The maiden voyage of the Ice Cream Maker

I doubt we are the only family that gives ourselves a "family gift" each Christmas.  One year, when I was a little girl, my parents got a new horse for my brothers and me.  Well, the horse got out of its corral and got hit by a truck and died before I could even see it alive.  This year went way better than that.  GUARANTEED. 


Justin and I decided our family gift would be this bad boy: 

 An Ice Cream Maker.  Oh yeah.  This puppy can be hand-cranked or electric and makes about 6 quarts at a time.  It's almost 3 feet tall folks. Serious frozen treat potential.

 

  We started out with the basic vanilla, then Justin had a sweet brain storm and we added Double Stuff Oreos.  I married a smart & handsome guy.



Looks mighty tempting and delicious.  We should have kept cranking it for awhile longer for it to firm up, but we were tired of waiting.

 

 

 

 

Not the greatest shot of the boys delighting in the cookies and creme, they tend to not hold still for the impending photo opp. They know it might end up here on the blog. 

 

A cry for help!

I really love to bake.  I have been attempting one thing or another in the kitchen since I was probably 12 or 13.  That was the time in my life that I had 2 choices, either fix dinner or go out and feed the steers.  I chose fixing dinner.  My brothers got the joys of the outside chores, I got the inside ones.  The joys were not evident at the time.  Clearly when you lock yourself in the bathroom to avoid dish detail, its not what you would love to spend your Sunday evening doing.  Well, I grew up a little and stopped locking myself in the bathroom to get out of dishes, now its so I can get a 3 minute break from my rug-rats.

Today I had a bunch of bananas calling to be baked up into something delightful on this snowy January day.   I have a few Banana Bread recipes that have been in my collection for at least a decade.  I pulled one out and got to work.  This is what the lovely loaf looked like when it had baked merrily for about 55 minutes.



Gorgeous right? Wonderful color, great looking dome on the top, just lovely.  You will have to trust me when I say it smells heavenly.  Well, much to my disappointment 10 minutes later it transformed to this:

 

Why??? Why in blazes does this sometimes happen?  Is the pan too big? Do I mix too much, or not enough?  Am I cursed to have a gooey, goopy center of my bread forever?  I hope not.  Luckily my endeavors today were not all crappy.  There was some left over batter that I decided to make a few JUMBO muffins from.  Oh. My. They are fantastic.

 

 

 

 

Lovely, right?  I added a crumb topping just for funzies.  It was a very good idea.  Yummy, warm, deliciousness. Would you like to try them out?  Be my guest, here's the low down:

Banana Bread: from Val McCauley

3/4C Shortening

1 1/2C Sugar

3 Eggs

4 Medium Ripe Bananas-mashed

3C Flour

1 1/2t Baking Soda

1/2C Chopped Nuts (optional)

Mix in order given and bake in greased loaf pan. 325 for 50-60 minutes.

 

Crumb topping for Muffins: From Launette Shaw

1/4C Brown Sugar

1/4C Flour

2T Butter-softened.

Combine all in a small bowl with your fingers, until the texture is like sand. Sprinkle on top of muffins, be very generous. I had left-over batter from the bread recipe for 3 Jumbo muffins.

 

Water, water every where.

I have a very simple, wonderful, fulfilling life.  It's simple in that I have a husband and 4 sons to love and that with out a doubt love me. I know that. I know that this life on this beautiful planet is full of ups and downs.  High mountains to climb and thigh high mud we have to trudge on through.  There is no doubt in my mind that we are here to gain experience and over come any obstacle.  When I have these huge mountains thrown up in my way I also know that little old me doesn't have to climb them alone.  I have the family, faith and friends on  my side to deal with it all.  I don't talk a lot about what problems I have. There are always others that have to suffer much more and much more often than myself and my family.  I have comfort in knowing that these difficult times will pass.  I will grow. My family will ride it out with me and we will have family and friends picking us up when we stumble and fall.  I am not sure how tall one might say this particular mountain is we are trekking up but it looks like this.....

So, last week we got a phone call no one ever wants to get.  Major flooding, frozen pipes burst, perhaps $80k in damages.

 

 

Not too shortly thereafter, we got another call.  This time it was help being offered on the other end.  Friends that wanted to do all they can to get things under control.

 

So far, as of today actually, we know that the furnace is okay.  We have heat and the house is drying out.  Our "angel crew" has been hard at work and we don't know how we would have made it this far without them. There is a very long and difficult road up ahead. We are not alone though, I am sure of that.

So very wicked & totally delicious.

Twenty years ago, give or take, I found myself standing in line with my Dad at the scone shack during the annual Cassia Co. Fair in my hometown.  I had never had a scone.  I could smell them and saw the ridiculously long line and thought, is this really worth standing here???  The short and simple answer was YES! Have you ever had a "Utah" scone? Being from Idaho, this name makes no sense to me, but that's what the good folks out here in the eastern time zone call them.  Out here a "scone" can be rather disappointing if you are hankering for the real deal. 3 years ago I decided to make them myself. I won't lie, it was a really big mess, but the results were awesome.  A new tradition was born. Now, every Christmas we break out the big guns (nutella, honey, jams, strawberry rhubarb spread, etc) and eat all the scones we can. Here's what my efforts looked like this year...much improved from 3 years ago.

 

 

 

The recipe I use is from a ward cookbook(now it looks rather thrashed, or loved which ever) that my sister-in-law gave me years ago.  These books are always filled with the best stuff!  Really, who would share something if it was awful?

 Here it is: 

by Laura B. tweaked by Kresta Wright

Easy Scones -not East Coast style-

4C Warm Water

4tsp Salt

8Tbls Sugar

4Tbls Dry Yeast

4Tbls Vegetable Oil

8C Flour -I use 6 reg 2 whole wheat

 

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water until it rises a little.  Add all the ingredients into a large mixing bowl & mix until smooth. Let it rise for about 15 minutes in the bowl. Cut a chunk of about 1/3 of the dough at a time and roll out onto a floured counter top. I keep it about 1/2inch thick and use a hard plastic drinking cup to cut out the scones (I spray the mouth of the cup with Pam every so often to cut easier).

Before I fry them in hot oil, I stretch and turn the dough using my fingers sort of pulling the dough into a circle like a small pizza.  Keep your fingers floured up! Fry them until golden brown on each side.  Lay them out on a cookie sheet lined with paper towels and cover with a dish towel until you are ready to enjoy. They are wickedly delightful .

 

Cool, Snakes!!

 We took the boys to see the "Zoo Lights" at the Smithsonian National Zoo in D.C.  Mainly to cross it off the list of things we must do while we live here in Virginia. 
 I had no idea what to expect actually.  There was a blurb on the radio about it. They said it was free admission, cool lights, why not?

Cooper wanted to be the photographer of the evening, it was a tricky time of day to get things set right but over all, he had some good shots.  This water fall had changing lights- red to blue to yellow to green.  The green lights made the boys instantly think of " A snot water fall, COOL!!!!"

 
 
 
 

I know lots of people don't enjoy the Reptile house at the Zoo.  Some folks just ignore it and walk on by.  That NEVER happens on the outings we have to zoos.  We love creepy crawlies. As long as they are behind glass.

 Yep, we  like 'em just fine. In fact, we had a pretty great time wandering about the Reptile house together.

This guy was snoozing away! He looked rather comfy on his perch wouldn't you say?  The boys got a kick out of seeing all these creepy, scaled creatures.  Even the teen-ager, who was dragging his feet, almost kicking and screaming to go out the door.  Poor child.  Forced to have fun with the family.  He'd better get over it.