YAHOO!!!!! I MADE IT!!!!!!

Hi ya'll,
I made it to the end of the school year!  I have had no life, not even able to read your blogs, or call or do Face Book, during the last semester.  I have no idea if any of you have won the lottery, had another baby, went on a cruise or flew to the moon.  In fact, I feel like I have been on the moon since being separated from you like this.  At times I felt like I could not go another step, but God pulled me through, and here I am six hours and 30 minutes after the last bell rang still at school.  I am heading home, even though I have a few papers to grade and get in the gradebook--to heck with it.  Well, it has been a test of endurance for this "Old School" home economics teacher here at this AAA high school, and it has been a year of rebuilding, but it has been worth it.  Next year will be easier.  My next project is to get my home computer fixed.  It crashed Monday, but soon I will be checking up on everyone.  Later.

OUT OF THIS WORLD FUDGE TOPPING!

I am home recovering from the flu, and am barely able to do anything.  I feel like my brain hurts right above my right eye.  It is all I can do to type up the next set of lessons for the school urchins; it looks like I will be out all week.  The only other time I was out of school a week was when Dad passed away.  I should be getting started on the next battery of questions for the kids, but I want to tell you about this fantastic fudge sauce.  We, meaning Student Council, owed one of the classes a reward for turning in the most aluminum.  I guess we are promoting obesity too--food rewards do that you know.  Anyway we made sundaes with hot fudge, and strawberries (if they wanted them).  Here it is!
OUT OF THIS WORLD FUDGE TOPPING
1 C sugar (if you really want it sweet, use 1 1/2 C)
1/2 C butter
3/4 C cocoa
1/8 tsp. salt
3/4 C evaporated milk
7 oz. marshmallow cream
1 tsp. vanilla
1 C chopped nuts

METHOD OF PREPARATION
1.  Use a 4 qt. saucepan sprayed with vegetable spray.
2.  Melt butter over low heat.
3.  Sift the cocoa into the pan, and then add the sugar, salt and milk.
4.  Add the marshmallow cream and bring to a boil.
5.  Cook and stir about 5 minutes. 
6.  Add the vanilla and the nuts.
That is how the recipe reads.  I didn't exactly follow the recipe, but waited until the mixture boiled about 3 minutes, stirred in the marshmallow cream.  And then took it off the heat, added the vanilla.
We put it on the ice cream while it was still pretty warm, and the kids loved it.  In fact I saw some of them up there at the counter, just scooping out chocolate topping. 
I wish I could say this was my invention, but I copied it out of a cookbook in a house I was renting at Alpine the summer Mom and I went down there for a week.  Enjoy!

The Best Whole Wheat Bread--ever!

Mom sent me this recipe years ago, and her hand written, plain, index card is stained with much use and yellowing with age.  Maybe some of you would like to have some healthy, tastey, whole wheat bread for a change.  Here goes!
WHOLE WHEAT BREAD submitted to some paper that Mom read by Victoia Seitz--Roundup, Montana
10 cups whole wheat flour      or      2 1/2 C
1 C oil                                   or       1/4 C
1 Tblsp. salt                           or       1 1/2 tsp.
8 C warm water                     or        2 C
5 Tblsp yeast                           or        1 Tblsp. and 1 tsp.
10 C white flour                      or        2 1/2
2 C honey                               or        1/2 C

1.  Put whole wheat flour into a big bowl, a dishpan if you are making the full recipe!
2.  Pour the warm water over the flour.
3.  Drizzle the honey over all this.
4.  Sprinkle the yeast on top of the honey, and DO NOT STIR.
5.  Place in a warm spot and cover with a moist dish towel.
     In 15 minutes to an hour many bubbles will appear as the yeast goes to work on the honey, and begins to 
     grow and produce carbon dioxide, which is the leavening agent in  bread.

6.  Now, stir and mix thoroughly; add the oil and mix some more.

7.   Begin adding the white flour and mix.  It will probably take more than 2 1/2 C.

8.  Knead for about 10 minutes.

9.  Let rise.

I like to put the dough in a Tupperware bowl, because it seems to act like a proofing oven of sorts. 

10.  Make into loaves--two for the small recipe, and who knows for the full recipe.

I noted with a purple marker on the card to add pecans and raisins before mixing in the white flour--makes it great for toast.

