Author Archives: Janell

Max Factor Tricks & Treats

17 Saturday Oct 2009

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Max in Better Days - Spying on the Neighbors

Life with an Addison’s dog is already different.  Since the adrenal glands of our standard poodle Max no longer produce cortisone, Max has no natural defense against stress.  So, in the short-term, my husband and I are on a mission to offer Max as stress-free of an environment as possible.

It’s a matter of factoring Max’s needs into the equation of everyday life.  Like when Cosmo goes on her normal play rampage and charges Max, we scoop Cosmo up in our arms to keep Max safe from Scottie attacks.  Then once Cosmo is safely constrained, we encourage Max to seek higher ground, safe from sneak and not-so-sneeky Scottie attacks.  I don’t know why our normally 45 pound dog is fearful of this small 16 pound Scottish Terrier, but fears just are.  They don’t have to make sense.   

In the short week since his Addison crisis, Max has lost 7 pounds.  Max is down to 39 pounds, which makes Max a weak walking poodle skeleton.  So for now, we’ve curtailed Max’s daily poodle walks.  Even good stress is not good.  So as I write, our poodle girl Maddie is going solo with my husband on their weekly walk downtown.

It was quite a trick for my husband to sneek Maddie out of the house to offer her this secret treat.  Because Maddie’s poodle excitement gets the best of her, had Maddie a clue of her impending walk, she would have let the black cat out of the bag, and Max would have gotten stressed from the excitement associated with taking a walk.  So my husband pushed our much resistant Maddie girl out into the back yard, while my husband made his escape out the front door, leaving two confused black dogs in the house with me.  Back door or front door?  These left-behind dogs didn’t know which way to turn, until I enticed them into the kitchen with a treat.  Meanwhile, to Maddie’s delight, while her black companions were getting treats in the kitchen, she met my husband at the back gate for their weekly rendezvous.  With two black dogs none the wiser, Maddie and her dad are off to faraway places.

Mealtime seems to offer the biggest challenge, maybe because it’s never ending.  Max eats like a baby, which means small amounts frequently.  Since Max can’t stomach a normal quantity in one sitting, I factor in many meals, trying to get meat back on his bones.  For the girls, this translates into way too many treats. 

I believe life with our Addison’s dog will eventually settle down into a new normal, once Max is stabilized.  But in the meantime, Addison’s is requiring my husband and I to learn new tricks…. and giving our bitches way too many treats.  But Addison’s itself is a tricky disease — often misdiagnosed — and a challenge to medically compensate for the life essential missing hormones.  But life with our Addison’s dog is better than life without him.  And I know the rest of my pack agree that a few new tricks and treats due to our Max Factor is good for all of us.

Jack’s Beef Enchiladas

16 Friday Oct 2009

Posted by in In the Kitchen, Life at Home

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blog_jacks beef enchiladasMy first husband’s parents were wonderful hosts.  Tom’s father Jack was a great cook who would give up his entire Saturday afternoon to prepare some fine meal for his large expanding family, who at that time, was in the process of adding spouses and children to the fold.

I remember the first time I met Jack and Betty.  And their children:  Linda and John and Mike and Don.  And their current spouses or signficant others.  It was a full house that Saturday evening in a tiny cottage:  full of people, full of love and full of hugs.  I came home telling my mother that I’d never been hugged so much in my life.  And I wasn’t sure I liked it.

But the food.  What can I say but that I’ve never tasted food in the way they prepared and served it; while I was no stranger to good food, Jack and Betty served foods that eventually had me asking for every recipe, foods that today are staples on my table and in my life.  Big weekend breakfasts and every Saturday night supper with family featuring a menu that changed with the season — if good weather, we were treated to an outside grill featuring  barbequed chicken and roasted ears of corn — if rainy or cold, it was homemade beef tacos or these beef enchiladas.

Jack and Betty’s weekly gatherings of family inspired my own weekly family gatherings when we first returned to Oklahoma three summers ago.  But like me, their gatherings were skinnied down to what eventually became do-able for all the families involved.  Jack and Betty had five children while I have four;  the larger the family, the harder it is to pull everyone together.  But I’ve found it easier when I offer to cook homemade calzones.  Or fry some chicken with all the sides with some home-made rolls.  And I think Jack and Betty found it easier when they offered to feed their frenzy as well.

Betty taught me how to make their grilled corn and her stove top baked beans and her birthday cake that we still serve to some members of our family.  Like Kyle.  But what Jack and Betty taught me most was how best to host a family get together by building a work and wait sandwich:  first you work hard to prepare something good to eat — second you get out-of-the-way and wait for love to make the dinner a party — and third you work hard to clean up the dishes and package up the leftovers, either for home or as a take-away.

I don’t possess Jack’s beef taco recipe.  It was a deep dark secret that Jack promised his source never to share.  And to Jack’s credit and our loss, Jack never did share that taco recipe.  But as for this beef enchilada recipe, Jack was all too glad to share.  I’d forgotten how good these enchiladas were until my husband and I sat down to dinner last night.

