HAPPY THANKSGIVING 2012

Hey everyone….I have been incredibly busy but wanted to pop in and wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!! We are hosting this year and hopefully it will come off without a hitch. There will be 8 of us and maybe a few extras for dessert later on. Yesterday we cleaned and today I  bake and tomorrow we cook. I got a 21 pound turkey and will have butternut squash, mashed potatoes and gravy, my mother in law’s peach/pork stuffing which is to die for, my daughter who is vegetarian is bringing baked stuffed acorn squash.  We’ll have homemade snowflake rolls, stuffed celery, two kinds of olives, and pickles. Oh and garlic carrots. Today I am baking two apple crumb pies, one pumpkin, a chocolate with chocolate filling and glaze Bundt cake, and banana bars. I think that’s enough don’t you? What are you all having?

I wanted to apologize for not visiting all of you and not responding to my comments. Life has been so busy. I started selling on Ebay a lot more than I thought I would. The research and all else that goes with it has taken up a lot of my time. My upstairs room is filled and I mean FILLED to the brim with antiques!! I will take a picture after the holiday to show you. I want to wish all of you a wonderfully joyful Thanksgiving!!! Relax and take time to smell the turkey!! Love you guys!! Blessings to you all.++

CRAFT IDEAS AND A BREAK…..

While perusing my new addiction Pinterest.com recently, I came across this amazing blog. It has tutorials on some very cool items to make for your craft room if you have one. Here’s a link to this woman’s site…………SCOUTS STITCHES  Hopefully it will bring you to her blog and you may have to do a bit of searching to find the crafts. The picture above is from there. I love that! I plan on making one this winter!!

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Meanwhile, my best friend Lorraine    came home from Florida about a week ago.  She was on vacation here for the week. We grew up in the same small town and went to the same schools. We see each other just once a year. This year was very special because she recently survived Ovarian Cancer. I’m so proud of her. Her joy regarding the colors of the fall trees and the cooler temps invigorated me! She helped me remember to be grateful. Living in Maine is wonderful and the four changes of the seasons are a wondrous part of our existence here. But…I sometimes take that for granted. She helped me see the colors with new eyes.We had breakfast twice at a place called in North Yarmouth, only about 15 minutes from here. I have heard good things about it but have never been. They are a favorite of the locals and apparently chefs in Maine declared the place one of the top 50 in Maine to eat. Stone’s Café makes their own pies, pastries and many other amazing desserts and meals. Here’s a link……STONE'S CAFÉ  It’s definitely worth the trip if you are a Mainer. We had lunch at my niece’s golf club called Toddy Brook. It is so lovely there overlooking the golfing green. TODDY BROOK

We had gone to our home town and picked up another dear friend from school and she joined us for lunch.

We visited our parents at the cemetery, and then took a ride across the ocean in our home town to a place we loved as kids called Cousins Island and then Little Johns Island. Here’s the bridge we drove over to get to Cousins Island….We walked down to that beach. As teens we jumped off that bridge in the middle! Then on to Little Johns Island down the road a bit. It was a place we retreated to party as teens sometimes. The roads are narrow going around the island and halfway around there’s a dock we used to fish off.

People still do. We had a lot of laughs. The next day, we had a big barbecue together with Lorraine’s family. I can’t wait to see her again next year…..it was a fun time. I am so glad she is still with us….she’s a courageous girl and my best friend.

 

~TO DIE FOR~ BANANA BREAD BARS W/BROWN BUTTER FROSTING

My new addiction lately is Pinterest.com. I find myself mindlessly looking at photos of crafts, food, décor and anything that catches my interest. I have tried maybe 3 or 4 recipes from Pinterest but none of them compare to this unbelievable recipe that I have pictured above. I am NOT  kidding when I say they are TO DIE FOR!!! These ARE the bomb. If you like banana bread, you won’t want to ever use another recipe…..this IS your new recipe….it’s that amazing. First I will give you the recipe and then tell you what happened the first time I made them. Here’s the recipe…

Ingredients:

Banana Bread Bars:

1-1/2 c. sugar

1 c. sour cream

1/2 c. butter, softened

2 eggs

1-3/4 (3 or 4) ripe bananas, mashed

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 c. all purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

3/4 tsp. salt

1/2 c. chopped walnuts (optional)

Brown Butter Frosting:

1/2 c. butter

4 c. powdered sugar

1-1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

3 tbsp. milk

Directions:

1.  Heat oven to 375F.  Grease and flour 15x10-inch jelly roll pan.  For the bars, in a large bowl, beat together sugar, sour cream, butter, and eggs until creamy.  Blend in bananas and vanilla extract.  Add flour, baking soda, salt, and blend for 1 minute.  Stir in walnuts.

