Obligatory Post-Thanksgiving Post

I've been cooking all week, including cooking the turkey and carving it the evening before Thanksgiving. So, all I had left to do on Thursday was the last minute stuff. It got done.

Things that happened Thanksgiving morning before the meal:

• Monkey bread was baked and served for breakfast-snacking.
• Cheese ball was put out for breakfast-snacking.
• Chocolate-Pecan Pie was compiled and baked off.
• Apple juice was simmered with 3 cloves and 1/2 cinnamon stick (simple, easy cider; if orange peels simmer for too long they turn bitter).
• Table was set.
• Butter was put onto butter dish early enough for it to get soft for the meal.
• Potatoes were boiled and mashed.
• Green bean casserole was baked and topped with French fried onions.
• Peas were steamed.
• Crescent rolls were baked.
• Turkey was plattered and reheated (and still didn't get dry!)
• Martinelli's was poured (yes, we had a bottle of wine, but we didn't serve it. Long story).

The only food-related hitch was that the peas overcooked. I couldn't find regular crescent rolls this year, only the "big and buttery" ones...I didn't read the baking instructions beforehand, and they needed 10 extra minutes to bake...those were the 10 minutes that overcooked the peas. Oooooh well. I'll write that down to remember for next year's turkey dinner.

It was a great meal. It was a really nice day. I loved it. Some of the people I love were there, some new friends were there, and a lot of the people I love were elsewhere. Still, it was a great day.

Sunday Meals

Monica posted about another layer her family adds to the specialness of the Lord's Day, and it inspired me to share what we do on Sundays.

Our church has a potluck every Sunday. Yes, every Sunday.

I really like it. I like the obvious reason of only preparing one casserole (maybe two) and sometimes one dessert to share with the whole church family, instead of an entire meal for just the two of us. I also like more subtle reasons: the chitchat and catchup with the folks in the kitchen as we prepare the food to go on the tables; the visiting over meals that we all get to do; the comments and compliments I get to share with other cooks in my congregation; the way we all crowd into the fellowship hall. We get in each other's way, we bump into each other, the little kids are underfoot...but we are all there, sharing this time together, learning at least a few of the minutiae and details of each other's personalities. (For example, one gentleman has Parkinson's but wants to contribute anyway, so he brings a box of cookies each week. There's always someone who puts his little donation into a nice dish so that they're just as special as any of the homemade desserts. Another example: the pastor's wife happens to have a real 'leadership' personality, and she organizes events that need organized.)

Don't think that it's all sunshine and roses, though. Like any family dynamic, this routine of Sunday potluck also brings out some weaknesses. There are patterns and routines we have when we all get together that I don't like, but nonetheless--we're a family, and the Big Sunday Potluck has potential either to make people feel included or to make them feel overlooked. My experience is that it's inclusive and fun.

Saturday Chores: 5:17pm

Accomplished:
~vacuumed all the moldings (eeew)
~vacuumed behind the dryer, while I had the vacuum out
~mixed two cake mixes, and made 2 doz. chocolate/vanilla marble cupcakes
~2 layers of a chocolate/vanilla marble cake ready to be baked

Saturday Chores: 1:41pm

This time, I did some Daily Chores before I started the timer for my Fifteen Minutes:
~Set a sinkful of dishes to soak. (In order to do this, I emptied a sinkful of dishclutter, scatter it with baking soda, scrubbed it out, rinsed it out, and filled it with hot water, soap, silverware, and glasses.)
~Started the washing machine. I have to wash my new red shirt for work on Monday*, and I don't want it to bleed into all my clothes, so I...took down my red curtains and took off my red tablecloth which are all verrrrrry dusty(!) to wash together.

Then I started my timer and began my Fifteen Minutes of Work to chip away at the Guest Bedroom Quest:
~Finished organizing all my sheet sets. I have a set of Queen sheets, two sets of Full sheets (one of which is on the Full bed), two sets of Twin sheets (one of which is on the Twin bed**), a flat sheet and two pillowcases for a Twin bed, and a set of flat and fitted sheets (no pillowcases) only for a Twin bed.
~Put all these organized sheets into the Linen Cabinet.
~Made up the Full bed, but have yet to pillow it up.

In the rest of this break (which is long, because this post is long), I am going to do the following:
~have a glass of water (I'm verrrry thirsty!)
~check the washer
~wash the dishes and set more to soak
~and then get back to my Guest Bedroom Quest using my Fifteen Minutes at a Time Strategy.

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*More about 'work on Monday' later!
**This is the very Twin bed that was mine in my single days. Yes, I moved from a Twin bed to a King bed when I married. Some of my friends slept in Full or Queen beds when they were single-but-not-at-home-anymore, but I decided not to. I never wanted to become accustomed to sleeping in the middle of a large bed ('hogging' the bed) before I was married. Anyway, we still have this Twin bed, even though Ian and I sleep in a King bed now.

