Holiday baking

I've made six kinds of Christmas cookies so far. The biggest success at work was "Blind Dates" from the Farm Journal Country Cookbook. I'd post a photo but they are all gone!

I also made chocolate macaroons, coconut/cherry drops, Spritz cookies (with Irish creme flavoring) chocolate walnut balls, gingersnaps. I made some peanut brittle. I still need to make the 7-layer cookies, lemon bars, peanut blossoms, and maybe some rock candy. If I get really ambitious I'll make some fudge. I don't think I'll be doing iced cookies this year, I need to cut back a little bit!

One thing I have been doing over the years is recording the recipes that everyone likes and are traditional for our family Christmas in a special "blank" book I keep with my cookbooks. So far I've only put the cookie recipes in, but I really should put in the recipes for turkey and stuffing, green bean casserole, and the corn casseroles. Who knows if my grandkids will want to share my recipes with their wives some day?

I'm working on the menu for Christmas day. We're having my kids, the grandkids, and Ed's brother over. Since Ed and his brother grew up making sauerkraut pieroghies on Christmas day, it's kind of a tradition, and we might do that. Along with the pieroghies we'll have:

pieroghies
ham
corn casserole
green bean casserole
mashed potatoes
cranberry jello salad
deviled eggs
relish tray
pecan pie
apple or cherry pie?
mixed nuts

Pieroghie recipe as I was given it:

2X2 lb bags
Boil the sauerkaurt 30 min, bag only
3 cups plus 6 heaping tablespoons flour
1.25 cup of water
2 tablespoons milk
2 eggs

Onions dice and brown with 1 stick of butter

I think what this means is:

Prepare sauerkraut filling: rinse, drain, and saute 2 bags of sauerkraut (do not use kind in cans or glass jars)

While the sauerkraut is heating, put a stock pot on the stove with water (for boiling the pieroghies later) and turn up the heat, then prepare the dough:
mix 1 1/4 cups of water, 2 tablespoons of milk, and 2 eggs into 3 cups of flour. Add flour by heaping tablespoon (about 6) until dough ball is slightly shiny and stretchy. Roll out 1/2 of dough at a time on pastry cloth (my mother-in-law uses a Tupperware plastic sheet) until it is very thin, should be about 14 x 18 inch rectangle. Cut the dough in squares approximately 3-4" with a floured knife. Put about a teaspoon of sauerkraut into the center of each square, (try not to dampen the edges with the juice as it will make the pieroghie difficult to seal), and fold up the squares diagonally into a triangle. Pinch the edges shut. If they don't seal, use a little plain water to dampen the edge.

When all the pieroghies have been made, carefully lower them into the boiling water. They will float when they are ready. Don't overload the pot with too many at a time, or they will stick together and be a mess.

Prepare the onions: Melt 1 stick of butter (1/4 pound) in a frying pan and slice in a couple of yellow onions in 1/2 inch slices. Brown the onions until they are just past translucent and starting to carmelize.

Remove the pieroghies from boiling water to serving platter. Toss with browned onions. Serve with sour cream.

(Hope I got this right!)

Counting down to Christmas

There are only a few days left and we are busy trying to get those last-minute presents in the mail or FEDEX before the deadline. Also trying to get the baking done. Here's a recipe for no-fail pie crust - easy as pie! for your holiday pleasure:

Easy as Pie Pie crust recipe

1 c. butter (room temperature)
1/2 c. lard (room temperature)
3 c. flour
1 egg
1 t. vinegar
5 T. ice cold water
1 t. salt

Using pastry blender cut shortening, flour and salt together until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal (I don't know what coarse cornmeal looks like but that's what all the rest of the recipes say!!!LOL) Do NOT use food processor as this will result in too much blending. Mix liquids together and add a little at a time. Use a fork to mix but do not overmix, just enough so that crust starts to hold together. Let crust rest while you prepare pie fillings, or give the baby a bottle.or wrap a present.. this lets the liquids disperse into the crust. Roll out just enough dough at one time to fit in the palm of your hands - about the size of a baseball. Roll out on pastry cloth dusted with flour (Don't use plastic sheet, crust will stick) when it is just large enough to cover the bottom and sides of your pie plate (turn the plate over, and cut out an inch or so around the outside) then gently bring the far side of the crust toward you, folding it in half, then in half again. Lift into pie plate and unfold (don't worry if it cracks, you can pinch the broken places together. Roll out the top crust in the same manner, just slightly smaller than the first, fill the pie, then pinch the edges together. Cut slits for steam vents. I like to brush the top with a little milk and sprinkle some granulated sugar on it before baking.... Or sometimes I add a little sugar to the crust, and sometimes I substitute part whole wheat flour or bread flour, whatever I have on hand - it is fun to experiment.

