Summary of Spring Days with the Moodys

[uber frau]

I'll tell you a secret. I love bean burritos. I would eat them every day but the Maxwell's recipe looks awful.

[16strong]

This recipe takes 2 days to make. 2 DAYS. Who the hell has that kind of time just to make BEAN BURRITOS? And let mixture cook all day, stirring FREQUENTLY???? WTFOMGARETHEYCRAZY?????

ETA: It takes 3 days to make, counting the bean soaking. You have GOT to be kidding me.

[Naga Viper]

4-5 pounds of onions? Surely that can't be right. Or else their breath is truly mephitic.

Steve, have you considered garlic, cumin, oregano...? I'll give them a pass on cilantro since that's a polarizing ingredient.

[Miggy]

Chapter 14. Doggy Drama

Anyone want to take bets on what the dog eats this time? We could have a Maxwell/Moody drinking game.

Max writes a letter to Aunt Olga for school. Mitch comes in - the new neighbours have dogs. The boys look out the window. There are two small dogs. They don't recognise the breed but think they need a bath. The dogs dig up Mr Delome's roses and chase a squirrel.

The next day Dad has left a note to say it's family fun night and Mollie and Mitch will make dinner. They disagree about what to cook so go to Mom who says bugger off and work it out yourself. Mitch works out a compromise. They apologise for having bad attitudes and being selfish. (Is it selfish to tell your little brother that muffins aren't dinner food?) The special dinner will be home made pizza and green bean casserole with muffins for dessert.

Boring paragraph about homeschool.

The dog catcher, Mr Gibson, comes to catch the new neighbours dogs. They are back to digging up rose bushes. Dad invites the Gibsons to family fun night.

[Miggy]

Chapter 15. Family Times

"Anticipation was in the air ..." Family fun night. Gibsons come over. Mitch is stunned that Mr Gibson eats a pepperoni slice off the pizza before they have sat down or prayed. Everyone prays. Mrs Gibson has brought her own food because she is on a diet. Apparently she is recovering from cancer. Melissa throws peas at Mr Gibson but Mom stops her. Mr Delome comes over unexpectedly and is invited to stay. He complains about the dogs digging up his roses and burns his mouth on pizza. Max, Mollie and Mitch are going to sing at Mr Delome's wedding. More discussion of wedding plans.

Bible time. (Prayer, reading the bible, singing but it takes Sarah 4 pages to describe but it includes teaching the recently saved Mr Gibson how to do it properly.)

Game: Bible Pictionary. It's a wild and exciting game!

"It had been a very special Family Fun Night!"

*There are spelling and grammar mistakes in some of these summaries because I am typing on an iPhone and battling a spell check that doesn't like American spelling. I have been very careful when quoting the book to make sure I use Sarah's spelling, punctuation and grammar.

[uber frau]

So is Mr Gibson 'saved' in that chapter or did that happen previously.

What's the 'saved ' count for the Moodys so far in this book? (How does that compare to the Maxwells IRL? )

[twin2]

It was a fanfic. The cake bit was a joke by Hane. However, the fact that we are all debating truth or joke is quite...scary. :character-jason: :zombie:

Sorry all, apparently I spend way to much time reading the Maxwell blog and am a far better mimic of Steve-O than I realized. That was a fake Moody chapter following up on Hane's fake chapter.

But yeah, let's face it, when they bake a cake, they probably do pray to Jesus about it....

[twin2]

Chapter 15. Family Times

"Anticipation was in the air ..." Family fun night. Gibsons come over. Mitch is stunned that Mr Gibson eats a pepperoni slice off the pizza before they have sat down or prayed. Everyone prays. Mrs Gibson has brought her own food because she is on a diet. Apparently she is recovering from cancer. Melissa throws peas at Mr Gibson but Mom stops her. Mr Delome comes over unexpectedly and is invited to stay. He complains about the dogs digging up his roses and burns his mouth on pizza. Max, Mollie and Mitch are going to sing at Mr Delome's wedding. More discussion of wedding plans.

Bible time. (Prayer, reading the bible, singing but it takes Sarah 4 pages to describe but it includes teaching the recently saved Mr Gibson how to do it properly.)

Game: Bible Pictionary. It's a wild and exciting game!

"It had been a very special Family Fun Night!"

*There are spelling and grammar mistakes in some of these summaries because I am typing on an iPhone and battling a spell check that doesn't like American spelling. I have been very careful when quoting the book to make sure I use Sarah's spelling, punctuation and grammar.

WOW they played a game for family fun night???? When I was growing up we would have done something like that on any given Saturday.

[twin2]

Hane wasn't far off: In the book Mollie makes muffins. They are suppose to be choc chip but she puts peanut butter in then blends them for too long and OH NO, the choc chips melt and now they are chocolate muffins. Mollie to explain to both Mum and Mitch why they are chocolate and not choc chip.

The boredom !!! It hurts !!!

[twin2]

4-5 pounds of onions? Surely that can't be right. Or else their breath is truly mephitic.

Steve, have you considered garlic, cumin, oregano...? I'll give them a pass on cilantro since that's a polarizing ingredient.

