Where Has February Gone?!?

Between naps, cooking, sewing, visiting with family, snuggling Daniel, and a little trip, this month has flown by.  Dan tells a story of visiting with the man who hired him about thirty-eight years ago and having Royce, now long retired, tell him that he gets up each day with nothing to do, and by nightfall has half of it done.  I'm beginning to relate.  :-)  But I'm not complaining. 

My stash of baby bibs was down to two, and those were for girls, so I decided to go into production and replenish my stack. Here's a picture of some of the twenty-three I still have. Nine have recently gone to showers, all boys, and there's another shower, again a boy, next Saturday.

My Bruder Bear was up last Friday with his daughter Jennifer and her new little baby, Grant.  Jenny was a very intrepid new mama and flew all the way from Louisiana by herself with Grant while Greg was out of town for work, and then she and BB drove up to Mom and Dad's so they could see their little great-grandson.  Dan and I were invited, too, and had a wonderful afternoon visiting and getting to know Grant.  He's definitely a keeper!  Both Ann and Jenny lamented that Daniel and Grant weren't able to meet as Ann and Eric left that day to spend the long weekend with Eric's parents.  I think my Bruder Bear is enjoying being a grandpa.  :-)

  

Meanwhile, Dan had a meeting in Coeur d'Alene on Tuesday, so he invited me along and we enjoyed two days out of town.  I shopped Bear Paw Quilts while he attended his meeting, then we hit Costco, checked into our motel, went out for a nice dinner, and retired to a room that someone else would clean the next day.  :-)  It was a lovely get-away.  We did a little more shopping on Wednesday and headed home. 

We drove up in a raging snowstorm and we drove back home in another one.  It snowed five days last week, and three this week, and it's currently -3 outside. 

And now I wish you a warm and comfy weekend!

Of Muffins and Modern Helpers

If you've been reading my blog for very long, you know I'm a fan of soup and bread or muffins for dinner.  But I'm also a fan of muffins for breakfast.  A few simple ingredients and some time in the oven yields a simple pleasure that's timeless.  Really, I'm certain if jaded pallets, those who are the diners in four star restaurants, could just taste a simple muffin with butter and jam, they'd throw away their American Express cards and stay home and bake. 

But on to my title.  About fourteen years ago Dan and I were shopping in a nearby town and went into a little specialty store and found a stoneware muffin pan in the shape of a heart that made heart-shaped muffins.  We bought it and discovered that something about the deep wells of the pan created an even more delectable muffin.  Using a recipe that normally yielded ten regular muffins, we got six extra-yummy muffins in the stoneware.  We were hooked, and even bought two more to give to Matt and Amy and Ann and Eric. 

There was only one problem.  No matter how we labored over greasing the inside of the heart-shaped wells, it was extremely difficult to remove the muffins from the pan.  At least one ended up in several pieces.  The joy of the muffins was definitely dulled.  Amy and I still used ours, but Ann finally gave up.  Fast forward to last year and an email conversation CJ (of Created by CJ) and I had led to her telling me to try a Pam-type spray that included flour to get bundt cakes out in one piece.  I'm a little slow at times, but it finally occurred to me that the same spray could be the answer to my muffin problem--and it was.

We had heart-shaped muffins for breakfast this morning.  All it took was a slip of a table knife down the side and each muffin popped right out. 

No sticking bits left in the pan,

Perfect muffins in the basket.

With a little butter and strawberry jam, heaven!

I'm Baaack!

It's winter, it's dreary, and I'm in hibernation mode.  Happens every winter, and since our snow is long gone, it's dark and that just makes me want to sleep, eat, and read.  So, obviously not much is going on around here. 

I've been using the bread machine, making sure it doesn't freeze up again, and its been fun to make a bunch of different kinds.  My favorite recipe book is still Bread Machine Magic, the very first one I purchased, on the advice of friends Jim and Sue Gentry.  They're the ones who encouraged us to buy this machine.  We went to McCall to stay with them in their cabin and ski many long years ago (New Years '93 to be exact).  They took their bread machine down with them and we enjoyed fresh bread all weekend long.  We were hooked!

Our other kitchen "work" was new to us.  The packing plant where we've taken our elk for the last humpty jillion years has changed hands and no longer takes game.  What to do with the burger meat we had frozen?  Several weeks ago I got an email from Amazon featuring Kitchenaid accessories and I realized they had a grinder attachment.  Dan and I talked it over and decided to give one a try.  We bought locally, however, and picked one up a week or so ago.  Dan took out one of our meat packs (we freeze in long Seal-A-Meal bags) and put in the refrigerator to thaw.  Yesterday was D-day. Or would that be G-day?

We used my old mixer and set it on the table as the grinder chute and platform are quite a bit above the top of the mixer.  We ended up with about twenty pounds of burger and have bag two (of four) thawing now. 

A New Toy

Yes, I'm still alive.  :-)  Last Saturday we decided get out of town and go to Costco.  There's no place like Costco!  As we wandered the store, I headed, as usual, to check out the kitchen section.  There, part way down the aisle, I spotted a crock pot and zoomed in for a closer look.  I have a 6-quart one I dearly love, but for many things, it's too large.  This one was a 4.5-quart model and it had the very reasonable price of $18.86!  I looked again, but it really was that, um, cheap.  Sold!  I put one in the cart.