And one more thing: Now I say hugs all around.  From my life to yours.

Jack’s Beef Enchiladas

Serves 5 to 6

Ingredient List
1 large package of flour tortillas (Jack used 10 large ‘burrito’ size tortillas  — I opt for 16 of the smaller 10″ size),
8 oz package of mild cheddar cheese
2 lbs ground chuck
onion
2 8 oz cans tomato sauce
flour for thickening
Spices:  salt, garlic powder, chili powder, cumin

Enchilada Filling:

In a skillet, brown meat; then season and set aside
2 lbs of ground chuck, browned and crumbly
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 to 2 Tbsp of Chili Powder (I use 2)

Enchilada Sauce

In a deep skillet or sauce pan, saute onion in margarine/oil over low heat.  When onion is soft and translucent, add spices, then stir in flour until mixed in good.  Immediately add tomato sauce and 2 cups of water.  Cook until thickened, about five minutes.  Then add more water to thin to the consistency you like.  Set aside.
5 Tbsp margarine (I use 4 Tbsp olive oil)
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 Tbsp Chili Powder (I use 2 Tbsp and in addition, I add 1 tsp cumin)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup flour
2 8 oz cans of tomato sauce
2 cups of water (I add more to thin down the sauce — at least another cup)

Assembly

Soften tortillas in a mircrowave for 60 seconds on high setting.  One at a time, spread tortilla with a little enchilada sauce, add meat (1/3 cup for large burrito size) and roll into enchilada.  Place in a greased 13×9 pan.  After assembling all enchiladas, cover with remaining enchilada sauce and 2 cups of grated cheddar cheese.

Cook

Bake in a 350 oven until cheese is melted, 10 to 15 minutes.

Serve:

Plain or covered with chopped lettuce and tomato

Sister Study

15 Thursday Oct 2009

Posted by in Life at Home

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blog_sister studyI received a nice note from a friend last night.  Her words sat on top of a chain email created to remind recipents of  Breast Cancer Awareness Month.        

I’m not one to pass on chain-mail to friends.  I can count on one hand — using two fingers — the times I’ve actually been moved to do so.  But my friend’s note did get me to thinking about “Pink October”, which in the middle of a restless night, rose up to carry me to memories of my own sister and other hand-picked sisters who’ve survived this scary disease.

My sister was thirty-three when diagnosed — too young for breast cancer.  I vividly remember the day Christi told me about the lump in her breast.  I just happened to be in Oklahoma that June for a visit — maybe it was for Father’s Day or maybe it was just to be there for Christi’s question — and we were taking a walk in our usual spot — in all places, a cemetery.   

I recall Christi being somewhat gun-shy in voicing her concern.  Perhaps she had already mentioned it to Mom, who had a good way of dismissing worries out of hand.  If so, I’ll be forever thankful she voiced her concern a second time to someone like me, who tends to err on the side of caution.  When it comes to health matters, my thinking has always been:  Why worry about the unknown when a visit to the doctor will inform whether there’s anything to worry about?  So it was easy for me to tell Christi that the lump was probably nothing, but to not  treat is as nothing.

Of course the rest of the story was that Christi discovered the lump was cancer  — an aggressive stage two if I recall correctly.  I cried when I heard the news.  By the next day, I was at her hospital bedside to keep her company by night.  The night is the worst time for fears to rise up out of their shadows, including those scarry goblin thoughts of death.  And while ultimately we are forced to face our fears of death alone, I still had a deep need to be with my sister, to ensure she received the care she deserved from an always too-busy hospital staff.   

Thank God my sister has been a breast cancer survivor for fourteen years now.  And because of her, I go and get an annual mammogram.  And because of her casual mention of it, I joined the Sister Study three year ago.  According to the Sister Study website, 

“The Sister Study is one of the first long-term studies to help us understand how women’s genes and the things in their environment — homes, workplaces, and communities — influence risk of breast cancer.  It is the first to collect such extensive and detailed information about environmental exposures.”

I am one of 50,000 sisters admitted into the study.  We sisters met the criteria of being breast cancer free and having a sister that wasn’t so lucky.  God willing, I’ll be part of this study for ten years.  But if the worst happens, and I too become stricken with breast cancer, Study personnel will jump on me like a duck on a June bug.  I know this because I’ve already given them my permission to do so.  And in the meantime, I tell the reserachers everything they think they might  need to know about my life and life choices.  And I update this information every two years, whenever I receive their heavy information packet.   I pray the information gathered will help find a cure for breast cancer — and that this knowledge may transfer to finding a cure for other cancers.

To my blood sister and my hand-picked sisters who are breast cancer survivors — like Vickie in Oklahoma City, and Joni in Louisville and Litha in Lake Jackson — I express thanks to God that you are all survivors.  I’m part of the Sister Study because of you.