Quick-Clean Company Rules

I invited some company over recently, hinting it was a casual affair, nothing fancy. That was my way of saying that I was not going to do "THE BIG CLEAN" for them, but only the "quick clean".

Suzy Homemaker, I am not. My house is not "showroom ready" 24/7. So, when people stop by with the hint that I am only doing the quick clean, there are rules:

1. No white gloves allowed.

2. No pestering the pet spiders hanging out in the ceiling corners.

3. If you are over 5', 6" inches tall, no inspecting the top of the refrigerator or the stove hood.

4. No one but me gets into my refrigerator.

5. I will do my best to make sure the toilet and sink in the hall bath are clean and there is a clean hand towel, but no peeking behind the shower curtain. It is probably closed for a reason.

6. I suggest you not wear solid black or navy slacks. We have indoor long-hair kittys.

7. Do not look for dust bunnies under the recliners. They are probably there.

8. If you do happen to look, and also see a few escapee popcorn kernels, cracker crumbs, peanuts, M & Ms, etc., leave them there. Dust bunnies gotta eat.

9. View the stuff on our mantle from at least five feet away. In fact, everything in our house looks better from at least five feet away.

10. If it is summertime, I suggest you keep your shoes on. Sometimes a quick vacuuming does not pick up all the goatheads and other stickers that get tracked in.

11. Do not enter closed doors. No going into the side room (junk room), outside storage room or master bedroom closet. Where else do you think we hide all that eyesore everyday clutter that piles up, not to mention our hobby stuff?

12. Enter the laundry room at your own risk. That is where we keep the cat box.

Grandson NASCAR Quilt

Okay, now that Christmas is over, I can post pictures of the quilt I made for our grandson back east. Well, I do not think he is east of the Mississippi River, but it is east compared to us in California.

I would not post a picture earlier, because, unlike my wonderful, artistic sister who gets along beautifully without a computer or cell phone, this kid is definitely tech-savvy. Although I doubt he or his parents live and breathe to see my blog posts, with my luck, if I had posted these pictures earlier, they might have seen them.

By now, the guy has the quilt and either likes it, loves it--or really, really hates it.

He probably does not realize my daughters and daughters-in-law will probably be in a collective snit when they realize that my first large quilt effort was for a teenage boy. So, why did I make it for him when I do not even know if he will like it or appreciate it?

Well, the short answer is, I found this NASCAR fabric in two related styles and thought of him. I worked out a pattern with the sashing to tie together the orange and red in the two different block pattern. I assembled it by machine, but quilted and finished the binding by hand. I added a hanger sleeve so he can use it as a wall hanging if he does not want to use it as a bed topper.

Although I know it would not command a price on eBay anywhere near what the Amish quilts go for, I was almost tempted to put it up for sale online and hope another NASCAR fan snapped it up for a good price. Then I would have sent him the gift card as usual. But, no, I decided to give the grandson a chance. If he is into NASCAR posters, this is one of a kind.

If he wishes I sent the gift card as usual, all I can say is, better luck next year.

Mex-Itali Salsa

Remember the blog post about how the joyful season of Christmas sometimes feels like the insanity season? Well, that feeling struck yesterday afternoon, about a half an hour before I was supposed to leave for my daughter's house to celebrate Christmas with a family dinner.

I did Thanksgiving at my house, which meant I did the turkey, stuffing and most of the side dishes. For Christmas, I did the pies. I almost think it is less work to do the turkey part. Since we went to Christmas Tree Lane in Fresno on Christmas Eve, I had to shut down the baking center a little earlier than usual on the 24th. I managed a pie shell for the chocolate pie and a batch of sugar cookies. That meant I had the rest of the pies to do Christmas morning, as well as the green bean casserole.

That was a lot of work, especially since I also worked in two batches of candy to finish the family goodie plates. But, that was not the straw that drove the camel up the tree, to mix my metaphors. It was the salsa.

One of the last phone calls from my daughter was for a request that I make some of my salsa to go with chips before dinner. She knows I was recently a Tupperware consultant, and I had the Quick Chef and spices to make a good salsa. No problem--or so I thought.

I decided that as long as I was making it, I might as well make two batches so I have one at home. I chopped up my first half of an onion, then went to the pantry to pull out two cans of the diced organic tomatoes I like to use. I opened both cans and dumped the first can in, only to realize that I had opened two cans of tomato sauce. I immediately drained most of the sauce out of the Quick Chef, forseeing a tomato-based homemade soup in my near future, and went in search of my tomatoes. There were none.

Next plan. I got out a can of the Mexican style tomatoes that have the jalapeno peppers. I usually throw a can in my homemade chili, so I have lots of that on hand from the last time the grocery store had it on sale. I decided to try it before putting in any additional spices. I added the lime, chop-chop-chop and tasted.

Ho-ho-ho hot sauce! I nearly went through the ceiling. Way too hot, and I am not that big of a hot salsa whimp.

Okay, Robyn, time is running out and you promised your daughter salsa, so what now?

I decided to make my second batch with a can of Italian style tomatoes and use no additional seasoning. I dumped the first batch in a bowl, chop-chop-chopped my other half onion, tomatoes and the other half of the lime. At the last minute I added a bunch of garlic powder, realizing that, except for the lime, I was making a rather italian mix. Then I stirred both batches together, put half into a dip container that I knew would fit my daughter's chip bowl that she bought from me last year, and hoped for the best.

