Too Cute

She and I gave Chris a web cam for Father's Day. He will be able to speak to his grandboys through a video call. In the meantime....we can take pictures of ourselves.

At The Auction

She was the last one in the auction, Lot 119. The majority of auctioned items were animals. She was allowed to sell what her animals made. :)

The Daughter.

Just after her two jars of honey were sold for $80.00.

Year of the Pie - Pie #49 Key Lime Pie

This recipe comes from this fella. I think he is famous.

Key lime sites. Here and Here.

When Mr. E. tells you to bake the graham cracker crust for 20 minutes @ 375°, don't believe a word of it!!! (no disrespect) It will burn...see left picture. I baked the one at right for about 10-14 minutes at 350°.

O.K. Bought a bag of key limes from Wal-Mart. It is a cute little one pound bag.

Unfortunately, this bag is not enough to provide the 1 C. of lime juice needed for this recipe. So, FYI, buy two or if you want to save a whole lot of trouble....buy key lime juice or lime juice, all ready to go.

I don't have an automatic juicer, so I squeezed each and everyone of this little critters by hand. I like to use fresh ingredients whenever possible, BUT this episode had me wishing that I had bought juice. Especially after I burned the crust. But, if you have extra little helpers....this would be a fun project. Anyway, I only had a little over 1/2 C. of lime juice so I just squeezed a couple lemons and it took the level of juice almost to a cup. Good enough.


Additional ingredients-mix these together thoroughly.
Pour it into the cooled shell. Please note cute dishcloth Maggie knitted.

Here is the full recipe.
CRUST
1 and 1/2 C. graham cracker crumbs
1/2 C. white sugar
1/2 stick melted butter (4 T.)

Mix this and press firmly but gently and with the utmost respect into a pie plate and bake at 350° for 10-15 minutes......WATCH carefully.

FILLLING

2 - 14 ounce cans of condensed milk
1 C. key lime or regular lime juice
2 whole eggs
Whisk these together and pour into the cool pie crust. Bake @ 325° for 15 minutes. Then allow to cool in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

TOPPING

1 C. sour cream
2 T. powdered sugar
Mix and spread over the top of the pie and garnish with 1 T. lime zest.
( optional topping can be whipped topping)
Serve chilled.

Frankly, this combination has me wondering if it will be tasty. But I also wondered that about coconut and people like it.

All that is left to do is the garnish.

If you make this pie and enjoy it...let me know.


Post Script! I took this pie to church, forgot to put the lime zest garnish on it and everyone that had it loved it. Really. I had two bites to get a feel for it and it was good, not my favorite, but good. It was tangy and zippy and people liked it because it made their mouths happy!
My cousin, bless her heart, said she thinks this is her favorite of my pies so far.......she says that every week! Ha.

Year of the Pie - Pie #48 Black Raspberry Pie

Here is some very interesting info on the black raspberry.

To make Black RaspberryPie you first need to get one of these.
( A person willing to pick them in the wild)

We recently had a "wild game" supper at church and with my little pie thing going on he wondered if I would make a pie if he picked the berries. I said I would and a few days before the supper of rabbit, squirrel, salmon, and other various fish he brought over about 4 Cups of wild berries. In my mind I thought they were blackberries, but he said they were raspberries. Haven't made a raspberry pie yet, so here I am.....making a post about it.

After you get your berries, let everyone in the family eat ONE. Then in unison say...."MMMMM"

"MMMM"


Roll out and chill two crusts.
At his point I am just grinnin' like a possum.

For the filling combine 1 C. sugar and 1/3 C. flour, turn into the berries, mixing well. Put in the pie shell, dot with 2 T. diced up butter. Attach the top crust, flute and bake at 425° for 45-55 minutes give or take. Take care not to let the crust burn.

The berry picker told me he was never so proud of a pie in his life.
He says he may pick some mulberries next.

Hope you enjoy this pie!
(If you can't get wild berries, store bought will probably suffice)

Until Next Time!

Planting Tomatoes

Over by the highway.

Knitting A Moebius Shawl Thingy Update-Final

Here is where I began the moebius.

This is where I messed up. (ha) It was quite the predicament. This took place during the first weaving attempt. Something went awry so I took out a row on each side and put them back on the needles and tried again, but only after I had slept a couple more nights. No need to rush in to it.

So, my second attempt was more successful, although not perfect. This picture does have a view of the woven area...on the left side there. If you can't see it....yippee!

So here it is on the me. I swallowed my pride and decided to be the model. It goes better with my grey hair than Maggie's NOT grey hair. :)
Not to mention that it seems that I am growing jowls. Oh, joy!

When I look at a camera something terrible happens. So I decided for this photo shoot to not look directly at the lense....sorta like not looking directly at an eclipse and you won't get hurt......
So, anyway...you can wear it like this under your jacket/coat on a brisk wintry day.

Or give it a twist and bring it up on your head like such.

Or, go ahead and bring it on back over your head and now you have a cowl-type cozy warm thing around your neck.

Come winter-time it will come in quite handy.

Until Next Time!

Fair Entries - Results

The pie that I entered received an honorable mention, a step up from the blue ribbon, but not quite champion.
The shawl received a blue ribbon.
I am quite pleased with the results.

Fair Entries-Adult Division

We have been busy this week getting things entered in our local 4H fair(for Maggie) and the adult division(for me). I have finally figured out to call it the adult division and not the adult section. Adult section just doesn't sound so good, ya know?
Anyway, go here and here to see what I entered.
I will keep you posted on how they 'fared'.

