Remember this?

         This was taken today from an upstairs window.  It is so pretty, but oh my, so early.  Any way, it encouraged me to get back in the kitchen after  two or three days in a hibernating stupor.  It is potato cabbage soup with pepper bacon today.  I don't use recipes for soups.  I think if we had a food truck, it would be Soups On and that is what would be the main thing served.  Stews would come under that heading along with good and unusual breads and desserts. The trouble is, I don't feel like cooking every day, so I guess the food truck is just a cozy thought.  Actually I am very content at this point in my life.

Potato/cabbage soup with pepper bacon.  

I've also made cranberry sauce with blackberry creme de mures sauvages and some left over red wine.  It tastes so delicious.  I was thinking as I tasted it that it would be good in little hand pies.

      

Still Baking~

I don't know what is wrong.  This blog has a mind of its own and I can't seem to control it or my urge to be in the kitchen baking this week.  I tried to get the pictures and recipes on the last post but they refused to cooperate, so here is another new post to accommodate my second best recipe from a little booklet full of cookie recipes from a former travel companion and frequent visitor here at Many Branches.  Every recipe from this forum has been delicious and easy and coconut crisps are no exception. While I was doing the cookies I also put in a chicken pot pie for the family.  It is from scratch and looks to be something to look forward to.

Before the addition of the puff pastry crust.

These cookies are delicious especially the next day.  This recipe is a keeper.

Coconut crisp cookies:

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 jumbo egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup sifted flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup coconut

Cream butter.  Add sugars gradually, mixing well.  Add egg and vanilla. Beat until light and fluffy. Sift together dry ingredients and add to creamed mixture.  Stir in rolled oats and coconut.  Use an ice cream scoop to drop cookies on baking sheet.  350 for 12-15 minutes.  Remember crisp.

 

Many Branches holidays~ and more cookies

Yesterday after baking the best batch of butterscotch dessert cookies I ever produced, I was sitting at my computer picturing this latest baking endeavor when the UPS man appeared outside with a package.  The dogs barked a hello and I looked up and there was Tim Green, a former student at my school and one I liked very much.  I thought he had left UPS and I thought he had no hair, but there he was with hair grinning his usual charming grin and I thought COOKIES.  I was still in my night attire, but I some how HAD to give Tim cookies.  I rushed to the kitchen grabbed a freshly bagged sack of cookies and started running and screaming down the long driveway--he was too fast for me or maybe that is why he was running and jumping into the open cab and strapping himself in to get away from this crazy woman in a nightgown trying to give him cookies.  It wasn't Tim.

We are ahead of the decorating game.

In for a penny, in for a pound soup~

Don't look at the clock.  I am having a gin and tonic EARLY today.  I have been in the kitchen all day and I have officially lost my ever-cookin mind. It started off innocently enough a whole chicken in a crock pot with onions, carrots, celery and anything else that needed using while I cleaned out the frig. Yes, I did that too. Then I spotted a second crock pot and a Rose's ham and fresh green beans...well that had to go in the second crock pot with potatoes and more carrots and leeks.  The first chicken finished and I popped in the second in the same pot with fresh vegetables and cooled the first chicken to strip it from its bones.  I am tired writing about this.  In the frig was some cold rice, so I made a skillet of chicken fried rice,  Uh oh, I saw potatoes and some pepper bacon--German potato resulted from that forage. You see where this is going? In between leg aches I searched the Internet for lemon cookie recipes and resorted to one that I got from a friend the first year I taught.  I was nineteen with my first full time teaching job, just a few years older than my students.  I had sense enough not to try to make those delicious cookies then, but with less sense now, yep, I took that on too while my leg cried and promised to be good if I would just STOP.  Andy finally took over and unloaded the two dishwashers which I had crammed full during the day.  Here's a drink, he said, sit down and watch Judge Judy. "But the pinto beans and ham, Andy."  "They will keep," was his wise reply.  He saw the wildness that pops into my eyes, unsummoned but relentless, before a cooking holiday. You think that is the end?  For some reason as I grow older I cannot waste food, or in this case stock.  I started a soup with the green bean stock that was so rich I just could not throw it away.  I started a catch all soup for dinner and believe me if I could have made it in the kitchen sink, it would have been a part of this soup.  It has everything in it one could think of and I only hope the family likes it because if not I will have to turn it into something else and I am exhausted...there is still the second chicken to de bone, Ahh, the heck with it.  Pop it in the frig. Look. I have begun to relax.

