Happy New Year!

Wow! What a windy it was for the last day of 2011! We took down the outside Christmas lights because it was a nice warm day. It's odd to think winter has just started when it's 60 degrees and there is no snow in the forecast.  So my pantry will be producing non-winter inspired items. I've embroidered, worked on another prayer shawl, and started the new year by attending church. Even JoPapa Bear is getting inspired by going to church regularly again. We enjoyed watching Chuck last night thanks to technology and being able to record our favorite shows so we can watch them when we wish.  We also set the alarm clocks so we could wake up and light some fireworks to ring in the new year! I haven't broken my resolutions because I haven't made any yet! Better get to it.  HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Banana Cake

I tried a new recipe for our community dinner at church last night. There were so many bananas left over from the food pantry the week before, that I took some home and froze the bananas. I peeled two bananas and dropped them in a small zip-lock bag so all I had to do was pull out the bag and let it thaw a bit to use in this recipe.  I also didn't have any orange juice, but had oranges so I used fresh squeezed juice in the recipe. It was tasty and the orange peel in the frosting was pretty. FYI, you can try it yourself or I can make this for you upon request! :-)  Also, I doubled the recipe and baked it in a 9x13 pan.
 2 med. ripe bananas mashed 1 cup flour 3/4 cup chopped walnuts (opt.) (I used pecans)2/3 cup sugar 1/4 cup cornstarch 1/3 cup veg. oil 1 egg, slightly beaten 1 Tbsp. orange juice 1 tsp. baking soda 1 tsp. vanilla 1/4 tsp. salt Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry ingredients. Stir in remaining ingredients. Pour into greased and floured 8 x 8 baking pan. Bake for 30 min. until toothpick comes out clean when poked into cake's center. Cool. Icing: 1/3 cup soft butter 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar 1 Tbsp. orange juice 1 Tbsp. grated orange peel (opt.)
BANANA CAKE

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! What a wonderful time we had celebrating when LOVE came to us in the form of Jesus! The live nativity at Bolivar United Methodist Church was a wonderful experience. I was able to help serve hot cocoa, spiced cider and of course those yummy cookies the Youth Group baked for this purpose. The only sad thing was how few people there on December 23rd. At least all the participants got to enjoy the treats.  On Christmas Eve, I helped with the first children's worship service. We did a practice then dressed in the costumes and had an interactive play and worship for children. Dolly Koon wrote the script and Chad Bowers was the tour guide. He was so funny! He used an accent inspired by Achmed the Dead Terrorist - I know hard to believe he was looking for Baby Jesus and singing Christmas Carols.  I played the part of the Inn Keeper. It was so hard to tell all those kids there was no room and that Mary and Joseph had to go to the stable. They should have made reservations! ;-) After the fun of that worship experience, we enjoyed some hot cocoa, spiced cider and cookies while we waited for the Live Nativity. That was too cute. We had the littlest shepherds and angel. The kids did a great job acting out their parts and the weather was crisp and clear. We followed that experience up with a candle light Christmas Eve service. The music, communion, and candle lit singing is always so moving. When we got home, we connected computers with Joel Jr and Mary via Skype. It was like we were in the same room! Just wish I could have felt those hugs! It was a blast to open presents and chat. Watching the cats play with their catnip toys and walking in front of the web cam made us smile! After we'd chatted, watched Joel Jr. change hats every few moments (I guess I've made enough to last a while), I was feeling pretty tired. It was way past my bed time, but I still wanted to give Papa Bear his specially made book. I was going to just write a letter, but my fingers kept typing - kind of like now! Dayna printed out my finished product and bound my book with a beautiful cover. It looks so professional. This was one more gift of love.   Merry Christmas!

Baking rolls

The smell of yeast dough is filling the house! I'm baking crescent rolls and will soon follow up with sweet rolls. I love to bake and share! I'll be taking sweet rolls to Pastor JC and family. We have been blessed by his sermons, so I thought I'd share with his family a tiny bit of what I've been blessed to be able to do. The other day, I baked some gingerbread and mailed it to Joel and Mary and some to my cousin David. JoPapa and I had so much fun laughing over the decorations. Of course he put cameras around the Portland bound gingerbread people.  I have the "Oh No, Mr. Bill" version here. Merry Christmas!

