APPLE OATMEAL CRISP

Made this yesterday. It was very good. I forgot to take a picture of it before we gobbled it all up so I had to have another spoonful to photograph. Poor me, having to eat another spoonful.

Recipe here.

WHY DO I WAIT SO LONG TO GET STARTED IN THE KITCHEN?

Today I didn't get started in the kitchen until after 2:00. First I made whole wheat bread. Note to self: Let the bread rise as high as you want it because it 'aint gonna rise any more in the dang oven! My squatty loaves have the same amount of calories as normal loaves but you don't think so as you see your tiny little sandwich. sigh

Yes, the bread is two inches high!

Mrs. Bird came by and I sat on the lawn swings with her until the bread came out of the oven. Note to self: You were so smart to buy that portable timer that lets you know the squatty bread is ready to come out of the oven while you are sitting on the lawn swings with Mrs. Bird.

You should get one of these!

After she left I put the spaghetti sauce on to simmer and made the Magleby's rolls--also called Parmesan Rolls--that I love so much. While they were rising I made the lemon layer dessert that I love even more than the Magleby's rolls. I made a whole cookie sheet full because we were having Family Home Evening on the lawn swings. Note to self: That was such a good idea, having Family Home Evening on the lawn swings. Too bad winter is coming.

Roll recipe here. Lemon Layer Dessert recipe here.

Then I made salad and salad dressing and boiled spaghetti noodles and had dinner to my neighbor only six minutes late. We came home and snarfed our dinner and then went outside to enjoy our neighbors. The lesson was on The Journey and rescuing others. (One of the stories was about the rescue of the Willie and Martin Handcart Company's when they were coming to the Salt Lake Valley.)

We all have journey's and have all been rescued at one time or another. I hope I can help other's through their hard times--their journeys.

By the time it got dark--and cold--we disbanded and then we took leftover dessert to four houses. Note to self: Do not leave any dessert at home or you will eat it all. You know how you are! (We do have two pieces left. Two for me, none for Phil. Just kidding. Kind of.)

Now, it's quiet and dark and I'm thinking of bed. And the Lemon Layer Dessert in the fridge. Note to self: You should have given it all away.

I hope your afternoon wasn't as frantic as mine. And that your bread rises and that you have self control. And that, if you need rescuing, that someone will be there to rescue you. And if you are able, I hope you will rescue someone else. A kind word. A phone call. Money in an envelope. Unconditional love. I hope you don't have to wade through ice cold water and carry someone on your back to safety, but if you did have to, I hope you would. I hope I would too.

I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER

I shouldn't have done it, I really shouldn't. I'd repent but I'm not sorry.I made this dessert for my visiting teaching companion--who has the cutest baby on the planet, I might add--and I made another one for whoever came by after Priesthood Conference and instead of sending it home with people--which would have been the smart thing to do--I kept the leftovers and today Phil looked in the fridge and said, "Is this ALL the lemon dessert that is left?"

I pretended deafness. And blindness. And then I moved out of state and changed my name.

Recipe here.

PS For those who don't like lemon--like my darling daughter-in-law--you can make a chocolate version--with chocolate shavings on top. Very impressive. And how can you go wrong with chocolate?

BACK TO NORMAL--WHATEVER "NORMAL" IS

The stomach flu is conquered!

I went to a dinner party tonight and took this dessert. Recipe here.

Blogging will resume, probably tomorrow.

And here is a picture of Phil, just because he is so cute.

MY ABC'S OF GRATITUDE--A THROUGH D

I am going to post A to Z, things I'm grateful for. We'll see how far I get today.

A--Artichokes. I love artichokes but they have to be dipped in mayonnaise, lots of mayonnaise so I guess I will not love artichokes as much as I used to when mayonnaise was considered (by my cousin, Jim, who used to eat mayonnaise sandwiches) a food group. In fact, I will not eat artichokes at all so I guess I will not love artichokes but maybe will love armadillos, instead. I don't know why. I just think they are cool and there is that new commercial about the armadillo who gets so frightened he rolls into a ball and his wife knocks on his shell and says something like, "Honey, it's all right, you can come out now." Is it a Capitol One commercial?

B--Baths. I gave my kids baths every night before bed. They smelled so good and were so warm and clean and when I tucked them in I breathed in their cleanness.

I loved baths as a kid. I would stay in the bathtub for an hour, emptying and refilling the water as needed to keep it steaming hot.

Now, there isn't time for baths? (I have to blog, after all.) And, not so much of me is submersible. Who wants to see large portions of the anatomy sticking out of the water? So I do not love baths as much as I used to. Or at all.

I will love the color Black--for "B"-- instead, which goes so well with white pants but winter is coming and the white pants will have to be put away so even black isn't as much fun as it used to be.

I wonder, is anything as much fun as it used to be?

C--Conference. Tomorrow is our semi-annual General Conference--two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon, broadcast from Salt Lake City for us to watch on TV,--and the same on Sunday. We hear talks from our Prophet and the General Authorities. These two weekends (1st weekend in April and October) are my favorite ones of the year.

Tomorrow, during Conference I think I will have to make some chili sauce out of my very ripe tomatoes. I will watch Conference while I work.

One year the kids and I made apple pie filling during General Conference. We made a huge apple mess in the kitchen and Kraut threw apple peelings all over us and yelled, "Happy New Year." We laughed and laughed. It is one of my finest memories. I don't think we listened to much conference but we did have the TV on all the time. We bottled over 60 quarts of apple pie filling and it was delicious but we didn't make one apple pie with it. We heated it as a side dish. Maybe Apples should be my "A" word.

D--Dessert. I have a friend who, in her personal computer cookbook, has more dessert recipes than all other items, doubled or even tripled. I love to look at pictures of desserts on cookbook sites. Because of the nature of what happens to the body when you eat desserts, I don't eat them much. See "B" above about why eating lots of desserts and then having baths are not a good idea.

So, maybe I will forgo being grateful for Desserts to being grateful for Dogs, which we do not have. We used to. His name was Sebastian and he was Lord Bumhampton's dog. When Lord Bumhampton grew up and left home he left his dog here.

Sebastian was an obedient dog. He loved to howl at fire engines and ambulances. I would go to the bathroom window in the middle of the night and tell him he could not howl, and he would howl-whimper, and then I would tell him again and he would just whimper. He wanted to howl so much but he acquiesced to my wishes and muttered, in a high pitched sissy sort of way, deep in his throat, but didn't howl.

After he died, I often found Phil, standing at the slider in the kitchen, just looking out at the back yard. He'd say, in a quiet little voice, "My dog died." It broke my little heart.

So, I'm grateful for one very funny dog who wanted to be in the house so bad that he laid on the top step in the dead of winter, with ice on his fur, shivering almost off the step, instead of going into his HEATED dog house because he thought there might be a chance we'd let him in.

Which we did.