The salsa was definitely spicy, but everyone who tried it at the dinner said they liked it. This morning I tried some to see how it tasted after the flavors had a chance to blend overnight.

Ho-ho-ho hot sauce!

My Christmas Gift to You

Does anyone else besides me have one of those old beat-up and stained, well-used cookbooks that they drag out every holiday for their favorite recipes?

Mine is a pie recipe book. Actually, the pages and binding are in pretty good shape. It is the loose papers inside the front cover that are the most-used and most valuable to me.

One is the Easy No-Roll Pie Crust that I got on a sheet of recipes from some Relief Society Homemaking activity. There is no date on it, but the fact it is printed with what is now very faded purple mimeographic ink on very stained and discolored paper is a good clue that it is old. I was so worried that it is will soon fade into oblivion that I copied it onto the inside cover of the pie cookbook. Here is the recipe:

1-1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1-1/2 tst granulated sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 salad oil (I use canola)
2 tbls milk

Combine flour, sugar and salt in a nine inch pie pan. Mix with fork. Beat oil and milk together, then combine with dry mixture until evenly dampened. Press evenly into pie pan with fingers, over bottom, up the sides and partially over the rim. Flute edges and prick pastry. Heat oven to 450 degrees and bake for 8 minutes or until done for pastry shell.

Or, what I do, because I use this for my apple crumb, pumpkin and pecan pies--before baking, fill with favorite pie filling and bake according to pie directions. To keep the fluted edges from burning before the pie is done, cover the edges with strips of aluminum foil, shiny side out.

For my 10 inch deep-dish apple crumb pie, I make one and a half of the above recipe.

Speaking of pecan pies, my other treasured recipe I keep inside the cover of my pie book was given to me by May Drummond on Nov. 30, 1970.

Here is the recipe for May Drummond's Pecan Pie:

1 cup dark syrup (corn syrup)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 melted butter
1/2 cup pecans (I usually use more)

Beat eggs slightly until blended. Gradually add sugars and mix. Add syrup, vanill and melted butter. Pour into [unbaked] 9 inch pie shell. Sprinkle top with pecans. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes and then 300 degrees for 50 minutes.

Okay--gotta go! It is time I get busy baking pies.

Christmas House

It is Christmas Eve. One of the last gifts I made was a Christmas House hanging quilt for my sister. It was my own design based on the basic house pattern.

I had a lot of fun with it, and it stitched up faster than I thought. I still do not do machine quilting, so I assembled it by machine, but hand-quilted it freehand.

I do not need to worry that my sister will see the picture of her gift before she opens it. She does not have a computer or a cell phone, does not send or receive emails, does not surf the web or read blogs online. Her idea of high-tech is a pre-paid phone card.

Oh, and she does have a fax machine.

Thankful Season?

Wow! 'Tis the season....

It is the joyful season, although some days I feel like it is the insanity season.

Last month was what I called the "thankful season". I celebrated each day up until Thanksgiving Day by stating on my Facebook page at least one thing for which I was thankful.

I almost used "I am thankful that the stray momma cat that someone dropped off by our place only had two kittens." But, then, I decided that being sarcastic was not expressing gratitude in the right spirit.

Buck is an old softy when it comes to little animals. He couldn't do anything to harm them. However, we both know from experience that if we do not take care of new cats as soon as they show up at our place, we are soon overrun. At one time, we were up to 21 cats in our yard. We were down to four for a long time--until momma and her kittens showed up.

After two weeks of grumbling about it, we gave in and named the cats. Momma is Gidget, the solid dark one is Scamper and the speckled one is Sparky. Of course, we have no idea if the kittens are girls or boys because they are feral cats. They do not let us near them. The only thing they get near is the food bowl.

No time is a good time to have to come up with a vet bill for spaying a feral cat that may or may not stick around. December is especially not the best time to come up with an unexpected vet payment. But, we knew if we did not get momma Gidget in pretty quick, we would be looking at some more cute kittens before long. Not good.

Once we were sure the kittens were weaned, we set out the trap for Gidget. Day after day, all we caught were the kittens. We did not want them yet. We figure they were born about September, so we will take them into the vet in January or February.

I almost dispaired of ever trapping Gidget when one day last week I looked out the back window and, lo and behold, she was in the trap. She looked up at me and whined, as if to say, "Please let me out! You always let my kittens out."

No, Gidget, I don't think so!

I headed for the phone. It was early afternoon and I knew my vet usually does spaying in the morning. I figured I would make an appointment. I started wondering how I was going to get water into the cage so she did not get dehydrated before morning.

I told the vet's receptionist I had a feral mama cat in my trap. "Feral" must have been the magic word, because she asked if I wanted to bring her in right then. Did I ever! Buck was not around to take Gidget in the truck, so I lined my car's back seat with a large garbage bag and towels, and loaded up the trap. She hissed and fussed when my son first picked up the cage, but surprised me by riding quietly to the vet's office.

Sparky and Scamper were a little out of sorts when they realized momma was gone. Once we brought her home, she hid out for the better part of a day, but then all the kittys were back to their usual routine.

I just hope Gidget enjoys those kittens of hers, because they are the only ones she is going to have.