Happy St. Pat’s

I’m really too exhausted to share much more than a simple recipe today. I didn’t sleep much at all last night, and yet we were able to pull off a fabulous corned beef feast, including having three friends join us for dinner.

And so, the recipe:

CORNED BEEF AND CABBAGE

Ingredients:

• one corned beef brisket
• one large head of green cabbage, cored and quartered
• four or five large russet potatoes, peeled and quartered
• ten carrots, peeled and “chunked”
• brown sugar glaze (recipe to follow)

Directions:

Place the brisket and the contents of the spice packet (which usually is included with the brisket) in a sufficiently large ovenproof kettle or roaster. Add enough water to almost cover the brisket (and any remaining juice from the bag the brisket came in) to the kettle. Bring to a boil first on the stovetop and then place the kettle in the oven at 350 degrees. Braise until the meat is done but not falling apart (several hours, depending on the size of the brisket). Turn the brisket over once in the broth about half way through baking.

Remove the brisket from the broth and place it in a shallow baking dish. Strain the pickling seeds out of the broth (or if they do not bother you, leave them in, as they do not hurt the vegetables any), but be sure to save all the broth to cook the vegetables.

Increase the oven temperature to 400 degrees.

Place one-half cup of butter and one-half cup of brown sugar in a microwave-safe dish and microwave, covered, at intervals until melted and bubbling, stirring often. Spoon this mixture over the brisket and then return it to the oven until the glaze is dark and bubbly and the kitchen begins to smell fabulously like candy. It could take up to half an hour. Do not try to rush this step by using the broiler. Patience is a virtue.

In the meantime, place the carrots and potatoes in the broth and bring to a boil on the stovetop. When the carrots and potatoes are almost done, add the cabbage and cook until the cabbage is al dente and the potatoes and carrots are tender.

Serve the vegetables and broth as a soup in wide, shallow bowls (for presentation purposes, of course). We have always added vinegar at the table, which brightens the flavor of any cabbage dish. As for the corned beef, some add it to their bowls, some eat it with mustard, but I like to eat it just the way it is.

And don’t forget the great sandwiches you can make from the leftovers. With a little melted Havarti on top, oh the pleasant dreams I will have tonight in anticipation of tomorrow’s lunch.

Enjoy!

And Now For the Fun Part

 

And now for the fun part. That is what I kept saying, as my son looked over my shoulder day after day as I diligently worked on Ken’s Christmas present. My son is very much the creative type ( just like his mama), and I am enjoying watching his creativity bloom. He definitely has an eye for colors, style, and design. I imagine, if he had the inclination and with his amazing computer skills, he would make an awesome graphic designer or even a game designer.

There are many, many steps in the quilt-making process, especially when one is designing as she goes, as with a free-form T-shirt quilt. For one, I greatly underestimated how many T-shirts I would need. Even though Ken has a huge collection of shirts, he was rather stingy in which he was willing to sacrifice. I tried my best to make them stretch (no pun intended), but I finally had to go back to him and ask for more T-shirts. Since he could now see the beautiful thing I was creating for him, he was slightly more generous. He even gave me the shirt of his back. Of course, I had to wash it before cutting it up, though.

I also got him to give up a pair of Valentine’s boxers. No comment . . .

I had plenty of creative help, though some “helpers” were more insistent about getting their own way than others.

But where I really needed the help was with hand-washing the batting.

I chose an all-natural 100% cotton batting for this project, and if I did not pre-wash, I would have lost 3% in size with the first washing-that’s almost 3 inches in length alone. It is worth it, though, being all-natural and made in the USA.

I discovered something while working on this quilt. My work table is in front of the armoire, which my friend has yet to take even though she has paid for it. The colors in the quilt look great up against the dark cherry of my old bedroom set. Again, I regret selling it, but it had to be done.

The armoire will not fit in the RV, no matter how hard I try, and I would hate for it to be damaged from sitting in storage for years, not to mention the storage costs to keep a bedroom set so large. Ken will have enough stuff he is unwilling to part with that we will have to pay for, again and again, in storage fees.

Here, my guys are modeling the front side, when it is almost completed. It just needed the border, and then I could slap it all together. That’s Suzie in the bottom, right corner.

It took a lot of finessing, and more safety pins than one could imagine, to get the two sides and the batting to cooperate, but I finally got this quilt finished, and just in the nick of time, with Christmas right around the corner. I bet it will look absolutely beautiful in the Raven—if ever we get her back from the shop.

I just had to show off the boxers. They made it onto the quilt, whole and intact.

SEW BUTTONS ON EGGS

 

Oh, fiddle sticks. It has been an interesting month that I have been away from my writing. Life. Yes, it is a sentence. Life has been frustrating to say the least these past several weeks.

My mom always said that things happen in threes, though she was usually talking about deaths, and in particular, the deaths of celebrities. This past month’s three had to do not with death but with illness. My hubby was in the ICU with complications of his diabetes and a medicine that should never have been prescribed to a diabetic. Don’t even get me started on that subject. And the other two of the three were two friends who have also been in the hospital recently. I have had my hands and my heart full just trying to keep up in my prayers lately.

