PIE

Taylor made a chocolate, peanut butter pie today. There were only three of us at home. There is one piece left and that is only because we put it away, out of sight, and promised Phil he could have it for tomorrow's lunch. We're practicing restraint.

PS Taylor was just down here and whispered, "I'll make another one tomorrow."

PPS At this rate I'll weigh 300 pounds by Thursday.
I know this is blurry but if I go out to the garage and open the freezer and take another photo, Phil will not have pie for lunch.

DO YOU EVER?

Do you ever have a thought cross your mind, kind of like, "Humm, I'll bet four extra large eggs are too many for this pie, even though the recipe says four eggs. I better only put in three, because after all, they are extra large?" And then the thought disappears, because you seem to be drafty, and then when the pie flows all over the place you remember.

Me too. And I'm taking this pie to Achievement Days tomorrow to show the girls one of the joys of Rhubarb Buttermilk Pie.

And not only that, the timer just went off, the pie has been in the oven an HOUR and the toothpick came out juicy.

I love it when I get to show the girls how not to do stuff. I'm nothing if I'm not a bad example. Everyone should have a bad example in their lives. It makes life bearable somehow, knowing you are superior to someone else.

I need to find someone who's worse at all things homemaking-ish than I am. Then life will be sweet. Like pie.

MOMACAT LETS ME GET FRIENDLY

Here are photos to go with yesterday's post.

MomaCat, under the loveseat.

MomaCat letting me get close.

She lets me scratch her under the chin.

Purr, purr, purr. A little to the left, that's it, right there! Purr, purr, purr.

Buttermilk Rhubarb Pie. Recipe on The Snyder Family Cookbook in a day or two.

TALKING TO MOMACAT

One of my friends is out of town and I am tending her kitties for a week. Two are outside cats and one is a three legged tortoise shell cat--she lost her leg after being hit by a car--and is now an inside cat. I have only seen her a few times as she is very shy and afraid of strangers. (Not that I'm strange, mind you.)

Today I found her under the love seat in the family room. I lay on the floor and reached as far as I could. I could just barely touch her. I scratched her under her chin and behind her ears. Pretty soon she began to purr and we were there for a long time--me scratching, her purring. I tried to coax her out. "Come out, MomaCat," I said and every time she said, "purr-meow--purr." We had a fifteen minute conversation but she wouldn't budge.

Tonight I can't get her out of my mind. She had fifteen minutes of human contact today. What would I be like if I only had fifteen minutes of human contact?

I recently read a Young Adult book called Skin Hunger by Kathleen Duey. It made me realize that touch is so important. That having someone to talk to is important, having someone listen to you is improtant.

Tonight we sat on the lawn swings with neighbors. I had made an impossible rhubarb pie--it's a very old Bisquick recipe--no crust--and I served it with ice cream. When the neighbors went home one of them shook my hand, and told me thank you. I thought that was sweet.

Some of my friends are huggers. Some are not. Some are good with words of love. Some love me just as much but don't express it. I have one friend who says it all, "Lynne Snyder, I love you." It makes me feel good. If I were feeling like the worst crumb-bum in the world I could find Faye and she'd soon have me feeling pretty good--maybe even terrific.

How often do we hesitate before saying loving words? How often do we give a hug and how often do we hold back? I think we need a certain amount of strokes. I'm not sure I would want to scratch you behind the ears but I can say something nice and tell you how wonderful you are. Maybe I could hold your hand for five seconds and you'd know I loved you.

I am on the last few cards of a one hundred card box. It's taken me quite a while to get through it. There are a bunch of cards that never got written. It would have taken me fifteen minutes to tell someone they were appreciated, to tell them I loved them or that I think they are terrific.

Skin hunger and compliment hunger and tell-me-I-make-a-difference-in-your-life hunger are real.

Let's put an end to all these hungers. You could even bake an impossible rhubarb pie and share it with the neighbors. One of them might even shake your hand.

ANOTHER EINSTEIN REPORT

I've done it again. Yesterday, we had been in Salt Lake City and when we came home I got undressed and went right to bed. I slept three hours and then got up at 9:30 to make buttermilk pies--well, cookie sheets full of buttermilk pie. One was for the luncheon after a funeral, today, and one was for the luncheon after the baptism of our grandson, today.

When I got redressed I put my shirt on backwards and inside out. Phil didn't bother to tell me. He likes to play around with my ego. I wore it that way all night. Luckily no one came to our house. How would I have felt, not only being a slob but showing the size of my shirt too, right there for anyone to read?!

Making a cookie sheet full of buttermilk pie is tricky because you blend everything in the blender and let me tell you, it is FULL. I had the first cookie sheet, full of unbaked goo in the oven when I found the melted butter--that was supposed to be in the goo--still in the a pan on the stove. So, I opened the oven and dumped the goo into a bowl, spilling a whole lot of it on the stove door and even on the floor. I added the butter, stirred like crazy and poured it back into the pan.

I guess it worked okay but really. How Einsteinish can you get in one night? My journal entry will read: "Slob, showing shirt size--which is a whole lot of sizes bigger than she wants it to be--dumps pie filling on floor. Floor needed mopping--no one used straw to slurp up goo. Even though some slobby inside-our-shirt wearing person wanted to."
Recipe here.

WHY, OH WHY?

I have two main recipe files on my computer--plus a couple dozen I never look at. One is "Lynne's Recipes," and the other is "Recipes to try." Tonight I went through the entire "Lynne's Recipes" one. All 859 pages of it. Whoa, don't get too impressed, they are in 3x5 format and each recipe is considered a page. Some recipes take two 3x5 cards and occasionally they will take more.


Most of them are not even my recipes! I have dumped what looks like hundreds of "to try" recipes in there. And most of my "real" recipes aren't even in there. What a jumbled mess. I should plan to straighten it all out as a New Years Resolution but I'm not going to. I am going to start a new file called, "Lynne's Real Recipes." And then I will probably dump some "to try" recipes in there by mistake and by the time I'm eighty years old and don't cook any more it won't matter.


So, why am I even thinking about it when I could be thinking about the "white sales" that are supposed to be happening in January or that the grapefruit in January and February that makes wonderful juice? Or that there are lots of interesting blogs out there to read? The heck with the recipes. On to greater things.


But before I go here's the easiest recipe I own. I got it the second year I was married and it has been a family favorite all those years.

CHERRY CREAM CHEESE PIE

1 can Sweetened Condensed Milk
1 (8 oz.) pkg. Cream Cheese
1 tsp. Vanilla
1/3 cup Lemon Juice

1 Graham Cracker Crust
1 can Cherry Pie Filling (This is too much pie filling. If making several pies two cans filling are adequate for three pies.)

Blend first three ingredients until smooth and creamy. Add lemon juice and blend until mixed. Pour into prepared graham cracker crust. Refrigerate. Top with chilled pie filling.

PS And why do the desserts outnumber salads by four to one and they outnumber the side dishes--veggies--probably fifteen to one? Something is basically wrong with my sugar covered brain.

PPS And I wish I could take credit for the photo but it's from the Eagle Brand site. Some nice food stylist took it.