What’s new? December 6th addition

What’s new?  Here are a few peeks at what we’ve been up to this past week:


On my sewing machine:

I’m almost finished with this quilt top.  I was drawn to the modern colors and design, so with Momma’s help, I have almost pulled it together.  The picture above is actually just the blocks laid out on my bed.  It really is a big pile of Christmas tree blocks and courtyard squares that looks like this:



With the kids:
‘Tis the time for Christmas musicals!  C was an angel in the angelic hosts while his big sister donned a beard as Isaiah.  The kids were incredible under Mrs. Vee and Adrianne’s direction.


In the kitchen:

Christmas cookies! 


In the garden:
Our December harvest.  What?  You don’t have watermelons in your garden in December.  Well…
Actually, this was the last of the summer garden.  The frosts took care of the pumpkin and watermelon vines, so we’ve pulled those.  We are left with tomatoes (that are probably done), lettuces, cabbages, and broccoli.

Orange Dreamsicle Cookies

I finally put a little of that Pinterest inspiration to work.

There are just a few things that I can guarantee my entire family will eat. 

Orange Cream Popsicles are at the top of that list. 

So, of course, I pinned this recipe.

Not quite the same as a Flintstone’s Push Pop, but still delish!

You can find the link here:

Source: thegirlwhoateeverything.blogspot.com via Salinda on Pinterest

Red, White and Blue Cookies

Two tubes of glitter icing leads to oodles of creativity.

We had a wet afternoon to fill, so I baked sugar cookies and let my 2 and a friend have at them with the icing.

Don’t these look yummy!

I use Paula Deen’s Sugar Cookie recipe.

 

Decisions, decisions

What shall I make with my garden goodies? 

Pasta Primavera, Spaghetti Sauce, Zucchini Bread… 

Yummy!

 

With Christmas being over,

you might think that all the

cookie-baking and sugary sweets are gone at my house.

Think again!

It’s King Cake time.

Here’s my favorite recipe!

On the 12th day of Christmas

Some treats just don’t fit into an advent pocket. 

 

So…

Their Daddy gave them each a package of snowman window clings for this effort.

I don’t know, maybe I should have made them do it again,

because that effort seems kinda half-hearted.

We also made mini-cupcakes today.

By the way, the sprinkles didn’t fit in yesterday’s advent pocket either. 

So, she and I played a little game of Hangman.

She won.  And then she sprinkled cupcakes!

On the 11th day of Christmas

We baked sugar cookies!

 

I mixed, the kids cut and we all decorated.

And laughed.

 

 

Another use for those stinkin’ pears

In my desperation to use up more of those pears, I modified a carrot cake recipe and came up with this yummy breakfasty-type cake.  

 

Pear Cake

3 cups chopped, peeled pears (about 10 pears in my case)

2 cups sugar

2/3 cup veggie oil

3 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

2 14 cup all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/2 cup walnut pieces

NOTE:  Since I had it out anyway and since it was already dirty from chopping/shredding pears, I used my food processor to mix my batter.

Combine the sugar, oil, eggs, vanilla and pears.  Mix until the sugar dissolves (30ish seconds).  Add the flour, soda, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg and stir until blended.  Stir in nuts.  Pour the batter into a 9 x 13 x 2 baking pan and bake at 250degrees for 40 to 50 minutes.

A Pumpkin A Day…

It’s October!  So, it’s time to pull out the pumpkin pan…

and whip up some pumpkin loaves…

for the perfect teacher gift!

(I found the recipe at www.allrecipes.com.)  

Cakes!

A friend requested cupcakes for her wedding today. These are white cake and decorated with butter cream and fondant.

Happy Wedding Day Mim!

Ahoy! A Spring Wardrobe

Yes, I do remember that I promised this some time ago. And, without further ado, here is my wardrobe plan:
Not much to look at, is it? I have made a fancy wardrobe plan storyboard using Adobe, a rough wardrobe plan on notebook paper, a wardrobe with only the foggiest notion of a plan in my mind, and now I'm using this method!

