Being Real
......come into my kitchen

I was going to wait to post pictures of my kitchen until everything was finished but then that goes against what I have said when I first started blogging. Will it encourage you more to see my kitchen "all dressed up for company" or as it is now, as it progresses through all the problems we have been having? I know I feel more comfortable when people are real and I can see their human frailties.
So, here goes........kitchen in progress.....

The first picture is our son-in-law hooking up the wiring for the oven and my husband, steadying the oven on the saw horses, giving advice, holding tools and shining some light in the dark oven hole. This is after they lugged the few hundred pound oven in from the bed of the truck, up several stone and wood steps and into the living room where they sat it on the floor. Sorry, no pictures of that. I was praying really hard and moving things out of the way at that time. The first clue I had that they were in the house were the manly grunts as the two of them carried the thing! Once it was on the floor I pulled tape off inside and outside of the oven and took out some of the things packed in it, while the guys figured out some wiring problems and called a few people. I was, at this point, getting pretty excited and thanking the Lord that neither of them (or the oven) were hurt!

The men regretted having put the oven on the floor when they realized how hard it was going to be to pick it up off the carpet! They sort of jacked it up by putting wood under it so it was at a better height to get their hands under and lift it while bent over. More prayers. More grunts. Quicker trip.

The oven and the men made it safely to the saw horses in the kitchen in front of the oven hole. It did not take long and the oven was installed, the breaker switched back on and everything seemed to work.

But neither did  it take long for them to discover that the oven would not fit into the hole! The cabinet was not deep enough.

The second picture is taken from the side showing how short it is from fitting all the way into the hole and the space on top.

The last picture shows the oven from the front. And in both pictures you can see the residue from the tape that was used to protect the finish on the stove.

It is usable as is, once we get the sticky, gray stuff off the stainless steel part. So, it is workable and beautiful even though it looks bad sticking out like it does.

My kitchen is very small. It became even smaller with the addition of the wall oven since it is sticking out. The rest of the kitchen became smaller also when precious floor space was used up when the needed shelf unit for the pantry items that were in our oven hole for a quarter of a century was set up.

I think it will be cute once all the problems get worked out. Still small, but cute!

I am disappointed that it all did not go well. I was discouraged that it has taken so long and yet still is not finished. I shudder to think about how long it could take until everything looks nice, as I picture it.

Certainly there are lessons to be learned from this minor trial.

I am reminded of the saying about being patient with each other because God is not done with us yet.  And we are not done with our kitchen yet. We are not shiny and perfect----and neither is our kitchen. But it is workable and that needs to be the focus. We are thankful for it despite the problems.

While I was trying to remove the gooey tape residue last night and again this morning I reflected on our human condition. I thought about how hard it is to remove the residue of the things that we think hold us together. The difficulty of removing from our minds what a godless society has taught us.  How our pretensions, the images we portray, what we do so that others will think well of us, are hard to rub off. It can be scary to be transparent, honest with each other. Not that I believe you have to give your whole life story to everyone or even every believer. But we certainly are to be more real with each other---imperfections and all. We need to learn how not to provoke others to covetousness or jealousy just as much as we need to guard ourselves from those things.

Just as we are to be real with other believers we ought to be even more transparent with God. I have always thought it was silly to not be totally honest with the Lord. He knows us better than we know ourselves, we cannot possibly hide from our Creator.  To try is foolishness. It is futile.

Since Adam fell and he and Eve tried to hide from God it has been the tendency of humans to do the same.
We are like little children who believe that because they put a blanket over their heads no one can see them. They can see no one, so no one must be able to see them. But God always sees us.

Seek God, read His Word, pray to the only One who can answer prayer. Keep Him always in your sight. He always sees you, make sure you always "see" Him.

Goodnight!
Kathi~

The Last and  Next Leftover Threads
......Monday to Monday

Last Monday, I started a new leftover thread with soup. I cleaned out the refrigerator and freezer of many things that needed to be used and small packets of leftovers I had frozen. Because of what I had on hand the  soup ended up being spicy which influenced what I chose to do with it the rest of the week.

Tuesday we ate re-created leftover chicken soup whirled in a blender to which was added black beans and some chili powder. This was accompanied by the last of the frozen chicken I had taken off the whole chicken I had used previously for soup. I looked up my favorite recipe from our natural foods store, Lemon Basil Chicken Salad. I did not have fresh or frozen basil so used dry basil and I didn't have candied walnuts so just put in raw cashews instead. I toasted Costco's organic seed bread and used the chicken salad on that for sandwiches. To accompany the mugs of soup and the sandwiches, I made a creamy broccoli salad (many recipes online) using up the last two already-cooked and crumbled pieces of bacon, our last two tiny red onions from our garden, almonds instead of sunflower seeds and raisins (one last box of raisins left over from filling the 11 grandchildren's Christmas stockings) instead of dried cranberries.

Wednesday I served a dish I made using the leftovers from Tuesday's soup and some things left from the meatloaf meal thread that were in the freezer---meatloaf and cooked rice. I thickened the chili and added the meatloaf slice, broken up and cooked rice. I used the last of the broken chips from the week before, spread them in a pie plate, topped them with the chili, then with some of  the last of our sour cream, sprinkled the top with cilantro and chili powder, decorated the top with whole chips and thinly sliced yellow onions we grew last season. This morning I had a little of the leftovers with two of our eggs for breakfast (actually brunch).

Thursday, tonight, I will serve a Hungarian stew I made from Monday's soup. I strained the soup, added the vegetables and beef to a casserole dish, mixed in paprika and the very last of the sour cream. I topped it with the two leftover drop biscuits from Monday after I slathered the bottom of each with butter so they won't get mushy while cooking.  I have enough broth leftover for one mug for my lunch tomorrow. I will serve this over noodles or homemade dumplings---my mom's recipe!

Friday I will start a new but small thread of meals. I am going to use ground turkey as a less expensive substitute for Gyros, which are usually made with ground lamb, for the first meal. After being covered thickly with garlic, basil, rosemary and whatever else I can find on hand that tastes Greek it will be baked long and slowly in the oven just as it comes out of the tight, round packaging, while still a little frozen so it holds its round shape. If your ground turkey isn't in a round tube, shape it however you like. Read the labels to make sure the meat is just turkey, nothing else. I may make my own pita bread or buy it from our natural food store. I will make my own yogurt dressing and serve it with a marinated raw veggie salad or purple balsamic slaw and a big, naturally fermented pickle and a few chips!

On Saturdays we will probably grill some meat, fish or chicken to have with big salads and maybe grilled bread..

After church Sunday, we will have a salad dinner with the leftovers of the grilled meat from Saturday sliced thinly on top of the salads. If we are hungry later we will have waffles for dinner.

On Monday the second usage of the ground turkey (leftovers from the Gyros) will be added to soup with dark green kale that needs to be used, carrots which are still frozen in my refrigerator, hummus or just the garbanzo beans or white beans, depending on how much time I have and whatever else I have around that sounds like it will go with the Gyros meat!

Hope you find this helpful.
I hope, by now, you are using your own creativity to come up with  your own meal threads and not wasting anything in your kitchen. Always, always, always be careful not to keep things too long.  Getting food poisoning is not worth saving a few dollars!  If you have a long thread like the one I had for meatloaf as the initial meal in a thread, freeze a lot of it.

Have fun and enjoy!
Kathi~

Town Day

.....maybe?

The temperatures here have been getting warmer and whereas that is very nice in some ways, it prevents me from going to town, at least for now.
The snow has melted and frozen overnight which has left us with large patches of solid ice in our driveway which totally surrounds my car and my path to it. I partially lost the use of  my left foot in 1986 due to scar tissue build-up from back surgery in 1973. I, also have a gait problem stemming from a hereditary inner ear condition. Walking for me is difficult, often painful and  always unsteady. This makes walking in the wintertime quite difficult for me.
We really need to replenish groceries, but I may not be able to go to town or shop locally as planned.
We have more than enough to get us through the weekend so I am not concerned. I had planned a marathon trip to town with a smaller excursion to our local grocery store on Friday. There are many things we normally buy on sale at great prices this week.
I could vacuum--the house needs it, but the vac is broken, I could bake some things we need in our new oven but I have to wait to get the sticky tape residue off and for a repair man to fix the oven door. I could post the pictures of the last two meals I made but this morning my cell phone camera stopped working.
I still have many things that could occupy me. I will choose a few of those and get them finished.

