A collection of the blooming daffodils from our yard.

Flowers feed my soul. The beauty of them calms & centers me. The scent brightens my mood & brings a smile to my face.

My roses are blooming their heads off.

Knowing the importance of flowers to me, I have always filled my yard with them. With a fairly new house & yard, there are lots of nooks begging for flowers to be planted in them. Last year, I was too overcome with grief to add more than a handful to the yard. But this year, I have felt Jim nudging me to plant. He has been reminding me that one of the reasons we bought the house was all the places it had that I could plant flowers. It has seemed that the plants themselves are echoing Jim.

Even though it was a 3 year old plant tuber, I got ONE bloom all of last year from this peony plant.

I planted lily bulbs last year in pots. A mixture of Oriental lilies & Asiatic lilies caught my eye last year & I brought them home. Carefully planted them in pots & watched & waited. Nothing! Most of them didn’t even sprout any greenery! The ones that did only grew about 4-5 inches tall & refused to do anything else. The pots were as barren as my soul. But this year — all those barren pots have grown lily plants! They vary in size but all of the pots are full of lush green stalks. They are also loaded with flower bulbs. I no longer remember which bulbs were planted in which pots so it will be delightful surprise after surprise as they bloom.

THIS is one of pots of lilies that didn't even sprout last year!

Having watched all of this and knowing my feelings about flowers, Sarah bought me plants for Mother’s Day. While we were having our enjoyable day together yesterday, we went round to several places & I picked out flowers. There is a strip between the ditch at the bottom of the hilly front yard and the road that is a pain to mow or weedeat. My plan is to eliminate that strip of weeds with a little grass. Slowly I’m replacing the unruly weeds with daylilies.

The lily bulbs had multipled so much, one of the bulbs was forced up in the air. So it grew sideways & produced this lovely flower.

I’m not planting your common orange daylilies. I’m planting glorious reds, yellow, fragile pinks & bi-colors. I picked out 2 different colors of daylilies. Kept eyeballing some Knockout Roses. Everybody keeps telling me they need very little care. I’m about to find out! I picked out 2 of them & they are going to join the daylilies in transforming that ugly weedy strip into a thing of beauty.

Jim & fish big enough to keep!

My heart is shattered & as you can imagine, I can’t concentrate on writing. My life was immensely enriched by being a part of Jim’s life. Even though I knew it was coming as he had been battling bladder, lung & brain cancer for sometime, his death is devastating. To put it mildly, I had been so hopeful of a miracle & periodically scoured the internet for new breakthroughs on the treatment of cancer.

Jim was one of the finest men I have ever known. He was full of life & love. His sense of humor was marvelous & he dearly loved pulling practical pranks. Jim was always telling me that he was NOT a patient man, but I saw few signs of that in our lives. Maybe it was just because it was me & his love for me, but he was seldom upset here.

Jim dancing to music

With the exception of when he was on a dose of steroids for the brain cancer! If you’re familiar with steroids, you’ll know what I’m talking about. He asked the hospice nurse if something could be done about it. In his usual humorous way, he pointed out that while he was quite sure he must be justified in some way, he had no doubt Sarah & I would appreciate it if he was toned down some.

The truth is his patience with Sarah & me was infinite. We had some issues to work out when we combined households, but we worked them out. Humor was always the key. Jim’s humor.

Sarah, Jim and myself

There is so much I will miss about Jim. His smile when he would catch sight of me. His grin. The way he laughed. The way he would tell  me a thousand things with his eyes. The pranks he pulled. You never knew when a green wooly worm would fall in your face. The way he trusted me. The safe & secure way he made me feel. When he put his arms around me, it was like putting on a security blanket.

We could be having a serious conversation somewhere with one of these medical folks & I would look up & Jim would wink at me. It always made me smile. When my friend Shannon wanted me to take cake decorating classes with her, Jim pushed me to do it. It was fun & he was always enthusiastic about whatever I was working on.

After I started this blog, sometimes I would look over to his desk & see him reading on it. <G> The biggest fan I ever had on anything I ever did was Jim. He was very supportive without being pushy. There are a million & one things I could say about this very dear man. They all boil down to one thing, he was the love of my life & will be dearly missed.

He came home from chemo wearing his madri gras finery they passed out at the chemo lab. (2008)

Jim clowning around after one of his chemo sessions.

