Beef and Noodles with Mushroom Gravy

We have this for dinner and it was so good I just had to share… Everyone in the family + my brother-in-law and niece loved it! 5 stars from the family!

Beef and Noodles with Mushroom Gravy

Ingredients

3lbs – Stew Beef
3 Cups – Water
2 TBS – Beef Base
2 tsp – Black Pepper
3 tsp – Granulated Garlic
3 tsp – Worcestershire Sauce
1/4 Cup – Dried Minced Onion
15oz Can – Mushrooms with Juice
2 TBS – Corn Starch + 1/4 cup of water = Corn Starch Slurry

Directions

1. Brown beef over medium high for 5 minutes.
2. Add water, beef base, pepper, garlic, Worcestershire, onions and mushrooms.
3. Bring to a simmer and cover for 1 hour or until the meat is fork tender but not falling apart.
4. Stir in corn starch slurry until thickened.

Enjoy over egg noodles!

Happy Valentines Everyone!

unnamedI honestly hope everyone had a great Valentines Day! I’ve been telling my wife how much I love her a little extra each day…because I Do Love Her!  I hope those people you don’t have a Valentine but want want spent the day in search of one!

I tell my sons that special someone is not going to come and knock on their door asking is there the love of their life that lives here. They have to get up, turn of the Xbox and put on their sneakers and go find that special someone. You have to go on that chase. It may take a year or more but someday, somewhere, when you don’t expect it… she or he will just appear. You’ll look at one another and know.

I’ve heard but it won’t last… maybe it won’t but you have to try. You don’t want to miss that feeling… or the dance. Love and Heartbreak are both part of the game. Without heartbreak you wont know what real love is. Look for someone whom you can laugh and play with. Can you imagine yourself in 50 seating in rocking chairs and reaching over to hold hands. He or she is out there, so go find them.

ah… the weekend is almost here!

IMG_0200Some days I don’t know why I’m so so tired but today is one of them. My tooth and shoulder both hurt and It’s like I’m just exhausted. I slept good last night and got plenty of rest. I took all my vitamins and haven’t been eating a lot of sugar. Maybe it’s because I’m getting old. I will be 50 here in a couple of weeks…. LOL

I saw some old friends today and wow… how depressing. This one friend was always SCUBA diving, fishing, going to pawn shops, boating, artifact hunting, etc. His entire life he’s always been one of those people that was always doing something. He would always get up at 4:30 am, read the paper, eat, drink a pot of coffee and out the door by 5:30 or 6 am. He’d run all day doing things. Now he’s using a walker, lost a lot of weight, and doesn’t even look like himself. I know it happens to us all and I really pray that he gets better, it was just a shock to see him.

I hope when I loose my heath and when I’m in my final days I hope my family will remain close and happy. I don’t want to go with any bitterness between myself and any of my children. I sort of hope it’s quick as well. I don’t want to lay around and decay in front of everyone’s eyes.

God Bless You My Friend and I pray you get well soon!

OK… I’m getting a new camera! It’s Christmas to me…YAY It’s a Canon T3i dslr rebel. It’s a great camera, 18 mp with video recording. I can’t wait to get the camera and take some family photos.

My old Canon XT Rebel will become the ol’ work horse. It will take care of all the photos for work, job-sites, and anything else that we do for digital documentation.

I got the 4 year accidental damage insurance to it. I’ve never used it but just in case I drop it or something. I also bought a spare battery and 2 – 32 gig SD cards. I have being without a spare battery.

I also got me an 8″ Victorinox “Chef’s Knife”. It comes with a “Lifetime warranty against defects in materials and workmanship”. I’m almost just as excited about the knife as I am the camera. I know this is sad, but the knife is only $39.95 and I’ve wanted one for about 20 years. It was before I got married I bought a knife set. Then I wanted a good chef’s knife but just never got around to buying one. Now my dream has come true. lol

unnamed

I’ll have everything on Friday, February 14… HAPPY VALENTINES TO ME!

Web Hosting Companies

oadI’ve been dealing with web hosting companies right at 20 years now. In 20 years the only one I’ve ever found to be worth a shit is HostGator.com. Now I’m not affiliated with them at all, I get NO kickback, commissions or anything else from them. I have three sites hosted with them and have never really had a problem. They’re not the cheapest around but you get what you pay for that is for sure.

For $7.96 a month you get unlimited domains on 1 account. That is a great deal if you have a bunch of domains out there. It gets cheaper if you want to pay for 2 or 3 years all at once. I’ve always looked for the super cheap hosting and get shit on every time. I don’t think it’s intentional I think that they just have shit equipment and can’t keep it up and running. It’s always one excuse after the next… oh, we upgraded, it’s the data center, we’re re-booting the machine (for 5 hours?).

It is true, you get what you pay for. If you’re starting out on the web go on over to HostGator.com and save yourself a lot of headaches.

Pigeon Neighbors…

I live in Pigeon Country”. All my neighbors have pigeon and they take them very serious. I brought in a sewing room for my wife when I first bought the house and my neighbor comes running over to the fence saying in his foreign polish voice, you get pigeons? No, I responded with him saying, “pigeons are good you should get some. Well in a joking tone I said, “Oh do they taste like chicken”? He found no humor in that at all.