I still have not spent a dime on our food for this week---that is out of this week's money for food. It's still at $3.71 (50 cents a serving for four nights) for a piece of meat I used on Monday to make soup. I hope  I can  soon figure out what's wrong with my cell camera so I can post the pictures of the foods I have made this week with leftovers from last week, some frozen meals from two weeks ago and the meal leftover thread I started on Monday with the soup.

Later, I hope........

Today

I got my wall oven today.

It doesn't fit in the cabinet.
I can't get the tape residue off the stainless steel.
The door won't open all the way.
The door slams shut once opened and let go of.
Because the oven won't fit in the cabinet it sticks out taking up space in front of the refrigerator so that it can only be loaded and unloaded from the sides.
We have to open up the back of the cabinet so it will fit.
We have to put trim around the areas above and around the oven to hide areas that will be exposed
because of changing everything.
We have to add depth to the existing cabinet.
The electrical for the unit needs to be changed so it doesn't show.
And.....
Our dish washer latch broke.
Our vacuum cleaner stopped working a couple days ago.
The brand new ceiling texture in our bedroom and the upstairs foyer is coming down.
And there are other even smaller things that have caused us to be discouraged this week

Sigh.

I have a choice here.

I can complain.

I confess, I did complain earlier today. It made me feel worse, not better.
I can  question God, asking  why, when will things be better, why do these things never happen to others (ha!), what did I do to deserve........oh, don't go there. We know we deserve nothing and that by God's mercy, if  you are a believer,  you will not get what you truly deserve. Praise our merciful God!

I can cast blame---on the oven, on the person from whom we bought the oven, the manufacturer, the USPS, the weather, my husband, or the maker of the cabinet the oven will not fit into. But it will change nothing--- only my heart---making it bitter..

But, by God's grace I did not become bitter, mean-spirited or sarcastic about it. Okay----but I did not stay bitter, mean-spirited or sarcastic for long.

This evening the Lord brings to mind  Proverbs 17:22  "A cheerful heart does good like a medicine. But a broken spirit dries up the bones."

It is easy to have a cheerful heart when things are going well. But it takes the grace of God to be cheerful when things go badly----even when it is a lot of very small things.

My husband has always said  that if he bought a turkey farm, Thanksgiving would be cancelled. I don't really want to test this theory for fear it will become true!  We have laughed with friends and family at the seemingly endless stories of  all the small catastrophes that have attended our family. And who knows, maybe someday I will write a book about our experiences, as many have encouraged me to do. Our calamities certainly could fill a book! But for now, though they fill our life, we must guard our hearts. We must learn from our trials, be exercised by them, cling to God in even the smallest of them, learning what He has for us in them. He may be teaching us patience, courage, mercy---many things. We may never find out the whys. But these two things we always know----everything is for our eternal good (and perhaps for others) and God's glory. What a comfort this can be. And in the light of eternity and bringing glory to God things like ill-fitted ovens, broken dishwashers and vacuums these trials are very small indeed.

I expect and hope that tomorrow is a better day. But if it is not---we will pray, laugh and hopefully learn.
Goodnight.
Kathi~

Quick Tip
..........saving suggestion from our firstborn


As we were talking about saving strategies, our oldest daughter mentioned doing
comparison shopping and ad-matching.

Though I have heard of this, I have never done it.

I always look through other store ads to see where, within reason, I can get the best buys.
It makes little sense to me to use up $5 of fuel to save a dollar.
By shopping in ad-matching stores
that I already regularly go to I can save myself
time, money and the need for more fuel.

A lot of things seem small, and they are.
But many small ideas for saving
add up.

Times are getting harder and every little bit helps.
Don't despise the small things.
Make them a habit.
Do the best you with what you've got!

Kathi~

Over 1000 Pageviews......is this good for under one month of blogging???

Last night I surpassed 1000 pageviews on my blog and by this morning I had 1,022!
I have no idea if this is good or not.
But
I am thankful no matter what.
I enjoy doing this so much. I am learning many new things----
 slowly learning how to improve what I do----too slowly for me.
Most of the information I am reading
assumes I know too much.
Even the books whose titles include, "...for Dummies" assume I know more than I do.
The things they tell me to do are filled with words, abbreviations and acronyms I do not understand.
So, a lot of my time is spent looking things up and even then, the definitions often use terms 

I have no clue about.
Since I was in first grade I have been fascinated by foreign (to me) languages.
  I have studied a few of them and still do a little today.
There are more I would like to learn.
But I must confess computer terms, which are a foreign language to me, baffle me.
Teaching other languages starts with the bare beginnings. It assumes you know nothing.
Learning about how to blog seems to assume the new blogger has advanced
or at least some computer skills.
I have none.
However, I am determined
to change the looks of my blog
improve my writing skills,
figure out how to post better pictures
 and learn what I can legally share----for free!
I'd like to be able to recommend other blogs,
websites that I enjoy and feel would help others.
I spend time studying what information is out there, as well as writing my blogs 

on days when I have time. 

Being a child of God, a wife, a  mother and mother-in-law,  a grandmother and homemaker 

will always come first.
I am hopeful I will continue to learn how to make my blog
more inviting and easier to access.
In the meantime,
thank you for your patience.

I do hope this blog has helped and encouraged you.
Thank you for being interested in this endeavor of mine.
That makes me happy.
It has also kept me more in the Word,
in prayer and more disciplined in what I need to do at home.
Those were perks I did not foresee!
I am very thankful.......
Kathi~

Tasty Tuesday
......fried chicken and other camping food memories

When I was growing up we camped, took day trips, weekend and longer vacation trips.
Sometimes we went alone as a family and occasionally we
went with another family or many in our neighborhood.
We had a blast!
Not only did we have really good times at the beach or mountains, but

I remember many different foods we ate on those trips.

We baked cakes in our box oven atop a campfire or a camp stove.
Popa liked to grill and we made "Boy Scout" potatoes to go with whatever he grilled.
Etched on my mind is the image of him standing outside our tent
in a sudden mountain rain storm holding an umbrella over the fire while he finished
grilling our chicken!
Many early mornings were spent catching trout from a river-side camp site,
cleaning them and giving them to Mom to cook for breakfast with eggs,
toast scorched on those old square top-of-the-burner toasters, and sliced tomatoes.
 Raspberry push-up ice cream, rainbow popsicles or drumsticks covered with nuts and chocolate from the store at our beach camp were favorites.
Remember Jiffy-Pop?
What camping trip would be complete without s'mores?
And why do hot dogs or just plain marshmallows taste better roasted on a green tree branch?
Sometimes Mom made the following  recipe which we all loved.


A Loaf of Chicken

Fry or bake chicken pieces using a favorite recipe.
While the chicken is cooking,
cut the top off and hollow out a large sourdough or other round, unsliced loaf of crusty bread.
Spread herbed butter or garlic butter on the inside of the bread.
Add the fully-cooked hot chicken to the bread loaf and put the top on.
Wrap in foil. Let sit a couple of minutes.
Serve hot.
The flavor of the cooked chicken and the herbed butter will penetrate the bread
which is eaten along with the chicken---tearing off chunks by hand.

Save the bread, from hollowing out  the loaf, in a freezer bag and use sometime for stuffing.
You can vary this recipe by adding any other ingredients you like.
Be creative and enjoy!
Kathi~

Spicy Soup and Drop Biscuits

See what it looked like after it cooked!
Not all the orange stuff is carrots, some of it is winter squash.
Just slightly spicy and really flavorful.

Drop biscuits are yummy and turned out great without a recipe.

Custard---strange-looking, not sure why, but creamy and good anyway.
Goodnight.
Kathi~

Monday's Soup Thread
......everything-but-the-kitchen-sink soup!

Dinner tonight? It's Monday. So, it's soup night!

I thawed a small (3/4lb.) pasture-fed chuck steak which was $6.98/lb. (remember, I buy by the serving, not the pound), selling price was $4.71 and it was $1.00 off. So, $3.71 was the total.

I added it to my 7qt. crockpot with the last bottle of that horrid beer I've been getting rid of in cooking for over a week. Letting it marinate for a few minutes while I searched for other ingredients to see what direction this soup was going to take.

