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Lady Cougars erase deficit with fifty point second half in cruising to 83-56 win

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Editor
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barton cc

Facing a three point deficit at halftime Saturday afternoon at the Dodge City Classic, the Barton Community College women’s basketball team exploded for fifty second half points to run away from Fort Scott Community College 83-56.   Barton shot over fifty-five percent in the second half while putting on the defensive clamps limiting the Lady Greyhounds to twenty points and eighteen percent shooting as the Lady Cougars improved to 3-1 on the season while dropping Fort Scott to 3-1.   The Lady Cougars will be on the road again next weekend in Otero, Colorado, for two games in the Otero Classic.  Barton will play the 2:00 p.m. game on Friday against Trinidad State Junior College then take on the host Lady Rattlers at 6:00 p.m. Saturday.

Putting up historical numbers, Dodge City freshman Katrina Roenfeldt continued her great start knocking down 7-of-10 shots behind the arc to jump into a tie for the third best single game three pointers made in Barton history.  Connecting on 4-of-4 of her long distance shots in the first half, Roenfeldt finished the game with a career high twenty-four points on 8-of-14 shooting while also grabbing six rebounds.

Having led the Lady Cougars in scoring in each of the first three games of the season, sophomore Phikala Anthony also had a great night scoring fifteen second half points to finish with nineteen and pulling down a team high eight rebounds and dishing out five dimes.   Keneisha Winfrey added eleven as the Mississippi freshman made 9-of-10 from the charity stripe to go along with a team high six assists.

Sierra Shoulders led three Lady Greyhounds in double digit scoring with fifteen and team high six assists.  Kamiron Luptak scored fourteen with Carlie Wilhelmi added twelve with a team high nine rebounds.

The Covered Dish: Gravy/sauces

By
Debbie Dance Uhrig
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Wow, after that ‘big’ book I wrote last week I think I’d better write a little less this time!   Boy, I was

wound and wired with all my pet peeves, that’s for dog gone sure!  Let’s start prepping for Thanksgiving

this week and going over a few suggestions for making your holiday dinner stress free.  I have found

over the years that I take ‘making gravy’ for granted and not everyone has mastered this yummy

accompaniment.  Rest assured I’ve got everything ready for you this week.

Let’s start by talking about white gravy for biscuits and fried chicken dinners.  There are lots of different

thoughts on the amount of drippings or ‘fat’ used in gravy making.  I like to get by with as little fat

content as possible because I adore gravy.  Since moving to the south I have found that many people

want as much fat content as they can muster!

If I’m making sausage gravy I decide how much meat is actually needed.  My philosophy is if you’re

having only sausage gravy & biscuits you need to be more generous with the amount of sausage used.  If

I’m serving bacon, sausage gravy, ham, etc. then I won’t use as much sausage in the gravy.  For this type

of gravy I use only 1/3 -1/2 pound for my usual recipe which is called my 3 1/2 to 2 1/2 gravy.  I use 3 1/2

tablespoons of flour blended into the sausage and drippings.  Then I bring in 2 1/2 cups of 2% milk,

stirring to thicken.  This should be enough sausage gravy for four persons, however, if I’m coming you

better make more!

When I’m making a turkey gravy I still want to make ample.   Most of the time for 8-10 persons the

recipe at the bottom will generously suffice.  Tonight I made a thick gravy that my husband, Ervin, will

use when he puts our evening meal in the oven around 3pm tomorrow. This past week I did one of our

family favorites where I fry chops browning evenly on both sides.  Then I make a nice serving of gravy.

Drain the chops and then place them in a 9 x 13 greased baking pan.  Now pour the gravy over the chops

and cover with foil.  Finish baking on around 275 to 300 degrees for maybe 2-3 hours.  The meat will just

fall away and the creamy gravy will be perfect over mashed potatoes or noodles.

Usually if a person wants to make their gravy or sauces with cornstarch I remind them to half of what

they use for flour when using cornstarch.  IE:  If the recipe calls for 4 tablespoons of flour you will only

use 2 of cornstarch.  In all honesty I have used this rule and found that it’s not always accurate.  Also you

can substitute arrowroot for flour for those needing another alternative.  Arrowroot follows the same

rules with flour as cornstarch.

