No Longer Puzzled

I had no new puzzles and with no stores open that carry such a luxury right now, I was starting to feel like those folks running low on toilet paper.

And then one of our favorite little knitting/cute kids stuff/books/fun decor stores downtown sent me an email with a Cocooning Survival Kit offer which was a choice of 2 books, 2 puzzles or one of each.

Heck yes! I jumped on that offer! I was happy to go pick it up shortly thereafter

With this cute little tea card thanking me for my order.

Oh, that fall color one on the bottom will be a challenge! But take a look at the other:

A Betty Crocker Cookbooks Puzzle! Now if you're just joining me, go to yesterday's blog post, read it, then rejoin me. I'll wait...

Oh my gosh, right!!!??? I'm pretty sure one of my guardian angels picked that one out just for me! (Also one of my guardian angels definitely would have picked out that fall leaves one for herself.)

There are tender mercies every day. Look for them and be thankful.

Betty Crocker Cookbooks

When I moved out for the first time at age 19, my mom gave me this wonderful Betty Crocker Cookbook:

This one was published in 1983. As you can tell from the cover it is well used and well loved. This thing was GOOGLE before Google as far as finding a recipe, converting measurements, substituting one thing for another, how to do anything whether it was cutting meat or measuring flour, and how to bake, broil, saute, poach, and lots of other words that I don't use while cooking despite Betty Crocker's attempts to enlighten me. Anyway, this book always had my answer! (but I usually called Mom for her opinion too).

Here's a couple more pages:

I mean, I never really used the fish garnishes, but they were there should I need them. Haha.

I inherited my Grandma Lou's Betty Crocker Cookbook from 1961. This is one of the few items that survived their house fire in the early 70's as you can see from the cover and pages:

In this one, Betty gives you handy tips on how to do a table service. I also like that it has my grandma's writing with some of her favorites noted (on the cover Thermidore, and inside Chicken Fried Steak). And how 'bout that table of desserts? There are far too few gold scale centerpieces these days!

My mom also had this 1961 book and I spent many a bored afternoon as a teenager baking from these awesome recipes. In fact, this is where my famous Bear Turds came from:

Finally, again, my Grandma Lou's Betty Crocker Cookbook from 1950:

This one had a surprising number of color pictures. Makes me wonder how pricey this was back in the day? One thing about these books, they always had the cutest little clip art throughout their pages.

It's just entertaining to flip through and read the handy tips for the presumed audience of housewives in their little cotton dresses waiting for their men to return from bringing home the bacon.

These cookbooks are definitely a part of our family legacy. My mom made a point of giving one to my sister and I to get us started as independent women (in the kitchen).

It looks like there is still a recent incarnation:


Look at her, all woke and whatnot with Pho!

(This has been a non paid advertisement for Betty Crocker Cookbooks.)

Stir Crazy in These Crazy Times

Maybe it's time to start blogging again. This quarantine is no joke. I already had my mental break down but have decided I need to figure this out.

What's helping:

*Focusing small: Are my kids and grandkids ok? Are we ok? I can't take on anything else.

*Making a to-do list: it gives me a lot of options, and reassures me that I have distractions and productive things to do.

*Walking: duh, I love to take walks anyway.

* Doing a daily happy post to social media: #mydailyhappypost

*Baking challenges: today's was Paul Hollywood's baguette.

What's working for you?

So, Cameron posted yesterday his freaking perfect baguette he made using The Great British Baking Show's judge's recipe, aka, the very handsome, yet super intimidating Paul Hollywood. (Is that his real name? A little too perfect if you ask me.)

Cam's bread was definitely worthy of the very selective handshake from Paul when he is very (and very rarely) impressed.

First, the recipe calls for "scant" 4 cups of flour and twice calls for a non specific amount of water! Great, Paul, there goes my anxiety again! Luckily my son was able to talk me through it. When it comes to cooking, and especially baking, I like specific amounts. I'm not a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants girl.

So I mixed some of the scant flour and the yeast and a random amount of water together last night and let it do it's thing

Today I decided I needed the good mojo of my Great Grandma's stoneware bread making bowl to finish the process.

I left it to prove for one hour, but didn't check on it. Oops.

My over-proved loaf baked fine and tasted delicious though it's more of a blobette than a baguette. Paul would give me a disapproving look and sadly walk away. No handshake even if that were still a thing LOL.