A tradition for Memorial Day

   Some traditions have great symbolic meaning to them, and this isn't one of them!  The very first year that my husband and I were dating, 1998, I found a recipe in my mom's file box for a Rainbow Citrus Cake.  Looking for an excuse to make it, I decided to make it for Memorial Day.  It's a basic cake recipe immensely dressed up!   One batter is divided into three, and each one is flavored and tinted differently: orange, lemon, and lime.  Between the layers is a lemon filling very similar to the filling for a lemon meringue pie.  The frosting is orange flavored.
    One thing I've learned in making cakes  is that frequently, frosting recipes are skimpy in relation to the cakes they're intended to cover.  (The exception is when a cake is made in a 9x13 pan rather than layers.)  Lately I've taken to increasing the frosting recipes by at least 50%.  For example, if the recipe called for 1/2 cup (one stick) of butter, I'd use 3/4 cup.  In the event of leftover frosting, it can be frozen for future use, or eaten spread on saltines!

Please comment if you're interested in the recipe.  Thanks!

I haven't disappeared!

Just in case you wondered....   still lots to see at the shop!

Take a look!

Red ribboned apron    Pink ribbon apron

    I don't even recall how I acquired several lengths of wide, woven vintage ribbon.  Likely my grandmother had something to do with it, given how frequently odd miscellany comes from her.  Two of these pieces adorn aprons for sale in my shop.    Both are done with more handwork than many of my other aprons.  Both would be wonderful for spring and summer.

Easily our silliest tradition

This one goes in the category of "traditions that just somehow happened."  On Wednesdays, there's a Bible study at the pastor's house, which is conveniently just about three houses up the block from our place.   In an effort to redirect an attitude and also move the children along toward home one Wednesday night this winter, I started singing "Six Little Ducks" and then "Be Kind to Your Web-footed Friends".  They make surprisingly good marching songs.  Now, every week, the whole block must wonder what's with this weird, duck-song-singing family!   six little ducks   Web-footed Friends (slightly different than we sing)

Wow- tons of views!

Just now checking my Blogger page I saw I'd gotten more pageveiws in the last 24 hours than in all other time I've been going, put together!  Startling fact- and I'm curious!  Please comment with where you are and how you found me!

Traditions- poppy seed bread

The joke is that "it must be a holiday- there's poppy seed bread!" It's my husband's  favorite and he grew up with it on the table for Thanksgiving, Easter, and Christmas.  Now also, his birthday has joined the list of Occasions For Which Poppy-Seed Bread Is Served.

   I've mentioned before that my father-in-law is the one to do the vast majority of the cooking in their household; the poppy-seed bread is one of the few things that my mother-in-law does make as a matter of course.   Naturally I got the recipe from them quite a while back, so as to be certain to have it for Thanksgiving dinners.
   We had a bit of a saga when it came to Brett's birthday this year, because of the oven.  The timing display quit. Several attempts by Brett to repair it came to nothing and we decided to replace the entire unit.  (The stove itself worked fine during this trouble.)  However, the time between the oven giving up and the time we got the new one installed (quite promptly I might add) did include his birthday.  So there was no poppy seed bread and I had to buy a cake!  
  But- once the oven was in, we made a batch of poppy seed bread.  Happy birthday, Brett!

Can you do your job without the right tools?

    For quite some time, the display of our oven had been partly not working, in that a few of the LEDs were burnt out.  It hadn't been bothering me at all, but it had been bothering Brett, and he decided to try to fix it several days ago.  That didn't work out- several times over.  After the oven stopped working partway through my baking soething today, we decided that it reached the tipping point at which the cost of repairing it.would reach the cost of replacing it. Brett ordered a new range for us which should be delivered early in the week.
   Now- to function at my job without a necessary tool.  How will I do that?  "Muddling" is the word, for sure.  I had to shift supper plans for at least tonight and probably a few more nights to come.  More than that, I can't bake anything properly for Brett's birthday (tomorrow) and it'll mean buying a birthday cake.  To have to buy a cake is an injury to my pride!  I suppose there may be some lesson the Lord has there for me about pride....
  The right tool is necessary for any job.  Muddling along without the right tool, or with the wrong tool, is pretty challenging!

What are your most needed tools for your job?

