Picture of the Day ~ Hoover Dam ~ Slow Cooker Shortcut Chicken and Dumplings ~ National Ice Cream Day

Good 51º clear sunny morning. 

Yesterday we topped at 101º.

Picture of the Day...... "F" word reason! 

Interesting about Hoover Dam .....

On July 7, 1930, construction of the Hoover Dam began outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. It was the largest dam of its time, as well as one of the largest man-made structures in the world. Here are five powerful facts you probably didn't know about the Hoover Dam...

It Once Was The Earth’s Tallest DamRising 726.4 feet, Hoover Dam was the world’s tallest dam when it was built in the 1930s. These days, it’s the second-tallest dam in the U.S., having been surpassed by the 770-foot-high Oroville Dam in Northern California in 1968. The globe’s tallest dam is the 1,001-foot-high Jinping-I Dam in Liangshan, Sichuan, China, which became operational in 2013.

It Contains Enough Concrete To Wrap Around The EarthImagine a four-foot-wide sidewalk wrapped completely around the Earth at the equator. That’s a lot of concrete! That’s how much concrete it took to build the Hoover Dam. It’s amazing when you think about it. The dam is 726 feet tall and 1,244 feet long. That’s almost a quarter of a mile. At its base, the dam is a whopping 660 feet thick. That’s longer than two football fields stretched end-to-end!  Additionally, the dam required about five million barrels of cement, nearly equaling the total quantity of cement utilized by the The Bureau of Reclamation in its previous 27 years of existence.

Building Hoover Dam Created An Entire CitySpeaking of places named Boulder, you may not know that Nevada’s Boulder City didn’t exist before the Hoover Dam project. In fact, the city was built in 1930 solely to house the 5,000 workers employed to build the dam. Boulder City was constructed on federal land and had no local mayor or other elected officials. Oddly enough, the entire city was managed by an employee of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. This person had the power to institute rules as he saw fit. Some of Boulder City’s early statutes even banned gambling and the consumption of alcohol. It wasn’t until 1960, thirty years after the city’s initial construction, that the federal government surrendered control, and Boulder City was officially incorporated.

As Many As 138 Workers Died During ConstructionHoover Dam was built between 1931 and 1936, and those five years were not without disaster. Reports from the construction site list 96 deaths due to accidents. In addition, 42 workers were reported to have died from illnesses while the dam was being built. However, today some historians believe that it was exposure to carbon monoxide in construction tunnels resulting in carbon monoxide poisoning, which actually caused these additional deaths.

The Nazis Plotted To Blow Up Hoover Dam During WWIIIn November 1939, U.S. officials learned of a Nazi plan to blow up Hoover Dam. Destroying Hoover Dam would have had the disastrous effect of cutting off critical electrical power to southern California’s airplane manufacturing industry. To combat further attempts on the dam, U.S. authorities imposed restrictions on boats allowed into Black Canyon and employees who worked at the dam. Following the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into World War II, Hoover Dam was closed to all visitors until the war ended in 1945.

From Mr. Food

Slow Cooker Shortcut Chicken and Dumplings....

Cure your comfort food cravings with our Shortcut Chicken 'n' Dumplings recipe! Thanks to shortcut ingredients, we can put together a creamy dinner full of savory chicken, veggies, and plump dumplings in hardly any time at all! It'll really hit the spot!

 

• 2 cups pulled rotisserie chicken
• 2 (10-3/4-ounce) cans condensed cream of chicken soup, undiluted
• 2 cups water
• 2 cups frozen mixed vegetables
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 (16.3-ounce) can refrigerated buttermilk biscuits, quartered (8 biscuits)

 

1. In a 4-quart or larger slow cooker, mix all ingredients except biscuits. Gently fold in biscuit pieces.
2. Cover and cook on LOW 4 hours or on HIGH 2 hours, or until biscuits are firm; serve immediately.

• What makes this recipe so easy is that we can take advantage of so many of our market shortcuts. The chicken is pre-cooked, the frozen veggies are farm-fresh, cleaned, and cut, and the refrigerated biscuit dough is ready to just add. 
   

 

Historically this date......

1963 – Joe Walker flies a North American X-15 to a record altitude of 106,010 meters (347,800 feet) on X-15 Flight 90. Exceeding an altitude of 100 km, this flight qualifies as a human spaceflight under international convention.

