Last Friday...

I had some errands to run and Moe went with me. We stopped to say hello to the waterfowl who live in and around two drainage ponds, tucked away between an Outback Steak House and a bank.

We can't for the life of us figure out what this is. There are several of these here. At first we thought it was a baby heron, but it seems to be something else entirely.

*UPDATE* Thanks to my friend Nora, I found out that this is a green heron. I'd never heard of them until today.

Soon there will be blackberries. We'll come by and sneak some.

We haven't seen very many ducks or geese around our little lake recently, so it was nice to stop and watch these for a while.

This one looked a little lonely sitting all by itself.

Pretty soon it ran off and joined its mother.

Today

The boys and I took a stroll through the streets of our little town, to see what we could see.

Seeing this in a store window...

...reminded me of this picture of my dad.

When we got home this was on our doorstep. It was sent to me by Joe's supervisor and all his coworkers, thanking me for all the support I've given him in the years he worked with them.

Tomorrow will be Joe's last day. He starts his new job on Monday.

Our New Favorite Cookies

Last week I needed to make cookies for Moe's class party. Instead of the sugar cookies that I usually make, he wanted chocolate. I found a recipe in the 1963 McCall's cookbook that I recently acquired from my Aunt A.

DOUBLE-CHOCOLATE DROPS

1 pkg (6 oz) semisweet chocolate pieces
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup soft butter or margarine
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans


1. In top of double boiler, over hot, not boiling, waterm melt 1/2 cup chocolate pieces. Let cool.
2. Sift together flour, soda, and salt; set aside.
3. In large bowl of electric mixer, at medium speed, beat butter, sugar, and egg until light and fluffy.
4. At low speed, beat in melted chocolate and 1/4 cup warm water.
5. Then beat in flour mixture, just until combined.
6. With spoon, stir in remaining chocolate pieces and nuts. Refrigerate 30 minutes.
7. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly grease cookie sheets.
8. Bake 10 to 12 minutes. Remove to wire rack; cool. Makes about 3 dozen.


I doubled the recipe. I don't know how it was in 1963, but these days a standard size package of chocolate chips is 12 ounces, not 6. I used a stick of butter, not margarine (Moe's dairy allergy is mild enough that I can get away with doing this), and instead of two eggs I mixed one heaping tablespoon of Ener-G Egg replacer with 1/4 cup water. Supposedly this recipe makes three dozen if you don't double it, but I only got about 3 1/2 dozen cookies when I did. And since Moe is allergic to nuts, I left those out.

It's not easy to find chocolate chips that have NO dairy, are made in a nut-free facility, and are gluten-free. The kind I used to get for Moe at the health food store were sweetened with barley malt (which contains gluten) and cost nine bucks per pound. I was excited to find these store-brand ones for two bucks a bag. I've been eating them right from the package.

You don't really need a double-boiler; a small metal bowl over a pan of hot water works just fine.

Mmmmm...they sure did smell good!

The cookies were a huge hit both with the kids at school and with our family. You would never guess they were egg free!

It's probably a good thing that I'm on a gluten-free diet these days, because I'm sure I would have eaten way too many of these. One day when I'm brave enough I'll attempt a gluten-free version.

Wanna see our new favorite egg-free cake? Click here!

7 Quick Takes: Bats, Birds, Blogs and Dogs

--1--

Lately I've been posting more on my other blog, Cooking Nick's Books, than I have on this one. It isn't that I don't have much to share with you here, I have lots; sometimes I think since that one has a specific goal (to read through all of Nicholas Sparks' novels and cook the food in them) it's easier to come up with ideas.

The more I blog about food, the more I enjoy it, so you might see more of that here as well. Tonight I tried a recipe for pork chops that I found in a 1963 McCall's cookbook I acquired from my Aunt A. not too long ago, and I decided to take some pictures so I could share it with you. I might even post it on both blogs, even though it has nothing whatsoever to do with a Nicholas Sparks book.

--2--

Every time I start taking pictures of food I'm cooking (or anything else inside the house, for that matter) my dog starts barking. I'm not sure why she hates me taking photos; maybe the flash bothers her. She's very weird sometimes.

--3--

Last week, Larry graduated with honors from eighth grade. (When I was growing up, we didn't have "graduation" until we finished high school.) There was a Mass and graduation ceremony for all of the eighth graders from the parish school; Larry even received some awards: the Presidential Award for Academic Excellence, a Perfect Attendance award for the school year (I didn't even know he had perfect attendance), and an award for altar serving. We are so proud of him!

Know who else is proud of our son? Father R, our pastor. He told him so the next day. Wow!

--4--

Recently we've been hearing and seeing a strange bird flying around over the lake, several of them. They fly around making loud noises and grabbing fish out of the water. It's hard to get a good look at them because they're so fast. The other day, Moe announced that they were kingfishers. I grabbed my camera and attached the zoom lens, and we walked down to the edge of the water to see if we could see them. Finally they stopped long enough for me to snap some photos.

