Pumpkin dunkin'.....

We had a brisk little storm roll through last night. It went from quiet, still and a very bright half moon to very windy and cloudy within minutes. Then the rain came. It rained for only about 20 minutes, but it brought change. It was a cold front moving in so once the rain pushed through the temperatures dropped about 20 degrees and I gotta say, it got cold last night. I think the low went down to 52 last night. Now I know I sound like a weenie and that that is not very cold to most, but you have to understand I've spent the last five years in San Diego and 52 in San Diego is downright frigid. I guess my blood has yet to switch back to east coast livin'. So this morning I am sitting here writing this in shorts, a long sleeve sweatshirt and big, thick, fuzzy socks. I gotta say, the socks are not doin' their job 'cause my toes are freeeeezin'. Might have to get a 2nd pair. Yep....attractive.

In addition to leaves turning and cooler temperatures, another sign that Fall has arrived is when my daughter requests that I make Pumpkin Dunkin' Sticks. She loves having them for breakfast with a big glass of milk. They are softer than a doughnut with somewhat of a shortbread consistency. They are very pumpkin-y and spicy and kinda delicate, while not being overly sweet. Here's the recipe if you wanna make 'em. I've had the recipe for years and can't remember where I found it. I think it was Better Homes and Gardens, so thanks to them for this great little stick of tender deliciousness!

Spiced Pumpkin Dunkin' Sticks

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/3 cup canned pumpkin
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Cream Cheese Glaze (below)
freshly grated nutmeg for dusting

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, groundnutmeg, ginger, salt and cloves. Beat until combined, scraping side of bowl occasionally. Beat in pumpkin, egg and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with mixer. Using a wooden spoon, stir in any remaining flour.

Place dough in a pastry bag fitted with a large open tip (I use a ziptop bag with a corner snipped off). Pipe dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet into 4-inch long strips. Bake in preheated oven for 5 to 7 minutes or just until firm to the touch but not browned. Cool on cookie sheet for 1 minute. Transfer cookies to a wire rack; let cool.

Drizzle Cream Cheese Glaze over half of each cookie. If desired, sprinkle with grated nutmeg. Let stand about 2 hours or until glaze is set.

Makes about 30 sticks.

Cream Cheese Glaze: In a medium bowl, combine 2oz softened cream cheese and 1 Tbls softened butter. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Add 1/4 tsp finely shredded lemon peel, 1 tsp lemon juice and 1/4 tsp finely shredded orange peel; beat until combined. Beat in 3/4 cup powdered sugar. Beat in enough milk (2-3 tsp) to make a glaze of drizzling consistency.

To store: Layer sticks between waxed paper in an airtight container; cover. Store at room temperature for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 3 months.

Coffee smoffee.....

Sundays are our family lazy day. We attend church on Saturday nights, so Sunday mornings are for sleeping in, or waking early on purpose 'cause you know you'll have the whole house to yourself for a few hours. Sometimes if we feel real spunky and special, we'll go out for brunch somewhere, but mainly it's coffee and grab whatever you can find in the fridge.

This morning though, I was up at 5:30 baking biscuits. I had a catering job to provide breakfast at my church. Hope Community Church is opening two new satellite churches in the next month. One very close to where we live and the other on the 'north side of town'. The one close to us had it's first service this morning! It was a grand opening of Hope--The Sequel, as I call it, in a new part of the county and in a new community. We need these satellite churches because our current church attendance is over 4000 and grows every weekend! There are currently four services--2 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday and there is still not enough room to seat everyone who wants to come. Pastor Mike should be proud! It truly is amazing the draw this church has.

I was bleary eyed driving to the new location this morning at 6:45. I needed coffee in a bad way. But I was wrong. I didn't need coffee at all. All I needed was to walk in the front doors of that high school as Hope worker bees were transforming it into our church for its first Sunday service. There were familiar faces and those I'd never seen before. Each one greeted me with not tired eyes and grumpy attitudes, but with big, bright smiles and 'good morning'! From the auditorium I heard the band warming up with a rap song. There was lots of laughter and many excited nerves that everything would go off without a hitch. But most important, there was the feeling of all the possibilities that bringing our church to another community and a whole new group of people would bring. It took about 5 seconds of being in that tornado of infectious energy to wake me up.

So this is what I'll be doing every Sunday from here on out. No more sleeping in, but I am more than ok with that. I am honored that I've been asked to bake for these amazing volunteers, but I am more excited about yet another day every week that I can feed my soul with my wonderful church. If you live in or near Holly Springs and want to attend, click here for the info. You'll love Hope!

the right 1/2 of our sanctuary at Hope--yeah, it's big!

Fall flavors.....

