"Old Friends"

Make new friends
but keep the old
one is silver and the other gold

Everyone looks great...of all these gals I'm the most senior and have been retired the longest from being a classroom teacher. Two of the "girls" are still teaching but the rest have joined the hallowed ranks of retirement. Elisa graciously hosted us for a wonderful evening of food and fun!

It is interesting to reflect on all the people who have crossed my path over the years, especially those with whom I've spent considerable time in the work force. Ever since I can remember I had wanted to be a school teacher. My parents encouraged all of us kids to become teachers, and most of us went that route in some form or another. My parents had this reverence for teachers it seems, instilled in them from the European tradition of their own heritage. (They immigrated to Canada in 1923 when they were kids). Teaching was just the best profession not to mention that it only required one year of post high school training in my time - the rest was almost always added through summer school classes and night school-and so it was practical since we would all marry soon and have children and happily stay home ever after. Well it almost worked that way.

Re-entering the classroom after an almost 15 year absence after indeed being at home, happily attending to heart and hearth of my loved ones, I found myself swimming fast and furiously trying to keep my head above water, balancing my full time career along with managing my growing family and all that entailed. Well I know many women have done this but what makes it so much easier and sweeter is when you're surrounded by not only compatible but genuinely caring people excelling in their profession but also excelling at kindness, encouragement and friendship. These Abby Gals are these kind of gals - and there were others too, from yet earlier years - who helped me along. I've learned so much from these great gals - truly a gift from God! They made the journey exciting and fulfilling. My life is richer, fuller, and more beautiful because of them...Thank you Abby Gals!

Late September Planters

It amazes me that I never tire of checking my planters, admiring and fussing over them even yet moving them about to maximize their sun exposure with the noticeably shorter days. It's a great investment-time, money and energy-since it's such a soul-nourishing and building hobby and pastime. There is such a lavish abundance of beauty at our fingertips. Since early April I've bought and planted and transplanted and watered and fertilized and pruned and dead-headed...I am blessed, feel extravagantly privileged that Almighty God trusts me with His resources and let's me "play" to my heart's content. It's like He says: "Here are the seeds, I created them you know, here's the water, yes, I created that too, and here's the sunshine which I also created. Now go for it!" So for the past half year I've been blessed to do just that again this summer. Flowers,flowers, flowers... wonderful reminders to me of God's faithfulness and gentleness everyday.
Thank you, Lord.

As I was sitting on the deck with a good book and a coffee I reflected on just how well the planters right around the deck have done and how good they still look at this time of the year. I took these from my perch on the deck...liking the way the purple asters against the wall were a good backdrop for this planter.

Here the hot-pink carpet rose showcases the white daisies in this planter.

This post began in my mind as I was reading the last ten verses of Matthew 6 - the "do not worry section". Read them and be encouraged and uplifted.

Lemon-Raisin Cookies-gluten-free

 

One more gluten-free recipe in this trilogy of recipes. I took the recipe, one which I've made with regular flour in the past, from The Mennonite Treasury of Recipes in which its listed as Orange Cookies. Well since "necessity is the mother of invention" I reconstructed the original to suit a gluten-free diet and substituted lemon for orange with kudos from Big Al. Because Al really likes icing I also finished them off after baking with a thin lemon glaze.

Lemon-Raisin Cookies

2/3 cup butter or shortening
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs well beaten
4 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon grated lemon rind
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups flour -here I used Celimix white bread mix
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup raisins
1 tablespoon water

Cream butter, add sugar, beaten eggs, lemon juice, rind, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients mixing well. Add raisins. Drop by teaspoon onto parchment-lined cookie sheet.
Bake in hot 400o oven for 12 minutes or until golden.
Spread with a thin glaze of icing sugar, lemon juice and enough hot water to get right consistency and drizzle over warm cookies.

Jennifer alerted me to a Gluten-Free Cooking Class being offered in Langley. We trekked out there today to check things out and signed up for a class in November. We'll get some more ideas. What a great outing we had together with her little fellows.

Fruit Platz

 

Fruit Platz has long been a favourite in our family. It's a traditional Mennonite dessert served often at an afternoon "Fesper". Apples, cherries, apricots, peaches, blueberries, rhubarb and plums all can be used to make a very tasty treat.

I was determined to make a Platz that Al could eat and enjoy-gluten free. So off the top, and through many years of Platz making, I just put the following ingredients together and the results were great.