Spices are of the Devil. They temp our taste buds and the good feelings of yum, take away time from thinking of the Lord Jesus.

Cilantro is definitely of the Devil. That stuff taste like gnawing on a bar of ivory soap.

[Trynn]

3/4 cup of chili powder and a whole tablespoon of pepper?! Yikes! I'm quite sensitive to spicy food (tried to lessen that and it didn't work.) but even if I wasn't hose sound like some awfully hit burritos.

[djibouti]

How does it take these people 3 days to make bean burritos? I consider bean burritos to be a quick and easy meal to make. I take a can of refried beans, put them in a saucepan with some sliced onions, peppers and some taco seasoning, warm up some tortillas, and after maybe TEN minutes the filling's done. Wrap it up in a tortilla with cheese, sour cream, sliced avocado and lettuce and you have a 20 minute meal, tops. My kids love it and it's not a week long project for us! :think:

[ILoveJellybeans]

I made burritos a few days ago. They didn't take three days, it took less than half an hour!

[salex]

How does it take these people 3 days to make bean burritos? I consider bean burritos to be a quick and easy meal to make. I take a can of refried beans, put them in a saucepan with some sliced onions, peppers and some taco seasoning, warm up some tortillas, and after maybe TEN minutes the filling's done. Wrap it up in a tortilla with cheese, sour cream, sliced avocado and lettuce and you have a 20 minute meal, tops. My kids love it and it's not a week long project for us! :think:

What else do they have to do? 8 adults living in a basic house, no outside activities or job outside the house?

They what: Write A couple of short, mostly bible verse quotes, books a year. IT On ramp. A blog. Ship out book orders when they arrive or on a weekly basis. Maybe practice their vocal numbers.... Read the bible. Pray. Workout. And create makework stuff to fill the rest of their time.

They don't read novels, watch tv, listen to news/music. So, taking 3 days to make burritos is a way to spend some time. Everyone getting together to clean the ceiling fans is another. It reminds me of Lady Lydia's list of things that can be stretched to fill your time if you are thinking of getting a job because you are bored....

[ILoveJellybeans]

Yeah, true. The Maxwells don't do much.

They don't have friends, so they cant spend their time going places with friends, or texting or chatting online with friends. They don't have full access to the internet, so they cant spend time on Facebook, or playing online games, or looking at cat pictures, using forums or developing an interest in something completely weird (like cults). They don't watch TV, cant read most books and don't keep up with world news. Enjoying shopping for themselves would be too wasteful (and most clothes shops aren't modest enough). They don't listen to music and don't dance. They cant sit around doing nothing as that might make them lazy or give them time to think about things and come to different conclusions than Steve or realise their life is boring...

That's probably why they do chores that people only do once every few months way more regularly. They have nothing to do, so invent things to do.

[Jinger_Cat]

Sorry all, apparently I spend way to much time reading the Maxwell blog and am a far better mimic of Steve-O than I realized. That was a fake Moody chapter following up on Hane's fake chapter.

But yeah, let's face it, when they bake a cake, they probably do pray to Jesus about it....

That's hilarious! I thought it was an actual chapter from the book. :embarrassed: Probably because it totally seems like something the Maxwells would do.

[Hane]

About the bean burrito recipe: Remember, it starts out with ten cups of dried beans, which will cook up to approximately a metric butt-ton of cooked beans--hence the need for 4-5 pounds of onions and 3/4 c. of chili powder.

Naturally, starting out with dried beans will take much longer than using pre-cooked ones, but even I, who cook almost everything from scratch, find this recipe unnecessarily time-consuming.

And, even feeding eight adults? Wouldn't this result in a LOT left over--or do they freeze part of it for later?

[twin2]

About the bean burrito recipe: Remember, it starts out with ten cups of dried beans, which will cook up to approximately a metric butt-ton of cooked beans--hence the need for 4-5 pounds of onions and 3/4 c. of chili powder.

Naturally, starting out with dried beans will take much longer than using pre-cooked ones, but even I, who cook almost everything from scratch, find this recipe unnecessarily time-consuming.

And, even feeding eight adults? Wouldn't this result in a LOT left over--or do they freeze part of it for later?

Even thought they do eat bean burritos twice a week, I think they freeze it. It does make a lot, I remember seeing a pic of all the pots somewhere.

Never made refried beans (can't stand mushed beans) but I have made baked beans, and this just seem like an excessive amount of time.

ETA: found the post. does take 3 days, they start Thursday and cook through Saturday for Sunday burriots. (bonus: it is from back in the days of the fumpers!)

blog.titus2.com/2009/06/14/the-burrito-making-process/

[PennySycamore]

Why is Melissa throwing peas at Mr Gibson when they were having green bean casserole? And who has peas or GBC with their pizza?

[uber frau]

They freeze it in (surprisingly small, considering how many ppl they're feeding) containers and they make enough for months at any one time.

I agree that it's an inordinate amount of time to be spending making what is essentially bean slop, even if they include soaking and cooking dried beans. Never mind the fact that it could be made a whole lot tastier if they did a few basic things like frying the onions separately first and using a more balanced spice mix.

