Cooking in the West

I heard on the radio the other day that children get their intelligence from their mothers. That might explain what has happened to my brain. Perhaps I drained part of it for the first child and the rest for the second. I can almost buy that theory--except for the fact that I have another theory that makes more sense to me: Susan's Full Brain Theory. I believe my brain is like a computer that has no memory left. My brain is full, and my folders cannot be compacted. In fact, my brain is so full that according to the bathroom scale, my body is filling up with the overflow!

I have so much stuff crammed in my brain that I have become dependent upon sticky notes. Yes, I am up to a pack of Post-Its per day. If a strong wind blows any of my notes away, something is going to be forgotten or someone will get left at the dentist's office or my name isn't--just a minute, I think that Post-It with my vital information is yellow or maybe it is purple. Anyway, you've got the picture!

In my job, I am in school hallways a lot, and I believe that I have discovered the root of the problem! We are forcing kids to store volumes of useless information in their brains, so that later on in life when they need to recall an important thing like their mother-in-law's birthday or their boss's wife's name, they cannot recall it because there was no room to store it.

I have helped fifth graders spend hours in agony figuring out the areas of irregular shapes. The whole time, I wanted to say, "OK, enough of this--I have never in my life had to figure out the area of a rectangle with an octagon cut out of it. Come to think of it, I've never ever had to figure out the area nor the circumference of a circle, which is lucky since those pi formulas are so confusing. What lunatic thought of pi without an e on it that equals roughly 3.141592653589793. That's not a number; it's an infinite decimal, which NEVER ends repeating--it's sheer lunacy! (Of course I didn't memorize that number--I googled it and wrote it on a Post-It note.) Run, children, save yourselves and save your brain space for important mathematical calculations like figuring out how to balance your budget when the price of gas quadruples!"

Thumbing through an elementary science textbook, I had an epiphany of sorts. Do you realize that protists are eukaryotes because they all have a nucleus? Did you know that there are 1,600 species of Euglena and most are unicellular? How would you like to retrieve this from your brain for the test--ciliates, sporozoans, and dinoflagellates are three phyla that are grouped into a clade known as the alveolates? I am pretty sure my brain suffered a triple aneurysm that day trying to wrap itself around seventh grade knowledge. I would have never passed their test, because my brain is just too full of that kind of "this is going to be on the test" information that has no relevance to me and has clogged my synapses so they don't even fire any more. "No Brain Cells Left Behind" is my catchy slogan for explaining all those hours I spent clogging my brain by balancing chemical equations, which I have never once had to do in my adult life. I am so old I remember working for weeks to master the slide rule, and that has come in very handy NEVER upon even one occasion.

My brain is so busy trying to sort through the useless six quarters of Calculus I stored in there in college that I forgot to buy dog food on my last four trips to town. I cannot pass a dementia test even though I know the questions, because they don't let you use sticky notes. I have several elderly relatives, so I know how those tests work. They give you three words to remember--simple unrelated words. Then they ask you several fine print pages of questions, chit chat for a half hour or so, and then at the end they ask you to tell them the three words. Impossible! I don't think the test giver could do it if he/she didn't have the words written on her clipboard. If you don't know the three words, you might have dementia. If you try to give them a synopsis of the overloaded brain theory, they just look at you like THEY have dementia, and then they smile and pat your hand and write something on their clipboard that looks like, "Accompanied by wacky relative--possibly with dementia. Verify medical power of attorney."

I think there was a point to this column, but I lost my sticky note that told me what it was. Oh well, your brains are probably overloaded, so you probably wouldn't have absorbed it anyway!

My featured cook this week is Kay Taber of Ryegate, Montana, who sent these recipes back when we were compiling a charity cookbook for the Moline kids who had lost their mother. Kay shared this great tip for making deviled eggs. Now I make hard boiled eggs in my Instant Pot, because it is fast and they peel effortlessly and use Kay's tip and recipe. Thanks, Kay!

Tip for easy deviled eggs:

Put cooked egg yolks in a Ziploc bag. Seal, mash until they are all broken up to the consistency you like. Add the remaining ingredients to the bag. Reseal and continue mashing and mixing thoroughly. Cut the tip of the bag and squeeze mixture into the egg white. Clean up is easy - just throw the bag away!

Kay's Best Deviled Eggs:

12 cooked eggs

1/2 C. mayonnaise (or Miracle Whip if you prefer)

1/4 t. paprika

1/4 t. salt

2 C. milk

1/2 t. dried chives

1 t. dried parsley flakes

1/2 t. ground mustard

1/2 t. dill weed

1/8 t. garlic powder

1/8 t. pepper

fresh parsley and additional paprika

Slice eggs in half lengthwise; remove yolks and set whites aside. In a small bag, mash yolks and add the next 10 ingredients. Mix well, fill the whites, and garnish with parsley and paprika. Susan's note: My family loves to make deviled egg salad for sandwiches with this recipe. Mash the yolks, add the 10 ingredients, and then mix in finely chopped whites. Add more mayonnaise (or Miracle Whip if you prefer) to make it spreadable.

Impossible Tuna Pie:

1 can tuna (or salmon is better!)

4 oz. pkg. cream cheese

1 C. shredded cheese

diced onion (to taste)

1/2 t. salt

1/2 t. nutmeg

Place the above ingredients in a pie pan.

Blend together:

2 C. milk

1 C. Bisquick

4 eggs

Pour over ingredients in the pie pan. Bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes.

Pizza Surprise:

Raw potatoes

1 can Cheddar cheese soup or sliced cheese to cover potatoes

1/2 C. grated Mozzarella cheese

2 lbs. hamburger, browned and drained

spaghetti sauce

Slice enough raw potatoes to cover the bottom of a 9 X 13 pan. Cover potatoes with cheese soup. Pour spaghetti sauce combined with hamburger over top. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Uncover and sprinkle with mozzarella cheese. Bake until cheese is melted.