I had 3 goals:

1. Stash only --fabric and patterns!
2. Must have more casual pieces than dress-up pieces
3. I would do my best to make each piece work with the piece I finished just before and just after it!

So, I sat down on the carpet surrounded by fabric swatches and patterns. And this was the outcome:

1. 4 casual tops,
2. 1 dressy top,
3. 1 shirt dress,
4. 1 knit dress,
5. 1 pair of jeans,
6. 1 pair of city shorts,
7. 1 pair linen casual pants,
8. 1 cute everyday pants,
9. 1 dressy skirt,
10. 1 navy blue pants suit and
11. a great purse!

I've finished the silver linen pants and it will probably take me another 3 months to finish the rest!

Some more January Sewing

Well, it's mid-way through the month and I decided to check the progress in my sewing basket:

1 UFO
PJ pants featuring a certain mouse for John, just because
Bedroom curtains
A belated Christmas shirt (hey Sarah, did I tell you I found the pattern finally?)
Ahoy! A Spring Wardrobe (reds, whites and blues)

Not, too bad. Plus, I've finished 2 orders, Will's quiet book, and 12 of those too-cute penny pockets.

As for that wardrobe: it's about 12 pieces and I know it will take longer than a month. In fact my first 10-piece SWAP took 2 months and both the 4-piece mini-SWAPS (mine & his) took a month. Look for the actual "Plan" part of my "Sewing With A Plan" in the next few days.

Our Christmas Traditions

What is your family's favorite Christmas tradition?

We have several, but here's a hint to one:

Yep, you guessed it. I'm in the kitchen ALOT, but at Christmas the baking and candy-making seems to turn up a notch!

Recently, I had the opportunity to share a little bit about our family's traditions with my new friend Karen. I sent her this cute apron, a new recipe book with a few of our favorite Christmas recipes, and some homemade marshmallows. Here's my marshmallow recipe. It's yummy!

• Prepare a 9 x 13 x 2 inch pan by lining it with aluminum foil and greasing the foil with Vegetable shortening.
• Put 1/2 cup cold water in the large bowl of your stand mixer.
• Sprinkle 3 envelopes (3 tbsp.) unflavored gelatin over the water and let it sit.
• Place 2 cups granulated sugar, 3/4 cup light corn syrup, 1/4 tsp salt, and 1/2 cup cold water in a 2 quart saucepan over med-low heat.
• Stir until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is boiling.
• Cover the pan for 3 minutes.
• Uncover and raise the temperature to high. Insert a candy thermometer and let the syrup cook until 240 degrees. Do not over cook.
• Remove from the heat.
• While your mixer is beating at medium speed, pour the syrup slowly into the gelatin mixture.
• After all the syrup is added, turn your mixer to high and beat for 10-15 minutes until the mixture is lukewarm, white and a whipped consistency. Add 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract towards the end of the beating. You will also need to scrape the bowl occasionally. (My big Kitchenaid doesn't take quite 10 minutes. Something less powerful--I don't know.)
• Pour the mixture into your prepared pan and smooth. (It is super sticky-so be prepared!)
• Let the marshmallow stand uncovered at room temp for about 12 hours. I usually leave mine overnight.
• Sift powdered sugar over your cutting surface.
• Invert your marshmallow over the sugar and remove the foil.
• Sift powdered sugar over the top of the marshmallow.
• Cut the marshmallow into 1 inch cubes using a long, sharp knife. It helps if you grease the knife first. After the first cut, keep the blade covered in powdered sugar.
• Roll each side of the marshmallow in powdered sugar to coat.
• Store these in an airtight container.

Enjoy!

What's for supper?

Have you ever tried the Grocery Game? Or maybe a free website like southernsavers.com ? If you haven't, these are websites that take all the coupons from the paper and the Internet and match them with local sale papers. The idea is that you clip, clip, clip (or print, print, print) and then use the most valuable coupons with the cheapest prices to literally slash your grocery bill. Then you stock up when you can buy items super cheap and over the course of 6-8 weeks, you aren't really shopping what you need but replenishing your stock. And, they do the matching for you--if you use the coupons from the Dallas paper (Grocery Game) or your Kroger matches theirs (Southern Savers).

