Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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our most favorite alfredo

I have loved alfredo sauce since I was a little girl, beginning with a shrimp-and-pasta dish I ordered at Red Lobster in maybe fourth grade. My friend Amber and I shared a birthday dinner there. We also wore matching plaid pleated skirts. I used those bendy rods to curl my hair and she wore real Keds. It was awesome. The alfredo flavor and creaminess left a lasting impression on me, and thereafter I ordered it at every single restaurant where I found it on the menu.

Around the third year of our marriage I learned to make it myself and played around with the details until Handsome and I became I am obsessed with the final product. He loves it. He craves it, asks for it, and moans and shivers when it appears on his plate. It is so simple to make but absolutely decadent. Cheesy, salty, thickish, creamy… And it pairs with everything. You can eat it on skinny little angel hair noodles or drizzled over savory filled crepes. It tastes amazing with grilled herbed chicken breast or seafood or, as we enjoyed it tonight, steak.

alfredo plate

 

Alfredo is probably our top choice for pizza sauce at the Lazy W, too. But the way we eat it is a far cry from the jar of thin white sauce you can buy on the pasta aisle. I have to admit, this is also light years ahead of what Red Lobster serves. Here’s our recipe.

A couple of notes: This comes together really quickly, so I suggest prepping the other elements of your meal first. The sauce tends to separate if you let it sit out too long. Also, the butter and two cheeses in the recipe make it pretty salty already, so I do not add any salt. And I am a bonafide salt FREAK. So there you go. Lastly, the following measurements yield about 2 cups of sauce, which because of its richness is more than it sounds like. And the whole thing quadruples well. Not that I ever quadruple anything for two people. That would be crazy.

 

alfredo ingredients

 

Basic Alfredo Sauce:

saute a little minced garlic in olive oil

add one stick of real butter and one half cup of heavy whipping cream

heat it almost to bubbly and as it blends and thickens, season with pepper and nutmeg

then remove from heat and add 1/2 cup parmesean cheese and 1/4 cup of mozzarella cheese

stir it all really smooth with a wooden spoon and add immediately to your base dish (noodles, etc.)

 

And that’s it! Quick and simple.

Tonight I folded the aflredo saucein with about 10 ounces of penne pasta noodles, cooked not even to al dente. The noodles still had lots of bite left in them when I pulled them from their boiling water, because I wanted to finish it all off in the oven while our steaks were cooking. For the final few minutes of baking I sprinkled some extra mozzarella cheese on top. Just because.

 

rich alfredo sauce baked with penne pasta
rich alfredo sauce baked with penne pasta

 

How about you? Are you an alfredo aficionado? How else could you serve it with? What yummy recipes from your childhood are still fixtures in your life?

Thanks Mama Kat for a fun prompt! It totally helped me decide our side dish tonight.

mama kat image

Mama Kat’s Losin It

 

how to fall in love with running in 5 steps

If you’ve visited the Lazy W much this past year, then you know I love running. I fell in love with it almost two years ago and have been fumbling through my own mile-addicted adventure ever since.

Whether I am qualified to give you running advice is questionable, but without a doubt I can tell you all about how to get it under your skin. How to open your body and soul to the possibilities.

How to fall in love with one of the most beneficial things that you all by yourself can do in this life.

My very good friend & book club buddy Steph snapped this photo of me around mile 22 of last year's OKCM Marathon. I will never forget this feeling! xoxo
My very good friend & book club buddy Steph snapped this photo of me around mile 22 of last year’s OKCM Marathon. I will never forget the feelings from this day! xoxo

 

#1. Give it a fair shake. Brand new to running and already convinced you hate it? Please wait. Do not sell yourself short by struggling through one awkward, wheezing mile then declare running just isn’t for you. You know the millions of physical and mental benefits, right? Why did you start? Don’t you believe people who say that running makes them happier overall? Just get past the weird beginnings, trust me. My beginnings were extremely weird. And still I often need three miles to warm up for a five mile run. Even well seasoned ultra runners are known to say “Never judge a run by the first three miles.”
Three miles. That is about half an hour of warm up, and it is SO worth it! If you are even a little bit interested in this amazing new chapter of life, then please give it a fair shake. Nibble at it. Seek support. Try different methods. Get the long view and grow a funny bone, because you will make yourself laugh. A lot.