Wednesday:
Okay, having recovered, I baked my favorite cookie today, doubling the recipe so I don't have to have the extra exertion.  This is the one I sent to Cook's Corner for their annual holiday cookie inset in the Columbus Dispatch.  It's not a looker, but oh my gosh is it a cake-like tasty treat. (I think I have posted this recipe before, but if you want it, just email me at dorislechler@aol.com.)  I always answer emails, but I am less diligent at answering the phone. Subject line: Butterscotch Dessert Cookies.

Look at Carol D.'s coffee station.  You must see how cute it is.
She wants the butterscotch dessert cookie recipe, so I will get it on here today, after the kitchen is back in order.

                                         

• 

Carol's coffee station.  Perfect.
                                     

Butterscotch dessert cookies...recipe below.

Beth brought this lovely piece of furniture to us and it fits perfectly on the porch for the drinks accouterments and now for cookie storage. It is a three season porch and perfect for cookies and other chilled items as well as for drink assemblage; everything is at hand, but I will have to get the organizer to arrange this pretty piece.  Thanks, Beth...I'll bake you arrange. LOL

Butterscotch Dessert Cookies
Today I doubled the recipe but I did not double the frosting and I had plenty of icing without the double.  The cookie is so good, you'll need to double it to please everyone.  Watch and don't over bake.  I found between 8 and 9 minutes at 400 to be right for my convection oven.

Without doubling it yields 3 dozen and that is what I am giving you in this post (not doubled.)
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
2 large or jumbo eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 cups sifted flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp. soda
1 cup sour cream
3/4 cup chopped nuts (I do not put nuts in this excellent cookie.)

Cream together butter and sugar, add eggs and vanilla.  Beat until light and fluffy.  Sift together flour, salt, baking powder, soda.  Add dry ingredients with sour cream to butter and sugar mixture.  Mix well but not for long, making sure ingredients are thoroughly combined.  Add nuts if you wish. CHILL.  Drop by ice cream scoop onto a baking sheet--I sprayed it, but I don't think it is necessary, about 2 inches a part. Bake 400 for 8-9 minutes.  WATCH them.Cool and frost with:
6 tablespoons butter--let it turn light brown...watch it
3 cups sifted powdered sugar
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp maple flavoring
1/4 cup hot water
Beat it and then frost

LikeWhere the goodies are....

An American Thanksgiving~

It is going to be a real party here starting the Wednesday before Thanksgiving Day. All the beds will be filled and cooking will be a-foot.  Pam, George, and Andy's brother Jimmy are coming in early to help.  Jimmy, for his photography class, will shoot a picture tableau of an American family's Thanksgiving preparations and celebration. He and Andy take college classes during their retirement. Then Brooks and Alyssa arrive home from their schools so the house will be a-poppin. I love a full busy house. Plus, we have a lot to be thankful for this year.

What we enjoy doing is turning the two turkeys over to George who is the turkey wrestler.  We buy two turkeys to prepare one for the occasion and one to be cut up for guests to take home so they have Thanksgiving left overs to enjoy.  While this is going on I get two or three hot dips going in the oven and we feed George tidbits while he is working so hard. So then, what to have for lunch.  It must be easy because people will be going to the airport to pick up the students as well as all kinds of coming and going. This year I have fixed a favorite of George's, ox tails over buttered noodles.  I will have a second dish for those who do not care for that country comfort. I have started the cookie making, so they will be a quick pick up for dessert.

This recipe is the next on the baking menu.  For some reasons raspberries were cheap for the last two weeks. NOTE: I made two double batches of these this morning.  Very easy, very pretty, but have not tasted.

