Dan from Madison

Finnish Pecan Balls

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Winter has fully set in here in flyover country and we are in the midst of our first and hopefully only polar vortex of the season. This gives plenty of inside time, and time for me to dive into my grandmother’s recipe box.

Today we have Finnish Pecan Balls. I have no idea why the are Finnish, and honestly didn’t know what I was getting into when I started this one. When they were finished I said to myself “oh thooooose” when I realized that these where the dry, crumbly, sugary, tasty things that were on every single Christmas cookie platter I had ever seen since I was a wee lad.

1/2 lb. butter
4 tbsp sugar
2 cups pastry flour (I used regular flour and it worked just fine)
1 tbsp vanilla
2 cup pecans cut coarse (I used almonds as my spousal unit overbought and they turned out great)

Cream butter and sugar. Add flour, vanilla and nuts. Roll in hands size of butter balls (I went around an inch to an inch and a half). Bake 15 to 20 minutes in hot oven (come on grandma). I went 18 minutes at 350. Roll in powdered sugar while hot. Makes 3 doz.

I ended up with 29. Super easy and delicious. Have a napkin handy or eat over garbage can.

Your “It’s Gonna Be A While Before You Get Vaccinated” Banana Cherry Nut Bread Recipe

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I have been rewarded with many correct calls so far while watching the botched and hilarious clownshow that is the vaccination rollout. Just about every single thing I predicted would come to pass, has. These predictions included:
1) Sensational tales of adverse reactions to a vanishingly tiny amount of people (I’m guessing these are the same communists that can’t eat peanuts)
2) Freezers “breaking down” and/or vaccines getting “misplaced” and heroic technicians vaccinating random people (Does anyone really believe these stories? Or at a minimum doesn’t everyone assume we are missing at least part of the story?). The media always, always has to have a hero.
3) Ridiculous systems and classifications of those supposed to receive the vaccine
4) Logistic and other failures
I have worked in industrial distribution all of my adult life, and know a thing or two about logistics. I also know a thing or two about government. I can’t think of too many worse combinations than logistics and government. Naturally, and predictably, the vaccination program is a total and complete farce. If we just would have left it to Walgreens and/or CVS and let them make some money at it, the whole shebang would probably be done by now, subject to availability of the vaccines of course. The whole debacle makes me sigh out loud, and creates hunger. I looked through grandmas recipe box and found a recipe that worked perfectly as I had exactly three bananas that were “on sale”, so to say, in my fruit basket.

This recipe is attributed to Alice Petersen, and is marked by my grandmother on the card as “very good”. I agree. It is very good.
Banana Cherry Nut Bread
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 10 oz jar cherries and juice – leave the cherries whole *I love ingredients like this. Upon going to the supermarket, it quickly becomes apparent that cherries are not sold in jars anymore, nor in 10 oz sizes. I saw a 15 oz can but was then faced with the choice of cherries in heavy syrup or water. I chose water and it worked out. I just cut the 15 oz can down to 2/3 (and naturally, began to snack down the other 1/3 of the can, before having to give some to my spousal unit, who threatened to burn my possessions in the street if I ate them all). I’m guessing back when grandma wrote this one up that the packaging for cherries was quite different than it is today.
1/2 cup butter or margarine
3 mashed bananas
2 cups flour
1 tsp soda
1/2 cup walnuts

Cream the sugar and butter; add eggs; mix. Then add bananas and mix thoroughly. Blend in flour and soda. Add cherries, juice and nuts and stir until mixed. Pour into 2 small loaf pans and bake one hour at 350.

Super simple and rewarding. Enjoy!

Your Post Apocalyptic Cinnamon Coffee Cake Recipe

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Well, after all fifty state capitols being assaulted last week as predicted by the FBI and an extremely excited media, along with an inauguration that was marred by violent, huge mobs of country overthrowers and coup starters, I’m in the mood for some coffee cake.

When my grandmother died many years ago and we were doing her death cleaning, I wanted just a few things – the collection of antique beer steins, the stand mixer and the box of recipes. I was fortunately granted all of the above. Today’s recipe is one that grandma got from one Clara Jensen according to the index card, a person I don’t necessarily remember. This coffee cake turned out really good, but in general, most coffee cake, to me at least, has a ceiling as far as quality and taste goes. It is very easy to make and of course you can alter to your taste but this is pretty solid.

