Celebrity Judging

Does everybody know our friend Mango?

Did everyone vote in his contest, "I Wanna Be Like Mango"?

Thor was a special celebrity judge.

He studied the entries carefully.

Very carefully.

And Thor chose.....

Go visit Mango to find out who the winners are!

Peanut Butter Bar Cookies

I'm learning to adjust to Ryan carrying a lunch in a paper bag. Oh, making bread or rolls and being sure he has an interesting sandwich - breadwise if not fillingwise - is easy. So are carrots, raisins, dried apricots or whatever else suits his fancy. Baked goods are the hard part. We tried cake with frosting one day; I even wrapped it in waxed paper so he'd have a nice sort-of plate when he opened it up. No good; the frosting stuck to the paper.

So this week, I'm trying these. So far, so good.

PEANUT BUTTER BAR COOKIES

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 egg
1/2 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp milk
1/4 cup quick oats

Cream together the butter and peanut butter; add the egg, vanilla and brown sugar, and beat until combined. At low speed beat in the flour, soda and salt, then add the milk and beat until smooth. Stir in the quick oats, turn into a greased 8" square pan, and bake at 375F for 16 to 18 minutes, until lightly browned. Let cool and cut into 16 squares.


These are not terribly sweet; they could be sweetened up by frosting with a combination of about 2 tbsp peanut butter, 2 tbsp cream and maybe 2 cups confectioner's sugar. But then, that would go against my effort to make a frostingless confection for my boy, wouldn't it? They've stayed very soft for 3 days, and both boys love them. I have a feeling that I'll be making pans of these for lunches many weeks.

Garden Tuesday: The Start of Autumn

The burning bushes are starting to turn bright pink, a sure sign that autumn's approaching.

The leaves on this bush are deep purple in summer time. They're now fading, too
Autumn colors are on the way!

Blueberry Jam

Don't get all excited. I'm not a talented jam maker. I'm barely competent, and that's only because of my bread machine and a cookbook someone gave me for Christmas several years back.

That having been said, this is a very flavorful jam.

BLUEBERRY JAM

1 pound fresh blueberries (or thawed frozen berries)
1/2 packet pectin
1-1/2 cups sugar
3 tbsp Creme de Cassis

Lightly crush or pulse the blueberries, pour in the bread machine bucket and add the sugar. Let it sit 15 minutes for the sugar to dissolve, then sprinkle on the pectin and pour in the Creme de Cassis. Turn your bread machine to the Jam cycle, start it up, let it do its thing, and take lots of credit for being a wonderful jam maker.

The recipe didn't call for the berries to be crushed, but they are too big in the finished jam without crushing (at least, in my opinion).

And the little old lady with the books is very excited that Jeff will come start picking up those books for me on Thursday. I figure it might well take him 2 trips, because 2000 books have to weigh a lot. (She told me she had sold the art books; was that OK?) Let's hope it stops raining by Thursday!

I May Have a Problem...

I love books. As you might notice, I have a few books. The black set above is a complete set of the Harvard Classics from 1909 (over 50 volumes). The red ones on the third shelf up in the picture below are encyclopedias from 1928. They are a lot of fun.
I have books stuffed in a built in shelf in our upstairs hall, with photos in front of them.
The school/homework room has multiple book shelves.
This includes multiple sets of relatively current encyclopedias, and Jeffrey.
The playroom "just" has this set.
There are books tucked onto pretty little decorative tables...
And on the shelves at the bottom of sofa tables.

So why can't I just stay away from calling the ad in the paper offering 2000 books for sale for $250???

Where on Earth am I going to put another 250 to 300 lineal feet of book shelves?

I may have a problem. I may just be a bookaholic.

Earl Grey Tea Ice Cream

Do you like tea?
Do you like honey?
Do you like ice cream?
Are you on a diet?

Only kidding. I don't know any woman over the age of 25 who isn't on a diet, and men don't worry as we do.

Seriously, this ice cream is much lower calorie than that which I normally produce, and, therefore, "diet-ish". Just like the cake earlier this week, only more diet-ish. Really.

