pumpkin rolls

1 C warm water
1 pkg dry yeast
¾ C sugar
5 Tbsp. oil
1 C cooked pumpkin
1 egg
2 tsp. salt
½ C instant dry milk
5 C flour (about)

In a mixing bowl combine water, sugar and yeast. Let stand 5 minutes. Then add the rest of the ingredients and mix together well. Knead 10 minutes. Put into greased bowl, cover and let rise until doubled. Punch down and form into desired rolls. Arrange in greased pans. Let rise until doubled. Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Makes 3-4 dozen rolls.

pumpkin bread

preheat oven to 350

Mix together well:
1 1/3 C vegetable oil
5 eggs
1 16oz can of pumpkin

Sift together:
2 C flour
2 C sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp baking soda

Add to the pumpkin mixture and mix until blended.

Then add:
2 3oz pkgs. Vanilla pudding, regular or instant
1 C chopped nuts

Pour into 2 greased large loaf pans. Bake 1 hour (or until toothpick comes out clean). From the Lion House Christmas cookbook

pumpkin muffins

Stir together, then set aside:

1 3/4 C self-rising flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp ground cloves

Mix together:
1 egg, beaten
1/3 C buttermilk
2/3 C packed light brown sugar
2 T. melted butter

Stir in 1/2 C canned pumpkin.

Add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients, mixing only enough to moisten. Pour into greased muffin tins and bake at 350 20-25 min.

pumpkin patch

pumpkin patch

It is that time of year for harvesting and enjoying that great vegetable, the pumpkin. It is very versatile and for the next few days I will share some recipes with you. It is very convenient to use canned pumpkin in recipes, but it can be a fun family project to start with a real pumpkin and turn it into something delicious. To prepare a pumpkin for recipes I cut it in half horizontally, clean out the seeds and stringy part, then place the cut side down on a greased cookie sheet and bake it in a 350 degree oven for an hour or so until it is tender. Let it cool then scoop out the inside portions and puree. Spoon the pureed pumpkin into sealable containers in 2 cup portions and freeze until needed. (the puree can be very juicy, so you may need to drain off some of the liquid).

Pumpkin pancakes

2 eggs, separated
1 ¼ C buttermilk
4 Tbsp melted butter
3 Tbsp canned pumpkin
¼ C sugar
¼ tsp salt
1 ¼ C flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp allspice

Mix dry ingredients together, then add the buttermilk, butter, pumpkin, and egg yolks and mix well (add more buttermilk for desired consistency). Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the batter. Cook on a hot griddle and serve with butter and syrup.

an omen

I am not a superstitious person, although I do check my horoscope most mornings (just for a good laugh). But occasionally things happen that make me just want to read something into it. I remember driving to our new apartment many years ago to sign the lease, and seeing a huge rainbow breaking out over our road ahead. Surely, we thought, we have chosen the right place to live and we would be happy in our new home.

Then there are things so out of the ordinary as to give one pause to wonder, is this the twilight zone?!? One such thing happened recently while my mother and I were looking after my sister’s children. We knew that our last two days there would be our most challenging since it was the weekend and the children would be out of school. We woke that morning with heightened anxiety of what was in store for us. I suggested we start the day with fried eggs (a nice breakfast would give us a good energy boost). I cracked the first egg into the hot frying pan and was surprised it was a double yolk! I cracked the second egg and it, too, was a double yolk! Yes, we decided, this was an omen, the heavens were smiling on us and we were in for two very nice days with the children (after all, two yolks, two days, right?). I hard-boiled 5 more eggs for us to have in sandwiches at lunch and do you believe that when I opened each of those eggs, they were all with double yolks! We were totally amazed, what are the odds? I checked the carton to see if they were marketed as double yolks, but it wasn’t anywhere on the package. We were very sure it was an omen, then. And our two last days WERE very nice with the children.

I tried not to think about the possibility that the eggs came from chickens that had been fed some kind of hormones that in five years will be found to be dangerous to humans…

to be a child again...

This morning we are getting the new carpet in our basement, the next-to-the-next-to-the-last step in getting life back to normal. So late last night my children realized that it would be their last chance to re-live a childhood memory, sliding down the stairs on a sleeping bag. Yes, it was a favorite pastime many years ago until they got too big/rough, and we realized it was taking a terrible toll on the carpet, reluctantly banning the activity (the children admitted that for a while they still did it when we were away). But now, with the carpet being replaced anyway, they could do it freely. They are older now, 14 and 18, and what before was a spontaneous activity now became a scientific project. They gathered all the sleeping bags, pillows, and blankets they could find (even braving the spiders in the shed) to set up the proper conditions for the superior sliding experience. They consulted with one another, made trial runs, adjusted and re-adjusted the “equipment” until things were declared perfect. A few runs of bliss and it was all over, time to put everything away. I don’t think it was quite as fun as it used to be. Part of it may be that they are taller now so the ride is much shorter. Perhaps part of it is the fact that it wasn’t a forbidden activity done behind our backs. I do hope it made a good memory for them, or at least that it brought to mind the fond memories of a fun childhood. We all need that!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my treasure, my wonderfully awesome daughter, Hannah, who is 18 today!

magic

Many years ago, when Isaac was about 4 years old, we visited my brother, Kirby. As well as being the quintessential teller of tall tales, Kirby is somewhat of a magician, specializing in card tricks. Naturally, my children, fascinated by his skills, gathered around to see his latest trick which used two decks of cards, a magic deck and an imaginary deck. The trick was that, as a member of the audience did something to the imaginary deck, the exact same thing would happen to the magic deck. Kirby demonstrated several times until the children were appropriately and totally amazed! Kirby was delighted with their reverence and awe and as a gesture of good will gave the magic deck to one of the older children (later teaching him how to do the trick himself) and gave the imaginary deck to Isaac. Isaac was beside himself with excitement and slipped it into the pocket of his shorts for safe keeping. It was promptly forgotten, or so I thought.

