The family all back together. . .

We picked Sprat up at camp yesterday morning and then had to jet to an All Star baseball game.   They got beat but, it was a good game and a tough loss.  We are still in though, it is double elimination so we play again next week sometime.  We had great weather, it was overcast and breezy.  It was not supposed to be that way but I was so glad it was.  Dear hubby, Big T and I sat under the trees on a hill and watched the game.  I felt bad for the boys though because it was hot on them down on the field.  They played well out in the field but we could not buy a run to save our lives.  I think they can beat the team we play next, I hope so anyway.  You just hate to see these kids practice all this time and then not be able to pull one out.  Sprat is getting to play with one of his friends this time and they are having fun.

Recipes. . .

I am a recipe junkie.  I have so many recipes and the bad part is that none of them are in any kind of order.  I have several groups of recipes on my fridge, most of them I use fairly regularly.  I have a file folder full of recipes that I have torn out of magazines, only a few of these have I made.  I have many cookbooks that I have purchased and been given over the years.  I have one in particular that I have had since I went out on my own after college.  It is a Church cookbook from a Church where I grew up, not my Church but one near by.   These recipes are old and time tested.  I even have a little wooden box with recipe cards in it from various places.  Now that we have the internet we have a whole new recipe box to dig through.
I love the hand me down recipes from my mom and my sister too.
I like to bake and cook, and yes baking is different than cooking.  Baking implies bread or sweets of some sort and cooking refers more to meal type recipes.  I made molasses cookies a couple of weeks ago just because I had a craving for them.  This was a new recipe I found and it was so good.  Today I am making sourdough bread for us.  Dear hubby has been eating my sourdough  bread for breakfast and so have the kids.

Zucchini and other garden goodies. . .

We have a lot of zucchini out of the garden this year.  I have been making a good zucchini cornbread casserole.  At least 2 zucchini chopped fine, add 2 eggs, and a cup of shredded cheese and a box of jiffy corn muffin mix.  Mix all of this together and sprinkle top with a 1/2 cup of shredded cheese and bake at 375 for at least 40 minutes or until golden brown.  When we have jalapenos I add a couple of them chopped up fine and only a few seeds for some added heat.  This is a good casserole.  It keeps well in the fridge if you have left overs.  I eat it cold the next day for breakfast most of the time.
I made some zucchini bread last night and it was good too.  I like the casserole better.  We are freezing peas for later and I also made some mountain stew to freeze for this winter.  Mountain stew is really good.  Brown some ground beef and throw it in the crock pot.  Add some tomato sauce, I like to add a little V8 juice, cumin, chili powder, dry mustard, cilantro, garlic powder, onion powder.  Add carrots, some cut up potatoes, and some chopped cabbage and cook over night in the crock pot on med high.   This is a great hearty stew and good served with sour cream and shredded cheese with tortilla chips or crackers.   The carrots, potatoes, and cabbage soak up the flavor of the stew and make this really good.

Ghost Tour of Wilkesboro. . .

We went on our first ghost tour.  Wilkesboro offers a ghost tour once a month starting in April.  It is a walking tour that lasts about an hour and a half.  Ours lasted almost two and a half hours, we had really good guides.  We learned a lot of local history from the Civil War era.  We got to see some historic spots in Wilkesboro and hear the local lore of who haunts what.  Our guides were very knowledgeable in the local history and Civil War history also.  We heard two stories of one hanging and how the great, great, great grandson of the hangee went into law because he said if his great, great, great grandfather had a good lawyer he might not have been hung.   He is a prominent attorney in the area today.  We saw the old jail that held Tom Dooley, yes the one the song is written about.  We were able to go in the slave quarters of an old home, the slaves had put a curse on the family that lived in the main house.  The curse was written on the wall of the slave quarters.  There were skeleton heads of a horse, a dog and some other small animals hanging from the ceiling.  Sprat swears the horse head was moving, we all said it was a draft, but the other heads were not moving.   Big T felt the cold spot where a little girl was run over by a carriage in the drive way of the main house that had the curse.   We got to see where the Tory Oak once stood.  The Tory Oak was where they hung British sympathizers.  The oak stood for more than 300 years but in 1989 Hugo took its toll.  There is another oak in its place, still young and not yet as grand.

Sourdough Bread. . . .

My sister gave me some of her sourdough starter a year or so ago and I have been making loaf bread with it for my family.   I have made muffins with it  too.  This particular starter is a wild yeast starter, that means you do not add yeast to the starter.  It picks it up while it sits out in your kitchen growing.  Once you have it going you can put it in the fridge, you just have to remember to feed it once a week.  The feeding is what I have a hard time remembering.  If you are using it regularly the feeding does not come in to play because you feed it after  you pull off of it.  I made muffins for my dear hubby this morning for part of his Father's Day.  I tried something a little different.  For muffins you have to start the night before.  You combine a cup of starter and 1 cup of whole wheat flour and let it sit for at least 7 hours.  So this morning I got up and added all the other ingredients:  1/3 cup molasses, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 egg, 1/4 cup butter melted fold these in to the starter mixture.  Mix this well and last add 1/2 cup fresh fruit of your choice and 1 tsp of baking soda. This makes 12 muffins, bake at 350 for 20 min or until done.
This morning I used oranges as my fruit and I used the zest of the orange too.  Mark and I like these the kids do not.  They are a whole wheat muffin so they are better for you.  I used apple sauce the first time I made these.  They were ok, they were not near as moist as the ones with the orange.
The loaf bread I make with the sourdough everyone loves.  The kids beg for it.  The bad thing is, it only makes two loaves at a time.  We can go through a loaf in a week or less.  This bread has a low glycemic index so it is good for diabetics or anyone watching their weight.  This bread has more protein in it than bread you buy in the store.

Summer School online. . .

I am taking one class online this Summer.  I don't know if any of you have ever taken an online class before but,  they give you scenarios that you have to respond to on a discussion board.  This is what I have noticed in my class; I am an old fart, they are not teaching proper grammar in school, we are all going to be in trouble if this is a sample of what will be running things when the rest of us get older.
I know it is typical of the younger generation to text in incomplete sentences but I do not.   Actually when dear hubby and I text and when I text anyone I do so in complete sentences.  I also use spell check.  I heard someone say that using good manners is showing respect for those around you.   I believe that speaking and texting in complete sentences also shows respect for the person you are speaking with.  You would think posting something to a discussion board for an online class that these folks would want to use good grammar and spelling to make an impression on the instructor.  I believe I am the oldest in this class and it is obvious that they believe I am a dinosaur.  I am learning a great deal about computer security and network security and this generation.  I must say I am concerned about it all.  There are people out there that believe we should all be tracked so that advertisers can send us ads and track our buying habits.   What is sad, is that we are already getting some of this through all the reward card programs we belong.

Official Start of Summer. . .

My kiddos slept in and my house was nice and quiet up until about 10 minutes ago.  I heard the groaning and  pitter patter of little feet on the way down the hall.  It was Big T, of course, he hardly ever sleeps in.  Sprat is still sound asleep.  The boys had a big day yesterday.  Sprat had a pool party with youth fellowship and Big T had his baseball party.  They both got to play in the water though.  We had a big slide with water for Big T's team.  We had good food, fellowship with friends, and lots of laughs.  Sprat may sleep till noon.  
Summer vacation officially starts today, they didn't go for their last half day of school.  Jack starts All Stars tonight and has Church camp later this month.  Thomas has Church camp next month and somewhere in between we are going to try and go to the beach.  Stay tuned for the update.