Green & Gold Casserole

In the history of the stage, Shakespeare’s actors generally avoided green. It was thought to bring bad luck due to a tradition going back to Judas’s costume in the medieval mystery plays, which was green and yellow. In football, here in the USA, it means The Green Bay Packers. In this dish, it only refers to spinach and cheese!

Here is another “out of the pantry” casserole. Use up what you have or just let it inspire you! This is a lasagna like dish built from ravioli, ground beef, cottage cheese, spinach and a can of cheese soup.

 

Ingredients

1 5oz bag fresh spinach

24 oz. cottage cheese

1 egg

a can ravioli

½ lbs ground beef

½ onion chopped

Directions:

Do your cutting. Chop the whole onion and bag up to freeze any you don't need right now.

if you like – remove the stems from the spinach (some prefer this)

Pre heat the oven to 350 and spray a casserole dish. 

 

Brown the ground beef with the chopped onion, about 8 minutes.

Add spinach by handfuls, stirring each until wilted down.

In a medium bowl use a hand mixer to blend the cottage cheese and egg until smooth.

Open the can of cheese soup.

Assemble the casserole by layering.

Lay a bed with half the ravioli. 

Top with half the blended cottage cheese. 

 

Spread the spinach-beef mixture. 

 

Cover with the rest of the cottage cheese mixture on top and add the rest of the ravioli on top. 

 

Top with spoonfuls of undiluted cheese soup on the top and cover.

NOTE: for a more traditional look instead of soup, use grated cheddar.

Bake this at 350 for about 40 minutes or until flavors are blended and thoroughly heated through.

Serve as you would a lasagna with a salad and hot bread.

For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9_RojWxVFI

So lucky to be a slave to my Master Indy

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

…..I cook!

Please buy slave's cookbook:

The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes 

by 

Dan White http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTM via @amazon

2018 Birthday Cake

My orders were clear I was to bake my own birthday cake to share with neighbors. So here is a vanilla cake with lemon curd swirled through and a whipped frosting.

This is a great cake to bring to any party. Unique, full of flavor and not too sweet!

Ingredients:

1 box vanilla cake mix

ingredients needed to make cake (eggs, oil and water)
1 (15.75 oz) can lemon pie filling*

1 box lemon flavored instant pudding mix

1 ( 8 oz) tub whipped topping (COOL WHIP), thawed

*You can find the can of lemon pie filling on the baking aisle (where all the other canned pie filling is located.) I had a coupon for this lemon fruit filling that is in a jar but usually I go with the canned stuff which I think it holds up better to the baking process.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F degrees. 

Spray a 9×13 baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. 

 

Since this was to be carried, I used a foil pan with a clear lid. Any time you use a foil pan, place it inside a regular metal pan for support and safety. 

 

Prepare cake mix as directed on the back of the box. 

Pour batter into baking dish.

Place spoonfuls of lemon pie filling all over the batter.

Take a knife and swirl it all around to help evenly distribute it better.

Note: The lemon pie filling is heavier than the cake batter. So it will sink to the bottom of the cake as it is cooking. Don’t worry, it won’t burn. This is normal.

Bake at 350F degrees (in center rack) for about 35-40 minutes. Until it springs back to the touch and isn’t jiggly in the center. 

Let cake cool completely before proceeding to the next step.

 In a bowl, Fold the lemon pudding mix into the thawed whipped topping. Mix until thoroughly combined.

Spread frosting over cooled cake.

Refrigerate until chilled and keep any leftovers refrigerated.

For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JDzlhW3XTM

So happy to be serving my Master Indy

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

…..I cook!

Please buy slave's cookbook:

The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTM via @amazon

Sagarin Situation

Making a meal out of a can of soup can be challenging. Here is a great rewarding dinner you can be proud of. It is named for a conflicted LGBT hero Edward Saragrin. Read about him after the recipe.

A can of soup, pound of ground beef and some noodles! Clean out that pantry and enjoy. 

 Ingredients:

1 lbs ground beef

1 onion chopped

2 cloves garlic chopped

10oz can vegetable beef soup

2 Tbs cornstarch

½ pkg low fat cream cheese

½ cup peas

½ pkg wide egg noodles

Directions:

Do your cutting: chop the onion and garlic.

Start the pasta.

In large skillet brown the ground beef and onions. 8-10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another 2 minutes. 

 

Open and drain the soup liquid into a measuring cup. Fill up to the 1 cup level with water. Stir in the cornstarch making a nice slurry. Add contents of can to skillet and stir in the cornstarch slurry. 

 

Let cook until starting to thicken.

Add the cream cheese by spoonfuls and mix in the peas.

Let heat until blended.

Serve this over the cooked noodles for a full hearty meal.

For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebt0BR5wHYs

Happy to be serving my Master Indy

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

…..I cook!

Please buy slave's cookbook:

The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTMvia @amazon

=======================

Edward Sagarin, also known by his pen name Donald Webster Cory.

