Saturday, October 25, 2008

Plum bread

I just finished making my annual batches of plum bread. This is a recipe the makes everybody happy with me, especially several friends when I leave out the walnuts. A little bit of high math shows that each loaf has 1 cube (to be precise, 1 rectangular solid) of butter and 2 eggs, so this is definitely not for the cardiac challenged! I use freestone plums that have a purple skin and are yellow-orange on the inside, one local variety is President Plums. They turn red when cooked. I imagine almost any variety will work.

Guaranteed not to last long. I made ten loaves this year. They are all spoken for. I didn't put any in the freezer, mainly because I split a side of beef with a friend and the freezer needs to be cleaned out to make room.


Plum Bread
Makes: two loaves

1 cup butter
2 cup sugar
----mix
4 eggs
1 Tsp vanilla (if you run out, almond is OK)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp soda
1 tsp lemon peel
------add
3 c flour
3/4 c plain yogurt
---------addm alternating so that the batter is workable
2 c diced plums
1 c chopped nuts
-----------add
350 degrees, 55 minutes.

Somehow, I seem to always add time in my oven.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Philosopy and Plumbing

I had to lead a Bible Study on I Corinthians 1:18-31. The following quote came to my mind, which really does have to do with the passage as well as events in the political arena this week. I originally found it on a poster in a friend's dorm room 35 years ago.

The society that tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted profession, and scorns excellence in plumbing because it is a lowly profession, will have neither good philosophy nor good plumbing. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.--Anonymous

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Rules...

...and knowing when to break them.

This weekend I was introduced to eating brownies right out of the oven.

Before they cooled.

You know those directions on the box that say cool 2 hours before eating?

Bunch of hooey.

After being told to loosen my anal sphincter muscle (and yes, those were the actual words used; I have very intellectual friends), I sat down and ate brownies that had only cooled slightly. Partially because I was curious and partially because if I had waited the two hours, there would not have been any brownies left. (And I had even gotten a bit of batter, but since I didn't make the brownies, I was not entitled to it.)

I recommend breaking this rule.

Cold milk was necessary.

Tonight, my daughter made a yellow cake and frosted it immediately. I once again loosened my anal sphincter muscle and ate warm cake. The chocolate (of course) frosting had soaked into the cake.

Another rule bites the dust.

Eating the cake required a fork, like normal. For brownies, use a spoon.

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Life as it is today.




The dog, who got a lot of sympathy when she hurt her back leg, lay down in the carrot patch. Now I should mention that I don't do carrots in nice rows. I have discovered that you get the same amount of carrots if you just spread the seeds from the package all over the raised bed. (Before the 24 dams on the Columbia River, our back yard was part of the overflow. It has a whole bunch of nice big rounded rocks. So we have to use raised beds.) Anyway, since she broke off the tops of all the carrots, I had to harvest. Which is overdue anyway.
And I touched a slug.
This has totally ruined my day.
So I got a trowel (man is a tool using animal) and harvested with that for a while. Then I picked 3 more cucumbers and about 2 quarts of cherry tomatoes. After spraying down the carrots outside, the slug slime was STILL ON MY HAND. I had to scrape it off with the pot scraper.
I am not going to feel clean until I shower.
The top picture is the cherry tomato bush. It is on one end of a 4 foot by 8 foot raised bed. It is a very good year for this bush! It has totally taken over. The variety is sun sugar, and is ripe when orange (second picture). It is a low acid and high sugar tomato, and my husband loves them. So does everybody else. I don't expect them to last long.
OK, part of that bush (but not very much of it) is a green zebra tomato, which is ripe when green and has stripes. It is an OK tomato, we probably won't plant it again. I wish the brandywine tomato bush had lived, I would like to know if it produced good tomatoes. But it had too much competition from the sun sugar bush and the carrots. The carrots have greenery that is easily 3 feet high. some of them are 1 1/2 inches in diameter!
You can see the dog thinking there has got to be a squirrel in that mess of a tomato bush somewhere. Well, she is right about slugs, anyway, but I doubt she wants them!.
The slug is dead.
I probably better run the pot scraper through the dishwasher tonight.

Monday, October 06, 2008

frustration


I am working on a really cool quilt. A bonus is that orange is not demanding to be in this one. I hate orange. It is an obnoxious color that demands attention. The minute you let a little orange in the door, it takes over. At least yellow politely knocks, and goes away if you say no.

BUT, As I lay the top out to make sure all the lace was tacked in properly, I discovered the error. I have used an on point layout with sashing and posts before. I know how to do this. I am not a novice. I have consciously avoided this very error.
I was wondering why I had so many pieces left over.
Now I have to completely remove 7 (out of 14) setting triangles, in order to put the sashing and posts in properly. All of those seams are on the bias for the triangles.
Later.
Right now I am going to play stupid computer games.