The Joy of Marriage

I promise that the chocolate raspberry torte tutorial is coming soon! Right now, though, I am elbow deep in paper preparing folders for our church's marriage preparation program. This is a ministry I really like participating in, because the engaged couples bring so much joy and anticipation with them to each session. Also, because the program gives me a chance to reflect on my own marriage and how much joy the vocation of marriage brings to me. I feel so profoundly blessed to have been called to the married state and to motherhood and I love to have the opportunity to share with engaged couples about the wonderful blessing marriage is.

Talking about marriage, looking over our wedding photos, reminiscing about our wedding and dreaming about what the future of our marriage may hold, these are some of the activities of the week for my DH and me. We had a beautiful visit this weekend with the dear priest who performed our wedding ceremony. He is my uncle and very special to us both. He is also gravely ill, so I ask any one reading this blog today to join me in saying a prayer for him.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing you all safe trips if you are travelling, delicious feasts when you are feasting, and many many hands to help with the dishes if you are cooking!

Chocolate Raspberry Cake-Part One

Tonight we're having a dessert pot-luck for the parents in my younger son's class. Our contribution is a chocolate raspberry torte from my all-time hands-down favorite cookbook, Cold Weather Cooking by Sarah Leah Chase. Our other contribution is a clean, welcoming house to host the party. Now, the party starts in 2 hours and we still need to dust and clean a few bathrooms, so I'll teach you all how to make the cake tomorrow.

I'd like to say I've been cleaning all day, but that wouldn't be true. I've been grocery shopping and running kids around to lessons and other places. Instead, I'm happy to announce-(all right, I guess I need to use a more honest verb) I'm happy to brag-that my husband has been cleaning all day. Maybe I could take to calling hime Mr. Clean? Our house is pretty sparkly right now. Talk about a blessing!

And (bonus!) I guess since I'm married to him I get to be Mrs. Clean, without so much as lifting a dustpan!

TGIF

Friday night's here! That's what I'm grateful for right now. A loooong week, many night meetings, kids waking up in the middle of the night, an unexpected trip to the doctor for (blessedly) minor injury, glow bowling today with the 3rd, 4th and 5th grades (this involves music, disco balls, black lights, bowling and pizza all amalgamated into in one dizzying tween fiesta), all capped off with a Cub Scout pack meeting tonight. Whew! Just typing it makes me tired.

(And, truth be told, very, very grateful for this young and energetic crowd I run around with) : )

Rainy Day Blessing

Morning started out with the sky blue, the ground wet, the air warm and damp. It kind of tricked me into doubting the weather forecast which predicted wild rain. By the time my Thursday morning mothers' rosary group had gathered though, the clouds rolled in and darkened the sky. Rain began to pour down and it lasted all afternoon.

Normally I only like sunny mild days, but every fall I find myself happy for "November weather" if I have nowhere I have to go and if the weather has been pretty nice for a while. A grey stormy day, a pot of carrot orange soup on the stove for lunch, friends visiting and drinking coffee, what could be nicer? Well, I've got the answer to that one! For me, it was my children home after school, my littlest one napping on the couch next to me and the chance to watch a movie with the 3 older ones that didn't feature princesses, an explorer and her monkey, or a ballerina mouse. Yup, we watched Open Season and it was goofy, boy-pleasing fun all around. The chance to do something so cozy and simple with just my "bigs", something that had us all laughing out loud, has filled my grateful heart right to the brim with joy.

Orange You Sweet!

I have to admit, I love to bake. I don't love for my family to eat too many sweets though, so it's a balancing act. I'll bake if company is coming, for holidays, for birthdays, and for school celebrations. I bake bread several times a week. Sweets just for us are not that common, but I think we probably end up having them once or twice a month. And... today was one of those baking days!

The last time I went to the market the grocery cart sported a little picture of some yummy looking pale cream colored frosted cookies on an ad for Land O'Lakes butter. It said something about holiday baking, but not, oddly enough, the cookie's name. Since I love love love the internet, I went happily to their web site and with a little sleuthing found Lemon Meltaways. Uh oh, one of my daughters can't abide lemon.

I pondered a few substitutes. No flavor? Too bland, I feared. Maple? Well, the same daughter only likes maple syrup, not anything flavored maple. Molasses? Ginger? No, I wanted something brighter. How about orange? As in the oranges in the fridge?

Well, that sounded just right.

Here's what I came up with.
Frosted Orange Snowdrops!
(I'm naming them that because the frosting looks like a little snow peak swirled atop the cookie).
Adapted from the Land O'Lakes recipe web site.

First I got out my ingredients.


1 1/4 c, flour
1 1/2 sticks butter
1/2 c corn starch
1/2 c powdered sugar
1 1/2 T orange juice

Then, I made the dough. Everything went into the bowl of my KitchenAid mixer and I mixed it until a smooth, pliable dough
formed.

(And meanwhile, I emptied the dishwasher. When the dishes were away, the dough was done. See? It doesn't take forever to empty it like everyone here in my house thinks it does! : ))

Then, I formed the dough into 2 logs, each about 8"x1" and set them in the fridge to cool for about 1/2 an hour.



I preheated the oven and when it was ready I sliced the dough into 48 cookies. They were a little more square than I hoped, but they rounded out a bit in the oven.

Next, the baking. Following Land O Lakes' instructions I baked them for 10 minutes in the 350 degree F oven. When they were done, they were not brown, but were set.


After they cooled, I frosted them with this snowy icing: 3/4 c powdered sugar, 1/2 stick of butter, 1 T orange juice, all mixed in the Kitchen Aid mixer until smooth and creamy.

But, they looked kind of pale.
Tasty, but boring.
So, I sprinkled a little cinnamon and a tiny bit of grated orange zest over them, and voila! These are beautiful autumn cookies!