I also made pizza crust for the "lock-in" tonight.  STUCO officers decided that they needed to get their reports done, and they wanted to do it all tonight, so I am fixing supper for us.  This will really be a test for me, because staying up most of the night is not my idea of FUN!  The only reason I said, "Yes," is because there seems to be no time to do reports during the day.  Pray for me, and the girls. 

Forty Years Ago

Christmas Day has always been wonderful--sort of sad in a way, because I never wanted the decorations to go in a box, never wanted the preparations to end, or the anticipation to be over.  When I went off to college, I always made it home for Christmas with my folks on the Big Dry.  The last one I spent in Montana was forty years ago, and it is still special to me.  We all got up Christmas morning; Mom started handing the gifts out to everyone, and she handed me one that wasn't marked.  I eventually opened it up not really suspecting anything, and was stunned when I found  a diamond ring inside!  Bob mailed an engagement ring to my parents with a little note written on spiral notebook paper saying, "I would like for you to put this under the tree for Christmas morning and not let Rosie know about it until then.  I like to give her surprises, and I'm sure this will be the last thing she ever expects to get for Christmas, especially in Montana."  Well, we all know that girls love diamonds, and I was thrilled with this surprise!   Forty years later, I still have the ring, the note to my parents, and Bobby.  Today he and I celebrated Christmas with Robert, Marina, and little Rhys, who just turned one in November.  I can't think of a better way to celebrate a forty year anniversary.  Have a blessed day, and a wonderful new year!

DELUXE...

..How Luxury Lost Its Luster, by Dana Thomas.  Yes, I finally finished it.  Last year I read books like this to my homebound student--even read Atlas Shrugged to him.  Well, not all of it--there were parts I read only to myself.  Anyway, since moving up to the bigger 3A version of school, reading for pleasure has come to a grinding crawl, and that is one thing I do regret.   Paris Breakfasts (see Farmer's Wife's blog) mentioned Deluxe, so I took a chance and ordered it.   I loved Deluxe because it was such a revelation, such a peek inside the name-brand industry from the perfume to the purses, and how it has evolved from a small exclusive, elite industry to a mega bucks, mass production, money generating machine.   All of us who love to sport that designer logo make the industry what it is today.  I have made up my mind to never buy another "knock-off" because I do not want to help this counterfeit industry in any way.  Lots of little kids are used, yes, used to build the fakes.  Thomas interviewed someone who said, "I remember walking into an assembly plant in Thailand a couple of years ago and seeing six or seven little children, all under 10 years old, sitting on the floor assembling counterfeit leather handbags.  The owner had broken the children's legs and tied the lower leg to the thigh so the bones wouldn't mend.  He did it because the children said they wanted to go outside and play."  Now, whether this is true, I can't say.  I don't see how they could work with such pain, but even if it isn't, there are many kids, who are working in terrible conditions to produce a cheap version with a logo that people want.  Things do seem to make a full circle, and at the end of the book she tells about a couple of designers that haven't gone mass.  Christian Louboutin, a Parisian shoe designer (I love shoes) is one who has not sold out, and gone mega-mass. Stilettos, with his signature red soles are, are his trademark, and they are gorgeous.  Take a look for yourself at his own site (get ready for sticker shock if you want to buy).    http://www.christianlouboutin.com/ 

I like what he said about his industry, "I did not do a company to make money.  I made shoes and it became a company."  Something to think about in the age of the government trying to dream up "stuff" to stimulate the economy.                               

Another designer, who has remained exclusive, is Alice Cadolle in Paris, who specialize in luxury lingerie.  "The experience of having a custom-made bra at Cadolle is luxury in the old-fashioned sense of the term:  genuine personal attention, exquisite materials, beautiful handcraftsmanship, all to create something just for you."  A basic bra requires three fittings, and will set you back about $800!  Have a look for yourself at

http://www.cadolle.com/ where there are no prices, but if you are interested you can probably arrange for your own personal fitting.  Let me know how it goes, because your description is about as close as I will ever get to this luxury.  School teachers' paychecks don't have enough lycra to stretch this far!  P.S.  I should be grading papers.

