More Strawberries

We found some strawberries on sale yesterday. $1.00 a pound. Not a bad price. So I had to get some. I only bought 5 pounds. I guess I'm hoping to find better deals before the strawberry season is over. Today I'm freezing most of the berries. But who could resist to just eat them when they're at their best.
Two in the freezer, one in my mouth. Or something like that.
I remembered a fruit dip I haven't had in a long time. That would go so good with these strawberries right now.
You need 8 oz. of cream cheese and a 7oz jar of marshmallow cream.
Let the cream cheese come to room temperature. Just put it in the microwave for a few seconds.
Then add the marshmallow cream. Beat until smooth.
You can also add a little vanilla for flavor.
There are many variations of this recipe around, just look around on the Internet.

I found this picture of me in my grandmas garden.

That's my younger sister Petra I'm holding. I had a terrible time copying this picture. It was in an album. The picture has been in this album for so long that I couldn't get it out. I was afraid I was going to rip it. So I just scanned the whole album page through the plastic cover. I guess it didn't come out too bad.

Strawberries

                                                              I love strawberries.

My grandma had a big garden with a large strawberry patch. Every summer us kids would look for the reddest and biggest berries. We'd pick them, rinse them off and eat them.  They were so delicious. When I was pregnant with my oldest daughter I was graving strawberries like you wouldn't belief it. Fresh, frozen, canned. It didn't make any difference.
I wish I had a garden to grow some. But since I don't I patiently wait for strawberry season every year. Yes, I know, you can buy strawberries year round. But they just don't taste as good as fresh strawberries that are in season.
My favorite way to eat them is with a little bit of whipped cream.

A few years ago I found a recipe for strawberry-banana jam in a magazine. I have made it every year ever since.

Here is the recipe:

4-3/4 cups prepared fruit (about 2 quarts fully ripe strawberries and 3 fully ripe medium bananas)

3 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1 box SURE-JELL Fruit Pectin
1/2 tsp. butter or margarine
6-3/4 cups sugar

Stem and crush strawberries thoroughly. Measure 3-1/4 cups prepared strawberries into 6- or 8-quart sauce pot. Mash bananas thoroughly. Measure  1-1/2 cups  bananas. Add to pot. Stir in lemon juice. Stir pectin into fruit in sauce pot. Add butter. Bring mixture to full rolling boil  on high heat, stirring constantly. Quickly stir in all the sugar. Return to full rolling boil and boil exactly 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Skin off foam.Ladle into hot, sterilized jars. Close and set upside down for 5 minutes, then turn upright. After jars are cooled, check seals.

Or, after cooling off a little, pour into freezer containers and freeze.That's what I did last time I made this, and the jam came out great.  

Recently I also  found this recipe here: strawberry-banana jam.

You may want to look at it if you prefer the water bath canning method.

I always buy extra strawberries during the summer and freeze them. I just wash, slice and freeze in containers or bags. And then  I can use them in winter for smoothies. Or I put some sugar on them, microwave for a few minutes and pour them over pancakes. Better than pancake syrup.

I don't think I could ever get tired of strawberries. And thank goodness the season is just starting.

April

It's already April. I haven't done too much lately. I had several ideas of things to crochet, but for now I have to put the crochet hook down. Last fall I started to get this rash on my arms, just around the time I started to knit and crochet again. But at first I didn't think much of it, because I get odd rashes at times from the sun. After a couple of months the rash was still there and it was itchy. My doctor gave me a cream and that seemed to help some. I also took a brake from crocheting and knitting. My arms were almost back to normal. And then I decided to make me another swiffersock. The rash came back.
So for now the yarn has been put away. And I'm waiting for the rash to disappear. It is getting better, but very slowly.
After some time I will probably pick up the yarn again and see what happens. If the rash comes back, then I will know for sure that the yarn caused it. Right now I'm just guessing.
So I will spend my time looking for yummy recipes at my kitchentable.

Yummy Milk Shake

I ran across this recipe for a milk shake a long time ago. But over time I forgot about it. Well last night I found it again and decided to make it. And I'm glad I did. It was really good.
Here are the ingredients:

1-1/2 to 2 cups ice water
1-1/2 cups nonfat dry milk powder
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 to 1-1/2 trays of ice cubes, as much as you can spare
2 tablespoons corn oil plus a 5-second squirt of non-stick spray for emulsification purposes
Place all ingredients in a blender. Blend for 2 minutes. Pour in glass and enjoy.