My scavenger hunt around the kitchen looking for anything that was almost gone and not saved for a different recipe, started in the refrigerator. There, I found and added torn pieces of raw kale, shredded green cabbage, a little juice from some fermented pickles that were gone, a couple spoonfuls of  naturally-fermented sauerkraut and some small carrots that had frozen.

My digs in the freezer unearthed cilantro and a small chunk of red sweet bell pepper. I also found some unrecognizable items that I did not label because I was certain I would know what they were later. Well, I do not. I've got to stop doing that! I saved those mystery items for a later date when I have more time to figure them out. From our garden I had frozen overgrown green onion tops and bulbs, a large Poblano pepper. The theme of this soup was beginning to be obvious with what I was finding! Spicy!

Peppers, cilantro and big onion tops (and various other things) are easy to break apart or crumble to add to recipes as long as they don't thaw first. I add the carrots whole because they are small and the over-grown green onion bulbs (which were cut from the tops before freezing) are pinched at the little end forcing out each layer so there are  interesting long, skinny mild onions in the soup.

My cooking style is a little rustic because it is fun, easy and it makes mistakes look planned! Some may consider that deceitful and lazy but I prefer "creative".................

As I crossed the kitchen to add my finds to the crockpot I passed a bowl of the few onions we have left from our garden so I grabbed two very small yellow ones to slice into the pot. I spied my salad dressing container almost empty sitting by the sink waiting to be washed so I can start another batch. There was about a tablespoon or two of balsamic vinegar and olive oil thickened with spices mixed in it at the bottom. So, I poured a little water in the container, shook it a bit and poured that into the soup. The acid of the vinegar not only compliments the other flavors in this soup but helps bring out the flavors of other ingredients. I do not like to waste anything!

Now for the spices. I added garlic, basil, my general go-to spice from Costco, chili powder and a little curry. I also grabbed a small can of organic tomato paste because it seems to me that soup using beef or game meat is always better with a tomato base.

It is starting to smell really good in here now. Spicy soup will taste really good on this dreary day.
I will add some oven-steamed garden winter squash to add more bright colors, flavor and to thicken it. Any extra squash will be pureed to be  baked with eggs, milk, honey and cinnamon for a custard dessert.

This will feed us tonight with some homemade drop biscuits flavored with some herbs and a sprinkle of Parmesan in the batter, served with a mix of coconut oil and butter--- and honey for my husband. And of course we will each have a raw veggie salad.

Most of what I used was either given to us, from our garden last year, or the last of things I didn't want to throw away or just give to the chickens. The only thing I used from this week's food budget was the meat. Even the salad ingredients are what's left from last week's shopping trip.

And there was very little work. I did not cut up the steak since it will be falling apart by meal time anyway. I only cut our garden onions and the shredded cabbage. Other things were crumbled or torn and the carrots and other small items were added whole. The steamed winter squash only has to be scooped out once it is steamed after it has been cleaned. If I can keep our cats out of it,  the inedible parts---- the skin, stringy stuff and seeds----will be given to our chickens. The top woody stem will be added to the kindling bucket and I will go through and pick out the mature seeds to dry and replant this season.

The thread for this week is: soup tonight, tomorrow we will have leftover soup that I've put in the blender and added a little cream or half and half to in mugs with some kind of sandwich or wrap. I will also use the soup for lunches.  When there is not much broth left I will drain the other ingredients, use some of the broth to make a kind of sauce or gravy (cornstarch and cold water), mix it with the veggies and meat. Then I'll add this to a pie plate or shallow glass pan and top it with the leftover drop biscuits which I will butter the bottoms of to keep them from getting soggy, cover this and stick it in the freezer. If there is broth left I will use it to add to a spicy sauce  since it is a spicy soup.

It's a small thread but goes a long way economically. I hope this helps you.

Kathi~

Comments

Just a notice that I changed some things on my blog last night.
I hadn't realized why it was so hard to comment.
So, I changed it so that anyone can make comments without joining or signing up for anything
or even having a certain account.
Hope to hear from you.
Thanks!
Kathi~

Quick Tip
...... got chickens?

When my husband came in from doing the evening chores
he showed me the can he uses to collect eggs every evening.
It had ten eggs in it!
TEN EGGS
We have a little over 20 hens and two roosters.
We had a few hens who had for the most part, stopped laying eggs
which is common in the cold and shorter daylight of winter.
Friends just gave us more hens who had totally stopped laying.
Over the several decades we have raised chickens we have never gotten that many eggs
 from that many hens in the winter time before.
My husband has started mixing chicken feed instead of buying commercial feed,
experimenting with ingredients and finding out about prices, looking for organic,
non-GMO grains.
We always allow our chickens to be free-range.
 They especially love scratching around in our garden.
We've made our own feed before at times when we could afford it and
they do lay better on a better-for-them feed. But not this much better.
He has noticed when he has fed them warm scraps, cooked up squash from our garden and other

things we couldn't finish that their egg production increased.
So, if you raise chickens for eggs and they have decreased egg production you
might try giving them some warm feed.
What my husband does is put the feed in a big pan he bought at a second-hand store
last week. He pours cold water over it before he goes to bed.
In the morning while he is having breakfast he puts it on low heat and then feeds it to the birds
making sure it is just warm and not too hot.
They go absolutely nuts over the warm feed and we can't help but wonder if this is the reason
their egg production has increased. It did so after he started adding the water and heating it up.
More eggs mean less food you have to buy and food you can sell,
 which means less money you need to spend.
And that's always a good idea!
Goodnight~

Sunday

I am still not 

feeling well. 

Can't think of  

a thing to say. 

But...I do hope you had a wonderful start to your week today.
I really hope you got enough rest from your labors of last week.

And....I hope you're refreshed in both body and spirit, ready to
start all over again
tomorrow morning 

Time seems to fly
 by so very quickly
Lord,  "...teach us
to number our days
that we may gain a
heart of wisdom."
.......Psalm 90:12

Kathi~

Smiling?
...... not every cloud has that silver lining


Okay, the dishwasher ran through two cycles without leaking
onto the floor and without my needing to ask my husband
 to close the re-sealed door for me.
Smiling....

But now the repaired door will not close at all.
Oh, yes, and it is full of dirty dishes!
Well, I should say, "It WAS ....."
I just found out my dear husband hand-washed
all the dishes in the dishwasher.
Smiling........

It has turned warmer
Smiling.......

But it has been raining since yesterday.
There is water-covered ice everywhere.
Spring is in the air at least for now.
Smiling.......

The battery for the compressor my husband needs for a quick job does not work.
Two of our grandsons came over to help their granddad.
Smiling.......

Last night our computer went wonky stating the date as January 1, 2002 

making sites online, that did not exist 11 years ago, leave a message that
the site does not exist.
Like time travel....a blast from the past
I changed the time and everything worked.
Smiling.........

After finishing my last post I looked at the time and it now states it is 3:21 AM.
It is 3:21 PM
I must have forgotten to check this when I fixed it.Easy fix.
Smiling...........

I am sick.
Am I laughing at the mishaps of the day?
No.
But only because it makes me cough and hurts my head.

If you don't hear from me
it will be because the computer totally went weird or  I got sicker.
And I will NOT be smiling........
Clouds do NOT always have silver linings but sometimes just bring rain!

But I'll be back !

Thanks for reading my blog!
Kathi~

Just For Laughs
.....don't try this at home!

I have mentioned that I love to create recipes and re-purpose things. I was thinking about the "Bird Poo" cake I mentioned earlier when my mind wandered to the familial failures from decades ago that still bring a laugh.

Bird Poo Cake: This I made in celebration of  our son's birth, a couple days after he was born, when we were having our two best friends over for dinner.  I made, from scratch, a 2-layer chocolate cake. I did not have quite enough cocoa powder and so it was lighter in color than it should have been. It looked like dirt. At that time I only had one cake pan. But I had a similarly-sized casserole dish that was round on the bottom.  I baked the two layers which turned out fine. Well, except for the fact that the top was rounded, so it ended up looking like a big dirt mound when I put the two together. I put jam between the layers when I discovered I had neither canned, boxed, nor the ingredients to make homemade frosting. I did find some icing tubes I had used on previous birthdays. So, I decided I would use what was left in the tubes as a kind of drizzle. Well, the white, pink, green and yellow icings did not drizzle but came out in little squiggles and drops. I kept at it trying to make it look presentable until the icing ran out. Company arrived and after dinner when I brought out the cake one of our friends (the wife) laughed uncontrollably saying it looked like bird droppings on a rock and so named it! We ate it laughing the whole time. Somewhere we have a picture of our newborn son next to the cake!