Community Dinner at Bolivar United Methodist Church

Yesterday was another good day! Those are the best kind of days to have, don't you think? I showed up to help Kathy Howe with dinner preparations at 2:00 p.m. The crew that showed up helped her prepare a delicious Christmas dinner with appetizers before and desserts for after, set up the tables with the decorations she brought, and wash up dishes, and put away everything afterwards. It's amazing that she so calmly prepares these meals for an unknown number of people and does it so deliciously! She made a hot crab dip, cheese ball, hot chocolate, and wassail for appetizers. Then the ham dinner with mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli cheese casserole, cornbread casserole, cooked carrots, fresh from the oven rolls, lettuce salad, a cold green pea salad, jello salad, a pasta salad, etc...there were too many things for me to keep track of as she kept putting things out on the tables.  And the tables! They were so beautifully decorated with colorful table cloths, giant snowflakes that she hand cut herself, and then a vase of Christmas decorations and beads and a battery operated votive candle. It looked so special! Then the dessert table was over flowing with cakes, pies, and goodies that church members bring in to add to the bounty. And boy did we need it! We had to set up three more long tables as people kept pouring into the fellowship hall! We even had to set up a table in the hall.  But just like Jesus's miracles of the fish and loaves, this food Kathy prepared for about 80 people,ended up being plenty for the 130 (or more we lost count) that came for dinner. Then everyone was invited to take left overs, and we still had to put things in the freezer because we had so much food left! What a blessing these dinners are to so many people who are in need of not just food, but food for the soul as well! (Several families came as a result of the informational pamphlet they found in their Share Your Christmas bags of goodies.)  Kathy is so together, she even gave each of us on her crew a gift - I received an angel for my Christmas tree and she thanked us for helping. I feel like I should be thanking her for the opportunity to serve! What a way to build up to a Merry Christmas!!!

Buddy Backpacks

Monday was a great day for several reasons, but I especially enjoyed being able to help pack 31 Buddy Backpacks.  These backpacks are filled with nutritious snacks to help some of our hungry kids make it through the long weekends or in this case weeks away from school breakfasts and lunches.  It's hard to imagine in this day and age that there are families out there who don't have food in the house to feed their children. The intermediate school sends home 55 of these backpacks.  It's quite a trick shopping for the food to go in these bags. We purchase a jar of peanut butter, raisins, pudding, canned fruit, easy open cans of Vienna sausages and ravioli, a tuna lunch kit, cereal, milk, juice, etc.  Then we take all the food to school and open up all the packages and organize it.  We put the heavy things in first and work our way up to the cereal.  One parent from school volunteered to take time off from work - her lunch break - and come sort all the food and pack it up. Betty Cribbs saw Caroline Sudbrock and I shopping one day, donated money and now helps pack the backpacks too. It ends up being a lot of food and a bit heavy, but these little 5, 6, and 7 year old kids are so happy to get them. Last year, I had a student ask me when they would get the next backpack because there wasn't any food in the house. It about broke my heart. So spending a couple of hours shopping and then packing these bags is actually a joy to do. See why it was such a good day? Then to top it all off, JoPapa and I drove to Branson so he could get some wood to carve. On the way back we stopped at Andy's and ate our dessert before supper! What a good way to end a good day - home again safe and sound.

Crescent Rolls in the Oven

I love baking my mom's recipes, especially these rolls! I have volunteered to bring them to several events this holiday season.  Today, I will take them to our NOW group's luncheon today. I've baked them for our Dinner Group, and I'll be baking some for Christmas dinner of course! This recipe is also the one I use to make sweet rolls. Often, that's what I do. I'll make the crescents for dinner with half the dough and use the other half of the dough for sweet rolls for breakfast. Double yummy! 

CRESCENT ROLLS or SWEET ROLLS

1 stick margarine (or butter)
½ cup sugar
3 eggs
1 cup warm milk
2 pkg. Yeast
1 Tbl. Sugar
¼ cup warm water
5 ½ cups flour (maybe ½ cup more)
1 tsp. Salt
　
Warm milk but do not boil (can microwave it for one minute). Mix yeast and sugar together in cup with warm water. Mix together sugar and margarine. Add eggs. Then add warm milk and then yeast. Add 3 cups of the flour and the salt and mix well. Continue adding flour until soft dough forms. At this point you can put this in the refrigerator till later if necessary or set in a warm place to rise until doubled (30 to 45 minutes). Punch down dough and divide in two. For crescent rolls – roll out each half of dough into circle (approx. 18" diameter) and spread with margarine. I use a pizza cutter to slice into 12 – 16 wedges. Roll up from large end to small. Place on cookie sheet and let rise 30 to 45 minutes. Bake in preheated oven at 375-400 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes. For sweet rolls – roll each half of dough into rectangle 12 x 18 inches. Spread with margarine, cinnamon sugar and raisins. Roll up into log. Slice into 12 rolls and place on cookie sheet. Let rise 30 to 45 minutes. Bake in 375-degree oven for 10 to 12 minutes. While warm, ice with powdered sugar frosting (3 cups powdered sugar and a few tablespoons milk mixed to desired consistency).

In between baking rolls, I've made another loaf of french bread. JoPapa enjoys having a loaf we can slice up and have with dinner. It's such a quick and easy recipe I can mix it up and have it ready to serve in about and hour - if I take short cuts with it like not stirring in down more than once. This cuts the rising time and doesn't seem to adversely effect the outcome.  I use this recipe for pizza dough, little bread sticks, buns, two loaves of french bread, one large round loaf, etc. The baking time varies depending on the size of the loaves, so I have to watch and wait for the wonderful smell that let's me know it done.

