 I have very little time to post as there is no internet, no electricity and spotty cell (I am borrowing a wifi gizmo for a second) As I said, we have no electricity and so I am having to practice what I preach on this blog about preparedness and learning to live in a different way. When we get internet up, I will be sharing pictures and information of what we have learned. All I can say is, “Thank goodness for canned bacon!!”  Somehow, on Sunday, May 19th, as we sat in the cellar and experienced being in a full-fledged, mile wide, 250 mph, EF4 tornado, our buildings (except for a little roof damage) sustained very little impact. Our trees were decimated, but that’s no big deal. However, the farms/homes directly behind us, to our south and even across the road sustained significant damage. In fact, for nearly two miles behind us, there are few homes left standing. When we left our shelter, we were certain that we would find the same thing on our property and are still shocked at how little damage was incurred. We realize that we have witnessed a miracle and just can’t get our minds around why us. Our praises go to God and His unending love and plans for us and we give honor only to Him. Thank you for all of the prayers, thoughts and attempts at contact. Hopefully, we will be back up and running here pretty quickly. And please check out your local Salvation Army or other areas of donation to help the people here in Bethel Acres, Shawnee, Carney and Moore. Thanks to all my readers!  |
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Living Off the Grid: Tornado Report
May 22nd, 2013
Flat Earth Travelers and Cooking With Children
May 3rd, 2013
 Ha! I bet you thought that I am going to educate you on people who refuse to accept the fact that this earth on which we live is a three dimensional sphere! Nope. I’m going to talk about travelers who are flat! Really, really flat. Well, yes…I know. I have been remiss in posting over the past few weeks. But we have been up to our elbows in soap…200 pounds of the stuff. We are preparing for the Central Oklahoma Lavender and Herb Festival at the farm of Country Cottage Primatives on June 1st. If you would like to have a lovely day of classes, vendors and lavender picking, set aside this day and make your way to this beautiful place. Look for our canopy and be sure to introduce yourselves!! Oh! And we did have our April drawing and Janet Black of Weatherford, Oklahoma was the winner of the canning tool set. Thank you for all of the entries. Stay tuned for the next give away. I have been working on this post for two days. That’s ridiculous. But I had it nearly finished yesterday, hit ‘save draft’ and instead of saving my draft, it got wiped out!! All of it!! There was some glitch that I have not figured out. It happened again this morning. I hit save again and it said, “You do not have permission to edit this document” and, “kerplooey!” everything was gone. I came very close to losing my normally pretty even temper with a shoe through the computer screen. But I didn’t and so third time is charm. But back to Flat People…Facebook is awesome. There were so many people about whom I have wondered over the years, having lost touch with them for as many as 45 years. Facebook has put me in touch with those wonderful people, letting me see what they look like, what they are doing, what accomplishments they’ve made, their families and it has given me a chance to rekindle old relationships. One of those people, a former high school friend and classmate, Carol, contacted me and told me about a geography project in which her 8 year old granddaughter, Ali, was participating. The students were sending a paper doll, drawn by each student, out to as many people as they could find to be photographed at locations that would introduce the students to new and wonderful places. The doll’s name is Flat Stacy. Mr. Fix-It and I volunteered to take Flat Stacy on our 2000 mile trip recently. It meant that we would stop along the way and take pictures of Flat Stacy in front of places of interest that we thought would be useful to the class. Now, there is nothing like watching the looks on people’s faces as a gray haired woman happily slaps a laminated, cut-out paper person that has been created by an 8 year old, up against some landmark to then step back and shoot pictures with a pretty nice camera. I figure that they wrote me off as some demented older person. But there WAS one place where a couple of young, college-age girls bounced up to ask, “That’s one of those flat people projects, isn’t it?! We did that when we were in school!” They hadn’t been out of school long enough to forget those kinds of things!! I do wonder, though, if they thought that I was somehow still in the third grade!! Mr. Fix-It joined into the project with gusto. Normally, ready to drive without stopping until bladders are screaming for mercy, he would see a sign and say, “Heh! That looks like a good place for a Flat Stacy picture!” and we would detour from our designated route to take in a site, complete with pictures to prove it. I just love that man. Anyhow, I thought that I would share with you just a few of the many places that we visited on Flat Stacy’s behalf. And Carol also sent me a recipe, to try, that her children, grandchildren and their friends brag about and can’t wait to eat when they are at her home. My granddaughter and I had a cooking day and tried these delicious treats so the recipe is posted below.  