Angel Food Wafer: Angel food cake is my favorite cake. Not store-bought, but homemade with fresh berries on top. On my birthday,  when our oldest daughter was about 12, she decided to make this for me. She and her dad and maybe the two younger kids made a nice dinner. Then, out came the cake. It was about 1" high if that, in the shape of an angel food cake pan, candles ablaze,  on a nice serving plate. After they finished singing, "Happy Birthday," our perplexed daughter explained that she had no idea what happened. She said she followed directions exactly but it never rose. It tasted like an angel food-flavored wafer, kinda' crunchy and sorta' brown---because she baked at the temperature and for the length of time it called for in the cook book. Later, after we ate the um, "wafer" she turned to me and asked, "We only had three eggs (recipe calls for 12 egg whites), do you think that had anything to do with it?" Then she added that because we only had 1/4 of the eggs she went ahead and added the yolks too. We laugh and tease her about it now and she laughs as heartily as we do. Her kids love the story, but back then we were far more gentle on her and didn't laugh.

Licorice Manicotti: Whereas my mom always followed recipes exactly she loved to try new ones. She was a great cook! This magazine-recipe caught her eye so she decided to try it out on my dad, brother and I before serving it for company the next week. Good thing for the company that she did.
She did follow the recipe exactly and it smelled and looked absolutely marvelous when served. The manicotti was stuffed with a combo of different cheeses and ground beef and was covered with a sauce that called for anise seed. We were lined up at our breakfast bar for dinner that night and I still remember as each of us took a bite and sat back glancing around at each other, not wanting to say anything. It tasted like baked licorice sticks with cheese, meat and sauce! It was inedible! We all agreed! I forget what Mom whipped up for dinner but the garbage disposal ate the Licorice Manicotti, snarling the whole time!

Mashed Potato-Stuffed Hamburgers: This too was a recipe that my mother found in a magazine. It was simple. Make mashed potatoes ---- the recipe probably called for Potato Buds---the only brand of instant mashed potatoes back in the early 1960's. Form ground beef into balls and shape into thin patties. Then put the potatoes between two patties, pinching the edges to seal them. Then cook in a frying pan. Serve as you would any hamburger. I'll admit, even if this had worked it sounded kinda' gross to me. Mom served the hamburgers, sat down and this time as each of us took our first bite we didn't just sit back and glance at each other, we leaned over to spit out the pink mushy potatoes and the under-cooked patties onto our plates. A general chorus of , "eeeuuuww, gross..." and other descriptive words of the sixties went up. The mashed potatoes had turned really mushy and had prevented the inside edges of each patty to fully cook. The juices from the raw ground beef had turned the potatoes a bright pink. Again, I don't remember what we did eat that night, but it was a far cry from  pink potato hamburgers!

Avalanche Cake: It was the last day before Christmas vacation. It was Mom's turn to bring refreshments for our class party. She made a delicious batch of chocolate cupcakes. The recipe she used called for stacking the cupcakes in a circle on a platter layer after layer in the shape of a Christmas Tree. The finished tree was covered with her best-frosting-you've-ever-tasted white frosting and then left to set-up overnight.Christmas candies were to be added in the morning. But, in the morning, much to Mom's and my dismay, we found that the cupcakes had slid off the layers, off the base, some off the platter---what a mess! We rushed to a local bakery before school and bought something, I don't remember what, to replace the avalanche cake. All I remember after that is our family getting to eat it for dessert for a few nights! Yum!

Would you like a little potatoes with your gravy? This unfortunate but comically memorable disaster happened when I was a young teenager helping Mom, my grandmas and aunts in the kitchen on one of the occasions we had a turkey dinner at our house. Everything was about ready and on the table. I was mashing the potatoes (my first attempt) and Mom was thickening the gravy. The potatoes turned out thin and watery and the gravy needed to be scooped out with a heavy spoon. Mom and I laughed as we tried unsuccessfully to fix the potatoes.  She was able to fix the gravy a little bit. We laughed as we joked about whether we should put the potatoes in the gravy boat and serve the less-stiff, but now-lumpy gravy in a serving dish!

"I have broken teeth on your pie crusts!" This was said by the same friend who named our son's cake. Back when butter had a bad reputation and we were just starting our journey into whole-food eating I decided to make my pie crusts using whole wheat flour and oil instead of the usual ingredients. Try as I might I could never make a pie crust that was not crispy instead of flaky or that didn't stick to the pie plate or need a steak knife to cut! My dear friend once commented teasingly that she had broken teeth on my pie crusts. Rude, yes, but true? I hope not, but........!

Oregano Tea:  I had made split pea soup, a big raw veggie salad and some homemade whole wheat bread as  lunch for company ages ago. My husband asked what he could do to help. I suggested he make a  pot of peppermint tea. I was busy with other things and as we sat down I felt sick to my stomach and something smelled odd. After we sat down I took a sip of the tea knowing that peppermint eases an upset stomach. What greeted my palate was not soothing mint but oregano. I do not like oregano---it makes me sick to my stomach and at that time I was phasing it out to be replaced with basil which I have no problem with. My husband had looked in the spice drawer instead of the tea drawer and pulled out a bag of what he thought was peppermint inadvertently filling the tea ball with oregano. We all had a good laugh and started another pot of tea with peppermint in it this time. And I felt better.....

Scary Gingerbread: My father-in-law loved my cakes, used to rave to others about them, was always happy when I served them. The first year we moved out of state he and my mother-in-law came for a visit. It was going to be the week that his birthday fell within. Remembering how he loved my cakes, I decided to bake him a healthful one. I chose to make gingerbread. We were just starting to get into whole foods at that time and I had gotten rid of the regular sulphured molasses and replaced it with blackstrap. I had never substituted blackstrap molasses for the more common sulphured molasses in a recipe before..... or since, though I do use it. I did not adjust the amount--just used what the recipe called for, but that wasn't enough. Since we had given up sugar I used blackstrap to substitute for the amount of sugar it called for also.  I can almost hear the laughter of those of you who are familiar with blackstrap molasses and its strong flavor! When I served the dessert on his birthday, he, seeing it coming, delightedly exclaimed, "Chocolate cake!"  I told him that it was gingerbread even though it was darker than chocolate. He smiled---who doesn't like gingerbread? I served it with whipped real cream, but that didn't help much. He was appalled but polite having a hard time hiding his reaction, much like that of a baby tasting a disliked first-food---close one eye, cringe and kind of quiver and out it comes. Now my father-in-law was a gentleman to a fault and did not spit it out or say a word, but he never took another bite either.  As soon as I took a bite I realized how awful it tasted. I hope the chickens liked it----I think the yolks were pretty dark for a few days!  This story never became a humorous family story. After that incident  he sampled my cakes suspiciously for awhile. I think fear may have been a factor in his never mentioning it---fear that I'd try to redeem myself by making another one!

I must end with one of my favorite "food" stories. It is not one of culinary failure....

"It's LIVER!!!": Popa loved beef liver. I loved beef liver. Mom made beef liver and onions for me and Popa though she was not fond of it. My little brother HATED liver!
One summer evening we were eating dinner outside by the pool. Popa had grilled our dinner which was beef liver wrapped on skewers with bacon. My dad and I, and even Mom loved it. My brother couldn't get enough of it! It tasted like steak and was very moist because of the bacon. He did not know it was liver and I was pre-warned not to tell him what it really was. I obeyed....at first. But, something came over me the last time he asked for more. I could not control myself any longer and blurted out, "It's LIVER!" The horrified look on his 7-year old face which preceded his spitting it out,  followed by sounds of disgust made me laugh uproariously! I soon realized I was the only one laughing. Oops.... Still today I am not sure if the punishment I received was worth the hilarity of the moment. Would I do it again---oh, yeah!  I still remember the raw egg trick, little brother! Miss you...........