Easter tradition- just one

   Not to say we have only one, but I'll focus on only one this time!  A new tradition I established last year was to save any decorating until the last minute, decorating for Easter late on Saturday evening after the children are in bed.  This way, the house, or at least the dining room, is transformed and greets Jesus' new life anew.
   Our dining room is easily closed off from the rest of the downstairs, having doors on three sides that can be closed between it and the kitchen, living room and hallway.  For most occasions, the dining room is the most-decorated room in the house.  This year I didn't put as much in the DR as I did last year!  But there were several colored pictures of flowers, draped crosses that say "He Is Risen" and similar things.
   On the front door, i put a wreath I made with tiny hats and flowered fabric, and in the living room, pretty ribboned eggs a friend gave me years back.  Also, several Easter books, including my mom's old copy of The Egg Tree.

Kids cooking- Sandwiches

   Sandwiches can be simple or complex, and they can be a good starting point for children.  My five-year-old son helped last night in fixing BLTS for supper.  He really did a large part of making them himself.
   Bread: my husband uses a bread machine to keep us in very good bread.  This particular loaf got a bit mangled, so it made for some odd-shaped pieces and awkward shaped sandwiches.  Nevertheless they tasted good!
   Bacon:  we used some thick-cut bacon and broke it in little pieces, because it can be hard to keep bacon *in* a BLT.  I supervised while Joshua was able to turn the bacon while it cooked in the skillet.
  Lettuce- flat pieces of lettuce went on the bread first.
  Tomatoes- I cut the tomatoes in half and then cut off a little slice so it would sit flat on the cutting board.  AFter that, Joshua was able to slice them the rest of the way.
   When all was said and done, as simple a meal as the sandwiches were, they were very good.  I was glad that we could say that Joshua got at least half of the credit for fixing them!

Traditions: A Shared Birthday

    You probably know at least one person who shares your birthday.  There are only 365 days to choose from, after all!  But the only person I know who shares my birthday is my best friend.  I have a very unlikely best friend, a gentleman I've known for over twenty years.  Yes, it's odd, and there are a lot of things about that friendship that take "it's  a long story" to explain.  But  D. and I *do* share a birthday.
  D. lives in the general area where we both grew up, and to which I am greatly looking forward to returning.  (It was military life that took my own little household to several areas of the country for the first ten years of Brett's and my marriage, and now we've remained out of that area for a few years longer.  We want to be back!  )   So it hasn't been possible for D. and I to celebrate together as would be ideal.  But, we make a point of having a good phone chat, no matter what else is going on that day.  And I can always tease him for being older than me!

Always, reading aloud

http://childrenslegacylibrary.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-streak-100-days.html


Lovely article about reading together!

Dividing the work

   Biblical gender roles create a lot of controversy sometimes!  But the specifics of that differ from one couple to another, and I can pretty well assume that no two couples divide everything the same way.  God never does in the Bible tell us "women, this is the list of things that you must do, and men, specifically these things are yours, never to be done another way."  
   For example, cooking is for most families the woman's sphere, and it's probably safest to assume in bringing up daughters that it will end up being her area when she's in a home of her own.  However, she may have a husband like my father-in-law!  He has been the cook for many years in their home, and I'm told his work is far more creative than hers ever was.  My own father cooks supper on the weekends for their household. 
   In many families, managing money is a man's task, but not so with my parents.  My mother handles investments, checking, and most of the banking, even though she's a homemaker and therefore the pay is earned by my dad.
   For us, a lot of the divisions come largely as they fall. We work together whenever possible in cleaning.  Brett has a bread machine and is in charge of making bread regularly.  I haven't made a loaf of regular bread in a few years, which has saved me a huge amount of time.  The only times I make yeast breads anymore are the special occasion ones: sticky buns for Fathers Day, coffeecake for Christmas, and hot cross buns for Good Friday.
   I think that dividing the work of home according to strengths, preferences, and occasionally according to who happens to be there at the right time, is far from wrong in a scriptural sense.  Husband and wife are a team, who can work out what each can do.