Not a diabetic cake

If anyone ever comes up with a recipe for a diabetic birthday cake, I think it would sell. The only ones that can eat cake, and still enjoy it, knowing what all the sugar does to our bodies, are under 18!

We had a birthday party last night at Chuck E. Cheese's pizza palace for my 4-year-old grandson. He's the one in front. The little one to the left is my other grandson. He was a little overwhelmed by all the noise and confusion. So was I. Everytime the car next to our table went beep-beep-beep, I thought it was my pager and jumped a mile.

Goodbye convenience foods?

I realized yesterday (after stepmom pointed it out) that frozen chicken breasts are very high in sodium due to being injected in a broth/salt solution. This does not work for either my dad or my stepmom. They will need to eat fresh chicken, not packaged frozen chicken breasts. It is a little overwhelming for stepmom because she is not so steady on her feet anymore.

Tonight I went to the grocery and saw that fresh chicken breasts were approximately $2.00 per breast - a package of 5 averaged between $9 and $10, depending on weight.

I elected to purchase two whole chickens for total of about $7.00. I get 4 breasts (small though they be) as well as 4 legs and thighs for another meal or two, plus two whole carcasses for soup and broth making.

Health Foods and diet

I've been learning a lot about dietary guidelines for elderly people in the last week. My stepmom is on a renal (pre-dialysis) diabetic diet, and dad will have to follow a Coumadin-sensitive diabetic diet.

I have always thought that fresh fruits and vegetables were healthy for everyone, but evidently that's not always true.

The list of fruits and vegetables and other foods they have in common that they are both allowed to eat is short.

He needs whole-grains, she needs refined flours. She can't have tomatoes, he can't have lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, mustard greens, turnips, spinach, etc. (going to make it hard to make a salad)

At least they can both eat green beans.

Interruption

I've been away from the blog world for a little while.

A few weeks ago my father started having a lot of back pain and required a lot of extra help, so I didn't have much time to get on the computer and check my email or even update my blogs.

I thought a few hours a week was a lot of time, little did I know. Monday my sister called 911 because my dad wouldn't let my stepmom call, but in my sister's judgement, he needed to go.
Turns out she was right. The paramedics said he almost died in the ambulance. He was transferred from our local hospital to Columbus. We've been at the hospital all week. He had blockages in 3 of his arteries, one 99% blocked. His lungs were filled with fluid. He was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. The doctors inserted three stents, and did another test to see if he needed a defibrillator. It turns out he doesn't need it. (whew!) Yesterday they moved him out of intensive care and into the regular hospital, so I'm stealing a few minutes to get my laptop out of the car and hook up to the hospital's wireless internet connection.

My stepmom is 83 and this has been pretty hard on her. She's diabetic, she didn't want to eat at first at all and we had to coax her to take care of herself. She can't walk more than a few feet at a time, so we've had to have at least two additional family members at the hospital at all times to manage her and her wheelchair and still communicate with the nursing and medical staff - stepmom is also hard of hearing so we have to repeat and explain everything to her. I don't know how smaller families handle a situation like this. I know at times I've been stretched to the breaking point, and I've got support from sisters and brother.

It's all been a blur. Tomorrow morning it will be a week but it feels like we've been here much longer than that. I was planning to have Tuesday and Wednesday off anyway due to the holiday, so I only missed 1/2 day of work, although I'll be off Monday and Tuesday at least until he is released and settled in at home. We ate Thanksgiving dinner in the hospital cafeteria. We all figured we have a lot to be thankful for. The hospital has been just great at providing help for the family members as well as excellent care for my dad.

So, if anyone was expecting something from me or looking for me, that's where I've been. I have 390 emails I just downloaded and haven't had a chance to look at yet, please be patient with me, I will get to them eventually.

