I have been gone..............

But I'll be back. I've come out of the rabbit hole I was down and will begin posting again soon. Trouble is, I haven't been cooking a lot this summer. It's been too danged hot.

I'm so glad we are getting on towards Fall now. Of course it was 100 today, so it appears we may have a little indian summer first before Fall actually arrives.

See you soon!

Happy New Year!

I have been a bad blogger, I know. And I have nothing but the usual excuses, which don't seem good enough. However, they did at the time.

May 2010 bring you all you wish for. Happiness, Health and Wealth as pictured in the above image courtesy of Dover Publications. May we all find one of those little bags of gold coins!

Pardon the Cookie Interruption!

Rum Cake
Originally uploaded by lasassone

I had to take a break from cookie making yesterday because tonight we are going to our Garden Club Holiday pot luck dinner.

I have always made a rum cake to have for our family's Christmas dinner's dessert, but for this years club pot luck I'm taking potato salad and I made this rum cake instead of the stuffed eggs I usually take to share.

This recipe is flexible depending upon the kind of cake mix you have on hand. I usually search out a cake mix with NO pudding in it, but all I had this time was one that said it contained pudding. I'm not sure how much it had because this cake didn't bake up as high as normal. In the future I think I would add the pudding regardless.

With this recipe you can use a large bundt cake pan, an angel food cake pan or it will make 4 to 6 mini loaves as well. The number depends upon the size of your mini-loaf pans.

I will list this with the changes for a mix with pudding in parenthesis.

RUM CAKE

1 Yellow cake mix (1 yellow cake mix w/pudding)
1 sm. pkg vanilla instant pudding (omit)
4 eggs (3 eggs)
1/2 C. cooking oil (1/3 C. oil) - I used Crisco oil....
1/2 C. very Cold water (same)
1/2 C. Rum (same)
finely chopped nuts of choice (same)-Optional

1) Grease and Flour your pans, tapping out any extra flour. Preheat oven to 350 F
2) Sprinkle Nuts in the bottom of pan (optional).
3) Combine all ingredients in large bowl; beat till very smooth.
4) Pour into pan(s).
5) Bake at 350 F for 40 to 60 min. for large pans, less for small loaf pans.
6) Cool 25 min. in pan(s).
7) Turn out and poke holes in bottom (nut side) with a toothpick or skewer.
8) While cake(s) are warm, spoon over a glaze made with:

1/8 pound of butter melted in pan
1/8 C. water and 1/2 C. sugar stir into melted butter & boiled for 4-5 min, stirring constantly.
1/4 C. Rum added after removing from heat.

If desired you can drizzle with a glaze made by melting 4 oz. of semi-sweet chocolate and 1 t. butter, melted over low heat.

NOTES:

1) As I said, I think next time I will put the pkg of pudding in regardless of what the cake mix box says.

2) I didn't put the nuts in before baking. I sprinkled a little ground pecans before spooning the warm glaze over the cake.

3) For glaze I used a little canned dark chocolate frosting and drizzled it over the cake to make it a little prettier. A disadvantage to doing that is that my drizzles didn't harden like I thought they would.

Now back to searching Lulu's recipe book for cookie recipes!

LULU'S CHRISTMAS COOKIE RECIPE #1

The cookies shown above that I just made this morning may not be the prettiest cookies, but G says they are the best tasting ones out of all the cookies Lulu ever made. For as long as I remember this was always the first Christmas cookie Lulu made when she began Holiday baking. These cookies do not HAVE to be Christmas cookies but they can be decorated up for Christmas and are always a hit. G says they melt in your mouth and it wouldn't be Christmas without them!

Lulu always called these "Canadian Cookies" and I recall once when I was a girl that I asked her why she called them that. She told me that she had tasted them once while visiting my dad's family in Canada and someone shared the recipe with her. She named them Canadian Cookies herself.

In our family now we call them "Nana's Cookies" because it was the last treat that she requested me to make for her when she was in the hospital shortly before she passed away. I'm not sure how many she ate because everytime I was there, she was sharing them with the doctors and nurses.

Decorated or not, they are one fine cookie and good for any holiday treat OR just for any day of the week! Lulu used to sometimes put half of a candied cherry on them before baking, but I've seldom done that because G doesn't like cherries. However, if you use red and green cherry halves they DO make an attractive tray of cookies.

CANADIAN COOKIES or NANA'S COOKIES

• 1+1/4 Cups sifted powdered sugar
• 1 Cup shortening (I use 1/2 Crisco and 1/2 softened Imperial Margarine)
• 1 Egg
• 1 t. Vanilla
• 2+1/4 Cups Flour
• 1 t. Baking soda
• 1 t. Cream of Tartar
• 1/2 t. salt

****Preheat oven to 400 degrees F

****Prepare cookie sheets by lightly spraying with a Pam-type product

1) In large bowl blend Crisco together w/softened margarine.