While I still prefer a shake from Baskin-Robbins or DQ, this shake will definitely satisfy a craving a pinch.
Here is where I found this recipe:http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/magicmilkshakes.htm

Sunday's Breakfast

Hefezopf

Growing up we had Hefezopf quite often for breakfast or afternoon coffee. Most of the time it was homemade, but sometimes it was store bought. Hefezopf is a soft, lightly sweet , braided yeast bread. Here I don't have the choice to buy it in the store. Sure, you can buy similar items, but then they have tons of sugar and are usually quite expensive. At least that's my opinion. So if I want Hefezopf I have to make it myself. But that's really not a problem, because they are easy to make. And I use my old bread maker to knead the dough, that makes it even easier. But even made completely by hand it is not a lot of work. So, here is my basic recipe for Hefezopf.


5 cups flour                                                          
1/2 cup sugar
10 tbsp butter or margarine, softened
1 egg
1 cup warm milk
2 1/2 tsp yeast

For bread maker: Just add all the ingredients into bread maker according to your models directions and use the dough setting.   
By hand: Put flour, sugar and yeast into a bowl. Add butter, egg and milk. Stir together until it is too hard to stir. Pour ingredients out onto the kitchen counter. Knead dough until it is soft and elastic. It should be somewhat tacky but not sticky. Now let dough rise about one hour. For this you can put your dough back into your bowl and cover it. Or you can just leave the dough on the counter and put your bowl over it. That's what I usually do.
Now divide dough into three equal pieces. Roll each piece into a rope. Make a braid out of the ropes. Place your braid onto a baking sheet. Cover and let it rise for about half an hour, or until doubled in bulk.
Take 1 egg yolk and 1 tbsp milk and mix together. Brush on the braid.
Bake in preheated 350 °F oven for 30-35 minutes

Tips:
 Don't use all the flour at first. Use about 1/2 to 1 cup less than what it says. Then add more as needed. It is a lot easier to add flour to a dough that is too soft, than add water to a dough that is too dry.
You can add some flavorings like grated lemon peel, a hand full of raisins or whatever else sounds good to you.

I love to eat it with butter and jam, or plain, dipped in coffee.

Cook Books

Today I added another cook book to my collection. Even though I don't use cook books all that much anymore, thanks to the internet, I still love to have them. I have quite a few. Some of them I brought with me from Germany, others I bought at garage sales and some of them I actually bought new. I also started to make my own cook book several years ago. I have stacks of recipes torn out of magazines and newspapers. Whenever I make one of them and I like it I'll copy it neatly and put it in my cook book. If I don't like it, it goes in the trash. This way I'll know which ever recipe I make, it will be good. So many times you'll find a recipe that sounds so good, but then it doesn't taste good.
The book I got today is an e-book. I got it for free from amazon. It is called "Super Duper Totally Authorized Top Secret Recipes eBook "
It's a kindle edition. I don't have a kindle, but you can get a kindle reading app for your computer for free at amazon.
I have no idea how long this offer is good for. But I'm certainly glad I got in on it. It has 450 clone recipes from Mc Donalds,Starbucks, KFC and many more restaurants.
So, I think in the coming weeks I'll be cooking a lot, trying out these recipes. And hopefully I can give some of them a spot in my own cook book.

The Chicken Dumpling Adventure

Have you ever had the Chicken and Dumplings at Cracker Barrel? I love them. When we go there to eat, that is what I will have. But we don't go out very often. So I wanted to try and make chicken and dumplings that tasted just like theirs. There are lots of copycat recipes out there. The hard part is to find one that actually tastes like the original. I looked at a few and decided on one that seemed simple enough. I had to make a few substitutions, but nothing that would affect the taste very much. For example, I didn't have a whole chicken, so I used chicken breasts. Instead of fresh parsley I used dried.
The first part of the recipe went pretty well. Then I started the dumplings. I should have known just by looking at the ingredients that they wouldn't come out right. The dough is supposed to be rolled out.
But if I would have put that dough on my kitchen counter, it would have run off it and on the floor.
So then I started looking around the different recipes some more. I found that same recipe two more times. From different people on different websites. The directions almost the same, maybe a couple words changed. And each taking credit for it. So it seems people just take other peoples recipes and without even trying them out, claim them to be their own.
To save the dumplings I decided to add more flour to it and make drop dumplings out of it. In the end it was a nice dish. But nothing like Cracker Barrel's. Since I have made so many changes to this recipe I give you my version of a nice chicken dumpling dish.

