Gingerbread

I've gotten one Christmas baking project done: gingerbread people. Well, I have also done basic, everyday sugar cookies, the kind I roll in balls and dip in sugar. I dip them in colored sugar and, voila, Christmas cookies. But gingerbread is a multi-step project.

I must say, a KitchenAid mixer is the best thing that's ever happened to my gingerbread process. It mixes up that big batch of stiff dough in no time flat. I got it for Christmas last year, and I'm feeling grateful.




I have the cutest gingerbread people cutters ever, thanks to my mom.



They're Raggedy Ann & Andy. We had them when I was growing up, and she let me have them when I had my own place and started baking gingerbread every Christmas. I have a traditional gingerbread boy cutter, too.



The kids helped roll out the dough, cut out the cookies, and frost them. It took two evenings and they were unusually squirrely, so I had to go looking for some patience. I put on Christmas CDs and we sang along, which seemed to focus all of us - them on listening and singing rather than acting crazy (really, they're very well-behaved children in general), and me on the meaning of Christmas rather than how much mess we were making.

The frosting turned out too stiff for the decorator utensils we were using. I ended up scraping it all back out to thin it, then using a plastic bag with the corner cut off, because that was just easier. Of course, I cut too much off. At that point I didn't care. We're just getting them done.






You can see that some have such skinny lines of frosting; that's from the first attempt. The thicker bands are from the second. None of them are beautiful. But our tradition is accomplished for the year. I hope the kids had fun.

On the Threshold of Fall

The sumac is starting to turn red.

On this first day of September, I am trying to enjoy what I have right now. I have a tendency to feel melancholy at this time of year. I love summer and dread winter. I like seeing things come to life, not die, as beautiful as the fall display can be. And I like to have my kids with me, so I'm sad when they go back to school. Yes, I've considered home-schooling, but I've never quite come to the point where I decided to do it. School starts next week for us, so I consider myself lucky to still have my kids on summer vacation this late.

Today I went to our little woods with my son to pick wild grapes.




We have many wild grape vines, some of which are very easy to get to without braving the thorns much. We have thorny bushes in the woods, which discourages exploration. So my son and I picked the little bunches of frosty blue grapes we could reach with minimal scratches. I plan to turn them into jelly.

If you think you have wild grapes, please carefully compare the plants to photos of grapes to make sure you're not eating something poisonous. We have something growing on a bush with different leaves that looks just like the grapes.

Our chickens have found the grapes, also. If you look in the background of the grape photo above, you'll see a hint of red that is a chicken. They jump up to get them, which is so funny to see.

The woods are still green, fruit is still growing, the weather is beautiful, and my kids are still home with me. Hey, September first isn't that scary.

French Toast with a Flamingo

How do you like my Magic Tree House-like title?

This morning my little one made french toast sticks from the kids' new cookbook. New is a relative term, since I gave it to them for Christmas. But we've just started using it.

First she cut up the bread:


Then she mixed up the eggs and milk:


Then when she was dipping the bread and then rolling it in crushed corn flakes (we followed the recipe even though we don't normally make it that way), her feet got tired, so she adopted her flamingo pose:



She has such long, thin legs that she really reminds us of a flamingo when she does that.

We did not care for the corn flake crust. Daddy's french toast is much better.

Cookbook for Boys & Girls

My kids have had the 1950s Betty Crocker Cookbook for Boys & Girls for a few years now. I remember looking at the original with great fascination when I was a child; I think my mom had had one. Ours is a reissue with a few notes about the recipes involving raw eggs.

We just finished working our way through the whole thing.

I'm rather compulsive about cookbooks. (Maybe I need to go watch "Julie and Julia.") I like to work my way through them methodically, almost like I'm using them as a cooking class, trying recipes and techniques I haven't attempted before. Then I make marks next to them so I'll remember how much we liked them. In my cookbooks, I stick to recipes that look good and don't involve too many unusual or expensive ingredients. In the kids' cookbook, we made everything except the ones involving ingredients we couldn't get, which did happen with a cookbook written decades ago. Betty Crocker does not appear to make a cream puff mix anymore. Oh, and we skipped the recipes involving peanut butter and nuts. Some recipes are still good if you leave out the nuts, but some are just boring without them, so I mostly don't try those recipes.

It was really interesting seeing what 1950s ideas of food were. The best recipes were totally basic things, like beans & weiners, grilled cheese sandwiches, and butter frosting. I don't think we'll refer to it often for recipes, but it sure was fun to try things. Now the kids are moving on to the newest Betty Crocker kids' cookbook. The first recipe was good - blueberry pancakes!

Old-Fashioned Kid Fun

Today my kids were entertaining themselves the way kids have for generations: mud pies, sword-fighting with sticks, and running and yelling outside. Throw in a visit to grandma's house, seeing grandpa's new heifers, and getting an egg from underneath a hen, and I think they had a good day.

I have to admit I hardly ever let them play in the mud:


But they were mixing up little buckets of mud and having such fun. They were picking quantities of dandelions, too. It was some involved operation, whatever they were making. I just had to shrug and say, "Those aren't nice pants anyway. And they're outside."

Well, my older daughter was dressed nicely, but she's more careful and she was wearing dark colors. She was looking a little Laura Ingalls today, actually, with her braids, brown plaid dress, and dark tights.



Here is a bit of the stick-waving:

Clean Up

I just spent the evening cleaning out my vegetable garden. And I am so tired. But the weather is gorgeous, and I've recovered enough from a bout of a stomach virus to have some strength again. So I worked hard to get it done.

I didn't get everything cleaned out of it last fall. It was my... erosion control plan? Okay, it was no plan at all. It was just because I was trying to get too many things done in November while the weather was unseasonably warm. Then the bottom dropped out and it was suddenly winter. I never saw my pumpkin vines all winter, because we always had snow. But now it's time to get ready to plant.

My wee one helped me at first.



But it was many wheelbarrows-full, so she joined her sister to play in the dirt.



And she made a sign spelled out with tiny rocks.



I got it done, as done as I think I need to before it gets some kind of digger run through it.


Then I looked in the woods just a bit. Leaves on some of the bushes are just opening up. And something, I don't know what it is, looks like it's about to flower!