Learning to cook

    Josie (age 8) is of course slowly learning to cook.  She's setting up eggs to hard-cook (as I type this) to make egg-salad boats for supper.   Yes, the recipe is written out in one of our vintage Junior Cookbooks (namely the 1963 version.)  In fact, it's shown with a photograph of one made up with a paper sail on a toothpick stuck in!  How cute is that?
   Josie did have to be reminded as to the procedure for hard-cooking eggs, but if it's frequent enough, she'll have it down in no time.  I've already turned over to her the responsibility for oatmeal about twice a week,  cornbread, and preparing a lot of the vegetables.   She knows how to cream butter and sugar for baking. 
   Like many things, cooking is fairly easily learnt, if learnt gradually and in building block steps over time.  It's misguided for people to criticize teaching girls to cook as "sexist" or "stereotypical", because even if you reject Biblical gender roles, someone  has to cook! If it isn't the woman in a home, then it's either the man, or the family is left to rely on prepared foods and restaurant meals which are expensive and not nutritionally good. 
   Certainly boys can, and perhaps ought, to learn plenty of cooking.  To my boys, there's nothing odd about it to see a man cook. My husband only does a little bit, but my father-in-law does almost all their family's cooking- very well indeed.  My own father cooks some of the time (he fixes supper on the weekends, an arrangement that my parents have had for their entire forty-year marriage, and a good example of delegating something however it works for you!).  Also, a little more peripherally, one of my best friends is a man who is a professional chef. 
   What have your children learnt to cook?
  

A new tradition, perhaps?

   Yesterday, March 2, was "Read Across America" day, a day inspired by and honoring the late Dr. Seuss.  Now, like probably every homeschool family, we need NO extra excuse to read!  Nevertheless, we did make a point of reading several Dr. Seuss stories yesterday.  Personally, I can only take a certain amount of the usual Seussian rhythm, so we didn't read much of those.  We chose The Cat in the Hat,   The Zax, Hop on Pop, and Oh the Thinks You Can Think!.    ("The Zax" is one of the stories in the same volume with "The Sneetches".)


What are your favorite Dr. Seuss books?

Traditions: Lent? For Non-Catholics?

   Lent.  What is it?  If you're above a certain age, you'll think of people spending a Wednesday in February with a cross of ashes on their foreheads, not eating meat on Fridays (if at all) and otherwise a high level of austerity for several weeks.  A bit mysterious, it might seem. That was largely the way of it, for Catholics, for many years.
   After Vatican II (the counsel held in 1964), many aspects of Catholic life changed.  One of the more significant, I suspect most people old enough to recall would say, was that change away from such specific regualtions about Lent.  Now, people both within the Catholic church and many non-Catholic Christians choose to keep Lent in some way.
   Mostly, from my experience, there are special devotions available, many churches have mid-week meals and prayer services that aren't held the rest of the year, and some people individually decide to give up something in their lives for the duration of the Lenten season.  I grew up with some observation of Lent at our PC-USA church, but not doing it at home with giving anything up.  We now are members of an Orthodox Presbyterian Church congregation but attend a Nazarene church right now because of the lack of an OP congregation near enough. (Confused yet?)  At any rate, it seems that some people we know have given something up and some haven't. 
   This is the second year my family has done this, and it is seeming to be a good decision so far.  My husband has given up soda, I've given up the silly series books I read*, and the children are substituting their usual cookies in the afternoon with crackers or applesauce.  These are tiny sacrifices to make, to remind us that this is a time set apart to remember the biggest sacrifice anyone ever made, when Jesus gave up his life for His people.
  
*I'm one of a surprisingly large group of adults who are Babysitters Club fans!  Unlike some fandoms, we don't define ourselves by the BSC, and many people don't even know about it!

Traditions: Washington's Birthday

    Well before my memory, Lincoln's Birthday (February 12) and Washington's Birthday (February 22) were celebrated widely, and separately.  Alas for our historical knowledge, we've lost that in the shuffle of creating three-day weekends and Monday holidays.  More's the pity. But that hasn't stopped us from maintaining one old tradition!  Purportedly, George Washington was particularly enamored of gingerbread.  It's served for the occasion at Washington's Crossing State Park in NJ.  I always make a pan of it for our family.  
   Last year in a group of recipes a friend gave me was a different gingerbread recipe, and it has supplanted the one I'd used for many years.  This recipe follows:


1 3/4 c flour
2 t ginger
1 t cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 allspice
1 t cocoa powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
3/4 c molasses
3/4 c sugar
1 stick butter, melted and cooled
1 egg
1 c buttermilk, at room temperature.
    Grease 9" square cake pan.  Whisk together flour, spices, cocoa, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
   Beat molasses, sugar, and melted butter together in a large bowl with an electric mixer on low speed until combined, about 2 minutes.  Beat in egg, then beat in buttermilk, scraping down bowl and beaters as needed.  Add dry ingredients, increase the speed to medium , and beat until batter is smooth and thick.  Pour batter into prepared pan and sooth the top.  Bake until skewer comes out clean, about forty minutes.
   

