This & That

The Monster

My sister and her husband will be glad to know that we whittled a section off the mega-squash they gave us from their garden for dinner the other day. It's a big one, huh?

Most members of my immediate family really like winter squash, including The Girl. So what are your feelings about winter squash? You know you can substitute any winter squash for pumpkin in most recipes, right?

Fudge Brownies

I have a confession to make. I'm a box-brownie person. I like box brownies. I like their moist, chewy, preservative-laden chocolateness. We have boxes of brownie mix stored at home and even at the cabin, and often when we get up there, I will break one out first thing so that turning on the oven will help warm things up. When brownie mixes go on sale for 98 cents a box, I buy several. 

That said, I have also been on a search for a from-scratch recipe that I can replace the boxed brownie with. (By the way, if any of you think you have the box brownie recipe clone, or something that blows box brownies out of the water, I would like that recipe, please.) This is the latest effort. It was good. It was intensely chocolate-y. You need a half gallon of milk near you when you eat it. The recipe comes from King Arthur Flour and my contribution to the Mommy's Kitchen Potluck.

Fudge Brownies

• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter
• 2 1/4 cups sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/4 cups cocoa powder (As I said, these were intensely chocolate-y. I might tweak this measurement a bit, decreasing it some and replacing what I don't use with more flour.)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x13 pan

In a small saucepan over low heat, melt butter completely. Stir in sugar and continue cooking for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly. Do not allow mixture to boil.

Pour butter mixture into a large bowl or stand mixer, beat in cocoa powder, eggs salt, baking powder, and vanilla. Mix until well combined. Stir in the flour and chocolate chips until well combined.

Pour inot prepared pan and bake for about 30 minutes, until a tester comes out mostly clean. Cool on a wire rack.

The Outside

So while I'm inside addressing envelopes, this is what is going on outside:

I'm hearing the constant drone of chainsaws while the lodgepole fence around the house is being replaced with a non-maintenance one. I have mixed feelings about this, because I really like the rustic look of the wood, but I can also understand that we have about run out of slave labor to keep the poles replaced and DH's shoulders aren't what they once were. (All that recoil, you know.)

DH is thoughtful about things. He analyzes every possible angle of every decision he makes. He ponders, which is hard for an impulsive sort like me. He's working on planning where gates should go and how many gates there should be, and what will work best for garden access, pasture access and snowmobile trailer storage. It may take weeks for him to get it all figured out.

Did You Ever?

Let's play a game called Did You Ever?

Did you ever spend a ton of time entering addresses into a label template on your computer?

Did you ever save that template thinking you were never going to have to look anywhere else for all the addresses you were ever going to need to address wedding announcements for any of your children, whether you used the template or decided to write real fancy on the envelopes?

Did you ever update your Word program and then find that while your listed documents were still there, the files were empty?

Did you ever have your swear filter slip when you discovered this and then had to turn around and write out a big check for a speeding ticket?

Did you ever want to take your computer  and smash it to bits and let the horses trample on it and then run over it with your truck while you were wearing a big belt buckle and a cowboy hat?

And in Addition

This is also on the project list.

The Girl's fully-lined bridesmaid dress.

It's been a while since I've sewn other than mending....like maybe since the last wedding and the famous space blanket dress.  I've discovered there are certain advantages to having my mother close by. I had her come check my layout before I put scissors to rationed fabric. This cutting project was actually slated for Monday, but my day disintegrated rapidly after the speeding ticket I got for going 29 in a school zone and I decided it would be unwise to slice anything.

Announcements Are In the House

Why will my scrap time be at a premium over the next month? I'll be a little busy addressing these:

Aren't they a cute couple? Lovely announcements, too.

Time to pull out the address book....

Some Scrapping Last Week

I had a little time to scrap last week, which was a nice change. That time will be cut fairly drasctically for the next little bit. More on that in the next couple of days. A few layouts...as always you can click on them to make them bigger.

These two are using a sketch from the POM site:

And these last two use the 12/2010 sketch from the new Becky Fleck calendar.

Be Vewwy, Vewwy Quiet

Warning: The following post contains an image of legal gun use. Guns are part of my family's lifestyle.  If you're not into that sort of thing, quit now.

Just don't ask. Blame it on post-duck season depression.

 

Apple Cobbler

In that post-Christmas sugar coma that happens, it has been a while since I've done some baking. I knew it was time to make something when DH started rummaging through the fridge and cupboards vainly searching for something sweet. I had 4 Granny Smith apples rolling around in my crisper drawer and thought maybe I could make something happen with them. I was thinking something like apple crisp, but I really prefer cobbler to crisp, so I used the apple variation of the Peach Cobbler recipe in the Fannie Farmer Baking Book.

Apple Cobbler

Filling:

• 5 cups thinly sliced baking apples
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 Tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 Tablespoons butter

Topping:

• 1 cup flour
• 2 Tablspoons sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 4 Tablespoons cold butter
• 6 Tablespoons milk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Place the apples into an 8" square baking pan and sprinkle evenly with cinnamon and sugar. Drizzle on the lemon juice and dot the mixture with the 2 Tablespoons butter. Set aside.

Combine the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder in a mixing bowl. Cut the butter into bits and drop it into the bowl. Using 2 knives or a pastry blender, work the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles fine, even crumbs. Slowly add the milk, stirring constantly with a fork.

Gather the dough together and place it on a lightly floured surface. (I use my pastry cloth.)  Knead 8-10 times. Roll or pat the dough into a shape that will fith the baking dish--it would be no more that 1/2" thick.

Place the biscuit dough over the prepared fruit in the pan. Bake 35-45 minutes* or until the fruit is tender and the juice is bubbling. Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream.

*I found that the crust browned very quickly and I had to cover it with foil to prevent over-browning.

As an aside, I found a food blog that has very Mom Food oriented recipes. She has a Potluck post every Sunday that you can link your recipes to as well. Check out Mommy's Kitchen.

A Moment of Silence....

Let us all just take a moment, a moment of silence, and join my DH and the boys in mourning the end of duck season. Yesterday was the last day.  It marks the beginning of the long, dry spell in which there is no hunting. My DH mourns. Each one of my 5 sons mourn. Ollie mourns, because he has become a mega-retriever spurred on, no doubt, by his feathered friend experience at the cabin.  They spend their free time pouring over fall tag applications like some women pour over, say, the Williams-Sonoma catalog...that would be me, or handbags advertisements....cough, cough, Julie, cough.

The duck calls will be put away until next year. Ollie will look at us all with sad eyes, wanting to know why no one will take him down to the ponds to play. Oh yes, it's a sad, sad day.