[FloraKitty35]

Spices are of the Devil. They temp our taste buds and the good feelings of yum, take away time from thinking of the Lord Jesus.

Cilantro is definitely of the Devil. That stuff taste like gnawing on a bar of ivory soap.

With that many onions the farts must be horrific. :ew:

[Joan of Snarc]

I will take one for the team and make this recipe -- well, half of this recipe -- some time this week. Five cups of dried beans shouldn't be too difficult to deal with. And that would be two pounds of onions -- that's like two giganto-size Vidalias. I can deal with that too. I'm curious about what all this overnight cooking does to the beans.

I bought the ten-pound bag of pintos from Sam's Club a couple years back after tornadoes ripped through our area and many died and the power was out for a week. It felt like the apocolypse and I felt the need to stock up once things returned to semi-normal. In spite of liking beans, I've never touched that 10-lb bag. At least I didn't buy the 50-lb bag. :embarrassed:

[16strong]

I will take one for the team and make this recipe -- well, half of this recipe -- some time this week. Five cups of dried beans shouldn't be too difficult to deal with. And that would be two pounds of onions -- that's like two giganto-size Vidalias. I can deal with that too. I'm curious about what all this overnight cooking does to the beans.

I bought the ten-pound bag of pintos from Sam's Club a couple years back after tornadoes ripped through our area and many died and the power was out for a week. It felt like the apocolypse and I felt the need to stock up once things returned to semi-normal. In spite of liking beans, I've never touched that 10-lb bag. At least I didn't buy the 50-lb bag. :embarrassed:

Would you mind taking photos of each step of the process and posting them here? I am curious about this recipe as well, but just don't want to spend the time it takes to make it (well, clearly, from my last post. :lol: ). In any case, let us know how it turns out, what it tastes like, etc.

[Jezebel]

See, in my world, there are other things to do--more interesting, productive, and/or satisfying things--than spend threee days making what amounts to fat-free refried beans. If I had to come up with bean burrito filling for 10 adults (including some to freeze) a visit to Cash and Carry, Costco, or Sam's Club for #10 cans of pinto beans would be in order. Are dried beans cheaper? Sure. But my time and labor is worth far more than the cost difference between the two. Pureeing cooked onions and jalapenos? That wouldn't even be worth bothering with. And hell yes, more spices! Cumin! Garlic! Oregano!

My one commonality with the Maxwells is taking large amounts of onions and jalapeno peppers outside to chop them (or run them through the food processor if it's really A LOT). Some aspects of cooking (fried chicken, falafel--anything deep- or skillet-fried, mass onion-chopping) are strictly outdoor activities here at Chez Jezebel. That way, I don't have to deal with a stinky, greasy kitchen, or clean cabinet doors or fan blades any more often than I absolutely have to, because once more, kids: I've got better things to do.

With that many onions the farts must be horrific.

My guess is that's why they cook the onions overnight--to break them down enough to minimize farting. I'll let onions gently cook for an hour or so while I'm doing other tasks, and it reduces gassiness a lot (at least for me). But overnight strikes me as overkill.

Now, if they used dried onions? That would be another story...:o Those things are downright deadly!

[Jinger_Cat]

I agree that it's an inordinate amount of time to be spending making what is essentially bean slop, even if they include soaking and cooking dried beans. Never mind the fact that it could be made a whole lot tastier if they did a few basic things like frying the onions separately first and using a more balanced spice mix.

This recipe is way overly complicated. It sounds like something that someone who doesn't know how to cook would make up. For example, "Friday night, after the beans have cooked, the onions and jalapenos as blended up to a fine puree, and then that mixture is cooked all night." So, they cook and puree the beans, then puree the peppers and onions separately, then put them all together too cook? It would be much easier to cook the beans, onions and peppers together, then drain the water and puree them all together. And the onions and peppers don't need to cook all night--they would get soft and start to break down while they're cooking with the beans. They also leave the pureed beans out over night before cooking them. "The mashed beans are put into a container and go in the fridge over night. We didn’t have room for all the beans to go in the fridge, so some had to go in pots in the oven." Why? Whywhywhy?????!!!!

Because I am apparently angrily obsessed with this, and because I have nothing to do on Sunday afternoon, I have revised the Maxwell Burrito Recipe to make some damn sense:

Ingredients:

28-30 cups uncooked pinto beans

2 1/2 c. chili powder

1 1/2 cup CUMIN

1/2 c. salt

1/4 c. pepper

14 lbs. onions

22 large jalapeños for fairly spicey

1. Sort and Rinse the beans. Soak the beans overnight.

2. Chop the onions and jalapenos.

3. Saute onions in vegetable oil with salt, pepper, chili powder, and CUMIN until onions are translucent and begin to soften.

4. Add jalapenos, beans, and fresh water. Bring to a boil, then simmer, covered, until the beans are fully cooked.

5. Drain water, then transfer the bean mixture to the blender in small batches, processing until smooth.

Aside from the soaking, this should take no more than 4 hours (at most), leaving the rest of your weekend free to dust ceiling fans and thank Jebus for your new cell phone case.

You're welcome.

edited for words