Well, I certainly didn’t mean for 5 days to go by without a post! I normally write posts at night, but Pat and I have been walking once things cool down and then I just want to go to bed, so no posting!

I can’t say that much has happened since I last wrote. The only thing of note is that we actually WENT TO CHURCH! Now, we’ve been “churching” this whole time, over Zoom–which is okay. I mean, it is the best we have right now, so I’m not complaining. But, this last Sunday we had a one-off, outdoors, socially distanced, safe as can be church service. There were 14 people in attendance, including our rector, with the rest of the congregation joining on zoom. While it was great to actually go to church, I can tell the kids are a little too used to zoom services where they can just sort of veg out or read or play with legos for most of the time.

Other than that, it has been beastly hot here. It’s a bit more manageable now, but we are definitely in the heat of summer. Last summer was not an especially hot one, so I think we were all spoiled. Plus, things we used to be able to do in the heat, such as swimming, just aren’t an option anymore.

Now for something completely unrelated. One of the things of mom’s that Dad brought up to me was her recipe box. I had tried several times when she was alive to organize it and, by the next time I would see her, she had it in complete disarray again.

So, I decided to try to make some of her recipes–I can’t commit to one every week, but I’ll try to do 2-4 a month. Now, the problem is that some of these recipe cards are faded to the point that they are hard to read. Other cards, well, Mom wasn’t always the greatest about writing down all the ingredients and/or all the steps. But, I’m going to give it the old college try.

My next recipe will be her Peach Cobbler, which I hope to try this weekend. If anyone has a request for any of her recipes, let me know and I’ll see if I have it and I’ll post it. I am going to leave you with a recipe I made not too long ago. It was her coffee cake recipe, or at least one of them. I made it for coffee hour at church a few months ago (back when we still had church!) and it was a hit. This came out of some magazine (I only have the clipping, so no clue about the source), so it is actually a followable recipe!

Coffee Cake

1 cup butter or margarine
2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups unsifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon double-acting baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped nuts
1/2 cup golden seedless raisins
1 cup sour cream
1-2 teaspoons cinnamon sugar

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour a 12-cup Bundt pan or 10-inch tube pan; set aside. In a large bowl, mix butter or margarine until soft; add sugar gradually and continue to beat until light and fluffy. Mix in vanilla. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each.

Combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt; add nuts and raisins and coat well. Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture alternately with sour cream. Blend well (the batter looks like whipped cream tinged with honey). Spoon into prepared pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake for 1 hour or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack in pan for at least 1 hour. Remove from pan. Sprinkle with additional cinnamon sugar, if desired.