Finished Chocolate Butter Cake

Luckily, thanks to yesterday’s baking, I just happen to have a chocolate cake handy! From several other projects, I just happened to have some leftovers to use so I could ice the cake fast. The refrigerator spilled out both chocolate icing & chocolate marshmallow filling. Yum. So I stuck the 2 cake layers together using the chocolate marshmallow filling & frosted it with the chocolate icing I had. The icing was Chocolate Syrup Icing & has a deep chocolate flavor, but is a soft icing. But I wasn’t interested in doing roses on the cake so that was ok. Later in the evening, Sarah & I properly celebrated National Chocolate Cake Day with a slice of the cake.

This was the Chocolate Butter Cake from Whimisical Bakehouse Cookbook. It’s a very lovely chocolate cake for everyday usage. The recipe is definitely a keeper & I have no doubt I’ll be using it again. Probably for a friend’s cake later this week.

Mixing up the chocolate glaze.

After icing our cake, I turned my attention to the small heart cakes. I didn’t want to ice them. When I had been drooling over all the lovely things in my book, Whimisical Bakehouse Cookbook, I had noticed a Chocolate Glaze they say they use a great deal in their bakery. I can see being able to do all kinds of things with it so naturally I had to try it. Turn to page 39 for this delicious chocolate glaze.

I followed the directions carefully, but I did leave out the step of straining it before using it. I’m not expecting perfection in the smoothness of the glaze because of skipping that step, but I’ll get a good feel for making it & even more importantly the taste of it.

As you can see, even without straining it, the glaze covered the cake nicely.

Even without straining it, it poured very nicely over the small cakes. I had a couple of uniced cream cheese cookies left & poured the glaze over one of them. The cookie was not a success. First of all, the glaze did not set up well enough to be used on a cookie. Cakes are eaten with a fork; cookies are not. Secondly, the heat from the glaze softened the cookie too much. If you bake your cookies crisp, it might not be a problem. Mine are on the soft side so being softened more did not give a good texture taste.

Just a few frills.

I melted a few candy melts in a baggie in the microwave & quickly added a few finishing touches to the small cakes. Easy peasy as the saying goes. Naturally, I was curious about both the cake & the glaze. Gave the glaze approximately an hour to dry. Then Sarah & I tasted them. I miss Jim’s help as he was my best taste tester, but right now sweets don’t get along with him. I liked the glaze; Sarah did not. Now Sarah is a VERY picky eater so I don’t worry about it if she doesn’t like something. However, I know I have a huge hit on my hands if she DOES like it. <G>

Drained macaroni

With all of Jim’s health problems, it’s no wonder I’ve been craving all kinds of comfort foods. Sarah’s been wanting me to fix some macaroni & cheese for awhile now so I’ve decided to get to it. I have several macaroni & cheese recipes I use depending on the cheeses I have onhand & which one I feel will suit my tastes better at the time. Some of them are very simple & easy with only 1 cheese involved; some are more complicated & use several cheeses. Today, I don’t want to have to pick up more cheese & just want a simple basic macaroni & cheese. As usual, I have cheddar cheese onhand.

Layered macaroni, cheese, & cracker crumbs just needing milk poured over them.

That’s why I went with the simplest & most basic one I have. Once again, I’m using one of my great-grandmother’s, Mama Bobo. Cook 2 cups of macaroni in boiling, salted water until it’s tender. Drain the macaroni. Grease a 2-quart casserole dish. Place 1/4 of the macaroni in the casserole dish  & pepper it to taste. Taking 2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese & 2 cups of crushed cracker crumbs, layer a 1/4 of the cheese over the macaroni & cover with 1/4 of the cracker crumbs. Continue this until all ingredients have been used. Then pour 2 1/2 cups of milk over the layers in the casserole dish. Place in a 350 oven, uncovered & bake for 50 minutes. Try to refrain from eating it until it has cooled enough you won’t burn your tongue!

Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers with parmesan cheese

Tonight I did something different. I usually use the whole wheat Ritz crackers for the cracker crumbs. We have some Pepperidge Farm goldfish crackers that are made with parmesan cheese. Nobody in the family has liked them that much. Not wanting to waste them, I decided to use them for making the macaroni & cheese. You wouldn’t think such a small detail would matter, but frankly, we liked it even better than usual. I have some more of those crackers left so will try it again & see if they do work better or if it was just we were so hungary.

