Week in Review: Two things this week, no three. 1. Finally over the flu. 2. Saw robins. 3. Saw Hickory Hill Hans out and about, although, I thought he was moving oddly. I usually think of him as a lumberer, but he was running, like a cat - I guess though, when I think of it, there's nothing (no clover or garden goodies) for him to lumber about in. Bob took down some old produce for him, but later, he told me he stuck the produce, broccoli and celery, in his hole. I told him that Hans was probably terrified down there in the dark with his door blocked. Bob said that Hans is surely smart enough to eat his way to daylight, and also that Hans has another door. Whatever.


I hope he's right. I haven't seen him since. Here's a picture of one of our squirrel friends swinging around in the bird feeder. At night, the raccoons are out there doing the same thing.




I've been thinking a lot about meatloaf this week, mainly because Oprah had Billy Joel and his new wife on her show. Billy's new wife, Katie Lee, is about 26 years old. She made a meatloaf. Apparently she has a cookbook out and would like to have her own cooking show (yeah, so would I). She said that she won Billy Joel's heart with her meatloaf. I doubt that. Anyway, it made me want to make a meatloaf. I don't have an actual recipe, but my Aunt Kae makes a mean meatloaf, and I'm going to ask her to fork it over (ha-ha) so that I can share it with you all. For Sunday Night Candlelight Supper this week, we had meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, homemade yeast rolls and carrot cake from the freezer left over from Easter Sunday. Stormy joined us, because, she's a woman alone, and needs to eat too.

"It is not without enormous effort on my part that this district has one of the most sought after postal codes."

-Hyacinth telling Richard why the tone of the neighborhood is her business.

Landon and his beautiful mommy at Easter

Recipe of the Week:

For days I searched for my "Yeast Breads in Your Meals" 4-H cookbook, but I cannot find it. I ended up pulling a recipe for rolls off the internet. Yeast rolls are wonderful things. Enjoy.

Dinner Rolls

1 package active dry yeast

1/4 cup warm water

3/4 cup hot milk

3 Tablespoons shortening

3 Tablespoons sugar

1 1/4 teaspoon salt

1 egg, beaten

4 cups flour, or enough to make stiff dough

melted butter

Dissolve yeast in warm water. Scald milk and put in a bowl with shortening, sugar and salt. Cool to lukewarm. Stir in yeast and egg. Add 2 cups flour and beat until smooth. Gradually stir in more flour until dough leaves sides of bowl.

Turn dough out onto lightly floured board and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 to 10 minutes. Place in a large buttered bowl. Turn over once to grease upper side of dough. Cover and light rise in warm, draft-freed place until almost double in bulk, about 1 hour. Press dough down into bowl to remove the big air bubbles. Put a little shortening or butter on hands. Divide dough into small pieces. Roll into balls and place in a shallow greased baking dish with sides touching. Cover loosely with cloth and let rise in warm place about another hour. Bake in 400 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes and then brush with melted butter.

"If you go through a lot of hammers each month, I don't think it necessarily means you're a hard worker. It may just mean that you have a lot to learn about proper hammer maintenance."

Jack Handy

Week in Review: The squirrel got a little pink plastic egg this week - yup, that's right - Easter. It was a looong week of being wiped out with the KILLER INFLUENZA. I had subbed most all of the previous week for a teacher, whose room was apparently crawling with disease. Students were hacking, blowing, spewing, and throwing up. It got me. I had a fever for a solid week. I did teach my aerobic class on Wednesday evening, because I don't really have anybody to sub for me, but that about did me in.

I did have a very nice birthday weekend before I succumbed to the KILLER INFLUENZA - Stormy and I spent Friday night at Lindsey & Brent's in Indy - dinner at The Oceanaire, followed by Nicky Blaine's, then some shopping on Saturday. Here we are at Lindsey's enjoying birthday cosmopolitans and admiring Lindsey's cupcake tree.

Lindsey came home on Good Friday afternoon. Brent went to the NCAA tournament in D.C. with his dad to watch Purdue. The exciting thing about that is that on Saturday afternoon they were sitting by Tim Russert and his son who were rooting for West Virginia. We colored eggs and watched basketball and on Saturday night we put the Ipod on shuffle and sang and danced in the kitchen until - too late.

Here are some eggs I decorated to look like J. Lo's twins, Emme and Max. Yes, I know it's weird. It's ever weirder that they are being pestered by squirrels.

Yes, that's right - you're riding in the Bunny Mobile and you're going to LIKE it.

Here we are after church on Sunday. We invited the Smith's over and served our traditional Easter dinner, or at least, it's the exact same meal we've served for the last four years. Is that tradition or are we just boring???

Honey Baked Ham

Cheesey potatoes

Strawberry & Mushroom Spinach Salad

Asparagus

Deviled Eggs

Rolls

Carrot Cake

Coconut Cream Cake

Nick and Stormy brought some great wine, and a couple of bottles of Prosecco, with which we toasted Lindsey's passing of the audit section of the CPA Exam, this week.

Recipe of the Week: There are a couple of variations of the Coconut Cream Cake recipe. This one is Paula Deen's recipe and the cake is made from scratch. The longer it sits, the better it tastes!