Tradition: Shrove Tuesday pancakes

    A common tradition in many communities and churches, is a pancake supper on Shrove Tuesday.  This is the only year I recall going to an actual supper at a church, but usually I make pancakes at home for the family.  Because my husband is working tonight, I decided not to do it at home.  A church down the street (walking distance, yay!) is putting on a supper, so the children and I are going there. (A little bit funny that I'm writing this ahead of time!)
   I seem to recall that my paternal grandmother ("Nan" Barry) was enamored of pancakes for Shrove Tuesday, but I could be remembering it a bit more than was really the case.  At any rate, if you've had pancakes or doughnuts or otherwise observed this last day before Lent begins, do comment.

Traditions

   Still being very new to blogging at all, I'm often hard-pressed for something to write about.  I think as they come along in our lives, I will try to post about the many traditions we have. 
   A lot of people think traditions are formal, or have to be longstanding, or cultural.  Not necessarily.  You can establish them for your own household- my mother's joke with me is that if I've done something twice [in the same context], it's become a tradition. They can be serious or silly, recurring every month, year, or as they arise (such as weddings, births, moves, promotions, etc).  They can be anything you want, as long as you find them important in your family's and friends' lives.  
   Oh, yes- there are also the Cottey traditions.

Italian cooking

     My parents have a style of cooking that doesn't really fit any description: my dad makes things up as he goes along and usually ends up with something more-or-less German or Pennsylvania Dutch.  My mother cooks quite by the rules and in a variety of styles. 

     I, on the other hand, tend often toward Italian food. 



  Is this the result of being married to a partly Italian man?  Is it the result of being best friends with a fully Italian guy who also just happens to be a chef?  Is it because Italian food is accessible to make with a flair?  I think it's all of the above!
 
    Now, to anyone who knows me well, and/or knows what Cottey College is, you'll not be surprised at my mentioning the Cottey College cookbook as a source for wonderful recipes.  Earlier in the week I made an Italian recipe from the book, namely Bruschetta Cheese Toasts. 
 
    The original recipe calls for garlic bread slices from the grocery-store freezer section.   Rather than that, I took slices of the very good bread my husband makes, and turned them into what I call "cheat" garlic bread.  This means I buttered them (in this case on both sides) and added garlic powder and a tiny bit of parmesan cheese.  Then they went into the oven until toasted on each side. 


    From there, I followed the recipe far more closely, adding grated mozzarella cheese before another go in the oven, and the tomato mixture once the bread was all cooked.  It was quite good!

Fashions in Food

    It seems a bit funny, at first, to think of foods having changing fashions the way clothes do.  But when you stand back and look at what people eat, what they avoid, and how those change, you can see them.    It becomes that much more evident when you look at older cookbooks.
   Two things I've noticed about former fashions, based on 1950s cookbooks, and those are dates and nuts.  Many, many, recipes call for these.  Many cookie and brownie recipes include nuts.  Chocolate-chip cookies, oatmeal cookies, and various other recipes, even to using walnut halves as garnish.  We've made candy that includes nuts, too.  However, right now the nuts in question are pecans, because I received two pounds of pecans as a Christmas gift.  Yes, as a gift!  For an enthusiastic baker, that IS a good gift.
   Dates are quite uncommon as an ingredient nowadays, and aren't the most evident item in the grocery store. In our commissary they're on the top shelf above where raisins and such are; things that are in low demand are always shelved above eye-level.    Still, the 1950s books have a large number of recipes using dates.  One Junior Cookbook recipe upcoming is a Date-Marshmallow log.  It's quite sweet, as I recall from having made it previously, and uses whipped cream and graham cracker crumbs. We'd never come up with these combinations now, but it's worth trying the old fashions!