And, everyone really loved them.

So, I'm grateful I had such a happy afternoon baking and I'm looking forward to the blessing of an autumn evening tea and cookie dessert with my husband and kids. And I feel even more blessed if just one of you readers makes up your own batch of Frosted Orange Snowdrops to enjoy with some tea. (I bet cocoa would be great too!)

A Few Ground Rules

As far as the daily gratitude posts go (see yesterday's post), I've been thinking about a few ground rules. This may evolve over the next 12 months, but for now I'm proposing each day's post will be:

1. honest: a blessing I actually am grateful for that specific day (for example, no "fun days at the beach" when it's 20 degrees outside)


2. unique: a new blessing for each day, but it can be a different aspect of something I've mentioned before (for example, I can be grateful for how warm and sunny my kitchen is and I can also be grateful on a different day for how big and comfortable it is)


3. reliable: I'll post something each day that I am home with my computer (so when I'm away there won't be any posts), and try to put in a few extras when I get back

For today, I'm so grateful that the sun is shining, that the two kids who went to the dentist are cavity free, and that my friend E. is keeping her spirits up when her brood seems determined to test her limits!

Thanks A Lot

As in, saying thanks a lot of times. Being grateful as an habitual attitude. Realizing the blessings in my life, making myself actually name them and be thankful for each one, rather than relying on a general awareness of God's generosity, or worse, taking it all for granted.

We've had a particularly frustrating day around here. I'll spare you the details but imagine 4 bored children, the best fun of the weekend over, Mama with a lot of housework and laundry to do, and hours to go until bedtime. As the day wore on I found myself getting more and more agitated with the amount of work to be done and the amount of messes that kept appearing.

The thing is, discouragement can get the better of me. I want to make our home a cheerful one and I want my children to be raised by a loving, peaceful, joyful mother. And truly, I do love being a stay-at home mom. Yet life in a family, with its spills, messes, temper tantrums and quarrels can bring on my impatience faster than a preschooler can empty a bottle of soft soap all over a counter. Exasperation, sighs, a furrowed brow, these are my characteristics more often than I want them to be.

I realized that I can allow that annoyance to color my attitude and influence my disposition, or I can find some antidote. So, in an effort to become more visibly happy, I am determined to dwell on the positive aspects of life and family and give voice to them. There are many, and I don't mean to suggest that even a day goes by without some laughs or smiles or even a prayer of thanksgiving for my family spontaneously arising from my lips. I just want to focus on them more consciously, and I want to challenge myself to do it daily, and moreover, to chronicle my attempt here at In For A Penny every day for a year.

Now, this blog post is getting long, so I'll lay out my plans and ground rules tomorrow. But in the spirit of jumping in with both feet, I'll list some of the blessings I'm thankful for today right now:

• My own cheerful mother who spent an hour on the phone with me today, helping me to lift my spirits and gain a little psychological space from the trying afternoon we were having


• Four really good kids who really did pitch in and help with cleaning up the laundry room {one of today's fun Mama projects : ) }


• My fabulously reliable husband who said he'd be home at 5:50 pm and walked in the door with a smile, right on time.

Can She Bake A Cherry Pie?

Or more to the point, can I? That's a question that I would always ponder when my mother would sing Billy Boy to me when I was little. It turns out that the girl in the song "can bake a cherry pie, quick's a cat can wink it's eye", but what about me?

Well, now that my camera and my computer appear to be on speaking terms, I can answer that question for you all.

I've been thinking or dreaming about making the iconic lattice-topped cherry pie for years. I don't like canned cherries or canned cherry pie filling though. So, this summer, armed with Rose Levy Birnbuam's magnificent guide The Pie and Pastry Bible and a few pounds of fresh cherries, I got to work.

First, I pitted the cherries and mixed them with sugar and almond extract.




While they macerated, I mixed up a batch of cream-cheese pie crust (enough for a double crust pie). Then, I rolled out the bottom crust, lined the pie pan with it,



and poured in the cherry mixture.

Next, I rolled the remaining dough out, cut the strips and wove the lattice on top of the cherry filling. This is not as easy as it looks, because the dough strips break pretty easily. Mending them results in a less then picture-perfect lattice. When you're done, though, you can get lots of satisfaction saying to your happy family "Look! Look! It looks just like a real cherry pie!" And since they are looking forward to eating it, they will smile and tell you "It does! It really does!"




Then, into the oven it went. While it baked, I happily cleaned up the kitchen and sang, several times "Can she bake a cherry pie Billy Boy, Billy Boy, can she bake a cherry pie, darling Billy?"

Guess what? It turns out that I can. And maybe with some more practice, I too will be able to bake them up before that cat can finish winking.

Does anyone else

want the Halloween Hangover to end?

One solid week of "Can I have a piece of candy?" (multiplied by four hopeful voices) and wrappers galore makes me just a teeny bit glad that I'm starting to see the botom of those cheerful pumpkins the kiddos used to collect their Halloween treats. I love tick-or-treating, I love seeing my little ones in their costumes danicing and wriggling with excitement, I even love Halloween candy. I'm just saying thouugh, I think we could all use some salad around here.

All Saints' Day

Good morning! Today, November 1st, the Church celebrates the Feast of All Saints, or All Saints' Day, to honor all of God's saints, known and unknown. Catholics have been celebrating this feast for more than a millenium! The liturgical color for the day is white. All Saints Day is also a Holy Day of Obligation, meaning that Catholics must attend Mass unless they have a "grave cause" for staying away. Grave causes include the need to care for children, to work to support one's family, sickness, caring for the sick, etc. (I'm citing these reasons as I learned them this from EWTN's website)

Tonight we'll be talking at the supper table about each of the children's patron saints and asking them for their intercessions!