Oops. Somebody has already been in the mac & cheese!

After we got him back home, it was a struggle to get him to eat anything. He had no appetite. Nothing tasted right. Even foods that he’s always loved tasted funny to him. I did have pretty good luck getting him to eat breakfast. So we started having eggs for breakfast 97% of the time.

I started off scrambling the eggs out of sneakiness. Breakfast was the only meal I could get down him & he was woefully underweight. He would ask me for 2 eggs every morning so I would scramble them. I scrambled them because that way he couldn’t tell how many eggs he got. I took advantage of that to fix him 3 eggs every morning. During much of this time, he would only eat breakfast so it was vital to get quite a bit of nutrition into him.

Then came the morning he admitted he would rather have his eggs fried! Oh oh, I was in a mess. He still wasn’t eating that well but there was no way I could sneak 3 fried eggs on his plate and him not know it. I did the only thing I could think to do. I confessed. He looked at me like I was crazy, laughed & said “Then I guess I want 3 fried eggs. That’s been working good! Let’s not change it.” Sometimes you get off easy when you’ve been sneaky!

Freshly cracked egg is cooking in iron skillet. Notice the translucency of the while.

Sunny side-up egg is ready to be slipped on the plate. Notice how opague the egg white is.

Both of us like our eggs sunny side-up. There’s not an easier egg to fry than a sunny side-up egg. Heat your skillet up to a low-medium heat. I always use my medium sized iron skillet for eggs. Carefully tap the egg on the side of the skillet and when it cracks open, slip the egg into the melted butter. I find a teaspoonful of butter will cook 3-4 eggs in a well seasoned iron skillet so you’re not using much fat. Cook the egg over the low-medium heat until the whites are completely set & opaque. Slide the flexible pancake turner under the egg and carefully slip the egg onto the waiting plate.

Three sunny side-up eggs & ham

It only takes a couple of minutes per egg. In no time, you have a plateful of eggs. Add toast, biscuit or a bagel and you have a delicious breakfast. About half of the time, I’ll fix some kind of a meat but the rest of the time we just eat the eggs & bread. Occasionally, for a treat, I’ll cook some hashbrowns and add them to our plate. As you can see, it’s not at all time consuming to fix a solid breakfast.

However, this is different & was easy. We have a pass through window between our kitchen and den. Right underneath the window, in the den sits a long bookcase. I have a rather extensive village collection and decided that that would be just the spot to set the village up. I could use the shelf from the window and the top of the bookcase and most of it could be set up.

First thing, I decided was that a 2 X 4 piece of plywood was needed so I could set up ALL of the village instead of picking and choosing pieces. With the help of a nice employee at Home Depot, I picked out a piece that was thick enough and sturdy enough to serve the purpose. Arranged the businesses, houses and churches to my satisfaction on top of some “snow”. Was going to arrange the people, cars and all the accessories later & was just enjoying how nicely that set up was going to work.

Snowflakes on Blue Felt

Jim came in & got very enthused about the whole thing. We sat & talked about it & were generally pleased with it. Then, my darling husband made the suggestion that I ought to hang a dark sheet or piece of material in the window so it would look like a night sky behind the village. I liked that idea tremenously except for the sheet part.

A trip to Hancock’s, the local fabric store, was needed. Found some lovely deep blue felt that would serve just the purpose. Took it home & we tried stamping stars on it with gold paint & a star made out of sponge. We had used the technique in Sarah’s bedroom and it worked great. It did not work well at all on the felt. So off to Hobby Lobby I went to find something suitable to use as stars.

Closeup of the snowflakes.

Wandered the aisles and wasn’t having any luck at all. However, I did find some interesting snowflakes that I thought would work. Made use of the cell phone to consult with Jim and the decision was made to go with snowflakes.

Brought them home, got out the hot glue gun & set to work. This is one time I have to admit that my vision & the result of the craft came out close enough that I was pleased with the result. Keep this in mind if you’re not always pleased with the results when you’re cooking. Sometimes you just have to keep trying.

The village as it was set up with the sky.

Turkey Wild Rice Soup

Seems like a good day for soup. I have a recipe for soup I’m wanting to test. Sounds like a good combination. I know what we’re having for supper. Hope it’ll be good.