Chocolate Stout Cake

Finally, I had time to make a cake.  This recipe is from Bon Appetit--not anything I invented.  This is called Chocolate Stout Cake from the Barrington Brewery, Great Barrington, MA.  Here's how it went.   Since my county is dry, and no alcoholic beverages are sold here, I had to make a run to Midland for this dark, nasty beer.  It makes you wonder how a cake could be a cake with this stuff in it.

Sift the lumps out of the cocoa.

I added the cocoa to the beer and butter before the butter was completely melted.

 

Here it is--two cups of Guinness stout beer and two cups of butter heating with the cocoa.  It is pretty frothy, because the beer really foamed with the low heat.

While the beer mixture is cooling, beat the eggs with the sour cream until it looks like this.

Here is one layer, bubbles and all.  This looks different than any chocolate cake I have ever baked. 

And here is the Stout cake with the ganache icing.  You can see how thick the icing is, and it is delicious.  I am not sold on the cake.  It is dense, and not overly sweet--that is good, but it has a course texture, sort of rubbery and not tender.  I think there is way too much soda in this cake.  The next time I bake it I will use about half the soda, or maybe just one teaspoon, and see how it turns out.  The recipe called for three 8" cake pans that were 2 inches deep.  My pans were only8 x 1 1/2 inches.  You will need at least 2 inches because there was lots of batter  left over.

Here is the recipe, just the way it was printed in Bon Appetit.  This will serve about 16 or more people.  If you ate 1/12 of this three layer delight your beta cells would be in shock!  This is good for a leisure cup of coffee and good conversation.

CHOCOLATE STOUT CAKE

2 C stout beer

2 C butter

1 1/2 C unsweetend cocoa

4 C flour

4 C sugar

1 T soda (I think 2 tsp. would do it, and maybe one, after all the beer has plenty of bubbles for leavening)

1 1/2 tsp. salt if using unsalted butter

4 jumbo eggs

1 1/3 C sour cream

METHOD OF PREPARATION

1.  Preheat the oven 350

2.  Prepare the three cake pans.

3.  Measure the beer into a sauce pan.

4.  Add the butter, and heat on low until the butter begins to melt.

5.  Sift the cocoa into the beer and blend. 

6.  When butter melts remove from heat and cool slightly.

7.  Beat the eggs and sour cream until light and fluffy.

8.  Measure the flour, soda, sugar and salt into a bowl and blend thoroughly.

9.  Add the stout mixture to the egg mixture and beat just enough to combine the two.

10.  Add the flour mixture until it begins to blend.

11.  Get rid of the mixer and fold the batter until blended and no more--don't overmix.

12.  Bake about 30 minutes.

ICING

2 C whipping cream

1 pound bittersweet (not unsweetened or semisweet) chocolate

1.  Heat the cream in a heavy saucepan.

2.  Remove from heat and add the chocolate.

3.  Stir until the chocolate is blended, which doesn't take very long.

4.   Refrigerate, and stir from time to time.

5.  Ice the cake when the icing is thick enough to spread.

WHEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 Homecoming pep rally was on the football field with all the elementary kids and parents.  What a week!!!!  We had open house, with Student Council in charge of registration, and guiding parents to the classes.  This is a first for me.  None of the other schools I have taught in needed guide services to find the rooms.  You just headed down the two halls and  found the room yourself, or just asked the person walking around with punch and cookies where they got them. Then the next day Student Council put on a feed for the Lions Club in my room.  We met on Sunday to do some of the fixings.  It took all afternoon to clean up, but at least the kids had to do it.  I did have to wash, dry, and fold all the napkins, and place mats, which amounted to about three loads.  Do the aprons and chef hats for all these classes is a pretty big job.  Now, I know how the coaches feel washing all those uniforms.  It was also six-weeks test week  (I invent and type my own), and then the Student Council was in charge of the coronation ceremony for the homecoming queen.  After all that stress, I managed to get some sort of respiratory virus the kids drug in.  All I can say is--next year will be a piece of cake, and to top it off this is just one more virus I am immune to.  The year is flying by, and I am glad to be in this new school.

 

Here are the cheerleaders and football players doing "Mustang Muscle."  It scares me half to death when they do these basket tosses, and it is even more dangerous when the football players help throw the girls up in the air.   

 

Here is an indoor pep rally in "The Dome."  This just about sums it up--all I do is school and more school.  Except today, I get to take care of the grand baby.  Have a good week.  May the Lord bless and keep you.