Holidays are over, but I give you the last of my holiday’s food: Calamari in cream sauce.

The recipe is mom’s I have not seen anybody else do it. Everybody is either the batter and deep fry route or if Spanish, they go Garlic and Oil.

I am gonna give you a secret to help you with this dish: Buy already cleaned squid. Whole squid is annoying to clean and a pain in the ass to have the skin removed. We got a 3 pond box of frozen squid and ended up with probably under 2 pounds after cleaning and a case of rage.  I found the clean squid after I bought the regular one and I cried a little. Here is what’s supposed to look like all clean and purty.

Have a medium onion and half a red bell pepper finely chopped and ready to go.  The same for about 1/3 of a cup of parsley and 3 or 4 big basil leaves.

In a skillet set to medium-high heat, squirt a bit of olive oil. Remember, we are not deep frying here.

Once hot, add the drained calamari carefully.

The obligatory bay leaves (2):

Next is salt, oregano, granulated garlic (we were out of the fresh and the minced, my bad) and don’t forget to stir.

Next come paprika! I’d say for this amount of calamari, two heaping spoons will do nicely. It adds flavor and color to the overall mix.

Stir for a couple of minutes making sure all ingredients are evenly distributed.  And the next step is adding the onion and the red bell pepper.

If you notice in the photo above, there is a lot of liquid in the pan. That is the calamari “sweating’  and you will need to drain most of that liquid. Use your pasta strainer and put the calamari back in the pan with another good quirt of olive oil first.

At this time, reduce the temperature to medium or a bit under. Next comes something we all know it is important: Liquid replacement. We start with half a cup if tomato sauce (use the good stuff, no Prego crap) and half a cup of the wine of your choice for cooking (not pictured).

Again, stir all so you have a good mixture. Keep stirring for 2-3 minutes and then comes the green stuff: Parsley and basil.

And yes, stir again (stir intense recipe) till it looks good!

Taste for flavor and texture. Calamari should be or should be approaching consistency close to “al dente” but not quite.  Add salt if needed or any other condiment, but remember that a little will do.  Ste the heat to low, cover the pan and take about a 3-5 minute break.

And now, the finale: add 8 ounces of medium to heavy cream to the pan and yes! Stir again.

Keep stirring for another 3 to 5 minutes. If you don’t stir, you will burn the cream to the bottom of the pan (That is what mom said and I am just re-transmitting the info) Once it is all nice and even, remove from the stove.  You are done.

Serve over plain white rice. You will not need to season the rice other than add salt to it since the rice will absorb the sauce and you will get all the flavor you need. If you do not do rice, eat with a nice artisan bread with a lot of middle and a nice crust.

The real tint is a bit more pinkish because of the paprika, but it does not show well in this photo.

I expect some Texan I know will start thinking if he decides to take this particular challenge and serve this dish at certain get-together.

And you know, historically there are plenty of examples where her wish of eliminating a contrarian political party has been achieved. They usually involve the standing of a lot of people in front of walls, ditches or at the end of ropes.

I think my New Year Resolution (one of many) will be to buy a box of ammo every time one of these “celebrities” wishes us dead.

UPDATE: As stated in the comments over Facebook.

Orangy’s first appearance of 2019.

I love rescued animals. All but two of our pets in the las two and a half decades have been rescues and all have dies of old age with us.

But who were the dumb California legislators that thought it would be a good idea for pet stores to only sell rescue animals? This has to be some sort of scheme between the Lefties in the Legislature and their PETA buddies to bankrupt pet shops.

Why would anybody pay a couple of hundred bucks for a mutt they can get for a small fee at the local shelter? There is no way California legislators did not see this one coming and bankrupt stores do not place any animals in any home.

Now, if instead they would have come with maybe a tax break for stores that keep, let’s say up to half their animal stock from rescues to be sold at an affordable prices, you would have every pet shop in the state cleaning out the shelters and rescues finding homes. Instead they will introduced to the proper pet killing procedures and be part of a landfill or become ashes.

I know, stop laughing: A tax break for the little businessman in California?

Some people simply do not like self-Defense.

We know that the title is legally correct since the killing of a human being in self-defense is a justifiable homicide and thus belongs in the lists with other homicides. But the author, the newspaper and us also know that majority of people do not make a distinction between murder (the illegal taking of a human life) and homicides in general and will deduce that all killings are illegal or unjustified including self-defense. Or at least give Self Defense a patina of illegality or immorality.

Tom Knighton over Bearing Arms hits it right in the head on the political side.

In case you’re unable to see where it’s going with this, it’s blaming Stand Your Ground for the increased number of deaths.

This, however, is total male bovine excrement.

For one thing, each of those self-defense killings represents someone who was in fear for their life. That means there’s a good chance that most or all of those situations would have resulted in someone getting killed either way, possibly more than one someones. The fact that Kansas required people to try and retreat prior to 2007 doesn’t mean people would have been successful by any stretch. It actually could have led to more fatalities as people tried to get away in compliance with an arcane and evil law rather than use those precious seconds to defend themselves.

As we have seen in Florida, the hate for Stand Your Ground has no limits. We have seen newspapers fail to mention data collected by themselves but which gives SYG a positive light and to this day, they will not stop associating Stand Your Ground  with the acquittal George Zimmerman even though it had no bearing on the trial, specially when the trial itself proves that SYG was not used.

The appeal of eliminating Stand Your Ground is great. Most of the cases are open and shut: there is a victim and a suspect present with the weapon used also available. Lazy homicide investigators wet their pants for cases like this because if they can make it stick, it goes in the positive side under cases solved and the unit’s rate also goes up. Prosecutors have also the same incentive to pad the number of his triumphs with a case like this which they can determine to be a murder and it is already tied with a big red bow like it was a Christmas gift. And count it as a winning lotto ticket if it can be tied to some minority issue on an election cycle .

So, an article which was supposed to be a plain report on murders during 2018, became a political call to demand a discount on the lives of the citizens of Wichita as they step outside their homes.

Call me suspicious, but I don’t think there is nothing wrong with the fridge itself but with something left in the freezer.