We stopped in Tupelo, Mississippi to visit the birthplace of Elvis Presley. Very impressive. Flat Stacy had her picture made with the “King” in front of the Tupelo City Hall.  Flat Stacy looked for the checkered flag at Talladega International Speedway in Alabama. I looked for Ricky Bobby.  In Newnan, Georgia, we found Flat Stacy’s store – or, at least it SAID it was her store! She was kinda dwarfed by the structure.  Outside of Wilmore, Kentucky, Flat Stacy had her picture made at Shaker Town, in front of a rock fence that was built before the Civil War.  Our little, long-haired dachshund, Ellie, was Flat Stacy’s traveling companion. Unfortunately, Ellie wasn’t feeling very good on this trip and when we got back and her to the vet, we were sad to find out that she is suffering from congestive heart failure. She is too young for that – just 8 years old. We are treating her with natural remedies and prescription medication to help her quality of life. We want to keep her around for a long time because she is such a joy in our life!  Near Mitchellville, Tennessee, Mr. Fix-It spotted these flat people who were just like Flat Stacy! In doing the research to find out about this sculpture, I found that the state of Tennessee has commissioned artists to do sculptures for each of the welcome stations. It just so happens that this one of the flat people was done by my former drawing professor at MTSU, Phillip Vanderweg! Small world.  Of course, we had to get a picture of Flat Stacy in Oklahoma and what better place than in front of the only working oil well in the United States that is located on the grounds of a capitol building. Our beautiful capitol building in Oklahoma City is in the background. Those are just a few of the pictures that we took. What a fun way to make a trip! And according to Carol, Flat Stacy went as far as Afghanistan for Ali! Here is Carol’s great cookie recipe for you to try. They are light, crisp and buttery. 1 cup butter 1 cup oil (I used coconut oil) 1 cup powdered sugar 1 cup granulated sugar 2 eggs, well beaten 4-5 cups flour 1 tsp. salt 1 tsp. soda 1 tsp. cream of tartar 1 tsp. vanilla  Now would be a good time to introduce our newest product: Bakewell Cream. I was actually introduced to Bakewell Cream way back in the 70′s in Maine but had not used it since because it is not available around here. Now I can have it!! Yay. It is the most wonderful baking Cream of Tartar that makes the most incredible biscuits. I have tossed baking powder and use the Bakewell Cream with soda and oh my….You can find it at our shopping page.  My granddaughter, Miss Peachy Pie, got her first cooking lesson, complete with her own “Li’l Cook” apron.” Typically, the batter wound up in her hair. Directions: Cream butter and oil with sugar and eggs. Sift flour, salt, soda and cream of tartar. Stir into creamed mixture, add vanilla and mix well.  My granddaughter “helped” put the dough balls on the baking sheet. If you are wondering why I cut faces in pictures – after the photo of my mother got stolen and used for unsavory purposes, I have ceased to show the faces that can be photoshopped and misused! Place small balls of dough on cookie sheet. Flatten each with a small flat bottom glass dipped in sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. (Do not grease pan!)  Yep, they are TAAASTY! Miss Peachy Pie loved them.  |
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Quoth The Raven Part II
April 6th, 2013
