Apples!

Photo courtesy of my sister.

Our apples on our trees are starting to become pick-able, and picked they have been! We have two trees, and we're waiting on the other tree as the apples are smaller. These are green, those are red and green. We don't spray our trees (or at least we haven't yet so far) so lots of them have bad spots but you can always cut out bad spots. :-)

And then, this morning, Mom whipped up this WONDERFUL breakfast with our freshly picked apples:

A German apple pancake, baked in a cast iron skillet... OH. YUM. Wish you could have been here to enjoy it with me! (On second thought, maybe not, more for me! :-) ).

Anyway... just a little snippet from our daily life... I have some more serious posts mulling around in my head - I realize it has been quite I while since I did one of that nature. Thanks for stopping by!

Calling all bakers!

I want to let all of you know about a fun baking club! It's called "Cross Country Bakers" and was started by two Christian sisters who want to help other ladies expand their baking repertoire. They are looking for more people to join!

It is open to Christian ladies of any age. Each month we pick an overall theme, and a recipe within that theme for each week. Every week everyone in the club makes the recipe (you are free to be creative and substitute ingredients, or even change the recipe around into something else - we've had coffee cake turned into yeast bread before... :-) ). Everyone takes a photo of their finished product and on Saturday posts it on the CCB blog along with their synopsis of how they liked it, what they would do differently next time, and any changes they made.

All you need to join this club is a camera, a Blogger (Google) account (which is free!), an oven and a love of baking! :-)

You can visit the CCB blog HERE. If you have any questions, or to sign up, email Hannah at crosscountrybakers (at) yahoo.com.

Presentation is Everything: How to Serve a Simple Meal in Elegant Style

Did you know that you can make even the simplest meal special by the way you serve it?

The secret is summed up in one word: presentation. My aunt was a caterer at one time and she lived with us a for a few years, and one of the things that she continually impressed upon us was that "it's all in the presentation." We kind of made a joke out of it at the time, but it's true.

So, how can we dress up our meals to appear at their very best? Let's look at a couple of ways to make the dishes we serve appealing.

1. Attractive Arrangement
Don't just dump the food you have made on to a plate to serve it. Look for ways that you could tastefully arrange the food on the plate to make it more attractive. For instance, see what kind of garnishes you could put on the side to give it a little "oomph." Just a little sprig of parsley or rosemary can change the whole look of the dish. For soups, they look amazingly more appetizing when you add a garnish. The type of garnish will of course depend on the soup (or dish), but I made baked potato soup, and garnished it with a sprinkling of cheese in the center and a little chopped green onion. There are lots of fun garnishing how-to books out there as well that can teach you more elaborate, creative garnishes. Another point is that it does matter what kind of dish you serve the food in! We have one dish that I love because it is very pretty and somehow always makes it look like there is a lot of food in it even if there isn't! (It also fits asparagus perfectly :-)) Now, I realize that sometimes we just don't have time and it's all we can do to even get dinner on the table, let alone dress it up. That's okay! But when we do have the time, we should try to make it a little fancy.

2. Dress Up the Table
Aside from the actual dishes, presentation includes your table. Put a tablecloth on, and maybe a couple of tall candles in the center. It's amazing how this can transform the whole feel of your table - especially if you choose a richly colored tablecloth. If you don't have time for attractively arranging your dishes, this takes mere seconds. Another fun thing that really adds presentation is creative napkin folding. There are some instructions for a few simple napkin folds here. This really impresses guests too!

So there are my thoughts on presentation... it's the way to make the plainest meal delightful!

The best thing since sliced bread is...

...soft, fresh butter to go on it!

Our family has just discovered a wonderful little kitchen accessory - a butter keeper. Ever heard of it? It's a device that keeps butter fresh at room temperature, leaving it soft and spreadable. It's two pieces, one piece being the dish that holds the butter. This piece then flips upside down into a slightly larger dish, which you fill with about 1/2 inch of cool water. The water then seals in the butter to keep it fresh!

Clever, isn't it? We have found, however, that you do have to consistently change the water every few days, and it helps to use the butter up fairly quickly, as it only stays fresh for so long. It keeps fresh for about a week, I would say, before it starts to turn rancid. Most butter keepers that I have seen hold one stick of butter (1/2 cup).

Here are a few butter keepers I found on Amazon.com. For a more extensive selection, click on this link: Butter Keepers on Amazon (note that there are a few other butter-related products listed that just came up in the search results).

 Butter Keeper


 White Floral Butter Keeper


 Floral Butter Keeper with Knife 






Of course, to be frugal you can also pack the butter into a regular bowl, and then fit it into a larger bowl filled with 1/2 an inch of water as well. It just wouldn't be as "pretty." :-)