EARL GREY TEA ICE CREAM

2 tbsp tea leaves, Earl Grey or some other strong black tea
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup honey
1 egg yolk
1 tsp cornstarch
3/4 cup cream
1-1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup orange juice

Pour the boiling water over the tea leaves and let it sit for 15 minutes. Strain. While the tea is still strong, whisk in the honey, egg yolk and cornstarch. Cook in the microwave for 2 to 5 minutes (depending on how fast yours goes), stirring every 30 seconds, until the mixture begins to puff up. OR, for Pam and other ice cream non-cookers, just whisk in the honey and skip the egg yolk and cornstarch, and don't cook it. It'll just be a different in texture, I promise. Whisk in the milk and cream, and then the orange juice, and chill for about 3 hours. Process according to your ice cream maker's directions.
If you don't have an ice cream maker, don't whisk in the cream. Chill the mixture in the freezer until it starts to turn slushy, beat the cream and whisk it into the base. Then freeze it until it's solid. It'll work fine, I promise.

See? Little cream, less milk. Diet-ish.

Word of warning: If you don't like a strong honey flavor, use 1/4 cup honey and 1/4 cup white sugar. Then just stir the sugar in with the boiling water and tea leaves so it dissolves. And there you go! A cup of tea along with your ice cream; what could be better?
Have a great weekend, everyone!

"My Dog"

On Tuesday, Thor woke up toward the end of school, and brought his lobster to tempt his boy to go play.
"No," said his boy, "I must write my composition. Then we can romp in the yard." So Thor lay down to play Lobster by himself, hoping to tempt his boy away from schooling.

The Composition assignment for Lesson 10 was to write a descriptive paragraph. This is what Thor's boy wrote:

"My dog Thor is a very good dog. He has light brown fur like a deer, but is much cuter than a deer. The black mask on his face makes him look like someone on Halloween, and he is so scary that the people who hand out candy on Halloween would give him all the candy. Yet Thor has none of the meanness that his appearance would suggest. He is a kind, lovable dog, always gentle with people, and generous with his treats."

Of course, big doggie hugs followed the composition, along with peanut butter sandwiches and romping time!

Happy Thorsday, everyone!

Chiffon Cake With Orange Frosting

This is a diet cake. Well, diet-ish, anyway. But it's really good! I found the recipe in that 1990-something version of Fannie Farmer, and decided to try it. My dearly beloved loves sponge cake, after all, and chiffon cake is somewhat like that. This was a very high, moist cake; I think you'll like it!

CHIFFON CAKE

8 egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1-1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup salad oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup cold water
5 egg yolks

Beat the egg whites until foamy; add the cream of tartar and beat until stiff; set aside.

Into another bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Beat in the oil, vanilla and water until just combined. Add the egg yolks and beat until shiny. Beat in 1/4 of the egg whites, then fold in the remainder. (Truth in cookery: I just beat mine all in, a little at a time, at the lowest speed on my mixer. I don't have time for this fancy folding stuff.)

Cut a circle of waxed paper to fit the bottom of a 10" tube pan. Grease the pan, insert the waxed paper, then grease the paper. Pour the cake batter into the pan, and bake in a preheated 325F oven for 50 to 60 minutes. Let the cake cool before frosting with....

7 Minute Orange Frosting

1-1/2 cups sugar
2 egg whites
1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1/8 tsp salt

In the bottom of a double boiler or in a sauce pan, heat some water to boiling. In the top of the double boiler, or in a bowl that will fit the pan, beat the egg whites until somewhat foamy with the cream of tartar and salt. In your blender, whirl the sugar to make "superfine" crystals (Marjie's trick, not Fannie's; it works). Place the egg whites over the boiling water, and beat in the sugar, salt and cream of tartar slowly. Continue beating at medium speed until the whites are softly beaten, then beat in the orange juice. Beat over high speed with the bowl over the boiling water until the frosting forms into soft peaks, about 5 to 7 minutes total, then remove from the heat. If desired, add some food coloring to make the frosting look orange (my dearly beloved insists that food doesn't taste right unless it's the appropriate color). Let the frosting cool, the frost the cooled cake.