  Don’t forget to leave comment to enter this month’s giveaway. This set of canning utensils is going to somebody’s home!! Better sign up before April 15th or you will miss out on your chance! As you remember in part one, we had arrived at a log cabin from the late 1700′s, where we were to stay, and I was not a happy camper. We unloaded the car, put Ellie in her crate and found our way to the retirement community to see my parents. Their home is lovely and the community is amazing. We were shocked to see this jewel in such a tiny town and I understood why my mom and dad had chosen this place to put down new roots. But this knowledge did not erase the heaviness that I was feeling.   I dreaded heading back to the cabin, however, we finally did and I fell, exhausted into the twin bed nearest the floor lamp. The only way that we could turn that light off, was to unscrew the light bulbs, however, the rest of the lights and the lighted Christmas tree stayed on all night. I was too tired to care. At one o’clock in the morning, Mr. Fix-It was frantically calling my name and I groggily asked what was wrong. “You have to get out of here and into the parlor. Take Ellie with you. We have wasps.” Finally awake, I could see wasps pinging back and forth against the ceiling, like in a pinball machine, and diving into the lighted table lamp across from my bed. Now, I must insert here that I am extremely allergic to wasps. I don’t just swell up like a balloon. No. My throat and tongue become alien objects, my hair tries to crawl off of my head, my ears and throat feel like I’m the fire eater on the circus side show and never mind the crazy heartbeat, the hives on hives have me imitating Job from the Bible. And I had no epi-pen. So, I vamoosed, in my PJs, to the parlor, fully aware that the people upstairs might come down at any moment to see what was going on.  I could hear Mr. Fix-It slamming the wall with what turned out to be a 1991 copy of Better Homes and Gardens (yep – 1991) that was lying on the dresser. He killed a number of wasps and declared the coast was clear. I crawled back into bed. The next morning, Mr. Fix-It had me out of the room again and attacked another round of wasps with a vengeance. They were coming from a gap between the ceiling and the log wall next to my bed and seemed attracted by the heat (evidently the heat had not been turned on for awhile) as well as the light of the table lamp. My hubby decided that we would trade beds to put me on the far side of the room. He admitted that the mattress on his bed had a tendency to slide due to the unlevel bed and the slope of the floor and that he had nearly rolled off a couple of times during the night. Oh well. At least I would not be so close to all of the wasps. I could see that it was raining cats and dogs outside. It was Sunday and we were to go to church with my parents – in the pouring rain – and after getting little sleep. I was NOT in a good mood. I had to fully dress in order to head to the bathroom to take a shower (didn’t want to embarrass our upstairs neighbors if they decided to appear). I turned on the little space heater and shivered as I started the water in the big, extra tall, clawfoot tub. It was then that I discovered that the door to the bathroom did not lock nor did it shut very well. I leaned against it and got it to close and then contemplated how I was going to crawl over the sides of that tub without killing myself or spraying water all over the room. It was one of those moments where you turn one way, then another, start to lift one foot, then the other and come close to freaking out in a feeling of total helplessness. I finally sat on the narrow, curved side and slid down into the tub, butt first, crawled to a kneeling position and then carefully pulled up to a standing position. The nice, warm, strong stream of water was a relief and I had a moment of bliss. That is…until I opened the curtain to a steamy room, reached for my towel, stepped out of the tub and suddenly realized that the door was standing wide open with a view of my glorious, dripping, gray headed body for all to see in the entry way! I dove to shut shut the door, grasping my towel with one hand and sat on the closed commode, laughing myself silly. I could hear Mr. Fix-It swatting more wasps. Our situation seemed utterly ridiculous. I figured that I would call the manager after church.  And then we got to the church in the pouring rain. It was one of the most beautiful churches I have ever seen. Sparkling white siding with stained glass windows, a bell steeple and gabled roof – the scene was like a picture back from 1800’s Kentucky – with cars. Inside was bright and cheerful on that dreary day and everyone was so friendly. In one, short year, these people – and this church had people of all ages: children, young people, young marrieds, elderly – had embraced my parents and were excited to meet the daughter. I was amazed at the quiet reverence of the sanctuary. People were not visiting. They were very quiet, reading scripture, praying perhaps, but all was very respectful. The minister gave the most amazing sermon and the music…oh the music…it was absolutely gorgeous. There was a tiny brass section, an organ, a piano and handbells. The instruments simply graced the singing with musical undertones while the voices of the congregation nearly blew the roof off of the building. At one point, the music minister stopped the instruments and the congregation sang, in parts mind you, a cappella, to a beautiful hymn. I had goosebumps. I have not heard that kind of singing in a very long time and teared up because it was so wonderful and moving. Two young people did a piece on the handbells and I was worn out just watching them. The whole experience was so worshipful that I realized that God had taken my focus off of myself and my feelings and had planted it squarely back on Him and His blessings. It was a turn around moment.  