It’s definitely not too early to begin planning the holiday meal.  Start writing down the dishes that will be

served and look at the timing issues which could develop if you have only one oven.  Our family does the

turkey on Wednesday and then on Thanksgiving I re-heat the meat in my big steamer.  It still tastes

fantastic and all the mess is out of the kitchen.  The downside is there won’t be a big ‘turkey’

presentation at the table.  Our family just hasn’t minded this one little bit.  Actually this year I’m doing a

smoked turkey breast and a full turkey.

Not enough oven space?  Today when I went to that rather large merchandise store that starts with a

‘W’ I found roasters on sale for 19.98.  This is an investment you will NEVER regret.  The roaster can be

used for all sorts of events from chili parties to casual buffet dinners.   Crockpots can hold gravy warm,

but leave the lid off or the gravy will get runny.  I had a guest a few weeks back who told me she goes on

and covers the crockpot but she places a t-towel over the top between the pot and lid to absorb the

water!  You could also do some of your vegetables in the crockpot.  I’m sure someone out there has

even done green bean casserole in the crockpot.  Phillip, our son, has already reminded me this dish

must be present for our dinner.

For potatoes I peel and quarter the night before and cover with cold water until the next morning.  This

year I plan on doing my make ahead ‘smashed potatoes’.  This recipe comes from my good friend,

Sharon, these delicious potatoes can be made up to two weeks ahead of the dinner and refrigerated.

The cranberry salad/chutney was made this past week, so that one is done.  Mom is bringing candied

apples so we really have that covered.  Geez, I’m just about ready!  Just in case the bread doesn’t rise

have something in the freezer!

Well hopefully I’ve given some of you the inspiration you were missing and you’re now inspired to get

moving on the holiday dinner.   Have an enjoyable week and stay warm as the arctic air makes itself

known in the Midwest.  Simply yours, The Covered Dish.  www.thecovereddish.com

Turkey Gravy

3 1/2cups undiluted turkey au jus

1 1/2 cups cold water

8 tablespoons flour

Salt & Pepper to taste

Once the turkey is done remove the au jus from the bird using a baster.  For 8-10 persons the amounts

above should be adequate.  Place the au jus in a saucepan.  In a shaker bottle or bowl make a slurry with

1 1/2 cups of cold water using a whisk.  Stir the thickening into the juices while they are just about at the

boiling stage.  Again use the whisk to guarantee smooth gravy.  Bring the gravy to a boil again and

thicken thoroughly.  If for some reason it is not thick enough then use a product called Wondra.

This product is good to have on hand all the time.  It is basically a flour that has been sifted many times.

It can be sprinkled directly into a gravy or sauce and it will not leave lumps behind.   Blue container

found near the flour in most stores.

Sustainable Paradigms            

By
Editor
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0
lee pitts

I want to be sustainable, I really do, I mean, who doesn’t want to be sustainable?

It’s just that I don’t know how.

The word “sustainable” is very trendy right now, just like “paradigm” was THE WORD of the last decade. So let me be the first to say that I’m a big supporter of “sustainable paradigms”. Now, if I only knew what that meant.

Everywhere you look these days there are Sustainability Conferences, Forums and Roundtables attended by Chief Sustainability Officers and their underlings, the Sustainability Protocol Officers. McDonalds even has their very own Vice President of Sustainability. But before you get too impressed I’m thinking that McDonalds must be like a lot of BIG banks, with more Vice Presidents than they have customers.

This whole sustainability thing is starting to make my head hurt and I don’t think I’m the only one. Although the CEO of McDonalds says that McDonalds’ customers are “demanding sustainable food” its Vice President of Sustainability says that consumers “don’t even know what sustainability means.” I wonder, how can consumers be demanding something when they don’t even know what it is they are demanding?  I told you, there’s a whole lot about this sustainable thing I don’t understand.

Ranchers better learn what being sustainable means real fast because McDonalds says they want to sell 100% sustainable beef and that’s a BIG deal because McDonalds buys 2% of all the beef produced in the world!