Learn to laugh lovingly, kindly at culinary disasters. We all make mistakes, have failures.
They make great family stories of happy ---- if not always delectable ----- times!

Kathi~

Quick Tip

I will buy liquid hand soap once according to the design and color of the bottle or I might really splurge to buy a decorator-type dispenser. Then when it goes on sale for 78 cents a bottle at our local store, I buy shampoo. I buy ten bottles for $7.80. If I have a coupon it costs me even less. This will last about one  year for use as shampoo and liquid hand soap for my husband and me.

I buy the shampoo to use as hand soap according to the colors I have used to decorate my bathrooms. Only a little dot is needed  to wash your hands and it is gentler than dish washing liquid (for hand-washing dishes) even though the dish washing liquid may be cheaper. The really cheap stuff is also only available in  anti-bacterial-orange and a couple other colors.

Every little bit of savings helps...........

Dessert Calamities
.....nothing to trifle with, or are they???

Okay, tell me this has happened to you. I hope it's not just me! 

If it is----I blame my old oven!

 You are having company for dinner.
Your meal is planned. Your house is company-ready. Your table is set.
And you are clean and presentable.
The food is in the oven,  the salad is in the 'fridge.
The cake is cooling.
You are looking forward to a nice relaxing evening with friends or family.

But, what is that??? Oh, no! Your cake fell! Or it fell apart when you took it out of the cake pan.
Don't  panic!
Re-envision your plans.
 As long as it is cooked through (because of the eggs)
here are several nice options:

If the cake is in a nice glass pan, cut through it and spread something like
jam, preserves, fruit, pudding, chocolate sauce (honey or Agave mixed with cocoa powder), chocolate chips, apple sauce, yogurt, maple syrup and cinnamon, nuts, granola, coconut,
nut butter or whatever you can think of on it encouraging it to fall into the spaces/cracks.
Ice cream is great too but be sure to freeze it afterwards.
Then spread the whole thing with frosting. Serve in small bowls or some other pretty serving piece in scoops with maybe a dollop of something or a small piece of fruit or some zest on top.

Or
 if only slightly fallen and still having good crumb just add more frosting to the sunken part either in the pan or if you can get it out, on a plate and frost the rest as usual

Or
cut the sunken part out, neatly.
Then frost the rest of the cake and fill the hole with fruit, preserves, whipped cream, pudding
---whatever you have on hand that will look nice. 

Put a spoon in it for guests to use to add to the cake as a sauce.
In a pinch a squat vase with flowers in it looks amazing.

Or
 get out some pretty glasses or even nice mugs.
Scoop the cake (and this works for too-soft pie crusts and crumbly cookies too)
into the glass. Tilt the glass to make a diagonal pattern in the glass
if you think the ingredients will stay that way when you turn the glass upright.
Alternate the failed dessert with whipped cream, ice cream, crumbled cookies,
frosting, nuts, jam or fresh or frozen fruit.
Top it off with something pretty like whipped cream and a sprinkling of nuts or fruit.

IF it is the frosting that didn't turn out you can, if salvageable at all, use it as an ingredient mixed in with the cut cake.
Or, after checking for allergies, use a nut butter mixed with cocoa powder and honey to taste and the right consistency. Instant frosting! If you add enough cocoa powder it will hide the taste of the nut butter. It will be like a chocolate fudge frosting. Be sure to warn guests if it has nuts in it---nut allergies are so common today. One way to do this is to put some nuts of the same type as the nut butter on top of the cake.Or place a  nicely written small note in front of the cake or folded like a tent over the serving utensil or even on top of the cake in back.
Drizzles can substitute for frostings. I mix honey with cocoa or carob powder. Or I use maple syrup or honey with cinnamon for a spice cake. Warm cake served with a little un-whipped cream over it is delicious too and gives an old-fashioned look to your dessert.

If, while frosting a cake you have stirred up some crumb from the cake, don't worry,
if it is not fixable just very carefully, steal some crumb from underneath the cake
or one of its layers or use nuts or granola and sprinkle over the whole cake
 to make it look  like it was on purpose.

Or....and this is my favorite because it is pretty.
My old oven does not bake evenly, I do not like to bake, and I am not a very good baker.
That said---I usually make this on purpose.
It's a tradition for Christmas.

 The Trifle
For a crowd I use one or two punch bowls.
For a smaller group I usually use a footed bowl.
For an elegant look make as parfaits served at each guests' place I would use a
lovely glass of some sort.
As my husband would say, it tastes just as good no matter how you serve it. 

But in my opinion it's best in something glass
.....and pretty!

I break up the cooled cake as I go with my hands or a large spoon and  layer it in the glass bowl.
Some  recipes call for you to add some sort of liqueur or sherry to the cake, little sprinkles at a time
but I don't do this.
It was often nicknamed "Tipsy Cake" for this reason.

I have the following ingredients set out as I layer:
pudding---I often make this from scratch the old fashioned way or buy
organic pudding with good ingredients at the store.
Some type of preserves.
Fresh fruit---berries are my favorite
real whipped cream
a crumb of some sort of sliced almonds
I layer these being sure that each ingredient is pushed up against the side of the glass
so that the layers can be seen.
I top it off with whipped cream and decorate the top with whatever I like
---sliced nuts, cake crumbs sprinkled on top of the cream------
 I add fresh fruit around the edges in a pattern depending on what I have left.
My favorite combination is chocolate cake with tapioca pudding and raspberries or strawberries. But it is good with yellow cake, German chocolate, angel food cake---whatever you want. You are only limited by your creativity and what you have on hand or can afford.
 I refrigerate and serve after the meal to oooo's and ahhhh's usually.
It is very impressive looking even though it is often made from a failed cake and whatever I have on hand!

I love this about it!

If your failed dessert is un-fixable or it happens too late to fix.
Have a good laugh telling your guests what happened.
Offer them some fresh fruit,
cookies you have made or some ice cream if you have that on hand. 

Make smoothies!
Or don't serve anything at all---that's okay too!
Guests appreciate and feel most comfortable with their hosts when they are real

Remind me to tell you about my infamous "Bird-Poo Cake"
That was 31 years ago and we still laugh about it!
Creativity is not always pretty!

Goodnight.
Kathi~

Another meal thread

......a chicken in every pot!

Last week I did a thread of meals starting with a three-meat, three-pound meatloaf and a big pot of mashed potatoes.

These are the meals I created: 

Some are frozen for later use, others I made fresh. I like to intersperse other meals from previous menu threads into each thread for variation of ingredients, taste and nutrition.
1- Meatloaf with mashed potatoes
2-Shepherd's Pie
3-Spaghetti and Meatballs (cut-up cubes of meatloaf)
4-Spaghetti Pizza
5-Sweet and Sour Meatballs with rice and broccoli
6-Lasagna for two nights
7-Soup using the thread before this one, adding leftovers from above meals to the last of that soup
8-Hot Meatloaf Sandwiches w/mashed potatoes, broccoli with gravy using chicken broth from next thread

9-a couple of lunches


Next thread of meals: Chicken in a Pot
Yesterday afternoon I put one whole chicken in my 7 qt. crockpot with carrots, onion, garlic and the last of the salvaged celery stalks that did not freeze and about 3 tablespoons of Costco's No-Salt Organic Spice and covered it almost to the top with cold water. I cooked it on high. When it was done, just before dinner, I cooled it and put it in the fridge overnight.

This afternoon I will skim the solidified fat off the top of the soup and take chicken out of the broth and remove all meat. I will grind up the gooey stuff, skimmed fat and skin in the blender and serve a little each day to our cats on top of their food. A little extra fat during the winter is good for them. Bones get put in a 2qt. crockpot with some spices and veggies of all kinds, including soft tomatoes, that need to be used up to make a little broth (strained and solids given to chickens) to use in other recipes or to freeze. The following meals will either be eaten fresh or frozen for later.

Meals I hope to get out of this thread are:
1-Chicken Soup with noodles or dumplings--tonight because neither of us feels very well.
2-Creamy Chicken Pasta  with leftover blue cheese, sour cream and broccoli in a sauce made with broth
3-Cashew Chicken,  a stir-fry with veggies, soy sauce, turmeric and broth
4-Creamed Chicken Soup, blenderized leftover soup in a mug with a cheese sandwich or hummus wrap
5- Chicken-Veggie Salad Dinner with homemade rolls

6-Gourmet Chicken Rolls---last of chicken mixed with mayo, last of the sour cream,  seasoning, veggies, raisins ( I found one box left from the grandkids' Christmas stockings!), crispy bacon (left in freezer from Christmas) and nuts served on buns made the day before.
7-If a little bit of chicken is left I will put it in a container and freeze to add to soup later.

