New Book - My Brother's Keeper

My Brother's Keeper is a new book hot off the press. It is a children's book written about our dear friends from the perspective of their oldest son telling about caring for his handicapped brother. This family is a constant inspiration to me. When I'm tempted to complain about the challenges of mothering, I imagine the endless doctor appointments, waking up at night to seizures and knowing your child will ever live a normal life and suddenly my load seems very small. Their acceptance and joy in caring for their son amaze me.

This book is one of a series of books about children facing changes. For you locals, it is available now at Mattie Lowery's. It should be at Country Drygoods sometime next week. You can order from Vision Publishers here and read about the book from the author's perspective here.

Christmas is coming...my children will be receiving a new book! How about yours!

Pumpkin Pie

Every cook seems to have their favorite pumpkin pie. This is my mom's variation - and we think it is terrific!

1 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cup milk, scalded
3 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1 T cornstarch
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
1 (9 inch) unbaked crust

Blend pumpkin, eggs, sugar, cornstarch and spices. Gradually add milk and mix well. Pour into unbaked crust. Bake at 425 for 10 minutes. Then reduce heat to 350 degrees and continue baking for 30 minutes.

Looking for more pumpkin recipes? Check out this list at Amy's Finer Things!

Blessing Tree

Last year a friend gave me the idea of a "blessing basket" - a place to gather notes on which you've jotted down blessings. We adapted the idea into a Blessing tree the year.

First I drew a simple outline of a leafless tree on a large piece of poster board. I cut out simple leaves of various colors. For the last couple weeks we've all been writing down things we are grateful for on the leaves and gluing them to the tree.

We've been dealing with a lot of whining recently and this simple project has been one way to focus our children's attention from what I want, to what I've been given. I won't say it has totally taken care of the problem, but it hasn't hurt!

How are you making Thanksgiving a part of your daily life this year?

Easiest Roast Turkey

I've received more rave reviews after sharing this recipe than any others. Everyone loves to have a simple fool-proof method to roast turkey! I already wrote about why I think turkey is a good deal here. If you found a good price on turkey and are wondering what to do with it - try this method!

This isn't an original recipe. Years ago, my mom found this in one of Emilee Barnes' books. It is so easy to have a moist turkey with this slow cook method! My husband hated white meat until I used this method. If you wish for your turkey skin to be nicely browned, do not cover the turkey. I usually cover the pan because I think I get more broth when covered. In fact, I usually get so much broth that I need to get some broth out with my baster mid-way through the roasting time so that it doesn't spill out over into the oven.

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Remove the gibblets. (They will be inside the cavity somewhere in a white bag.)
Wash turkey well, dry turkey with paper towels. Salt the cavity.
Rub outside of turkey with olive oil.
Stick meat thermometer into the turkey. (I skip this.)
Place breast down on a rack in your large roaster. (I don't have a rack, and it works fine.)
Roast one hour at 350 degrees to destroy surface bacteria.
Adjust heat to 180 to 200 degrees for a turkey of any size. Roast one hour per pound.
Once the turkey is done, it will not overcook. You can leave it in the oven for an additional 3 to 6 hours and it will not overcook.

Just a tip: if you have a newer oven, if may have a safety mechanism that will turn off the oven automatically after twelve hours. Since for me, this is usually in the middle of the night, before I go to bed, I turn off my oven, then quickly turn it on again. Then I don't have any surprises in the morning!

I usually get a very large turkey (over 20 pounds) because I like to have lots of leftovers. I was told that turkeys over 20 pound have a greater to meat to bone ratio. I'll chop up the cooked meat, put it in pints and use it for any recipe calling for cooked chopped chicken. A great time saver! But this size turkey can be a real pain to thaw! I can barely fit it into my fridge! Just sitting the turkey on your counter to thaw isn't a good idea for food safety. I place the turkey in a large ice chest, and fill with cold water. The turkey will thaw faster if the water is changed often. I sit in on the counter next to my large laundry sink. It is rather easy to pull the plug on the ice chest, drain out the water, and then refill several times until it is completely thawed.

A friend told me that she used a large electric roaster for her turkey. No cluttering up your oven for those long hours! I found this to work well (with an electric roaster that this same friend found for me at a yard sale). In the summer I could place the electric roaster in the basement and keep the heat out of the kitchen.

Hope you give this method a try!

Artisan Breads Every Day - French Bread

Continuing my way through Peter Reinhart's new book...

Classic French bread

For some time, I've been trying to create a french baguette at home. The kind of french bread that is crispy on the outside, chewy inside with big holes! This recipe is certainly the easiest yet most successful attempt yet. The recipe requires very little kneading so I just mixed it up in a bowl with a spoon and didn't even get out my mixer. The dough was easy to handle and shape into loaves.

Changes made... I replaced two cups of white flour with whole wheat flour and decreased the overall flour by 1/3 cup.

Next time I will...increase the whole wheat flour some more and add a tablespoon or so of vital wheat gluten.
Conclusion...definitely will be made again at our house!

Making Christmas Meaningful

Edited from 2008

It is very important to me that our family focus is on our Lord at Christmas. Last year I posted a few ideas that I gathered from here and there. This year I thought I'd post it earlier to maybe give you a few ideas of things to try in your home. I would love to hear your ideas as well!

1. The Christmas Story from Luke 2 - the obvious place to start! Allow young children to act out the Christmas story with a cheap and non-fragile nativity set. Our children get a great bang out of acting out the story with dad as the donkey. One family memorized a verse or two from Luke 2 before allowing the children to choose another figure in the nativity set to set out.

2. Christmas carols - Learn some of the stories behind the carols we sing. Start early in December in singing the carols as a family so that your children can participate in caroling later in the month.