Words are my friends. I make my living with them. So pardon me for saying this but the word “sustainability” is being given meanings not found in any dictionary. I always thought that to be sustainable meant to be able to continue doing what you are presently doing. You know, like farmers and ranchers whose families have been making a living by producing life-giving food for many generations. Yet this sustainability movement seems to be largely composed of urbanite snoopy busybodies who live in high-rises living very unsustainable lives. How long do you think these folks could sustain themselves if all the grocery stores and McDonalds suddenly closed? Or the trucks carrying meat and produce from America’s farms and ranches couldn’t make their deliveries? Many who claim to be sustainable work for big corporations who could lay them off at a moment’s notice when they move their operations offshore. That strikes me as not being very sustainable.

Sometimes I think this whole sustainable thing is  just a big excuse to allow these mischief-makers to stick their noses further into our business. Are we really going to start letting city slickers, who couldn’t grow a radish if their lives depended on it, tell these farm and ranch families who have lived and worked on the same place, in some cases for over 100 years, how to grow food?

McDonalds has their own polling data that shows that nearly a third of its 70 million daily customers don’t feel good about eating there. Could all this sustainability stuff we hear just be a public relations campaign to make McDonalds customers think they won’t get fat drinking huge, sugary sodas and eating super-sized cartons of French fries because the sugar and spuds were produced in a sustainable manner?

Whenever I hear the word sustainable I am reminded of the old joke about a lazy do-gooder who always wrote letters to the editor. Even though he lived in an apartment and had never grown a garden or fed a lamb in his life, he freely criticized the terrible farmers and ranchers who fed him. One day while he was trespassing and literally sticking his nose into a rancher’s business he was chased down and crushed by an angry bull and decapitated.

Two days later he died.

So tell me again… who was being sustainable?
wwwLeePittsbooks.com

Chronicles of The Farm Woman: Snowball Battle

By
Editor
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Farm woman

 As these lines are written the first round of the snowball battle at the country school is drawing to a close.  The 5-minute bell has rung, which calls for cessation of activities.

    Preparations for the battle have been going on for two days.  The four big girls in school are lined up against all the younger ones.  Each side constructed a fortification of defense.  This required all the recesses and noon inter-missions for two days.  The big girls made a high fort, not very long.  Some 20 feet away the small children constructed a longer defense and lower.  Each child worked hard and eagerly to make ready for the fray.  Little fingers flew as they made a large pile of snowballs for ammunition.  The big girls made a small reserve, not many.

    One doesn’t know exactly how or when the barrage commenced.  Suddenly snowballs were flying thick and fast through the air.  The little ones, having numbers on their side, sent more invectives.  Their fort is longer, they can stand at the ends and strike those larger girls crouched behind their tall fort.  The boy who is having the most fun is little brother who ventures right out into no-man’s land with a mammoth snowball and plumps his big sister right on the head.  It is sweet revenge for all the edicts this older sister has enforced by might through the years.  It is no matter that the big girls all pounce on him and wash his face. He got his good lick in first. When the big girls come into view such a heavy barrage greets them that they are forced to cover.  Sideline referees would say that the little tikes have the edge as the bell rings.  The big girls feel this way too because they dash toward the schoolhouse shouting, “It’s not fair!”

    If the snow holds another day there will no doubt be a change in legislation.  The battle of the snows is on.

Politics, porn, and football

By
Editor
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0

Some of you may like my attempt, though it probably deserves more thought, to articulate why we pay little attention to big-money sports in my home. Here’s an excerpt:

Now, let’s not quibble over semantics; I know the Canadians spent millions on a national curling center, that parents of gymnasts fork over thousands for training, and so on. By “big-money,” I mean the sports swamped by wealth, and by its concomitant power over our hearts.

A power that induces fans to overlook thuggery, that induces college officials to cover up child molestation rather than jeopardize their football franchise, that encourages millions of boys to waste years perfecting the throwing and bouncing of balls at the expense of basic math and grammar skills.

I wrote much of it while listening to men down the street bark at their children during a Pee Wee football game. Not that I hold an unbending principle against barking at children, but what struck me was how that hour, other than perhaps (perhaps!) whatever time they spend in church, might be for many boys the most emotionally intense in their week. The time they feel most attuned to the true hearts of their fathers. And there’s something wrong with that, a kind of metastasis of the trivial. It’s not the inherent fault of the sport, of course, but ours for letting it get that way, or maybe for letting everything else become so drab in comparison.

If all that isn’t enough to provoke you to read it, consider how I equate big-money sports to pornography and politics. And as a side-thought, imagine a community invaded by none of those. Oh, and here’s the link.

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