Carol’s Hurricane Dinner

If you’ve survived the hurricane AND you still have power, chances are you are wondering what’s for dinner?

Many folks would be likely to have the ingredients below on hand, and for those you don’t have – substitute something else. Survival is adaptability, after all!

INGREDIENTS:

Get a pot of boiling water going on the stove. If you’ve been ordered to boil water, let the water go for a while before you add these ingredients:

• One package yellow rice (you can sub. white or brown rice)
• Two sm-med white potatoes diced into small cubes
• One can of pink beans (you can sub. black beans, butter beans or red beans)
• Salt and fresh ground Pepper to taste
• Pinch of chili powder (optional)

Boil the three items together (I’d wait until the rice and beans are half-way done to add the potato) until cooked.

Heat a skillet with olive oil (or the oil of your choice or butter):

• One large onion, chopped (can sub. leeks if needed, or chopped scallions could be added on top after cooking if that’s all you have)
• Meat or chicken of choice (I had some beef sausages and cut them into small bite sized pieces)
• Two medium green squash, sliced (you can sub. yellow squash, eggplant, zucchini, or other veggie of choice)
• Five medium mushrooms, sliced (you can sub. canned mushrooms, if you had to)
• One small can of sliced water chestnuts (that’s what I had on hand, check your cabinet for something interesting)
• Salt and fresh ground Pepper to taste

Heat the oil in the pan and add the onion until just releasing water, then add meat and continue cooking. Add squash and cook down. Add sliced mushrooms towards the very end they don’t take long to cook. Throw in the water chestnuts just to get warmed and absorb some of the cooking liquids and flavors.

Once everything is cooked and ready…

Spoon some of the rice, beans and potato mixture into the bottom of a bowl. Add the meat, onion and veggie mixture on top.

If you like cheese, you could add some grated parmesan to top. If not, dig in and enjoy!

One View of Hurricane Irene

The debate on whether to stay or go started when Hurricane Irene was north of Florida, and heading towards North Carolina. She was a Category 2 storm then, and up and down the eastern seaboard, beach towns were being evacuated and the alarm was being sounded in NYC.

I called several hotels in Pennsylvania, and many of them were sold out.  The Poconos resorts got a gift with this storm, because many families that live along the coast did decide to high tail it out of here.

Still, part of me wondered if it was in my best interests to evacuate and go hundreds of miles away. There was still the possibility of flooding whereever I was going, and one concern I had was the drive back home on the highways after the storm.  As it turns out, there are a lot of trees down and certain roads that are flooded, which could have made driving home a nightmare.

Ultimately, I decided not to go anywhere and to just prepare for the situation. I bought a gallon of water, a 2 liter bottle of soda, fresh fruit and vegetables, and a few boxes of pasta. Now that the storm is over, I have to laugh at what I thought was sufficient planning, but I know I could have made due for three days if I had to with what I’ve got in the house.

Much of Jersey City gets flooded during a bad rain storm, but because I am not in a basement or on the first floor, I felt confident that even if the electric went out and the street was impassable that I would be okay. Also, Jersey City did not have mandatory evacuations like Battery Park, NYC (which is right across the Hudson River from us).

As we know now, because the storm has passed as I write this, Hurricane Irene wasn’t as bad as originally predicted, thank goodness.  My street didn’t flood, my building was fine, no windows were broken in the making of this storm.

That said, I think I may have overdosed on CNN.  Those people can tell you the same thing every five minutes for 24 hours straight. I was most amused when a reporter would hover over a little puddle in the street and talk about how it was evidence of flooding. Good times.

This was probably the strangest week I’ve ever experienced: an earthquake in my NYC office building earlier in the week, and a Category 2 Hurricane chugging up the coast to finish off the week. Wierd.

And as I finish writing this post, the first rays of sunshine are appearing in the sky.

Homonym Contest Entry

Hey all,

Janet Reid (aka Query Shark) sponsored a contest yesterday called Sounds Like Panic to Me, in honor of Hurricane Irene. I decided to give it a go, and my entry is below.  If you want to know what specific homonyms had to be used in the contest, take a look at the link… and the other entries are listed there too.

ROW!

Row! Damn the oars that heave and sigh. The wail of the sea tells me that the weather’s going to change boys.

Row! To the right, to the right! This ain’t no sashay boys, this is a sprint.

Row! The waves are no dam against this rain, whether we stay or go. No whale surfaces here, although they are friend, not foe.

Row! This is a rite of passage, from boys to men you’ll be if we reach the shore. Slough off your fatigue and think of your favorite gal, we don’t want to have to bail these boats.

Row! The reign of the Lady of the Sea is fierce boys, she’s slew many before us with wale upon wale on their flesh, her sachet of salt scent tells me so.

Row! I’ll write the truest tale when we make it boys and raise a glass to you, so row!