MaeLyn's Musings

I made pickles yesterday. Our garden this year contained, among other things, four pickling cucumber plants. By yesterday, we had about fifty 3 inch long cucumbers. I've never made pickles before, so I had to do some research to figure out how, and I ended up purchasing a Mrs. Wages Pickling Mix, and following the directions on the packet. I started by washing the jars and lids in hot, sudsy water, and keeping them hot in almost boiling water. (I used my biggest stock pot, with a rack in the bottom to set the jars on.) Then I prepared the cucumbers, slicing the more curly ones, and cutting the straighter ones into long spears. Once the cucumbers were ready, I combined the pickling mix, water and vinegar in a pot over medium heat, and stirred it until the mix was dissolved and the brine was starting to boil. Then I took a jar from the hot water, loaded it with cucumber pieces, poured the brine in until there was only about 1/2 inch of air in the top, then put on a jar top an...

Last night, my Relief Society activity was on cake decorating. The young woman who was our teacher brought small cakes for everyone, so we could try the techniques she taught us. I am not an expert at this by any means, but here are a few of the things she taught us: Here are the cakes that I decorated. Put a small glob of frosting on the platter before you put the cake on it to help keep it in place. Place a huge glob of frosting on the center of the cake and spread out from there. If you need to add more frosting, add it to a spot that already has some frosting on it. Frost the top first, then the sides. Some cakes - like chocolate - are crummier than others. A crumb coat can be made to help: Spread a thin layer of frosting over the cake, let it stiffen completely, then put on another thicker layer of frosting on top of that.  When the frosting has dried to a point that if you touch it, it doesn't stick to your finger, take something flat (we used index cards) and smooth...

We've come a long way since the first time we ever cooked a turkey. See here for Steven's account of that. In spite of that discouraging beginning, we persisted in trying. A couple years ago, we came across an article in the Denver Post (Shaw, Tucker. "Get it Perfect." Denver Post [Denver] November 17, 2010, Features, D-01) that gave us a lot of good ideas. Searches online gave us some more ideas of how to do it. ( Unfortunately I don't have the references for those anymore. You can do your own search. ) The last couple years we have still had our hang ups, but once the turkey was cooked, it tasted wonderful! So here's what we do: 1. Saturday before Thanksgiving: Remove turkey from freezer, place in refrigerator so it can start thawing. 2. Tuesday morning: In a clean ice chest just large enough to fit turkey, mix 1 gallon cold water with 1 cup salt, 1/2 cup sugar, and some thyme, pepper, garlic and bay leaves. Unwrap turkey, remove any giblets from n...