Raspberry Crumb Bars

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 35 minutes

Yield: 9 - 12 bars

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup rolled oats (old fashioned)
• 1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup raspberry jam, seedless if preferred

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8 by 8-inch baking dish with aluminum foil, leaving a 2-inch overhang of foil on two sides. Grease foil.
• In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. Stir in oats and brown sugar, and use clean fingertips as needed to break up brown sugar clumps. Add butter, and using fingertips, work butter into mixture until evenly moistened.
• Add 2 cups of the oat mixture to the prepared baking dish and press into an even layer. Spread raspberry jam into an even layer over oat layer, coming within 1/4-inch of all edges. Sprinkle top evenly with remaining oat mixture, then slightly press into jam layer.
• Bake in preheated oven until golden brown, about 34 - 38 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely before cutting into squares. Store in an airtight container.
• Recipe Source: adapted from allrecipes

Wed. dinner:
Then for dinner, we will have take out Chinese or pizza because by then we will sick of the kitchen and the food that is in it.  Everyone will have jobs.  I am turning over the long table setting and decorations to someone else this year.  There should be around 24 place settings.  The drinks are on the porch along with the cheese trays, dips, & balls.

George, last year on the porch with one of the roaster turkeys. He is a master carver too.

The long table from last year. 

Another table in the same room.

Holiday baking has begun~

The recipe is Mrs. Field's chocolate chip recipe.  It makes a ton and I used chunk white chocolate and cappuccino chips with pecans instead of chocolate chips. The cappuccino chips are new to me and very good.  They are from King Arthur.  The white chocolate hunks or small squares are from the same source.  Beth always celebrates her birthday with pancakes, so after we go out for that tradition I am going to try the same recipe with home made applesauce and some other delicious goodies--what ever I lay hands on in the baking cupboard. I have not made cookies for years because they are so time consuming, but I found if I put everything on a tray and have it ready and at room temperature, things run a little smoother.  On the 22nd of this month Cook's Corner will have their cookie recipe inset in the Columbus Dispatch.  Several pages of reader's favorite cookie recipe.  I put one in for consideration called dessert cookie which is a cake like country cookie with a burnt sugar topping. 
                                    

                                                 

I am making a second batch tomorrow and adding home made apple sauce to this recipe and maybe raisins instead of the other goodies.

ABOVE: Same batter but with home made applesauce.  This makes it more cake like.

These are just like Mrs. Fields...makes 112 cookies."

Ingredients:

2 cups butter, softened 2 cups white sugar 2 cups packed brown sugar 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons baking powder 2 teaspoons baking soda

4 eggs 4 cups all-purpose flour 5 cups rolled oats 4 cups semisweet chocolate chips 8 ounces finely grated chocolate bar 3 cups chopped walnuts

Directions:

1.	Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
2.	Cream together butter or margarine, white sugar, and brown sugar. Add eggs and vanilla.
3.	Mix together in a separate bowl: salt, baking powder, baking soda, flour and oatmeal (put small amounts of oatmeal in blender until it turns to powder. Measure out 5 cups of oatmeal and only "powderize" that, NOT 5 cups "powderized" oatmeal).
4.	Mix all of the above.
5.	Add: chocolate chips, grated chocolate bar, and chopped nuts (any kind).
6.	Bake on greased cookie sheet (make golf ball sized balls) and bake about two inches apart. Bake for 8 -10 minutes. Do not over bake. Note:There are many recipes for Mrs. Field's cookies but this is the one I use. I have a hankering to try lamb shanks. (Hankering? Where did that come from?)  I don't know why.  I think it is because our friends in Chevy Chase always ordered them when we ate out after an antiques show.  I am on the look out for recipes although it does not seem too complicated. I guess any shanks would do, but I have found that now the prices of ox tails and shanks have risen to steak level for some reason.  It is practically all bone, so why the price escalation? One butcher in Cincinnati said it would be about $10. a pound.  I said forget it, I missed that boat.

