Home's Cool!

Could You Use a Few More Recipes?

Posted on June 1, 2019June 1, 2019 by Katharine

Now THAT’s a Real Cookie
2 cups butter, softened
4 cups whole wheat flour
3 cups honey
3 eggs
2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
4 cups rolled oats
1 ½ cups raisins
1 cup chopped nuts
1 ½ cup chopped apple

Beat butter and honey together. Add eggs and beat. Add half of flour sifted with soda and cinnamon. Stir in oats. Add rest of flour and stir. Add raisins, nuts, and apple. Stir well. Drop by teaspoon on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 375° for about 10 minutes. Makes 10 dozen wholesome cookies that freeze very well. (If you bake these many, you’ll save heating the oven as often and have a ready snack when I drop in to visit.)

MYO Vanilla Wafers
Use any 1,2,3,4 cake recipe

Drop by teaspoon onto greased cookie sheets. Bake at 350° for about 10 minutes. Cool one minute on pan before removing to cooling racks.

Garlic Popcorn
4 quarts freshly-popped popcorn
1 stick butter
1 clove garlic
salt and/or pepper

Press garlic and set aside. While popcorn is popping, melt butter. Remove from heat. Stir garlic into butter. Pour over popcorn, fluffing to coat all. Add salt and/or pepper to taste.

Compost
Now’s a good time for this recipe.
1 yard bag full of mower trimmings
1 pint ordinary garden soil
1 pint water (opt.)

Place soil and water (if dry) in bag with trimmings. Shake or roll some, to mix. Store until spring. If desired, you may store away from marauding animals, in shed or garage. This will greatly reduce in size, over time, and make wonderful mulch or soil additive.

Okay, there you are–new tips and recipes to cheer you. Cannot wait to post again. See ya soon!

My new version of the amazing carrot cake creation that I've made up myself. :)

baking, Homemaking, Recipes

Fully-Loaded Carrot Cake and Recipe!

Posted on May 27, 2019June 30, 2020 by Katharine

I’ve always wanted a carrot cake that has everything.

The ultimate.

I knew it was out there, but never, ever, could find a recipe. At last I found one that came very close. It even gave options. Then I read the recipe directions which explained when to add the eggs, and I noticed the ingredients list did not include eggs.

As in: How many eggs?

Hmm…

So I gave up and wrote my own. It is the only way to go, isn’t it!

I made up this carrot cake recipe for my mom’s 75th birthday because she had said carrot cake, with everything in it, was her favorite cake. (I guess I get it from her, right?)

Well, she ate it all in one week.

I used this scrumptious cake recipe again for the groom’s cake at the wedding of one of my sons. At his request. (He probably gets it from me.)

It did not last through the entire serving time.

It may be fair to say I am too proud of this recipe. I absolutely love when a cake turns out right, and friends, this is IT!

So just when you finally decided to “go keto”, here comes a carrot-cake-reason NOT to!

Enjoy!

Fully Loaded Carrot Cake

¾ cup butter, melted
2 cup sugar
4 eggs
2 cups flour
2 tsp. soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. salt
¾ cup buttermilk
2 tsp. vanilla
1 can (8 oz) drained crushed pineapple
2 cups grated carrots
1 cup chopped nuts (recipe calls for walnuts, but we grow pecans, so…)
1 cup flaked coconut OR 1 cup golden raisins

Sift together flour, soda, cinnamon, and salt; set aside. Beat eggs in a large bowl until lemon colored, beat in sugar, butter, buttermilk, and vanilla. Stir in flour mixture. Stir in pineapple, nuts, carrots, and raisins or coconut (I’ve added a full measure of both before.)

Pour batter into greased and floured 9×13 pan. Bake at 350 for 55 minutes until cake tests done with a toothpick.

I frost with cream cheese frosting. But if you wanted to ease your keto-conscience, you could frost with stevia whipped cream! 😉

Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

What would your mother do? Make do!

Posted on May 16, 2018July 26, 2019 by Katharine

What can one mom even do to make a difference?