The cake was good, and the frosting was very fluffy. If you don't whirl the sugar, the frosting will have a grainy feel to it (I've made "7 minute frostings" before). I promise you this is diet-ish frosting, at least by comparison to my normal buttercream frosting, because it contains no butter, no cream, and half as much sugar as buttercream. There, don't you feel better about indulging?

Garden Tuesday

Jeff went to WVU for the weekend, and when he came back, he discovered that this branch had come down on Sunday or Monday.

Fortunately, he had it taken care of with a chainsaw and 5 minutes' work.

And it's a nice, sunny day in our little corner of the world!

Water Bread and Rolls

Yes, you read that right. Water Bread and Water Rolls. Two things out of one easy recipe.

Seriously, this is the epitome of bread. It's as basic as they get, with a very delicate flavor. And, for those of you with "small" (Translation: normal sized) families, you can make this work for two nights. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

WATER BREAD AND ROLLS

Adapted from Fannie Farmer's Cookbook, published around 1990-something.

2 cups warm water
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp sugar
1-1/2 tsp salt
6 tsp yeast
5 to 6 cups flour

Pour the water into your bread machine bucket or mixing bowl, sprinkle the yeast over it, drop the butter in small chunks into it, then add 4 cups flour, the sugar and salt. Let the dough mix for about 3 minutes, then sprinkle another cup of flour into it. If needed, add up to another cup of flour to give the dough the proper texture. Let it rise about 15 minutes.

Punch down and divide the dough in half. Flatten one half, then roll it jelly roll style, so it fits into a loaf pan. Divide the other half into 8 pieces, and arrange them in a pie plate. Let both rise until doubled in bulk, then bake at 350F for glass pans or 375F for metal pans, about 25 minutes for the rolls and 35 to 40 minutes for the bread loaf.

For those of you with small families, you can cover the top of one pan with a piece of oiled waxed paper, then cover the waxed paper with a loose sheet of plastic wrap, and pop the pan into the refrigerator until the next day. Voila! Fresh bread the second day, as well.
This bread made terrific sandwiches, because the flavor of the bread doesn't overpower the filling. It's also neither salty nor sweet - exactly as bread should be! Thank you, Fannie Farmer!

And Thor has been vigilant all day, but still no furnace man. Happily, it's sunny and 63, so Thor's not howling piteously that dogs need central heating!

Treadle Sewing

Well, the furnace isn't fixed; they're promising Monday, but we'll see...fortunately, the temperatures have rebounded; it was 65 yesterday, and it's 72 today, so at least we're not freezing. And we have hot water, so I'm not boiling water to wash dishes...another plus!

Recently, Ryan has been playfully hollering at me because he says I "never" use my treadle sewing machine. So yesterday, I made him take pictures as I was hemming some jeans for my dearly beloved.
Closer up proof that I actually use my 101 year old beauty. And I'll tell you what, it goes through many layers of Levi's denim like nothing else I've ever used. And since I have oiled every joint in this baby several times, it just hums right along!
Hope you're all having a great weekend! See you tomorrow (I hope, furnace men not throwing curve balls my way)!

Lazy Daisy Cake

It has turned chilly here. Days in the 50s, nights in the 40s, and my house is down to 64 degrees inside. So, on Wednesday, my dearly beloved turned on the furnace for the season. Uh Oh!

It didn't go well. OK, that's an understatement. There was water pouring out of the center of the furnace. Turns out the cast iron body cracked. WTF??? That sucker doesn't move, no one abuses it, and, well, gee, it didn't even freeze up down there in my basement between May and September. "It just happens," the plumbers say. Fortunately, we have a spare furnace sitting in our basement, one that we had replaced in 1999 because we converted to oil (we're now back to natural gas). So we can just have that one put right back in. Simple, right? Except that they're making a federal project out of it; I'm not enjoying the words I'm hearing drifting up the stairs, like "retrofit". I can only hope we'll have heat, or at least hot water, for the weekend.