After a grand lunch at my parents’, spent with them, my sister, and a cousin and her family whom I had not seen in years, I reported the wasp dilemma to the manager and she called the owner to remedy the situation. He showed up at our cabin room door and introduced himself. I was delighted to find him to be a fellow artist who was eager to share his craft with me and the history of the cabin with the two of us. We got a complete tour and he left us with a can of Hot Shot wasp spray and a fly swatter. Yep. He did. There was no other room available. The next morning, I got up and made another stab at the shower, only this time I put my toiletry case in front of the door to hold it closed. I was grateful for the space heater because it was exceedingly cold and I even felt a little at home as I dressed for the day in that little room.   When I trundled back to the bedroom, through the old parlor, Mr. Fix-It was grinning and told me to look out of the window. A heavy layer of snow covered the ground and the whole farm was a white wonderland. The cabins, with the Christmas candle lights in the windows, stood out against the glistening snow and I knew that I had to grab my camera. It snowed all day and night and all day the next day. It was beautiful. The cabin seemed warm and cozy when we returned from my parents’ home, in spite of the difficult front door and the wasps appearing every so often to be stunned with bug spray and then swatted. I felt transported back to Daniel Boone’s “Old Kaintuck”. We curled up with hot tea to watch a movie and then drifted off to sleep.  We left that snowy, quiet little town around 1 pm the following day, a tearful good-bye to my parents who live so very far away from Oklahoma. But I came away with a peace that God has them in His right hand and that they are where they are happy, healthy, active and welcome. We met many lovely people, including the manager and the owner of the bed and breakfast, and I no longer feel like I will be visiting my parents in a strange place. And I kind of miss that cabin!! |
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Quoth The Raven
April 5th, 2013
 Don’t forget to leave comment to enter this month’s giveaway. This set of canning utensils is going to somebody’s home!! Better sign up before April 15th or you will miss out on your chance! I figure that since most people are too busy for soap operas on tv anymore, but almost everybody sits at a computer, I would offer an Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ soap opera for your enjoyment. It’s too long a story to put into one post and so you will get two installments – one today and one tomorrow. Will there be a happy endng? Stay tuned for…da da da (that’s organ chords)…The Old And The Feckless! Isn’t it funny how we get it into our heads how something is supposed to be, get all bent out of shape when it isn’t that way at all and then God provides a whole new direction that puts us all back together in contentment? I had that experience last week and I thought that I would share the adventure. Mr. Fix-It and I took a trip – a long trip! It started out heading to Georgia where Mr. Fix-It did some training to remind him that computers, his life’s chosen vocation, never work the way that they were intended. He’s just not as technologically savvy as I am. I know that the squirrels running the machine are simply out looking for nuts. Anyway, I took the opportunity to visit my uncle for the first time since my aunt’s death in December. It was a wonderful visit with much laughter and ample reminiscing. And then we went north to Kentucky. Now, Kentucky is beautiful and it is a wonderful state, but I was a little bummed about the trip to the place because we had to go through the mountainous part of East Tennessee where my parents had lived up until a year ago and where I grew up…and we didn’t stop…because my parents aren’t there anymore. I was sad. My mom and dad sold their house and had moved to a retirement community in a town in Kentucky that I had never heard of before and which was not ‘home’. When we got off of I-75 to wind our way to the town on narrow roads carved into the sides of huge bluffs (with no guard rails) and which narrowed down to one lane bridges in a number of places, I felt heavier and heavier. We