2.  Spread batter evenly into pan.  Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown.

3.  Meanwhile, for frosting, heat butter in a large saucepan over medium heat until boiling.  Let the butter turn a delicate brown and remove from heat immediately.

4.  Add powdered sugar, vanilla extract and milk.  Whisk together until smooth (it should be thicker than a glaze but thinner than frosting).  Using a spatula, spread the brown butter frosting over the warm bars (the frosting will be easier to spread while the bars are still warm).

Yield: 2 dozen large bars

Ok…now the first time I made these I was very distracted and was multi-tasking.  I had put the stick of butter in the microwave to soften a bit and forgot it. So…I made the recipe without the butter and in 20 minutes the banana bars came out and were fantastic! Don’t ask  me why…but you CAN cook them without that butter but they rise up quicker. So…here I had this partially melted butter in the microwave….what did I do???….I figured if I was already blowing the diet, I should still use it….I poked holes in the hot bread with a fork…slathered the butter over it and it sunk in….and left the bread with an incredible buttery/banana taste. I wouldn’t recommend that though…..that was a mistake on my part that ended up ok!

Some quick tips that helped me:

1. Watch the butter when boiling. It turns a light brown quickly. Don’t let it brown too much or it will ruin the flavor. Both times I made these, they cooked quicker than the recipe called for in the oven. The first time, the bars were done in 20 minutes. The second time, in 17. Start checking on them at 20 minutes I would say.

2. Keep the frosting a bit warm and stirred. Immediately after I took out the bread, I poked holes with a fork and frosted. It got down into the bread and made it Oh so Gooey Good. I decided to add a couple tablespoons of Maple Syrup to my frosting and it added a very nice flavor combined with the banana bread.

3. Cut into smaller bars than recommended because these are very, very rich and the moistest cake/bread you will EVAH taste!!!!! Oh MY FREAKING GOD ARE THEY GOOD……you have been warned…..not for anyone who is dieting! Let me know if you try them??? Your husband will adore you and your kids will too. People won’t be able to speak….they will just mumble when they eat these. You will be thinking of  these bars every time your bananas get ripe! Enjoy…..I won’t be making these again for a while…..back on the diet tomorrow…..but I will have the memories of these to carry me through…….MMMMMM…..good.

Batting Down The Hatches…..

One down and one more to go. I finished Carissa’s pillow. If you have not followed this blog (and I don’t blame you if you haven’t) as I am not here much lately!! I mad my daughter Carissa and my son Kyle lap blankets for Christmas last year…see previous post. I don’t own a sewing machine and do everything by hand, so A. It takes longer and B. They don’t look as nice probably. Kind of puffy looking pillow but heck…it’s hand made!and the back matches her blanket which is lavender fleece…a bit bumpy and uneven but that will fill in as she uses it. Now on to my son’s pillow. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My brother Art and his wife Amy live in Nashville. They have had two Jack Russells for some time now. One of them is a brother to my Obie that we had to put down last year. His name is Ziggy. At some point when them moved to Nashville, they purchased another Russell…a female named Zoe. Just recently they got a third and she’s a doll. A pup named Magnolia….Maggie Mae is what they call her. You would think someone had a new baby….well…I guess THEY did!! Here are the 3 of them…Maggie Mae, Zoe, and Ziggy…asking to come in. Have you ever see anything cuter??? One day,  Zoe dug a hole in the yard small enough for Maggie to get under the deck lattice but no one else.I was told it took lots of dog biscuits and coaxing to finally get Maggie out! Maggie got a little muddy and was ready to come in…which prompted my sister in law to give Maggie her first bath!! And left her looking like an Alien Russell!! And before you know it, it was beddie-bye time…Isn’t she just the sweetest thing you ever did see???

Did I tell you someone called and asked me if I would take a little bit of quilting batting and yarn and sewing stuff that her mother once had?? She’s been storing it for 10 years. Ok….she showed up and her entire car was filled!! I know I am foolish but this is what I lugged up to my craft room….

There are six giant tubs that are filled! Two with yarn….the rest with batting and I don’t know how to quilt! I will find a home for a lot of it. Those tubs are at least 3 feet long and a foot of more wide and tall….huge! There are other things in there too…material to sew with, brand new thread, a very large wooden oval hoop (for quilting?) and other odd things I cannot identify yet.

There is also some poly stuffing. I used a small bag to fill Carissa’s pillow! So…it came in handy already. I wish you could have seen my husbands face when he saw all these! Yikes!Maybe I need to learn to quilt?

