Weekly Glimpse

Spring has sprung. The sounds of sweetly singing birds fill the air during the day, and at night we go to sleep listening to the hundreds of spring peepers that live in the marshy area along the creek above our waterfall.

I'm including a short video for those who want to take a listen to the sound of the spring peeper.



We took daily walks and enjoyed all the early signs of spring. It was a nice way to clear our heads after spending time solving algebraic equations and all the other things we have been studying.

 

Rosebud enjoyed toying with recipes and was happy with the results of her latest cupcake creations. The frosting colored naturally with a raspberry reduction sauce.

 

We all did quite a bit of writing. I'm already looking forward to seeing what Sunbeam will crank out as she gets older. She just finished up writing a full length book with over 70,000 words.

 

~~~~~

 

Buddy got in plenty of batting practice.

 

 

All in all a very enjoyable yet ordinary week.

Wednesday Hodgepodge

1. March is National Women's History Month. In that vein, who are three women who've been influential in your life? How so?

First .... my mother. Her patience, love, and cheerfulness made a huge influence on my life. She believed in the sayings If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy, and the well known, Happy wife, happy life to be why it's important for her to stay cheerful no matter the circumstances. She didn't twist it as a way for people to cater to her, or think it was her husbands job to make her happy. She believed a woman controls whether or not the home is a happy one. She did her best to give us that.

My grandmothers were both influential in my life as well.
 

2. In what ways do you think women have it easier than men? 

Different roles to fulfill here, and I think each has its own set of challenges. I like the security I feel in the leadership LV provides for our home and family and am glad he shoulders the responsibility for that.
 

3. What do you need most right now: faith, love, hope, or peace? 

I need all four of them, though I can never have too much love. Even the Bible says love/charity is the greatest of them all.
 

4. Do you have a collection? If so, what do you collect and why? 

I have well over a hundred cookbooks. I love cooking and trying new recipes. I'm not adding to the collection very often, but there are still cookbooks I would love to get.
 

5. Plaids, checks, polka dots, stripes...your favorite?

I think currently I like plaids the most. Rosebud just got several really nice skirts that are  plaid, and I think they're lovely.
 

6. In what ways are you the same as your childhood self? 

This one is hard. In a lot of ways I simply feel like an older version of the child I used to be. I still have many of the same likes and dislikes.
 

7. You're a contestant on the TV game show Jeopardy. What category will you ace?  

I have no idea. Since I never watch it, I don't even know what the categories are in Jeopardy.
 

8. Insert your own random thought here.

Spring has sprung and we are already enjoying lovely afternoon walks. The last heaps of dirty snow are melting away. Birds are singing sweetly, and the springtime flowers are beginning to peep through. As much as I love winter, springtime is a delightful time of year!

A Bit of Random

Flipping through my thought files searching for some blog material.

Hmmm...... maybe I could write about one of the following.

• The cat that visited services at our church. 
• A few interesting tidbits we have learned while doing our school work.
• Some wittily funny comments made by our teenagers.
• The fact that spring seems to have arrived, and how that makes me feel.
• A hilarious episode involving peppermint oil.

None of those topics seem to be enough to warrant more than a paragraph on their own. I could save all of them to be used at a later date for my random thought on the weekly Hodgepodge post, but I think I'll share one today.

The cat was smuggled into the church house inside a lady's purse. As it turns out, cats don't like being tucked into purses and will protest vehemently once they reach the end of their patience. We haven't seen the lady, her purse, or her cat since then, but they certainly provided more than their share of amusement to our girls who tried their best not to roll over with laughter.

Cannoli

Due to popular demand; here is the recipe for the cannoli we made last week.

 

To start you want to make sure you have a few essential items on hand.

 

• A pair of tongs
• A candy thermometer
• A set of cannoli forms
• An oven mitt.

To make the pastry shell you will need:

 

2 cups flour

3 Tbsp Crisco

2 Tbsp sugar

¼ tsp. cinnamon

¾ cup Sherry

1 egg slightly beaten

 

In addition you will want:

• a beaten egg white
• vegetable oil for frying

Gently whisk together flour, sugar, and cinnamon. Add Crisco and mix until you have nice even crumbs. Drizzle a third of the Sherry over your flour mixture and mix it. Drizzle half of the remaining Sherry and mix some more. Finally add the slightly beaten egg and the remainder of the Sherry. Mix well, form into a ball, and refrigerate for about an hour and a half.

 