In a large pot combine 3 quarts water
                                     2-3 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
                                     1 tsp salt
                                     1 small onion, cut in pieces               
                                     2 stalks celery, chopped
                                     1 tsp garlic( from a jar)
                                     1 bay leaf
                                     1 tbsp dried parsley
Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer about 2 hours.
Remove chicken and cover so it won't dry out. Strain the broth and discard the vegetables.
Pour the broth back into the pot.
Add:                              1/4 tsp. ground pepper (or to taste)
                                      1 tbsp. lemon juice
                                      1/2 tsp salt
Bring to a boil.

For the dumplings stir together
                                     2 1/2 cups flour
                                     1 tbsp baking powder
                                     1 1/4 tsp salt
                                     1 cup milk

Drop by tsp fulls onto boiling broth, reduce heat and simmer 20-30 minutes, depending on the size of the dumplings. If at this point the broth is not thick enough, thicken it with cornstarch. Just stir about 1 tbsp of  cornstarch into about 1/4 cup of cold water. Pour a little of this into the broth and let boil for a couple minutes. Add more if needed.
Add the cut up chicken back into pot and heat through.
                                

I guess what I have learned is, that just because a recipe comes from a great website, doesn't mean it is a great recipe.

Carrot Cake-Gelbrübentorte

The other day I mad a carrot cake. This is different than than most carrot cakes. It has less sugar than most cakes, very little flour and only a dusting of powered sugar instead of heavy frosting.
This recipe actually comes from a German cookbook that was given to me about 30 years ago. I have used this cookbook quit a bit.

  

But over the last few years it has been neglected, because when ever I want to cook or bake and need a recipe, I'll look on line. It's just so much faster to find something specific. You just search for "carrot cake" and get thousands of recipes in a couple seconds. An old fashioned cookbook just can't compete with that. But sometimes you just want an old tried and true recipe that you have made many times. And you know what to expect. So here is a recipe for a German carrot cake.

6 eggs, separated

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 cups grated carrots

grated rind of half a lemon

1 Tsp cinnamon

1 Tbsp Kirschwasser

3 cups ground almonds

1/3 cup flour

Beat egg yolks and sugar until thick and foamy. Add the carrots and continue beating for 20 minutes. Add lemon rind, cinnamon and Kirschwasser. Add almonds and continue stirring a few more minutes.

Beat egg whites until stiff. Carefully stir in flour and fold in egg whites. Pour into prepared 9" spring form pan. Bake at 350 °F for 45 minutes to an hour.

Let cool and dust with powdered sugar.

If you want a really sweet cake then this isn't for you. But I like it for just that reason.
The last time I made this cake I didn't have any almonds. But I had a bag of hazelnuts and part of a bag of walnuts. I just mixed them together and used that. I'm not afraid to substitute.
You'll want to make this cake the day before, it'll be moister.

Assault with a deadly weapon

This is a story from my local newspaper. I couldn't make this up.

DECATUR - A patrol officer who responded to a report of a domestic incident was battered by a 35-year-old woman's backside, according to a sworn statement by the officer.
The woman was arrested on preliminary charges of aggravated battery of a peace officer and resisting/obstructing an officer.
About 4:30 a.m. Saturday, Decatur police officer Scott Gilman was sent to a house in the 600 block of West Macon Street to investigate a domestic incident, which involved the 35-year-old woman and a 29-year-old man.
Gillman was speaking with the woman on the porch when he tried to walk past her to head down the stairs.
"She looked directly at me, then turned away from me and moved her body in my way to block my path," Gillman wrote. "I then moved to the other side of the stairs in an attempt to go around her, upon which she stuck both of her arms out behind her to block my path and violently shoved her backside towards me, making contact hard enough to cause me to have to take a step back to keep from losing my balance."
When the woman arrived at the Macon County Jail, she "refused to obey commands to exit my police vehicle and stated she would not get out and was resisting."
The woman was successfully booked into the jail and later released on bond.


