Vegetable Chili

I wanted a variation of our favorite beef chili, a little lighter and without a trace of animal product. I came up with this simple recipe that tastes so good! The only thing that I would add (and did) would be cold beer and cheesy biscuits!





Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
2 jalapenos, chopped (you can seed them, but I leave them in)
2 zucchinis, quartered, skin on
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon chipotle chile powder
1 tablespoon cumin
11/4 cup chopped cilantro
1 bottle of beer
2 cups vegetable stock
2 14 oz cans low sodium beans, any variety
2 14 oz cans crushed tomatoes, low sodium
dash and pepper to taste

Directions

Heat the oil over medium heat. Add the chopped vegetables and saute until the onions are clear. Salt and pepper. Pour in the broth, beans, crushed tomatoes, and beer. Add the spices and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for at least 30 minutes. Serve with shredded cheese and piping hot biscuits.

Health Care Debate is No Debate When It Hits Home

With the Supreme Court decision due this week on "ObamaCare" everyone has an opinion as to whether the law will stand, be modified, gutted or overturned. And because it's a presidential election year it's a hot button. My goal here is not to enter the argument, because nothing that I say will change anyone's mind one way or another. And I have no desire to do thst. You'll have your own opinion, just like I have mine.

I simply wish to relay a recent anecdotal personal experience which convinces me that provisions of the law are working for my family in a way that we could not have foreseen just a week ago. The story involves my son, a young man of 25 who, like many young people today, is gainfully, but under employed in a retail job while working toward his dream of becoming a recording/film industry sound engineer. That career involves specialized training that is very time consuming and expensive, but it's where he wants to be in his life in five years. Of course we support that goal and have done what we can as parents to see that he reaches his goal.

He's been laid off from time to time in this economic environment and we have had no problem with him moving back home as he saves for the education that he will need. Because of the new law we were able to extend our own healthcare coverage to include him to age 26, even through he is no longer a dependent. We never thought that he would need that insurance because he's healthy and young - until last week.

We noticed a swelling under his right temple about three weeks ago that became pronounced and appeared to involve his eye. We urged him to have this checked out at Urgent Care, which he did last Thursday night after work. He was hospitalized immediately because of high blood pressure, which he never knew he had, and the alarming appearance of this swelling. MRI and CT Scan imaging revealed a tumor which is very likely a sarcoma of some type under the temporalis muscle and involving his skull. To date we are awaiting a pathology report based upon a biopsy to determine the next steps, which obviously must involve surgical removal of the mass and follow-up treatments for the surgery and hypertension.

My point in relating this story is that my son was not under any healthcare coverage because he could not afford it - until "ObamaCare" enabled us to include him on our policy. That extension is valid until he turns 26 in October. The cost of this current hospitalization, and required surgery will be well over $100K by the time he is restored to full health. Since our state has changed its laws on public health care, he would have been either denied any medical services or placed into a debt situation that would have changed forever his career plans.

People can say what they want, but our family is grateful that the law allowed us to do what we could to help. People are often against things politically until it impacts them or their families positively or negatively. I am certainly not one who likes the ideas of mandates, more taxes, or government regulations, but some things are just too important to ignore and leave to the status quo. If you are in a position to write $100,000 health checks at a pop like some politicians are that's great. We are not in that tax bracket.

***Update***

So the Affordable Care Act is now the law of the land. Let the spin on both sides of the issue begin, and my are they spinning! After a time all of this becomes white noise to me because the talking heads have their talking points, few of which have anything to do with the real world and what affects me and my family.

What I know is that we have already benefited from provisions of ACA and at least for the next few months will continue to do so, until our son turns age 26 in October. Until then he is covered under our insurance and will have his medical situation handled under that policy. As a side-note he has been diagnosed with a form of Valley Fever; we are extremely relieved that this lesion is now considered an inflammation and not a tumor. Any damage caused by the inflammation will heal with the administration of the proper medication.

There are some six million young people, college students to young working adults, who are positively impacted by this provision. I won't argue the "tax" implications of this law because the politicians will do that. We will always be taxed in this country. That's the price of freedom. If taxes were levied fairly we wouldn't be having these arguments. And as far as big government is concerned we all complain about it - until we truly need big government.

The Loss of the Art of Dialogue

We have lost the ability to communicate with one another in public and private in a meaningful way. We don’t really talk to one another much at all anymore – we talk at each other, often in the non-verbal, cryptic digital-speak of cell phones, tablets and small personal laptops used in social media.

Such practice seems to have allowed us to speak in deprecating terms of other people (‘dissing”) as easily as blowing one’s nose – because it is all so impersonal. Labels such as “bitch, ‘hoe’” and other distasteful and profane epitaphs, once heard only in a rare heated argument now are common place and have entered everyday vernacular.

It goes without saying that civility in our politics has lost its way too. Our political discourse is now marked by a scorched earth, winner-take-all mentality. We can no longer disagree without disrespecting or even destroying divergent thought. Just this week the president was in the Rose Garden announcing a major policy change on immigration. He had barely begun to make his statement when a reporter rudely interrupted him, evidently intent on preventing the president from finishing his remarks.

