Hyacinth

James picked up a couple potted bulbs this past week and they've certainly gone a long way to brighten up our living room. The hyacinth, in particular, is also contributing quite a bit of fragrance. I can't wait until the flowers start coming up outside too!

Christmas children

Although this boy is due in early December (and I'm ready to have him out any time now), thoughts of Christmas seem to be tied to his birth in my mind. Everything from the fact that Christmas is about birth and new life; to hopes that I will still be able to make and keep meaningful traditions with my family despite the inevitable busyness and exhaustion that come with a newborn; to the reading material I am bringing to the hospital. Logan was born only two weeks earlier than this one's due date but doesn't seem like a Christmas baby to me. We had a small Christmas at home that year. It was larger with the extended family and the last one to take place at Grandma's.

Maybe the difference is that this year with Logan understanding more I feel more urge to make sure our Christmas at home is special for everyone. Maybe, too, seeing all those ideas flooding pinterest has re-inspired me on the varying levels and facets of the beauty of Christmas. Either way, I love Christmas and having my favourite holiday season tied to my second son's birth is okay by me.

Microwave Coffee Cake

I believe this recipe originated in an old cookbook on microwave cooking (likely titled Microwave Cooking). From what I remember of it, I believe the book must have come out when microwaves were first becoming popular and its whole thrust seemed to be to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that a microwave can cook anything better. Period. This is the only recipe that I thought was good enough to write down but I think it was worth looking through the book to find it. I think, at least in this recipe, it made a pretty good effort towards serving a microwave's strong-points while hiding its short-comings. One major problem with baking in a microwave, to me, is in the final appearance of the baked goods. Because of the manner of its heat-source there is no lovely golden-brown crust formed. The cookbook in this recipe at least overcomes this aesthetic difficulty by compensating with a delicious sugar and cinnamon (and cocao. mmm) crumble topping. I wouldn't say that this is the greatest coffee cake recipe out there but it does work well when I want to make a passable one quickly and conveniently. For the past few months our oven has not been working. However, when the urge to bake came over me a few days ago I thankfully remembered this recipe and decided to try it out again. I actually halved the recipe and baked it in a margarine container and it turned out pretty well. I think I should have reduced the cooking time a little more than I did because the middle was a little over-done but it was still quite enjoyable and satisfied my cravings. Sorry the picture and presentation are both sub-par but I will assure you that my over-all rating of the recipe is rather high.

Microwave Coffee Cake: Mix: 2 cups flour, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 Tablespoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt. Make a well in centre of dry ingredients. Mix 2 eggs (beaten), 1/2 cup cooking oil, 1/2 cup milk. Pour wet ingredients into dry and mix until moist. Pour into greased 8" dish (not metal!). Mix 2 Tablespoons flour, 1 Tablespoon cinnamon, 1 Tablespoon cocao, 1/3 cup sugar, 1/4 cup butter and sprinkle on top of batter. Microwave high 5-7 minutes (turning half-way if you have no turn-table). Cool 15 minutes (it's molten hot when it comes out and also needs to sit to finish cooking through). (optionally) Mix 3/4 cup icing sugar and 1 Tablespoon milk and drizzle over the top. Enjoy!

A cup of muffin

I had a bit of banana-chocolate-chip muffin batter left over after filling tins and trays and was debating how best to bake that quantity (not enough for a loaf pan, too much time/effort involved in waiting for the muffins to bake and cool to re-use the tin) when what to my wondering eyes should appear but the already flour-dusted one-cup metal measuring cup. It worked exactly as I had hoped and turned out a beautiful shape and size (not to mention how cute it looks in the cup). A visiting friend suggested a series of muffins in various size cups would be even better. I think it'll have to happen next baking session whether there is left-over batter to use or not!