So, what better to do while it's chilly than bake a nice little cake? This one came from Fannie Farmer. It's easy; you'll like it.

LAZY DAISY CAKE

2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
1 tbsp butter

Beat the eggs until thick and light colored; beat in the sugar, 1/4 cup at a time, and the vanilla extract. Stir in the flour, baking powder and salt. Heat the milk and butter until the butter melts; beat the batter until smooth. Pour into a greased 8" square pan, and beat at 350F for about 25 minutes.

You can either let the cake cool somewhat and top with the glaze I used on my Apple Zucchini Cake, or top with Fannie's suggested topping:

3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp heavy cream
1/2 cup shredded coconut or chopped nuts

Melt butter with cream; stir in brown sugar and coconut or nuts, spread on top of the warm cake, and broil for a minute or 2, until the topping browns. This option wasn't open to me, because I'm the only person currently in residence who likes coconut, and only my dearly beloved and I like nuts. And I promise that I didn't need this entire cake attaching itself to my derriere!

As for the furnace fixit guy? Well, Thor doesn't do stairs, but he's laying next to the basement door, making sure the guy doesn't leave without us knowing. Or maybe not until he shares his lunch. It's hard to tell sometimes.

Thor's Keeping People Home!

Well, lots of Thor's people have been leaving for college, returned for a short time, and left again.

But not Jeffrey.

And when he left his flip flops in the family room, Thor took up vigil next to them, so Jeff can't leave without authorization.
Who says dogs don't know what's going on?

Not Thor.

Zucchini Apple Snack Cake

This is good. It's really good. And it's healthy, too, but don't tell anyone, or they'll refuse to eat it out of spite for health food.

Last night, I needed a quick dessert, because two of the boys were down with sore throats (welcome back to school *snarl*). I saw a recipe for something sort of like this, and decided that I could make it better. So, without further ado....

ZUCCHINI APPLE SNACK CAKE

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1-1/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
2 tsp baking soda
1-1/2 cups shredded zucchini
2 to 3 apples, shredded

Glaze:

1-1/2 cups confectioners sugar
2 tbsp whipping cream
1 to 2 tsp lemon juice

Cream the butter with brown sugar; beat in the vanilla and the eggs, one at a time. Add the cinnamon and nutmeg (truth in recipe: I just shook in a bunch of cinnamon and a little less nutmeg, and guessed at the amount afterward). At low speed, beat in the flour and baking soda, and beat until combined: the batter will be very stiff. Add the shredded zucchini and apple, and beat at low speed. Pour into a greased 13"x9" baking pan, and bake at 350F for about 30 minutes.

While the cake's still warm, stir the cream into the confectioner's sugar, then add the lemon juice a little at a time, until it's thin spreading consistency. Spread over the warm cake, and let the glaze melt in a minute. Serve warm.
So, here's how good this is: Jeffrey has eaten 1/4 of the pan for breakfast. Need I say more?

September 11, 2001: I will never forget

Nine years ago, it was a sunny Tuesday morning. Nine years ago, I slept in until 11AM, because I'd been up until 4AM the previous night. When I got up to take Ryan to Kindergarten, my radio had no music blaring, just a radio personality announcing that Penn State had not been evacuated, and all flights were grounded.

I turned on the TV, to a horrifying sight.

We had been attacked. The Twin Towers were gone. The Pentagon had been hit. A flight was downed in western Pennsylvania.

We would never see the world the same way again. We've never felt the same sense of security and serenity.

This year, the memories have been politicized by the Quran burning idiot in Florida, and the mosque in NYC (Imam: It may be legal to put it there, but be sensitive. You wouldn't put a mosque at Auschwitz, and you shouldn't put one so close to Ground Zero. Don't disregard the feelings of the majority of the country).

I think many people have lost the sense of horror and outrage we all felt 9 years ago. We need to remember. Remember the 3000 innocent souls who perished that day. I will never forget.

Thorsday is a School Day!