Well, since I'm not driving to East Texas to pick up a paper and our Kroger has slightly different sales than theirs, I'm doing my own matching. It is kind of cool, but the question becomes: Do I need to buy 10 bags of Hershey's kisses, etc for $8.00 just because I can?

Anyway, I say all that to say this: This week, I spent $80 on $163.00 of groceries and toiletries. Not too bad. That breaks down to petite boneless sirloins for $2.50/pound, $1.00 for Herbal Essence Shampoo, 4 cans of evaporated milk for free, and $2.25 for a 12 pack of cokes. Pretty good, right?

However, since I only bought things that were on sale, the "same old thing" couldn't go back on the menu.

So I pulled out my trusty favorite: I guess I've had this since college. It is copyrighted 1991. I have notes written in the front cover and all over page 71. (Those cake flour to all-purpose flour conversions get me every time, but I've made the silver white cake too many times to count.) It appears I spilt something on the cheese chapter because the pages hiding our favorite quiche recipe are stuck together. So are the pages with the Au Gratin Potatoes. And the page with the color photos of the cuts of beef--well, half of it is missing. And Mom and Nita-the reason I cook my hard boiled eggs the way that I do--well, Betty Crocker told me to on page 169!

So tonight, I've got ground beef, frozen veggies, potato flakes in the cabinet, and plenty of cheese in the fridge. Sound like the makings for Shepard's Pie. (at least that's what I think it's called.) To the index I go...Oh Betty, you've let me down. I guess this is one recipe I'll have to find on line instead.

Muffin Tin Mondays

I stumbled across this wonderful idea: Muffin Tin Mondays .

I don't have any nice shiny muffin pans, so we just started with liners. Here's last Saturday's lunch: roast beef, American cheese, cranraisins and Cheerios.

My kids love lunchables and don't love sandwiches. But they ate this up. Literally.

What did I do last week?

Sunday...we picked pears ...and more pears

Monday... I taught sewing and thought about the pears.

Tuesday... I taught swimming and dreaded the pears.

Wednesday...we played with the Hortons and bought jars and sugar for the pears.

Thursday... I looked at the pears, weighed the pears (75 pounds) and began my assault on the pears.

Friday...I tackled a few more pears.

Saturday...we played with Charlie and I ignored the pears.

Sunday...I quit!!!! Yes, you do still see pears in the background (another 15 pounds or so).

75 Pounds of Pears = 12 quarts canned pears + 8 pints canned pears + 5 pints pear butter + 4 half-pints pear preserves + 1 pint pear preserves + 15 pounds left over pears

Charlie Browns

I love church cookbooks. When you can't find a favorite childhood recipe anywhere else, it will always be in a local church cookbook. And the smaller the church--the better the cookbook.


Someone brought Charlie Browns (a wonderful chocolate-peanut butter oatmeal no-bake cookie) to Grandma's on July 4. I have wanted them ever since. So, tonight I hunted up the recipe. It wasn't to be found in my tried-and-true Betty Crocker cookbook. It wasn't in the local junior league cookbooks. It wasn't even in my mom's church's cookbook. I finally found it in my grandmother's church cookbook. (This church might have 100 members, but they've got some great recipes.)

Here's the recipe for Charlie Browns (Thanks to Mrs. Rogers of Beulah Baptist Church.):

1 stick butter
1/2 cup milk
2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons cocoa
1/2 cup peanut butter
3 cups oatmeal
1 teaspoon vanilla

Bring butter, milk, sugar, and cocoa to a boil. Boil for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter, oatmeal, and vanilla. (At this point, I let it cool for a few minutes (7 or so). ) Scoop it out in tablespoons onto wax paper and allow to cool and harden.

Enjoy!

I'll try anything once...

Well, maybe not anything. But close. This time--I put up homemade grape juice!

We've lived in the same house since the beginning of 2000. When we bought the house, one of the descriptions (and certainly not the one that sold us on it) said, "Lots of Fruit Trees." What they meant--an apple tree, a pear tree, a plum tree, strawberry plants, a grape vine, and a black walnut tree.

