Spring Fever

First, pick the following seven words: an edible liquid, a color, a number, a noun, a plural animal, and two types of food.
Then fill in the blanks of the paragraph below.


Even though it was snowing earlier, the warmer temperatures resulted in the gentle pitter-patter of ____________ (edible liquid). The two small suns were shining _________ (color) beams through the arched window at the top of the tower. As the students turned to page ___________ (number) in their textbooks covering _________ (noun) they heard the sound of galloping ________ (plural animal) through the open window. Ahhh... at least they would soon enjoy the mid-morning snack of ______________ (type of food) with __________ (type of food).

Spot by Dove on Real Beauty Borrowed from Shannon Hale

Another thing I worry about with blogging is the idea that every entry should have a picture or something really interesting. Well, this entry won't have a picture but it does qualify for the interesting. Shannon Hale, author of young adult and other upcoming novels, advised going to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U (Dove Evolution video) by Dove in their Campaign for Real Beauty.
I would also recommend everyone to see the clip. It takes a few minutes to finally load with dial-up but ends up being well worth it. I don't believe they tweak every photo in the industry but most photos are enhanced to emphasize the concept or item being sold. We even tend to weed out the photos we take, you know, someone blinked in this one, or so and so wasn't looking or the baby was fussing and then we choose the best out of the bunch and apply red eye reduction, cropping, things of that nature but I doubt that most people do the extensive retouching as seen in the world of advertising.
Oh, we read a cute picture book to our youngest called The Devil You Know by Nathan Hale (no relation to Shannon Hale but ironically they are working together on a graphic novel due to come out in a year or so.) Nathan Hale has done a number of art pieces for Cricket magazine.

Great Granola Goodies

Someday I'll actually get into the habit of posting on my blog more consistently but for now it will be a sporadic thing to happen when I remember and when I have time to actually enter something. We've been making these granola bars a lot lately. My daughter even ran some around to the neighbors. Must have been nice for us to deliver something a little more healthy for once, ha, ha, ha. In other news we actually made it to a planning meeting this month where we chatted as we assembled birthday cards from scrapbooking materials. Hmmm.... got me to thinking about Christmas cards-will we or won't we send them out this year..... Currently reading Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott and enjoying it. I would have liked a description of the Christmas dinner though.


Granola Cereal Bars

½ cup packed brown sugar
½ cup peanut butter (we like creamy)
¼ cup light corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups old-fashioned oats (don’t use quick oats-recipe won’t turn out)
1 ½ cups crisp rice cereal
½ cup miniature chocolate chips

Combine the first three ingredients and zap in the microwave on high for a minute. Stir. Zap another 30-60 seconds or until bubbling, then stir again. Add the vanilla, oats and cereal and stir gently so you don't mash the crisp rice cereal. Wait about five minutes for it to cool then stir in the chips. Press into a 9-inch square pan coated with nonstick cooking spray. Cool and cut into bars.
Yield: 1 dozen
This recipe was tested in a 900-watt microwave
(We tried these October 17, 2006 and ended up making another batch on October 18, 2006 because they were so good. Rating: very good from the Wilson family)

March 20, 2006 Cornbread Mix that really works

Thanks to www.blogger.com for letting so many of us post on the web. Today we tried a cornbread mix that I found at www.recipezaar.com through their great recipe search. Slightly sweet with a delicate rise in texture it is about the closest thing I've found so far to those commercially prepared cornbread mixes from the store. My family does not like the canned corn versions of cornbread so this one will do nicely. It calls for 4 1/4 c. flour, 3/4 c. sugar (would use 1 1/4 c. ) , 4 c. cornmeal, 1/4 c. baking powder, 1-2 tsp. salt (would use the 2 tsp.) and 1 c. shortening. Add two cups of the mix to an egg and a cup of milk stirring until lumpy but mixed and pour into the 8 inch greased pan for baking. Bake the cornbread at 425 degrees F for 16-20 minutes or until edges are browning and top springs back and/or toothpick comes out with at the most a few moist crumbs. It says the mix makes 10 cups or enough for 5 batches and will store in a cool dry place for 6 months.