Happy New Year

Today is Tuesday recipe day, but it is also New Year's Eve.  I thought I could post a delicious recipe and then wish everyone a very Happy New Year.  I happen to have some left over cranberries and some yellow delicious apples that need to be used up.  Last week, on Christmas Eve, I posted a Banana Bread recipe that was made in a crockpot.  The recipe I was going to post today is also made in a crockpot. It was another quick bread made with apples and cranberries.   I got out all of my ingredients.  I chopped the cranberries and apples.  I put all the dry ingredients into one bowl, and all the wet ingredients into another bowl.  The first thing that went wrong was that the recipe called for orange juice.  I didn't have any or any oranges to juice.  I also needed the zest of the orange.  Oh well, I'll just use water.  The bread wouldn't be cranberry, apple, orange bread, it would just be cranberry-apple bread.  No big deal.  Then I started mixing it, but something was wrong.  It was then that I realized I had put in twice as much liquid as it called for.  My multi-taking skills are not as sharp as they once were.  I thought about throwing it away, but then I thought I would put in another cup of flour.  Actually I was going to double everything but the dough was really stiff with just one.  I wondered at this point if I had put in too much liquid or if it was the right amount to begin with.  Being very confused, I just put it in a loaf pan and baked it for an hour.  Maybe I will try again in the future and actually post the recipe.

This is the bread I made.  It looks pretty good, tastes pretty good
and you can't tell it weighs five pounds.

Later tonight we celebrate New Year's Eve with our grandchildren.  This year we will only have two at our house celebrating.  We have plenty of snacks and sparkling grape juice for later.  They wanted mashed potatoes for dinner and didn't care what we had with them.  I think I can handle that.  I made roast beef with the potatoes forgetting that Sam has braces.  Poor kid was trying to cut the meat into tiny little pieces.  I finally made him a hamburger, and that was easier for him to eat.  It should be a quiet entrance into the new year unless something else goes just slightly wrong.  Oops, my dad just got a nosebleed.   

They played their electronics for a while.

Even better, they are playing a board game.

 

Happy 2014 To Everyone

My First Experience With Persimmons

It is always said that you are never too old to learn something new.  That happened to me recently.  Near the beginning of December we had some very good friends stop for a visit.   At one point in the conversation they began to talk about getting their first case of persimmons for the season.  They said that before the holidays were over they would eat several cases of the fruit.  I couldn't believe it.  I had heard the name persimmon because I believe there is an orangish crayon that color, but I had never seen one or tasted one.  I didn't even know you could buy them around here.  As we were talking our friend got up, went out to his vehicle and brought one in.  It looked like a tomato with a dried brown husk for a stem.

He told us to wait a few days before eating so they get nice and ripe.  We waited a couple days and finally cut it into thirds.  We each sampled a section.  I can't really describe the taste.  It looks like a tomato, but it is firm inside and tastes sweet.  Apparently they are very seasonal and only available in Wisconsin for a very short period of time near the end of the year.   I found out that they are pretty hard to find.  I looked every time I went grocery shopping.  Today I ran into the store for a few groceries and there they were.  They had three left, so I bought them.  I'm saving them to show my grandchildren when they come for New Years Eve.  They are a very pretty and interesting looking fruit.

Thank you Connie and David for broadening my world.  My world is pretty small and I imagine there are tons of things I have never heard of, let alone eaten.