Cooking--Day 3

Yes, I'm still in the kitchen, not barefoot, not pregnant, but I can't seem to get away from the

stove.  This morning I made a batch of Breakfast Burritos for Durwood (that way I get him to eat something other than a Kwik Trip donut) and still didn't use up the pink Reynolds Wrap.  When I commented on it he was unhappy that soon the colored wrap will be gone.  "How will I find my burritos if they aren't wrapped in colors?"  Gee, I don't know, maybe look in the zipper bag of burritos that has lived in the same place in the freezer for, what, four years or however long I've been keeping you supplied with them?  *fling hands up in the air*  Even after all these years I can't always tell when he's yanking my chain.

I worked out in my head how to make myself a semblance of a breakfast burrito that costs only a few WW points.  I found some chicken breakfast sausages at Aldi called "Simply Nature Country Style Chicken Breakfast Sausage" that are 1 point per link.  Then I looked up how much half of a 6" flour tortilla is, turns out it's also 1 point.  Since eggs were just placed on the 0 points list and onions and bell peppers and nonstick cooking spray where always on that 0 points list, I worked out how to measure out 3 whole eggs and 3 eggs' worth of egg whites whisked together into fourths (because there are 7 sausage links per package--why 7? why not 6 or 8?) with the 8th half-tortilla getting egg and 3 grams of cheddar so nothing went to waste and the points stayed the same.  First I cooked the sausages and set them on a paper towel so any residual grease soaked away.  Then I spritzed the small teflon skillet, sauteed onions and bell peppers and put them into a bowl.  I cut 4-6" flour tortillas in half, wrapped them in a damp paper towel and heated them for a few seconds in the microwave to make them pliable.  I measured out 1/4 of the eggs into the hot skillet, spooned on 1/4 of the onions & peppers and spread it out; let the eggs set pretty much before gingerly flipping the thin egg pancake to cook the other side.  Meanwhile I tore off a piece of clear plastic wrap, laid a tortilla half on it.  Once the egg was done I slid it onto a salad plate, cut it in half, laid half on the tortilla, then rolled a sausage link up in it, tucking it tightly into the plastic wrap.  There I have it, a perfectly good, quick to heat in the microwave breakfast for a mere 2 points per each.  Add a prune (1 point), half a banana (0 points), a mug of coffee and I'm good.


This afternoon Durwood had an MRI, in Appleton where they have an open machine, to see if there's something pinching in his neck causing his pain.  No results yet.  Follow-up appointment to come.  While he was getting his picture taken I sat in the waiting room and knitted a teeny tiny micro preemie hat.  It is beyond comprehension that a live baby can wear this hat which is a whopping 5" in circumference but someone who used to come to Friday Night Knitting has 2 grandkids that were micro-preemies; she knit a lot of hats this size.  It's adorable but it looks like a bottle topper instead of a baby hat.

February 12--American, The Gettysburg Address.  It was a warm day for mid-October.  The trees around the field were turning, showing bright orange, yellow, and red in the clear sunshine.  The crowd shifted, waiting for the preliminary remarks by a string of dignitaries to be done so that he would stand and speak.  He sat quietly, watching each speaker with interest no matter how banal and flowery his words--and how interminable.  Finally the President stood, glanced down at what looked like an envelope in his long-fingered hand, and began to speak.  He stopped speaking almost immediately, looking out over the crowd as if expecting a reaction.  There was a smattering of applause, he inclined his head, put on his hat, and left the stage.  It wasn't until they read the speech in the newspaper the next day that people truly understood what he had said. 

      Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

     Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

     But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Don't you wish you'd been there to hear him?  Happy birthday, Abe!
--Barbara