Well, (“that’s a very deep subject,” as Ken would say), crisis averted. Life is settling down now, just in time for Christmas. And me without my Christmas projects finished. Oh, my! I see a few all-nighters in my future. Lucky me.

My biggest Christmas project is a T-shirt quilt for my husband. It has only taken me at least a year to convince him to give me part of his massive T-shirt collection for this project. I have tried reassuring him that he will love the end result. He knows I can sew like nobody’s business. After all, I learned at the knees of my grandmother, who was a master seamstress, and my mother.

The quilt is coming along beautifully, though I may have to steal a few more T-shirts, and I am amazed at how quickly I am putting it together. I haven’t made a quilt since I was pregnant with my son, and it seems to me that that particular quilt took forever. But then again, I was working full time and I had a very active four-year-old too. I am just amazed at the stuff I used to be able to accomplish back then. For one, I made a good portion of my daughter’s clothes myself, that is, until she was about eight and discovered that her clothing was “different” than what the other girls were wearing. Go figure—a child not appreciating hand-made items. What is the world coming to?

So, (sew buttons) wish me luck on getting the quilt finished by Christmas. And then maybe after Christmas, I will be able to get back to the Roman shades, though we still don’t have the Raven home. The new roof is taking much longer than anticipated. Not that I begrudge Trent his family time, but did he have to choose now to go to Disneyland, when my future home is in dire straits? Actually, Trent works very hard all year long, and I am happy for him winning the vacation lottery at work, so to speak, by getting time off right before Christmas.

So, (sew buttons) here’s to all of us spending quality time with loved ones and finding peace and joy in unexpected experiences.

By the way, how do you sew buttons on eggs?

We Thank Thee

 

We thank Thee for giving us the strength and stamina to prepare for this celebration.

We thank Thee for the talents we have been blessed with.

We thank Thee for the beauty of this and every season.

We thank Thee for providing the bountiful feast for our table.

We thank Thee for being our guiding light.

We thank Thee for giving us our family and friends.

For all of these gifts, these blessings, we thank our Lord and Savior.

This weekend marks the beginning of the “holiday season.” In humbleness, I pray that this year, and every year, we can remember the true reason for the season.

I wish you all the blessings our Lord has in store for you. May these blessing be all you have dreamt for yourself and your family. And remember that even a life full of trials and pain, can be equally and overwhelmingly full of joy.

I wish you this joy.

Mmmmmm Pie

“Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie.” Jim Davis

Well, today was pre-Thanksgiving-pie-making day. And boy, did we go overboard. Ken and I worked our fingers to the bone. We made two pumpkin pies, two marionberry pies, three vegetarian mince pies, and three mashed sweet potato and pear casseroles.

Now, with all of those pies, can you believe that there will probably only be four of us for Thanksgiving dinner this year? I am really not insane, though it may seem so. I have a method to my madness, and it includes my love of making pies. Besides, it is customary for me to make extra pies (or other baked goods) because it is my belief that goodness needs to be shared.

It is something like the tradition that some people have of putting an extra setting on the table during the holidays, just in case someone should stop by and be hungry. I may not go through the motions of having an empty chair ready, but our door is always open and there is always plenty of food, and there have been many holidays when we have found out at the last minute that someone would be alone instead of with family. As one friend of ours said to a stranger at our table one year, “They like to adopt people.” It is true. Anyone hungry, either for food or love or just some company, is welcome. (Even this guy.)

This is something I will definitely miss when we are traveling. Who will I share my pies with? Will I even be making pies while we are on the road? I will miss the closeness of my friends, being able to just give a call and set up a coffee date, for no other reason than because I miss her. We will have to work on solving this problem.

In honor of this, my tenth year of making vegetarian mince pies, I would like to share the recipe with you. It is amazing, with all the tantalizing tastes and smells of winter, those earthy spices of cinnamon and cloves and nutmeg. Besides, it is an awesome use for all those green tomatoes left hanging on the vines long after our sunny weather disappeared.

GREEN TOMATO MINCE PIE
To Make two pies:

• 4 cups green tomatoes, chopped
• 4 cups apples, chopped
• 1 cup raisins, chopped
• 1 cup dried cranberries, chopped
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 2 tbsp butter
• 6 tbsp vinegar
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp cloves
• 1 tsp salt
• two 9-inch pie shells

The easiest way to chop all the ingredients is to run them through the food processor. Mix all the ingredients together in a non-reactive kettle and boil gently over medium heat for half an hour. Allow to cool a while before filling the crusts. Fill the crusts, put strips of more crust across the top in a lattice, and bake in a 350 degree oven for half an hour or until the crust is golden brown. Serve chilled or warm out of the oven, with a dollop of fresh whipped cream—the real stuff, no Cool Whip allowed.
P.S. During the writing of this post, two more people have been added to our celebration. See how that works?


Hey! How did she get up there? I guess the wonderful aromas were just too much for her.


Who can resist pie crust cookies, made with the leftover pie dough and sprinkled with sugar and love?