Read more: Woman arrested after hitting police officer with her backside http://www.herald-review.com/news/local/woman-arrested-after-hitting-police-officer-with-her-backside/article_b399ecc0-53b0-11e1-b9be-001871e3ce6c.html#ixzz1m109EF3P
From the Herald & Review

A sock for my swiffer

I found the handiest thing on the internet a while ago. A swiffer sock. I guess it has been around for several years, but I had never seen it before. The disposable clothes are so expensive.And I've tried using a regular rag, but they just don't stay on right. So when I found these I just had to try and make one. There were different versions, but I liked the reversible swiffer sock from this page. I had quite a bit of left over yarn from previous projects. So this was perfect.

It was pretty easy to make and didn't take very long. I do have to admit my sock came out a little tight. But that is easily fixed by using a larger crochet hook. I plan on making another one anyhow so I'll have one when the first one is in the wash.

When I had the sock finished, I couldn't wait to try it out. Right away I dry mopped my kitchen to see how it would work. I actually had fun cleaning my kitchen floor. That has never happened before.



My Favorite Apple Cake

Back in November we found a great sale on Gala apples. 10 cents a pound. Can you believe it?
We bought lots and lots of apples. But not as many as I would have liked. We don't have much storage room. I was also afraid they would go bad before I was able to use them all. The apples tasted delicious.

We had apple strudel for Thanksgiving. Other times we had apple pancakes. And I found a recipe for french apple cake online. It has rum in it. Very good cake. But today I want to share my favorite apple cake recipe.

Ingredients: 2 eggs
                    1 cup vegetable oil
                    2 cups sugar
                    2 tsp vanilla extract
                    2 cups flour
                    1 tsp baking soda
                    2 tsp cinnamon
                    1 tsp salt
                    4 cups apples, peeled, diced
                    powdered sugar for dusting

Cream eggs, oil and sugar  until thick and foamy. This will take several minutes.
Add vanilla. Combine dry ingredients and stir into egg mixture. Stir apples into dough.
The dough will be fairly thick.
Spread dough into prepared pan and bake at 350° F for about 45 minutes. Cake will be done when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
After the cake has cooled, dust with powdered sugar.

                                                                      Yummy.

We only have four apples left now. Just enough for one more cake.

My scarf

I finished my scarf a while ago. It's made from baby soft pink yarn.

It was very easy and quick to make. Only double crochets. Three hearts on each side. I kept it solid in the back of the neck. I figured that would keep me a little warmer. And you can make this part as long as you want, depending on how long you want your scarf to be. I really like how the hearts came out.

Now that both scarves are done I feel a little empty handed. I think I need to start another project to keep my hands busy.

Another chair at the kitchen table

A new grandchild.

At 8:56 am on Thursday,19,2012 Kristin arrived in this world. On her due date. That doesn't happen very often. Mama and baby and Daddy are doing wonderful. Kristin is beautiful. But so are all our grandchildren.

 All girls. All four of them. Imagine our family get together. Giggling, screaming, screeching. Never quiet. Spilled drinks, food on the floor. Lots of noise. Fighting. Permanent marker on my kitchen table.And lots  and lots of love.
So lets get another chair and squeeze it in. Because I can't wait until everybody is here again.

Vanilla Cupcakes

A little over a week ago we had a baby shower for my oldest daughter. It's her first one and she is expecting a little girl. The baby is due on the 19th, my youngest daughters birthday. So we are all excitingly awaiting the happy event.
For the baby shower I made some cupcakes, that I thought came out pretty well. I looked at several different recipes and made two different ones. Then I decided on a recipe from Martha Steward's website. The recipe is right here: billys vanilla cupcakes
I also used the vanilla butter cream frosting from that page. I sprinkled them with sugar crystals and decorated with little baby decorations.

These cupcakes smell like sugar cookies and they are very tasty. I will use this recipe again.

Well it was a nice baby shower and the baby can come any time now.



