Soup Recipes from Between You and Me

Thanks to Mark from Summer Kitchen Supplies for his Clam Chowder recipe....


Clam Chowder
This is one of our family favorites. It is simple to make, and tastes so exotic on a January night in northern Minnesota. A white sauce is the foundation for many of our hardy winter meals.

¼ cup butter
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
Freshly minced or dehydrated onion
2 cups milk
4-6 potatoes
Old Bay seasoning, salt and pepper
1 small can Snow’s minced clams

Peel and cube the potatoes into about ½ inch cubes. Cover in salted water, bring to a boil, and then simmer until tender, about 10 minutes.

Melt butter in a large pot. Add and cook onions until tender, if using fresh onions. Stir flour into butter to form a bubbling roux. If too thick, add more butter. Heat milk in a large glass bowl in the microwave for 2 minutes and stir slowly into roux.

About this time the potatoes should be ready. Using a slotted spoon, add the potatoes to the roux. Save the potato water, and add it to the chowder to thin it as it cooks. The starchy potato water makes a silky- smooth chowder.

Dump in the whole can of minced clams, including the juice. Crumble in a handful of onions, if you are using your own dehydrated onion. Add lots of freshly ground black pepper. Shake in some Old Bay seasoning, to taste.

While the chowder is simmering, mix together 2 cups of all-purpose flour, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, and ½ tablespoon of sugar. Cut in ½ stick of butter with a pastry cutter. Mix in about 1 cup of cold milk and a dollop of sour cream. The mixture should be too sticky to pat out for cutting, but not too thin. Spray a large soup spoon with cooking spray, and scoop out some dough onto a lightly sprayed cookie sheet. There should be enough dough for 10 to 12 drop biscuits. Bake at 425 degree for about 12 minutes.

These biscuits, hot out of the oven, are much better than crackers. Clam lovers can add 2 cans of clams, but we find that one can is enough to give it good clam flavor without adding too much clam meat; which our kids are not too fond of. Vegetables may also be added to the chowder. We sometimes add a handful of our dehydrated carrots.

What does Stalking mean?

This morning we talked with Melissa Scaia from Advocates for Family Peace, Amanda Eason from Itasca County Alliance Against Sexual Assault and Laura, a victim of stalking.

January is National Stalking Awareness Month, and when they do things like that - create a month to talk more about an issue - it's a sign that we don't know enough about it.

Here's some startling facts:

1 in 12 women and 1 in 45 men will be stalked in their lives.

1.4 million people are stalked every year in the United States.

76% of the women killed by their partners were stalked by their partner before their deaths.


The definition of stalking:

Stalking is a pattern of repeated, unwanted attention, harassment and contact. It is a pattern of conduct that can include:

• Following the victim
• Appearing at the victim's home or place of work
• Making unwanted and frightening contact with the victim through phone, mail and/or email
• Harassing the victim through the Internet
• Making threats to harm the victim, the victim's children, relatives, friends or pets
• Sending the victim unwanted gifts
• Intimidating the victim
• Vandalizing the victim's property
• Securing personal information about the victim by accessing public records, hiring private investigators, using Internet search services, contacting friends, family, work or neighbors, or going through the victim's garbage.

There's lots of information online about how to know if you are being stalked, and also how you can help your local agencies and victims.

KAXE Volunteer Chad Brandt on Minnesota Bound

Blueberry Hills

Blueberry Hills & McCarthy Park are groomed weekly or as conditions dictate, & very good condition. Boomer

Making Sausage

by Scott Hall

Thursday mornings, at 7:20, Colleen Nardone (DFL) and Chuck Marohn (Rep) comment on issues and events about Minnesota politics.

I'm re-reading Betty Wilson's biography of Rudy Perpich to try to get a little perspective on these uncertain times. Rudy was elected governor in 1982 when the state and national economy was in bad shape. The DFL and Republican parties were in turmoil and changing leadership. Republicans were rising, Democrats sinking. During his years in political exile (1979-1982) Rudy worked in Europe for Control Data Corporation. When he returned to Minnesota he had a vision that anticipated a global economy and the importance of education (he wanted MN to become "the Brain Power State").

We are eager to hear your ideas and keep these Thursday morning conversations going. Add your comments here, send an e-mail to comments@kaxe.org, or call our TalkBack number, 999-9876.