Things have been rather slow these past few months in my catering and baking department. Certainly slower than what I want them to be. A friend had to remind me that God blesses us on His time-table, not ours. I forget that waaaaay too often and get waaaaay too impatient for my own good. Sometimes I need a little reminder. The very next day........I was asked to provide a massive amount of baked goods for a church event on Sunday and it looks like this will be a weekly event to cook for. So I not only get to provide for my church, but for 200 very deserving people who help out the church every single week. From a business standpoint, that's 200 new potential clients! YAY! God is gooooood!

With the Fall season ever present, my menu includes quite a few of those wonderful Fall flavors like pumpkin, apples & pears, cherries, cinnamon & nutty ingredients. It is a brunch for a group who will be on the go throughout the morning, so the food needs to be portable. Scones, muffins, breads--sweet and savory and tarts are on the menu so far. This is one of the sweets I'll be making. It's a Pumpkin-Chocolate Marble Bundt. Let the baking begin!

For the LORD your God will bless you
in all your harvest
and in all the work of your hands, and your
joy will be complete.

~Deuteronomy 16:15

Feeding the feelings.....

If you scan the archives of this blog, you will read about my 140 lb weight loss from a couple of years ago. I now know that keeping the weight off is just as much work as taking it off. I am an emotional eater and I have had to learn to actually feel my feelings, not eat through them. That's a lot tougher than you think if you've never really felt things before. You eat instead of cry or instead of getting mad or instead of feeling blue. Add to that that as a society, we associate food with happy things and celebrations too, so for any emotion, whether it was happy or sad, food was always involved.

The toughest thing I had to deal with while losing my weight was the mental and emotional baggage that kept me overeating. I went back to that first moment in my life when I went to food for comfort. It was when I was 7 years old and my best friend who lived across the street moved to Arkansas. We were tighter than sisters and we were always together, so when she left, I was alone....and lonely. I didn't have any other friends around the neighborhood, so where did I go? To food. (Let me make this clear--this is not about finding people to blame for your weight gain. My weight gain had nothing to do with anyone specifically, it is just how I dealt with the emotions involving others.) Anyway....the comfort that food gave me during that first emotionally traumatic event in my life was fulfilling enough apparently to lead me right back to it the next time I needed an emotional band-aid and continued for 30 years. And let me tell you, being overweight is not easy, as a kid or adult. It's not just kids who are unkind. Adults, too, even family members made jokes and comments about my weight. How did I deal with that hurt? Of course, food. There is a sad irony there....

With my 140lbs to lose, it was more than just weight that I had to get rid of. There's a lot of anger and damage there and the repairing continues. All this stuff I had to recall from my past-- I had to feel it, forgive it and then let it go--finally. It's not easy, but it had to be done. This is why a lot of people who lose weight, gain it back. They don't fix the mental along with the physical. And the fixing doesn't stop with the day you hit goal. Every single day, when trouble or stress strikes, I have to feel it, forgive it, breathe deep and release it instead of the way it used to be--don't feel it, bury it and pile a bunch of food on top of it. Some days are easier than others. The past couple of weeks actually have been rather taxing for me and I slipped back to my old habits. Lucky for me it was my husband who noticed I was not being as careful with my food choices and said something. He caught me with my trigger food--peanut butter. It's something I have to stay away from, so he knew something was up. And he was right. So I had to stop, re-center myself, ask for some extra strength from God, feel the feelings, breathe deep and make the conscious decision to plow through the emotions. Stupid jar of Jif. See? I'm feeling that emotion! = )

Whether you have weight to lose or not, if you have emotional baggage that you need to deal with, (and who doesn't?) there is a book that was a lifesaver for me during this process. It is called Beauty for Ashes: Receiving Emotional Healing by Joyce Meyer. She suffered abuse as a child and had major emotional baggage that she's dealt with, forgiven and moved on and shares how to do the same. Believe me, it will be the best $10 you'll ever spend. It'll change your life. It did mine. And if you are losing weight, whether it is 14 lbs or 240 lbs--ROCK ON!

Migrations.....

I had just come back home from somewhere and was about to go into the house when I heard that undeniable 'honk' in the distance. My head snapped to attention skyward. "Honk, honk" I heard it again and jumped up and down on my tippy-toes a little too excited for my daughters taste and said "Where are they? I hear them!". A few more 'honk-honks' came and were louder and then, there they were. Twelve Canadian Geese came flying over in their usual 'V' formation. They flew beautifully, perfectly, silently and effortlessly. A couple of honk, honks back and forth to each other and they continued to fly over the trees and out of sight.

I absolutely love Canadian Geese. Always have. Many a time I've had to stop my car on a back road to let some of these cautious geese and their babies cross the road to get to the other side. I sit patiently behind the steering wheel grinning ear to ear giggling like a school girl as they waddle in front of me. I remember one time as many as 30 crossing a 6 lane road one morning. The guy next to me started honking his car horn at them. I guess the 3 minutes they took out his incredibly busy morning was just toooo much. I wanted to thump him on the head so bad.