Plum Platz
Crust:
3 cups of "flour" - I used a combination of ground gluten free oatmeal, ground almonds and celimix bread flour.*
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup brown sugar
Cut in 1 cup shortening
Add two eggs-beaten

I found that I didn't need to add any other liquid to get the right consistency. Then I just pressed it into a jelly roll size pan.

Add plums which have been halved placing them right next to each other cut side up.

Topping:

Blend together
1 cup of the same kind of "flour" mixture used for the crust
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter

Bake at 375o for 20-25 minutes.

 

*I keep a bag of Celimix White Bread Mix on hand for Al's cookies, pancakes etc. This mix already includes the xanthan gum and other trace ingredients that are necessary to hold the product together.

Gluten-Free Banana Muffins

Here's a wonderful link I've discovered over the past few months:

http://mennonitegirlscancook.blogspot.com/

The site features a blog every day posted by one of a group of seven or eight women from the Fraser Valley. They do an outstanding job of documenting their work, photographing it and sharing recipes plus other interesting tidbits from their lives. They are a highly gifted group of women.

Among their substantial repertoire of recipes, they also publish a Gluten- Free section. The following recipe which I'm sharing here is from one of their posts this week but I simply made it to suit a gluten-free diet. So if you want the original recipe you can find it at the above link. This is my adapted version. They turned out very well. Big Al gave me the thumbs up on this one and that's the litmus test.

Gluten-Free Banana Muffins:
. 1 1/2 cups gluten-free flour mix -I used 3/4 cups ground gluten free oats,
1/2 cups ground almonds, 1/4 cup rice flour
. 1 tsp. baking powder
. 1 tsp. baking soda
. 1/2 tsp. salt
. 1/2 cup sugar
. 1/3 cup oil
. 2 eggs
. 3 mashed bananas

Combine dry ingredients except sugar.
Combine sugar, oil, eggs and mashed bananas.
Stir in the dry ingredients.
Fill one lined muffin tin with mixture. Spray liners with vegetable oil spray.
Bake at 375o for 18-20 minutes or until golden brown.
Cool on wirerack.

Cool Freebies

Every year I'm amazed at how many "freebies" show up in the garden. I expect the perennials and the weeds to show up of course but tomatoes... melons... summer savoury? Yet there they were!
Many years ago, I planted a packet of seeds displaying stunning magenta-colored flowers. I thought they were an annual but every year they come up randomly throughout the garden. Sometimes I move some of the fledglings into a more desirable spot and sometimes I just pull them out like a weed. It is a member of the hibiscus family, I think. I like its height and the color it adds to the tool shed and lattice trellis:

But after a heavy rain I find the stalks bent over unable to bear the weight. My sunflowers did the same thing this year. Yes, yes I know I should have anchored them. They are very forgiving though, I find.

Quite cool to find this tomato plant thriving in rich soil next to my pink rose bush and hidden under another equally well-fed hibiscus-type freebie. It already had well-developed tomatoes on it by the time I spotted it and so I let it ripen but right after the taste-test I took this photo and then discarded the whole plant. To my dismay it lacked flavor and texture. While it had been robbing the rose bush of its nutrients it didn't get the necessary sun to warm and sweeten its fruit.

One of my biggest surprises was finding this hydrangea bloom all by itself next to a grassy plant and about five feet away from my largest hydrangea bush. After checking to see whether it wasn't simply a cluster off the large bush, I discovered that it was securely anchored in the soil. There were no green leaves, just this little cluster. Does it have an underground umbilical cord still attached to the mother plant? Hmmm...I might dig it up to see. Interesting.

Over the past five months I've fussed over the petunias...deadheading, feeding and watering. It's all totally worth it when I see the stunning results. So I must say I was dumbfounded to see this tenacious little floweret imbedded in this tiny crack on our driveway. It's been stepped on and parched...no TLC for this little thing and yet there it is bright-eyed and vigorous. The staying power of a seed is remarkable indeed. How did it get there? How does it survive? I don't have the heart to treat it like a weed.

Asters and Hydrangeas

Asters deep purple
A grasshopper's call-
Today it is summer
Tomorrow is fall!*

I love these deep purple asters-perennials-which add such a bright note to their fading counterparts at this time of the year. Of course they've only just begun...

Hydrangea-stalwart staple of a large garden:

Hydrangea -from a different bush. Many of the hydrangea clusters have faded and dried. However, with the cooler weather there are always enough beauties which come to the fore and make a spectacular bouquet around Thanksgiving. What a great giving plant this is, flowering by the end of June, developing throughout the summer then offering up gorgeous dried clusters of flowers for arrangements which can last forever it seems.