Looking at these pictures now I realize that I should have taken them with the regular-sized muffins in view for a better perspective of the scale. Unfortunately the cup of muffin is no longer with us (well, it is still with me in the sense of becoming part of who I am after I devoured it... with ice cream) so you will have to imagine the scale guided by your no doubt extensive experience of a standard one-cup measurement.

merry Christmas

-Nooner

biscuits for brunch

It may seem that I have exhausted the topic of our new table but I have one more note to make about it. Since we have had it up I have made more meals from scratch in a row than ever before. I'm sure that it also has something to do with a combination of things, not the least being the wonderful chill fall-like weather we have been enjoying this week. Also it's possible that the influence of feeding my boy well and finally having stocked my kitchen with good basics from which these meals can be made has encouraged me but I would still like to lay the majority of the reason with the table. Not that I have never made meals from scratch and not that I haven't had a table before but I feel as though, all other factors being present, the table (and my excitement surrounding it) has been the deciding factor in our new meal menus. However it has come about no one has complained yet. We'll see how long it lasts.

picket fences

Yesterday was a gorgeous day. We took a drive out to my Mom's for my eldest brother's birthday dinner. It was a perfect drive: late afternoon, taking our time along back country roads, a few stops along the way, and--best of all--window shopping for houses. We're currently living in a basement apartment close to downtown. Although we are saving a lot in rent and it is convenient for work, eventually we would love to get our own house with a bit of land outside of the city. Even while we were just friends we would discuss what kind of houses we liked so it comes as no surprise but is still pleasant that our tastes agree exactly. I may want the extra field for pasturing a horse or two and he may want it to store and drive cars in but we both still want the land... and I'm sure we'll be able to make things work! We would like to move before our son is too old so rough plan is within the next few years. In the mean time we save and keep window shopping. This apartment is small and dark but the hope of it not being permanent makes its inconveniences much easier to bear. It also helps that on occasion, my husband has to got to work right here. This past week he was replacing our bedroom window-well so we were able to sit in the bedroom most of the day and watch him work. We all know how much little boys love watching big machines. Just imagine how much our little guy loves watching when the machine is driven by his daddy! It has been a great family week.

the happy home

I have sorely neglected this blog in the past few weeks and I have a feeling that neglect will continue for a while until life gets back to 'normal' (whatever that looks like) but rest assured, my many readers, I have not forgotten about it. The blog will live on though seas may roar and foam...

Once again I have a lazy quote post but I really have wanted to quote this passage for a while. I don't know what other people's experiences with homeschooling were but this gives a good picture of the essence of our home life (well, maybe not down to the details but there's something about the feeling in this scene that seems to capture part of my childhood. Ahh, those were the days...)
So, here is a long excerpt from George Eliot's Middlemarch:

Also, it must be admitted that Mrs Garth was a trifle too emphatic in her resistance to what she held to be follies: the passage from governess into housewife had wrought itself a little too strongly into her consciousness, and she rarely forgot that while her grammar and accent were above the town standard, she wore a plain cap, cooked the family dinner, and darned all the stockings. She had sometimes taken pupils in a peripatetic fashion, making them follow her about in the kitchen with their book or slate. She thought it good for them to see that she could make an excellent lather while she corrected their blunders 'without looking' - that a woman with her sleeves tucked up above her elbows might know all about the Subjunctive Mood or the Torrid Zone - that, in short, she might possess 'education' and other good things in 'tion', and worthy to be pronounced emphatically, without being a useless doll. When she made remarks to this edifying effect, she had a firm little frown on her brow, which yet did not hinder her face from looking benevolent, and her words which came forth like a procession were uttered in a fervid agreeable contralto. Certainly, the exemplary Mrs Garth had her droll aspects, but her character sustained her oddities, as a very fine wine sustains a flavour of skin...

Mrs Garth as certain hours was always in the kitchen, and this morning she was carrying on several occupations at once there - making pies at the well-scoured deal table on one side of that airy room, observing Sally's movements at the oven and dough-tub through an open door, and giving lessons to her youngest boy and girl, who were standing opposite her at the table with their books and slates before them. A tub and clothes-horse at the other end of the kitchen indicated an intermittent wash of small things also going on.