were in the middle of nowhere and I was looking for the dueling banjos. “What were they thinking?” I asked myself. It was nearly dark when we arrived in their tiny town…and I do mean tiny. There are no fast food restaurants, only one gas station, a Dollar General Store (nope – no WalMart) and one grocery store. I had made reservations at a bed and breakfast (one of several) where the manager was kind enough to allow our little Ellie dog to join us in our room. The manager had informed me over the phone that we would be staying in a log cabin where the owner had a cat and so a little, long-haired dachshund would be no problem. We stopped at the main home of the two-part B&B, met the manager and found out that the cabin, we would call home for several days, was outside of town. We were to follow her car to the location. It felt like we drove forever, but that is always the case when one does not know where one is going. Off of a main highway, we came to a drive that led a long way down into a “holler” to a picture perfect sight of two, big, authentic Kentucky log cabins. I calculated their ages as it was revealed to us that they were built before Kentucky became a state. 1792 was that year – George Washington was president and Daniel Boone was a resident of the state! Wow.  But my heart sank as we carefully navigated the flagstone walkway that just begged me to be my usual, accident-prone self and climbed the stairs to an uneven porch and to an old, front door. “Now you have to work really fast to get the front door to unlock,” we were told as the manager unlocked a single knob with no deadbolt lock. “Just shove the key in and turn quickly. If you are timid about it, you won’t get it to unlock. Oh, and be sure that you really jam the door shut and double check that it has closed.” There was a note taped to a door pane that ordered, “Please make sure the door is closed.” The obstinate door creaked open and we stepped into a dark entry way, lighted only by an old, opaque globe with a light inside, showing off the various countries of long ago.   First, we were shown our bathroom. The door to the bathroom opened out into the dark entrance where any other guest would walk right past. I was relieved to find out that it was our personal bathroom, but the privacy was definitely wanting. Inside the bathroom was an old claw foot bathtub with circular curtain and old shower assembly. A tiny space heater provided the only heat. We then went into the parlor to the left of the bathroom and I felt like I had walked into an Edgar Allen Poe story. The boards of the floor (original) creaked and sank under the weight of our steps and ancient furniture, books and multiple stuffed animals were strategically placed around an old fireplace on a wall that was obviously uneven, old, painted plaster. Electric Christmas candles in the windows and a floor lamp in the corner offered dim lighting, and a large collection of crucifixes adorned the mantel and hearth. I was looking for the raven quoting, “Nevermore.” A narrow door of vertical boards, held together by a couple of cross boards and painted with enamel paint opened to a narrow set of stairs that led to the rooms upstairs which were occupied by another couple of visitors.  The door to our room was the same type of door, but wider. It was a little lopsided so that there was a gap between the door frame and the top of the door when closed. The doorknob was the old, metal enamel type with no lock. When opened, the door revealed a large room with three chinked log walls and one plaster one, a set of twin beds on a floor that sloped enough to mess with your equilibrium and a very large, lighted Christmas tree in the corner.  That tree, along with a floor lamp, a set of electric Christmas candles in the window, a dim table lamp and a collection of strange, lighted plaster art on the mantel of a huge fireplace, served as the lighting for the room. In other words, it felt like we would be living by kerosene lantern light. The bed that would be Mr. Fix-It’s had one leg leveled by a wooden block. There was a television. And there was a light switch on the wall, but we were cautioned that the light switch would turn off everything, including the space heater and it was cold!  Because there were no electrical outlets, a maze of extension cords and spike bars crisscrossed the corners of the room and over the mantle. A large extension cord dangled from the mantel to be used for a space heater on the hearth. Mr. Fix-It surveyed the electrical nightmare with horror. I just looked around in dismay at the very weird room. By this point, I was really depressed…(and with that, I will leave this to be continued tomorrow!!) |
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Getting Down To Business: A New Give Away!
