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Cranberry whip salad

By
Debbie Dance Uhrig
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For the first time in many years I changed the type of cranberry salad I offered for Thanksgiving. I knew I wanted something really different from the cranberry chutney I’ve made for years, or the relish cranberry salad, from my mom, which I’ve also prepared many times.

I started looking for what I’ll call a ‘fluffy’ cranberry salad. What I ended up with was a type of cranberry ambrosia salad. Some of the best pointers for the recipe would be draining the cranberry/sugar and crushed pineapple. This must be done well; so you don’t have a runny salad.

The salad is also very large, expect it to serve 10-12 persons. I prepared the cranberry and sugar mixture the night before, and let it set overnight in the refrigerator. Then; I made the salad 2-3 hours before the dinner was served. I used one cup of sugar on my 12 ounces of fresh cranberries, but I did view recipes that used only 2/3 of a cup.

We enjoyed turkey breast, Cornish game hens, dressing, noodles, green bean casserole, Brussels sprouts, deviled eggs, biscuits, and only (1) pie this year. We sent bundles home with family, which is the norm, at our abode. The most interesting part of Thanksgiving dinner was what happened to the first green bean casserole. Phillip is always in charge of this dish. He made it early as I requested and set it on the screened porch until time to go in the oven. I left to take my shower; when I got out everyone was all a flutter, Rumor, our corgi, had found that green bean casserole and had eaten about half of a 9 x 13 pan!!! Fortunately there were no serious repercussions from her escapade. No tossing her cookies either, just many outdoor trips!!!! Phillip had to scurry, but he had another dish made in record time, and we still had our annual green bean casserole.

Let’s take a look at what I ended up with in recipe land:

Fluffy Cranberry Salad

12 ounces fresh or frozen cranberries

1 cup sugar, may use less

1 (20 oz.) can crushed pineapple, drain well

2, medium apples, skins on, diced

1 ½ cups red grapes, sliced in half

1 cup walnut pieces

1 ½ cup mini marshmallows

8 ounces heavy whipped cream

8 ounces cream cheese

In a food processor grind the cranberries, combine with sugar and allow to set a few hours or overnight. Drain cranberries and crushed pineapple in a sieve, pressing to release extra juice. Combine cranberry and pineapple with the remaining fruits, nuts and marshmallows.

Soften the cream cheese and gently combine with the whipped cream. Stir into the salad ingredients with a gentle hand. At one point I felt it could use a little more whipped cream, so I reached for perhaps another 2-3 ounces of the whipped cream. Overall everyone at the table enjoyed the salad. I enjoyed it for 2-3 more days, it held up quite well, absolutely no weeping.

It was a great holiday, my favorite for the entire year. Ervin and I started the day as volunteers at the Branson Turkey Trot. We cheered runners and walkers on as they headed for the finish line. I’m glad we were able to participate. Funds raised this year went to ‘Pathways’, a new non profit dedicated to sex trafficking. The group has been doing outstanding work in Stone and Taney Counties.

In My Humble Opinion

By
Steve Gilliland
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When this outdoor column was born some twenty years ago, I swore it would always and only be about the outdoors; on rare occasions an outdoor topic or adventure from another state, but the outdoors non-the-less. My wife has often suggested I venture into other genres, but I have resisted. But now I find myself feeling the need to say some things that will deviate from the outdoors, and hoping that after almost twenty years, you readers will allow me this detour.

First and foremost, as a country and as a people we need God back in our lives. We have succeeded in pushing God out of our homes, our schools, our government and I fear He is barely welcome in some churches anymore. Now, don’t read into this more than I intend. I’m not blaming all the division and complete lack of common sense seen in our country today on God, suggesting He brought it on us or is allowing it to happen, although I believe that is a distinct possibility. What I am suggesting is that the only way for us as a nation to conquer all this turmoil is through a personal relationship with Jesus and by allowing God to be the God of the USA again. And by the way, without God there would be NO Kansas Outdoors to write about.

Secondly, we as a nation must regain a respect for authority. I see a tremendous lack of respect in our country for authority figures, parents, school teachers, coaches, work supervisors, law enforcement officers and even government officials and our president. Now I can hear the argument already “if those in authority respect me, I’ll respect them.” No, that’s not how this works. You can use that excuse with your siblings, your coworkers and maybe your friends, but not with those in authority over you. Yes, it’s wonderful to have authority figures who are kind, respectable themselves and also give us respect, but those in authority over us are due our respect even if it’s only for the position. Being a person of authority is not a popularity contest, nor are they there to be our best friend.