Saturday Chores: 1:09pm

Accomplished in the last 15 minutes:

~made up twin bed
~found pillow, put two pillowcases on it (because its tick is cheap and plasticky which is uncomfortable throughout the night)
~pulled all sheets out of linen cabinet in order to organize them
~organized my full sheet set and put components into one of the pillowcases
~went and got paint cards and safety pins, cut one of the tan paint cards off the strip, wrote "FULL" cutely on it, and safety-pinned it to the pillowcase-bag

Liveblogging my Saturday Chores: 12:40pm

I'm waaaay behind on my chores. My housecleaning is suffering!

My strategy is to work for 15 minutes at a time (a manageable time period) and then take a 5-minute break before I get back to it. I'll post during the 5-minute breaks to let you know what I've just done.

Accomplished since 12:26:
~packed one more box of Christmas decorations

Small list, I know--but I'm trying to pack things well so that next year, unpacking will be a little more streamlined.

I have 3 minutes left of my break. I'm going to look at one of the links in my link lists and see what there is to see.

Ta ta for now!

Recipe: Spiced Ham Loaf and Spiced Apple Sauce

My mom grew up in Pennsylvania, and this is a very traditional Pennsylvania Dutch home-cookin' recipe. I served this last Sunday, and it was delicious. The leftovers were delicious, too!

Spiced Ham Loaf
Ingredients:
1 3/4 c. milk
2 large eggs
2 T brown sugar
1 T dry mustard
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
6 slices soft bread, cut into 1/2-inch cubes*
1 1/2 lb ground ham (pre cooked)
1 lb ground beef

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the milk, eggs, brown sugar, dry mustard, salt, and pepper. Add the bread cubes, ham, and beef. Blend well; shape a loaf. Place in a large loaf pan or onto a roasting pan.**

Bake at 350 until firm and lightly browned, about 90 minutes. Meat should reach an internal temperature of 175 to 180 degrees on a meat thermometer.

Remove from oven. Let rest 15 minutes, allowing the juices to settle, before slicing.***

Apple Cider Sauce
Ingredients
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
3 cups apple cider, or no-sugar-added apple juice
3/4 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
2T + 1 tsp cornstarch
2 T water
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice

Combine the brown sugar, apple cider, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a saucepan. Note: because the sweetness of ciders varies, be prepared to adjust the amount of sugar to taste.**** Bring to a boil.

Separately dissolve the cornstarch in the water. Gradually add the cornstarch mixture to the boiling apple cider mixture, stirring constantly, until the sauce thickens slightly.

Remove the sauce from heat. Stir in the lemon juice. Serve with Spiced Ham Loaf or Baked Ham.

This recipe is from CDKitchen http://www.cdkitchen.com

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*I bake my own bread, so this was extra yummy bread. It would still be ok with store bought bread, but the bread I bake doesn't have any extraneous ingredients.

**I used a round casserole dish because it was what I had on hand.

***I let mine rest, then covered it and put it into the fridge. Then, for Sunday lunch, I microwaved it to take off the chill and put it into my already-warm oven to heat it up enough to serve at the table.

****I used the full measure of sugar, and it was prrrrreeeeeety sweet! Next time I'll use just half.

How Do You Roll?

I'm having dinner tonight with my friend G who's growing into a deeper friendship with me. (That's a story for another time.) Anyway, we were talking on Sunday and revealed our secret inner insecurities.

I wish I were more task-oriented like G is. A doer. You know The Doers: the ones who maintain deliciously beautiful homes at all times. Mundane Housekeeping Tasks seems to come naturally to them, and they never sit still and just think, or sit still and just read, because the To Do list looms over their heads.

She wishes she were more analytic-oriented like I am. I'm a thinker, and I know us. We read the dictionary to find new words we don't know. (Saturday evening I spent an hour with a fellow thinker. We each read our own dictionary*, sharing new and exciting words aloud to each other...) We sit and think and analyze for hours. We sometimes do kooky things just to see what would happen. (In the college dining hall, I once ate my entire meal of chili-mac off my tray, not off a plate. Just to see what would happen.)

Here are some implications:

• Why do the both of us assume there's something wrong with the way we were created?
• Why does each of us assume we are lazy because we don't operate the way the other does? I feel the pain of my innate laziness because I don't Do as much as she does; I daresay she feels the same sort of insecurity when compared to my Constant Thinking and Analyzing.
• Why can't I accept her help in making me a better Doer, a better Housekeeper? More accurately, why am I hesitant to accept her help?
• Which type of acumen is assumed to be more usable? (You can get tutoring anywhere...I'm tutoring a girl in my Linguistics class on the finer points of grammar, and I could tutor my friend G in doctrine and theology if she wanted...but honoring your innate talent for Do-ing and Housekeeping by tutoring people like me who just aren't Doers? That's a bold idea.) To rephrase and clarify my question: who is considered to be more important: white-collar workers or blue-collar workers? And why is that?

Sigh. Here I am ruminating over the Thinker/Doer dichotomy (and using words like dichotomy, too) when I should be (1) planning my weekend meals and (2) compiling my grocery list so I can (3) get home and (4) cook food and (5) clean my house.

