Rochelle R.'s Vintage Recipes

  Many years ago  (1985) my husband had several nonfiction books published. They were marketed to middle school libraries. Needless to say they have been out of print for a long time. Yesterday out of the blue he got a letter from the publishing company saying they wanted to do a reprint in softcover. What a shock. He says the book is really out of date now. But I guess if they want to reprint who is he to argue.

This is a photo of my sweet grandbaby Emma. We took it last Monday while we were babysitting her. Her Mom and Dad go to a speech class for parents of children with speech delays once a week. As you can see Emma has super curly hair. My daughter says she has never been out with her without someone commenting on her hair or how cute she is. It is very worrisome to us that Emma has many problems. She has physical developmental delays. She is 16 1/2 months old and she doesn't pull herself up to stand, and so she doesn't walk yet either. Until just recently she was basically silent not babbling or saying even simple words. She is starting to make more sounds lately though. The most worrisome thing is that she even though she is very young she has been diagnosed with mild to moderate autism. We are very lucky that we live in San Diego. The University of Ca. San Diego is one of only six autism centers in the US that can do such an early diagnosis. Last Monday she started therapy. Three times a week therapists come to her home and work with her for about two hours. The Drs. at UCSD said that maybe her skull surgery is what caused her physical development delays. So we hope she will soon catch up on those. All her problems has of course caused much anguish to her Mom and Dad. Needless to say it is very upsetting to us and the rest of the family. The Drs say she has a 50/50 chance of the autism getting better in the next six months. So we are all trying to maintain a positive attitude.

This is a vintage recipe from Family Circle Magazine 1978. I imagine orzo was not that common in recipes back then. Also note the cost per serving- those were the days :)

Chicken Rosemary with Orzo
Makes 4 servings at 47 cents each.

1 broiler-fryer (2 1/2 pounds)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
3/4 teaspoon leaf rosemary, crumbled
1 medium-size onion, chopped (1/2 cup)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup tomato juice
1 cup orzo
1 tablespoon grated Romano cheese
1 tablespoons chopped parsley

1. Cut chicken into serving pieces. Combine salt, pepper and rosemary in a small cup; rub into chicken on all sides. Place skin-side down in large skillet; brown slowly, about 10 minutes. (Chicken will brown in its own melting fat.)
2. Add onion and garlic; cover; cook until soft. Stir in tomato juice; cook, covered 20 minutes; remove lid; cook 10 minutes longer.
3. While chicken cooks, prepare orzo following package directions; drain; toss with cheese. Place on serving platter; arrange chicken on top. Pour sauce over and sprinkle with parsley.

They say you don't really appreciate good health until you get sick. Well that sure is true. I just got out of the hospital after being there four days. I was on the stroke ward because they thought I might have had one. With all the poor old people there it was very depressing. There were several patients with dementia. One was very sweet but completely out of it as far as everyday things went. Another was so out of it she smeared feces on her face. That shocked even the nurses!
The other old people that were just physically sick were just as depressing. One old man keep praying out loud help me Lord over and over.
  There just isn't any good thing to say about getting old except you haven't died yet. I don't see how the staff can deal with a depressing job like that. I guess they must just focus on the fact that they are trying to help the patients and make them more comfortable.
  The reason I ended up there was I got extremely dizzy at work and after a few hours I left and went home. I laid down for a few minutes and then when I opened my eyes I had double vision. When I went to the ER they discovered I had extremely high and dangerous blood pressure. I had just about every test I have ever heard of. I really did not like the MRI. If I ever have to have that again I will need an anti anxiety drug first. They couldn't get my BP to stay under 200 so I had to stay in the hospital until it was finally under control. The weird thing is I had been regularly taking my BP medicine. They don't know why it stopped working. When she released me the Dr said I had been really sick. High blood pressure is weird because most of the time you don't feel any symptoms.
 The double vision went away and now I am sorry I didn't have more empathy for my husband when he had it for diabetes related reasons. It is a unpleasant thing.
  This whole incident has made me more empathetic to others and grateful for the relative good health I have now.

I guess you can use Bisquick for just about any thing you want to bake. A reader of my Blogger blog contacted me and asked if I had the Bisquick Fruitcake recipe. After looking through many, many  Bisquick booklets I found this one:

Last night we went to my city's Oktoberfest. It is the towns claim to fame, supposedly the largest west of the Mississippi. This year there were 300 vendors, not as many as last year. I think there were less food vendors also. The booth rental was probably very high. We had the traditional bratwurst with sauerkraut, delicious as always. It was got dark right after we got there so I grabbed someones fliker photo. But it is an authentic La Mesa Oktoberfest photo :)
 This was the first time Emma has been out in a crowd for an extended time but she did quite well. She only cried when the trolley came by and the very loud warning bell was ringing. She really doesn't like loud noises.
 I bought a pair of halloween earrings for $2.99 and a necklace for $1.00. There was a booth selling really cute necklaces. They had them for every holiday and season. I guess they could be called a charm necklace as they had many glossy colorful wooden seasonal motifs hanging on them. Kind of hard to describe, but they sure were cute. My daughter bought a Xmas one. They were $28.00 so I didn't get one but I sure would have liked to.
 My husband likes kettle corn so he usually gets a bag. Wow, inflation has struck, it was $9.00! It was a very large bag but that is a lot of money for popcorn. Oh well it is only once a year.