Mrs Garth, with her sleeves turned above her elbows, deftly handling her pastry - applying her rolling-pin and giving ornamental pinches, while she expounded with grammatical fervour what were the right views about the concord of verbs and pronouns with 'nouns of multitude signifying many', was a sight agreeably amusing...

'Now let us go through that once more,' said Mrs Garth, pinching an apple-puff which seemed to distract Ben, an energetic young male with a heavy brow, from due attention to the lesson. '"Not without regard to the import of the word as conveying unity or plurality of idea" - tell me again what that means, Ben.'
(Mrs Garth, like more celebrated educators, had her favourite ancient paths, and in a general wreck of society would have tried to hold her 'Lindley Murray' above the waves.)
'Oh - it means - you must think what you mean,' said Ben, rather peevishly. 'I hate grammar. What's the use of it?'
'To teach you to speak and write correctly, so that you can be understood,' said Mrs Garth, with severe precision. 'Should you like to speak as old Job does?'
'Yes,' said Ben, stoutly; 'it's funnier. He says, "Yo goo" - that's just as good as "You go".'
But he says, "A ship's in the garden", instead of "a sheep",' said Letty, with an air of superiority. 'You might think he meant a ship off the sea.'
'No, you mightn't, if you weren't silly,' said Ben. 'How could a ship off the sea come there?'
'These things belong only to pronunciation, which is the least part of grammar,' said Mrs Garth. 'That apple peel is to be eaten by the pigs, Ben; if you eat it, I must give them your piece of pastry. Job has only to speak about very plain things. How do you think you would write or speak about anything more difficult, if you knew no more of grammar than he does? You would use wrong words, and put words in the wrong places, and instead of making people understand you, they would turn away from you as a tiresome person. What would you do then?'
'I shouldn't care, I should leave off,' said Ben, with a sense that this was an agreeable issue where grammar was concerned.
'I see you are getting tired and stupid, Ben,' said Mrs Garth, accustomed to these obstructive arguments from her male offspring. Having finished her pies, she moved towards the clothes-horse, and said, 'Come here and tell me the story I told you on Wednesday, about Cincinnatus.'
'I know! he was a farmer,' said Ben.
'Now, Ben, he was a Roman - let me tell,' said Letty, using her elbow contentiously.
'You silly thing, he was a Roman farmer, and he was ploughing.'
'Yes, but before that - that didn't come first - people wanted him,' said Letty.
'Well, but you must say what sort of man he was first,' insisted Ben. 'He was a wise man, like my father, and that made the people want his advice. And he was a brave man, and could fight. And so could my father - couldn't he, mother?'
'Now, Ben, let me tell the story straight on, as mother told it us,' said Letty, frowning. 'Please, mother, tell Ben not to speak.'
'Letty, I am ashamed of you,' said her mother, wringing out the caps from the tub. 'When your brother began, you ought to have waited to see if he could not tell the story. How rude you look, pushing and frowning, as if you wanted to conquer with your elbows! Cincinnatus, I am sure, would have been sorry to see his daughter behave so.' (Mrs Garth delivered this awful sentence with much majesty of enunciation, and Letty felt that between repressed volubility and general disesteem, that of the Romans inclusive, life was already a painful affair.) 'Now, Ben.'
'Well - oh - well - why, there was a great deal of fighting, and they were all blockheads, and - I can't tell it just how you told it - but they wanted a man to be captain and king and everything-'
'Dictator, now,' said Letty, with injured looks, and not without a wish to make her mother repent.
'Very well, dictator!' said Ben, contemptuously. 'But that isn't a good word: he didn't tell them to write on slates.'
'Come, come, Ben, you are not so ignorant as that,' said Mrs Garth, carefully serious. 'Hark there is a knock at the door! Run, Letty, and open it.'