While my sister in law is busy with those Russell's, my brother is fundraising in Nashville by playing some music….That’s him on the far right with the hat and plaid shirt. He really enjoys this kind of thing. He’s exactly where he needs to be. Someday, I hope my husband and I can take a trip down to see all of this for ourselves….

 

 

FAR FOR TOO LONG…..

Recently, someone wrote me and asked if I was alright since I had not blogged since June!! Well….that prompted me to pop in here and let you all know I am just fine….and thanks for asking (Dawn!!). Life has just gotten in the way….that’s all. A few bumps in the road of life….nothing to do with me but all is good now…for the time being. A couple weeks ago I picked up those wonderful Cortland apples above and made an awesome apple crumb pie!! Here are a couple photos……

…hopefully you can enlarge them because it is so gooey looking….with crunchy cinnamon chunks that got on the outside of the dish….Oh my was this good!! What made this even yummier were a couple of new ingredients I normally don’t use. I added a little maple syrup inside and a drizzle of honey outside (on top). That’s part of the reason it’s so gooey good looking! My favorite time of year has arrived….finally… “sigh”…it was a long and hot summer and I am sooooo over it!! Bring on the fall!!!

I’ve been working on a pillow for my daughter Carissa, that will go with the blanket I made for her for Christmas last year. Do you remember the blankets I made for my kids? Here’s a blast from the past picture…..That’s the two of them holding their blankets.This was the opening of them. See the Mary Jane candy on the table? My daughter LOVES that candy. It was in her stocking. So…here is the pillow I am working on to go with the blanket………….

All of these materials are in her blanket. I’ll show you the pillow when it is finished. It will have a lavender fleece back and white satin edges….just like the blanket.

I hope you are all enjoying your fall and survived the summer weather. Heck…some of you might even like that hot weather?? Not sure what that’s about but I won’t judge you!! Ha ha….just kidding! I will try and get by to visit you all. Meanwhile….my two new addictions are Pinterest.com and doing genealogy when I can!!

~..~ PLAYING CATCH-UP ~..~

   Hello all of you wonderful blogger people!! I have been a bad, bad, blogger this spring/beginning of summer. There actually have been a lot of things going on in my life. I don’t think I can catch up on my life in one blog so I will try to do a quick synopsis.

   For the first time in years I did NOT plant a garden. At first it felt very strange and so sad. It’s been a part of my life and summer/fall for years and I so enjoy it. I was diagnosed with severe arthritis in my lower back so I decided to give it a break this year. After envying every single garden I passed while driving for weeks, I finally realized it was ok. I can have a garden next year!! What a relief when I let that go! So….in honor of my gardens from the past and gardens in my future, here is a photo or two from some of them.There! Now I feel better! Ha! Well….we have been busy beavers anyway. There was a surprise 30th birthday party for my daughter Carissa at the GLB (Great Lost Bear) in Portland recently. She was completely blown away with surprise!! Here are some photos….

Yup….that’s the new boyfriend Jamie and his bluegrass band playing for the event…..they’re good! “Oh Jamie!! You can really keep a secret!!”….she was saying! It was a blast.

This all happened a little over two weeks ago. I had been sick a couple of days before. Little did I know that after I got home from that party I would end up at Brighton Quick Care with a positive reading of Strep Throat! I got some terrible side effects from the penicillin they gave me for it. The first day I used Immodium AD and it worked for 4 days and then just stopped. I spent the next 4 days almost entirely in bed and the bathroom and bleeding and bleeding. I got dehydrated and my electrolytes were so off I was sensitive to light and sound and really could just sleep. My husband took me into emergency. They gave me two IV’s of saline and did blood tests…..gosh I didn’t think I had any left?  I had to follow up with my doc the next day and I did. I lost 7 pounds that week….just couldn’t eat….I had already been dieting and had lost 11 so my total now is 18. I really did NOT want to lose weight that way! What a nightmare. So….the result was I had a severe allergic reaction to Penicillin and now that will be added to my allergy list which is growing@!! It felt good to be back among the living again. I was a very sick puppy….now a healthy one! Ok….so that’s enough updating for now. I am still selling marbles on Ebay and now antiques for a friend (soon) . We are invited to many parties coming up in July and August and looking forward to that. It’s been a very strange summer without our little Obie.  I miss him so much. Someday we will get another dog…..Bobbie is just not ready yet…..I am….but we’ll wait. Hope all of you are having a wonderful summer so far and you are enjoying your vegetable and flower gardens!! I would love to hear about them!! I am no longer jealous of you all!!!!!!!!!!! Ha ha……I just want to know if you can produce sexy carrots like I did a few years ago like these…..!!!CAN YOU BELIEVE IT??????????????????????????????