Also, wear funny message tees.
Also, wear funny message tees.

#2. Find your own running buttons and push them. Everyone is different. Running may seem painfully routine looking in from the outside, but there is a deep inner world there, a vast ocean of thought and feeling that you get to explore every time you lace up. (Maybe that’s why so many writers are also runners. Huh.)
And there are a hundred thousand variations for runners to discover. Do you listen to music, or keep the rhythmic silence? Run alone or with friends? Trail, track, or treadmill? Cold weather or hot? Morning, noon, or night? Try lots of different combinations until you discover your sweet spot, then max out! Enjoy yourself. Then shake things up again, enjoy some variety. Then go back to your reliable routines again. My favorite running blogger The Monican has lots of fun ideas to offer but always goes back to this smart mantra: You do YOU. Amen.

#3. Stock up on inspiration for a rainy day. Even deep into your own running obsession, far past your first big runner’s high, you’ll have dry days. You’ll have mornings when you had planned to run but WOW something else sounds better. Or you question the benefits. Or you just need new ideas. Be ready for those days by making little collections of motivational words, images, and info-graphics.
Ever heard of Pinterest? I have like three boards that revolve around fitness, but one in particular serves running alone. I refer to it when I can feel my feet dragging or my thoughts going negative. Maybe you’d rather have an old-fashioned vision board, complete with cork and push pins and glossy magazine pages! Know thyself and motivate thyself.

 

http://www.pinterest.com/greengoose/running-obsession/
Do you have a cool running board I might want to follow?

 

#4. Set a fun goal (or two or three) and make them known to loved ones. This is pretty standard advice offered for all kinds of new endeavors, and it almost sounds cheesy, but cheesy stuff tends to work! My advice for new runners who want to build enthusiasm? Look for a snazzy 5-K or a half marathon and register. Pay the money so you’re committed. Then on your calendar count the necessary training weeks backwards from the event date and pencil in your workout plan for every week. (Hal Higdon is a great source of advice for training.) And record what miles you run against that plan. Get consistent. Blab about it to your friends to the point they are mildly annoyed.
Last March I was close to burnout for different reasons, and had I not made my goal of “running my first full marathon at forty” so public to people who really love me, I might have backed out. I am SO GLAD I didn’t back out. What a sad thing that would have been. Concrete goals made public are effective!

#5. Always go one more. One more mile, one more song, one more lap, one more day… However you’re measuring your frustration at any given point, try going just one more past where you want to. Remember that running is largely in your head, maybe more so than in your body; so take every opportunity to strengthen your mind. It will improve your life in so many ways. Do more than what you think you can do. Over and over, bit by bit, you will be amazed.

 stopping is hard

 

So that’s my advice if you are thinking of a wonderful new running obsession but need the final nudge. If you do these five things: Give it a fair shake, find a groove, stay inspired, set goals publicly, and go beyond your own expectations… I am pretty sure you will fall in love with running. And running will always love you back.

And then we can grab some miles together sometime!

Now you tell me. If you’re a runner already, what advice would you give a newbie? If you need some nudging, what’s on your mind? What’s holding you back from starting, or what’s slowing you down?

Run while you can.
XOXOXOXO

 

friday 5 at the farm: bison trivia

Hello friends! We’re winding down another work week, and to cap off all the chores and cooking and cleaning and gardening and errands and bee stings and intense office hours (not for me obviously) and general toil, how about a quick Friday Five?

It occurs to me that not all of you have visited the actual dirt-and-hooves Lazy W, so you don’t know all of our animals personally. Well, in the coming weeks I’m gonna try to fix that. They are each so lovable and interesting, and we have learned so much just by living with and caring for them.

One of the most unusual creatures here is a young male bison. His name is Chunk-Hi, and he pretty much has us wrapped around his little hooves. Here are five things you might not know about bison, as taught to us by Chunk.

Our beloved Chunk-hi, male bison, four years old in this photo. Gentle giant. xoxo
Our beloved Chunk-hi, male bison, four years old in this photo. Gentle giant. xoxo

 

And yes, for the record, we usually call him a buffalo. It might not be scientifically correct, but we don’t get too worked up over that. We have more important things to fret over, like the cost of sugar for the welfare bees.

Okay.

