All worthwhile

We, Marilyn’s friends, schemed for a long time to give her a very memorable milestone birthday. Celebrations Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, plus a couple extra touches on Monday, have worn me out.

This grin makes it all worth the effort.

Happy Half a Century, Marilyn!

Creative yard art

Earlier this summer, we noticed this beautiful home in another town. The homeowner had used her creativity to greatly improve her home’s curb appeal.

Homeowner was not home, so we did not get a chance to talk to her about her beautiful windows.

Neighbor said that windows originally graced homeowner’s grandmother’s church. When the church was demolished, homeowner bought the windows.

Since the homeowner was not present, we did not feel comfortable examining how the windows were hung. We can get vicious hailstorms here and we wondered how the windows were protected — if at all — from inclement weather.

We were very fortunate in our timing. The sun was setting at the time we looked at this home and its light filtered through the beautiful windows.

Homeowner also had an unusual gate. Instead of the standard gate, she had hung an old door. If we ever build a fence, I want a gate like that. The street signs shown in that picture were in the yard as well. I had wanted a street sign for our driveway before, but I really want one after seeing this.

Ideas exist to be adapted and used.

Black Forest Cake

Last year, I asked Marilyn what her favorite cake was so I could make it for her birthday.
She told me she liked Black Forest Cake.

I had no idea what that was so looked it up on the Internet. I found it in About.com's Southern Food section. I made it for her. She loved it and has described the recipe as “to die for” ever since.

Since she turns the Big 5-0 this year, I had to make it again.

Although I am the pastry chef in our house, Chef Hubby cannot resist tinkering with ingredients and I cannot resist tinkering with the method. Here is our version of Black Forest Cake. (Printer-friendly PDF)

Black Forest Cake

Ingredients:

1 dark chocolate cake mix (or your own from scratch)
1/4 C. kirschwasser (cherry brandy)
1/8 C. amaretto
1 can extra fruit cherry pie filling
16 oz. heavy whipping cream
1/2 C. confectioners’ sugar
Maraschino cherries, drained, optional, for garnish
milk chocolate curls or shavings, for garnish

Preparation:
The day before serving —

Drain 1 can extra fruit cherry pie filling in a colander to remove most of the thickened juices. Leave filling in colander on plate in refrigerator overnight for best drainage.

Make cake, following package directions. Bake cake, as directed, in two 9-inch layer cake pans. I buy the dark chocolate fudge cake mix.

When cool, run knife around outside of cake to break any clinging pieces from the sides. Holding cake with one hand, turn cake pan on its side and tap on the counter while gently turning pan. This should loosen the cake. Remove cakes from pans. Plae on separate plates. Sprinkle mixture of kirschwasser and amaretto over both cake layers. Insert toothpicks on top and in sides of cake and wrap in cling wrap. Let stand overnight.

Chill electric beaters and large mixing bowl; beat heavy whipping cream until it thickens slightly. Gradually add confectioners’ sugar and beat until thick enough to hold its shape. Refrigerate overnight.

Using a cheese plane (preferred) or vegetable peeler, shave chocolate; refrigerate until ready to serve. I found that the side of the chocolate my hand had warmed was the best to shave. Once the chocolate became difficult to shave, I switched sides to rewarm the chocolate. Store in covered container at room temperature or below overnight.

The day of serving —

Assemble cake.

Place one layer on serving plate. Dilute 1/2 C. of whipped cream mixture with water until it becomes a glaze. Spread glaze over top of bottom layer. Wait half hour, then spread its top with layer of whipped cream to total 1/2 inch. Strew the cherries over the cream, leaving about 1/2 inch margin around border of cake with no cherries.

Set other layer on top of cherries. Spread remainder of glaze on top and sides of cake. Wait half hour, then spread top and sides of cake with remaining cream, shaping cream into decorative swirls on top.

With fingers, gently press chocolate curls into cream on sides of cake. I completely cover sides of cake with the chocolate curls or shavings, whichever I’ve managed to produce. This both looks good and covers up any frosting boo-boos.

Garnish top with any remaining cherry filling and maraschino cherries or with a few chocolate curls. I like the look of the cherry juice on the white frosting.

I inserted bamboo skewers through top of cake to hold it together during transport to party, then removed them when I arrived. I added the topper just before serving.

Enjoy!

'Tartuffe' and 'The Full Monty'

For some reason, I thought of my college friend Lynn the other day. Every time I think of her, I remember the theater appreciation class we took together. The professor was a prim, stuffy old maid. Most class periods we saw videos of whatever play we were studying. Prof sat in the front row to deal with any technical difficulties.

One day, we watched “Tartuffe”. Actually, we heard all of it, but only saw part of it.

At some point in the play, a naked man appeared on screen. Immediately, Prof leaped up with a sheet of paper to cover his nakedness. She peered over the top of the paper to see when he would go away. He was on stage for some time. She would become engrossed in the video and the paper would slip downward, exposing the naked man.

“Ooh, ooh,” she said. “Oh, that’s disgusting! Why doesn’t he put on some clothes!”

