats. The bottom line is that we are all individuals caring for others while possibly trying to maintain our own "thing", hopefully somehow helping others, and have the means to provide for our loved ones.

Thick Lentil Barley Soup on a Rainy Night

 
Probably like most people, I grew having warm comfort foods for dinner on cold and rainy days. My mom was famous for throwing soups and stews together for a yummy meal on a cold night. She was also famous for her ironing skills. I never got the ironing gene, but I did get the cooking gene.

After the heatwave of last week, this week's weather is a welcome change. It is something insane like 50 degrees cooler this week than last Monday! It has been cold, cloudy and rainy. Love it. I really love to cook in this weather. I decided to make my thick lentil and barley soup with drop biscuits for dinner. That is a hearty and warming meal and suits this cold weather well.

This is one of the dishes I just kind of made up so there aren't many "measurements" here. The spices and seasonings are by taste. Start with a Dutch oven and add olive oil, 2 stalks of celery chopped, 4 cloves of garlic chopped, one chopped onion and 2 carrots chopped. Sautee until soft.



In the meantime, rinse and drain one cup of lentils and one half cup of barley.



When veggies are soft, add the drained lentils and barley to the Dutch oven and stir. Then add 32 ounces of vegetable broth plus 2 cups of water and bring to a boil. Also add a can of sliced mushrooms.



Now for the seasonings and spices. I use black pepper, dried oregano and basil, a pinch of salt, and cumin. I just sprinkle it in, eyeballing it, really. Simmer and cover, cooking on low heat for about 45 minutes. Note - no cats were harmed in the making of this soup, nor was any paint added to the recipe!



I also add Braggs Liquid Aminos. I swear by Braggs and use it almost daily in my cooking. It is an all purpose seasoning and a soy sauce alternative.



After 45 minutes (and during the cooking) taste it and adjust spices and seasonings according to taste.



I also made a batch of drop biscuits. This is an easy thing to make. Use one and one half cups of Heart Smart Bisquick and half a cup of soy milk. Mix and drop spoons of the batter onto an un-oiled baking sheet and cook at 450 degrees for 9 minutes.



Serve up in a bowl and enjoy! This recipe will not only leave your kitchen smelling good, but leaves plenty for leftovers.

Lazy Weekend

A lazy weekend indeed. I think it was necessary after the stress of the holidays! Did some of my on-line class, talked to my mom and one of my friends. Read a lot! Slept in. Nice.

That was yesterday. Today, I slept in and ventured out to go on a spending spree. Started with Borders Books. Love that place. I get these fun discount coupons weekly and, being a book junkie, I find it nearly impossible to pass the discounts up. So, at Borders, searching through the Arts and Crafts books, I came across an obviously misplaced book. Surely this must have been meant for me to find. It fits right in with my 2010 goal of being a better housekeeper. Plus, the graphics in this book and on the cover are just so fab! The book I picked up is called "No-Hassle House Cleaning". I can't wait to dive into that. I really need to do some house cleaning as I have friends coming next weekend. We will be going on a scandal-filled bus tour of the West Adams district of LA. This will be followed by food, fun and revelry at my hopefully clean house.



I also went to Fresh & Easy, Trader Joe's and Target to spend even more money. Since all the local weather reports said the upcoming week of pretty much non-stop rain was not starting until tonight, I ventured out on this spending spree without my umbrella or raincoat. It's a damn good thing I don't bother spending lots of time blow drying my hair into a straight style of some sort since the clouds opened up early and the drops of rain began to fall!

When I got home I decided I wanted to make not one, but two dishes. New vegetarian recipes I came across. Both recipes contain red lentils. I should add that the house smells really good.

One is a red lentil and barley casserole



and the other is a red lentil and artichoke stew



Funny (or maybe sad) how the weekends just fly by. Tomorrow, I begin a new work schedule at the day job. It's called the 9/80 work week. This basically means, you work 9 hour days Monday through Thursday, 8 hours on Friday, repeat Monday through Thursday the following week, and then have that Friday off! I can't wait. I think my first assignment for the off Friday will be to have the landlord replace my archaic electric stove top. Said stove top, completely shut off while I was sauteeing onions and carrots for the casserole. A cooks worst nightmare. Who's idea was it to make electric stove tops anyway? Surely, not a cook.