Thirdly, we as a people need to begin making decisions and forming opinions based on common sense, facts, science and the Bible. Today in our world, far too many decisions are made and opinions formed based on emotions alone. For example, I never dreamed I would see in my lifetime, not only support but actual promotion of the thinking that genders can be changed. Yes, there is a place for emotions in the process of forming opinions, but factual information needs to be the driving force. Today’s media plays on our emotions and makes it terribly hard to stick to the facts. I can hardly stand to watch the commercials showing dogs that are skin and bones anchored to a tree with a log chain in a snowstorm. But the fact is that it’s EXTREMELY rare to find dogs like that; the vast majority of dogs in our nation are treated as well or better than some humans. But those pictures make the viewer tear-up and reach for their wallet to contribute to their cause. These tactics are used by organizations in all walks of life to get us to throw facts to the wind and go full-tilt ahead based on our emotions alone.

I don’t mean to make this all sound oversimplistic, and while changing the latter two would have a profound effect on the attitudes, demeaners and common-sense mindsets of us as United States citizens, it would probably do little to cease the wildfires or calm the hurricanes. But renewing or establishing a personal relationship with Jesus and making God the God of the USA again, will humble us before Him and invite Him to heal our land. See you again next week from the Kansas Outdoors!

Steve can be contacted by email at [email protected].

“Doctor Chekhov, Physician & Writer”

By
Guest Columnist
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Literature classes worldwide study Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), a great innovator of the short story. He wrote closely observed and deeply empathic slices-of-life with a great sense of humor — but the Russian-Lit-class-version of Dr. Chekhov often overlooks the vitality of his work in the theater. Theater-people like me know him as a playwright, the creative counterpart to the acting teacher Konstantin Stanislavsky, who directed and starred in Chekhov’s breakthrough play, The Seagull. Together with the other artists of Moscow Art Theater, Chekhov and Stanislavsky pioneered a new style of ensemble performance, focusing on the whole society, rather than one “main character.”

So if the literature-people under-appreciate his brilliance as a playwright, and theater-people undervalue his excellence in prose, both groups could stand to note his life-long dedication to medicine. Even after he became a famous writer, Dr. Chekhov never stopped seeing patients, and at the height of his literary career, he traveled nearly 6000 miles from Moscow to a notorious prison on Sakhalin Island to study the failures of the island-prison’s health care system. After his trip, Chekhov wrote a carefully reported book-length argument for prison health care reform, a work of investigative medical journalism. He once wrote in a letter: “Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress.”

My Dad was the great Dr. Rick Holm, whose mind was also rich with a multiplicity of passions and talents. I sometimes think that the way Chekhov’s devotion to medicine was overshadowed by his success as an artist is an inversion of the way my Dad’s devotion to art was overshadowed by his success as a doctor. He was well-known as a singer and a choral conductor, founding the (still ongoing) Hopeful Spirit Chorale, but his other artistic pursuits were less well-known: he was a fine amateur painter, a long-time member of the board of Prairie Repertory Theater, a talented draftsman (his book Life’s Final Season includes his own anatomical drawings), and when he died, he was writing historical fiction — a novella set in in the twelfth century in Salerno, Italy, about the first Western medical school.

I think Dr. Chekhov’s perspective as a physician sharpened his observational powers as an artist. His plays and stories are full of people who suffer from habits of mind that they can’t understand; the good doctor seems, with his careful, diagnostic observation, to identify problems with his characters ’mental health (obsessions, depressions, manias, addictions) years before the vocabulary for such mental health disorders had been developed. Like Shakespeare, Dr. Chekhov writes honestly about both the very poor and the very rich, treating servant characters with as much detail and dignity as the owners of the estate. Though the good doctor’s ‘slice-of-life ’literary style is deeply rooted in reality, his work is paradoxical, both traditional and unconventional at once, using a physician’s skill-set and a prescient fascination with the health-of-the-mind to create literary, theatrical, and journalistic work that was, thrillingly, ahead of its time.

Eric Holm is an artist and teacher working mostly in performance, film, and music. He trained in Minneapolis and New York and is a founding member (with fellow Brookings-person Katie Melby) of the BREAD Arts Collective. Now based in Houston, Texas, Eric is an adjunct theater and film professor at the University of Houston, Galveston College, and Lone Star College, and is working on self-producing his second album. Follow The Prairie Doc® at www.prairiedoc.org, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and Threads. Prairie Doc Programming includes On Call with the Prairie Doc®, a medical Q&A show (most Thursdays at 7pm streaming on Facebook), 2 podcasts, and a Radio program (on SDPB), providing health information based on science, built on trust.

