Dec

Merry Christmas to You!

Categories: Christmas, In the Family, Penny at Home

Blessings to you, dear Reader, this Christmas, from Penny and I.

What a season full of blessings! The blessing of God Himself coming down to where we are, to give us hope and salvation from the mess our world becomes without Him. We celebrate this season because of Him. And also we celebrate the blessing of family and the giving of gifts. What a privilege to bless others.

I enjoy stamping Christmas cards to give to friends.

A hedgehog snowman is rather a prickly friend, with a warm heart, of course!

We also bake lots of cookies to give to anyone who comes by.

Penny enjoys exploring and sampling flavors amid the busyness of sticky counters.

Penny likes to play in the pretty Christmas sprinkles. The peppermint bits were tasty in chocolate cookies, a new combination we invented this year.

Penny would like to share with you a special recipe of ours:

Scandinavian Almond Bars

Beat:    1/2 cup softened butter
         1 cup sugar
Add:     1 egg
         1/2 tsp. almond extract
Stir in: 1 3/4 cup flour
         2 tsp. baking powder
         1/4 tsp. salt

Divide the dough into 4 balls.  Shape each into a 12" long roll. 
Place 2 rolls on an ungreased cookie sheet, flatten to 3" wide.
Brush with milk, then sprinkle with slivered almonds.
Bake at 325° for 12-15 minutes.
Allow to cool, then drizzle frosting over and slice diagonally.
(And we added Penny's Christmas sprinkles.)

The almond cookies are a favorite of mine, but how can I favor any one cookie when they are all such yummy treats? I must admit that the cookies I’ve been snitching the most lately are the turtle cookies.

What cookies did you like best Penny?

Fudge! And who has been snitching here?

*****

One of the special things about decorating for Christmas is the effect of lights. We hope that you enjoy the glimpses of our Christmas lights below as much as we do each evening.

Penny’s own Christmas tree.

Silent night, Holy night,
All is calm, all is bright,
‘Round yon virgin mother and Child,
Holy Infant so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.

Merry Christmas!!

Dec

Apple Cider Making With Penny

Categories: Our Farm, Penny at Home

Comments: 2

This month’s adventure with Penny has been making apple cider in our yard. Who would think that this warm and balmy weather could really be December? We still have pumpkins sitting about adding their bright cheery orange color to our farm. Isn’t this a fun warty one?

Here I am, cutting up apples by the milkhouse. My brother rigged up this countertop to hold a stainless steel sink that has a food disposal attached to its drain, just for cider making.

Penny enjoys watching to be sure that I am cutting the apples properly, and am watching out for bad spots.

We load the sink with the chopped apples, ready to send down into the chopper with this wooden plunger.

Here’s another view so you can see the food disposal underneath waiting for a stainless steel bucket to catch the mush.

Ahh, mushy, mushy, very juicy!

Then into the milkhouse we go to fill the press.

Inside the wooden ring we lay the cloth and pour in the apple mush.

Penny gently folds over the cloth, so it can close up the pulp, then we set a wooden disk over it. Next we add another layer of cloth, fill it with apple mush, and then add another wooden disk. We build several layers, not too thick with mush, so we can squeeze them very dry with the jack.