Coconut Cream Cake

1 cup butter - room temperature

2 cups sugar

5 eggs

3 1/2 cups flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 cup milk

2 teaspoons vanilla

Filling

1 cup chilled heavy cream

2 cups sour cream

2 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups shredded coconut (plus more for topping)

One 12-ounce container Cool Whip

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour three 9-inch round pans. For the cake, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Combine the flour and baking powder and add to the creamed mixture alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with flour. Stir in the vanilla. Divide the batter among the three pans and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until firm to touch. Cool the cakes. While they are cooling, make the filling. In a chilled bowl whip the cream until stiff. Fold in the sour cream, then gradually add the powdered sugar. Stir in vanilla and fold in coconut.

Split each cake in half horizontally. Spread the filling between the layers and on top of cake. Place in an airtight container and store for 3 days before serving. When ready to serve, you can frost with Cool Whip and sprinkle more coconut on top, if desired.

"There are many stages to a man's life. In the first stage, he is young and eager, like a beaver. In the second stage, he wants to build things like dams, and maybe chew down some trees. In the third stage, he feels trapped and then 'skinned.' I'm not sure what the fourth stage is."

Jack Handy

Isn't technology great? This message was the highlight of what was, otherwise, a pretty crappy birthday. Certainly not in the top ten, or top twenty.....no, not top thirty either........huh-uh, not top forty- don't think so. Let's see, there might have been a tornado on my birthday that one year.

Too sick to blog! I did manage to drag myself out of bed to put the St. Patty's Day corned beef and cabbage in the crockpot on Monday. Here's Landon and Stella celebrating the holiday this year.

Week in Review: Tuesday Club met this week. I was in charge of dessert. I subbed two days and read two books for my 20th Century American Fiction class. That's about it, I guess. Here's a picture of Landon and Stella celebrating St. Patrick's Day last year. Next week I'll post a current photo of the two. (It's getting harder to get them both to cooperate).

I think Hickory Hill Hans missed the call on Groundhog's Day. Is it ever going to stop snowing? Listen to me whine. Of course it is! I decided, enough was enough. I put the Brad Miller Snowman back in the basement (as if it is to blame for wreaking weather havoc across the United States) and then I harvested some pussy willow. That's right - I'm moving forward with spring.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! When I heard the news I rended my garments...... I rent my garments? I did some garment rending in anguish and despair.

Sunday Night Candlelight Supper: Stormy came over and ate with us. We had salmon with lime butter and dill, potatoes lorraine, the dried cherry/walnut salad with maple dressing, and for dessert, creme brulee. (I had leftover whipping cream from Tuesday Club and I didn't want it to go to waste, but I'll let up on the creme brulee for awhile now) Here's the recipe for the potatoes lorraine:

Potatoes Lorraine

2 eggs, beaten

1/4 cup breadcrumbs

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

2 large potatoes; cooked with the peelings on and then cooled

2 tablespoons minced onion

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

4 slices cooked bacon, crumbled and divided

paprika

Combine eggs, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper. Grate the cooled potatoes and measure three cups. Stir grated potatoes into egg mixture; add onion, half of the cheese and half of the bacon. Spoon mixture into greased 1 1/2 quart baking dish and sprinkle the top with paprika. Bake at 250 degrees for about 25 minutes. Sprinkle remaining cheese and bacon on top and put back in the oven for an additional 5 minutes.

If you're an ant and you're walking along across the top of pudding, you probably have no idea that the only thing between you and disaster is the strength of that pudding skin

Jack Handy

Week in Review: So, there wasn't a lot happening on Wednesday, no school and all. I shoveled the driveway (because I don't know how to start the snow blower) then I made this snowman, which seemed to irritate my friends and family members who have real jobs. Please keep in mind that while I was shoveling, Bob was playing golf in Florida, and the week before he was playing golf in Las Vegas, so it's all relative.

The Book Babes also met on Wednesday night at Julia's house. The book was A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseine, the author of The Kite Runner. When we got ready to go home, Vicki couldn't find her car keys and I came close to backing into one of the Tipton's big trees trying to maneuver out of the driveway (Vicki was the first car in) Thank goodness I have the backup camera!!!

And speaking of books, I signed up to do Oprah's world-wide online classroom event that will discuss the book, A New Earth. It starts tomorrow night at 9:00 PM. I don't know if I'll get anything out of it or not, but I didn't want to be left out.

It's hard to believe but this Wednesday we will be weighing in on week #9 of our Biggest Loser contest. I'm stuck on a total loss of 11.6 pounds. (I sinned last week with a large bag of Ruffles. How I miss the trans fats!!!) Here's the kicker. One of our anonymous contestants contracted the influenza and lost six pounds last week!!!! How am I going to compete with that??

Sunday night supper was at the Cork and Cleaver, with Nick and Stormy. I baked a couple of apple pies on Saturday. One was for Joe Taylor's birthday and the other was for plain ol' eating. After the Cork we came back to our house and enjoyed the pie. Here's the recipe. Don't forget that the recipe for Opie's No Fail Pie Crust is on my very first blog entry in September.

Grandma's Apple Pie

6 cups peeled, sliced apples (I use Granny Smith)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Combine apples and lemon juice in a mixing bowl. In another bowl combine sugars, flour, and cinnamon. Pour sugar over apples and mix to coat. Place apples in pastry-lined pie pan and dot with butter.
Cover pie with top layer of pastry, crimping the edges and cutting a slit so steam can escape. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes then reduce heat to 350 degrees for another 45 minutes. I like to protect the edges of the crust with aluminum foil so that the crust doesn't get too brown.

How come the dove gets to be the peace symbol? How about the pillow? It has more feathers than the dove and it doesn't have that dangerous beak.
Jack Handy