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*Yes, we own two dictionaries. When we married, we purged multiple copies of the same books, especially duplicate college textbooks, but we decided not to fight over whose dictionary to keep. Other issues are more important...like which of the double sinks do you want? and how will we squeeze our toothpaste tube now that we share one? and the ever-popular how much does it annoy you when I correct your grammar? Oh, the delights of being married to a Thinker.

Doing Eggs

I really enjoy family traditions. One of my traditions from my family of origin is Easter-Egg Coloring. It's not just using tubs of dye to dye eggs:

It's also using onion skins and items from nature to color eggs

This is Latvian Egg Coloring. I grew up doing this. Every Easter Saturday, we (my family: Mom, Dad, Sister, and Omamma [Dad's mom]) would sit at the same table and make each egg an individual artwork. It's so exciting to put leaves, grass, three-leafed clover, pear blossoms, grape hyacinths, forsythia blooms, baby oak leaves, and all kinds of materials on the egg, wrap it up, put it in the dye bath, and then...unwrap the egg and see how it turned out! Woo!

We colored eggs yesterday. Ian was there, and SisterinLaw A came for a visit so she could color eggs too, and her friend A was also there. It was such a nice time. It's a great season (springtime) for turning on pleasant music, opening the windows, covering the table with accessories for this art project, and do it together.

Dishes

I'm joining in! Rocks in my Dryer is having a spur-of-the-moment dish carnival and I want to share, too! I think it's amazing how many people, including me, will share details like these on the Internet. Are our plates really that important that we think of them as signifiers of who we are and how we keep house? Makes you think, right?

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First, my fine china: Lenox MicroSafe Continental Dining Platinum. My godmother talked us into registering for it about two weeks before our wedding! By that time, we only had ONE AFTERNOON to get that done, so we ran to Dill.ards and *poof* registered really quickly. The dish saleslady was impressed with our communications skills and decision-making technique.

We have service for 6 now. My favorite parts? The size of the plates, the classiness and simplicity of the design, and the size/shape of the teacups--with their easy-to-hold handles!

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Our everyday dishes: Pfaltzgraff Denim. We only had ONE DAY to do all of our registering (we lived in separate cities, were both teachers, and were coming up on final exams, ok?), and I learned from my sister's registering adventures that men have opinions but haven't talked and obsessed and thought about them as much as girls do. So, we talked everything over the week before we registered, we prayed faithfully for guidance, and when we saw these in Tar.get, we clapped and giggled. (Ok, it was just me. And registering is hard work, peeps, so I was a little punchy.)

Thanks to my grandparents and my parents-in-law, we have service for ten. We also have the gravy boat, the sugar and creamer, salt and pepper shakers, and three canisters. I like the blue look.

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Next, my buffet plates. White. Round. Utilitarian. I picked them up at a garage sale at my store last summer. They are freezer-, microwave-, dishwasher-, and oven-safe. (Oven safe! Yay!) I have ten.

I also have ten lionshead bowls, perfect for French onion soup and individual macaroni and cheeses. I'm glad I bought them, though they are a little hard to wash by hand (we don't have a dishwasher).

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My Christmas plates I got at The Bombay Store in its big going-out-of-business sale. There was a Bombay Store two doors down from Mia Cucina, and I had my eye on their beautiful Tartan plates. When they went 50% off, I snatched up their next to last box--service for four, with the dinner plate, salad plate, soup plate, and mug. Soooo pretty!

I looked and looked but couldn't find any pictures of the actual plates. This is the closest I could find, with the white center and the tartan band; ours are actually red, white, green, and yellow tartan (with red as the primary color).

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And my winter plates, courtesy of my mom and my mother-in-law...and my husband, who told his mom what exactly I wanted for Christmas two years ago. I looked and looked, but could only found this similar picture:Instead of randomly-scattered snowflakes around the rim, my plates feature evenly placed flakes around the rim. The center is white, though. The best part? The glaze is iridescent, and as my people know, iridescent is my favorite color. We have 6 of these, as well as cereal bowls. However, they are not microwave safe!

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I like plates! I got that gene from my grandmother, who has four or five nice, formal sets.

I grew up going to Grandma's house and using her nice dishes, and so I regularly bust out my nice dishes and use them, even if it's just pizza or sandwiches. They make even the most bland dinner extra nice, and fancy dinner is extra memorable.

Dinner for Nine

Covenant is on its Spring Break this week, and the Dining Hall is closed. The students who are staying on campus during Spring Break have to fend for themselves. And not all of the dorms are equipped with stoves for the students to cook on.

So I invited some of my new friends to come for dinner. It snowballed a little, and in the end 7 college girls came over.

Our table has leaves, but until last night we've never used them. It was pretty exciting for me, and really fun.

The menu?
Mom's Lasagna
Cindy's Salad
Green Beans
Garlic Bread
Pioneer's Mom's Apple Dumplings

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The dumplings were delicious. My favorite was the crustiness of the croissant-dumpling with the lightly caramelized sugar on it. Yummmm. I was, I confess, a little skeptical about the Mountain Dew, but I followed directions (and heeded the advice about the proper size dish)--and it all came out delicious. I'm going to make it again for my church's weekly potluck, and they will love it too.

You should definitely hop over there and get that recipe and make the dumplings! They were sooooooo good.