Bison-buffalo facts:

#1. They start off as calves looking completely different! They are born with a gentle little hump, but still their body shape is much closer to a traditional cow compared to how they look as adults. And bison calves are a golden, caramelish, yummy bronze color, not dark and nearly black like they are later in life (thought that color scheme is also striking). I’ve always understood this coloring would help the babies stay concealed from predators in the golden prairie grasses that grow in this part of the country, their native land. Seems legit. Calves are woolly, curly, and 100% precious. Those eyes! They stay like this for several months, about as long as they nurse their mamas. In Chunk-hi’s case, it was about as long as we bottle fed him.

Jessica was almost 12 that summer and indispensable in helping me keep the bison calves full of milk! They learned to love the sight of the big plastic bottles and would suck on our hands for a long time after each feeding. Very sweet bonding time.
Jessica was almost 12 that summer and indispensable in helping me keep the bison calves full of milk! They learned to love the sight of the big plastic bottles and would suck on our hands for a long time after each feeding. Very sweet bonding experience.

#2. Buffs (see? I call them whatever I want) are skittish. Despite their enormous size and mass, despite how dangerous they can be, these animals have extremely fragile sensibilities. You can hurt their feelings by looking at them the wrong way, and especially young buffs will jump and bolt at a sudden noise. Our Chunk-hi has stiffened his nerves over time, but still it is not unusual to see him running for his life, high speed away from Mama Goose, who is basically a mean and bitter old woman. You can tell a buff is upset by watching his body langiuage. For example, and I do not know if this is true for regular cows, a tail raised stright up in the air is bad. Real bad. I call it the exclamation point tail, and it means he is on high alert, and you should be too. Just give him a cookie and stand your ground. Do not run. Walk slowly away, sideways if possible, without giving the appearance of retreat. Which brings me to my next point of bison trivia…

#3. They love cookies. I mean, LOVE them. We have an inside track to rejected Nabisco product, so every few months the farm is restocked with about a million packages of Oreos, Triscuits, graham crackers, you name it. Once upon a time I would eat a lot of that myself, but you know… Running. So now they all belong to our animals. Chunk’s favorite is probably Chips Ahoy, and I don’t blame him. Even slightly out-dated, those things are good. I’d pay big bucks to see him use his hooves to dunk a sleeve of cookies into a big bowl of milk. Visitors to the farm are usually game for feeding him sweet, crunchy treats, and they always get slobbered (bison are profuse slobberers) and sometimes gently bit.

Nabisco, if you are reading this, would you like to sponsor our farm? Our buff loves Chips Ahoy. So much.
Nabisco, if you are reading this, would you like to sponsor our farm? Our buff loves Chips Ahoy. So much.

#4. Bison also love to be loved. Like any creature, they need loads of affection and attention, and they also thrive on good philosophical conversation. Chunk loves to have his fuzzy, oblong ears stroked and scratched. He loves to have his eyes cupped and play gone-gone peekaboo. And he loves to press his massive forehead against the wire fencing so you can scratch him riiiiiight there, thank-you-very much. It helps that a bison will eat a big meal then go sit in a sandy wallow to digest it and perhaps chew some cud, because this is prime time to chill with him and just talk things over. Get it all out, you know? Catch up with each other. He is not in a hurry during cud time, and he appreciates you not being in a hurry, either. Sometimes he even lets you paint his horns fun colors.

Handsome was working in his car shop one winter afternoon when Chunk was probably three years old. The overhead door was open. Chunk snuck up him and was rewarded with colorful paint stripes. The look on his face. I cannot get ENOUGH of it!! xoxo
Handsome was working in his car shop one winter afternoon when Chunk was probably three years old. The overhead door was open. Chunk snuck up him and was rewarded with colorful paint stripes. The look on his face. I cannot get ENOUGH of it!! xoxo

#5. American Buffalo are shed machines. Each winter they grow these thick, truly impressive, impenetrable manes and full body coats of water-resistant, woolly fur. It keeps them warm and indifferent to the ice storms and heavy rains. Chunk actually seems to enjoy snow. When he was a baby he would run and flip around in it just like a kid. But when the days warm up, of course, this incredible heavy garment is a problem. So starting in the springtime he begins to let loose the fluff and we find great big heaps of it all over the farm. He rubs against trees, fences, and horses, much to their chagrin. He lets me scrape him with a plastic garden rake. And it hangs in tightly woven, continuous sheets off of his barrel belly. Native American legends tell us that if a bison “gifts” you his fur, in other words, if he releases it to your hands easily when you have not sought after it, then he is lending you his magic. And buffalo magic is very special. I’ll write more about that another time.