School started yesterday. Of course Thor was there to supervise the unpacking of the box.
He wasn't quite sure why there was only one box, but Thor was pretty sure this was wrong. Time to go look for the other one. (For the record, Thor was not amused when one of his boys left in the morning for school, and didn't come back for 8 hours!)

Should Thor read The Phantom Tollbooth first? There's a dog on the cover.

No. Swiss Family Robinson is first. They have not one, but TWO Mastiffs. Those people know their dogs.
Happy Thorsday, everyone!

Blueberry Cobbler

Appearances on this blog notwithstanding, I love a good canned pie filling. Not that I use them in pies, mind you, but they are handy things to have around. Why, if not for pies? Well, for cobbler, of course! This was Monday night's selection, and it was very popular!

BLUEBERRY COBBLER

1 can blueberry pie filling
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp butter, softened
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg

Spread the pie filling in an 8" or 9" square baking pan. Put the flour, sugar, powder and salt in a medium sized mixing bowl. Mash the butter in with a fork, then stir in the vanilla and egg. Drop by spoonsful on top of the pie filling, and bake at 350F for about 40 minutes, until the crust is nicely browned. Serve with whipped cream, ice cream or both.
Of course, you can use your favorite pie filling flavor for this. I had blueberry, and so that became my favorite for Monday night!

Calvert School 8th Grade Review

My little Ryan starts High School tomorrow! *sob*

Don't tell me a 14 year old who's 6'3" isn't little. You'll make me cry. *sob*

Ryan finished eighth grade with Algebra I in June. There's no doubt that Algebra was the hardest thing to teach, made even harder by the fact that he really doesn't like math. Nonetheless, the parent can teach the child either by presenting him with the manual or reading the material from the manual to him and going through the steps to demonstrate the skill being taught. No prior Algebra experience is required. Calvert supplied the textbook, lesson manual and an answer key that shows the steps used for solving the problem, not just the answer, so you can figure out where the child made his error.

I bought the 2008-2009 8th grade curriculum, because I wanted the old reading books, including Johnny Tremain, Hounds of the Baskervilles, rThe Prince and The Pauper, and David Copperfield. Ryan enjoyed all of these EXCEPT Copperfield. He's learned that while Dickens may tell a good story, and it may make a good movie, paying authors by the word makes for dull reading. I believe all of these books have been replaced by more contemporary works, and I don't necessarily agree with that decision, but Calvert didn't consult me before doing it. Calvert also supplied a very big book of poetry, many of which were epic poems, to which Ryan had mixed reactions. Spelling is still the original Calvert course, about 20 words per day for the first 3 days of the week, with the last two days devoted to working on misspelled words. They also use a very interesting vocabulary book, with exercises that are interesting, and even your eighth grader would admit "might be" fun. Grammar and Composition are taught from the same book, Elements of Language, and sentence diagramming reinforces the structure of grammar. There are not too many compositions assigned, usually one every week or 2, but a great deal of time is spent developing each composition. There were also some fun exercises included; Ryan made travel brochures for "Once In a Lifetime" trips to Venus (bring coloring books and crayons to keep small children amused for the long ride) and the Jurassic period (stay with your tour group; we cannot be responsible for people carried off by dinosaurs).
The US History course was very detailed, and Geography was neatly intertwined with History. Science was taught through a series of 5 books, including Geology, Space, Electricity, and Environment. There were Calvert-created workbooks to help with the study of both of these subjects. Ryan's greatest regret was that Virgil Hillyer didn't have a fourth History of Art course for eighth grade.

I'm proud of how much my boy learned in Calvert School. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to cry because he's that much closer to flying the coop. *sob*

Calvert School 5th grade Review

Well, there's nothing like being poky, now is there? We finished school back in early June, of course, but I've been ignoring that. Now, with Ryan starting high school tomorrow, it's time to stop ignoring everything. And I received a question from a lady named Dee Dee regarding Calvert School's Fifth Grade, with no way to reply to her directly, so I'll try to address it here.