We moms need to know this.

This is a short series about all the huge little things moms do. It’s not a contest, but let’s all tell about our memories of those little things that mean so much, that only moms know how to do best. ❤

One thing my mom did was to make things last. She reused everything! Did you know you can iron wax paper lightly and make it all smooth and reusable again? She did. She saved bows and wrapping paper, for reuse, along with empty cardboard tubes, which she gave to us for hitting each other. We were never allowed to hit each other any other time, so when an empty cardboard tube became available, it was one of our prized possessions. We played they were swords. It was great fun.

My mom saved holey socks, weaving a patch over the hole (darning) and even saved a burned-out light bulb for the darning form, slipping it into the sock for a work surface, to give it the form it would need to fit right, later.

When our ironing board cover wore a hole, she did not replace it. She carefully laid an old bath towel over the worn area and pinned it tightly in place underneath. It was a great cover. Other old bath towels became bedding for our ill puppy, extra door mats during sloppy weather, and tied to a mop stick, a pretty good wet mop.

I could think of so many more examples, because we were poor yet we always had something. My mom made it happen. I know she learned it from her mom, because I often saw my grandmother sort and store things inside empty cereal boxes. It was just their way, and although I have all I need and more, it is also my way. See if you can find an example in this story.

And share with us how your mom has made do! Thanks!

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Good ol' days

What would your mother do? Pray.

Posted on May 15, 2018May 30, 2019 by Katharine

What can one mom even do to make a difference?

We moms need to know this.

More of a short series about all the huge little things moms do. It’s not a contest, but let’s all tell about our memories of those little things that mean so much, that only moms know how to do best. ❤

My mom was very, very private about her spiritual life.

I did not even know she had one, actually,

I think she always sort of believed that was between her and God.

However, on the day I came to her and grumbled that the rain outdoors was keeping me from playing out there, I learned.

I remember it like yesterday. I don’t know how old I was, but I was tall enough that the washing machine top came to my shoulders.

I remember we were in the laundry room when I grumbled, and my mom was right there, hearing. This is what she said:

Kathy, I don’t ever want to hear you complaining about the rain. We need rain badly and I prayed for this rain. And now we have some and we are very happy.

Well, that got my attention.

I remember feeling uncomfortable about hearing her talk of real prayer with real answers. It really was a sort of confession of her faith, and I would have felt lots better hearing it if I’d had another grown-up with me to help me carry the heavy load of my mom’s answered prayers.

I felt too little to hear such grown-up things.

But I grew into it. And now I pray. And I never complain about the weather.

What about you? Did your mother pray? Do you know what she prayed for? Was she private about it?

Inspiring, Recipes, Who's the mom here?

What would your mother do? Encourage.

Posted on May 14, 2018July 26, 2019 by Katharine

What can one mom even do to make a difference?

We moms need to know this.

Here’s the next part of a short series about all the huge little things moms do. It’s not a contest, but let’s all tell about our memories of those little things that mean so much, that only moms know how to do best. ❤

Mom gave us baked beans for lunch My mom encouraged me. I remember one of the first encouragements she gave me, when I really might have needed correction on any other similar occasions: I’d been playing with my food on my plate.

The menu that day was hot dogs and plain old pork ‘n’ beans, so everything I needed was at the table already.

I began stirring relish, ketchup, mustard, salt, pepper, and a bit of sugar into the beans on my plate. After a sample, I told my mom how good it was. She questioned me, I explained, and that’s when it happened: A new gourmet cook was born at that very lunch table. My mom exclaimed that if I could determine exactly what should go into carefully-crafted old style “baked beans”, then I must be a natural-born cook.

I felt pretty pleased with myself and I never forgot it.

Encouragement can go the other way, too, dragging a person up from a low place, where I was during third grade.

It was election time in our country and in school, we had a mock election, dividing the class into three political parties.