Chunk-hi's first winter. He had just sprouted little tiny buffalo horn buds! When I first posted this photo to my private Facebook page, people didn't know what he was. Someone guess a groundhog. : ))
Chunk-hi’s first winter. He had just sprouted little tiny buffalo horn buds! When I first posted this photo to my private Facebook page, people didn’t know what he was. Someone guessed a groundhog. : ))

 

Bison shed
Bison shed

 

So there you have it! Five things you might not have known about bison-buffs. Do you know any fun trivia you’d like to share? Do you have any questions we can try to answer? Have you been to the W and taken photos with Chunk? If so I would be SO HAPPY if you posted those to this blog’s Facebook page. How fun. We love collecting happy memories.

Thanks for joining me today! I wish you a beautiful, restful weekend filled with exactly what you need.

Tune in next week for Marathon Monday stuff, an Alfredo recipe, a chicken photo shoot, and more.

“You can lead a buffalo anywhere he wants to go.”
~old adage we try to never forget
XOXOXOXO

how to cope with august in the garden

My gardens are suffering a bit, friends. They aren’t quite dead or beyond hope; but they are less vibrant and magical than they were just a couple of weeks ago. Maybe these charming summer months have spoiled me into what I thought was benign neglect but instead has been shameful laziness.

Or maybe August in Oklahoma is just always gonna be August in Oklahoma, no matter how charming the previous months and weeks have been.

The zucchini have largely surrendered to squash bugs, which exposes too much of the adjacent eggplants to the hot sun. The tomatoes can fight off only so many grasshoppers (and llamas) per day. The Three Sisters’ plot is crispy (totally my fault). The herb garden is at least one third stickers now. And my cantaloupes are half not quite ripe and half overripe, rotten. (She says scratching her head.) I’ve started new little areas of green beans, cucumbers, leafy things, and basil, and those sprouts are growing, but they need some TLC from Yours Truly, whereas their early season counterparts did not. And one of our three fruit trees has me concerned. I keep getting flashbacks of the Great Depression (even though I wasn’t alive then) when I see its sparse and curling leaves.

 

squash bugs... the bane of my garden existence...
squash bugs… the bane of my garden existence…
One of these years I will grow corn until people call me the jolly green giant like they did in sixth grade.
One of these years I will grow corn until people call me the jolly green giant like they did in sixth grade. Not that I was green, just tallish.

 

Fresh herbs are totally worth every garden chore you will do to maintain them.
Fresh herbs are totally worth every garden chore you will do to maintain them.

 

Homegrown melons taste like a completely different fruit compared to what you buy at the store. Try it!
Homegrown melons taste like a completely different fruit compared to what you buy at the store. Try it!

 

Blank spots in my raised beds are blank canvases. Room for improvement. And seeds are cheaper than paint!
Blank spots in my raised beds are blank canvases. Room for improvement. And seeds are cheaper than paint!

 

I have to mention the stickers twice, the goat-heads, because they are just so vicious. I literally hate them with my entire heart and say swear words when I have to pull them. Last night I pulled a wheelbarrow full from all around the farm, but mostly from my gardens, and a wand of the nasty kernels attached themselves to my sundress. They were so stout, so terrible, that they pinned the cotton fabric tightly against my stomach, like I was some kind of a garden bulletin board. I was so mad! I mean seriously! I had to take several deep breaths and count to three then bravely rip the stickers out of my dress, so that it could become unpinned from my tummy; and still a barb remained in my skin there. It pierced a tiny little drop of blood for no good reason at all. This kind of stuff makes me a bit crazy. I feel like my personal space has been invaded.

 

Oh basil. I just can't quit you. Why have you abandoned me this year?
Oh basil. I just can’t quit you. Why have you abandoned me this year?

 

Always bury your spent jack o' lanterns and always scatter your watermelon seeds. You never know what gorgeous vines and fruit will grow from it!
Always bury your spent jack o’ lanterns and always scatter your watermelon seeds. You never know what gorgeous vines and fruit will grow from it!

 

So what to do this week? What are the garden tasks at hand?