Kitchen Rules

This is an extract from the 1869 edition of Mrs Beaton's The Book of Household Management

Golden Rules for the Kitchen
1. Without cleanliness and punctuality good cooking is impossible.
2. Leave nothing dirty; clean and clear as you go.
3. A time for everything, and everything in time.
4. A good cook wastes nothing.
5. An hour lost in the morning has to be run after all day.
6. Haste without hurry saves worry, fuss and flurry.
7. Stew boiled is stew spoiled.
8. Strong fire for roasting; clear fire for broiling.
9. Wash vegetables in three waters.
10. Boil fish quickly, meat slowly.

Oatmeal Cookies

Since I won't be around for the next few days I thought I'd throw in a bonus post with the recipe for oatmeal cookies that Mom tried out last Friday. It has been quite convenient how she has been around with extra time and so turns to baking--we often benefit from such Fridays for the entire week.

I don't, as a rule, enjoy oatmeal cookies (except the store-bought "Dad's" brand) considering them inferior to chocolate chip but these ones turned out quite well; they boasted a slight crunch coupled with soft, chewy goodness that was quite pleasant. This may have more to do with the way that Grandma's stoneware pan helps in the baking than the recipe but the flavour was decent also, so there must be something about the recipe itself!

Oatmeal Cookies
1 cup Flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup shortening
1 egg
1/4 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup oatmeal
1/4 cup walnust (optional)
granulated sugar*

Mix first six ingredients. Add shortening, egg and vanilla. Beat well. Stir in oats and walnuts. Form into small balls, dipping tops in sugar, place on baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees F for 10-12 minutes.
*I couldn't tell if Mom actually did this step; it looked as if she merely put them on the sheetlike regular drop cookies. It sounds good, however.

our decorating today

On a nesting note, some more advice from the AW'sEHD. I think the reason I enjoy this book so much is that I find her thoughts to be both practical and quaintly expressed (I like her use of quotations, too).

Order can be taught a child if he is early given 'a place for everything' and shown how to put 'everything in its place'...follow his development step by step, guiding his taste but recognizing it as his own. Let him have some of his 'treasures' around, just as you have yours.

Our decorating today may be inspired by a tradition of the past; but we are interpreting it to suit our own sweet will and today's manner of living.

Choice of pictures is very important. Their function is to please the eye in colour and stimulate the imagination by the subject portrayed.

Sometimes we receive gifts that, though delightful in themselves, do not fit into our decorating schemes. We must then use discretion.

(this is where re-gifting comes in...)

Irresistible Peanut Butter Cookies

All week long I have enjoyed these peanut butter cookies. The recipe was on the inside of a Crisco lard box and my Mom and Grandma decided to try it. There is nothing fancy about this recipe but for some reason I found them really tasty. We ate the last few tonight and I'm trying to convince them to make another batch for the coming week. I'm in a homey mood right now; we just got back from enjoying the ice sculptures and the wintery weather and I have a cup of hot cocoa in my hand (that sounds more homey to me than 'hot chocolate'). I now wish that we hadn't finished the cookies after supper so I could have something to eat too but such is life. I'm too lazy right now to make a batch myself (and I have to get at that Latin homework) so instead I'll write out the recipe, both so that I will not lose it and for the general enjoyment of my vast readership.

IPBCs [see title of post]
3/4 c creamy peanut butter
1/2 c shortening
1 1/4 c packed brown sugar
1 egg
3 Tbsp milk
1 Tbsp vanilla
1 3/4 c all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 375 deg F. Cream first six (wet) ingredients in large bowl until smooth. Combine dry ingredients, add to creamed mixture gradually, beating at low speed until thoroughly blended. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets. Press lightly with tines of floured fork. Bake at 375F for 7-8 minutes or until set and just beginning to brown. Cool slightly, then remove to rack.
For variety add chips. Preparation time approximatly 15 minutes, baking time 7-8 minutes. Yield about three dozen cookies.

tasty bits

More advice from The American Woman's Encyclopedia of Home Decorating from the practical to the abstract:

Whatever you do, don't have fancy curtains in your bathroom.

I should like to write a book on nothing but lamps.

...don't forget colour; it's your strongest ally.

[If] you want individuality... have around you the things you like.