2) Cream in the sifted powdered sugar. (I sift it by pushing it through a strainer)

3) Add egg and vanilla and beat well.

4) Sift together dry ingredients and add to wet mixture one half at a time.

5) Stir well until all the flour is blended in. The mixture will seem a little wet once it's done.

6) Drop by spoonsful onto cookie sheet and then, with a fork dipped in water, press to uniform thickness. At this point you can add colored sugar or other decorations, if desired.

7) Bake for 5 to 10 min until the edges are JUST browned. (Mine took 7 min) Remove to wire rack to cool

NOTE: This recipe can be doubled easily and makes enough cookies to fill a fairly large tin plus also enough to fill a tray which is what I had to do for tomorrow's party for our local CrazyQuilt Stitching group.

Lulu's Christmas Cookies - Coming Soon

The above Sunbonnet Sue block was found in the bottom of Lulu's 3 legged sewing and mending basket after she passed away in 1992. I recall her making these blocks for baby quilts that she made with the ladies group at church in Duluth, MN back in the 1940's when I was a little girl.

***

By the time we moved to California in the early 1950's she had given up doing any quilting, but still was an avid embroiderer. I was really surprised that she had kept this all those years.

I intend at some point to make a Sunbonnet Sue quilt and use this block for the center. I might keep it to her style of using black running stitching around all the pieces, but I also like the look of buttonhole stitching around the "Sues." I'm thinking that my 1930's feed sack collection and maybe a few 30's repros might be good for this project. What do you thing?

***

So, I don't mean to confuse anyone and I KNOW that this isn't my stitching blog, but in trying to find a picture of Mum to post, I found this one and had to show it.

***

On December 11th or 12th I will begin posting Lulu's Christmas recipes here. I chose that date because I have to take some cookies to share with my stitching group at our Holiday party on the 12th. I'm being forced to start baking a bit earlier than I would otherwise. I usually sew gifts until the 17th, mail them on the 18th and then begin baking!

***

This year I will have 2 of Lulu's great-granddaughters here for Christmas and I need to bake more than I usually do for friendship gifts and for G and I to eat. There are so many cookies and treats she used to make - at least 2 dozen! We always had a card table in the front room stacked high with cookie tins to share with visitors. I just may have a problem deciding which recipes to share with you.

***

Stay Tuned for a real Sugar Fest!

Happy Thanksgiving to All from Lulu's Girl

May you and your families by happy and well today.

Enjoy a day of sharing family & food.

Lulu's Gingerbread

Gingerbread
Originally uploaded by lasassone

It's pomegranate season! A friend gave me some and so I stuck them in my pot for color! We lack any Fall color here yet on our property because even the leaves on our Chinese Pistache tree have not started to turn. But, strangely, our paperwhite narcissus are up and blooming! Go Figure!

Around the corner in front of the home of my friend and fellow crazy quilter, Sandy, are two gorgeous maple trees that have turned every color of the Fall rainbow I think. They vary from a deep dark burgundy to a bright yellow. There will still be some leaves on those 2 trees at Thanksgiving. I know because when our girls were younger and we had Turkey Day here, they would go around the corner and pick leaves from those trees to decorate our table on Thanksgiving morning.

Fall is the time of the year that I love to bake Mum's Gingerbread. For as long as I can recall, she made this recipe of gingerbread, so it must have come from somewhere back in the 1940's or very early 1950's. I think also that this might be the 2nd thing I learned to make - the first being Brownies I think.

Mum would serve this to company warmed and topped with whipped cream and it's also good with a lemon sauce over the top. I would eat it as an after school snack split horizontally and spread with butter. It's also suitable to put plain in kids lunches. It's low in sugar and all 3 of my girls loved it.

So, let's get on with the gingerbread, a perfect Fall snack or dessert!

LULU'S GINGERBREAD

2 C. Flour

1-1/2 t. Baking Soda

1 t. ground Cinnamon

1 t. ground Ginger

1/2 t. ground Cloves

1/2 t. Salt

1/2 C. granulated sugar

1/2 C. Crisco or other shortening

1 Egg

1/2 C. light or milk Molasses

1 C. very hot Water

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Prepare an 8 inch square pan by spraying it with cooking spray or greasing.
• Sift the flour, soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and salt onto wax paper.
• In a medium size bowl, cream the sugar and shortening
• Add the egg and then the molasses.
• Add in the sifted dry ingredients and beat until smooth-it will be rather thick.
• Add in the hot water and carefully blend in. The batter will be thin!
• Pour batter into your prepared pan and bake for 35 min. or less. Use toothpick inserted in center to determine doneness. Be careful about not letting the edges burn!

NOTES:

-This recipe can be doubled for a 9" x 13" pan.

-When preparing baking pan, I usually shake a bit of sugar on sides and bottom after spraying.

-Next time I make this I am thinking of adding some blueberries in before baking. If I do that and we like it, I will add a note here to let you know. I really like the flavour combo of ginger and blueberries.