Wassail

You know you can't beat that feeling of something warm and tasty in your tummy. My mother always made wassail for the holidays and I loved it! Such a nice warm citrus flavor and just reminds me of home. I took my mother's recipe and tweaked it to make my own version.

Wassail

2 1/4 c. sugar

4 c. water

4 cinnamon sticks

10 allspice berries

12 whole cloves

1 piece of ginger

1/2 can of orange juice concentrate

1/2 c. lemon juice

2 quarts of apple cider

I just boil the water, sugar and spices for about 5 minutes, add the rest of the ingredients and let it simmer in my crock pot.

Mothers are the best!

These are some lovely wrist warmers my mother made for me last year. I absolutely love wearing them in the early mornings when I am driving my kids to school. The steering wheel is not so cold with these on. I have huge wrists and very large hands for a girl. A lot of things do not fit on my wrists. I struggle finding bracelets that work for me and such. I even recently acquired some wrist weights and the adjustable Velcro fitting will not even go around my wrist! Talk about aggravating. Anyway, I was happy for the skills my mother possesses to have been able to figure out this pattern and then to adjust them to make them fit me. She is so talented! You would think I would have learned to crochet from such a talented woman....but nope....I stink at crocheting.

Dreamy Apple Pie

I have absolutely loved every recipe I have found on Pioneer Woman's website. My mother taught me to cook when I was nine years old. I love to cook, especially baking. I have tried several pie crust recipes over the years and I have found several that I love. I have one with an entire brick of cream cheese in it that is to die for! It does have issues with shrinking though. I have tried them with eggs and without eggs and with or without vinegar. Today, I had an abundance of Jonathan apples from my dear Grandmother's orchard. I decided to make a pie using a new recipe. I found one that looked divine on PW's website and decided to give it a try. It was fabulous! In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is the VERY best apple pie filling I have ever used. I LOVED her crust recipe as well. It is so great because you can make it and freeze it. Just perfect for me to make ahead of Thanksgiving and then only have to pull it out and use it! I cannot say enough good about this pie. I would write out the recipe here for you but if you just visit thepioneerwoman.com, you will find this recipe and she even has step by step pictures along with the instructions.

Pumpkin/Nutella Cheesecake Muffins

Wow! I found this recipe on the pioneer woman's tasty kitchen site. I had to try them as soon as I read the word Nutella. I have to admit that I wasn't sure how these would turn out. They are delicious! They made about 24 for me and I had to cook them a couple of minutes longer than the 18 minutes. Fairly easy and fast though. Give them a try. :)

FOR THE PUMPKIN MUFFINS:

4 Large Eggs

1-½ cup Sugar

1 can (15 Oz. Size) Pumpkin Puree

1-½ cup Vegetable Oil

3 cups All-purpose Flour

2 teaspoons Cinnamon

1 teaspoon Nutmeg

2 teaspoons Baking Soda

1 teaspoon Salt

FOR THE NUTELLA CHEESCAKE FILLING:

8 ounces, Cream Cheese, softened

½ cup Nutella

1 Large Egg

Preheat oven to 375°F. In a large bowl, beat eggs slightly. Add in sugar, pumpkin and oil and beat thoroughly. Add in remaining dry ingredients and mix until smooth.

In a small bowl, beat together cream cheese, Nutella and egg until smooth.

Place paper liners in a muffin tin. Place about 2 tablespoons of pumpkin batter into each liner, then 1 tablespoon of Nutella batter, then top with 2 more tablespoons of pumpkin batter. Bake for 18-22 minutes.

These are best served completely cooled. Makes 20 muffins.

Peanut Butter Madness

These are so sweet! I could barely make it through one! Not overly sweet...just right...but so filling! This recipe only made ten complete cookies which seemed perfect to me..but if you want more, you should try doubling it.
I love having the internet for a recipe source. You can find so many recipes and variations and then you can still use your creativity and make your own variation. It is an excellent resource. This recipe is found on allrecipes.com.
I am crazy for Peanut Butter.

Double Decker Peanut Butter Cookies

3/4 c. all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

8 Tbl. (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temp.

1/2 c. creamy peanut butter

1/2 c. sugar

1/2 c. light brown sugar, packed

1 large egg

1 tsp. vanilla

1 c. quick-cooking oats

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt; set aside. In a large bowl, cream together butter, peanut butter, sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Scrape bowl. Add the egg and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and beat until just combined. Add the oats and beat just enough to distribute evenly. Using a small ice cream scoop, drop dough onto cookie sheet, leaving 2-inches between each. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden and puffed. Cool completely and place a spoonful of filling on half of the cookies and top with the other half to form a sandwich.