Reduce I have started by doing some massive cleaning. Pulling weeds, pruning overgrown shrubs and criss-crossed limbs, and trimming leggy vines all the way from jasmine and morning glory to the darling tomatoes. I am reducing those by at least a third, maybe more. And scraping off brown leaves, too. I’ve always believed this allows the plant to spend its energy more wisely.

Water Deeply This may sound like a no-brainer, but keep in mind that all summer I have had to actively water our edible plantings maybe three times total. The rain has been so soft and steady, so luxurious. This week we are hot and dry, and I am not wasting my time with light sprinkling, nor will I compromise the plants roots like that. Deep moisture is the ticket.

Feed & Mulch I have a five-gallon jug of organic fertilizer gifted to me by our landscaping friend Scott, and I plan to dilute that in several ways and feed the holy heck out of everything I see. Then add mulch to the gardens in thick layers. Then probably water some more and light a few candles and send a tweet to P. Allen Smith asking him to light a candle for me, too.

Hover I just need to spend more time in the garden. More time doing things, besides taking photos. Pinching leaves, tucking soil neatly, watering, singing Beatles songs, removing bugs, etcetera. So much can be avoided and accomplished in the garden just by being present.

 

I always feel like I'm in Narnia when I walk among morning glory vines early in the morning...xoxo
I always feel like I’m in Narnia when I walk among morning glory vines early in the morning…xoxo

 

So my garden will look smaller for a while, overall, but healthier. That’s the idea at least. And of course the biggest idea is that in a few weeks it will bounce back with new vigor and continue producing delicious food.

How is your garden looking? Are you still collecting food? Are you battling squash bugs and goat-head stickers like me? Can you still appreciate the beauty in your Eden, despite the brutality of mid-August? What’s your plan of action?

Tell me everything. I could talk about gardens all day long.

Until it’s time to go for a run. Or read a new book.

The best fertilizer if the gardener’s shadow.
~proverb, unknown origin
XOXOXOXO

 

 

giveaway winners & happy Monday to you!

 

RMJ book cover

Hopefully as the weeks pass everyone has time to post a photo of their finished projects to the Lazy W Facebook page. I am plotting a cool dresser makeover using her tips, and I pledge to post photos too.

The winners are…

Bruce Barone (gardener, chef, and fellow taker of the Joy Dare)
Stephanie Clinton who blogs at Hugs Kisses and Snot
Jennie Brooks (a beautiful soul)
Lynn Fern who blogs at On Fern Avenue
Heather Benton who blogs at New House New Home New Life

Big thank you to everyone who shared the book release information, and another big thank you to Allison for her generous gift. We wish her the best with this project AND with the final weeks of her pregnancy!

Marathon Mondays starting again. It is time for fall marathon training to start. While I have yet to decide on a race before the end of the year, I am kicking up my miles and revamping Marathon Monday posts to include all kinds of fitness and health related topics. I hope this is interesting to you! And I hope you join the conversations as often as you can. We all have bodies, and we all need to find sustainable ways to care for them.

ZB me after slide with sticker

The Lazy W Honeymakers are doing great. Maribeth helped me conduct a thorough bee yard inspection Sunday afternoon, and I want to share all of the sweet, sticky details with you. For now, just say a quiet little prayer of thanks that we have two thriving colonies at the farm! I am so happy.

bees aug 2014

Actively Giving Thanks. I stumbled across a scripture that has my memory in overdrive. The 136th Psalm is line after line of praise for incredible miracles God performed in the Old Testament, followed each time by this: His mercy endureth forever. It struck me so hard, and it inspired me to compile a long list of the incredible miracles He has performed in my life, focusing on His mercy. So I will be working on that throughout the week, and I invite you to do the same. Maybe meet me back here next Sunday and share some of your miracles remembered?

july 16 2014 purple morning glory

********************

Okay folks, I am signing off for a bit and heading outside for some running and fresh air. Then maybe some horse brushing and morning-glory thinning. Our nephew Koston is here for a day or two, so before he wakes up I need to carefully stack the Uno deck so he doesn’t beat me today.

I hope you have a full, happy, productive, loving day ahead of you! I hope you find the energy you need to tackle your lists and the reward you need to feel like it’s all worth it. Think positively. Protect your heart. Give of yourself generously. Never give up hope for your most urgent prayers.

Carpe the Heck out of This Diem!
XOXOXOXO