Whether you agree with Mr. Obama’s politics or not is not the point. The reporter had an obligation, based on common courtesy, to let the president finish his statement before getting his hand up for questions from the press pool. And that is only if the president was willing to take questions. Recall also the State of the Union address when the president was heckled by Rep. Joe Wilson. There is no excuse for this behavior, yet it is rampant in common culture, and thus it is permitted.

Obligation, I say? Absolutely; civil people listen to what others say first, and when appropriate or invited they respond. This is called interpersonal dialogue. My contention is the digital age takes away this dimension. Social media promotes talking at people and cultural-political topics but it never permits the in-depth emotional tie-in that an old fashioned personal conversation holds. We text people as much as we actually call them, and this is lamentable situation.

Civility and expressions of courtesy work hand in hand. How often have you heard the response “no problem” (NP in text-speak) to your “thank you” in stores and restaurants. What happened to “you are welcome?” You were not intentionally making a “problem” for the employee by patronizing the business. You were expressing appreciation for good service. “No problem” is irrelevant and does not communicate a proper response, yet I hear it all the time.

This might seem a specious argument to some but it does bother me. I fear that we are also being increasingly non-verbal in our personal lives. The saddest scenario that I can think of is an image of two people sitting on a sofa next to each other texting one another. It seems ludicrous to think of something like that but it happens all the time. It’s no wonder why relationships founder so frequently – we just don’t take the time out to talk to each other anymore, and when we do it’s often ugly, rude and impersonal. What do you think?

It's Summer Time - Let's Barbecue!!

Yep, it's that time of year when most people think of cookouts and barbecue. I saw a statistic recently that 71% of all households have some type of grill to prepare barbecue, and half of those use their grills all year long. We don't do it as much, but then we have been working hard at cutting down on our meat consumption anyway. Still, 'tis the season, so here I re-post my most favorite sauce of all - Mutha Sauce. It beats that stuff in the glass (or plastic) jars everyday, and twice on Sunday!

"Mutha" Sauce

This sauce requires a lot of ingredients and can be served chunky style or you can puree it and make it smooth should you desire, but it just might be the only BBQ sauce that you will use this summer! It will make about six or seven cups. It is rich! You can reduce or eliminate the oil if you are looking to reduce your fat intake (I usually cut the oil back to a tablespoon).

1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup minced onion
1/2 cup minced green pepper
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
pinch kosher salt
2 tbsp minced garlic
1 can (28 oz.) tomato sauce
2 cups ketchup
1 cup water
3/4 cup worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup cayenne pepper or Tabasco sauce
1/4 cup spicy brown mustard
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 tbsp chili powder
2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1 tbsp Liquid Smoke

In a large saucepan, pour in the oil. Set over medium high heat. Toss in the onions, green peppers and jalapeno and give them a stir. Season with a pinch of salt and cook until soft, but do not burn. Add the garlic and cook one minute.

Add the rest of the ingredients EXCEPT the Liquid Smoke. Bring to a boil, then lower heat so the sauce simmers. Simmer for 10 minutes. Swirl in the Liquid Smoke and let the sauce cool. It will be chunky at this point. If you desire a smooth sauce, run the sauce in batches through a blender. Pour into glass Mason jars or other glass container and cover tightly. Store in the refrigerator until ready to use. Makes 6-7 cups of excellent sauce. It also makes great gifts and will keep for weeks!

Chicken Chili!

We love those supermarket rotisserie chickens; so much flavor and so many uses for the meat. But sometimes when we buy one and strip off the chicken from the bone we find that there is just too much chicken for one or two dishes. It’s great for soups, salads casseroles and the like, and still there is leftover meat. What to do with it?

We had that situation this week and came with a quick chicken chili that turned out awesome – flavorful, spicy, filling, yet not very heavy in terms of oil. It’s simple and tasty. Here’s what we did:

Chicken Chili

2-3 cups roasted chicken, stripped from the bone and cut into bite-sized pieces (chicken skin discarded)
1 tbsp. olive oil
½ cup diced yellow onions
1 cup green bell pepper, diced
2 jalapeno peppers
3 cloves garlic, minced
Sprig of cilantro, chopped
2 cups chicken stock (or 2 bouillon cubes dissolved in water)
1-14 oz. can of tomato sauce
2-14 oz. cans of white beans, drained
1 cup white wine
2 tbsp. chili powder
1 tbsp cumin
1 tsp. salt (if using bouillon, cut this to ½ tsp.
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. sugar
Sour cream

Directions

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat and toss in all of the chopped vegetables except the garlic and cilantro. Sauté until the onions are clear, then add the garlic and cook another minute. Pour in the diced chicken and mix gently, so as not to shred the already cooked chicken.

When the chicken is heated through (about 3 – 4 minutes) add all of the wet ingredients, stirring to incorporate. Next, season with the dry ingredients and continue stirring, testing for salt and spice level. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Finish with the chopped cilantro and serve in a bowl with a tortilla chip and a dollop of sour cream!

Oh and just to be a little naughty we served this with cheddar biscuits! That recipe is on this blog.