Killing frosts

We've had a few killing frosts this week, all the impatiens in the flower bed are dead, and the lettuce in the garden is ruined, although the beets are still alive. Today I will be taking up the last of the mulch blanket out of the garden and putting it away in the garage. I have a few tulip bulbs to plant, have to get them in the ground before it freezes.

There are several stables around here that have signs "Free Horse Manure" - I'd love to get a load of it to put in my compost pile, but don't have a way to haul it except to put it in a big garbage can and load in the back of my Aztek. hmmmmm......

Hayride

There is nothing more delightful than taking an almost four-year-old grandchild on his first hayride, especially when it has a slightly scary stop in the cemetary just after twilight, and lots of kids from 4 to 18 riding along, singing songs, and tossing straw off the side of the wagon. After the first 10 minutes he leaned back, looked at the sky, and said, "This is way fun!"

My thoughts exactly.

Barns falling down

I drove to Columbus today for a dental appointment with a specialist. I went the back roads for about half the trip, and for some reason today I noticed so many of the barns that are falling down along the roadside. Roofs are caved in, rusty, or blown off, paint faded or entirely gone, siding is missing, walls leaning crazily. Some appeared to be empty but others had "stuff" in them.

By comparison I noticed a number of the Amish barns, which were either new contstruction, or well-maintained and painted white with green roofs. You can tell the Amish farms a few different ways - by the buggies parked in front; by the lack of TV antennas or satellite dishes or electrical lines running to the house, or by the typical clothing hung on the wash line.

I also noticed there aren't many new "bank" style barns, many of the newer barns were metal with peaked roof construction, not the old-fashioned gambrel style roof.

It would be an interesting project to photograph the old barns and find out some of their history, if the owners were willing.

While in Columbus I stopped an visited a bit with my sister. Always love to see her and my brother-in-law, and their two beautiful bouncing baby boys!

Farmer's Market

I stopped at the post office in Bellville this morning to send a package, and noticed the farmer's market was still going! There were only about 6 vendors today, but I managed to buy something from everyone except the coffee roasters (I have so much coffee on hand already, or I probably would have.) I got homemade organic whole wheat bread, Amish-made doughnuts, green beans, red and green peppers, sweet corn, and a pumpkin.

The red peppers were quite a bargain - they were 10 for a dollar! They add so much to a meal to just slice even half a pepper into the vegetable, or to use it for seasoning, or even just for color.

The bread lady told me they are planning to be open for two more weeks as long as the weather holds. I am so excited!

Apples

We finally made it to the farm this weekend. 20 acres of apple trees and we harvested less than a bushel.

Most of the Golden Delicious had already dropped off the trees. There were a few Jonathons but they were so small and wormy they weren't worth picking. We totally missed the pears. Most of the ones we did pick were Northern Spies, and they were a little past their prime.

Oh well the deer will eat well this winter.

And a cold rain's gonna fall

It's raining, cold, and the weather matches my mood. I've had an ear infection for several days now and it is quite painful. I went to the doctor today and got some antibiotic drops. I feel like huddling under the covers - "make the world go away". Definitely not a day for going out and planting tulip bulbs, which needs to be done, along with cleaning up the final debris in the garden and pulling up the trellis, stakes and mulch.

On the bright side, the rain should help my fall lettuce crop along. I'm still getting the occasional zucchini and a few lingering tomatoes out of the garden. The deer have been invading and have munched the tops of the asparagus plants. I picked some rhubarb yesterday, and was chastised by DH, who said you can't pick rhubarb after July. Who says? I can if I want to!

Contest Winner

Country in the burbs wins the wallpaper border! All the comments were so relevant, and so right on, that I couldn't pick by the merits of the comment. So I printed the comments, cut up the paper, folded them up, put them in a bowl, and had DH draw one out.

Thanks everyone for participating. My own secret to apple pie? DH says it is the lard in the crust, I say it is the vanilla, cinnamon, butter and nutmeg in the filling. And I have to agree with those who say it is the care and the love with which it is made that makes it go over the top!

Contest: Apple pie border!