When she would realize that she was no longer covering the nakedness, she would jump and jerk the paper upwards.

We were nearly rolling in the aisles, except that we couldn’t laugh outwardly. We knew that laughing out loud would break the spell, so we choked on it. Tears were streaming down our faces from the effort of suppressing belly laughs. Thankfully, all the lights were off so she couldn’t see our faces.

When play finally ended, she took some time flipping on the lights. Perhaps she wanted to cover her reactions to seeing a man’s full monty. Fortunately for us, her delay gave us time to wipe away the tears and compose our expressions.

“Well,” Prof sniffed, “I’ve never seen such a disgraceful exhibition as that!”

Every student in the class went rigid with the effort of controlling laughter once again.

Once class was dismissed, we rushed away from the classroom and all dissolved into helpless laughter. Nearly everyone reported aching sides the next day, the result of holding in guffaws.

I remember nothing about that class except for the naked man in “Tartuffe”. So much for appreciating theater.

I’ll bet Prof never showed a film again without previewing it.

At the pump

Seeing my brother at this water pump at a living history museum reminded me of our grandparents’ house. Even though they were hooked to city water inside, they still retained their old water pump outside.

My brother, cousins and I loved that water pump. Something about pumping the water out of the ground made it taste better. I don’t know that water actually tasted better from that source, but we thought it did. And pumping the handle was such fun, especially since our efforts were rewarded with cold water.

Our grandparents lost their house to a tornado and the water pump was one of the casualties of their rebuilding. The new house was always strange to me. The delights of my childhood had been removed. Even though the house was on the same lot as the old one, Grandpa and Grandma lived in an alien place.

Just another brick on the ground

If you’ve read this blog for very long, you know that I love bricks. Red and yellow bricks are all over our yard as edging and pavers.

Monday I did a project I’ve wanted to do for some time. Apparently, our back door (just visible at upper left) was originally south of its current location. The sidewalk is just south of where the door currently opens, which means we must stand on the lawn to enter the door. Therefore, that patch is chronically bare. I hated the way it looked. I hated the mud and dust we tracked in because we had to stand on bare ground.

I took a stack of spare bricks and laid them out in that ugly place. As I anticipated, I didn't have enough spares. So I pulled the nails out of the fence posts I had rescued from the landfill. I removed the bricks I was using for edging the flower garden next to the back door and replaced them with the fence posts, now landscape timbers (shown at top in above picture). Those repurposed bricks weren’t enough, so I removed bricks from a straightway in other garden, replacing them with another fence post turned landscape timber.

The bricks sit up a bit too high. I am running a sprinkler on the newly-laid bricks. I hope I can saturate the ground enough that walking on them will push them into the ground. If that doesn’t work, I’ll dig out some of the dirt so they will sit more level with the ground.

I don’t like the pattern yet, so will tinker with it later.

Sunday, I added more bricks to the sidewalk running from the street to the back door. I didn’t like the pattern I’d originally used. I changed it and added more bricks. I’d like to add more bricks, but I’ve run out.

Unfortunately, I never run out of ways to use bricks. No stockpile is ever enough for all I have in mind. I’ll just have to keep my eyes open for more of them.

Tasty Cucumber Relish

Last year I looked for a cucumber relish recipe online. I found the best relish I've ever eaten.

If you’ve never canned or pickled, PaulNoll.com gives excellent step-by-step instructions, complete with photos, of how to make the relish.

Hubby and I have made some changes to the recipe.

Here is our version.

Tasty Cucumber Relish

Vegetables
6 lbs. grated or chopped cucumbers
1 grated white onion
1 grated carrot
10 chopped or grated medium bell peppers (if possible, include some red, yellow and/or orange peppers for better color)

Mix together. Grating will make a coarser relish than chopping will.

Brine
1 T. turmeric
1/2 C. salt
8 C. water

Mix together.

Pour brine over vegetables. Stir well and let sit for 3 hours. Drain. Cover with water and let stand for 1 hour. Drain, refill with water and drain again.

Syrup
1 T. mustard seed
1 T. cinnamon
1 t. ground cloves
2 t. allspice
2 C. brown sugar
4 C. cider vinegar

Mix and bring to boil, then pour over vegetables. Let stand 10-12 hours.

Boil before filling prepared jars, leaving 1/2 inch head space. Make sure liquid covers vegetable mix. Process in water bath for 10 minutes.

Makes about 7 pint jars.

Our cucumbers are bearing prolifically right now, so we tripled the recipe this time. I thought I had enough for four batches, but the 23 lbs. I started with became 19 lbs. by the time I removed the ends and blemishes from the cucumbers and deseeded large the ones.

Unfortunately, our peppers aren’t keeping up with the cukes, so I had to buy 34 peppers at the grocery store. The cashier’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head when she saw how many peppers I had in the cart. (We’ll freeze the unused peppers.)

We mixed the recipe in storage containers because we had no other containers large enough.

The Frugal Gardener always feels so virtuous when she preserves her own food!