April 1st, 2013
 Everything is back to normal. We’re back to work and all WAS going well until the big press died. Now, it is lying in pieces, looking like a destroyed robot from Star Wars. Mr. Fix-It is doing the surgery but a thermonuclear discombobulator is needed and the only one that could be found must be ordered from…where else?…China. Actually, it is called a heat resistor thingy. Evidently, it’s an important thingy, too. Ah, technology! We have had a number of emails just recently, dealing with the subject of shipping. Personally, shipping is the bane of my existence. I wish that we could ship everything to everyone for free. But alas, I don’t do the lottery and haven’t won any millions so we can’t afford to give away the farm. Shipping expense is a reality with which Creating Concepts, Enterprises must deal. And on top of everything, unfortunately for all of us, shipping costs have gone up. We do not use UPS or FedEx because their charges for the size shipments we send out are ridiculous. In fact, their charge can be as much as $15 over what the US Postal Service charges us. And so, we use the US Postal Service Priority method almost exclusively. For international orders, First Class is used. First Class packaging is not available for the states. Everything is done by weight and for online orders, PayPal does its best to estimate as close as possible to accurate shipping charges. Sometimes, it misses the boat and nearly always it goes against us rather than the customer. In fact, we were rather sick awhile back when an order to Australia was estimated at $11 by PayPal and the actual shipping cost us $22.50. Not good. The fact is, shipping is high. Phone orders are more of an exact science for us because as soon as an order is processed and ready to ship, the customer credit card is charged with the exact amount on the shipping label. If you plan to order, doing so with a credit card by phone at 405-275-5639 will be the most accurate route. I, personally, feel badly when someone is unhappy with a shipping cost that they perceive is too high. A larger Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ or multiple pastry cloths can be heavy and so cost more to ship. The mixes add up in weight as well. It doesn’t matter what box or bubble mailer is used, the weight is still the same, the location is assessed and the price goes up accordingly. Our Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ is made of a heavy weight cotton, unlike the cheaper, lighter brands, so that it will last for years and years. It is not meant to be a throw away item but is meant to be a family treasure. So hopefully, this will better explain our shipping policy. I understand the groan of financial agony when a customer sees that shipping charge. It seems too high. But in order to use the US Postal Service, we have to pay the price – their price. We appreciate your understanding. It’s time for another giveaway! And this is no April Fools joke. Since canning season is just around the corner, we are giving away a nice set of canning tools ready to be used! Starting today, leave a comment on any of the blog posts and you will be entered. If you have never posted at the blog before, don’t worry if your comment does not show up immediately. New posts must be approved by the moderator and then your post can be seen. The drawing will be two weeks from now on April the 15th – TAX DAY! Yayyyy. Good luck to everybody!! |
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Yogurt In A Jam
March 19th, 2013
Ingredients: 1/3 cup butter 3 large eggs 1 cup live culture yogurt 1 tsp soda 1 tsp ground allspice 1 tsp ground cloves 1 tsp ground cinnamon 1 tsp ground ginger 1 cup of your favorite berry jam (I used strawberry) 1 cup chopped pecans 1 Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe white cake mix Lemon Curd from Recipe (Best if made ahead of time and chilled) Icing: 1-8oz pkg cream cheese 1 stick of butter (cream together) Beat in 1 lb box of powdered sugar 1 tsp vanilla  Cream the butter with a mixer and add eggs. Beat until smooth.  Add spices and blend well  Add jam and continue to beat  Add yogurt. Cream together with other ingredients  Add box of cake mix and beat well until smooth. Stir in nuts. Pour batter into cupcake papers that are supported in muffin tins or pour into a greased and floured 9 x 13 sheet cake pan. Bake at 350º for 20 – 25 minutes or until a knife or toothpick comes out clean.  While the cupcakes are warm, using a scoop or apple corer, core out a hole in the middle of each cupcake  Fill each hole with lemon curd that has been made from the linked recipe. Place in the refrigerator or a cool, dry place. Make Butter Cream Cheese Icing
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Ordering Notice
March 9th, 2013
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Just a note:I apologize if you have not been able to place an order for our Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ online this past week. There was a glitch in the ordering process for some reason, but it has been fixed. Phone orders are always welcome if you ever have problems with the website. Also, just a heads up: We will be closed March 18 – 23 for Spring Break. You can still place orders online, and they will be shipped when we reopen. And I’ll still be blogging! |
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Yogurt: The Answer To Everything!
