Thrifting Thursday (vintage tin measures)

I've kind of started a little collection lately...



...of vintage tin measuring cups and spoons.

I've loved old metal kitchen items for a long time, cast iron and tin are my two favorites. I have a wonderful set of vintage cast iron cookware (skillets and a griddle) that I use all the time. And there are my lovely old tin canisters that Joe got me for Christmas last year...




Not long ago, M and I were volunteering at the thrift store, going through donations getting them ready to set out, I found a couple of vintage tin measuring cups and decided they were going home with me. I'm not sure why I liked them so much... they are a little beat up and nothing special in terms of design, but I loved the look and feel of them (that's them in the top picture).



Since those first two, I've started watching for them and have found more, in different sizes but the same style, and snapped them up.



I've also found some vintage tin measuring spoons that followed me home.




Since starting to collect the tin ones, I've gotten rid of most of my plastic measuring cups and spoons. I love the treasure hunt of looking for the vintage ones.

Eventually I'd like to do something like this with them...



... inside my kitchen cabinet.

Cool, yes?  And I think it would be a big help to R too when she cooks....

So, are you collecting anything these days?

If it's June.... (Mud Cake Recipe)

Yesterday was Joe's birthday. In the morning, while I was working in the kitchen, K called.

K is our third daughter and lives in a tiny village in the north of Ghana where she works for the Peace Corps. She remembered it was her dad's birthday, and as we talked I asked her to guess what I was doing...

She said "baking a cake" (Hmm... good guess), so then I asked her what kind of cake?

Without hesitation, from more than 6,000 miles away, she knew the answer... "Mud Cake"

She probably didn't even have to think to answer that question, since I have made mud cake for Joe for his birthday every single year since we got married... I've been making that yearly mud cake since Jimmy Carter was president!!

It started off one of those new wife things... Joe used to tell me how wonderful his mother's food was, and how every year for his birthday she made him a mud cake from his grandmother's recipe... and how there was nothing as good as that mud cake.

So of course I had to get the recipe from his mom and take over the tradition...



I've kept the tradition because mud cake is such an amazingly delicious treat...

It's an old, "from scratch", recipe and it's full of sugar and oil. This is not health food.

But it is rich and sweet and packed with gooey chocolately deliciousness.

And it's a fool proof recipe... it ALWAYS turns out! (It's also a great cake to share with neighbors, bring to a pot luck, etc.)



Want to try it?

Here's the recipe...

Mississippi Mud Cake

2 cups sugar

1 scant cup oil

4 eggs

1 & 1/2 cup flour

1/3 cup cocoa

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

3 tsp vanilla

mini-marshmallows

Cream sugar and oil, add eggs. Mix dry ingredients, add to sugar mixture. Stir in vanilla. pour into 9 x 13 pan and bake for 325 for 35-40 minutes. Cover cake with marshmallows and cook for 8 minutes more. Frost warm.

Mud Cake Frosting 

1 stick butter, softened

1/4 cup cocoa

2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup milk

Mix together sugar and cocoa, add remaining ingredients, mix well.

If you try it, let me know what you think! 

One hundred years ago...

.... you  might have had this book in your library.



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And made things like Dandelion Cordials...







And Nasturtium Vinegar...



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This book came into the thrift store while we were working yesterday and never made it out on the shelf...

I think the whole book is charming, from the recipes to the illustrations....






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to the list of due dates on the front page.



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The book is in remarkably good shape for it's age, the binding is strong and the pages are in great condition. I might just have try one or two of these recipes this summer. :)

Chili Rellenos

My most favorite dinner of all time is chili rellenos. I don't make them often because all the cheese, and way they are cooked, make them hard for M to digest... but a few times a year, at least, I make a big batch of rellenos.

They are easy to make (although a little time consuming) and I thought I'd share the recipe here for anyone who would like to try them.

You don't need a lot of ingredients, just some egg roll wrappers, a can of whole green chilis, cheese (I usually use colby jack) and oil for frying.