Genius can't always glow unless it has a place of its own.

AWEHD hints

Here are a few more lovely extracts from The American Woman's Encyclopedia of Home Decorating:

Decorative theory is the same in all types of rooms. Have essentials of comfort; plan every inch of space to hold conveniently what you really use. Store or throw away what you don't use. Decide to live with charm and have books, pictures, plants about you.

Don't ever overlook having the kind of easy chair a man will like. Decorating is making a home comfortable to live in for a number of people.

Don't treat your dining room like a stepchild.

A fireplace in a dining room is a joy...just as we love sunshine in a dining room in daytime--so a bright crackling fire warms the cockles of the heart (as well as the room) at evening meal.

No matter how large or small the bedroom, if it is to serve its purpose, it must be comfortable for those who use it.

...don't forget colour; it's your strongest ally...

homey hints

I picked up The American Women's Encyclopedia of Home Decoration while cleaning off a shelf in my room and as I was leafing through the pages before returning it to its place, (yes, this is a necessary step to cleaning a bookshelf) I came across some quaint quotes that also contained wisdom. So although I am nowhere near the stage of owning my own house (that I might decorate it), I thought I might share some principles that can be applied to whatever little piece of floor one might call one's own.

It isn't the money you spend that counts but good assembling of attractive things.

Don't have many small ornaments; they mean work to clean.

It is the idea behind the decorating that counts.

Is there a woman who doesn't want just the right draperies?

A long mirror in a bedroom is a luxury within reach.

Order is the first rule of the closet.

And my favourite:

A place to stretch out in the daytime often saves a "state of nerves".

microwave recipe

With this heatwave comes the indisposition to use the oven for anything let alone baking treats. Yet, in this world of modern convenience we can bake our cake and be cool too with this recipe tailored especially for the microwave (it's also fairly quick & easy to make)!

Microwave Coffee Cake
In mixing bowl combine 2 c. flour, 1/2 c. sugar, 1 tbsp. baking powder, 1/2 tsp. salt. Make a 'well' in the centre. In seperate bowl beat 2 eggs, add 1/2 c cooking oil & 1/2 c. milk. Pour wet ingredients into 'well' in dry & stir until just moist. Pour into greased 8" dish (microwaveable).

Sprinkle with a mixture of 2 tbsp. flour, 1 tbsp. cinnamon, 1 tbsp cocoa, 1/3 c. sugar & 1/4 c. butter. Microwave at high for 5-7 minutes (depending on wattage, may want to check earlier) turning while cooking. Cool 15 minutes. May want to drizzle with 3/4 c. icing sugar & 1 tbsp. milk. Enjoy!

gingersnaps

It is a rare cool day in the midst of summer's heat. Because of this and because of a likewise rare block of spare time, my thoughts turn to baking.

I enjoy baking more than cooking. I believe that it is mainly because I enjoy sweets more than savouries. I also have had much more practice baking since in my family my Mom would make supper and, if I felt like contributing, I would supply a dessert. So it is that I get excited about the thought of baking cookies yet am far from that sentiment when I look ahead to a time when I may have to cook at least one meal every day. But since there is no use in borrowing trouble, I will simply enjoy the time I have now when I can bake when I have the time and the only cooking I really do is with my man (which tends to make it a more enjoyable enterprise).

So if I have the time today I think that I shall bake some gingersnaps. Here is our much-used recipe gleaned from Mom's friend Michelle:

Michelle's gingersnaps
1 c. sugar
1/3 c. shortening
1 egg (put in measuring cup before the molasses)
4 tbsp. (1/4 c.) molasses
2 c. flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. each cloves & cinnamon (I even add extra cloves)
2 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. salt
extra sugar (to roll cookies in)

Cream sugar, shortening, egg. Add molasses. Sift together flour, soda, spices & salt. Roll into balls, roll in sugar. Bake @ 350 (F) for 8-12 minutes (watch for burning since they contain molasses). Yields aprox 3 dozen.

Enjoy!