More Arrangements with Fruit and Vegetables

Sorry about this.  The little thing to turn the picture didn't come up. :(

I love these colors and this would be beautiful in summer or winter. There is eggplant, purple cabbage, artichokes, grapes and then the flowers.  Just lovely.

Memories and Family

I spent most of the day yesterday going through books in our library.  I have many new ones I want to put on the shelves and there is no more room.  Books are a hard thing for me to part with but I had some that I knew I was ready to let go of.  I hate to say this but dust was literally an inch thick as I got on the top shelf and back in the corners.  It has turned into a big project that is going to take several days to finish, but it will be a big accomplishment and one I will be glad to have complete. 

One of the reasons, I think it takes so long, is I start going through books I hadn't look at in a long time and before I know it I'm reading the book again.  At one point Gary stepped in and said, "you are never going to finish this if you don't stop reading every book you look at."  Books are special, I think they say a lot about a person.  I've tried to write a short note on the inside of each book I read.  The date I read it and what I thought of the book.  I think, I read that John Adams did that and I thought that was a great idea.

I've said all this to get to this point, I started thumbing through a book by Edith Schaeffer, What is a Family?  It is so good and there are some things I wanted to say about it that touches my heart.  First of all, buy it and read it, it's really good.  The family today is in need of repair and inspiration and she does a wonderful job of doing that.

As I looked at the chapter titles, my eyes fell upon A Museum of Memories.  Of course, I had to go there because I've always felt like the greatest gifts I can give my children are wonderful memories.  As I read this chapter, Edith Schaeffer does too.  These are her thoughts:

"What is a family meant to be?  Among other things, I personally have always felt it is meant to be a museum of memories - collections of carefully preserved memories and a realization that day-by-day memories are being chosen for our museum.  Someone in the family - one who is happily making it his or her career, or both parents, perhaps a grandparent or two, aunts and uncles, older brothers and sisters - at least one person needs to be conscious that memories are important and the time can be made to have double value by recognizing that what is done today will be tomorrow's memory.

Memories (not all of them, but some of them) should be planned with the same careful kind of planning one would give to designing a museum.  A family life in retrospect should be a museum of diverse and greatly varied memories, with a unity that makes the grouping of people involved share at least many if not all of the overlapping memories. "

Memory! What a gift from God.  From the smell of the seasons, holidays, foods, music, the feel of fabrics, these things and many more have memories attached to them that can evoke different feelings in us. Some we remember and enjoy reliving and others we choose to forget.

As I get older, sometimes I have the thought, oh I'm not going to do that this year or we can get by with just doing this and on the other side of the coin, the young mother thinks, I'm too tired, my children won't realize it if I do that.  Whether you are young or older :), remember that your children will remember whether they verbalize it or not and ALWAYS push yourself to do your very best and go the extra mile from the most insignificant to the most outstanding memory making event.

At Thanksgiving this year, my daughter walked up to me on Thanksgiving day and said, Mom, everything looks beautiful but you shouldn't have done all this, this is so much work.  I told her, "yes, it is a lot of work but I want to do this for all of you because someday this will be a beautiful memory for you."

Truthfully, this year I was physically tired.  A lot has been going on in our family and I had thought about just getting by.  Putting a couple of pumpkins in the middle of the table and calling it good.  I'm so glad I didn't.  That evening, I thought to myself as tired as I am, I'm so glad I went the extra mile and fixed things where everything looked pretty. 

When you are my age and you are living out your last quarter there is a satisfaction and peace in knowing that you have always given your best!

Decorating with Fruit and Vegetables

I loved this idea. They used pears but you could use red and green apples or the dark red pears with the golden pears, pomegranates, grapefruit and oranges or avocadoes and heirloom tomatoes (their different shapes and colors) would be gorgeous.  I'm very attracted to arrangements that are made with vegetables, fruit, flowers, nuts and berries.  The simplicity and natural beauty of nature is lovely.

 They used an ice pick to make a small hole in the pear.  You would gage the size of the hole to the amount of flowers you would be putting in the hole.  The juice from the fruit keeps the flowers fresh.  As you can see from the caption, they call these the $10.00 tiny wonders.  Actually, I think you can make them cheaper than that.  A bouquet of flowers at Wal-Mart is about four dollars and I've seen roses at Aldi for three or four dollars.  Last spring for a dinner, I used my lilacs and bought pink roses from Wal-Mart and it made a beautiful arrangement.

I can see these little arrangements on a dessert table placed by different desserts.  As the picture shows, have some fruit sitting up right and some on their side. This time of the year, a huge pine cone with evergreen, some pomegranates with berries and small white roses.  Let your imagination go and you can come up with some wonderful ideas that will look marvelous and be very cost effective.

Touches of Winter at Our Home

New Table

This is a table my daughter bought at a garage sale.  She decided she didn't want it and I brought it home and put it in our pole barn.  It has been subjected to the weather for several years and it has this wonderful patina now that I love.  I think it goes great with the furniture in this room.    We had some old glass shelves and I took the table and one of the shelves to a glass company and they cut the glass to fit the table.  I love the way it turned out.  I need to find a lamp for this table now.

Darling Dutch

                           Our grandson..........6 months old, already!

Parsnip-Potato Soup

I have found a new vegetable that I love......parsnips.  Not that parsnips are new, but I have never used them in cooking before nor do I remember ever eating them.  The parsnips have the most wonderful smell.  After I had cut up all the vegetables for this soup, before I started cooking it the smells were wonderful.  The garlic oniony smell of the leeks along with the parsnips and the fresh thyme plus the fresh garlic, it smelled wonderful.  I couldn't wait to cook it and have a taste.  I thought it had a wonderful flavor and it will definitely be a soup I will make a lot.  It will be a soup I make for my daughters and my dear friends who come for lunch.  The men in our family didn't find it as delectable as I did. :) Surprise! Surprise!

This soup is like a yellow squash soup that I make, you can make this and leave out the cream and freeze it.  Unthaw it, put it in a pan on low heat to warm and then add the heavy cream.  I love having soups like this in the freezer already prepared.

3 tablespoons of butter
4 fresh thyme sprigs
kitchen string
5 cups (11/2 pounds) peeled and thinly sliced parsnips
3 leeks, white and light green parts only, thinly sliced
1 russet potato, peeled and diced, (I used two potatoes because they were small)
1/2 cup thinly sliced celery
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
3 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
1/2 heavy cream
garnishes: dollop sour cream, fresh chives, olive oil

Melt butter in a medium Dutch oven over medium heat.  Tie thyme sprigs together with kitchen string.  Add parsnips, next 6 ingredients, and thyme to Dutch oven and cook, stirring often, 10 minutes.  Stir in broth and 2 cups water and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium low and cover and simmer 15 minutes.

Discard thyme.  Process parsnip mixture, in batches in a blender or food processor until smooth, scrape down sides as needed.  Return mixture to Dutch oven and stir in heavy cream.

Cook mixture over medium heat, stirring often, 5 minutes or until hot.  Serve immediately