Here you go... Vegetarian Chili Rellenos.

Ingredients: 1  27 oz can of whole green chilis



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1 package of egg roll wrappers (found in the produce section of the store)



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sliced cheese... cheddar, colby, pepper jack, or whatever sounds good, you need as many pepper sized slices of cheese as you have egg rolls wrappers... usually about 15-17  1/4" slices

oil for frying

First the prep work... Open the chilis and drain. Slice your cheese, if you haven't already. Set out egg roll wrappers, a paper towel to remove more liquid from chilis, and have a little water handy to wet your finger for sealing the edges.

Now you make your rellenos... Take one egg roll wrapper (careful, they stick together) and lay it in front of you (not square to the edge of the counter top, lay it diagonally... it will make folding it easier).





Take one chili pepper, open it up and blot on paper towel. Lay it cross ways (square to you) on egg roll wrapper. Put a piece of cheese inside, and close it up again. (If you want meat in your rellenos, you can add a little seasoned, cooked, ground beef or chicken inside at this point.)



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Roll up relleno, fairly tightly... you want the edges to be sealed... no pepper showing. Start by pulling the bottom flap up, then the sides in... like an envelope... and finally wrap the top around and seal with a wet fingertip.



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Set relleno aside and make the others the same way. Once they are all made, heat up your oil in a thick fry pan. (I use my big cast iron skillet for this, but have also used a regular fry pan, or you could also use a deep fryer if you have one...) You don't need a lot of oil... it doesn't have to cover the rellenos... I'd say an inch or a little more of oil in the pan is plenty. It does have to be hot though...





I heat my oil and cook my rellenos on "high", only turning the heat down a little if I'm making a huge batch and the oil starts getting too hot. (You don't want the oil to smoke or burn... phew!) The oil does need to be hot before putting any rellenos in, I usually test it by adding just the tiniest drop of water to the oil... if it dances around, and splatters a little... it's hot enough.



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Add the rellenos a few at a time, cooking on one side until they are golden brown, then turning them over and cooking the other side. (Be careful with the turning... the oil is burn-your-kitchen-down-HOT!)



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Drain on a paper towel. Once your whole batch is done, serve with some green chili, sour cream, guacamole, whatever sounds good...



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Mmmm... there is nothing better than some nice hot rellenos!



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Enjoy!

It's that time again..

The day before Thanksgiving is pie making day around here!

We're having apple, cherry and pumpkin pies...

I'm using pumpkin from the garden that was cooked down and frozen...

And I'll make E's (dd#1) apple pie recipe because it's the best.

It's hard not to "sample" the apple slices covered with cinnamon and sugar. Mmmm...



Back to work... the pies need to get done today so the oven is free tomorrow for the turkey!

(Thanks to Angie at Knick of Time for the free vintage print download!)

Giving thanks...

Happy Thanksgiving!

This is mostly a picture post, I thought our daughter K (dd#3), who is in the Peace Corps, would like to see some Thanksgiving photos since she isn't able to be home this year...

Where to start? So many years, so many Thanksgivings... so much to be thankful for.

I'll start with an old Thanksgiving photo I found on my computer....  That's me, holding B (dd#2, now 29) with my mom, who passed away 10 years ago (and I still miss every day) and my brother Loren (looking SO young... but I guess I did too). I think this was taken the first year I cooking Thanksgiving dinner... I would have been 28.





It's a few (cough, cough) years later and I still love Thanksgiving...

Here are a few pictures from more recent Thanksgivings:

Joe and I with the kids and grandkids, November 2006



Thanksgiving 2007... a full table!



My brother Loren (all grown up!) and his wife, Jessica... 2007



B (dd#2), the baby in the first picture... Thanksgiving 2007.



And again with R... 2007



Our oldest grandchild, (also "R") working on the Thanksgiving tablecloth we use each year. We pass around markers and each person "autographs" the tablecloth or draws a little picture etc. It's been a nice family tradition... it's fun to look over all the old drawings, etc. each year.