A few months later and back at home, I was folding laundry one day and Isaac came looking for a pair of shorts, putting on the very pair he was wearing that day at Kirby’s. He stuck his hands in the pockets, then a look of shock and dismay came over his face. I watched, puzzled, as he pulled out his hand, stared at the open, “empty” palm and said, “Oh no! I still have Uncle Kirby’s invisible cards!” My delight at his “discovery” had to be kept in check for the moment as we discussed the what-to-do of the situation. Not only had we kept them longer than was polite, they had been through the wash, probably more than once! We examined them carefully, but, having quite limited experience with “invisible” things, we couldn’t really tell if there had been any damage, or how severe it was (for all we knew, they were rendered impotent). We decided the appropriate thing to do would be to send them back to Uncle Kirby. We composed the perfect letter of apology, explaining the whole situation and expressing our profound feelings of regret that we may have ruined them. We enclosed it in an envelope with the cards and mailed it off that very day.

Weren’t we relieved to find out that the cards weren’t ruined at all, and Uncle Kirby was so great about it he just laughed and laughed… and laughed.

we need...

"Women of God can never be like women of the world. The world has enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender. There are enough women who are coarse; we need women who are kind. There are enough women who are rude; we need women who are refined. We have enough women of fame and fortune; we need more women of faith. We have enough greed; we need more goodness. We have enough vanity; we need more virtue. We have enough popularity; we need more purity."- Margaret D. Nadauld, "The Joy of Womanhood," Ensign, Nov. 2000, 14

The Fork Incident

When I was twelve my mother remarried and three children became six with the addition of two step-brothers and a step-sister. They lived with their mother during the school year but came to stay with us during the summers and some holidays. During one visit, when my step-brother, Mike, and I were both 13, something happened that came to be known as “The Fork Incident”. This happened 45 years ago, but deserves the re-telling of my first-hand version, for over the years the incident has gained the status of folklore and the truth of it all has been lost to the effects of time…

One night for dinner my mother served pork chops, a very rare treat, indeed. Somehow as we all consumed the last bites of our share of this delicacy, we simultaneously noticed that there was one last, extra chop on the platter. It never occurred to most of us that there was the slightest possibility we would get some of it, but Mike, not one to ever be left out of a good thing, poised his fork, ready for a chance to go for it. His dad saw the greediness in his eyes and readied his own fork to go for it. There was a brief moment of stand-off with their eyes, the rest of us watching, wide-eyed with anticipation, we’d never seen an actual “duel to the death” before. Then, in an instant, forks flew, Mike stabbing the chop and Dad stabbing Mike’s hand!

This is where things get fuzzy; some story-tellers say that the fork didn’t even break the skin, others insist that Mike bled profusely. As I recall, of course I could be wrong, the fork punctured the skin and a few drops of blood came to the surface and oozed out. There are no scars, physically anyway, on Mike and no one seems to remember what happened to the chop; I daresay no one wanted it after that…

So if you hear a story of “The Fork Incident”, and there are many (even the half-brother and sisters born after the fact have their own versions), take it with a grain of salt. Kirby, the family’s quintessential teller of tall tales, has embellished his version so much over the years that no one can top his story in which Mike dies…

love that math!

I’m reading a fascinating book about math! It may seem strange to some of you that the words “math” and “fascinating” are used in the same sentence. But it is such a great book that I am recommending it to you.

A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO CONSTRUCTING THE UNIVERSE
The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science
a voyage from 1 to 10
by Michael S. Schneider

I get many of my books at thrift stores but also like this great site:
AbeBooks.com Check it out!

it will all work out

“It isn’t as bad as you sometimes think it is. It all works out. Don’t worry.
I say that to myself every morning. It will all work out. If you do your best, it will all work out. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith and confidence in the future. The Lord will not forsake us. He will not forsake us… If we will put our trust in Him, if we will pray to Him,
if we will live worthy of His blessings, He will hear our prayers.”

Gordon B. Hinckley, Ensign, Oct. 2000 p.73

name-in-lace

for Maggie in the UK

silverware drawer

When my fourth baby was born, my mother and little sister came for a visit. I was totally overwhelmed with the responsibilities of my growing little family and was grateful for their help, although I was a very diligent homemaker and had managed to keep on top of everything. Everything that is, except the silverware drawer. It had been a wreck for months, I felt glad I could even keep the dishes clean. My teenage sister took it upon herself to organize my silverware drawer for me, sorting the utensils into their proper places. It was beautiful. It stayed that way while she was there to help, but within two days after she left, it was back to chaos in there. A year or so later I managed to get on top of things enough to keep that place in order, too.

I’ve thought of that drawer many times over the years. It was a symbol of the threshold of my capabilities, the limit of what I could cope with. At the time I felt bad about my inability to keep it in order. But I’ve come to think of it as a symbol of my priorities. It was OK for me to let the silverware drawer go, for it meant I was on top of something else, lots of things actually, far more important. We read the scriptures together as a family every morning, I sewed clothes, cut hair, washed dishes, changed diapers, folded laundry, bathed bodies, brushed teeth, made bread, sang songs, read stories, nurtured and taught precious little spirits, prepared fabulous meals every day and kept our home clean and orderly, a place where the Spirit was comfortable. I worked hard! Yes, I like order, who doesn’t? But when it is more than we can comfortably handle, when it interferes instead of contributes, it really is OK to just “let it go” for a time.