I wish these were clearer; I was able to confirm online that they are indeed belted kingfishers. I'd only seen them in books, except for the one I might have spotted once by a drainage pond in the middle of a nearby business district. (That's a favorite local spot for waterfowl. Check it out. In fact Moe and I stopped by there this morning, and I didn't see a kingfisher, but we did spot something that looked like a cross between a heron and a kingfisher. Maybe that's what I'd seen there.)

I hope they stick around for a while. They're way cool. Plus I want to get some better photos of them!

--5--

The weather has been wonderful this week. The kids at school were able to enjoy playing outdoor games during the last couple of days without sweltering (in fact, on Tuesday as I watched the fourth grade classes play a kickball game, I wished I had brought my sweater.

Next week it's supposed to be in the upper 90's and humid. Ugh!

--6--

When the sun goes down the bats come out. Curly likes to sit and watch them fly around over the lake. I enjoy sitting with him too, sharing a few quiet moments. It seems that during the day, my interactions with him have mostly been me nagging, and him pushing my buttons. It's nice just to sit.

It's hard to take photos at night. I took the first one with my phone, and the other two on the low-light setting. I couldn't keep my hands quite still enough, and Curly was moving around a little bit. I like the effect, though. (I wonder if that's a firefly in the upper right corner...)

--7--

Joe has a new job! He's worked at the same company for over twenty years. For the last thirteen years, ever since we moved into the house we live in now, he's had to commute as much as 90 minutes each way to work. His new job is five minutes away. Ten if there's traffic. Three miles. It was a hard decision to leave the people he's worked with for so many years, but spending ten minutes a day in the car versus three hours---that will be awesome. I can't wait; we can meet for lunch sometimes, and be finished with dinner by 7 pm (rather than getting started at 7:30 on a good day). He has one more week with his old job and then he starts his new one.

I was just thinking as I was showering this morning (I get lots of ideas when I'm in the shower, don't ask me why) that if he had been working for a different company back in the fall of 1991--and he hadn't been there all that long then, I don't think--he and I might never have met. My friend L. was working for the same company at the time, and she introduced us. Sometime I'll tell you the story of how we met. God has a way of putting people in the right place at the right time. And now it's time for him to start a new chapter in his life. And we don't even have to move!

See Jennifer's Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes! (I even posted some yesterday on Cooking Nick's Books.) Have a great weekend!

Goat Burgers for Pentecost

Saturday morning as I was unpacking my shopping bags full of fresh fruits, vegetables, free-range meat and eggs and the like I had brought home from the farmer's market, my cell phone rang. It was my friend L, calling to tell me that the cookout she was planning at her house was still on, despite the threat of thunderstorms that evening. "Whatcha doin'?" she asked.

"I just got home from the farmer's market."



"Get anything good?"

"Yes, I got some goat meat!"

Dead silence.

After about fifteen seconds, my friend found her voice. "Did you just say...goat meat??"
I then told her about a farmer named Cindy, who sets up a booth every week with an assortment of fruits and vegetables and meat. It's always fun to see what Cindy brings every week, because it's always different. A few weeks ago she had some late-season morel mushrooms that she had picked on a trip to Pennsylvania the previous week. (Click here to see what I did with those.) Before I knew her name, I would call her The Chicken Lady, because I've often bought roasting and frying chickens from her. My friend C calls her The Egg Lady, because you can almost always get good fresh eggs from her--but you have to get there early before she runs out of them.

(Those are Cindy's onions. The rest came from other vendors. But Cindy sells all those other things, too.)

Anyway, one Saturday a couple of years ago, late in the fall when Cindy was selling her wares for the last time until spring, she happened to have some extra goat meat that didn't make it into her co-op baskets. I've often thought of joining a co-op; you pay a flat fee and the farmer will fill a box for you every week or so with a variety of things that were harvested that week. Usually you don't choose what you get; it's just whatever the farmer puts in the basket. We've never joined one because Joe has certain vegetables that he absolutely will NOT eat, especially Brussels sprouts and beets. If I ever brought any of those home he just might move out. Well, Cindy had this extra pound of ground goat, and she gave it to me for free. That night we cooked burgers on the grill--some regular beef ones and some made from Cindy's goat.

It was out-of-this-world delicious.

So when Cindy told me last week that she would have goat this week for anyone who wanted to buy some, I made darn sure I was down at the farmer's market early because I didn't know how much she would have and didn't want her to run out before I got there. I ended up getting three pounds of ground goat and a pound of stew meat. (By the way, did you know goat is the most widely consumed meat in the world? Check this out.)