Chuck is the President of the Community Growth Institute in Brainerd. He works with a lot of local governments on a variety of planning and zoning issues. Chuck writes a blog for his business web site. Check out one of his latest posts, "Is More Regulation Always The Answer"

This morning's All Things Equine

This morning KAXE volunteer extraordinaire Bobbie Kleffman talked with the Spirit Horse Center in Brainerd.

We got this email from Katie this morning:

My sister, who is a serious horsewoman, listens to "All Things Equine"via her computer in North Platte, Nebraska. She just called me and told me about the Spirit Horse Center, Inc. in Brainerd that was on the Morning Show today.

Kristi couldn't stop talking about what
great horsewomen they were and couldn't stop talking about the wonderful things they do with their horses. Kristi is incredibly serious about her horses and seemed really excited about this morning's show.

I'm going to take my daughter over to the Spirit Horse Center open house on
saturday!

see - people are definitely listening to our little station on the river
all over this great country!

Thanks for sharing Katie! We love to hear feedback on KAXE.... email us comments@kaxe.org.

Making Sausage - recount and budget edition

This morning Scott Hall talked with DFL-er Colleen Nardone and Rep. Chuck Marohn about current happenings in politics. He calls it Making Sausage. Ever wonder why the HECK Scott calls it that? Me too! I've asked him before, but all I could find online was this:

Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made.

Otto von Bismarck
German Prussian politician (1815 - 1898)

This week the conversation revolved around the two big issues facing Minnesotans, politically. Recount and State Budget. Here's what the folks had to say:

Recount
Colleen suggested that election law needed to be changed to prevent this mess again - runoff voting - maybe instant. She thought early voting could help some of what is happening between Norm Coleman and Al Franken right now. If you could vote earlier the absentee ballots could be counted earlier which would eliminate some of the problems. Change law to implement early voting - absentee ballots could be counted earlier - now they aren't counted until the end.... might eliminate some of the problems of absentee.

Chuck understood that there would be a push for some kind of change; probably instant runoff voting. Chuck thought that instant runoff voting wouldn't help the situation at hand that it's meant to deal with 3rd and 4th candidates. The margin of victory is so small. According to Chuck, it's not the mechanism of voting that is the problem - but the quality - a coin flip would be as good as what is happening...

Colleen - She didn't like that that candidates like Governor Tim Pawlenty and Sen. Norm Coleman and Al Franken are not winning by majority.... this came from instant run off voting - top of the ballot whether its us senate or governor - Tim Pawlenty has never had a majority of voters - need a mechanism where someone can "protest" the candidates but yet choose the least offensive to them as their official vote

Chuck doesn't think that election reform could change what happened - it's a statistical tie - and there is always a margin of error and that's a fact - only thing is completely different system and its not justified because this is unlikely to happen again, just like this.

Colleen said that early voting would cost somewhat more but not as much as the recount is costing us right now.

Chuck went on to say that early voting doesn't change Coleman's issues/battles right now with the recount -He believes that the call for reform is fine but it overlooks that we have 2 candidates with the same amount of votes - coin toss - we're not that accurate and we need to admit that -

Colleen said that there is actually a minnesota law with an exact tie coin toss.

Chuck said that this recount is like a game of 3 million card pickup - how many times are you going to count 3 million and get the same number twice?

Colleen added that the election judges are over 50 - late at night - dealing with all the issues - lot less likely to make mistakes if it had been counted the day before - if there were early voting -


Scott moved on to the issues of the Minnesota Legislature facing the budget crisis

Chuck wanted to say "Let the bloodbath begin" with the opening of legislative session. Chuck said that he is actually pretty optimistic about the budget - he felt the 2 parties have been pretty civil and everyone realizes we are in pretty deep here - there's going to be some partisanship ex. taxes, and some grounds have been staked out. But overall, Chuck was optimistic about tone and results will make sense at the end of the day. But he added, it's going to be brutal.

Colleen on the other hand, was not optimistic. She didn't think the parties were being civil at all and especially Governor Tim Pawlenty. Colleen's view is that he is doing as he always does - saying I'm governor and as long as you do what I say it's okay.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Help us continue this conversation - how would you tweak the election system? What would you do about the budget crisis if you were in the Legislature?

Tune in every Thursday morning at 7:20 for Making Sausage on KAXE with Colleen and Chuck!