We have had a string of several weeks of near-perfect weather here - crisp, warm, sunny, dry days, and cooler evenings. The apples are going to be ripe soon and I am looking forward to a weekend trip to our farm to collect bushels and bushels of apples.

I am feeling generous, and to celebrate the beginning of apple pie season, I am hosting a contest, the prize being two strips of wallpaper border, totalling 10 yards, in Chesapeake pattern FAM24501B. I had originally ordered it for my kitchen but since I have a very "busy" kitchen with 6 spice racks and lots of canisters, we finally elected NOT to put it up. It is still in the original package.

What do you think is the most important ingredient in apple pie? You might identify the variety of apples used, the special way you make the crust, or the proportion of spices, or anything else that makes your pie "special".

I will select from the comments attached to this post to award the winner on September 30.

End of the garden chicken soup

One day a few summers ago, I went outside to tell DH that dinner was ready, and that he should wash the grease and oil off his hands from playing in the garage and come in to dinner. He wasn't there! The neighbor lady's mother-in-law was standing outside, and I started chatting with her. She said "He'll come home when he gets hungry," and sure enough, he did! Since then it has been a standing joke at our house.

Today he's working on another neighbor's truck. I hope he gets hungry soon, as the chicken soup has been cooking in the crock pot and it smells really, really good.

End of the garden chicken soup

1 quart chicken stock
1 chicken breast, cubed
1 onion, diced, or 1/3 cup sliced green onions
1/2 to 1 tomato, chopped
1 rib celery, chopped
2 carrots, scraped and chopped
1/2 green pepper, chopped fine
1 small red pepper, chopped fine
1/2 zucchini, chopped into small pieces
1/2 tsp garlic granules or 1 clove garlic, smashed
pinch saffron threads (may substitute 1/2 tsp. turmeric)
1 cup cooked noodles (may substitute rice)
Salt and pepper to taste

put all ingredients except cooked noodles in crock pot - on high for 4 hours or low for 6-8 hours. 1/2 hour before serving (if your husband is home, and you know where he is!) add the noodles and stir.

If you have green beans or peas or potatoes, they all make a good addition to this soup.

Serve with homemade bread or sandwiches on sourdough.

Back to School

Tina from Gardengoose.blogspot.com asked the question, "what do you like most about the fall season?" so I answered, fall is a time for new beginnings. The mental picture that symbolizes this for me is the rosy-cheeked little children waiting for the school bus, carrying lunch pails and wearing new hand-knit sweaters, under the green and gold leaves on the trees. Or something like that. Wouldn't you know that by leaving that comment, I jinxed myself? I had to wait for four different school buses to pick up children on my way to work yesterday!

Nothing gold can stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
- Robert Frost

For some reason Robert Frost's poem has been echoing through my mind today. A couple of people at work are moving on to more exciting career opportunities, and a few have decided to take the ERO. So my workplace will not be the same, even if I decide to stay. The poem really captures that cosmic truth - nothing ever stays the same, or as some less eloquent souls have put it, "when you stop growing, you die."

If this is such a universal truth, how come people are so resistant to change, and cling to the known and experienced so tightly?

Choices

I've been in a state of confusion for the last few days. My company has offered me (and 12,000 other people) an early retirement offer.

Taking the offer would mean more time to garden, to go to the farmer's market, to knit, to make knitting patterns, to take the Master Gardener's program, to learn more about apple orchards, possibly to raise the Angora goats and rabbits and chickens that have always been lurking back in the back of my mind.....

But it would definitely mean a significantly reduced income. They've offered a lot of choices, from taking payouts of my pension fund immediately, to deferring it until age 65. If I took it immediately, it would probably run out way before my Social Security kicks in, if it ever does.

I really hadn't planned on retiring before age 55 at the earliest. So this has really thrown me a loop. So tantalizing!

Farm Subsidies

I just visited the Environmental Working Group farm subsidy database (linking from the NO NAIS link, below right, and clicking my way through various links). Out of curiosity, I clicked Ohio, to see which farmers got the highest subsidies from 1995-2005. I was a little surprised to see a local farm family high on the list. They received over $4 million in subsidies over the 10-year period.

I pulled up a map to see where their farm is, exactly. That gave me QUITE a shock, as it is just around the corner, less than a mile away, from the farm where my grandmother grew up.

