Just 'cause

Cherry pie to celebrate spring break.

This pie is fresh from the oven and still bubbling.

New mantra: "Spring IS coming, Spring IS coming"!

repeat after me......

Cupcakes

Small flagged cakes.

Easy Peasy

All pitted and packaged. These cherries are all ready for the freezer

 awaiting a cold, frosty day when turning on the oven sounds like a good idea. :-)

This is the whiz-bang gadget that made the pitting so easy. I love it!

Find it here if you are interested. It worked fine on sweet cherries too.

Lovely Pie Cherries

Picking pie cherries....

Processing pie cherries with cherry pitter. I froze two bags of cherries for next winter. :-)

Cherry crisp! It turned out a bit tart but nothing that a little vanilla ice cream can't fix.

We went back to pick more and found that they had been all picked.

Maybe this next weekend they will have more ripe.

Deer Herd and Chestnuts

We have been watching this deer herd for the past several days now, coming thru our yard to munch on all the acorns. Em especially likes it--her room looks right over this part of the yard.

There are also two Chestnut trees in the front, but we have tried to stay ahead of the deer in collecting the nuts as they fall from the tree. Evidently there used to be a huge number of these trees before the early 1900's when the Chestnut blight killed them all. Now remnant American Chestnuts have been cross-breed with an Asian Chestnut which are resistant to blight and wah-lah Chestnuts in America again.

We've roasted a small amount and they taste like potatoes--without salt. I will be looking for recipes to use these in. We have given many of them away but still, we collect more. Does anyone know how to store these best? Unroasted, roasted and in fridge or freezer?

Emily's Bakery

Emily and I were busy yesterday baking small apple pies. We made doll-sized snickerdoodle cookies, too, all for Emily's pretend bakery. :-)

We have several good picture books featuring bakeries, like "The Story of Cherry the Pig" by Utako Yamada, "The Bake Shop Ghost" by Jacqueline K. Ogburn, illustrated by Marjorie Priceman, "ella the elegant elephant" and "ella takes the cake" both by Carmela & Steven D'Amico. Reading these together makes you want to open up a bakery all your own. Yummy!

Brownies and Scones--only one being food

Here is an ice cream mold featuring a brownie character. I haven't been molding any ice cream but I did try black Fimo clay on just the face part. The result is kinda buggy-eyed, huh?

At Christmas, my daughter got a scrapbook sort of a book based on The Spiderwick Chronicles books by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black. The scrapbook is said to be put together by a character in the book that is a brownie named Thimbletack. The book is a lot of fun, with little flaps and letters to open. I have always loved lift-the-flap books anyway. :-) A movie based on the books is supposed to be coming out soon.

I made a small cloth bag several years ago that was redworked with a Brownie. I took one of Palmer Cox's illustrations and enlarged it. After enlarging I used a light box to trace it onto the cloth using a pen with water dissolving ink. This is the pattern that I used if you want to use it. The Palmer Cox images are copyright-free I'm pretty sure. :-) Let me know if you can't save the image and I'll try to figure out a different way of posting it.

On another note, I tried my new recipe for the week and this one turned out a whole lot better than last weeks chicken fiasco. This morning I made Cherry-Almond Scones. It uses dried tart cherries from the Cherry Republic in Michigan. We love eating these cherries, which two very thoughtful people have given us, right out of the bag but cooking with them is great too. The scones just were so yummy. :-)

I started with a recipe from Martha Stewart but I couldn't resist meddling with it. I made the scones a bit lighter by using skim milk instead of cream and I like almonds with cherries, this time I just added the flavoring but next time I'll add sliced almonds too. Here is the picture of the scones and the recipe I used follows.

Cherry-Almond Scones
1 3/4 cups flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 1/2 Tablespoons sugar
6 Tablespoons salted butter-cut into pieces
1/2 cup dried tart cherries-chopped slightly
1/4 cup sliced almonds-optional
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1/4 teaspoon almond flavoring
1 egg
5-6 Tablespoons skim milk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Combine flour, baking powder and sugar. Cut the butter into the flour until it resembles coarse meal. Add chopped cherries and sliced almonds, toss slightly.
Beat together egg and milk seperately and add almond flavoring and lemon zest.
Stir together the liquid and flour mixtures until it just comes together. If it is way too dry a little more milk can be added.
On a lightly floured surface pat the dough into a circle 6 inches round and an inch thick.
Cut into 8 wedge-shaped pieces and place onto prepared baking sheet.
Brush with a little milk and sprinkle the top with a bit of demerara sugar.
Bake for 13-14 minutes until golden brown.
Serve while warm.