2 cups flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup brown sugar

Sift all of these dry ingredients together. Mix that with:

2/3 cup room temperature shortening
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
Put in a 9×13.

Topping:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
nuts (optional)

Sprinkle topping on top of dough.

Bake at 350 for 25-30 mins. I went 28 and it turned out just fine.

Enjoy!

Marching to the Beat of Pretty Much the Same Drummer

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Quite the week out there in DC. Meanwhile, back in flyover country, things seem somewhat, well, the same. Let us unpack a few things.

I am in the HVAC business, the owner of a distributor. Business is good. Since it is Winter and it is cold, we are firmly into the H of HVAC. Heating products are selling briskly. Customers coming in the door seem to be acting as they always have. Outside of a little water cooler talk about the riots in DC, the employees seem to be acting exactly the same. In fact, if I didn’t know about the riots, this could be pretty much any week in any January.

But…social media and all that. While waiting for some cream cheese to come to room temperature for a key lime pie I am making (the pie is completely inauthentic and made with Persian lime juice to boot) I decided to look at a few news sites and scroll twitter a bit and then write this post. What a cesspool social media is. Lots of CAPITAL LETTERS and rage and fury.

I see that the same benefit of a few “bad actors” won’t be applied to this riot like all of the other ones over the Summer. Hey that’s not fair! Sorry I laughed out loud while I typed that. We know. We get it. Too bad everyone couldn’t have gotten their panties in a bunch when the idiots were trashing the Federal Courthouse in Portland (they still are from what I hear) or any of a number of other federal, state and municipal buildings, as well as billions of dollars of private property – some of which literally went up in smoke.

I saw some video of the cop in the Capitol blowing that poor woman away. Looks bad. Will be interesting to see how he is treated.

Lots of calls for Trump to resign, get 25th amendmented, impeached and all that. I haven’t actually had time to hear exactly what he said, but I’m guessing that it wasn’t “hey thanks to all of you for coming, now get your asses up to the Capitol and trash that thing”.

I have to go to work tomorrow to get some things done that I couldn’t attack during the week. I plan on keeping off of social media as usual, and letting the screamers scream. I won’t hear them.

Will this event go down in the annals of history and be one of those “I remember where I was when” moments? I don’t think so. I could be wrong. I have a pie to make.

Things Politicians Like: Alternate Covid Care Facilities

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When the books are written about Covid and 2020, I hope to buy the one that lists everything that was dumb and wrong. I feel that at the top of the list would be the lust for politicians to show that they are “doing something” with the alternate care facilities.

This whole thing started with Cuomo and the big ass boat that parked in New York harbor, that ended up treating a hilariously low total of 182 patients before (I assume) the Navy said “f this”. I think New York also did the Javits Center and that also shut down pretty quickly. I still remember laughing at Cuomo when he was all but crying “we need fohty tousand ventuhlatuhs”. Of course, we now know that most of the people on ventuhlatuhs were getting their lungs blown up, but I digress.

Governor “you all stay home but myself and my family can do whatever they want during Covid” Pritzker of Illinois and Chicago Mayor Lori “lockdown for you, unless you are blowing up the city or going to a Joe Biden rally” Lightfoot gave each other a high five (figuratively) when they opened up McCormick Place to see Covid patients. A cool $81 million to treat 38 patients. That’s $2,131,578.95 each.

Recently the governor of Wisconsin, “one term” Tony Evers opened up an Alternate Care Facility outside of Milwaukee, at the Wisconsin State Fair Park. I have been watching the patient count there – you can too, right here. From Saturday to Sunday, there was an insane increase of 20% (!!!) of patients. While this sounds menacing, we went from five to six in reality (see, I can do covid pOrn just as good as the media). Since then we have had a FIFTY percent reduction in patients at that facility, from six down to three. I would assume that this place will also shut down fairly soon. But good on the docs and nurses there, I am sure they are catching up on some reading, knitting and whatever else they haven’t been able to get to as of late.