I have the same problem as this old M&M. It seems like no matter what bra I buy I just can't keep them up at a decent level anymore. Usually the under-wires in any bra seem to pop through right away or the straps sag or there is some other fitting problem. I guess you just can't fight gravity. :)

My brother is a super generous guy. He is always buying really nice things for us family members. He works for Sony and they have been encouraging employees to buy their products for family and friends. He bought us a 46 inch Sony flat screen TV. My husband was extremely excited because he has been talking about saving money to get one for a long time. Personally I wasn't that thrilled because I don't watch much TV and I think a 46 inch is way too big for our little living room.
 Well to make a long story short. My husband spends money we really couldn't afford for a stand for the TV and calls the cable company to come and hook it up. Then he discovers he lost the TV power cord. He tears the house apart looking for it but no luck. He is the most unorganized person I have every seen. Sometimes I think he has ADD. He always starts projects but never finishes them and scatters things all over then can't find anything. So he has to meet the cable guy outside and tell him to cancel, then order a new cord with overnight delivery. Right now he is waiting for the cable man to come again. I hope there is no new crisis. He has what seems to be several hundred cords and lots of components sitting all around waiting to be connected. Of course he says he can't do it himself so he is going to hire someone to connect the stuff the cable company won't do. More money we don't have. I just hope the mess is done with soon. I guess I will enjoy the TV when it is set up but the stress is really getting to me. This has been going on since Mon. when the TV got here.

Hope everyone has a nice day. I am working of course. My family had our barbecue yesterday, yummy steaks supplied by my brother. It has been super hot around here the past week. In the low hundreds, thank goodness for my little air conditioner, but I will faint when I get my electric bill!

Everyone in my family is having a very sad time. We had to have our dog Mony put to sleep this weekend. We took him to the Vet and after 600 dollars of tests they discovered he had diabetes. This is not as manageable in dogs as in people. We had kind of thought that maybe that was his problem, but as my husband is diabetic we thought we could just treat Mony. Well we found out it would be 400 to 500 dollars a month for the treatments plus 2,000 to 4,000 dollars to start the treatments. Unfortunately the monthly treatments  aren't really that successful  a lot of the time. Mony was only 9 years old so we really weren't expecting to lose him so soon. He was the best dog we have ever had and we miss him very much.

  My husband gave me three or four cookbooks for Christmas that he got at thrift stores or library sales. I am embarrassed to say I hadn't looked at one of them until last week. It was an over-sized book titled Mirabelle. It was by some chef and about the Mirabelle restaurant in London. After looking at it I decided it wasn't the type of book I was interested in and told my husband he could sell it on eBay. Usually he would list a book like that for $5.95. For some reason I decided to do a search for it on a used and rare book site that searches over 80,000 sources. Lo and behold it was a valuable book that was being offered for around $100 dollars. To make a long story short he sold it on auction yesterday for $86.00!! Thank goodness I decided to check its value.

  Yesterday we had a family dinner at my Mom and Dad's and here is a picture of my Mom holding Emma. My brother said Emma looks like Speed Racer in her helmet. She is getting use to it and doesn't fuss about it any more. Today is her first appointment with the plastic surgeon to have it checked. It is lucky my SIL has good insurance because the helmet cost 4,000 dollars all of it was covered by the insurance. The only problem about wearing it is my daughter has to be sure all of Emma's clothes have a really big neck opening or can be pulled on feet first.
  Last week I was off from work and we took a trip to Oceanside Harbor and some other beach areas. I tried to get some good photos but I guess I just don't have the knack. The one I put on my background here is the only one that really turned out good. It was overcast at the beach and all the pictures of the water don't look very appealing.

Friday night my husband let our dog out at 1:15am and all the sudden I heard him shouting. Poor Mony got skunked! I wasn't really surprised as I know there are lots of creatures that come through our yard. In fact we started selling skunk odor shampoo at my store and I had thought of buying some to keep on hand but hadn't got around to it.
  I quickly googled what to do about getting rid of the stink and most of the info said to use a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and dish soap. Luckily I had those items on hand. Using that mixture and a couple of times over with dog shampoo and Mony didn't really stink anymore. The problem is the odor is lingering somewhat in the house. We have been running fans constantly but it still smells.
  I didn't realize it before but really fresh skunk smell is different than the smell you normally associate with a skunk. It was very nasty and hard to describe but both my husband I noticed it was different. Yesterday it took on the normal skunk odor.
  Last night my husband took him out again this time on a leash and there was the darn skunk again! I hope he hasn't decided to live in our yard. Last night Mony didn't pay any attention to him. It is a cinch that Mony won't be going out by himself for quite awhile. I don't want to have to go through that hassle again anytime soon.