Muggsy's Brain

Four times a year we deep clean the roasting machine, it's long, involved, greasy & dirty and it takes a bunch of hours. Today I was fortunate enough to have the Fabulous Armadillos use my roastery as a rehearsal space for their upcoming Motown show at the Pioneer Place in St. Cloud. Sorry, folks, it sold out weeks ago. So all day I was treated to a live band playing songs like Respect, Natural Woman, The Tears of a Clown, Shotgun and many more. Okay, that's not such a great video. But this one is! His name is Julius Andrews IV and he won the pre-teen division of the Minnesota State Fair Amateur Talent Contest in 2009. Having him there brought tears to my eyes it was so cool and beautiful! All in all, I had a GREAT day at work!

Tonight's menu is a chicken lasagna, since I haven't done it yet it's not so much a recipe as it is a plan. It's pretty much just your standard lasagna made with diced chicken. Usually I'll use browned hot Italian sausage when I do this. Ingredients: 1 lb. chicken breasts, skin & fat removed 1 can (14.5 oz.) diced tomatoes 1 can (29 oz.) tomato sauce 1/2-3/4 cup baby portobello mushrooms, chopped 1 tbsp olive oil medium sized onion, chopped 2-3 cloves garlic, chopped 1/2-1 tbsp Italian seasoning 1/4 tsp (seriously small amount) fennel seed 1 egg 1 small container part skim ricotta cheese 1/4-1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese 1-2 cups shredded mozarella cheese 9-12 lasagna noodles, par-boiled salt pepper Preheat oven to 350° F I've already taken the chicken breasts, washed them and patted them dry, added a sprinkling of salt & pepper to both sides and fried them in a heavy pan using no oil for about 2 minutes per side. They're nice and caramelized, they ...

A week or so ago I bought a whole chicken and decided to cut it up myself. I'd never done that before, so I looked up a couple of videos on YouTube and went to it. It's an incredibly economical thing to do! I spent about $6 and got about $10-12 worth of meat out of it, and a nice carcass to make soup, which is what I did tonight. I never make the same soup twice, but there are always similarities, in this case, this is what I did: 1 chicken carcass, breast meat, thighs & wings removed -- don't worry, there's still plenty of meat several cups of water (5 or 6?) 1 medium onion, chopped 3 cloves of garlic, minced 4 medium carrots, sliced 3 stalks celery, sliced 1 can diced tomatoes 1 can white beans -- including that nice, starchy water 1/2 cup frozen yellow corn 1/2 tablespoon salt a good dose of ground pepper 1 tsp dill weed 1/2 tsp turmeric 1-1/2 tsp dried parsley A few shakes of red pepper flakes Most of my measurements are by eye so I am only guessing the amount....

And so the Holiday season is upon us and for me, not being a Black Friday shopper, it begins today. The George Maurer Trio is heading for Crosby , MN tonight for a gig entertaining the local hospital staff, we stay overnight and then head for Roseau , MN in the morning for a nearly identical gig entertaining the staff of their hospital. If you didn't look at the map, Roseau is a mere 9 miles from Canada in mid-western Minnesota and the route from Crosby to Roseau takes around 6-1/2 hours. The drive back to St. Cloud on Monday morning will take around 7-8 hours. There goes working on Monday. Tuesday (12/8) sees me playing holiday music with Andrew Walesch , a talented young singer who is out pimping his new holiday CD. We play two shows, one at 2 PM and one at 7:30 PM. Thursday (12/10) is a private party for General Mills at the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis. Saturday (12/13) is a concert at St. Edwards Catholic Church (I'd link to their site, but it's a piece of crap)...

Well, I was able to do it, I got a new car for the business. It's a 2006 Chevy HHR, it has plenty of cargo space and it drives like a dream. My landlord and friend, Randy, was able to get me a screaming good deal, the bank was able to swing it through my existing loan without changing what we're already paying ($8 more per month) and it all took less time than I thought it would. Special thanks go out to Kate for allowing me to use her car to get around while we worked everything out! Kate rocks! This is by far the newest vehicle I've ever owned and I plan on driving it until it doesn't go anymore. Gosh! How exciting!

My car's transmission has started slipping in and out of consciousness. The other day it suddenly shifted into second while I was going 30 mph. I was only two blocks from my destination so I babied it into the parking lot and turned it off. When I got back it drove and shifted just fine. I added a couple of quarts of transmission fluid because it has had a slow leak since I got it in December of 2007 and I haven't had the time or money to fix it. That usually does the trick. Today I got to work just fine. When I went to run an errand the speedometer read "0" and the car wouldn't shift out of second. Again, I babied it to my destination hoping that maybe things would clear up when the engine got warm. Nope. First gear all the way back to my shop. I decided the best thing to do would be to baby it all the way home and park it in the driveway. It shifted just fine for the first six blocks until I got to a red light, once it turned green I was stuck back in first. I ...

The date was Sunday, July 9, 2006, the trio had a gig at a festival held at Phelps Mill near Fergus Falls, MN. It was a great day! We played well and we got to jump off the old bridge and swim in the river. At some point during the day I bought a three-pack of oatmeal soap from one of the vendors, expecting to use it in the shower. Unfortunately, it contained perfume and I don't like using perfumed soaps, so the three balls of soap about the size of billiard balls got relegated to hand soap. I've used it daily since and -- I just used the last of it this morning. That's practically 3-1/4 years! My hat is off to the lady who made that soap!