If you don't like that number...

After three or four spirited repetitions of "United Breaks Guitars," Isaac politely asked Levi, "Would you please not sing that anymore? It gets annoying hearing the same thing over and over." Without missing a beat Levi changed his tune and began gustily belting out "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way!" The boy was made to sing.

Strawberry recipes #6 and #7

The berry bushes are still producing madly (kind of like I love them, madly), but alas I've failed to properly document the last few things I've done with the madly delicious berries. So without further ado, two more madly awesome recipes incorporating the maddeningly amazing strawberry.


Strawberry Milkshakes

Strawberries, frozen
Milk
Sugar (optional)
Ice

Combine equal amounts of milk and strawberries in a blender and blend madly away. Add sugar to taste and enough ice to meet your desired thickness. For an elegant presentation, pour into glasses (or Veggie Tales cups if you're at our house) and drizzle with chocolate syrup. Voila!




Berry Pie with Fresh Fruit

That's the title it's found under in my trusty Joy of Cooking cookbook, and it's suitable for use with gooseberries, currants, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, huckleberries and loganberries. I rarely make a fully baked pie with strawberries (this may be the first time I ever have), but I had a craving for crust, the top and the bottom, thus baking was required.

4 c fresh berries
2/3 - 1 c sugar
1/4 c flour
1/2 t cinnamon
2 c flour
1 t salt
2/3 chilled shortening
2 T chilled butter
4 T water
1 to 2 T butter

Combine first amount of sugar (based on tartness of your berries), 1/4 c flour, and cinnamon and sprinkle over berries. Stir gently and let sit for 15 minutes. Preheat oven to 450.

Sift together (or just combine, if like me, you don't have a sifter) 2 c flour and salt. Combine chilled shortening and butter and add half to flour mixture, cutting with a pastry blender or crumbling with fingers until it has the grain of cornmeal. Add the rest of the shortening mixture and work in until chunks are pea-size. Sprinkle dough with water and blend lightly until it holds together. If needed, add more water one teaspoonful at a time until you can gather it up easily.

Divide dough into two balls, and roll out for crusts. As my mother does, I like to slit the top crust creating a picture of whatever is inside the pie. Lay the bottom crust in a pie pan, pour in the berry mixture and dot with butter. Place top pie crust over and crimp edges to your liking. Eat the leftover dough after wiping down the inside of the berry bowl with it.

Brush the top crust with milk and sprinkle lightly with sugar. Bake at 450 for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and bake another 35 to 40 minutes or until top is nicely browned and juices begin to leak through the slits in the crust.

I must say (must I? okay, not really, but I will anyway) that this was hands-down the best pie crust I have ever made. I've used this crust recipe before with just average results, so I don't know if it was the weather, the thoroughly chilled shortening, the luck of the rolling or the panties I was wearing, but something (everything!) went right with this crust, and it was divine. Madly so. I was tempted to eat the whole thing myself except the kids saw me making it and might not have forgiven me if I'd not shared.

Domesticity

Points toward domestic goddesshood: I canned pizza sauce and spaghetti sauce with tomatoes from our garden.

Point deductions: I used a packaged sauce mix -- just add tomatoes and a spoonful of sugar.

Not that I was seriously in the running for achieving deification as a domestic goddess anyway. I mean, really, I rely on boxes for all my cake and pancake needs, miss the yearly mopping requirements by a mile, and ignore the boys' bathroom until the guys in body suits and gas masks show up threatening to shut down my homemaking operation due to toxicity issues. Oh well. Who wants to be a goddess anyway? Way too much pressure for me. I'm just gonna sit back and enjoy my pizza sauce.

What's it called again?

Isaac: "Hey Mom, you know that thing in our government? The, um, table of contents, I think?"

Me: "The Declaration of Independence?"

Isaac: "Yeah, that's it."

Metamorphosis: Take Three

The monarch has emerged!

These caterpillars ate voraciously! Luke captured eight of them, and I wondered whether my milkweed would survive the constant picking of leaves and branches! It was amazing watching them eat the leaves -- chomp, chomp, chomp, row by row, like little corn on the cob munchers.

Watching them enter their pupa stage was also amazing. They hang upside down for hours, and finally, with much squirming, burst their outer skin and peel it off, revealing this green, featureless blob.

And then a monarch butterfly comes out! It's incredible!

It astounds me that God chose this means for butterfly development. He could have just had adult butterflies give birth to live baby butterflies. Why egg, larva, pupa and then adult? Perhaps metamorphosis exists, at least in part, to give us a glimpse of just how creative, powerful and mind-bogglingly sovereign our creator is.