Junior Cookbooks

    Ever since my oldest child (daughter, age 8) was about a year and a half old, we've done at least one recipe from a child's cookbook every week.  We started with doing it on Thursdays; now we normally do them on Monday and Thursday.  
   We have three cookbooks we use in turn, all of them somewhat vintage.  One is the Better Homes and Gardens Junior Cookbook  published in 1963, one is Betty Crocker's Cookbook for Boys and Girls , and the other is Better Homes and Gardens New Junior Cookbook from 1978.  There are newer editions of these, but I find the newest ones to be cartoony and pandering toward children, rather than teaching children how to cook from the beginnings.
   My system for which recipes to choose is a bit complicated to explain, but suffice it to say we have a pretty wide variety of recipes and techniques to work with.
    We didn't make anything from the books yesterday, on Monday, but we did today, an orange cake with a glaze, also orange.  The cake itself was made from a yellow cake mix, with the addition of grated orange peel.  The more involved part was the glaze.  Josie had to cook sugar, water, and cornstarch, adding in juice and finally butter, very much in the same way that she's seen me do in making lemon meringue or similar styles of pies.  However, the glaze is far less thick than that type of filling. It was also quite a large amount of glaze for covering a 9x13 cake and might need to be reduced in quantity for future use.

What are you known for?

    I may be developing a reputation for lemon meringue pies.  I contributed two of them to a bake sale at an event on Saturday and I think they both sold pretty promptly.  (One sold while we were still there; I don't know about the other.)  
   Lemon meringue pie is familiar enough to people to be attractive but not so terribly common as to be dull.  It's an old favorite.  I began with the recipe as written in the 1953 Betty Crocker cookbook but over time, I've tweaked it to our tastes.  My finished product is less sweet and more tart (okay, sour!) than as written. 
    One secret I'm happy to share, also, is that a successful meringue should have one more egg white than is called for.  The pie filling uses three egg yolks and thus the meringue is written calling for three egg whites.  That should work nicely, but if I use a fourth egg white, a more generous meringue is the result.  (Who knows how many egg whites must go into the mountainous meringues on the pies in any self-respecting south Jersey diner?!)

Chili update

My sister-in-law's chili for last week's cook-off, won first prize.  Now she has a reputation to uphold!

WHOO's in the kitchen?

https://www.etsy.com/listing/207268934/owl-print-half-apron?




  I have more owls!  These turquoise cuties are wonderful. 

Coming soon...

Daisies on pink background.  Thinking ahead to spring and bridal showers?  Check here again soon to see!

Chili

   I think chili is one of those things that everyone does a little bit differently.  We made a batch earlier in the week, using a recipe from our trusty Better Homes and Gardens New Junior Cookbook.  (The edition we have is the 1978 edition, not the most recent, very cartoony one.) 
    Usually, chili is supposed to simmer several hours to be good, but this recipe cooks for less than an hour, start to finish, and we've liked it a number of times.  Its quite from scratch, apart from using canned kidney beans.  Onions, green peppers, ground beef, and plenty of beans and tomato make a pretty good finished product.
   We also must wish my father-in-law and my sister-in-law the best of luck in a chili cookoff tomorrow!

Muffins

    Yesterday was, as every Wednesday, our baking day.  I made two different batches of muffins.  One was the peanut butter muffin recipe found here:
http://thiswomanwrites.areavoices.com/2013/10/15/recipe-peanut-butter-muffins/


  Those came out very nicely.  That was a first-time recipe and a bit unusual because of using the whole-wheat flour. 
   The other was the family recipe for "Morning Glory Muffins", meant for church.  Those are very good and very labor-intensive. They have diced apples, gratedc carrots, chopped nuts, and usually coconut (which we did not have on hand!)  In other words, dirty up everything we own!  Unfortunately, I left out one ingredient, namely Grape-Nuts cereal!  They came out well enough despite that omission but I think it'll be necessary to make a second batch on Saturday to take to church after all.
   What are your favorite muffin recipes?

Owls!

https://www.etsy.com/listing/207279831/blue-and-green-owl-print-apron-full?


Owls are definitely in!  I've liked owls since well before they started to be trendy, as evidenced by the amount of owl décor in our home.  (Much of that, in turn, is creditable to my father's earlier liking for owls!) 
Check out the owl apron!

trying to figure out how to add pictures....

Pink and ribbon!

https://www.etsy.com/listing/197282611/dainty-pink-hostess-apron?ref=shop_home_active_1


Take a look at this pretty pink apron!