Spectre’s Sayings

I admit I’m not accustomed to fasting. I do it on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday …and that’s it. The Catholic rules for fasting aren’t particularly hard to do. And with the spare tire that I carry around anyway, I’m not even hungry here at the end of the day. But I don’t feel like I’ve got a lot of energy, though.

I hope you all found something spiritually edifying in the Good Friday photos I posted on my tumblelog, and something thought-provoking in the other posts!

Boy, does this recipe sound good. I’m going to have to try it.

Here’s a vegetarian soup. If you want to go completely vegan, you can substitute olive oil for the butter.

4 onions, peeled and sliced
1 pound potatoes, peeled and cut into even sized pieces
3-3/4 cups water
3 tablespoons butter or margarine
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper
grated nutmeg

Put a quarter of the onions into a large saucepan with the potatoes and water. Bring to a boil, then cover and cook until the potatoes are completely tender - about 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt the butter and oil in another pan, put in the remaining sliced onions and cook them gently, with a lid on the pan, until the onions are very tender: about 15 minutes. Do not let them brown.

Purée the potato mixture in a blender or food processor, then return it to the saucepan. Add the onions and salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg to taste. Reheat gently and serve.

Trust me, you’re going to need to use a lot more nutmeg than you think you’ll need.

Here’s my version of chili (or, as they spell it in my area of the country, chilli).

1 pound lean hamburger
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 medium white or yellow onion, chopped
1 envelope Chili-O seasoning
4 small (8 ounce) cans of tomato sauce
4 cans (12 ounce) Light Red Kidney Beans, drained but not dry
2 cans (12 ounce) water
Salt, Ground Black Pepper, Ground White Pepper, Ground Red (Cayenne) Pepper, Minced Garlic, Garlic Powder, Chili Powder, Curry Powder to taste.

Add water to the beans and heat.

Meanwhile, sautee the onion in the vegetable oil until soft. Add the hamburger and brown. After the hamburger has browned, add tomato sauce, Chili seasonings, and spices. Cook over low heat for 10-15 minutes, continually stirring.

Combine with beans. Simmer over low heat untill desired consistency and taste is resolved.

Lifehacker has a list of 15 foods that require more calories to digest than they actually contain. I’m slightly skeptical about a few of them. Still, they all make good snacks.

Granite City Food and Brewery has finally opened a new restaurant in East Peoria. Now, if they’d just keep moving south.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers! (Yes, to both of you.) I include you when I count my blessings for which I’m grateful. God bless.

Just a few days after I posted about Bella Trattoria, it was damaged by fire. *Sigh.* I’ve retyped the following from the “Police Beat” section of the print version of the SJ-R:

Fire badly damaged an old two-story building and a portion of the recently-opened Bella Trattoria cafe in Williamsville early Saturday morning.

The blaze was reported about 1:30 a.m. at 100 W. Main St. and continued burning for more than four hours.

Flames consumed the building, which is currently used for storage. At one time, it held an old movie theater in the upper story and a barbershop below.

The lounge area of Bella Trattoria was destroyed, but the adjacent cafe appeared to suffer mostly smoke damage.

The cause of the blaze wasn’t immediately known.

Fire crews from Athens, Sherman, Pleasant Plains, Riverton, and Springfield assisted Williamsville firefighters.

The American Red Cross responded to provide canteen support to the roughly 50 firefighters on-scene, a news release from the agency said.

The agency’s caseworkers are also assisting one person who was displaced by the fire.

We just can’t keep the restaurants I like, for some reason.

Update: Here’s a link to the online story.

Last week, my aunt told me about a new restaurant that had impressed her greatly. I spread the word, and my parents and I decided to try it. It so impressed us that we decided that we’d have to return. And we did, earlier this evening.

Bella Trattoria is a tiny little restaurant located at 100 W. Main Street in Williamsville, Illinois. The interior is tastefully decorated to evoke a Mediterranean atmosphere, and the food is pure Italian heaven. The menu is rather simple, but in visiting with the proprietor this evening, I discovered that there is usually some special dish that he creates daily that does not appear on the menu.

Both times I visited, the restaurant quickly filled to capacity. Although the menu simply consists of a variety of appetizers, pizzas, sandwiches, pastas, and desserts, both the quantity and the quality of the food provide ample reasons for the lack of space. Quantity in that the portions are exceptionally generous, and quality in that the taste sensations are simply out-of-this-world, but that brings to mind my upbringing in an Italian extended family. Dining at this restaurant is also easy on the pocketbook.

Did I mention I liked this place?