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Mike & Clark's 2023 Year-End Newsletter - ft. A Year In Us-Sies!

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  Seasons Greetings from Mike and Clark ! First a  mea culpa  if you did not receive our 2022 Holiday letter. It was only after we started getting a fair number of them returned to us that we realized that the city, state and zip code were missing from some of the mailing labels we had printed. “UNABLE TO DELIVER” snarled the hand-stamped response from the USPS. But by then daffodils were starting to bloom so we abandoned a resend effort in favor of correcting the problem this holiday season. If you get this, we’ve succeeded! Our 2023 began with the completion of a 6-month exterior renovation of our Richmond home, which we and our housemates and co-owners David & Cheryl Lederle-Ensign refer to as “3 Chimneys.” We were very pleased with the work and had only a few items remaining on the punch list when we made our final payment in late February. A mere ten days later, however, our contractor, Fabling Built, abruptly ceased operations leaving some 80 other projects in various
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  CHICKEN MEATBALL and ORZO SOUP Happy 2023! It's the start of the New Year again, and we're trying to reduce our caloric intake and our waistlines.  A lot happened last year. We sold our Falls Church, VA house, moved to Richmond, VA. We have had a large Richmond house restored and it's lovely, and we love our new town. All these changes meant added stress, a disregard of our exercise routines, comfort eating and drinking more than we should.  I have only gained a few pounds but it's probably due not only to extra fat, but to loss of muscle mass as well.  So - new year, new us!  I found out my company subsidizes WeightWatchers, and the monthly subscription is only about $8.  I have had a lot of fun looking at different recipes on their app/website to try to get some good ideas for meals and snacks. This recipe was adapted from the website damneddelicious.net, and it's really WW friendly.  One serving is only 3 points.  I made a few changes, mainly added extra spice
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  Best Ever Cheesy Ham & Potato Casserole This recipe was assembled by scouring the internet and taking bits of recipes from here and there.  It's got that salty, spicy, somewhat sweet (because ham), cheesy "umami", and it actually has a lot of vegetables in it - you could almost call it a healthy choice, if you ignore the (rather a lot) of sodium in this dish.  This casserole is the one that hits all those pleasure centers. I am going to say this serves 6 hungry adults (with bread and a veggie side dish), or 8 if you have children and adults. I have taken this to church potlucks, and watched several kids devour it. The key is to cut your veggies small enough that they are not getting big pieces of carrot, onion and celery, but just small bits of it. I prefer celery and carrots prepared that way, too. I found a recipe that used the French's Onion Rings, and tried it and it was - um, bland, so that's why I added the salt, pepper and parmesan cheese on top. Pa
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Mike and Clark's Year End Letter! 2020 - you can honk-off!!

  Merry Christmas, from Mike and Clark!                 What a weird year it’s been!   We felt like March and April of this year, post-lockdown felt like an entire year, and then we had another 8 months of fun and fabulousness to go!   All in all, we’re doing pretty well, in Covid-19 adjusted terms. The big news is that in January, we purchased a house in Richmond, VA with our dear friends David & Cheryl Lederle-Ensign.   It will be our eventual retirement destination (yes, were getting to be that old).   The work on the house began in February, then came to an abrupt stop in March when the City of Richmond went on lockdown.   The house was not in a usable condition - no working bathrooms, no kitchen, items that are rather crucial to successful occupancy!  It's a big house with a huge front porch and two spacious master-suites upstairs.  The lower level has been opened up to have an open floor plan that will be great for entertaining.  The home should be in move-in condition
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Clark's Somewhat Lighter Sweet Potato Casserole

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  Clark's somewhat lighter Sweet Potato Casserole This was inspired by a recipe that Tyler Florence did years ago on the Food Channel.  I basically took his idea and altered a traditional Southern sweet potato casserole recipe.  The roasted banana is the 'secret' ingredient and allows you to back off the the amount of sugar in the recipe.  Most traditional Sweet Potato recipes have way too much sugar and fat in them - so many are more of a dessert dish than a side dish. I halved the amount of butter and am using only about 1/3 of the sugar.  You will not miss it, it's still a rich dish with a ton of spice and flavor.  I hope you like it! Pre-heat oven to 400°F, bake, 2 – 3 large  sweet potatoes , Line a cookie sheet with foil, and bake the potatoes until a knife inserted into the middle meets no resistance, usually takes 45  minutes.  During the last 10 minutes add 1 banana. Remove from the oven and allow to cool so that the potatoes and banana can  be handled easily. W
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Clark’s Cheesy Chicken Crack Casserole

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So, I made this today on quarantine day number - umm - whatever.  My partner had a bad day teleworking, and both of us needed some culinary comfort.  I had roasted a chicken on Sunday, and I had noodles leftover from something I had cooked last week, so I thought - CHICKEN CRACK CASSEROLE!! I literally made this up as a went along.  I used a recipe on the French's site as a - very rough - guide.  This is fairly typical of the casseroles I grew up with - except this one has a ton of flavor!  You can add whatever vegetables you want to this, just make sure that they are all cooked.  That's one mistake our Mothers made with these recipes, raw vegetables always cook at different rates, so if you throw a bunch of uncooked vegetables into the mix, some will be cooked, but you will still have some uncooked raw onion, or whatever in the casserole - which aren't always good thing, are they, Dawn? PREHEAT oven to 350 degree s In a large bowl ADD and WHISK together: 1
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Clark’s Turkey Bolognese Sauce in the Multicooker

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I have a FAGOR Multicooker that I got last year when my 10 year old electric pressure cooker died. I love it, it does so much so well.  This is one of the first recipes I adapted for it.  It's not traditional Bolognese sauce because a) it uses ground turkey rather than ground beef, and because b) there's no milk in it (bleah, why is that a thing?). I have been using ground turkey for a while now in recipes that call for ground beef, because one of our good friends developed an allergy to beef, pork and lamb (all mammals, really, he has to carry an Epi-pen with him - Alpha Gal Sensitivity - google it), and we eat together a lot.  Cooks note: I am lazy and use the food processor to chop all the vegetables, a mom that I gave this to, said that she loves this recipe and that her kids don't necessarily know they are eating yucky vegetables! Chop everything finely, but take care that you don't puree them.  Enjoy! Set the Multicooker to SAUTE ADD : 1 TBLS dece
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