Filling:

4 1/2 Tbl. unsalted butter, room temp.

1/2 - 3/4 c. creamy peanut butter

1 1/2 c. powdered sugar

pinch of salt

1 tsp. vanilla

1-2 Tbl. milk

Filling: Beat butter and peanut butter until fluffy. Add powdered sugar and beat until combined. Add a pinch of salt, vanilla and 1 Tbl. of milk. Beat until smooth and fluffy. If it is too thick, add another Tbl. of milk.

Food, glorious food

This is an imitation recipe for Texas Road House rolls....or you could say Rexas Toad House as one of my boys calls it. These rolls took some time with all the rising...but they were fairly simple to make. I think they tasted really close to the real deal. They were kind of dense and very tasty. I cut them into squares using a pizza roller. This recipe made a ton. About fifty rolls. I followed the recipe with one exception. Well I don't know if you can call it an exception...but all that is found in my fridge on a normal day is skim milk so I used mostly skim milk with about 3/4 of a can of evaporated milk as well. In a nutshell, these were glorious.

Copy-cat for Texas Road House Rolls

4 tsp. active dry yeast

1/2 c. warm water

2 c. milk, scalded and cooled to lukewarm

3 Tbl. of melted butter, slightly cooled

1/2 c. sugar

2 quarts all purpose flour (7-8 cups)

2 whole eggs

2 tsp. salt

Dissolve yeast in warm water with a teaspoon of sugar. Add yeast, milk, sugar and enough flour to make a medium batter. Beat thoroughly. Let stand until light and foamy. Add melted butter, eggs and salt. Beat well.

Add enough flour to form a soft dough. Sprinkle a small amount of flour onto counter and let dough rest. Meanwhile, grease a large bowl. Knead dough until smooth and satiny and put in greased bowl; turn over to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until double in bulk. Punch down. Turn out onto a floured board. Divide into portions for shaping; let rest 10 minutes. Shape dough into desired forms. Place on greased baking sheets. Let rise until doubled.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown. Baste immediately with butter. Yield: 5 to 6 dozen.

Wool stripping and hooking

My mother wanted to take a class on wool rug hooking. She needed someone to take it with her in order for it to be offered. I hooked this pillow or table runner. It was actually really simple and fun. I cut strips of wool using a material stripper and then just pulled it through fabric with a hook. It is a log cabin pattern. The sweet old lady that taught this class was so funny. She belongs to the Plum Alley Hookers and Strippers club. She makes the most beautiful rugs, wall hangings, runners and pillows. I recently pulled this out to finish the edge on it. I love how the light contrasts with the dark colors. The example the lady made was out of reds, whites and blues. I have never been very fond of blue and chose to wing it with different colors. I am happy with how it turned out.

It will be here before you know it! Yikes!

This cold weather has got me thinking about the Holidays. My mother had this painted tray in her kitchen during the Christmas season. I have always admired and loved it. I found a tray at the thrift store for a buck. I spray painted it red and let it dry. The most difficult part of making this was trying to transfer the design from my mom's tray. I tried several things including charcoal rubbing, using tracing paper, and the thing that finally worked out the best was placing a piece of paper on the design and then rubbing a crayon over it. It is painted on the metal tray and thus it is somewhat raised. At least enough that I could finally get a rubbing to show through. I then just outlined the crayon rubbing and using transfer paper, traced it onto my tray. I then painted the lines and filled in the words with black paint and a tiny paintbrush. I never knew I had a problem with shaking until I attempted this project! It was difficult and one I do not wish to repeat. I am now ready to place it in my kitchen for the holidays reminiscent of bygone childhood days. This is the finished project with all its imperfections.

Poetry

I have been Spring cleaning recently (yes, in the Fall) and I ran across some poetry I had written years ago. I had forgotten that I enjoyed writing poetry. I have always wanted to try my hand at writing a children's book and maybe even illustrating it as well.
I don't claim to be very good at poetry but I thought I would share one of them.