Part II of My School Year Reflections 2011-12

In November we opened our Winter Arts Concert with this performance from our middle school choir, their first public performance in over 5 years, which was the last time that there was a vocal program at SMS. I had originally given this medley to the choir just to sight-read and challenge them a little, since it really is a high school pops piece. Darn it if they didn't fall in love with the music straight away! So there was no choice but to use it in their fall concert:



I wish we could bottle all of this energy and save it for when they are older and lethargic in school!

Annual School Year Reflections 2011-12

I am so far behind in updates here, but I have good reasons: I was busy teaching! Indeed it was a good year, though filled with uncertainty and new experiences. There are always lots of things to gripe about in the workplace, and for certain in public education, but I won't use these pages to do that, because I'd only be repeating what is being said all over the media about funding, test scores, student achievement, job security ..... the list goes on.

Rather, I'd like to celebrate my students' achievements this year in my small musical world - and they were many. Our challenges were also many; in my high school vocal music program we lost one of our best senior choir classes in spring 2011 to graduation. These kids were motivated and will be destined for greatness. Many enrolled in collegiate music studies and had fine years as freshmen. So I knew that my vocalists had a hard act to follow. In addition, our jazz program also suffered key losses of high quality all-state type students due to graduation and the new, younger students enrolled I felt had a big challenge ahead of them. I felt that over all this would be a rebuilding year, and once in which I might just be rebuilding for the new high school on our district, since some of my remaining students would be transferring there in the fall of 2012-13.

There were other challenges for me as well. I accepted 6/5 time status because our middle school principal had a strong desire to start a choral program at her school, after a five plus year absence. None of the seven other teachers in our district wanted to take on this assignment, so I volunteered; the program was going to feed into my high school choir anyway, so why not? There were problems, of course. Since there was only one period that it could be offered, the class was huge (50 plus students), and grades 6-8 were lumped together. And the added work load and loss of a prep period was staggering, until I was able to manage it by starting my day at 5:30 am each day. I had a zero period class too, so I went from 7:15-3:00 daily, with break for lunch and short 20 minute respite before traveling over to the middle school campus at the end of the day. I never really valued prep periods that much until I no longer had one!

Because of this workload, I was fairly intense all year long. My students responded in kind, and so many great things transpired, including a successful re-launch of the SMS choir, a great mid-winter vocal show, a back-to-back Heritage Festival trip to Anaheim (I have never done back-to-back trips out of state before over two years), and rapid maturity of my jazz ensemble. Those students in particular were phenomenal. The expected weakness of the rhythm section turned into a strength, with two enormously talented seniors stepping up on guitar and bass.

The good news began with an early winter concert on November 18th, before Thanksgiving. My middle school group went crazy over a 15-minute Mamma Mia/Abba tribute that we had started working on in the fall, but we had no place for them to perform it except on our high school concert. It went over great with the high school audience and I was so happy for these young students, most of whom had never performed in public before. They capped off their year with a fine performance at the middle school's spring concert. The kids had matured so much since that November showing, musically, physically and emotionally. It is so rewarding to see kids grow so rapidly. It wasn't an easy year dealing with such a large class of first year middle school choir students, but by the end we were getting across what was essential for musical growth. Such a fine collection of great young voices! And so energetic too!

My high school choir seniors had requested a return trip to Anaheim in the spring for our advanced group, called Chorale. The balance of this group was a problem, with not enough quality male voices enrolled; there was no way they would achieve anything near the sound I felt they could achieve with out using some singers from our Mixed Choir, a lesser experienced class that met at a different time of day. It was that group which made the greatest strides.

Once both classes understood that only be working together would they get the results that everybody wanted, things went much better. Students did the work at home, stayed after school, worked in sectionals, and even organized rehearsals at home with kids who lived nearby to get the job done. The first indicator or things to come was our Broadway Revue show, "A Night to Remember", staged on February 3rd. Turnout was great, and I think we were all amazed at how smooth the show really went. Our seniors really took charge and our underclassmen were willing to be led. The end result was a great show. The box office was nice too; this was the catalyst for the funding needed to get back to Heritage in May 2012. A tune-up at the Eastern Arizona College Large Ensemble Festival yielded great results in April and confirmed that we were on the right track. We were pleased with the results in Anaheim, though I felt that they had sung better in the warm-up. Still a silver award in their category (30 other choirs) was not a bad showing!

Our jazz students had a year to remember too, performing well at its winter concert, a paid performance at the local Jazz For Fun event in Green Valley, the Chandler-Gilbert CC Jazz Festival, the ABODA Area Jazz Festival (in which it qualified for State), and the State Jazz Festival, earning a high score there. But it saved its best performance I thought for The Spring Arts Concert in our auditorium, bringing the house down.

I had thought that this band would have to settle for playing grade 2-3 charts this year, because I anticipated this to be a developing year. But I found quickly that this band loved and needed to be challenged. Consequently I was able to use much more difficult materiel, including some Mingus charts. They did a wonderful job on these numbers, and proved to be very teachable with respect to the specific jazz styled that were presented with each new chart. They did all that I could ask of them, despite being short-handed all year long in the trumpet section.

Here are some sounds and sights in video highlights that were posted on Youtube throughout the year: