I'm sure there are a few of us who remember a time when there was no "President's Day." Instead, we celebrated Lincoln's Birthday on February 12th and Washington's Birthday on February 22nd.
When you add Valentine's Day to the mix, February was a golden month for elementary school students.
I'm not sure our teachers were all that thrilled, though!
But back in those days, we learned all about Abe Lincoln growing up in a log cabin, and how George Washington chopped down the cherry tree. Do you remember how we were all taught that little George admitted the deed to his father, saying, "I cannot tell a lie"?
Whether that event actually happened or not, we all grew up knowing that honorable, trustworthy and truthful people could grow up to be president.
And, as a result of that little anecdote, cherries became the food of the day on Washington's Birthday.
I'm definitely one to help tradition along, so I scrounged around and found a recipe that is probably as old as George himself.
One way you can tell this is an oldie, but goodie, is it's simplicity. No fancy ingredients - just what a farmer's wife would have on her pantry shelves in the middle of winter.
Cherry Drop Dumplings with Fruit Juice
serves 6 Ingredients: Sauce:
3 cups cherries, canned with water or juice
For the sauce, bring the cherries, sugar, juice and water to a boil in a large saucepan (mine is 3 quarts) over medium high heat.
Meanwhile, make the dumplings. Stir the flour, sugar and baking soda together. Cut in the butter until the mixture is crumbly. Add the milk and vanilla, stirring until the dough resembles a soft biscuit dough.
Drop the dough by spoonfuls into the boiling cherry mixture, then lower the heat to medium and continue cooking for 20 minutes, or until the dumplings are done.
Serve with milk or cream.
In spite of the odd name, this was a delicious dessert! You'll have to try it.
Let's celebrate President's Day with a fun game - what presidential trivia can you share with us?
As I type this, we are preparing for the storm. I may edit later but, just in case we don't have power for a while, I am setting up the post now. Yup, I'm already looking at the worst possible scenario. ( Ruthy says it's a writer trait, looking for that worst case possibility). Having lived through major ice storms in NC for decades, I don't hold out hope.
The birdometer has been telling me the weather is going to be rough. What is the birdometer, you ask? When I am going through a ten pound bag of birdseed a DAY and the birdfeeders look like Grand Central Station, it means trouble is on the way!
You may not see the crowd of birds. Most are blending in. That's what they do in the winter.
People posted a lot of LEP (Losing Electricity Preparation), things I hadn't thought of:
Turn up your thermostat so your powerless house will hold heat longer.
Make sure to run your taps even if the temps aren't that cold. You don't have heat inside the house keeping them warm anymore.
Where is your caffeine source coming from?
Do you have cash? ATMs and credit card machines won't work even if the gas stations and stores are open.
Make sure to take a shower and wash and dry your hair beforehand.
Have you done the laundry? Do you have clean underwear? (My personal fave.)
I ticked off my list of survival grub. I had the milk (it can stay on the screened porch), the bread, Girl Scout cookies for ManO.
But if the power was off, how would I get my cholesterol lowering Gluten Free Oatmeal and fiber without a hot, piping bowl of oatmeal? I quickly searched the Internet, ran up to the grocery (the panicked crowd hadn't deluged Fresh Market, just the regular stores) and came back home to bake before the storm. I hit a winning recipe on the first try! I adapted my recipe to make it less sweet, more breakfasty than dessert or snack.
Before: I do love my cookie scoop and parchment paper.
After: If I give the snowman a cookie, will he keep the snow and ice at bay?
1/2 cup chopped pecans (feel free to add other ingredients like chips or dried fruit)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350° F. In a large
bowl, using a mixer, cream together the butter and sugar on medium speed. Add
eggs and vanilla and mix until smooth. Slowly add the baking mix and cinnamon
and blend on low, adding oats.
Stir in chocolate chips and walnuts until evenly distributed. Drop by the spoonfuls
onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 10-15
minutes depending on the size of the cookie (until golden brown). Let
cool on cookie sheet before transferring to a cooling
rack.
The birds were right. And so were the weather people. Storm started as I finished my post and added almost half a foot of snow and ice.
Epilogue
The big news, you may have seen it. Picture of gridlock in Raleigh goes viralManO went back to work part time this week, saw the snow and left work. Along with the rest of the Triangle. It took him an hour and a half to go a quarter of a mile. My daughter's twenty minute commute took 3.5 hours. The snow started hard and stuck quickly. Everyone was leaving at the same time. Thank goodness most folks got home safely. This wasn't a matter of people not knowing how to drive in snow but not being able to go uphills when traffic was at a standstill.
We didn't lose power but our son and family did (their survival food was pizza delivered). About five inches and an inch of ice stopped the world for 36 hours. But we took advantage of not being able to go anywhere, caught up on tv shows and carb loaded (hey, I had my blog technically done). It could have been worse. My sister in MD got 20 inches. My sister in NYC got a ton. Both had ice.
And next week they are calling for temperatures in the 70s.
So what about you? Do you have a plan of attack when the power goes out? Go to foods? Tricks to make the time bearable? How many quilts are going on your bed if necessary?
Happy Valentine's Day from The Belle! I have a wonderful menu to share with you that I think would make a great Valentine's dinner to share with a special someone.
Photo credit: Bigstock/Awindle
Back in January, while planning to go to Kentucky for my aunt's funeral, one of my good church friends, Evelyn Hix, said she wanted to bring me a birthday cake. When she realized the funeral was on my birthday, and that I would be traveling home a couple of days later, she offered to bring dinner along with the cake. Yes, she's a generous, wonderful friend! So that evening after I got home wiped out from driving 6 hours, my husband showed up from work with this really cool (or hot!) serving thingy. I don't even know what to call it. Evelyn said she's had it forever.
I think maybe it's from the same generation as Edna. Maybe they were friends! The layers of metal tins stack on top of each other and then slip inside the red, white and blue thermal case, keeping everything piping hot.
Now, just to give warning. I didn't think of taking photos until after some of us had served ourselves. So some of the tins look pretty empty! :)
First layer…yummy yeast rolls.
Next…glazed, buttered carrots.
Next, the piece de resistance! (I'll be sharing the recipe!)…fancy green bean bundles. I can't begin to explain how good these were. Thus, the tin is almost empty!
Next…creamy mashed potatoes.
And in the bottom of the stack...Evelyn's famous chicken fingers. (I shared this recipe before, click here.)
It was a delicious dinner and fancy enough to have for Valentine's Day. So here is the wonderful green bean recipe. One of my other friends said she has done something similar. But rather than making the fancy bundles, she just dumped the beans in the casserole dish and mixed it up, then sprinkled crumbled bacon on top.
Evelyn's Green Bean Bundles
Note: Make this a day ahead of time so it can marinate overnight. 1-1/2 pounds fresh green beans OR 3 15-ounce cans of beans 1 stick butter, melted 1 cup brown sugar Dash soy sauce Garlic powder (optional) Bacon If using fresh beans, cook in salted boiling water for 10-15 minutes and then drain. Gather 8-10 green beans in a bundle and wrap with a bacon slice. Secure with a toothpick. Put bundles in a baking dish. Mix together the melted butter, brown sugar and soy sauce. Pour over the bean bundles. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator overnight. The next day, bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 35 minutes. These are AMAZING. I think I could eat the whole recipe myself. Oh! I almost forgot to share a photo of a slice of my birthday cake! Yellow cake with coconut between the layers, and chocolate icing. Thank you Evelyn!
I hope you all have a HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! Here's my Valentine to you, filled with love.
Jamie must have known last October that I was going to stumble onto a jar of Almond Butter in November and developed this recipe just for me!!!!
ADD HELPERS!!!!!!
Jamie's Almond Butter Cookies (My Baking Addiction) 10/21/13
1 cup butter, softened (Jamie called for unsalted, I used regular butter)
1 cup sugar
1 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1 1/2 cups Almond Butter (Jamie called for Jif but my organic blend was great)
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups quick cooking oatmeal
2 cups chocolate chips (I used 2 cups regular semi-sweet and about 1 1/2 cup darker 60% because I'm close personal friends with the ENTIRE GHIRARDELLI family!!!!)
Mix butter, sugars, almond butter, eggs, vanilla until well blended.
It is IMPERATIVE to remove egg from shell first. Darn toddlers!!!!!! How cute is she??????
Blend in flour, baking soda, salt. Beat about two minutes. Then add dry oatmeal and the chocolate chips.
That's if you can RESCUE THE CHOCOLATE CHIPS FROM TODDLER-MONSTER-BABY!!!!
Drop dough by rounded spoonfuls onto parchment paper lined cookie sheet. (I tested this to see if it made a difference, and it did! The cookie was more tender on the parchment paper. Go figure!!!)
Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes.
This whole thing started because Mandy and Beth and I went to the Christkindl Festival in Canandaigua in November. This is a GREAT FESTIVAL.
Big, heated tents, gorgeous vendors, great stuff, good food, nice folks. I mean it's a wonderful festival and it's in November.
Up here in the cold north, festivals wind down in October and half of those get rained out. :( So sad!!!! The mud was so deep in the Apple Fest last year that folks had to wear farm boots. Anyway, I bought a jar of almond butter.... Now I had NO IDEA what to do with almond butter, but I've been like overdosing on almonds since going low-carb and it was $7 so I bought it.
And there we were, two months/three months later, saying, "What can we do with this stuff???"
Mandy hopped onto the ever-present laptop and found this recipe.
THESE COOKIES ARE MARVELOUS, WONDERFUL, DELICIOUS AND GREAT TEXTURE!!!!
In all seriousness, these are one of the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever had. The combo of oatmeal and almond butter MAKES THEM AMAZING.
Give them a try. And then let me know what you think. Easy recipe, and the only thing I did different was the refrigeration thing. I did not refrigerate the dough, the kids would MUTINY if I stuck dough away for three hours...
Shoot, we were eating it raw, and we loved, loved, loved it!
Hello everybody! The Fresh Pioneer is here and I've got a sweet dessert I made for the first time back January of 2013 and it's sort of become a favorite in our house. Since we made it recently for Isabel's birthday, I thought I'd bring back the post and celebrate this delicious dish again!
The
Fresh Pioneer is back and Edna has returned from vacation, so we're ready to
make something really tasty.
I love brownies. All brownies. I have never met a brownie I did not love. I don't care if
they're skinny, fluffy, cakey, nutty, crumbly, fudgy, edges or middles. I love
them all. But what about flavored brownies? How much can you add to a brownie before it
loses its 'brownieness'? My daughter wanted to make cream cheese brownies, but with raspberry
flavoring.
Ok, raspberry and cream cheese (thinking raspberries over plain cheesecake) I
can understand.
And raspberries and chocolate FOR SURE.
But
all three together? Hm.
So, we started with a normal cream cheese swirl recipe.
10 TBS butter softened, mixed with 4 eggs, and 1 1/2 cups sugar.
Melt 8 ounces bittersweet chips. Combine 1/4 c. cocoa powder, 1/2 tsp baking
powder, 1/2 tsp salt and one cup plus 2 tbs flour.
Edna doing her thang. Check that flour on
her underside. She just does what a gal's gotta do. And when it comes to
brownies, we do we have to.
6 ounces cream cheese softened, add 2 tbs sugar, and 1 tsp raspberry flavoring.
After pouring the brownies into the pan, spoon the cream cheese mix over the
top and swiiiiirrrrrrlllllll.
Bake at 350F for 40 minutes. So said the
directions, but these were done sooner. So, check early and often.
My happy child. And since she's a tween,
and soon to be a TEENAGER in a few months, I have to post this other picture I
got. I think we laughed off all the brownie calories. I'll never erase it. I'll
save it forever. Because it says so much about that brownie loving gene I
passed on...
Prepare yourselves...
Ready???
Ok. (And if you don't hear from me again, it's because the almost-teenager
has killed me and buried my poor body in the garden.)
Isn't that HEELARIOUS?? You put a plate of
brownies in front of me and I look like that, too. When I pushed the button to
check the photo, and this showed up, I laughed so hard I was on my knees in the
kitchen. And she's got a great sense of humor so just MAYBE I'll be forgiven
for posting it.
If not, I bequeath Edna to Kav. They can write children's books together.
Until next time!
This is the 2014 me again. This child recently turned 14 and we STILL laugh at that picture! She was due on Valentine's Day (actually the feast day of St. Cyril and Methodius, who invented the Russian alphabet) and I was VERRRRRY excited. But she decided to arrive early!
So this St. Valentine's Day bake something delicious, take a silly picture, and treasure the people around you!
By the time you read this post, I will, hopefully, be much happier than I am at the writing of this post.
This is me writing.
No, it's not a nose piercing gone bad. I'ts what the doctor calls a 24 hour PH test.
I call it cruel and unusual punishment.
I've been dealing with severe acid reflux for over a year now and they're trying to find out what's causing it. The first test was a scope. They knocked me out for that one and it was one of the best naps I've ever had. This one? Well, I'll be doing well to get any sleep. Not just because of the tube running from my nose to my esophagus, but because I'll be counting down to its removal.
Let's keep things in perspective, though. This is nothing compared to what my poor hubby had to endure after kidney surgery in 2011. He had an NG tube for days. And it was much larger than mine.
Yes, I can--and am supposed to--eat with this. Sure wish I still had some of this lasagna I made at the ranch last weekend.
It was so yummy, I'd forget all about this dreadful tube.
One of the things I like about this particular lasagna is that it's heavy on the meat and cheese, but light on the tomato sauce. Of course, my men love that. And, as you can imagine, heavy tomato sauces aren't exactly a friend to those with acid reflux.
So here's what you're going to need:
2 lbs of lean ground beef
1 lb sweet (or hot) Italian sausage
3 cloves of garlic, minced
One 28 oz. can diced tomatoes (I went for the petite diced)
One 6 oz can tomato paste
1 Tablespoon sugar
ground black pepper
olive oil
salt
8-10 lasagna noodles
1 lb. mozzarella, shredded
a dozen or so fresh basil leaves (or 2 tsp. dried basil)
Cook ground beef, sausage and garlic in a large skillet, crumbling meat as you go, until the meat is browned.
Drain off fat.
Add the tomatoes, including the juice, and the tomato paste, along with 1/2 tsp. salt and some ground pepper.
Stir to combine and simmer over low heat, uncovered, for 45 minutes.
While that's simmering, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add 1 Tablespoon olive oil and some salt.
Cook the lasagna noodles according to package directions.
Drain noodles and lay flat on a piece of foil to help them keep their shape.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Chop your basil and parsley. The easiest way to do the basil is to stack the leaves, roll them up, and slice the roll so you end up with these little strips.
Add half of the herbs to the meat mixture.
Love the way that bright green looks against the meat and tomatoes.
In a medium bowl, combine the remaining herbs, the cottage cheese, half of the Parmesan and the eggs.
Place 4-5 lasagna noodles, depending on the size of your pan, in the bottom of a 9x13 pan, or lasagna pan, overlapping if necessary.
Spoon half of the cottage cheese mixture atop the noodles, spreading to cover.
Sprinkle half of the mozzarella over that.
Then spoon half of the meat mixture over that, again spreading to cover.
Repeat the process, starting with the noodles and ending with meat sauce.
Then top it all off with the other half of the Parmesan.
Doesn't that look yummy?
At this point, you could cover this with foil and freeze to use at another time or pop it into a 350 oven for 40-45 minutes.
Better yet, double the recipe and make two--one for the oven and one for the freezer.
This is a great dish to take to a potluck or if you're taking a meal to someone.
