Cookbook Review

This was a very dangerous recipe to test, as it turns out. I hope you all are appreciative. How was I to know that the veggie turkey in the freezer was ALL destined for sacred Thanksgiving feasting? And that I couldn't even use part of it without sighs and recriminations? Experience, you say?

Orange and Maple Glazed Roast Turkey

Ingredients:
Turkey
Butter
Orange Juice
Maple syrup
Chili powder
Salt
Chicken Broth
Flour

In my efforts to placate the outraged Guardian of Thanksgiving Bliss, I only used a small bit of veggie turkey, so to make the dish stretch farther I made rice and put the turkey in slices over it. Aside from the obvious ones of turkey and chicken broth, there were no other substitutions in this recipe.

Review:
The glaze was quick and easy to make, and didn't taste that bad. The whole dish was somewhat dessicated by the time it was consumed because I had to wait almost an hour for the camera to get back from Williston. ( >:( )Aside from a certain resemblance to old leather, it was yummy. Of course, veggie turkey is one of my favorites, so I'm a wee bit prejudiced. However, given the sensitivity of the Guardian of Thanksgiving Bliss, this is definitely NOT a recipe I will try again.

Golden Leaf Pumpkin Pie:

Ingredients:
Why bother?

I'm not crazy about pumpkin pie in general, but I really can't stand all the dairy and eggs in it. I might as well lick a chicken. So I like to make my own non-dairy version. I did follow the recipe as to the spices---which people didn't end up liking much. It called for cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, ground ginger, and ground cloves. By the time it all got in there, there was somewhat of a bitter taste. Next time I will just season it according to family tradition.

Besides that, it had soy milk instead of half-and-half, a blended up package of silken tofu (WELL blended!), pumpkin, and some sweetener. It has to bake a year and a day, but does turn out slice-able by the end. But please, can we be done with the pies for a while!?

Review:
Well, it all got eaten, though I had to plow through some of it myself. Of course, it helped that Caleb was here that weekend, and a teen-age boy is the next best thing to a goat for getting rid of left-overs. My favorite way to eat pumpkin is to make the pie mix, pour it in a baking pan, sprinkle a dry yellow (I wonder how chocolate would taste...hmmmmm) cake mix over the top, then pour melted butter over that, and sprinkle with chopped nuts. Pumpkin crunch is delicious.

Forbidden Pleasure

By now you may be thinking that I save all my unpleasant tasks for juvenile labor to accomplish. Actually, I save the worst jobs for myself, an example of which occurred this week. I have two upstairs rooms, only one of which has been insulated. Laura's bedroom has regular doors to access the sides and nice, finished walls.

The storage room has a hole that was covered with duct taped sheet rock, and a couple weeks ago I opened it up to have a look around. I was planning to do some insulating over the weekend, but after a quick reconnoiter I decided that the attic space had to be cleaned a little more before I could have anyone help me with it. See, way back in the corner were lots of papers scattered around. I didn't touch them because they had cat poop on them (NOT from my cats---remember the house had a lot of feral animals running through it for a while), but I could make out the words, "Forbidden Pleasure."

Hmmmm. Papers stuffed back in an attic, forbidden pleasure....whatever could they be?

This week I finally found the time to crawl back in there and scoop up all the poop and papers. When I did, I made an unexpected discovery. And yes, the job was as disgusting as it sounds. And yes, the brown stuff is exactly what you think it is.

The magazine I took for, well, THAT kind of magazine, was actually a "true stories only" magazine from 1932. The pages were too torn to find out exactly what pleasure was forbidden, but it couldn't have been too racy judging by the rest of the magazine. I also found some Lutheran newsletters from 1929, and a Saturday Evening Post from 1937.

Most of the stuff was too gross to be of much use to anyone (you can't exactly scrub paper!), but the Saturday Evening Post wasn't in that bad of shape, so I took some pictures of a few of the ads for your viewing pleasure.


Someone forgot to tell the city of tomorrow!


If you have irritation from smoking, try a different KIND of cigarette.


Top of the line technology here! Electric stove tops!