A little monopoly is always a nice thing to do after dinner...

Around the table from the left... my brother Loren, his wife Jess, dd#3 K, M (partially hidden) and my sister Jackie.

As you can tell we take our Monopoly seriously!



But first we had to take a few minutes to try to do this weird hand thing my brother Steve does... it's a quick finger snap with the left, then right hand, followed by a right fist into the left palm. You do this really fast and it sounds like running horses or something...

No, it doesn't take much to entertain us!



Blessed by another full table, this is Thanksgiving 2011...Around the table from the left front, (looking over the top of E's head) B (dd#2), Joe, M, me, my brother Loren, his wife Jess, R and a little bit of grandson #2 "J".



Joe and K (dd#3), my "African daughter".... Thanksgiving 2011



Joe and Loren... 2011



Thanksgiving 2011 was a fairly rowdy one apparently...

Here is JG (our son in law) opening (opening?!) some wine or sparkling juice...





And E (dd#1) and I, after dinner, fighting over a poor unwanted turkey wing (not that either of us would eat it, you know...)



It's lovely when there is time for a little music after dinner...

Here is Loren (on mandolin) and me and K on guitar (trying to keep up with Loren's quick fingers!).



So many Thanksgivings, so many blessings, so much to be thankful for...

Last year's "menu"... compliments of S. This years will be very much the same.



The big difference of course will be that K is in Ghana and won't be here for the holiday. It will be strange not to have her here, helping out, contributing to the chaos, and just being close. It will be a happy/sad day...

I'm posting this early so K can see the photos... she'll be in an area with internet access for just Wednesday and Thursday and I wanted to make sure this was up in time for her to see it.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone....

And to my loved ones far away (Loren, Steve, Jackie, K)... I love you.

a quiet week...

After feeling like we've been bustling around most of October (and September too!), we are having a quiet week this week. Only one appointment (tomorrow evening) and M's regular worksite tomorrow afternoon are on the calendar.

It feels wonderful to look at the calendar and see several empty days in a row...

So the kids and I took some time Monday to do some major stock up grocery shopping. I always grocery shop a month at a time, trying to only go to the store in between trips for milk, bread and produce. And I like to keep the pantry in the mudroom stocked with the basics... Over this past summer I let the pantry empty out a bit, but with winter almost here it seemed like time to restock. I learned the second winter we lived here... the winter of blizzard after blizzard from December through February... that it's best to head into winter with a barn full of hay, a good stack of firewood outside the door, and a well stocked pantry. We get snowed in at least a few times every winter... usually just for a day or two... but it's miserable being snowed when the pantry is bare, or close.

Here's our mudroom pantry...



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And with the doors open...Yes, it looks like a crazy amount of food but much of it will last through the winter. (Fitting it all in is kind of like a real life tetris game!) I generally stock up BIG like this only a couple of times a year.



Anyway, back to our quiet week... I painted the shed floor yesterday and with that little job done the inside is almost finished. It feels very good to have all the shed construction behind us!

We've been getting plenty of school done, which is also nice... Although I'm not at all happy about the direction M's coursera class has taken. It's a class on Comic Books and Graphic Novels, and so far the lectures have been pretty good. There has been a lot about the history of comic books and about various writers and illustrators, which M loves... he eats up trivia and there has been plenty of trivia. But yesterday's lecture involved the professor dropping several F-bombs and showing and reading pages from a sexually explicit comic book. As soon as I saw what was going on I had M stop the lecture... I guess I should have previewed each lecture, but I thought it would be ok...  Hmm... what to do? I hate for him to drop the class, but I think we have no choice.

I'll close this not-much-of-anything post with a picture R took with her new camera the other day.

It's me... doing what I most enjoy doing when I have a bit of free time. (Note to Loren: I just bought another Allan Alexander book, this one is his Celtic Music one, do you have it? I'm loving it because it has so many O'Carolan tunes in it!)