March 5th, 2013
 Anybody remember Precious Pup? He’d eat something and then wrap his arms around himself, let out an “mmmmmm” and float up up into the air in gastronomical bliss. Well, let me tell you: That was Mr. Fix-It the other day as he munched on my accidental biscuits. I say ‘accidental’ because I had to improvise on my usual biscuit recipe in the hopes that I would still come out with the semblance of those southern treats. Mr. Fix-It was in the mood for biscuits and I, always wanting to please my man, dashed to the kitchen to whip out a batch of my own recipe. I had posted that recipe here a number of years ago, with step-by-step photos, but I’ll let you in on the secret of what I did differently. It all started with the absence of buttermilk. Now, everybody knows that the enterprising cook can substitute a cup of milk that has been poured over a tbsp of vinegar and then warmed to room temperature, for a cup of buttermilk. And that makes pretty good “buttermilk” biscuits – but I didn’t want “pretty good”. I wanted “big grin, lip smackin’, darn great” buttermilk biscuits. As you know, I’ve been on a yogurt kick and have been throwing the stuff into anything for which I can safely find an excuse. I decided that biscuits might be my next great experiment. I was right. Oh my gosh. Those were absolutely the best, most awesome, pastrymagical (my own word) things you ever put in your mouth. With homemade grape jelly or apple butter – they were proverbially ‘to die for’. So here you go. See what you think. I use my homemade yogurt, but if you use ‘store bought’n’ I recommend StoneyField plain if you can get it.  Ingredients: 2 cups all purpose flour 1 Tbsp + 1 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp baking soda 1 tsp salt 6 tablespoons shortening 1 cup plain yogurt 2-3 Tbsp milk Directions: Preheat oven to 450º. Add all dry ingredients together and cut shortening in with a pastry cutter/blender, two butter knives or a fork until the mixture resembles crumbs. Add yogurt and stir until totally incorporated. Add enough of the milk to form a soft, sticky dough. Place onto floured Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ and drop lightly and pick up a number of times to form a soft ball. Roll out to 1 inch thick circle and cut biscuits. On a baking sheet, pour either olive oil, coconut oil, sunflower oil or peanut oil to lightly coat the surface. Place biscuits side-by-side, not quite touching, putting the tops into the oil and then turning to place biscuits with oily tops up. Bake for 13-15 minutes until golden brown. Brush tops with melted butter and serve hot.   |
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A Sick Bed Craft
February 20th, 2013
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In-FLU-enza…H1N1…Tamiflu…all words that none of us actually care about or even think about – that is – until we stumble into the doctor’s office, eyes glazed, throat that could only feel worse for a fire eater and muscles that scream four letter words at us, as we try to use them. THEN, the flu becomes a reality and a reason to think seriously about finding a sky scraper from which to jump. Such was the past week for Mr. Fix-It and me. He succumbed first. I knew he was sick when he willingly grabbed his keys and left the house early last Sunday morning to hit up the AM-PM clinic for drugs. ‘Mr. Fix-It’ and ‘getting medical help’ are not usually in the same sentence. Since he only had a fever of 99.9, after a nose swab, Mr. Fix-It was rather taken aback when the doctor forced a mask over his face and admonished him not to go anywhere, including work, for 5 days. The doctor was stern in his warning and typed up a letter to give to the boss. He told Mr. Fix-It that he was highly contagious and so he came home, not entirely convinced that he was really THAT sick. But then, Sunday afternoon hit. My hubby was a mess. His fever was quickly inching to 104º and I was frantically making preparations to get him to the hospital. I had tried everything…tylenol, ibuprophen, tepid bath, alcohol rub and then I remembered an elderly doctor’s method quite a number of years ago when our son’s fever had gone to 105. I filled plastic bags with ice, wrapped them in towels and put them under Mr. Fix-It’s arms, on his stomach and on his forehead. Magically, the fever dropped to 102º. All evening I battled the fever and Mr. Fix-It’s irrational statements that let me know he was NOT all with me. By midnight his fever broke and he actually slept while I transferred myself to the couch, hoping to avoid the disease. About 3 am I woke up shaking from head to toe, teeth chattering so hard that I could not keep my mouth shut and throat literally shooting flames. Oh no. Somehow, I made it to the bedroom and crawled into bed next to my ailing husband. I figured that I might as well be comfortable now that I had caught the germs. Of course, I woke him up with my shaking and he crawled out of bed to get me some tylenol and water. I thought I was going to die. We figure that Mr. Fix-It brought the germs home from the VA Hospital where he had done a computer installation the week before. Ten days is the incubation period and