His book The Homosexual in America: A Subjective Approach, published in 1951, was considered "one of the most influential works in the history of the gay rights movement," and inspired compassion in others by highlighting the difficulties faced by homosexuals.

Then he disavowed its message.

In the history of LGBT heroes, here was a Dr. Jekyll/Mr Hyde character you might never hear about.

On one hand Edward Sagarin used the royalty checks to finance his schooling to become a professor of sociology (he had been in perfume sales). He married a woman and had a child while, by all reports, carrying on a busy homosexual lifestyle. Sagarin began to insist, as a tenured sociologist at John Jay College specializing in the study of “deviance,” on pathologizing homosexuality. His belief was that homosexuality was "a disturbance" that probably arose as a result of a pathological family situation.

In 1963, he co-authored a book called The Homosexual and His Society which claimed that there was no such thing as a "well adjusted homosexual".

In the 1970s, Sagarin continued to pursue an active homosexual life, though he characterized homosexuals as disturbed, and frequently urged them to seek therapy. He rejected the idea that homosexuality was a natural sexual variant, and criticized the new psychological and sociological studies of Evelyn Hooker and John Gagnon. However, he argued that homosexuality should be decriminalized.

But who was this conflicted man? Sagarin was one of eight children born to a family of Russian Jewish immigrants in Schenectady, New York, in 1913.

He was born with scoliosis, which produced a hump on his back. He attended high school, and after graduating, spent a year in France where he met André Gide. (a personal hero whose defense of homosexuality was called: Corydon)

In the late 1940s, the federal government became deeply and officially homophobic. The Veterans Administration denied GI Bill benefits to gay veterans. The new Defense Department announced that homosexuals and lesbians must be discharged as rapidly as possible from the armed forces.

This was the environment that The Homosexual in America: A Subjective Approach was published. It's defense was landmark.

In his preface, “Donald Webster Cory” explained that it was time for someone who was homosexual to write about what it was like to be homosexual in America.

He opened the book by declaring that “minority rights” are the “challenge of this century … the corner stone upon which democracy must build and flourish, or perish in the decades to come.” Homosexuals were, he claimed, a “group without a spokesman, without a leader, without a publication, without an organization, without a philosophy of life, without an accepted justification for its own existence.”

“What does the homosexual want?” The problem, Cory says, is that the question has no answer because no freedom of political expression exists for gays. Citing a proverbial sociologist’s quip that there are no minority problems, only majority problems, Cory points more than once in his book to the all-encompassing, suffocating nature of homophobia. If gays speak out or identify themselves, they pay steep personal costs, including blacklisting in the labor market. Most straights have no interest in changing the status quo. It is all too possible for gay men to pass as straight: “The inherent tragedy—not the saving grace—of homosexuality is found in the ease of concealment. If the homosexual were as readily recognizable as are members of … other minority groups, the social condemnation could not possibly exist … our achievements in society and our contributions … would become well-known, and not merely the arsenal of argument in the knowledge of a few.”

Profound and encouraging words the country needed. Yet the still closeted Sagarin could never follow through. Was this perhaps a case of self-hatred? An internalized homophobia? For what ever reason there is just no neat package to sum up this LGBT Thinker.

Can we then focus on the powerful and necessary accomplishment of the book: The Homosexual in America: A Subjective Approach?

No one is perfect and it is important to remember that in history people were products of their time and culture.

We can celebrate the works of Donald Webster Cory and still warn of lessons learned by Dr. Edward Sagarin. 

 

Smooth Chicken Scholl

Here is a creamy, dreamy skillet chicken that is an easy one pan dinner. It is named in honor of a true LGBT hero from World War Two Germany that you might never have heard of. Learn about this courageous young man and the power of words right after the recipe.

Pan fried chicken thighs in a creamy cheese sauce with grapes. By using a low fat cheese and relying on the blend of flavors we can feel good about this comfort meal. 

 

Ingredients

• 4 boneless skinless chicken thighs (about 1 1/4 pounds)
• ¼ cup flour
• ¼ teaspoon salt + ¼ tsp pepper
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• ½ cup chopped onions
• 1 cup fresh sliced mushrooms
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1 cup seedless red grapes
• ½ pkg cream cheese softened.

Directions

Do your cutting: chop the onion and garlic, rinse the mushroom and let dry. 

 

Mix four, salt and pepper. Coat chicken with mixture; shake off excess and reserve 2 Tbs.

Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat.

Sauteed the chicken. Cook 5 to 7 minutes, turning chicken once, until chicken is no longer pink in center, and remove it to a plate.

Saute the mushrooms and onion about 5 minutes. When the mushrooms were almost done, add the garlic. Cooked with the garlic for 30 seconds.

Mix 2 Tbs of remaining flour mix into the cup of chicken broth. Pour into skillet.

Cut up the cream cheese into 1 inch cubes and stir into mixture. Continue to cook, stirring until mixture melts and thickens.