KU News: KU chancellor elected to serve as vice chair of AAU board of directors

By
Guest Columnist
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From the Office of Public Affairs | http://www.news.ku.edu

 

Headlines

 

 

Contact: Joe Monaco, Office of Public Affairs, 785-864-7100, [email protected], @UnivOfKansas

KU chancellor elected to serve as vice chair of AAU board of directors

 

LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas’ top official will continue to help lead the association of the nation’s top research universities.

 

University of Kansas Chancellor Douglas A. Girod has been elected vice chair of the board of directors of the Association of American Universities, the organization announced last week.

 

As vice chair, Girod will serve alongside board chair Christopher Eisgruber, president of Princeton University, help guide AAU’s work and serve as a representative for the association, particularly on federal policy issues affecting research universities. Girod will also represent AAU in discussions with lawmakers, help develop national policy positions and play a significant role in determining the association’s agenda during the coming year.

 

Girod has served on the AAU board of directors since October 2021.

 

“I’m honored to serve in this capacity and to have the opportunity to partner with colleagues from across the nation on issues that impact research at our universities,” Girod said. “America’s leading research universities are vital to our nation’s prosperity, health and security, and AAU plays a crucial role in advocating on their behalf and helping them work together.”

 

The University of Kansas is one of just 71 research universities — only 38 of them public institutions — in the Association of American Universities. KU was invited to join the AAU in 1909, just nine years after the organization was founded.

 

“KU can be proud of our longstanding membership in the AAU, and we will continue to prioritize research and discovery that enhances our position among the nation’s leading institutions,” Girod said. “The advantage of being a member, beyond being recognized as one of the top research programs nationally, is that we have greater opportunities to grow federal funding for research that improves public health, addresses national challenges and strengthens the nation. In addition, KU derives great benefit from the AAU’s advocacy efforts in Washington, D.C., for research and higher education funding and for policy and regulatory issues that affect research universities.”

 

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KU News Service

1450 Jayhawk Blvd.

Lawrence KS 66045

[email protected]

http://www.news.ku.edu

 

Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, director of news and media relations, [email protected]

 

Today’s News is a free service from the Office of Public Affairs

 

KU media advisory: Media invited to KU EARTH Center ceremonial launch on Nov. 7

By
Guest Columnist
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0

From the Office of Public Affairs | http://www.news.ku.edu

Headlines

Contact: Cody Howard, School of Engineering, 785-864-2936, [email protected], @kuengineering

Media invited to KU EARTH Center ceremonial launch on Nov. 7

 

LAWRENCE — U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, Kansas Department of Commerce Deputy Secretary of Business Development Joshua Jefferson, U.S. National Science Foundation Director Sethuraman Panchanathan and other leaders will join the University of Kansas on Thursday, Nov. 7, for the ceremonial launch of KU’s NSF Engineering Research Center (ERC) – Environmentally Applied Refrigerant Technology Hub (EARTH).

 

The event begins at 9 a.m. at the Burge Union, 1565 Irving Hill Road. Moran, Jefferson and Panchanathan are scheduled to make presentations, as are Chancellor Douglas A. Girod and EARTH ERC Director Mark Shiflett.

 

Members of the media are invited to attend the official ceremony at 9 a.m. A Q&A session will follow with availability from those speaking at the welcome ceremony. Media planning to attend are asked to RSVP by emailing Cody Howard, KU School of Engineering director of external relations, by noon Tuesday, Nov. 5.

 

Media with valid KU parking passes are advised to park in lot 72 to the east of the Burge Union, or lot 54 at the northwest corner of Irving Hill Road and Naismith Drive. Media needing a parking permit for this event should contact Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, KU director of news and media relations.

 

The EARTH ERC is based at the KU School of Engineering and works to tackle climate change through creation of a sustainable and circular refrigerant economy. The NSF announced in August that KU’s EARTH ERC was awarded a five-year, $26 million grant to conduct research to solve the technical, environmental and economic challenges required to create a sustainable refrigerant lifecycle that will benefit Kansans, the nation and the world.

 

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KU News Service

1450 Jayhawk Blvd.

Lawrence KS 66045

[email protected]

http://www.news.ku.edu

 

Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, director of news and media relations, [email protected]

 

Today’s News is a free service from the Office of Public Affairs

 

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