Watching through silent panes of glass

Waiting for clouds to disperse

Weary, misplaced in a chasm of doubt and fear

Wanting to run, imitating the breeze on an Autumn morning

Whispering words of my undying devotion to hear the hollow echo return

Wishing for unspoken kindness through love that cannot be touched

Wondering if man is capable of being true, entering into unfailing commitment

Wandering down barren paths I've trod before but somehow all is new springing forth

Winter has faded, shafts of light pierce through clouds

Waking, I realize it is you, here by my side, proving your great worth

Willingly I give you my hand, my love, my life and my unwavering heart

Bear Lake

Here is a picture out of the window where I have been spending the majority of my summer. I LOVE this place, not only for its beauty but the memories it holds. It is where my dad grew up and I spent a majority of my childhood. We used to go and help my grandpa bring in the hay and with the cattle almost every single Saturday in the Summer months. I stayed at my grandparents home every Summer as well for eight weeks or so to pick raspberries for money. I earned enough to pay my school fines and buy clothes for school. A lot of good memories in the berry patch. I picked them from the time I was twelve years old until I was sixteen years old. I used to only dream about picking berries! I couldn't even eat one for a few years after that experience. My Grandpa owned a place called Red Hill. He is gone now, but I sure do have a plethora of great memories with him. If I could, I would spend all of my Summer days here.

Crazy canning season!

I bought TEN Nanking cherry trees at a bare root sale a couple of summers ago. I planted them in my garden far too close to each other....thinking I would move them as they grew. They didn't ever get moved and they grew like weeds! This is the first year I have had fruit on them. They were loaded! I noticed them while trying to catch up on the enormous amount of weeds that seem to plan to grow as fast as they can while I am away. My kids and I picked them last night. I juiced them and sealed the juice for another not-so-busy day (yeah right, who am I kidding). I plan on making jelly with the juice. I have never attempted Nanking cherry jelly and am way excited to see how it turns out! They are teeny tiny cherries but they aren't so sour to make you pucker when you eat one. The pits take up most of the cherry so I am sure I won't be trying to pit them to make a pie. Isn't it a pretty color!

T-shirt Quilt!

I am in the process of making T-shirt quilts for my three boys. I used their old shirts and ironed a fusible interfacing onto the back of them. I had a glass shop cut me the size of square that I wanted out of Plexiglas. I cut them out and sewed a border between them. It was fun and will be a great memory for them. My cousin wants to make one for her daughter and she mentioned that she might use T-shirts for both sides. I am still contemplating that one. I do have to admit that I began this process years ago...and just like all my projects, it was neglected for quite some time. However, I did start this process long before the Twilight series was ever even a dream in the author's mind. In other words, I did not get the idea from the T-shirt quilt given to Bella by her mother in the movie. Just because the top is done, doesn't mean that it will be quilted and finished for another year or even more. As long as I keep plugging away, I feel okay about procrastination. :)

Happy Fourth of July! (better late than never!)

I bought some wool yarn at a local thrift store and have been hooking pillows with it. They are fairly easy and offer some enjoyment. However, I do not like to sew them up and stuff them. In fact, if you look at the bottoms of a lot of my hand-made pillows, you will see that I haven't bothered to hand stitch the gap that allows for stuffing. I definitely love the creative process a lot more than the mundane task that requires sewing by hand. When first attracted by this art, I was able to find quite a lot of wool yarn for fifty cents a skein and I hoarded it with the intention of mass producing some of my pillows and offering them for sale. I have found that once I make just one, the magic of anticipating how the finished product will look is lost and I have no desire to make another, not to mention five or ten more. I made this one a few years back in celebration of the fourth of July. It is one of my very favorites. I keep thinking I will make another just like it for my sister-in-law...but haven't convinced myself yet. I just make up my own patterns or sometimes I use a simple drawing from a coloring book. I use a punch needle to punch the yarn through burlap.

A little mixed up on Holidays!

I have found more time this summer to hand sew during other activities than I had all winter long. I am just finishing yet another neglected project. I borrowed a similar runner from my sister-in-law just following Halloween last year. I loved the primitive feeling of the cats and pumpkins. I just used some wool felt I happened to have on hand and tried to replicate the runner. This is the end result. I made mine a little longer and more narrow. I am getting good at the blanket stitch. I only skewered my finger once! Now there is no more pressure to be done by next Halloween so my sister-in-law can use her decoration once more. Hooray.

Craving...satisfied!

I have been craving this coffee cake for a month! My oldest boy was kind enough to make me some today. You can use any flavor of pie filling you fancy. Just be sure not to overcook it. This was blueberry pie filling. Deliriously delicious!

Coffee Cake

Cream together:

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup shortening

4 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. almond extract

Stir in:

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

3 cups flour

Spread 2/3 of the batter in a greased 15 1/2 X 10 1/2 X 1" jelly roll pan.

Spread 1 can fruit pie filling over the batter.

Drop remaining batter by spoonfuls over pie filling.

Bake 350* for 35-40 minutes.

Drizzle with powdered sugar glaze.