Columbus stores~

Wild Wonders. Delicious

For some reason I have been to many stores in the last couple of weeks and believe me I have been shocked.  For instance I have been thinking about a new coat.  I have several but have not bought any for years.  When I wanted a coat or two for the London and Paris winter outdoor antiques markets I always went to Burlington Coat Factory at Graceland Shopping Center...yes, that's a long time ago because the store has been gone for years.  At Burlington I also bought at that time, jeans (as tips) for people in London and Paris because the jeans were so expensive over there and so cheap here that they really enjoyed the treat of a new pair or two of jeans. (They also got whiskey and smokes as well.) So, Beth and I decided to go to Burlington at Sawmill and route 161.  I have rarely been as shocked as I was when I entered the store.  Beth was parking the car or I would have backed out and run.  The place was a total dirty mess.  It looked like a bomb had gone off.  The store was packed with people and kids running wild.  People were throwing merchandise in the aisles and on tops of racks. People tripping over boots in the aisle, but not stopping to pick them up. All the clerks were at the cash registers and no one was walking the area to contain the mayhem. The sizes were all mixed together so one had to look at each tag, most of the stuff was on wrong racks to begin with.  If you were looking for a coat you might run into a pair of pajamas between two coats.  It was dark and stuffy and just plain unpleasant. We got out of there plenty fast.

And what is it with the dark stores?  Andy and I went to Kroger's on Morse Road to get his bus ticket and to look for packets of Cincinnati (or Skyline) chili seasoning.  It was so dark in there I could hardly see the merchandise and several people commented about it... maybe because I kept pointing it out.

On the other hand the Meijer store at Cleveland Avenue and route 161, where you might expect it to look run down, was a glowing example of how a store should look.  I complimented each and every person I saw with a red vest or shirt.  It was a super delight...bright lights, clean and waxed floors which they do over every night, excellent shelving, beautiful produce, happy workers, and organized within an inch of its life.  I loved it and was totally surprised by it. Again, I had not been in that store for years, but I plan to go back.  The only thing that shocked me was the price of their paper products like cards and gift bags.  The price shocked the clerk when I asked him to check to see if a empty gift back was really $5.49.  He checked at the register and it was. Oh, I forgot to say their books and magazine section was outstanding and it was at the front of the store.  It is a large store, so I did not get to the middle or the far back; I was too busy enjoying what I could see and get to in a hurry.  Good for them, good for us.

Writing about good, now that our tomatoes are done for, we tried Meijer's Wild Wonders tomatoes--a bit larger than cherry tomatoes and in wild colors of yellow, red and plum.  They have so much flavor.  If you crave tomatoes during the cold season or fall, try this Sunset product. They are greenhouse grown and full of tasty goodness.

Today I made two large baking dishes of lasagna, one for tonight's dinner and one for the first meal on Thanksgiving day.  I like to use Bob Evan's zesty sausage in my lasagna and today I put in some pepper bacon and baby egg plant.  In a skillet I brown the bacon, egg plant, sausage, onions, yellow peppers.  In a bowl I use small curd cottage cheese, 2 eggs, fresh herbs, salt, pepper some other seasonings to place in between the layers.  I use Carfagna's basil tomato sauce with layers of different kinds of cheeses, using up left overs from cheese boards and that from shredded cheese bags. I bake the lasagna low and slow. I then cool the one for Thanksgiving and freeze it... when it is warmed on the day of its use, it cuts into squares beautifully.  It is what restaurants do to get those nice clean edges. Bake it now, cut it later.

Take a look at this site.  I want to try lamb shanks and never got around to it. David Lebovitz Coffee-Braised Lamb Shanks - Tasty lamb shanks braised in coffee and lively ancho chile, a Paleo recipe inspired by Joshua Weissman of Slim Palate .