3. Caroling - Hands down, caroling is my favorite Christmas activity (even beating all the great food!) Many churches carol to the elderly in the church, which is a great tradition. But it can also be fun to get together with just a few families and carol to some neighbors who may not have a church. Since the first year we were married, we've been getting together with some friends and we each choose a neighbor to sing to. Each year our neighbors, who never go to church ask if we are coming to sing. We began with no children but this year the children out number the adults, which I think adds to the fun, despite the hassle of getting in and out of car seats!

4. Messiah by Handel - We usually can't wait until December 1 to get the recording out! Actually Ed has been known to pull out the Messiah recording in July! I've heard of families that use the Messiah as a family devotional. They listen to a short portion then look up the Scripture that the music was based on. Show your children how the movement of the melody notes illustrate the words. For example, listen to the song "Every Valley" and notice how the notes move back and forth on the lyric "crooked" and then stay on a single pitch for the word "straight."

5. Jesse Tree -  We have never done this but I like the idea of marking the days until Christmas with Scripture. The idea of a Jesse Tree is taken from "a branch shall come forth out of Jesse" and there is numerous devotionals online, such as this one and this one. They usually go through the prophecies about Christ and continue through his life and ministry with a Scripture reading for each day in December.

6. Service to others - I think the best way to fight the "gimmies" is to focus on the needs of others. I have great memories of serving Thanksgiving dinner at the Salvation Army and I can recall twice that our family spent Christmas Eve holding a service at the rescue mission. It was amazing to me as a child that there were people who had no better place to go on Christmas Eve then the mission. As a youth, one of my favorite Christmas activities was delivering Angle Tree gifts to prisoner's children in Baltimore. Believe me, going with a group of country teens to inner city Baltimore is an adventure all it's own!

One year at our family gathering, my aunt gathered all the materials to put together school kits.  We watched a short video showing the children who will receive the kits. All the children then helped to assemble the kits with soap, toothbrush, pencils, crayons, notebook, etc in a draw string bag. I thought it was an simple but good activity for the children to participate in doing something for others. And we parents weren't stuck with bringing home any more toys in our already crowded homes.

I know we don't think we need one more thing to do at Christmas. (Or maybe any other time of the year!) But prayerfully read Matthew 25. "When you do it to the least of these, my brethren, you do it unto me". We wonder sometimes how we can "give back" to our Lord, who gave so much for us. This chapter may hold the answer, though it may mean a re-evaluation of  our priorities.

Of course, as a mother of young children, God's first priority for me is going to be in my home! I'm not talking of putting our children in day-care so that we can go out an serve others! There will be stages of life where our place is primarily going to be in the home, even if it means very little interaction with others.  But I do believe the Lord will give us opportunities for serve as a family, if we are only willing. There is many needy, lonely, hopeless people that need to be shown God's love through God's people. It can be as simple as visiting an elderly neighbor or taking cookies to another busy mom. I am grateful that my husband has encouraged me to spend one night a month at a Bible study at our local detention center. I think he knows that I come home from that evening energized and encouraged from an evening studying the Word. Serving others is going to look different for each of us - but service isn't an option for the Christian.

7. Stories - Some books are holiday classics! I have to read A Christmas Carol by Dickens, at least the first and last chapter, each year! The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry is another classic. I also love the story of the Richest Family in Church. You may have other favorites. One family wraps up Christmas stories and each evening the children unwrap one book to read. One year when I was a child, we put all the titles of our Christmas books on little slips of paper and pulled out one each evening. We didn't have enough for each day of the month, but some evenings we didn't have time to read a story. Besides picture books and short stories, we read some of the special Christmas chapters in the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It was fun to contrast the Christmas in Farmer Boy with The Long Winter. Stories such as these, where children were delighted with one piece of peppermint candy or an orange are great reminders for children in our luxurious society.

You may be able to find some good stories at the library but, of course, use caution! It is important to me that stories do not portray a materialistic view of Christmas but instead focus on giving. We only own four Christmas books, so far, and I think they all fit this criteria. They are The Christmas Kitten by James Herriot, The Grinch that Stole Christmas by Dr Suess, The Mitten Tree by Candace Christiansen, and Miracle in a Shoe Box by Franklin Graham (which I can never read without tears!)

And one more thought on Christmas stories...many Christmas books add fictional characters to the Luke 2 story. When I taught Bible Released Time to public school students, I always had a student who wanted to add to  the Biblical Christmas story with the stories they had been told of a little drummer boy or a small angle who got lost, etc. At times, I had a hard time convincing them that their story wasn't found in the Bible! These stories may be innocent but make sure that your child knows the truth of the Biblical account!

Do you have any favorite Christmas stories you could recommend? What Christmas traditions does your family enjoy to focus your attention on our Lord? I would love to hear them!

2010 Planners

It isn't too soon to start thinking of the new year. I know my mind has been left back in September somewhere, but the calendar tells me that we'll be welcoming a new year before long.

My wish every year is to become better organized and use my time more wisely. I still have a long ways to go but one of the tools I've found to be indispensable is a weekly planner. I written here about my planner. I was not able to find exactly what I was looking for and made my own. I love it and actually thought of marketing it for sale. Especially since I am married to a printer! :-) But I have no design skills and the idea sort of died.

This summer I found a planner almost exactly like mine - only much prettier! Starla is a homemaker who, like me, wasn't pleased with the other options out there and designed her own! The Time Keeper was just what I was looking for - a weekly planner which includes room for a "to do" list and menu all at one place! Check out their website for photos and more info. If your goal in 2010 is to become more efficient with your time, this planner may be a place to start! (And I'm not getting paid to say so! I just like this planner - and I like to see home businesses succeed!)