Pride Goeth Before Consumption

My dad likes rye bread. Nobody else is really crazy about it, so he seldom gets it. The other day, I picked up a couple loaves while shopping with my mom.

"I bought Daddy some rye bread," I smirked to my mom.

"Kissee, Kissee," she said dourly. Sour grapes!

Then I returned home, setting the loaves on the counter to be carried as a triumphant offering later that evening. Only I forgot them.

And returned home to this.


All over my kitchen table. I shall have to find another means of ingratiating myself, as I don't think my dad (who isn't crazy about cats on the best of days) could be convinced that this was only the latest artisanal bread craze.

One of My Many Vices

I don't think I have a problem. True, it would be a problem if I couldn't control it, and yeah, maybe some people can't. But I can, so it's not a problem. And if I happen to stop by certain, shall we say, "establishments" every time I go to town, well, that's just a coincidence. I know how to manage my thrift store usage.

Yesterday my mom and I headed into town, and of course, I stopped off at our local supplier....I mean thrift shop. I don't post every single thrift run on here, because then there wouldn't be room for anything else, but this was a pretty good haul---too good to keep to myself.


For the grand total of $7, I got 3 very nice sauce/frying pans, a plastic tray suitable to take to potluck (I don't like to take my glass ones because I am so careless), 4 place mats, a wicker picnic basket, a glass casserole (I'm trying to pick up smaller dishes since my family size is dwindling), two small glass bowls (which I didn't have the heart to tell the lady they were for cat dishes when she complemented them), and a fascinating little something-or-other.

I picked it up to try to figure out what it was. Some kind of really odd luminary? Then I started opening it and discovered it is an ingenious candy dish. Had to have it----so clever.




Did I mention my very nice sauce pans?


Tomorrow I get to go to Williston and visit the "establishments" there! So much treasure, so little time.

Family Fun With Horse Manure

Noni's kids and I have this fun little game that we play. I tell them they get to come out to my house and help me, and they pretend that they don't want to. How the house rings with merry shrieks of laughter as they dash about and hide places---upstairs, down in the basement, outside. What fun we have as, one by one, Noni and I capture them and haul them screaming with joy out to the van. At least I think it's with joy. Must be...what else could it be?

Sunday was another such special day for both Tiggy and Damon.

The big agenda for the day was to get the barn ready for winter. SOMEONE had the bright idea to clean the barn out over the summer. Part of that went well, as she discovered a very nice wood floor underneath the two feet of horse manure. The unfortunate part of the whole project was that after piling all the manure just outside the door, SOMEONE decided that it would be too much trouble to move it and she should just make a new door---oh, and let's surprise Mom. That will make it more FUN! So a hole was ripped out the side of the barn, exposing to the elements the nice storage space I'd been secretly planning to take over. Now it needed to be covered.


Tiggy started picking up the sad shreds of siding that used to be my barn. Damon began fetching tools and the ladder while I planned my attack and gathered the coverings. The two windows had been closed off previously, so they already had wood cut to fit. Of course I was the one to go up the ladder---that's the dangerous part, and besides, I am the one with all the native skills.




This is a picture of me trying to fit one of the window coverings on the barn window.


This is me smiling because I haven't figured out yet that I put the coverings in the wrong windows and that's why they don't fit.


After a stunning job of putting in one too-small-why-didn't-they-cut-this-big-enough piece of wood and one why-doesn't-this-one-fit-in-this-perfectly-fine-hole piece of wood in the window spaces, we were set to do the sides. That actually went decently since I didn't have to match anything together. I had just finished when my dad got there. Winter, do your stuff.


"You'd better put a lot more screws in this if you don't want it to blow off in the first wind."

Sigh.

Then we all (as in all but my dad, who had children so he wouldn't have to do that sort of thing) shoveled the manure out of the doorway. It was made more time consuming because it was mixed with things previous owners had stored in the barn. Rather boring, but the minutes were lightened by the kids' funny antics, pretending they'd rather be back in town than outside enjoying the beautiful fall weather. We also enjoyed watching the kittens frolic about; they seemed to think we were moving all this delightful material solely for their benefit!