I hope this gives you some ideas. Be creative! Have fun! Use as much of what you already have as you can! You are only limited by your creativity----and, of course, your budget.

My husband and I are empty-nesters and so the initial amount I make is small in comparison to a family who has children at home. Adjust the initial amount to make it larger, cook more than you need so you will have leftovers and can make the meals that follow the initial meal of the thread.

Obviously if you have 10 children you will need more than three pounds of meatloaf or one whole chicken for your meal threads. I am just listing what I do for the two of us. Even if it's not feasible for you to do it exactly the way I do, I believe you will still save money.

Have a great weekend. Tonight I will do a short blog on dealing with calamities in the kitchen, especially when company is expected!

Right now, I must go to the store----the ice on the porches has melted in this 45 degree heat wave we are having today. This week the local store has many things we ordinarily purchase, on sale! My list is made and I will use all the rules for shopping that I outlined in a previous blog.  The sun and fresh air will do me good.  It's a beautiful day!

Kathi~

My Hero!........count your blessings!

I'm still feeling sick.
Chicken soup is done.
The aroma alone makes me feel better.
My husband told me not to go anywhere for a couple days.
It rained and everything is now covered in a sheet of ice.
Even for this---and I hate ice---I am thankful.
I don't want to go anywhere!

We still have no oven.
But it has been found and will go out tomorrow morning.
It should arrive Monday.
I am glad because I have more time to work on the kitchen.

The truck is fixed.
Turned out to be something that had been recalled.
Fixed free at the dealership.
Nice!
My dear husband got home safely.

After dinner
he took the door off the dishwasher full of dirty dishes.
He cleaned and readjusted it.
He put it back together pushed a button
and announced, "It works!"
My  hero!
Swishing/washing noisiness has never been so sweet to my ears!

Little trials of the day brought
big joys for the night!
Thank you, Lord!

But, why am I surprised?
Kathi~

Doing the Best With What You've Not Got......Yet?

.....dishwashers,ovens and trucks, oh, my!

While visions of a super-clean, redecorated, reorganized kitchen with a new wall oven danced in my head last night, reality struck again, and again......and, yes, again!.

My husband put a new seal in our dish washer and except for not being able to open or close the door by myself for a couple days while the seal softened a bit,  and the soap dispenser not opening (but working okay anyway) I was happy.

Last night I loaded ---- okay, stuffed ----the last fork and dish into the dishwasher, added the detergent, closed the door ---- or attempted to ---- over and over until I gave up. Sigh. My husband  is buying or ordering a part to fix the door latch while in town today picking up our new wall oven. I was not totally happy but rolling with the punches. I slept well.

Punch number two. The phone rang in the other room. By the time  I reached it the caller had hung up. I called the number back seeing that it was Fed Ex. I assumed they were calling to say that the oven was ready to be picked up. A man answered when I called back and told me that my husband was trying to reach me. Uh-oh, my heart began to sink.

About that time, still in the other room, my cell phone began to ring. So, I rushed back into the office with the Fed Ex guy still on the other phone. It was my hubby via a Fed Ex phone. I couldn't hear him at first but eventually heard him say that the oven was there but was not the one he ordered. He had me go back onto eBay to make sure he had ordered the right one which he had. I gave him the number of the seller whom he called. The man was very sorry. Things are being worked out. Problem is that if we got the oven someone else ordered then they probably got ours. This shouldn't be a problem except that now "our" oven has to be tracked, the owners of the oven we received have to be contacted and ovens need to be switched. Worst-case scenario: it could be that the oven we bought might have been sold by mistake to a totally different customer in which case I don't know what is going to happen. At best, we will have to wait longer to get our oven which though a pain, is not a big deal----as long as we get the oven we ordered eventually. Oh, but I'm not done........

While my husband and I were on the phone he told me he is having truck problems-----again! The truck is dying about several seconds so he is limping through traffic to get to our mechanic. If the truck cannot be fixed right away ---- and from past experience, I doubt that it can. I may have to drive to town and past it to another town to pick up my husband. From there we will probably finish running errands in town.

I am not feeling well. I am craving hot tea and toast which I only do when ill. I am wearing loung-y, soft, warm, couch-potato clothes and don't want to go out, but of course I must. Well, maybe not, but probably. I will do this by God's grace hopefully, prayerfully,  without complaining and in His strength. I am very tired today.

On a good note, I was able to start some chicken soup, which should be ready by dinner time when my husband and I will more than likely get home!

Patience, ah, patience. Don't we love to have it? Don't we hate to have to learn it? Doesn't it seem that lessons in patience come pretty frequently?  Yeah.......

"My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." 
James 1: 1-4

I wonder what, other than learning patience and testing our faith, God has for us in this string of little trials. These are not huge trials but we will be exercised by them, none the less. As I looked for a fitting verse in God's Word I kept thinking that what we are dealing with today are not big enough to be called tribulations or really, trials. But then our God is a big God who is present in even the smallest of things. We must not think so little of Him that we think He is only interested in the BIG things. He knows the number of hairs on our heads. He knows of each sparrow that falls. He takes care of the creatures and even the plants he has created. Take everything, no matter how small, to Him in prayer.

And know this:
"...giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity..." 2 Peter 1:5-7

I will rest in that and the peace God has given me not to get upset which is what I would do in the flesh! I will trust Him for the strength I need today not feeling well, and for any other disappointments or trials He sends. I know that everything, EVERYTHING, that comes our way is for our eternal good and His glory. What comfort that brings.

God is good and one day, maybe even tonight, we will laugh together about this day.  Okay, maybe tomorrow......

Kathi~

Mom
.....memories and pumpkin seeds

We were together in the sub-acute care facility (nursing home) after Mom was released from the hospital. She was sleeping as she often did, so weak, often confused, when a guest arrived to visit her.

In she walked bearing a gift as usual. It was  not muffins, cookies or quick bread that she loved to bake and give, but a small pumpkin. It was early Autumn, and tho' it certainly wasn't "in the air"  it was well on its way.

Mom wasn't sure who she was at first but I saw the "light" come on when she mouthed  her name. The guest smiled as did Mom---a big smile. This woman had saved her life two years earlier and so had, and always will have, a special place in our hearts.

Mom's smile wore off and  her eyes went to the pumpkin. She held out her hands which was not easy at that time. She took the pumpkin in her hands and held it as one would shelter a small injured bird----gently, fondly, staring at it smiling. The guest giggled and asked if she knew what it was. Mom nodded and added, "It's a pumpkin." We smiled and watched not quite knowing what to do. She held it for a long time, arms outstretched. Then suddenly she looked at us both and whispered, "It's getting heavy." I took it and put it on her bedside cabinet with her cards.

My mother passed away somewhat unexpectedly a few days after that, three months ago. When it was time to leave her, I could not leave the pumpkin behind. I brought it home.  I passed it many times. Sometimes I would touch it and smile----yes, and sometimes cry. It was the last thing Mom held except for my hand. Maybe it sounds silly, but it comforted me as I remembered her delight at something so small.

It started to get old and since I could not bear for it to die I took the seeds out, dried them, and put them in an old creamer to save and plant in the spring. There must have been over 100 seeds in that little squash, the entire big-for-its-size cavity being totally filled with them. I am excited to plant them in our garden this year --------- and for as long as I need to.

Seeing the seeds in the kitchen reminds me of the seeds she planted in me by her example and love which makes me thankful that God gave me to her and my dear Popa who preceded her in death over 20 years ago.

As mothers we are continually planting seeds in our children whether purposefully or not. They are in our care for such a short time. Seek to sow seeds of righteousness that the good seed might choke out the weeds that will naturally come up beside them.

They may not remember many details of life but will remember how you loved them. Show them, tell them often. So that, if, at the end of your life, you do not always know who they are, they will know that in your deepest heart of hearts you will always remember and love them.