Physically, these geese are so strong, gorgeous and regal looking. Their coloring and markings are so perfect they look painted. I love that they mate for life and that they both share in the duties of sitting on the nest 'til their babies are hatched and take care of their goslings together....til death do them part. And I love that 'honk'. There is something rough and sore-throaty sounding about it and I can recognize it from the furthest distance. Then there's that 'V'. Again...perfectly in formation and no one gets out of line. It is just awe-inspiring to watch and has always amazed me that they can keep it together and so letter perfect, so to speak, every time. Do you know why they fly in the 'V'? Now this is only what I read on-line, so I hope it's accurate because it sure is interesting. Canadian Geese are migratory birds and have to fly thousands of miles sometimes to get to that warm or cold place depending on the time of year. In order for them to fly longer distances, they fly in a V to cut down on wind resistance so they don't tire out so fast. It's like the cars in Nascar....they're draggin' off the goose in front of them! LOL. The lead goose, at the point of the V, meets the most wind resistance so when he tires, he falls back to the middle of the pack--the easiest spot to fly with the least amount of wind resistance--and one of the middle geese comes forward and leads for a while. The same happens for the two geese that are at the back of the V. They get the 2nd most amount of wind resistance, so when they tire, they move up and a middle guy moves back. If by chance a goose ends up lame or sick, falls out of formation and to the ground, at least two other geese--no less-- will descend with the lame goose and wait til he is better or dies before they continue on to join up with their group again. And did I mention that they always fly as a family?

They are another great example of how God got it right when He created them, didn't He? We could learn so much from nature if we took the time to look and study it some time. Just look at all we could learn from Canadian Geese---mate for life, share not only in the conception of, but in the raising and nurturing of your babies, protect your family, you'll fly stronger and further as a family, give the leaders a break every once in a while, let every family member take the lead from time to time. And when one of your family members goes down or is hurting, stick with 'em and comfort them til they're better or have passed on........

......and if some impatient guy in a fancy, black BMW repeatedly honks his horn at you while your trying to cross the street, poop many times on his favorite golf course! lol....

Quiet......

We have houses being built all around us right now and will for the next year probably. During the week it is a constant buzz, thump, drill, hammer, slam, beep, ker-chunk of construction noises....all day long. This is x3 right now as houses are being built on both sides of us and right across the street. By the end of the day and the end of the week I am craving quiet sooooo badly. This evening before dinner, I went outside and sat at the table on the screened porch waiting for the family to join. It took me 2 seconds to recognize the something I had been missing....hearing nothing. No construction noises, no neighbors chatting, no dogs barking, no cars driving by. I should say there was one sound. Crickets. As the sun starts to go down in our backyard, the chorus of crickets begins and the darker it gets, the louder they get. There must be a dozen different ones out there because of the variety of 'chirps' going on. I sat there tonight in absolute silence, closed my eyes and just listened. God wrote the most beautiful symphony with the making of His creatures. It's too bad we don't get the chance to hear these wonderful songs as much because of all the noise we surround ourselves from day to day. It's a pity too, that we don't carve out the time to go somewhere purposefully devoid of man's noise to enjoy, in my humble opinion, the perfect sounds of silence.

Dusk from my backyard...better known as
cricket time!

Blue ribbons.....

There's an ad in todays' paper about the special cooking contests that are being held at next months North Carolina State Fair. I think I may enter something this year. My mom used to enter foods in the fair every year and every year that woman would bring home blue ribbons! I don't think she won anything less than 1st place no matter what she entered. Her apple butter and peanut brittle were hands down the biggest winners.

There are numerous categories that have obvious sponsors like cornmeal, read-made pie crusts, corn syrup, etc. I gravitate toward the whole food categories like apples, pecans, peanuts and eggs. The apple category is interesting because they are not allowing any desserts entries this year. What will every apple pie, apple cake, apple fritter entry do?! I like the idea of a savory apple entry though. The egg competition this year is kinda cool, too. It is all egg sandwiches. Doesn't matter what you sandwich it in between, the egg just has to sandwiched by something. I'm thinkin' about something like a huevos rancheros type sandwich--my favorite way to eat eggs. I'm sure it can be turned into a delicious sandwich somehow. The pecan division is wide open. From appetizer to dessert and I have an interesting idea rolling around in my head for that. I haven't decided which I'll do....maybe all three!

The only thing I'm not crazy about is that if you win, the 'sponsors' of these contests get to take your recipe and use it as their own. I'm kinda protective of my recipes and just handing over the one that possibly was so slammin' good that it won first place in a cook-off? Can I do that? hmmmmm, if I want that ribbon, I will have to get over that protective thing I have toward my creations, I guess!