Just a Gigolo

Phil had an appointment at the VA Hospital on Friday. It snowed the day before and it was blowing snow all night. The Hospital is 1 1/2 hour drive away. So we left early, because we didn't know how the roads would be. It turned out the roads were not too bad, so we got there kinda early. Phil checked in and they called him in early. Half way into his appointment the fire alarm went off. I didn't even recognise it as a fire alarm at first. It wasn't a steady sound like it usually is. It was just intermittent beeps. People started coming out of their offices. Nobody was sure if it was a drill or if it was a real alarm. So after a few minutes of confusion it was determent that this was a real alarm and we were to leave the building. I am unable to walk very far, so for getting around in the hospital Phil pushed me around in a wheelchair.
We were on the third floor and of course you can't use the elevator during a fire. Hospital staff was helping everybody get out. I was also being helped, by a very nice man, to walk down the 3 flights of stairs. Once outside he helped me walk to the car, which wasn't very far away. By now I was hurting pretty bad. So I was glad to be able to sit in the car. I felt sorry for all the people that had to stand outside in the cold.
But after only about five minutes the man came back and said it was all cleared to go back inside. There was a small electrical fire on the first floor and it was taken care of. He told us to wait, while he went to get me a wheelchair. We waited about 10 minutes when he came back, all out of breath. I felt sorry for him, but  appreciated it very much. He said it took him a while to find a wheelchair. They were all being used to help patients back into the building.
Phil could have pushed me back from here on, but the man insisted to take me back to where we were coming from. At least we were able to use the elevator now. On the way up to the 3rd floor my helper said he would have to tell his wife that he was picking up chicks today and even getting paid for it.
He had turned into a gigolo. He really enjoyed that. He picked up a young lady.(Ha ha, me.) took her out (of the building) and even got paid for it. He told this story to several people we passed on our way back up. He jokingly said this was one of those things he wanted to do just once in his life. I was so glad I was able to fulfill his dream.

I need a scarf

Last Christmas i knitted scarves for all the kids and grand kids.This Christmas I crocheted one for my mother in law. So I thought now it's my turn for a new scarf.
A couple days ago Phil and I had gone to the store for some stuff and i went and looked at the yarn to see what I might like. And wouldn't you know, Phil decided he needed a scarf also. He found himself a blue ball of yarn, I picked a pink for myself. So I decided to make Phil's first. It's just a simple knit and purl pattern. I'm not a fast knitter and because of Arthritis I can't work for a long time. But it's coming all together.

As for my scarf, I guess I have to wait.

Christmas is over

There is so much excitement before Christmas. Stores put out their christmas things in October, sometimes in September. Come November, all you hear is Christmas music on the radio. I don't mind. It gets me in the mood. By December I'm mostly done christmas shopping. Throughout the year I look for bargains, and if I like something I'll pick it up. And then when a birthday or holiday comes around, I'll already have something for a present.
I usually decorate for Christmas shortly after Thanksgiving. Then comes the cookie baking, present wrapping and last minute shopping. Everybody is so busy around this time.  Everybody is preparing for this one day. The magical day. If you have children at home, you'll get up early to open presents. Or in our case, the grown children and their families come for christmas dinner. And afterwards we open presents. All the hussle and buzzle leads up to this one day. And then it is over.
Everybody goes home, back to work, back to ordinary. We light up the christmas tree a couple more times and then it just sits there. Dark. No more lights. It just feels like something is missing. The excitement is over. Time to put the decorations away.
I usually do that the first week of January. But I've been a little busy this past week, so I'll probably do it tomorrow.

Everything gets put away until next Christmas. And the excitement starts all over again.

Growing up

I was born and raised in Germany.I am the fourth of five children. We had your typical German "eckbank". I do not have a picture of ours, but this is what these look like.

Us kids would sit on the bench in the back and our parents on the chairs. This was always the busiest place in the house. All our meals were eaten here. There was no eating in front of the TV. The length of the table could be extended, so when we had guests, there was plenty of room.
My Mom would iron cloth on this table. She'd cover it with this heavy wool blanket and then a sheet. The blanket almost covered the floor. And we played underneath the table. It was the perfect place for my older sister and I to play house. We had lots of fun.
We also had to do our homework at the kitchen table.None of us had our own desk.
One of my fondest memories is baking cookies with my Mom. Obviously we didn't bake at the table, but we kneaded and rolled and cut cookies on the kitchen table. I'll be glad to share some of our recipes, but that has to wait a little bit.