Goodnight..........Kathi~

Tasty Tuesdays

.........crazy days, crazy recipe!

This is our oven hole which has been our pantry for a couple of decades. Everything is moved out of it and covers my entire kitchen as you can see. It also litters the rest of the small kitchen and the dining room table and a card table and part of the floor!  Tomorrow I will have a wall oven in the oven hole and I am so excited. But, since I like a clean, orderly kitchen, and this one is a mess right now, it is driving me crazy.

Tuesdays are "Tasty Tuesdays"----days in which I post about food. I am very busy today cleaning and re-arranging everything so, I am simply going to post a recipe.

The following recipe has been enjoyed over the years by our family and by guests.

It's simple but doesn't look like it is. My favorite kind of recipe!

Crazy Crust Pizza
This recipe has "From the Kitchen of Marsha" written on it.
I've known many Marshas over the years.
Whoever and wherever you are, thank you, Marsha!

Crust: 

2 cups flour
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons oregano or basil
1/4 teaspoon pepper
4 eggs
1 1/3 cup milk

Topping:
1 1/2 lbs. ground beef
1/4 cup chopped onions
about 1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
1  8 oz. can of tomato sauce with 1/2 teaspoon oregano or basil added
1 cup grated cheese---I use mozzarella and Parmesan

Grease cookie sheet and dust with cornmeal. Pour batter onto sheet. Add all toppings except the sauce and cheese.
Bake at 425 * for about 25 minutes
Add sauce and cheese.
Bake 10 more minutes.
Remove from oven and enjoy!

**I use whole grain flour, no salt and add diced green peppers and olives to the pizza. When I make it for company I may add other toppings too and I usually make two. It's easy because you can make the crust ahead of time and add the sauce and toppings later.

I do this because I have only one, unmovable oven rack. I also cook it at a lower temp because my oven is kinda' crazy and the unmovable rack is on the lowest setting.  Oh, wait! Tomorrow I will have three movable oven racks to use in my new oven! And an oven light!  Crazy!

Have a great Tuesday!
Kathi~

Monday is.........?


Several old poems and children's songs list what is to be done on each day of the week.
Most of them assign Monday as wash day.
I rarely do laundry on Monday since I have it all caught up hopefully by Friday.
Today, for me, was reorganize-the-kitchen-day.
We are expecting the arrival of a wall oven this week.
Our charming 1950's  oven is on its last leg and rather than wait until it stops working altogether and since the Lord has blessed us with extra income right now, we decided  to buy one.
We got quite a good deal on a last-year's-model brand new one on eBay.
The wall oven  was supposed to arrive this Friday

 but we found out this morning it will be delivered Wednesday instead.  

Soooooo, I am scrambling to find places for all the things that have occupied
the space fondly (???) referred to as "the oven hole" 

----- the only above-counter cabinet ----- 

for the past 25 years. 

I stayed up longer than I choose to admit taking everything out of the oven hole, 

finding places for some things,
losing precious counter space, and excitedly looking forward to finishing the job today.

But, this morning my husband suggested we go to town to find some accessories
that would help us put away the pantry (yes, we have no pantry)
 items in our very small kitchen.
We left about noon and got home about 7 hours later.
After combing every hardware, restaurant supply, second-hand and discount store
we finally found, quite by accident, the perfect solution and it cost a whole lot less than it would have to piece together anything we looked at or to have something made.
My husband is now assembling it and I can't wait to start putting things on it.
It is not fancy---just a powder-coated black metal industrial shelving unit.
 But to me it is a beautiful piece of furniture!
It is a new kitchen!
I can't wait to put my staples in gallon glass jars on it,
hang a few antique kitchen items I have inherited over many years
 and stack towels, add organizers filled with spices and make a baking center on part of it!
Soooooo, 

if Monday is supposed to be wash day by some unspoken tradition or children's song
I am glad that the Lord had other plans for me today!
Oh! I just realized that I get to do what I set out to do today anyway,
 along with having a fun day in town with the hubs!
I really do LOVE Mondays!
Kathi~

The Closet
.....welcome to my closets!

One of the purposes of my blog is to take my readers into my home and  its rooms sharing many things as we go. Today, I would like to show you my closets.

Closets are not places I usually take guests but I will take you to them and describe them, what I have done to them and what I use them for. They are great places when used for organizing your life.

I have been organizing and re-organizing  lately. Therefore I  spend  lots of time in one or more closets. 

Since our children have all married and left this home I have assigned different purposes for each of their rooms ------ and closets. 

Our oldest daughter's room, which is temporarily filled with storage items, will be a guest room. It will be decorated  with military and college decor. The walls will be light gold and the rug is dark blue, maroon, gold and green. It will have bunk beds and other beds for the grandchildren or guests to use. This room will be filled with  memorabilia. This is where all photos albums, slides, family movies and scrapbooks will be kept. The letters Jim and I wrote to each other and the audio cassettes we taped when he was in the military before and after our marriage already fill an entire desk. Cedar chests and steamer trunks contain wedding gowns, old corsages and bouquets, special baby items, cards and other souvenirs worth keeping. Military foot lockers house uniforms and gear. The closet  has no door but will have curtains that can be used as stage curtains where the kids can put on plays. Bridesmaids' dresses, formal gowns, high heels, gaudy costume jewelry, old military uniforms, cowboy hats, vests and boots, super hero capes, knights' armor and swords will be in this lighted closet.

Our son's room is finished. It is a guest room. In the steamer trunks are things waiting to be gone through and moved elsewhere. It is decorated in a masculine fashion. There you will see things one might have found in Theodore Roosevelt's den. I love the deer head, Native American artifacts, nature scenes and wildlife carvings and paintings. The colors are brown and beige with touches or black, blue, green and orange found mostly in the western-style rug. The closet houses anything that has to do with bedding: sheets, blankets, bed pads, pillow cases, sleeping bags. If I need bedding I know exactly where to go to get it.

Our youngest daughter's room is used for storage right now too. Huge tubs of photos we have inherited, along with our own, need to be organized in albums or shared with the rest of the family. This future sewing and needle craft room will be dripping with lace, quilts, needlework, antiques all in white with accessories in sage green, lavender and pink. Baskets will hold antique handkerchiefs tied with ribbons, vintage cards, gloves, old dolls, sewing notions.  It will be as feminine as our son's room is masculine. In this closet is a gift-wrapping center complete with everything one could possibly need to wrap a gift. It also houses holiday decorations and gifts I've collected at off-season sales.

Downstairs, off the kitchen, we have a utility closet and in the office is the game, toy and puzzle closet for the grandchildren. I love closets and I love to organize them

There is another closet that I love. It is a source of everything I need. It is my most beautiful but most worn closet. It is invisible to all but One. I take it with me wherever I go. It is my prayer closet.

I talk to God all day long. I pray about needs in our family, for our children and their spouses. I pray for our grandchildren and those yet to come. I pray for others and their needs. Every time I see a cross on the side of a highway I pray for the family of the one who died. On my return route seeing the same crosses I pray for all those of us who pass those places to drive safely. A long time ago a teacher taught her class to stop work and pray whenever we heard a siren.  I pray that I would be more like Jesus.I pray that I would have a heart for prayer and reading of the Word.  I pray for our country and its leaders--for their protection and wisdom. I thank God. I wrestle with God. I cry. I praise Him. I sing.

No one else is allowed in this closet but me and the Lord God. I am sometimes in this closet for long periods of time fervently praying for a special need or many needs. I also make quick trips into my prayer closet to shoot up a thank you or a plea. I would be lost without it.

I have what I call my prayer book---a pretty little book that I bought unused, second hand, for under a dollar I am sure. It has verses or pretty sayings and pictures on the page that lists the months' names and several pages are blank for each month. I write down prayer concerns, the year and date. Later I go back to write down or check off what the Lord has done. At times when my heart fails me, I take it out to be reminded of what the Lord has done.

There are always so many reasons to pray. What I wrote above I hope you don't take as boasting. I was giving examples of reasons to pray.  No one can ever take this closet away from you. It can never be filled to capacity or get messy except with the pouring out of your heart.

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." Phillipians 4:6

 

Bulletin!!!!!!!!!
 it's the little joys in life....


My husband just took a big, blue, steel barrel off the back porch!
This may not seem like news
unless you know that I have been waiting 

for this day
since it was put there,  
years ago!