it had been ten days since his visit. I am sure that I picked the germs up from his clothes or from him. Who knows? All I know is that neither one of us has had the flu in years and years and years and years and so the ferocity of the disease was rather disturbing. It has taken both of us over a week to get back to normal. But, as always, I could see that there was a humorous side to our plight. I made it to the doctor as well…just our family doctor…and I found out that just the word ‘flu’ nearly tatoos an ‘F’ on your forehead and hangs a sign around your neck that announces, “Unclean! Unclean!” I was told to wear a mask throughout my visit and the nurse who swabbed my nose (might I add that this is one of THE most unpleasant tests on the planet – because your sinuses are already swollen and raw without a q-tip being twirled around the membranes like a chimney sweep’s broom!) barely stuck her head back in the door and said through clenched teeth, “It’s flu!” And it wasn’t just the flu-flu. It was the BAD flu. As I left the room with prescription in hand, the cleanup crew was already disinfecting everything I had touched. Even the woman who checked me out, handed my Visa card back to me, washed her hands, grabbed the pen I had been using, disinfected it and wiped the counter right in front of me. As I stepped back, I felt like I had smallpox. I slunk past ogling patients, bemasked and humiliated. Two days later, still diseased and miserable, I needed to somehow get an order to a friend, who had come in from out of town. We discussed the logistics of this feat without germs and it was agreed that Mr. Fix-It, who was well on the road to recovery, would drive me to a designated meeting place. He did so and when we arrived, dear friend stepped around her vehicle and waved, at a safe distance of 50 or so feet away. Mr. Fix-It got out of our vehicle, placed the box of goodies onto the pavement of the parking lot between our car and Friend’s and proceeded to soak the box with spray Lysol: Bottom, sides and top. The contents had already been lysol’d. I was looking around for Homeland Security to come swooping in with a bomb squad and handcuffs for each of us.  We got back into our car and Friend picked up the box to place in the back of hers. Hopefully, all germs were murdered by Lysol drowning. Now, I have to tell you that being sick is a boring state of being, but thanks to this same Friend, I was given a fun craft project that served to pass my time in bed and produce lots of little bows. She sent me an email with directions for making tiny bows that are so handy for a multitude of projects. And, heh, when you are running a fever and eating popsicles a new craft is a welcome distraction!! All you need is some 1/4″ ribbon, preferably a light weight or organza type, scissors and a four tined fork.  First, begin by running the ribbon under the first tine, over the second, under the third and over the forth.  Pull the ribbon under the fourth tine and pull it all the way to the first tine.  Now, go over the first tine, under the second, over the third and under the fourth.  Push the ribbon up to the end of the tines to keep it tight.  Continue the process until there are either two or three (depending on the size of bow you want) wraps around the outside tines  Clip the end of the ribbon that is attached to the spool and now run a fresh ribbon end up through the tines between the second and third one and in front of the first row of weaving  Pull up other end of this ribbon and clip off, leaving enough that will make it easy to tie  Pull the two ends up, gathering the center of the woven ribbon together, and tie at the center in a knot  Slip the bow off of the fork and clip off extra ribbon. The bottom bow was done with two rows and the top one was done with three rows  Use to decorate cards, hairclips, clothes and anything else you can think of! |
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Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ Company on Facebook
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We Have A Winner!
February 13th, 2013
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The evening of February 11th saw the fanfare of our drawing for the February Valentine’s Day Giveaway. And….drum roll please…we have a winner. Say “Congratulations” to reader Micheala Johanson of Ohio. She has won the basket of our handmade, Castile, goat milk soaps and has made her choice of our two minty ones: Eucalyptus/Tea Tree and Peppermint (with hand rolled oatmeal) and also a bar of Rosemary/Peppermint with real, rubbed sage grown right here at the Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ gardens. A scrubby is included and all is wrapped in shrink wrap packaging with a big, gingham bow. Micheala’s gift is already winging its way to Ohio and she will be soaking in a tub with lucious soaps soon! Thanks to all of you for entering and watch for the next giveaway coming up in March, just in time for St. Patrick’s Day!!  |
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Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ Company on Facebook
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