For all I know they are currently farming that acreage!

...and his lovely wife

I've been reading Connie Schultz's book about her campaign adventures with her husband, Sherrod Brown. I felt a kinship with Connie. Like her, I was a divorced single mother for many years, who remarried in her mid-forties to the love of her life. I'm a member of the United Church of Christ. She's close to my age. She's a feminist who believes that women ought to have choices, even a choice to stay at home. So am I. I'm a Democrat, and I voted for Senator Brown. We're both Ohioans.

There are a few differences between us, though. I will never be a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist. I will never be a politician's wife, although I sympathize with the anonymity she discovered once they hit the campaign trail.

I found her book very enlightening, entertaining, and touching. Stories about her mother and father and how they shaped her life were sprinkled throughout the book, and she talked about the values they helped develop and that she shares with Senator Brown.

I took exception to one paragraph in the book, though. She was discussing her childhood in Ashtabula, Ohio. She said "Small towns seem to grow two kinds of kids: those who can't imagine leaving, and those who can't imagine staying. I was the latter...It was the land of limitations to me, the place where the big dreams of childhood were crushed under the weight of grow-up life. As in most small towns, many of the kids in my high school were afraid to leave. I was afraid not to. "

Ms. Shultz missed a third kind of kid - kids like me. Kids like Dorothy Gale, who dreamed of travelling over the rainbow, and actually did it. They went to Oz, had a lot of adventures, and made new friends along the way. The whole time though, they knew: There's no place like home. That's what happened to me - I've lived in Manhattan, I've lived in Spain, I've lived in Detroit. I was successful in those places, and made lots of friends. One thing I learned, people are pretty much the same all over, and it's the people you meet and the people you seek out that make a big difference in your life. But there's no place like home. Home is where my family is, and home is where my traditions are.

(It might help to sing a few bars now of Buffy St. Marie's I'm gonna be a country girl again...)

I've wandered in the hearts of men looking for the sign
But here I might learn happiness, I might learn peace of mind
The one who taught my lessons was the soft winds through the pine
And I'm gonna be a country girl again

Oh yes I'm gonna be a country girl again
With an old brown dog and a big front porch
And rabbits in a pen
I tell you, all the lights on Broadway
Don't amount to an acre of green,
And I'm gonna be a country girl again


I know people like Ms. Schultz - most of my friends from high school are now all over the globe. They're scattered to Kentucky, Maine, Texas, California, Venezuela, and Japan. I have a close relative in Florida who took off for Puerto Rico while in her twenties and won't come back, even though it might be to her advantage. My own sister has travelled from Texas to California to Detroit to Pennsylvania to New Mexico. At least she's come back to Ohio, albeit it's Columbus.

I also know people like the other ones she described - those who never left home, maybe because of fear. I remember one friend from an even smaller town telling me - "at least you got out. I'll never get out." She was referring to the fact that I had moved 7 miles away! I can't imagine what she thought was trapping her in her small town. Money? The rents aren't all that different. Family? I don't know all the circumstances, but I can't imagine that her family was keeping her from moving to the next town.

I have lamented the "brain drain" out of this part of Ohio for a long time - since I realized my friends weren't coming back. There aren't enough career-enhancing jobs here to keep our best and brightest here. Even now, when we look for potential employees at work, we have to advertise in Cleveland, Columbus, and Toledo and further afield to get candidates. The available qualified people have left town. The ones who are working here are afraid to take big risky career moves, just because of the lack of other opportunities here. We have great quality of life here, and the cost of living is one of the lowest in the US. We have no traffic jams, and we're just a smidge over an hour away from cultural opportunities in Columbus and Cleveland. (I spent an hour and a half commuting every single day when I lived in Manhattan...) So it's mostly the career opportunities.

So, Sherrod, I hope you are working on improving the employment opportunities here in North Central Ohio for our best and brightest kids! I hope you are working on improving the education of those kids so they can succeed here when we do get those jobs back. I know you're working on it - I googled this quote from the American Chronicle:

Even Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said that in his state, which struggles with high unemployment, business owners have told him "they just could not find the engineers or computer scientists they needed to run their business." Of course their answer appears to be: "Just put a Want Ad in the New Delhi Times"and we'll get plenty of response."