On a lightly floured surface roll out the dough until it is very thin, as in .... almost the thickness of a dime. Now comes the fun part. Cut out circles about four inches in diameter. I happened to have a cookie cutter that was the perfect size, but you can also make a pattern with parchment paper or cardboard from and empty cereal box and lay it on your rolled out dough and cut around it with a sharp knife.

 

Pour some vegetable oil into a sauce pan until it's about two inches deep. Heat it to 380º This is where it's important to have a candy thermometer.

 

While you are keeping an eye on the rising temperature of your oil, gently wrap one of your dough circles around a cannoli form. As tempting as it may be to wrap it around the middle, it is wise to situate it closer to one end than the other. Brush some beaten egg white on the edge of the dough where it will overlap and press to seal.  

 

When the oil is hot slip into the oven mitt, take the tongs and firmly hold the end of the cannoli form and lower it into the hot oil. Hold it in the oil for exactly one minute. Remove and place to cool, on a wire rack that has been covered with paper towels. Repeat with your remaining forms. I had only four forms to work with, but by the time the fourth one was fried the first one was cool enough to remove from the cannoli shell and the steps repeated, wrap the dough, seal the dough, dip the dough in oil and fry. You will want to keep a careful eye on the temperature and adjust the heat as necessary. Since you're working with one cannoli at a time it's easy for the oil to overheat, and we wouldn't want it to catch on fire.

For the filling, I scoured numerous websites and cookbooks. Most of them wanted a ricotta based filling, but I was afraid LV wouldn't care for the texture. I was happy to find a recipe that told me to simply fill with our favorite vanilla custard pudding, which is what I did. I had it prepared and ready to be piped into the shells by spooning it into a Ziploc bag with the bottom corner snipped off.

When the shells were thoroughly cold I dipped some of their ends into melted chocolate, and left the others plain. I piped the pudding inside, and they were finally ready to serve.

It sounds complicated, but each step in itself is easy. And the end results are so worth it!

Wednesday Hodgepodge

1. February ended with an extra 24 hours in 2016. What did you do with your bonus day?

It didn't feel like a bonus day to me at all. If it were up to me we would have had two Sundays in a row. Now that would have felt like a bonus day.

2. What's something in your life that's grown by leaps and bounds in recent days, weeks, months, or years? I'm giving you lots of room to come up with an answer here, so no fair passing on this one.

Our children. It doesn't seem that long ago when I was holding them in my arms for the first time, and now our oldest is preparing to take his driving test.

3. Do you read reviews about a film before deciding if you'll see it? Did you watch The Oscars this year, and if so your thoughts on the program? How many of the Best Picture nominees had you seen prior to the broadcast? (Spotlight, The Martian, The Big Short, The Revenant, Mad Max: Fury Road, Room, and Brooklyn) If you watched The Oscars who gets your award for 'best dressed'?

We wait a long time before we see any movies. Most of the time the hype has long passed before we ever get to see them. For example we saw Frozen for the first time several weeks ago. What a snoozer. Certainly not worth all the praise we heard about it.

We didn't watch the Oscars and haven't seen any of the nominated films.

4. When did you last have overnight houseguests? Give us your top three tips on being a good houseguest.

We had overnight house guests a week and a half ago.

I don't really have tips to share on how to be a good houseguest. I want to have our home be welcoming, comfortable, and a happy place for them to enjoy their visit.

5. March 2nd is Peanut Butter Lover's Day. Will you be celebrating? If so, would you prefer a home made peanut butter cookie, a Reese's peanut butter cup, an old fashioned peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or shall I just hand you a jar and a tablespoon?

I will not be celebrating. I don't like peanut butter in candy or any desserts. The only way I like peanut butter is prepared as Amish Church peanut butter.

6. Why is failure important? Or isn't it?

I don't think failure is important. What is important is our reaction and how we pick up and move on after experiencing failure.

7. Share with us one fun thing on your March calendar.

On our calendar for March, the girls and I will be making a Busy Book and for new food .... we will be trying our hand at making baklava.

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

We recently went to see the  Flight 93 memorial again. It is nicer every time we go, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it will be when the vision for the site is completed.

 

The visitors center / museum is informative, interesting, and ever so sobering.

 

The wall of names of all those who lost their lives on that awful day.