Return chicken to skillet. Cover and let simmer to blend flavors.

When ready to serve, spoon in the grapes and place on platter.

This goes nicely with a simple side of green beans.

For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlLsbL2LJKw

To serve my Master Indy is my greatest joy!

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

…..I cook!

Please buy slave's cookbook:

The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by 

Dan White

 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTM via @amazon

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTM via @amazon

Hans Scholl

LGBT's have been with us since before the reach of history. Yet for a thousand years they have been erased from collective conscience. Even when their contributions had to be acknowledged, these were bleached of any mention of homosexuality.

To present them again and bring to light their work is a labor I undertake nearly every day. No one expects you to know each and every one, nor remember each and every thing they did. However we MUST know that they existed and that there were great achievements!

Perhaps after all these millennia kids will be able to know there are others. No young person should ever again feel like they are the only one who is “this way”. You are not alone. You have a place. You have a heritage!

Even within today's scientific community of historians there is the same prejudice and hatred that wishes to eliminate all things they don't understand. Thankfully phrases like “the unspeakable acts of the Greeks” and “the love that dares not speak its name” have faded. New ones have taken their place “to protect religious freedom”.

Words do have power but they are not to be feared. They are to be understood. They are to be used. Ideas must be discussed if we are to be able to live and learn.

White Rose

Hitler's Germany was swallowing up Europe in the early summer of 1942. A young medical student named Hans Scholl, his sister Sophie, Alexander Schmorell and three other students, co-authored six anti-Nazi political resistance leaflets. Calling themselves the White Rose, they instructed Germans to practice nonviolent resistance against the Nazis.

The leaflets were distributed around the Universities of Munich and Hamburg. They also mailed the leaflets to doctors, scholars, and pub owners throughout Germany.

On 18 February 1943, Hans and Sophie were spotted by a custodian while throwing leaflets from the atrium at Ludwig Maximilians University. They were arrested by the Gestapo and quickly tried for treason. The show trial found both guilty and condemned to death.

Hans and Sophie Scholl were beheaded in Munich's Stadelheim Prison, only a few hours later. Scholl's last words were "Es lebe die Freiheit!" ("Long live freedom!").

Shortly thereafter, most of the other students involved were arrested and executed as well.

The effect of Scholl's actions and resistance is hard to imagine.

Following the deaths, a copy of a White Rode leaflet was smuggled out of Germany. It was used by the Allied Forces.

In mid-1943, they dropped over Germany millions of copies of the tract, now re-titled The Manifesto of the Students of Munich.

The White Rose's legacy has major significance, both as a demonstration of courage, and as a well-documented case of social dissent. It has been called the most spectacular moment of resistance in the twentieth century.

Holocaust historian Jud Newborn noted that you cannot measure the effect of this kind of resistance... The White Rose really has a more symbolic value, but that's a very important value.

Yet what do we know of the man named Hans Scholl?

He was the son of Robert and Magdalena Scholl, born in 1918.

Against His father's wishes, he and his sister joined the Hitler Youth.

Elisabeth Scholl said: "We just dismissed it: he's too old for this stuff, he doesn't understand. My father had a pacifist conviction and he championed that. But we were all excited in the Hitler youth, sometimes even with the Nazi leadership." Their allegiance quickly changed. "First, we saw that one could no longer read what one wanted to, or sing certain songs. Then came the racial legislation”.

Hans had set his heart on studying medicine at university. To attend university under Hitler’s regime, you had to spend time in the military or in the RAD (National Labor Service). Hans worked on the autobahns. As a member of RAD, he could no longer be a member of the Hitler Youth movement.

Hans Scholl has been named one of the most influential young men of Germany. As stories of his resistance have been studied and praised, the mention of his being gay has been hidden. As is so often the case of LGBT contributions, the hero's sexuality was white washed to conform.

We only learn of it from an incident that occurred while he served in the Hitler Youth. The Criminal Code of Germany covered homosexual crimes: included an addendum that was known as Paragraph 176. This made it a criminal offense for any senior officer in the Hitler Youth to use their position to gain sexual favors from those under their command. In 1937 Hans was accused of such an offense and was arrested by the Gestapo.

Hans had admitted his guilt to the charge but the age of “X”, (the other youth in the case), proved to be crucial – “X” was nearly as old as Hans and he admitted in court that he had been a willing participant.

The court believed that Paragraph 176 was not relevant as both of the youths involved were nearly of the same age. Hans was found not guilty – despite the fact that he had admitted the charge. This strange outcome is puzzling to many historians. Hans WAS the physical example of the Aryan stereotype the Nazis glorified.

By the same token, After he met fellow medical student, Alexander Schmorell, the two became inseparable “best friends”. Any mention of their relationship has been thoroughly swept under the rug. The Orthodox Church has even canonized Schmorell. So don't expect much to ever be forthcoming about him.

Hans and Alex