It was rigged. All the popular kids were in one party, the brilliant-student-types in another, and we misfits (the sickly, overweight, or otherwise unacceptable ones) were in the third party. I leave you to guess who won, but will add: I perfected the art of sickly by having one of my semi-annual cases of step throat during the vote. Yeah, we came in last. Amazing, no? We’d had such hopes. We did our best. We mined our mom’s ideas for sure-fire campaign tactics, made posters, and delivered speeches, all for naught.

After a phone call came to our sick-house regarding the results, my mom so tenderly relayed them to me. I cried. She held me and asked me to try to be a big girl, to think what the other children would think of my crying…

I remember the moment so clearly, like the movie re-run it has always been in my mind. I remember feeling rebellious and sort of amazed at myself for what I said at that point.

“I don’t even care what the CRY-BABIES think!”

She did not reprimand me. She did not scold my out-lashing little self. She just held me until it blew over.

And that quiet response told me far more than any words could. She understood. She cared. She had my back.

So when did your mom encourage you? Share.

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Inspiring, Sayings, Who's the mom here?

What would your mother do? Share.

Posted on May 12, 2018May 11, 2018 by Katharine

What can one mom even do to make a difference?

We moms need to know this.

My mom would share My mom shared. The sixth child of a woman whose husband died young during the Great Depression, my mom knew exactly how it felt to be in need. One of her favorite sayings was, “We might need that someday.” Considering the entire course of her life, that was exactly true.

Her other saying was, “The poor people in (insert your favorite country, here) would kill to get what you’ve got.” Also probably true, more than we’d like to realize.

Given her context, what else could my mom do but share, and by example, teach her children to share.

And so it was that while she always made her children clothing, she also spent some time on a church ladies’ project of making clothing for poverty-stricken people elsewhere. In fact, the first time she ever took on the task of making a man’s long-sleeved shirt, it was for a man she’d never met in Cambodia, a country she’d never heard of.

And when a vacationing family had a wreck near our town and lost the dad, spending time in the hospital in our town, she took me shopping for the poor children who’d lost their dad. And arranged for a friend to take them in, since they were not really injured, and could enjoy his horses and pleasant estate, as a sort of therapy, until the mother could arrange their affairs.

And if there was not enough dessert to go around, my mom always pretended she was full.

What did your mom share with others? Think hard–if she was modest about it, you might have to examine clues to realize it…

Inspiring, Who's the mom here?

What would your mother do? Fix things!

Posted on May 10, 2018May 10, 2018 by Katharine

What can one mom even do to make a difference?

We moms need to know this.

Starting a short series here, today, about all the huge little things moms do. It’s not a contest, but let’s all tell about our memories of those little things that mean so much, that only moms know how to do best. ❤

[Unidentified girl in dress holding American f... — [Unidentified girl in dress holding American flag and ball] (LOC) (Photo credit: The Library of Congress)

So here’s mine, for today: I was tiny, but I remember the dress so vividly. My mom was shocked I ever remembered it because she said I was only two years at the time. I do remember it, though. It was my favorite dress. Why I loved it so, I am not sure. It was brown plaid, which I like a lot, to this day. It had ruffly lace and puffy sleeves. I don’t know, really, what it was.

But I loved it.

This was back in the days before perma-press, back when little girls always wore dresses, even at play. Always.

And froze our little bare legs off in winter, in case you wondered.

Anyway, I loved me a dress.

Then one day the horrible happened. I spilled my milk on my favorite dress. I was devastated. I could not begin to understand much of anything, yet, but I knew I did not like the way my favorite dress looked, now. So I did what any red-blooded American two-year-old would do.

I cried.

My mom couldn’t understand, and asked me what was wrong. When I told her about the spill, I remember what she did.

She got down, sort of sitting on her heels, at face-to-face level with me, and told me it was okay, that she could wash the dress and it would be fine again.

Those of you who’ve read here a long time, know what happened next. And you know what good it did. The rest of you can read the links. Have fun!

And share with us your story: What did you mess up, in your childhood, that your mom knew how to fix? Aren’t moms great!