Over the years, we've only gotten an apple or two a year because the squirrels beat us to them. Until last year, a neighbor harvested the pears. Last year, I claimed them and put up 11 quarts of pears. The strawberry plants and plum tree didn't make it. The black walnut tree continues to bring forth nuts in abundances. And the grapevine--well, herein lies my story.

The first few years, the grapevine produced plenty of lovely, tart, Concord grapes. But, I had no desire to make jelly, so I just let the birds and squirrels enjoy them. Last year, I noticed that the grapevine didn't look so hot. This year, when I looked at the little structure where the vines should I been, I didn't see a grapevine. (Okay, it's important to know that the grapevine is on the other side of our half-acre lot and I don't actually walk over there often.) Thus, I concluded that the grapevine died.

Imagine my surprise when the hubby walked in the house with a bucket full of grapes Sunday night! Here's the conversation:

Him: "I thought you might want to do something with these."
Me: "What are those?"
Him: "Grapes." (like I should have known)
Me: "From where?????"
Him: "Out front." (again, like I should have known)
Me: "That grapevine is dead. Where'd those come from?"
Him: "That grapevine isn't dead. There are tons of bunches of grapes out there." (Obviously, I should have known this.)
Me: "Where????"

So, he leads me outside and tells me to look up. Look up? Yes, the grapevine has snaked itself from the ground, up the fence into the mimosa tree above. And, you really can't see the vine from the driveway. And, yes, there were tons of grapes hanging above my head. My reply to him, "Well, are you going to pick the rest of them?"

So, I pulled out my trusty canning book (which I recommend to anyone thinking of canning) and got to work. Here's the short and sweet.

1. Wash the grapes.
2. Crush the grapes.
3. Add a little water.
4. Cook the grapes and water at 190 degrees for 10 minutes.
5. Strain juice. (Not as easy as it sounds and my hands have been red for 2 days!)
6. Let it sit overnight in the fridge to settle.
7. Ladle out the juice, leaving the sediment at the bottom.
8. Add sugar.
9. Heat to 190 degrees again.
10. Cool.
11. I added water to the concentrate until we liked the flavor.
12. Freeze.

Of course, it took a little longer than all this. In fact, it took at lot longer. About 4 hours! And the pay-off. 4 quarts of juice. Let's see that comes to 2 quarts in 2 hours, which at $5.85 an hour comes to $23.40 a gallon. And I thought gas was expensive!!!!

Yummy Potato Soup

Every once and a while you can throw things in a pot, turn on the the heat, and hope for the best--and get it!

Here's how we created our Yummy Potato Soup last night.

2 pounds baked potatoes (we had tiny Yukon golds that we scrubbed, poked, and microwaved)
1 can cream of chicken soup
milk
cheese
bacon
sour cream

Stir together the cream of chicken soup and 2 cans worth of milk over medium heat. Add peeled potatoes and stir/mash until the potatoes are the consistency you want. Heat thoroughly and you're done! We served ours with shredded cheddar, crumbled bacon and sour cream.

Ham for a Week!

Last Friday, I was so proud of myself. I was browsing the meat department at our local super store with the big red dot, when I found Christmas hams marked down. I scored a 10# ham for less than $5!!!!!!! These are the honey baked, spiral cut, gift giving type hams, you know the ones. Anyway, after confirm the expiration dates (mid-Feb), I grabbed one of those suckers and ran straight home. Here's our dinner menu from the past week:

Friday: Honey Baked Ham, Spiral Cut; Corn on the Cob; Green Beans; Texas Toast
Saturday: Ham Sandwiches; Pecan Pie; Coffee (My Daddy wanted Pie and Coffee)
Sunday: Ham Salad Picnic
Monday: No Ham Please
Tuesday: Mac & Cheese & Ham; Broccoli
Wednesday: Spinach and Ham Quiche
Thursday: 10 Bean Soup (seasoned with Ham)

That's a lot of eating on $5! Now, if only I'd bought 2!