1964 – Vietnam War: at a rally in Saigon, South Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Khanh calls for expanding the war into North Vietnam.

1979 – The Sandinista rebels overthrow the government of the Somoza family in Nicaragua.

1981 – In a private meeting with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, French Prime Minister François Mitterrand reveals the existence of the Farewell Dossier, a collection of documents showing that the Soviets had been stealing American technological research and development.

And births this date include...

1814 – Samuel Colt, American inventor and industrialist, founded the Colt's Manufacturing Company (d. 1862)

1860 – Lizzie Borden, American accused murderer (d. 1927)

The poem, "Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41."

1941 – Vikki Carr, American singer and humanitarian

  

1962 – Anthony Edwards, American actor

All I know. Nuff said. Happy Sunday. Ciao.

xo Sue Mom Bobo

Dish or cone? That’s all we need to know. National Ice Cream Day on the 3rd Sunday in July offers up every flavor on the menu to honor the day! The holiday also lands in the middle of National Ice Cream Month.  

Thousands of years ago, people in the Persian Empire put snow in a bowl, poured concentrated grape-juice over it, and ate it as a treat. Even when the weather was hot, they would savor this sweet treat. Their trick? They placed snow in underground chambers known as yakchal where the temperatures kept the snow from melting. The Persians also hiked to the mountain tops by their summer capital to gather snowfall. 

The Chinese, under the Tang Dynasty around 697 AD, took to freezing dairy with salt and ice. However, the results aren’t exactly the ice cream we enjoy today. Frozen treats and beverages later, culinary folks point to Naples, Italy as the birthplace of the first ice cream. They give credit to Antonio Latini. He was born in 1642 and created a milk-based sorbet.

In the United States, the Quaker colonists earn the nod for bringing their ice recipes over with them. They opened the first ice cream shops, including shops in New York and other cities during the colonial era.

U.S. Ice Cream Facts

• Ben Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson enjoyed ice cream.
• 1813 -First Lady Dolley Madison served ice cream at the Inaugural Ball.
• 1832 – African American confectioner, Augustus Jackson, created multiple ice cream recipes as well as a superior technique to manufacture ice cream.
• 1843 – Philadelphian, Nancy Johnson, received the first U.S. patent for a small-scale hand-cranked ice cream freezer.
• 1920 – Harry Burt puts the first ice cream trucks on the streets.

An astonishing fact regarding Thomas Jefferson – his recipe for Old Fashioned Vanilla Ice Cream is believed to be the oldest recipe for ice cream in the USA. The recipe below is provided by the Library of Congress.  The transcript is word for word for ease of following along.

Thomas Jefferson’s Old Fashioned Vanilla Ice Cream Recipe

The Original Thomas Jefferson Ice Cream Recipe

Ice cream.

2 bottles of good cream.
6 yolks of eggs.
1/2 lb. sugar
mix the yolks & sugarput the cream on a fire in a casse
-role, first putting in a stick of Vanilla.
when near boiling take it off &pour it gently into the mixtureof eggs & sugar.
stir it well.put it on the fire again stirring
it thoroughly with a spoon to
prevent it’s sticking to the casse--role.
when near boiling take it off and
strain it thro’ a towel.

put it in the Sabottiere
then set it in ice an hour before
it is to be served. put into the
ice a handful of salt.
put ice all around the Sabottiere
i.e. a layer of ice a layer of salt
for three layers.

put salt on the coverlid of the
Sabotiere & cover the whole with ice.
leave it still half a quarter of an hour.
then turn the Sabottiere in the
ice 10 minutes
open it to loosen with a spatula
the ice from the inner sides of
the Sabotiere.
shut it & replace it in the ice.
open it from time to time to de-
-tach the ice from the sides.

when well taken (prise) stir it
well with the Spatula.
put it in moulds, justling it
well down on the knee.
then put the mould into the same bucket of ice.
leave it there to the moment of serving it.
to withdraw it, immerse the
mould in warm water,
turning it well till it
will come out & turn it
into a plate.

 

NATIONAL ICE CREAM DAY HISTORY

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed July as National Ice Cream Month and established National Ice Cream Day as the third Sunday in July.