Jackie--thanks again--I enjoy hearing from you! :-) My daughter is a Brownie right now--a part of the Girl "Scouts" here in the states. I never was one--Girl Scout or Brownie that is--I was in the Camp Fire Girls when I was young which had a Bluebird group for the little girls. More on this next time...... :-) Take Care!!

Brownies galore

I know you are all thinking of the chocolatey, yummy dessert but I am thinking of the little sprites made so popular long ago by Palmer Cox. I found pictures on the web showing the bowling game with Brownie "pins" to knock down--very cool.

Palmer Cox was best known for his books detailing Brownie adventures. Dover reprinted at least two of his books in the 60's.

Here are two timely quotes featuring Palmer Cox Brownies.......

I've got to remember this when the roads are crunchy with snow because it is only 2 degrees outside. :-)

How is everyone's week going? I'm glad it is almost Friday--as always. :-) I forgot to tell you all what new recipe I made last week. It was a cheesy chicken noodle, a recipe that I sort of made up because I didn't have all the ingredients for any recipe. It didn't start out very well--the chicken that I was going to cut up didn't smell right so I tossed it. My Mom assured me that canned chicken wouldn't be noticeable in the casserole--wrongo--sorry Mom. It was edible and that is being kind. Yuck! I have a couple of days to come up with a new recipe to try this week--not tonight tho--it is leftover spaghetti because of a late school meeting.

Thanks Jackie for being so very kind. Yes, I am thinking about selling a few things here or on Etsy. It will no doubt take me some time to get things together tho.....thanks again :-)

Leaves and Acorns

These are some playing cards from the Czech Republic. Have no idea what game is played with the deck but the graphics are hard to resist. Besides the leaves and acorns there are hearts and balls to round out the suits. Some of the pictures are of common fairy tales like little red riding hood or of princes and princesses but I don't know the rest. Does anyone know common Czech fairy tales?

Hope your Thursday is going well, ours has been filled with the regular, school, chores, errands, etc. but the sun is out and the air is cool--yes, I'm enjoying my snuggly turtleneck. I made a chicken crockpot dinner. It is topped off with stuffing. I've made something very similar in the oven but this way I don't have to think about it--I am usually faced with no ideas for dinner at 5:30--I don't plan very well.

The original recipe is from the Busy Woman's Slow Cooker Cookbook by Sharon & Gene McFall. (page 142-Play 'n Eat Chicken Dinner) I fiddled with it a little bit for what I had on hand.

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts

couple of squirts of Italian salad dressing

1 can cream of celery soup

1/3 cup milk

6 oz. stuffing mix (I used Pepperidge Farms Herb Stuffing)

1 2/3 cups hot water

In the crockpot, place chicken and squirt Italian dressing over it. In a small bowl stir up soup and milk and pour over chicken. Combine stuffing with hot water and butter. Place on top of soup-covered chicken. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.

Thank you Charlene for your comment! :-)

Weekend trip to Wisconsin

Traveled up to Wisconsin for the weekend and visited Old World Wisconsin. This is a 256 acre park run by the historical society which has about 65 buildings from original settlers of Wisconsin. They have painstakingly brought the structures to the park, reconstructed and furnished them of the time. Each is then a part of the living history of the park, with interpretors who work the land, answer questions and bring each area to life. There are German, Finnish, Norwegian, Danish, African American, and Yankee areas--I think I've listed them all. The place is all spread out with lovely trails throughout as well as a tram for the weary. There was a woman in the Finnish dairy farm that was just outstanding. She just lit up when we asked her questions about cooking on a wood cookstove and about the farm. She had one pie cooling and pumpkin simmering on the stove for another.

C is also for:

Cinnamon Rolls--The smell of these babies filled the house this morning......

Chef--Here's a little chef to help out..I like to cook , not haute cuisine, just regular stuff. Wouldn't it be nice to hire a chef tho....

Lovely start to the day!

Raspberries to start the morning. Emily and I fought over the few in the box...$2.99-pricey but so worth it! We went overboard and had a slice of cinnamon bread with the berries. :-) Both slices of bread had a hole thru the center--to spy thru. :-) A slightly sad note--downloaded pictures only to find that Katy's wedding photos were taken using the indoor selection on the camara thus all photos taken outside have a blue hue......blueberry-colored glasses.