I heat the broth, water, green onions & wild rice together in a large pot until the rice is tender. In the meantime, I cook bacon until it is crisp. After it has cooled, I crumble the bacon into small pieces & set it aside.

In a medium pot, melt some margarine. Once it’s melted, stir in flour, salt, pepper & poultry seasoning. Stir this mixture while cooking until it is bubbly and smooth. Stir in half and half and continue cooking until the mixture is thickened. Add the mixture slowly to the rice mixture & stir. Add the cooked & diced turkey, bacon crumbles & a little sherry. Once it is heated to eating temperature, serve it.

Jim loved the soup and I was really pleased with it. It’s different from your usual turkey soup and quite tasty. I sprinkled goldfish crackers in mine when eating it. Yum. This is sure to be a new family favorite.

This is a recipe I just recently got off the internet which is why I didn’t post the measurements. When I find the source for it, I will add a link to it.

Leftover roasted chicken being cut up for Wild Rice Chicken Soup.

Have some roasted chicken left over from the other night. Have this hankering for a pot of soup. Good combination. Start the search first through my recipes to see if anything strikes my fancy. If it doesn’t, I’ll move onto hunting a new chicken soup recipe.

Ah! Wild Rice & Chicken Soup. Hmm, sounds like I have the one! Pull the medium crockpot down & start throwing ingredients in there. First thing I do is start cutting the chicken off the bones & cutting it up into bite-sized pieces. Then I slice my celery and baby carrots. Baby carrots aren’t required. I simply have started keeping baby carrots since I can usually find them for the same price as regular carrots. (Less cutting is required for them.)

The mushrooms are rinsed & easily sliced. All the vegetables are now in the crockpot. I add the can of soup & stir throughly. Start adding the chicken broth & discover I have a problem. I have miscalculated how big this batch is! Pull down the large crockpot & transfer all the ingredients into it. Finish adding the required chicken broth & water. Turn the crockpot on to the low setting & leave it alone.

Bowl of the finished Wild Rice Chicken Soup

Left it alone all afternoon to cook while I worked on other things. Soup is another one of those foods that I consider a comfort food–especially on cool days and evenings. Once it’s ready, Jim is in the soup  several times before going to bed. Even though I know better, he swears he’s never had the soup before. Tells me it’s the best soup he’s ever had. However, that’s not the first time I’ve heard that so let’s just say he really likes this soup.

Wild Rice and Chicken Soup
1 can cream of mushroom soup            1 cup celery
2½ cups chopped cooked chicken        1 6 oz. pkg. long grain & wild rice mix
2 cups sliced fresh mushrooms            5 cups chicken broth
1 cup coarsely chopped carrots            5 cups water

In crock pot combine soup, chicken, mushrooms, carrot, celery, rice and contents of seasoning packet. Gradually stir in broth and water. Cover and cook on low setting for 6 hours.

Ground Sirloin

Hamburger steak is one of those comfort foods that Jim really likes. It’s also a very simple food item to fix that doesn’t require being accurate in measurements.

I always start with at least 1 pound of ground chuck. If I can find it reasonably priced, I go for ground sirloin for more taste with less fat content. Add salt & pepper to your taste. Those are the basics. Then I add chopped onion; how much onion depends on the mood I’m in. Some nights I add just a couple of tablespoons of onion for just a hint of onion. If I’m really in the mood for onion I’ll add ½ cup of onions. You don’t want the taste of onion to be overwhelming so I don’t suggest more than that amount. If your ground meat doesn’t seem to want to stick together to make a patty, add 1 egg. Then divide into 2 to 4 patties depending on the number of patties you want. Lightly pat the ground steak together into an oblong shape. Place in a heated iron skillet on medium & cook to your preferred degree of done. Jim likes his more well done than I do so I always start cooking his before mine. That way both patties finish cooking at the same time & we both get our hamburger steak fixed to our taste.

Jim

If you want to add toppings, it’s a simple thing to saute a mixture of onions & green peppers, onions & mushrooms or just mushrooms while the hamburger steaks cook. After the hamburger steaks have cooked, use the drippings to make gravy to top them with if you’re a gravy fan. As you can see, it’s easy to dress this comfort food up several different ways to suit anybody’s taste.

Hamburger steak ready to serve, just add vegetables.