French Bread
1 pkg yeast
1 ½ cups warm water
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1 Tablespoon shortening
4 Cups flour
Mix all together. Let rise stirring down every 10 minutes. Do this 5 times. Shape into 24 buns or bread sticks or 1 large loaf. I also use this for 2 pizza crusts – no need to stir down the dough; just mix and use.
Bake at 400 degrees for approximately 10 to 15 minutes for buns and bread sticks. Longer if you make one loaf.

Well the crescents are out of the oven, covered in melted butter and the house smells yummy! Time to move on to the next project! 

Share Your Christmas

This is the first year I haven't been at work so that made me available to help at Share Your Christmas. What a massive undertaking this is! I should have been there earlier this week to help sort all those gifts because I sure wasn't needed today. I did enjoy the atmosphere - it made me feel like one of Santa's elfs or should that be one of Santa's elves? One elf - two elves...I'm only one! Confused too!  Anyway, Share Your Christmas was amazing! The activities building was packed with toys, clothing, and groceries.  For weeks now, people have been shopping and filling wishes from the Angel Trees that are up around town. JoPapa Bear and I have had fun shopping for several toys for this project (and others).

This is organized by an experienced group of volunteers.  Each family has a number assigned to them. The area churches adopt an age group and buy presents and clothing based on the requests when the families sign up.  Church volunteers sort all those items and put each child's presents in a bag. Then on distribution day a volunteer brings a shopping cart down all the aisles, picking up a bag for each person on the list and filling another cart with groceries to feed the family. Then the family drives up to the door and volunteers load all these goodies in the car. Sweet! Our church had over 200 five to seven year olds to buy presents for. City wide, there were over 600 families that got support from Share Your Christmas! Can you imagine!?

I thank God that my family is on the giving end of this equation instead of the needing to receive end!

Merry Christmas

Things in my pantry

I don't just cook and bake things for my pantry - I create lots of other items.  Annie Potts started a Prayer Shawl Ministry at the Bolivar united Methodist Church and I've been knitting too! I've made so many dish cloths, hats, mittens, scarves, and wristers.  It is about time I broaden my horizons! I completed my first prayer shawl and it was dedicated at church this past Sunday. It was a lovely short prayer by our pastor JC Harp. If I had a better memory, I could quote it exactly. But he said something about hoping the shawl would bring a small bit of comfort and let the recipient know that prayers had been said for her. I gave it to Trish Ankrom to send to her sister. Her sister is fighting cancer, but not winning. She is in hospice care and it just breaks Trish's heart to know she is losing her 50 year old sister to this nasty disease! When will we ever find a cure?

Christmas Cookies

I'm baking sugar cookies with lots of red and green sugar sprinkles on top. They are definitely "melt in your mouth cookies" as the recipe promised. Linda Ware used to make these and sell them in cookie bouquets. I'll have to practice a long time to get good at decorating - she was an artist.  I'm having a hard enough time keeping track of these cookies.  JoPapaBear says they are bite sized - so that's what he's doing! If I put frosting on them there won't be any to serve the youth group tomorrow. ;-) He said he'd help me bake them, not eat them! But I got even. I cut one into 4 bites and let him have one fourth. While he wasn't looking, I nibbled them away. He asked "where's the rest of that cookie?" I told him he already ate it! Too bad he didn't fall for that trick! Guess the joke was on me!  Almost time for the Christmas Parade.  No more cookies in the oven and the sun is shining.  Guess my timing is right!

Christmas Season

Today I got to shop for groceries to fill up the Buddy Backpacks for 29 students. They will take these home during the Christmas break so they won't be hungry at home. How could there be so many families without enough money to feed their children!? It makes me so thankful for all that I have.  We've also taken lots of tags off the Angel Trees here in town and bought several presents for kids, but it hardly seems like enough. It's a shame that the economy has so many families struggling to make ends meet. I wish that I could give each of these families a job with a steady income. In the meantime, I'll just pray and do what I can to make a little bit of difference.

Shopped Local Saturday

We took a cruise around town today and sprinkled little bits of our hard earned money into the local economy. C&C had a sale on Carharts - Papa's happy! Hallmark cards - Mama's happy. Roweton's for a new pressure cooker ring - happy cooking ahead! I think I used up the last ring cooking down the pumpkin yesterday - oops! Too bad we didn't make it over to Horton's for that sale on jeans - my wallet is happy. But we did finish our shopping excursion at Woods' so now we have hot cider to enjoy!

Happy day after Thanksgiving!

Cooking up a storm with Dayna. Cooked pumpkin, stirred up dinner rolls, made a cinnamon crust, pumpkin pie, roasted pumpkin seeds, and washed LOTS of dishes!