The next day, Pentecost Sunday, was our annual church picnic, but Moe wasn't feeling well and we decided to skip it and make goat burgers instead. (Moe is fine, by the way; we suspect allergies and not enough sleep.)

I mixed some kosher salt, fresh ground pepper, and garlic powder in with the meat and formed them into patties, just like I would with beef.

Joe is the grill-meister!

I was surprised to find locally grown peas this late in the season.

They weren't as tender and sweet as the ones I got a month ago, but they were still good.

By the way, have you ever had these? They were offering free samples of them at Costco last week. They're healthier than regular potato chips (supposedly) because they aren't fried. They're quite addicting.

Goat burgers go quite well with our favorite Virginia wine.

I still have a pound of stew meat and a pound of ground meat in my freezer. I haven't decided what to do with it yet; I'm not in a hurry to cook it because who knows when I'll be able to get more?

In the meantime I'll browse the Internet for recipes (like these--they recommend basting burgers with barbecue sauce.)

Today the boys have an extra day off from school because the air conditioning went out. They they'll have two more half days and they're done for the summer. I'm hoping to get the rest of my thank-you notes written, finish all of Larry's paperwork for high school, some appointments made, and a little laundry and housecleaning done as well. And hopefully, a visit to the pool. Oh, and I have to make cookies for Moe's class party tomorrow, which was supposed to be today.

How did you celebrate Pentecost?

Tough Days, Take Two

I wrote up a nice long blog post last night about one of my boys and the tough day he had, and about how hard it is fitting in and finding your way in the world when you're his age. I wrote about how sometimes other kids aren't nice to us, and that some days, it seems that the whole world is turning against us. About how the good things like being told by your classmates that you're a fantastic soccer player, or being one of only a few kids invited to a birthday party can be forgotten with one unkind or thoughtless word from someone who you thought was your friend. How, when it's only the second day of swim practice, and you haven't been swimming since August and you're a little out of practice, it seems that you must be the worst swimmer on the entire team.

This morning, having a little bit more free time since the preschool kids are finished, I had that post open in a Word file and was finishing it when the subject of the post walked up behind me to ask me a question and happened to see what the blog post was about, and wasn't too happy about it. I asked him if he wanted to read it and he said no, and I said I wouldn't publish it if he didn't want me to and he said please don't. I hope he won't mind that I gave you all an abbreviated version. I was feeling pretty downcast last night, actually; when your child comes home and says, "What's wrong with me? Why am I such a loser?" it's heartbreaking.

This week we had the last days of preschool. We had end-of-the-year parties, and parents came in to help celebrate the kids' "graduation" to the four-year-old class. The teachers painstakingly put together awards, progress reports, goodie bags, and scrapbooks (this is why I've been silent here for a while) for the kids to remind them of the fun year they had. It's been a bittersweet couple of days for me personally; a few parents asked if I would be teaching next year, and reluctantly I had to tell them no. I've loved working at our parish preschool, and had been looking forward to implementing some new ideas I had for next year, but our director wanted a teacher who would teach all three classes of three-year-olds (two classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and one class on Tuesdays and Thursdays) That would have left me with only two half-days free per week, and I would have as many as forty-two students. As much as I would love to, I don't feel that I'm ready to tackle what would essentially be a full-time job. Not yet. Teaching one Tuesday-Thursday class and serving as an aide in one Monday, Wednesday, Friday class was a nice balance for me. I did have an interview for a job that would be exciting and fun to do (and I would be working with someone I've worked with before and would love to work with again), and expect I'll find out something about that sometime in the next week or two. (I'll give you more details about it once I find out whether or not I get the job.) If I'm not t hired I'll probably be doing what I did last year, which was substituting at the Catholic school a couple of days a week (and hopefully at the preschool too), volunteering, attending our Friday Mom's Group meetings at church, and enjoying a flexible schedule. That is something to look forward to as well, and I figure it's a win-win either way.

Today I have thank-you notes to write and groceries to buy and laundry to wash and fold and I'm going to try and work in my preschool classroom for a little while and try and get some things organized. Since Easter I've been reading a chapter a day of Rick Warren's book, The Purpose-Driven Life, and I've got nearly thirty pages on my computer of thoughts I've written down in response to the challenges and questions that Rick has presented me with. I'm almost finished with it, and I'm hoping to share some of the things I've learned about myself (I'm not a navel-gazer, so this will be a challenge) and some ideas that I've gained that might help me fulfill God's purpose for my life, whatever it is. (I'm not sure I've quite figured it out, actually. And I'm forty-three years old.) Over the next few days I'm hoping to get back over to my other blog, Cooking Nick's Books, and assure my readers there (sadly very few but growing slowly, I think) that I haven't forgotten about them, and that I'm working on some cooking projects to post there very soon.

It's Ascension Thursday; I think I'll go to Mass, even though officially we celebrate it on Sunday in our diocese. Have a blessed day, everyone!