We finished opening up the doorway, though I must confess that towards the end, our technique consisted of shoveling the manure to the side rather than hauling it off, and headed inside for a few more odd jobs. Damon worked on the well house roof, and Tiggy helped me clean up after my dad's extraordinary work on Laura's window. We also put stuff away in my nicely-insulated attic.



Before we left, they got a little time to roll around on the bed with the kittens. There were no rainbows, however.






I think I will get a bloodhound for my next dog. That will add a new element of fun to our little game. Just in case any of those crazy, inventive children should pretend to escape back across the fields on foot.....

Can There Be TOO Much of a Good Thing?

The kittens have been flourishing, and are now completely out of the box. They stay in the bathroom when I'm gone, or when they're eating. For some reason the old and washed up kittens aren't able to accept their change in status and insist on horning in on delectable kitten mush. So they get shut up in my room until I can finish fixing the food and get the bathroom door shut. But they don't mind.

Not at all.

Hobbes tries to blend in with the itty bitties.
These kittens, being in good health from the start, have hit all their milestones early. They started going to the bathroom on their own long before they were able to wash themselves or do the whole litter box thing, so they ended up foul and stinky. They had lots of spit baths, but nothing made any real difference until they were able to use the litter box. Which they have done amazingly well, in fact, better than some of the older kittens. I don't want to embarrass anyone, so I won't mention any names, but it rhymes with Blazarus Loopsie.

Eating from a dish was conquered very early on, which is a good thing for me, as I was in danger of being gummed to death by over-eager fuzzballs. The bigger kittens fought giving up the bottle, but these guys seemed to sense the advantages of this food delivery system over the old one.



Their personalities are well developed now. Sigrid is a big, fat chunk of a kitten. She's always off adventuring somewhere or another. Peaches is the fiercest leg climber when food is around, but is rather ladylike and shy the rest of the time. Hobbes the II is very clingy and wants to be fed. A lot. Tra-la-la-la-lossum the Awesome Possum is affectionate and playful. Then there's my favorite, Tinkerbell the Stinkerbell (also known early on as the nursing shark). She's a bold, brave little gray mite with delicate features.

From this....
To this...
Possum and Hobbes the II

Peaches

Tinkerbell and Sigrid

And no, I don't let them play in my fridge. But it sure didn't take them long to figure out where milk comes from!

Lucky Damon Visits Auntieland

After Devon's turn at Auntieland, it was lucky, lucky Damon's turn. Actually, he was very lucky, because I couldn't get all the insulation I needed in my one trip. We ran out part way through the job and had to quit early. He was devastated.


Breakfast was a delicious blend of traditional and "edgy". We had toast with peanut butter and applesauce, and enchiladas. Because we could. And because I had leftovers from church. And I didn't want to eat enchiladas all week. And I ended up doing that anyway. Sad face.




Of course we had to play with kittens a bunch. They were just starting to get out of the box at that point and were fuzzy little cockroaches darting around. But the cutest cockroaches EVER!








I had all my usual morning chores to do, so Damon occupied himself changing out my switch plates and putting in those foam pads that help keep out drafts. For those of you who wonder just how much draft you can get from a light switch or outlet, you have obviously never been in a colander house during a North Dakota blizzard! You can track down every microscopic gap at that point.

Then it was time to tackle the insulation. My dad had recommended a type of fiberglass that is in a kind of sack, sealed on both sides to keep in most of the itchy stuff. Not only was I unable to get that, but the only kind they had in the size I needed had no paper at all. I was not looking forward to it! And honest, the camera battery died right when we started, so that is why there is no photographic evidence of my actually doing something...

Installing insulation puts you on a steep learning curve. We started out, and within a minute I was learning something.

Cough...

Cough, cough, cough....

"Damon, I think we need masks!

Within five minutes, I learned something else.

Blink...

Blink, blink, blink....

"Damon, I think we need safety goggles!"

Within ten minutes, I'd learned that I would have died if I'd tried to do this in the summer. I could barely breath or see; my goggles fogged over, and we sounded like a Darth Vader family reunion. Still, we managed to get all of one and most of the other side done by Laura's room. We still have to do by the storage room, a much bigger job, but Damon has assured me that he is eagerly awaiting the return of Insulation Sunday this coming week.