Mark's a year ahead in math, so he used Calvert's Sixth Grade math. One of the nice things about Calvert School is that you can choose math above or below your child's grade level, and the math book is not marked with a grade level, so it's just math! Calvert starts with a test to review what the child knows, and then provides 10 review lessons that can be used to refresh the child's memory if he/she is shaky on anything. So, Dee Dee, if your daughter is a little shaky in math, as indicated by the placement test, then use fourth grade math with her. It's still more advanced than public school's fifth grade math, and fouth grade math provides an excellent review of the 4 basic math functions, followed by more advanced concepts, including fractions, word problems, probability, etc.
Calvert's fifth grade included a number of good books. First up was Shiloh, about a boy who took in a beagle. This book presented an interesting moral dilemma for my little guy, who did not like the story because the dog, Shiloh, belonged to a local lout, who abused his dogs. While Mark knows it's wrong to mistreat animals, he also knows it's wrong to steal someone else's dog. He struggled, therefore, with this book, because he had a hard time finding a "good guy" in the book. I was proud that he saw the wrong on the part of both the parties involved with this poor beagle. The next book was The Sign of the Beaver, set in Maine in the late 1700s, about a white boy who's befriended by a tribe of Indians. This was Mark's favorite book of the year. American Tall Tales was a series of short stories about legends we all know, including Paul Bunyan. Call It Courage and Sing Down the Moon both dealt with native children dealing with the process of growing up, Number the Stars was about two girls in Denmark, one Jewish and one Christian, during World War II, and the Christian girl's family helping the Jewish girl's family escape the Nazis. The last book was The Secret Garden, traditionally read by girls, but both of my boys have reluctantly enjoyed it. Dee Dee, in the scholastic version of this course, two of the books are eliminated. Calvert's teacher manual is excellent, because it gives us an introduction to read to the child before he starts reading the assignment, and comprehension/discussion questions for after the reading is complete. Since your daughter is a reluctant reader, you can have her alternate reading aloud pages with you, which will improve her reading comprehension and speed. If you're willing to work at it, she can do this.

Grammar is covered in a Calvert School written workbook, and is a very thorough course. Critical Thinking and Reading Comprehension workbooks help enhance the reading and composition processes, and compositions are assigned, with them telling the parent how to teach the child to write better. Spelling is the Scott Foresman program, and is evidently well liked by others (although I still prefer Calvert's original 10 words per day spelling program). Science and History are nationally known programs, and Calvert goes through the entire book during the year - something schools don't do. History is a US History course, and my little guy enjoyed it. The Child's History of Art course covers the history of painting, starting with the Caves at Lascaux, continuing through Egyptian art and right up to Picasso and modern artists. It's great exposure for children to a subject many adults know only vaguely!

Dee Dee, I hope I've answered your questions. If not, please leave me your email address (I promise I'll delete it from public view as soon as I write it down), so I can correspond with you directly.

For anyone looking for a great homeschool curriculum, Calvert School delivers. It's not cheap, but it is very thorough, and a lot less than any private school tuition, even parochial schools.

Garden Tuesday: Peaches, again.

The boys brought back a few more peaches over the weekend, sadly, the last of the season, and something had to be done with them. Flash of inspiration: Girard's Peach Mimosa Salad Dressing! It's sweet, so it should work in a baked product, right? Here you have....

PEACH MIMOSA PEACH BREAD

3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup peach mimosa dressing
1/2 cup milk
5 peaches, chopped small
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Stir together all the dry ingredients. Beat in the eggs, dressing and milk, and beat for one minute. Stir in the chopped peaches and nuts, and turn into two greased loaf pans. Bake 50 minutes for 9"x5" pans, or 1 hour for 8"x4" pans. Let cool, then wrap and store overnight before cutting for best flavor.

If you haven't rushed to the store for your Girard's Peach Mimosa dressing yet, add another 1/4 cup sugar, another 1/4 cup milk and 1/4 cup vegetable oil in its place. It won't be quite as peachy, but I'm sure it will still be delightful!

(And while my artsy picture sure is cute, I probably won't work that hard at setup again for a while. I need to spend my time cooking!)