Do you wonder why this was a big deal? 

The porch is very small.
The barrel is large and worn.
My color scheme is gold,
and brown
with touches of
dark red.
And....it served no useful purpose.

When I asked him why,
as I was scrambling to open the door 

and move things
so he could get through the living room,
he said simply,
"I finally found a use for it!"

Never knew that's what he was waiting for!

There is always hope!
Kathi~

Why Does Everything Break Down at Once?
........is it just us???? Tell me it isn't so........

I don't understand this, never will, and I don't like it much. 

Here is a list of recent breakdowns and ongoing repairs:

• dishwasher
• guest bathroom sink
• old oven
• leaky faucets in upstairs bathroom
• my husband's work truck
• new shower head in upstairs bathroom
• electric blanket
• main-floor wood stove
• problem with one tire on Jeep
• television in our bedroom
• DVD/VHS player in living room
• three out of  four of our phone receivers do not work
• heater in the upstairs bathroom does not heat

Things on their last leg:

• old oven range top
• refrigerator
• coffee pot
• plants that are dying for no known reason
• handles on doors on main floor and basement
• dining room chandelier
• modem for television in living room

I am so thankful that I am married to a man who can fix just about anything.
I really cannot think of anything he is not able to fix as long as it doesn't involve a computer.
He is cyber-challenged.

Since landscaping work in the winter is rare he has had more time to repair things at  home in his off-season. He has work coming in steadily and ended his landscaping season with a nicely lucrative project.
So, for once we have the money when we have the time!
That does not usually happen!

He has fixed the following which has taught me to be more thankful and to keep a sense of humor:

• installed a new pedestal sink in the guest bathroom which is quite large in proportion to everything else in the bathroom and makes everything else look bad. It is beautiful though.
• put a new seal in the dish washer. I cannot open or close it by myself now but he tells me it will compress eventually and I will be able to use it all by myself. I may miss the leaks which washed our dishes and did the kitchen floor at the same time!
• surprised me by picking out and buying a brand new (unused, but last year's model) wall oven to put in the oven hole that has served as our pantry for over 25 years. The oven arrives in a week so we are in a rush pouring over ideas (Pinterest, decorating magazines and books) to inexpensively find places to store everything in the hole. I'm so excited! I love to organize!
  Our circa 1950 oven/range has no window which hasn't mattered since the light stopped working years ago. It cannot be totally cleaned. It has only 1 reliable burner out of four, a timer that can not tell time, a temperamental oven with only one unmovable rack. It has great storage and is charming as long as it is not used for cooking!  The downside is that once the new oven is working I will have nothing on which to blame my cooking failures.
• repairing the truck has been an ongoing saga this fall and winter. We are hoping the last repairs have taken care of the problem. I think my husband is tired of getting stuck in town.
• for Christmas my husband bought me an electric mattress pad which I had wanted. We got the bed stripped, mattress pad installed, bed remade and turned it on for a test. We waited. After two hours the sheet which was directly up against the heated pad was still ice cold and for some reason the manufacturers decided not to provide heat for the feet or the upper back. Whereas my husband prefers getting into an icy bed and likes lots of fresh, cold air in order to fall asleep, I like to be roasty-toasty after a nice hot shower. We returned it, got a wonderfully soft, cozy, warm blanket along with a $41.00 refund since the blanket was on sale!
• the new baffle for the wood stove came in and will be fixed today. At least that's what the progress report has been since the baffle kit arrived. But emergencies and frigid weather necessitate putting it off over and over. My husband plans to work on it after he's done with the wood pile he just added to is done---it's warmed up quite a bit. I hope there are no problems with it after that is installed. 
• the leaks, toilets running and the new shower head that is not working (the second brand-new one installed in the last few months) are probably hopeless without all new plumbing.  Ah, the charms of turn-of-the-century plumbing.

The rest of the problems are being handled in this fashion:

• prayer
• patience
• humor
• pretending everything that is wrong with this house is part of its 100 year old charm 
• filling the tire with air every couple of months
• keeping the cat box cleaner and watering the plants more or less often.
• hunting madly for the phone when someone calls because it only rings at the base,not the receiver
• we don't watch movies most of the time so who needs a DVD player anyway?
• the TV upstairs is mostly for news in the mornings so, a shrunken, wavy picture and being unable to change channels or volume do not really matter.
• we are both becoming hard of hearing so the drips and toilets running are not a problem for us as long as we are not in the bathroom or shower. Thankfully they are cold water leaks.
• taking quick showers and running from the cold bathroom to either our warm bed or the main floor  wood stove. Hoping to be able to wait until the seasons change and floor heaters are cheaper.
• and did I mention prayer, patience, humor?????
  
  
  
  Life is funny.
  Sometimes, not so much.
  But even in hard times we must do the best with what we've got!
   That usually involves creativity, hiding or living with imperfections,
  using what you already have,
  and a lot of humor.
  

  I cannot complain---well----- I CAN and DO, I confess. 

  My husband's business is doing well and God has provided steady work.

  We were able to refinance our home, rebuild and re-shingle the roof, 
  repair the holes in the ceilings and walls, insulate some of this largely un-insulated house, 
  repair water damage that happened during a freak rain storm while the roof was uncovered,
  paint and repair the outside and some of the inside of the house. 

  We could afford to buy some of the things we needed
  and some things that are not needs per se, 

  but which make life a whole lot more pleasant. 
  I am very thankful.

  Kathi~
  
  

Mexican Pizza
.........so easy

Okay, I made up this recipe.
 I hope the lack of measurements won't aggravate you, but it is almost fool-proof!
Be creative!

For this recipe you will need:

• Masa Harina----corn flour treated with lime which is found in the baking aisle with the flours.
• ground meat -cooked
• Refried beans heated and perhaps mixed with a little salsa or water so it is easily spread.
• Salsa
• Any Mexican ingredients you like: tomatoes, olives, onions, chilies, peppers, cilantro..........
• Avocado sliced for garnish
• Sour cream for garnish
• green onions for garnish
• a few tortilla chips for garnish

In a large mixing bowl add Masa Harina, mix with water until it is like a thick batter. I like a heartier-tasting crust so use just enough water to mix with the masa. But I have made it pourable and that works fine too.

Put on a greased cookie sheet or in a shallow pan. Spread about 1"-1/2" high.

Bake until done---will kind of bubble-up in the middle sometimes. Just pierce and push down when it is done if it does this. This can be done any time during the day before dinner. But it will cook faster if used when still warm from the oven. It only takes a few minute to cook completely, less time if more water is used.

When it is time to eat

• Spread refried beans---any type you like, homemade or canned---on top of the crust as you would a sauce on Italian pizza. If you heat this first the pizza will be done more quickly.
• Sprinkle with cooked ground meat.
• Add any of the following or anything you like:
  -chopped onions
  -cilantro-chopped finely
  -diced tomatoes
  -diced peppers or green chilies
  -sliced olives----or just crush them in your clean hands or slice in can by moving the can back and
   forth---learned this from a friend named Connie years ago.
• Pour or spoon salsa, home made or purchased, over the top 
• Grate cheese on top of that.
• Chop green onions, slice avocados  and set aside. Have sour cream ready.
• Bake at 350*  until  cheese is bubbly.
• Remove from oven.
• Decorate with dollops of sour cream topped with slices of avocado, sprinkle green onions over pizza and stick a tortilla chip into each dollop of sour cream. Serve immediately with Mexican-style salad (shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, red onion rings,  black beans and dressing of sour cream mixed with salsa to desired texture).
• Serve with guacamole, enchilada sauce, salsa, sour cream mixed with salsa---whatever you would like to have available for diners to pour over it.
• This can be served with a fork or eaten like a pizza with the hands. If it's softer serve with a fork.
  
  
  **variation: Make the crust. Add chili---beans and meat after the crust is done. When serving fold over the crust or serve one square on the plate with another upside-down on top of the first piece so it looks like a tamale. We love it this way too. Garnishes, sauces, cheese may be added according to  your preference.
  
  
  I hope you enjoy this as much as we do.
  I serve this to company with maybe a side-dish of Spanish Rice
  (cooked brown rice mixed with mild salsa, topped with a little cheese).
  I jazz it up more for company than I do for "just us" at home!