They race the pigeons for money. He said one pot was up to $70,000. How could this be? Gambling is illegal in Florida. Of course he said, well a lot of things are illegal. So, if I decide to run a meth lab in my backyard how is that any different.  Is one more illegal than the other? So I later found out from other neighbors he was telling the truth. Not only that but they are only suppose to have a certain number of pigeons on their property. So why do they have 3 huge pigeon houses if they can only have 20 pigeons?

Maybe the “10 Commandments” are written in order? Maybe some commandments are more serious than others or do they carry equal sin? A sin is a sin, a law is a law. When you violate the law knowingly you’re no better than someone who operates that Meth Lab. Am I right or do I not understand something.

Cooking For Family

mellwoodOne of my enjoyments in life is cooking for my family. I can’t wait till they taste the meal and I pray they are going to like it. There is so many meals that I want to try for them so we don’t have to keep eating the same meals over-and-over again.

Growing up we have 3 types of meat, beef, chicken, and pork. My seafood was “Moby Dicks” which is a seafood chain in the northern states, well at least Louisville, Kentucky. (Sort of like Long John Silvers or Capt. D’s) We never really ate beyond those foods. Fried chicken, fried pork chops, meatloaf, spaghetti, Freezer Queen Frozen Dinners, chili, Chef Boyardee pizza out of a box, and chili-mac. We’ll we had to eat Salmon Patties every now and then, damn my stomach still turns thinking about those.

I want my kids to know all kids of foods. Chinese, Japanese, Tai foods, Mexican, Greek, Mediterranean, any other type, and all the seafood there is. I never want them to look at “Moby Dicks” as a good seafood restaurant. LOL

Don’t get me wrong, Moby Dicks got me through High School and College eating their food, and I still love their hush puppies. But living in Florida I discovered what good seafood is.  Every time I get back to Louisville I have to eat at the old White Whales.

A hard day teaching

richard50I shouldn’t really say that because the class went great. I had some very good students in there today, not very talkative though. My webinar sort of messed up this afternoon but that is simply part of teaching classroom and webinar at the same time. Everyone is getting ready for their test and getting nervous.

When I teach I get like super tired afterwards…simply wore out. The older I get the more exhausted I seem to be afterwards. I’ve been taking vitamins and trying to stay as motivated as I can, but I’m still so tired. I think it’s because I’m not teaching as much as I once did and my stamina is gone. I used to teach 5 days in a roll and go out after class.

I need to start doing more online classes and record as many as I can each week. It’s only going to make my pay increase and maybe build me back up to teach and it just be another day at work.

Damn is tough getting older… I’ll be the big 50 in a couple of weeks now!

Hernando deputy will not face DUI charges – I’m Shocked.

hernandoDeputy Joseph Tibor, 45, was arrested on Jan. 11 after a Florida Highway Patrol trooper clocked him driving 85 mph in a 55 mph zone on State Road 50 in Brooksville. He was also charged with a DUI. But guess what… he’s not going to be charged?

Why I wondered, do we have some favoritism or corruption in Hernando County, Florida. The cop obviously thinks himself above the law, how can anyone respect him now. He’s dirty, time to fire his ass and send him to the local Dunkin Donuts for employment.

“After flashing his badge and mistaking him for another trooper, Tibor told Corporal David Frye he hadn’t had any alcoholic beverages to drink that evening, according to the report. When the corporal said his eyes were bloodshot and watery, the deputy said “OK, well I had maybe five drinks earlier,” according to the report.”

So, this guy lies to a police officer, fails a field sobriety exercise (charged with DUI), refuses  a breath test,  gets clocked at 30 mph over the speed limit, and then put on Paid Leave! But because he is a deputy sheriff he does not get charged. Am I the only one who see’s this as wrong? Another time were our justice system will close it’s eyes for one of their own. How pathetic and sad… let me teach my children this lesson.

I feel bad because I tell my children NOT to talk to the police. They are to use the “I saw nothing, heard nothing, know nothing” rule. If they ever have their rights read they are to simply say, I need an attorney… then silence. That cop is not their friend, they’re not going to help them in anyway. They are trying to blame a crime on somebody. They can then go to an attorney and send a statement through them and have them present during questioning.

Police carry a gun to protect themselves not others.

Sorry about the rant today… It just gets under my skin when I see this kind of injustice.

Here is a link to the Top 10 Reasons You Should NEVER talk to the Police

Take it or Leave it

Picture 35I think we are all asked advice about different things. I try to always give the best advice I can give, but I hate when someone ask and I give them advice and they totally ignore it. Most of the time they later come back and tell me I was right and they should have listen to me. So why didn’t they listen to me in the first place?

I’ve given up on giving most of them advice anymore. To me it’s why do I waste my time and energy. Let them figure it out on their own and make their own mistakes without me being a part of it. They’re not going to listen anyway…

Well life goes on and sometimes history repeats itself. I just hate to set back and watch some of the mistakes being made when I can predict (or anybody could) what the results are going to be.