Make two and you've got one for you and one for the road.
Throw in a salad and garlic bread and you're talking some mighty fine eatin'.
However, I recommend taking it easy on the bread.
Ooof...
(rubbing stomach) I speak from experience.
Have you ever had to have tests done on you? Tests that were totally unpleasant?
But who wants winter to end when you can snuggle next to the fire (or your heater, or your furry friend) with Nutella Swirl Brownies?
Oh yeah, let's go there!
This recipe came to our house through my daughter's friend, Mia, who lives in Norway. Mia is great. We got to know her this summer when she stopped by to meet Carrie in person (they're internet friends), and toured our part of the States.
Believe it or not, she loves chocolate as much as we do!
She sent this recipe to Carrie, who promptly made a batch. Or two. Or three. Maybe more.
These brownies are fabulous!
Nutella Swirl Brownies
You start with the brownie recipe on the back of the Baker's Unsweetened Chocolate.
(By the way, did you know that the man who started the Baker's Chocolate company was named Baker, and that's how the company got it's name? I always thought it was because they made chocolate for bakers.)
Ingredients:
4 ounces Bakers unsweetened chocolate (that's a whole box)
3/4 cup butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup flour
1/2 cup Nutella (that's about half of a 13 ounce jar)
That may seem like a lot of sugar, but remember: you're using unsweetened chocolate.
Preheat your oven to 350°.
Break the chocolate into small squares. In a large bowl, heat the butter and chocolate together in the microwave until the butter is melted. Stir until they're well combined and all the chocolate is melted. You may need to heat the butter a bit more to make sure it's done.
Add two cups sugar, and stir well.
Add the eggs and vanilla, and stir again. In fact, don't stir - beat that batter so those eggs are completely incorporated into the batter.
And then add the flour and stir until it's all smooth, chocolaty goodness :)
Pour it into a 9"x13" baking dish. I like to line mine with parchment paper. It seems awkward at first, but when it comes to getting the brownies out of the pan, it's heaven!
Now, open the jar of Nutella.
What? You already opened it? The jar is half empty?
/Jan shakes her head./
Well then, take as much Nutella as you have - up to 1/2 cup - and drop it by tablespoonfuls on top of your brownie batter.
By the way, you don't have to use Nutella. Peanut butter is delicious! Or cream cheese! Or - wait for it - make cheese cake batter and use some of it to swirl in your brownies!
Oooh, oooh! Or marshmallow cream! How decadent is that?
Take a knife, and swirl that Nutella (or whatever decadent ingredient you've chosen) into the batter.
Bake at 350° for 30-35 minutes, or until done. Either stick a knife or toothpick in the middle (if it comes out clean, the brownies are done), or use the touch test (lightly touch the top of the brownies with your finger - if the top springs back, they're done).
While we're waiting for the brownies to bake, let's talk about cowboys :)
It's time for the Black Hills Stock Show and Rodeo, and we have cowboys, cowboys, cowboys!
I wish I had more pictures to show you, but we'll try some of these....
Father and son cowboy boots.
This is the G Bar G Saddles booth in the vendor hall. This family
has been handcrafting saddles since 1965. You'll have to go
check out their website here. These are the real deal.
The vendor hall is fabulous. Saddles, boots, hats, furniture, gloves, western clothing (the real stuff, not the dude ranch bling), stock fencing, stock trailers, trucks....
...and the petting zoo, featuring Osama bin Llama.
And there is nowhere else you can go - except the county fair - where you see this:
Okay, I hear the timer ringing, so let's get those brownies out of the oven.
Now's the hard part - you have to let them cool. Thoroughly.
While we're waiting, we are NOT going to discuss football.
Okay. Remember how we lined the pan with baking parchment? Once your brownies are cool, just lift the parchment out of the pan and lay the brownies on a cutting board.
Isn't that nice and neat?
Next, cut the brownies and serve.
Everybody grab a glass of milk and dig in! I've saved a cozy spot for you right by the fire.
