Are these cookies sumptuous, savory or satisfying?

My friend Lisa is starting a new "thing" on her blog.  She is going to post recipes and is asking her readers to jump in with a recipe of their own and link to hers.  Recipe lover that I am, I just knew I had to join in as soon as I read her post.

I've been intending to post some recipes, myself.  I want to post some of my mom's recipes as well as my own.  Mom was a great cook and loved to cook.  Her repertoire was based in comfort food, simple family-style favorites. 

She baked as well as she cooked savory food.  My first recipe of Mom's is one her grandchildren loved and looked for every time they came over - Pastel Cookies.  Although we called them Jell-O cookies, because Jell-O is the main ingredient.  Sounds crazy, maybe, and lots of folks look down their nose at Jell-O, but I grew up in the 60's, when Jell-O was a big treat!

I seem to remember that she copied this recipe from a magazine ad.  They really are delicious sugar cookies with a tangy, fruity flavor.  I made some to take to work last year and my co-workers loved them, especially my boss.

Pastel Cookies

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 cups butter or margarine
1 cup sugar
1 package (3 oz.) Jello-O gelatin, any flavor (raspberry is really good)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

 Mix flour with baking powder.  Cream butter, gradually add sugar and gelatin, beating well.   Beat in egg and vanilla.  Gradually add flour mixture, mixing well.  Force dough through cookie press onto ungreased cookie sheet (Mom didn't have a cookie press.  She dropped the cookie dough onto the cookie sheet and flattened them with the bottom of a juice glass dipped in more Jell-O.)  Sprinkle with additional gelatin (same flavor).  Bake at 400 degrees for about 8 minutes, or until edges are golden brown.

So there it is.  They aren't really sumptuous, and they're not savory so they must be satisfying!  Check out Lisa's blog post here for more recipes.

Free Patterns

I found a resource for some really cute, free patterns from Martingale, one of my favorite publishers.  You have to register first  but there are some nice projects from well-known designers to choose from.  I want to do these:








Of course, I only have a very few (HA!) UFOs to finish before I can start something new.  Same for you, right?

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all you dads, grandads, wannabe dads and spiritual dads out there.  I have not had a dad to say "Happy Father's Day" to since I was nine-years-old.  Truthfully, since I was eight, because he died the April I was nine.  I don't remember at all any father's days previous to his death.  I remember all sorts of great things about him and that's good, but it's been such a loss to me to not have parents as an adult.  My mother died when I was 24 - before the end of a bad relationship, before I met Dave, before I became a quilter (which she would have loved), long before Grace, her namesake, came along.  And while I'm now at the age when it would not necessarily be expected for me to have living parents, I still often feel compass-less.

Dad's death came on a slick highway on a rainy day in April.   He was on his way to work.  I remember Mrs. Williams calling me to the door of the classroom and telling me my mom needed me to come home because she had something to tell me.  And there in the hallway was my aunt, whom I adored, fighting back tears and leading me to a waiting car, where we got in the backseat (no clue who was driving).  My 16-year-old older brother was already there, his jaw set against showing emotion, his head bowed a little.  He didn't look at me or anyone else.

The next week was filled with people, food and flowers.  Those are the things that stand out most for me.  The house was filled with family, neighbors, Daddy's work associates and golf buddies - lots of golf buddies.  Our house smelled like Dave's Flowerland, which was the flower shop he often stopped at randomly on his way home from anywhere to buy Mom flowers.  This was in the 1960s, before the use of the phrase "in lieu of flowers, the family requests a donation to..." became widespread.  We ran out of surfaces to put arrangements on.  They were all beautiful, and quite a number of them came from Dave's.

And the food!!!!  It's no wonder I have food issues!  Masses of fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, casseroles, hams, more fried chicken and every Jello salad known to humanity, with some new ones invented on the spot.  Didn't know what to say to someone?  Take a bite of pie.  Want to avoid the visitors in the living room?  Go to the kitchen and grab some pound cake.

I miss having parents; I wonder how I would have been a different person through the years.  A little less lonely, I guess, definitely a little more normal-feeling.  I'd have had somewhere to go, always:  home.  I spent a lot of holidays alone or feeling like an "extra" in someone else's house between Mom's death and my marriage. 

I wish now that I could say, "Well, that's all in the past, no need to fret about it now."  But it does affect me, in more ways than I like to admit.  In a little while Grace and I will take Dave to lunch and give him his Father's Day gifts and have a great time.  But part of me will be that 4th grader, wondering what in the world awaited me at home that morning and having no realization that a huge part of my childhood was about to come to an end in a living room of crying people.

Hexagons

Double four patch on the design wall

I'm back in the sewing room!  I love to start the day with sewing, and since I'm naturally an early riser, it's not unusual to find me there from about 4:45 a.m. until about 6:30, when I have to get ready for work.  It makes the day so much better when I can start it doing what I want to do.

This is from the book Triangle-Free Quilts by Judy Hopkins.  For a couple of years I would flip through this book every time I went to any quilt shop.  Several years ago I was visiting a friend in Phoenix and we went to a quilt shop.  I found the book and was drooling over it once again and to my surprise, my friend bought it for me!  So nice!

It's good to be sewing again.  I've been so busy at work - I have been given a huge project - it's so stressful, about the most stressful thing I've done at any job.  Once day I think, I can do this and the next I think I'm a dunce and wish I could run away.

Check out the other design wall posts over at Judy's.

I crochet, too.

 I learned to crochet when I was pretty young - maybe 11 or 12-years-old.  I've made some really goofy looking items and some ok ones.  Crochet is very popular again.  I made this scarf for Grace.  The pattern is called "Circles Scarf" and it's designed by Linda Permann.

 Nobody in the family would model it, including the dog, so I took it outside and put it on a plant.

Today's harvest

Here's today's harvest - four cucumbers, three tomatoes and a bunch of green beans.  Not too bad from a tiny container garden.  I've been picking cucumbers like mad.  Maybe I'll send Dave around to the neighbors with these, because there are several in the refrigerator still.

On Wednesday we had a going-away party for our academic vice president.  She's going to be a college president in a certain city in the northwest that's known for its "green-ness" so we had a very green-themed party.  It was also a play on the idea that she's leaving for "greener" pastures.  I completely forgot to take my camera.  I was in charge of the punch.  I made mojito punch (non-alcoholic, of course).  I used the Crystal Light mojito flavored drink - this is not a paid commercial from them in any way, but their new drinks are delicious (margarita is my favorite so far).  I mixed up a batch and added mint leaves, lime slices, Sprite and crushed ice to the punch bowl and everyone loved it.  They drained the punch bowl twice (we had about 100 people).

I made some of the food we served (others were in charge of the cake and decorating).  I cut up cucumbers and green peppers from the garden and put them on a tray with broccoli, snow peas and celery and made green goddess dip.  We had two green jello-type salads.  We had chicken salad roll-ups in green tortillas, of course, green frosted cookies and every green jelly bean Jelly Belly makes.  I found three different kinds of green veggie chips and served them with guacamole and also had pickles and green olives.  It was very green in that room!  The decorators used three shades of green tablecloths and a million green balloons around the room.

We're into our summer schedule of four-day work weeks.  I love it.  Today I plan to hand-quilt most of the day with possibly some time out to go get a pedicure (one of my favorite "self-care" treats).