R A M Romote Area Medical, my passion

Years ago Andy and I watched Wild Kingdom and laughed because the star, Merlin Perkins who was older, used to send this big strapping guy on ahead to wrestle the lions, tame the snakes and do the dirty work.  This man, the greater of the two, saw the need to service rural America when he retired  with free medical care.  People line up two days in advance and wait to receive one of the sought after numbers (1600 for the day.) They stay through rain and bad weather afraid to lose their spot in line to get a number. Hundreds  are turned away to wait another day or year hoping to be one of the lucky ones next time.    I have heard and seen the information on many needy organizations and used to actually rebel against United Way, because the money wandered here and there and sometimes got in the wrong pockets and serviced some organizations that needed to service themselves.  100% of the money you give R A M  goes to the rural America citizens of OUR country.  I am from rural America and I can say these people are among the most honest, helpful people you would ever want to meet. When I die, I don't want flowers, I want the money to go to R A M.  I don't want birthday or Christmas presents, I want the money to service rural Americans who are truly in need of free medical care. The volunteer doctors and nurses and workers take no salary and enjoy no luxuries while serving the needy.  This is the most worthy cause that I have ever encountered.  This is the cause that people like the Kardashions, who gave a one year old baby a $60,000 one of a kind purse for her first birthday, should be supporting. (That money could have bought 6 more dental stations.)  It is simply unconscionable to think these kinds of things go on in America while we nanny the rest of the world and the celebrities nanny themselves.

Mobile Clinics: Stan Brock founder and president

Remote Area Medical provides medical care through mobile clinic events in under served, isolated, or impoverished communities. Most clinics provide general medical, dental, vision, preventive care, and education unless otherwise indicated such as veterinarian services. Find a clinic near you here:

On line...

RAMUSA.org

or

Mail gifts to:

RAM

2200 Stock Creek Blvd

Rockford, TN 37853

or

call gift in: 865 579 1530


Recently, 60 Minutes heard about an American relief organization that airdrops doctors and medicine into the jungles of the Amazon. It's called Remote Area Medical, or "RAM" for short.

As correspondent Scott Pelley first reported last March, Remote Area Medical sets up emergency clinics where the needs are greatest. But these days that's not the Amazon. This charity founded to help people who can't reach medical care finds itself throwing America a lifeline.


In a matter of hours, Remote Area Medical set up its massive clinic, for a weekend, in an exhibit hall in Knoxville, Tenn. Tools for dentists were laid out by the yard, optometrists prepared to make hundreds of pairs of glasses, general medical doctors set up for whatever might come though the door. Nearly everything is donated, and everyone is a volunteer. The care is free. But no one could say how many patients might show up.

The first clue came a little before midnight, when Stan Brock, the founder of Remote Area Medical, opened the gate outside. The clinic wouldn't open for seven hours, but people in pain didn't want to chance being left out. State guardsmen came in for crowd control. They handed out what would become precious slips of paper - numbered tickets to board what amounted to a medical lifeboat.

It was 27 degrees. The young and the old would spend the night in their cars, running the engine for heat, but not much - not at $3 a gallon. At 5 a.m., Pelley took a walk through the parking lot.

"We got up at three o'clock this morning and we got here about four. We've been out where a little while it's cold," Margaret Walls, a hopeful patient from
Tennessee, told Pelley.

"Why did you come so early?" Pelley asked.

"'Cause we wanted to be seen," Walls replied.

Marty Tankersley came with his wife and his daughter, asleep behind the front seats. Tankersley says he drove some 200 miles to get to the clinic and slept in the parking lot for hours.

"Just to have this done?" Pelley asked.

"Yes, sir. I've been in some very excruciating pain," he replied.

Tankersley had an infected tooth that had been killing him for weeks. Most of the people who filled the lot heard about the clinic on the news or by word of mouth, and they came by the hundreds.

Note:  I have been searching for the negative on R A M  and have come up empty.  I am glad to have received their catalogue in the mail today because after the 60 Minutes story on this organization years ago, I had lost contact after having sent a check. It was like Christmas for me today to receive word from them through the catalogue telling me this was not a flash in the pan, they are still doing their good work and even expanding. I have sent them another check today.  Bless all their hearts.