Barb's New Toy

I bought a pressure cooker for $40 from nomorerack.com. My friend Mickey has one and told me it was her new favorite cooking toy. So when I saw the price on nomorerack  I decided to give myself a birthday present. My first recipe try was this one and if you plan to try it with a pressure cooker it is even simpler. I put all the ingredients in at once and pressured it at the lowest pressure for 2 minutes. Could not be easier! I used 2 cups of oatmeal instead of the 1 1/2 called for because I like my oatmeal thick.

CrockPot Recipe for Make-Ahead Apple Pie Oatmeal
(Makes 4-5 servings; recipe created by Kalyn

(I used my small 2.5 Quart Slow Cooker for this recipe, so if you only have a much larger size you'll need to double the recipe.)

Ingredients:
2 large Granny Smith apples, seeds removed and coarsely chopped (no need to peel them)
2-3 T sugar, Splenda, or Stevia in the Raw(depending on how sweet you like it)
1 T brown sugar (or use 1 more tablespoon of sweetener if you don't want to use sugar)
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
3 - 3 1/2 cups water (depending on how thick you like your oatmeal)
1 1/2 cup rolled oats (I used Bob's Red Mill Extra Thick Rolled Oats)
milk or soy milk for serving (I used a combination of milk and vanilla soy milk, which is what I always use to eat on cereal.)

Instructions:
Cut apples into pieces and remove the core with the seeds; then chop apples into pieces.  I made the pieces different sizes so some apples would dissolve slightly while others stayed chunky.  (No need to peel them.)

Spray the CrockPot crockery container with nonstick spray.  Then add the apples, sweetener of your choice, brown sugar (or more sweetener), cinnamon, and salt.  Add from 3 to 3 1/2 cups of water, depending on how thick you want the finished oatmeal to be.  Stir together and cook on high for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

My new toy!!

 And my first recipe try!

No I did not eat it with a knife...

It was very yummy! Had to talk myself out of a second bowl!

Port of Brownsville Tour-Part 2

Below is a group of pelicans. Most of them had fuzzy heads. I assume the larger on on the far right is a parent of the fuzzy headed ones. The boat on the right was from a far eastern country that I currently cannot remember. The boat looked to be in bad shape but obviously is still seaworthy.

The boat above is Captain Bligh and they provided us with a shrimp sample. This boat looks much different than the one on their website at  http://shrimpoutletbrownsville.com/. It must have been new then.

These boats are in for repair.

The pics below are of a ship waiting for demolition and an oilrig in storage because fuel prices are low. There are seven oil rigs in storage in the Port of Brownsville. They will tell you they are here for repair but that is not true.

 A napping Pelican...

 Kay pointed overhead to warn me about this gull because last time I was pooped on by one. No poop this time.

 The next 4 pics are of the swing bridge. We returned to the sea ranch marina from a different direction than in the past, coming through the swing bridge. Here is more info about the swing bridge, the only one in Texas. http://bridgehunter.com/tx/cameron/bh58649/

 We came by Long Island and many multimillion dollar homes. The only access to these homes is by water.

 And we had a different view of the causeway.

It was a nice day trip and the weather was perfect for it.

Port of Brownsville Tour-Part 1

Friday we went to Brownsville very early to take a tour of the Port of Brownsville. While waiting for the trip to start we had interesting things to watch. These boats were part of the Texas State Patrol.

 The boat we were going on discovered they had lost fuel overnight by theft or evaporation and had to refuel before we could load. So we waited for their return.

 Butch enjoyed a conversation with one of the troopers.

The view of Sea Ranch as we left port.

 South Padre high rises in the background.

This is a bait boat. They are allowed to gather shrimp from the port channel but they are only used for bait.

 This fellow gets plenty of company from a variety of birds.

The Mission Lady bringing in a load of shrimp. One of the last pics we were allowed to take before entering the port proper.

Photos inside the actual port area are not allowed. I did sneak one because it was a  short lived sculpture.

Emily's Baby Boy Jorgen

He sure is a cheerful little bundle.

I asked for a picture and his Grandma came through in  short order.

Holed up

We are still in the grip of a cold spell. Lows have been in the high 30's last night and repeats tonight. Last night we blew a fuse and it dropped to the 50's in here and that is not a comfortable sleeping temp. Butch changed out the fuse and we resumed a cozy nap, at least for a while.
So my day was mostly spent indoors. I did have a student drop by for computer instruction and that was a pleasant diversion for an hour or so.
So it looks like we have at least one more day of these unpleasant temps. At least I am hoping so because we are supposed to be on a boat in the port of Brownsville on Thursday morning bright and early.
This time of the year and particularly this first week of March are very active in Magnolia Park so we have many events taking place.  I will do my best to keep up.

Oh,Oh

Our son Gary sent me an email. He says there has not been a new blog entry for a week. Oops! On the other hand my house is clean, the laundry is done, we enjoyed a home cooked meal for supper. And this all happened besides our usual activities with the exception of posting blog entries.

Gary thought perhaps we had been abducted in Mexico. We haven't been there but if we had it would be a possibility. Everyone says it isn't safe. We did get a tip that makes a lot of sense however. If you go across the bridge and there are no beggars it may not be safe. The beggars have an inside track on possible trouble. I did think that may be worthy of putting in the back of my mind. I refuse to lead a fear based life so I will rely on my instincts as to whether we go or no go. Actually we only plan one more trip before the end of the season here.

Our rent here is up in mid March and the current plan is to extend our stay. We are currently located about as far south as one can go in the good old USA and essentially it is most likely as warm here as anywhere. So the plan is to wait until the weather is warmer in the lower 48.
On the other hand it is warm in Alaska. Our polar caps are warming and melting, the true definition of global warming that some people find very hard to understand. Maybe they will when Iowa has seashores...but I digress.

We are currently experiencing a cold spell with temps in the low 40's expecting to dip into the 30's tonight. Irritating and troublesome but a fairly quick recovery is expected. So we celebrated Peggy G.'s birthday on Sunday with highs in the 80's. Trust me she is not wearing shorts today on the actual celebration day of her birth. Happy Birthday Peggy!

It is also Emily Brooker Davis's birthday. Emily is a new mom and most likely will not notice that I forgot to send her a greeting. At least I am counting on that. Would not mind seeing a picture of that sweet baby boy, Jorgen.

Don't give up on me. I may get wordy again at any time.