As I was thinking of what to have for dinner tonight, I thought of doing a pork loin and realized I could try out my new toy.  It worked well.  My "recipe" is simple:  put one frozen loin roast (1 1/2 lb)  in the crock pot, add peeled and cut up carrots and potatoes, sprinkle the whole shebang with some McCormick's Grill Mates Montreal Steak Seasoning, add about 1/2 cup of water, put on the lid, and cook on high for four hours or so.  Simple, and delicious.  I put it all on a platter, pour the "pot liquor" (as Mom used to call it) in a pitcher, and serve. 

Here's a picture of tonight's dinner:

And here's a picture of my new toy:



And what, you ask have I been doing in my sewing room? Bibs. Many bibs. I'm closing in on twenty. I made a huge batch last spring, and they're all gone. We've been having a new crop of little ones at church, and I decided to bite the bullet (better than a pacifier, right?) and just replenish my stash. There was a shower last night, one next week on Saturday, and two more coming right up. We seem to be growing our church from the bottom up. :-)

In closing, if you need a new crock pot or simply want to stash a nice wedding gift in the closet for future use, head to your nearest Costco and snap up this bargain.  It's a cutie. 

When Plans Go Awry

Well, today my sewing plans were tossed out the window when our pastor's wife called to see if I could take in a meal to a set of new parents (not Ann) today because the appointed person was ill. The new parents have some food allergies (no dairy, eggs or pineapple) so it took some considerable thinking to come up with a dinner idea (my date was supposed to be next week and I was still mulling over ideas). I ended up deciding a hearty homemade vegetable soup with a warm loaf of bread would be the thing.

To make it easier on myself, I decided to use my bread machine. It's been a true and trusty companion, never having let me down in eighteen years. Until today. I found a recipe for Anadama bread (no eggs or milk) and carefully added all the ingredients to the bucket, placed it in the machine, and punched start. Hmmm, strange clunking sounds. Not the usual whirring. Stop, replace bucket, and press start again. Strange clunking sounds. Repeat. Again. Call for Dan. After dumping the contents into a bowl, I handed him the bucket. He looked it over, tried to turn the paddle, and determined that it was frozen; a bearing problem he surmised.

He took the bucket to his workshop and I pondered the mess in the bowl. I decided to dump it into the bowl of my Kitchenaid mixer and try it the long way. The mixer took off and I let it work for ten minutes and then set the dough to rise in a sunny spot on the dining room table. By this point, I was tired, had a mess of bowls, measuring cups, and scrapers, and still needed to make the soup. Meanwhile, Dan brought the bucket back and said he thought he'd done a fix that might work for a while longer, but that I should begin looking into a new machine. I added the dirty bucket to the mess of bowls and scrapers.

We had lunch, I cleaned up the bread mess, and decided to reward myself with a longish break and played a game or two of spider solitaire here on my trusty computer. Suddenly I realized I probably should be starting on the soup. Bless his heart, Dan came to my rescue and began peeling potatoes and carrots while I browned the burger and got out the rest of the ingredients. Before long, we had a big pot of soup bubbling away and the bread was in the oven.

The call came about eleven and it was after four when everything was ready to be delivered. We had finished up a big Costco sized jar of pickles at lunch, so I filled it to the brim with the soup and put the still warm bread in a bag and off we went. The young mother seemed thrilled to have fresh bread and soup.

Meanwhile, I was pooped! We needed to stop at the credit union which is in the local Rosauers to deposit some checks before going to our usual store to pick up a few items. When we finished at the bank, I mumbled something about why didn't we just get what we needed here and save a trip across town, and Dad was agreeable. Now, I don't quite know how this happened, but just slowly pushing the cart through the store's uncrowded aisles was therapeutic! Our usual store is always crowded and frankly, a zoo, but this was actually fun. I felt like I was in another town and I just loved looking at the different items for sale. I found some cinnamon chips for a snickerdoodle scone recipe I just downloaded and we bought our favorite brand of sausages for sausage-in-a-bun nights. By the time we paid and left, I felt refreshed.

We came home, I made a quick batch of muffins, and we ate the rest of the soup that didn't fit in the jar. Dan is off to his men's group at church, and here I am. I made it through the day. :-)

Sayin' Goodbye to the Christmas Tree

I always have a hard time saying goodbye to Christmas and this year is no exception. I knew the time had come to take the tree down--there's a smell they get when it's time for them to go, before they go up in flames and torch the entire house, and ours had it.

So, this morning, without too much thought, I took the first ornament off. I knew if I thought about it too much, I'd decide I needed one more evening with the soft glow of the lights and the shine of the ornaments. After the first one, the second followed, and Dan appeared and began to help. It didn't seem so bad.

When we had the tree stripped, Dan went to get his big pruners and began to lop off the branches. We discovered last year that by doing this, we had much less mess to contend with when he hauled it out the front door. When he took the last batch of branches out to the pickup, I looked at what was left of our tree and thought, "It's a Charlie Brown Christmas tree!" When Dan came back in, I told him. We decided to hang just one ornament on it and take a picture, just for fun.

Here it is:

Most of the rest of our Christmas things are still out. Every day or so I decide to put something away, but it's a slow process and I enjoy the bright Christmas colors during the dreary January days.

Our little Daniel is doing well. He's been sleeping well and it seems like he's always been a part of the family. He'll be a week old tomorrow.

Welcome Baby Daniel!

Today is our 39th anniversary and we got a wonderful gift--a new grandson! Daniel Lane was born this morning at 5:49 weighing in at eight pounds, fourteen ounces and twenty-one inches long. His arrival was quick and he's perfect.


The chocolate was a gift from Papa Dan to Ann for a job well done. :-)

Here's big brothers Cameron and Keaton with their new little brother:


We are so thankful for this new little bundle of love God has given us.