Until next time.... :)

My Friend

This is my friend "F".

The kind words that I could use to describe this young man are so numerous that there is no room for all of them here. I will use a term that he used to describe himself. I believe every word of it. :)
"Human Garbage Disposal."


Until Next Time.

Sink Reflections

My friend Debbie enlightened some of her friends about the FlyLady. Our friend Joyce and I hopped on board too. So far, my sink is happy, which makes ME very happy.

The Setting of the Sun

From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the LORD's name is to be praised.

Psalm 113:3

I snapped this shot last evening as my daughter and I peered out the front door to see what was left after a little storm marched through.
Just like the rainbow reminds us of God's promise, I can remember with each setting sun (and the rising thereof) that the LORD's name is to be praised.

A Little Project

This is the little church we attend. In those doors and down into the basement is where most of my pies end up.
My husband is a carpenter and was hired to put a steeple on it.

Here he is doing a little prep work.

Knitting a Moebius Shawl Thingy

A Moebius is this. It comes with different spellings, I suppose you just choose the one you like best. I believe they pronounce it (may bee us).
This pattern came from an Elizabeth Zimmermann video, "Knitting Around".
This long strip of garter stitch knitting with built in i-cord, will, in the end, be given a twist and then woven together to create a MASTERPIECE!!!! :)
I am using Lion Brand, Grey Heather, Wool-Ease worsted weight.
80% acrylic & 20% wool.
It is machine washable.
To be honest, I wish the whole thing was wool or alpaca. But since I am still a rookie, I want to choose less expensive yarns for my projects. If I like this item, I will of course, make another one some day, with a design and natural fiber!
The built in i-cord is quite fun to knit and I painstakingly learned the invisible cast on, so that we can weave it together right purty like, later on. If you are interested in the invisible cast on (provisional cast on), go here. It is quite helpful.

If you knit or crochet and haven't signed up with Ravelry, do so today! It is a great help. Just go to www.ravelry.com.

Have a great day.

***Cast on in the provisional cast on way, see above link. You want a finished product with about a 9 inch width. Knit, to with in 3 stitches from the end of the row, bring the yarn forward, slip the next three stitches purl wise to the right needle. Turn and knit the row, stopping before the last three stitches, yarn forward, slip the three stitches purl wise. Turn and knit. Just keep knitting back and forth in this manner until your project is about 52 inches long. Give it one twist and weave the ends together-using the garter stitch weave.***

Elizabeth Zimmermann's Pi Shawl-Plain, Final Update

Pinned down like Gulliver, to dry.

Dried, released from bondage and modeled by a close friend. :)

I am very pleased with how it turned out. It has a little blurp or two, but it will match my personality just fine.
You can wear it in a variety of ways.
It drapes nicely.
It is extremely light weight.
It is cozy.
It makes me smile when I wear it.
Thanks for going on my shawl journey with me.

Next up.....a Moebius. Stay tuned.

Year of the Pie - Pie #46 Kentucky Derby Pie

This pie is similar to the Tar Heel Pie I made here.
I think a TRUE Derby Pie has bourbon in it. Anyway, The Tar Heel Pie and this pie may be a variation of the Derby Pie with no bourbon. Regardless, they ARE made a little differently, therefore, each qualifies for its own week. Pie #32 was quite tasty, let's see if this one will be as well. Ready....?
O.K.
Here is what you will need.
1 C. sugar
2 eggs, slightly beaten

1 C. pecans, broken or chopped
6 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate chips (sounds good already doesn't it?)
1/2 C. flour
1/4 pound of butter, melted (in the butter world that is 1/2 C. or 8 T.) (Joyce's recipe called for margarine, so you make that call)
1 tsp. vanilla
1 9-inch frozen pie crust.......(well we will use a fresh one-chilled)
Mix all of that together, place in crust and bake for 1 hour at 325°.(baked mine right at 50 min.)
Best served slightly warm with whipped cream.

The recipe was graciously shared with me by my knittin' friend Joyce.

Between the Tar Heel and this pie...I prefer the Tar Heel a little better, because it calls for a bit more chocolate.

Hope you enjoy it.

Until Next Time.

A Fun Give Away

There is a fun give away here.
Good luck.

My Young'n

Approximately 7 years after this picture was taken...she taught me how to "knit on". lol
Thanks M.

Elizabeth Zimmermann's Pi Shawl-Plain, #7 update

Sideways border.

After knitting 'until you are tired of it', or in this case 96 rounds of 576 stitches, you 'knit on' x number of stitches. Yikes. My dau. had shown me how to knit on several months ago, but I needed a refresher course. She graciously showed me and I did a couple practice swatches with some bulky yarn to get the idea of how it would work and then started it on the shawl.

The title of this shawl, is plain and the border is just a plain border, but I just can't get over how cute this sideways border is.

Remembering....

On Saturday morning, my husband and I, went to our local "National" military cemetery and helped placed flags in front of the headstones.
Yesterday, with daughter in tow, we visited four other cemeteries where various family members rest. It may sound weird to say, but cemeteries have their own character. Some seem peaceful, others seems non-personal, others seem scary.

Above is from the big cemetery out on the highway.

Above seems to be the potter's field of the big IOOF in town.

Another cemetery across town.

My favorite one is this one.....complete with corn field.
I purposely didn't show you the facing shots with names, out of respect.