Ruth's blog

Well yesterday I did a bake sale with a dear friend of mine who works at the Benefis Hospital in Great Falls MT. She runs a bake sale for March of Dimes every year on Valentines Day and for the last 3 years I have been helping her. The first year Sophia was 8 months old and this year Tristan was almost 7. Both years I am sure we got more sales because of the happy babies!

I have been really busy with the miniatures os decided to start a week before the sale and bake. So I spent an entire day making 7 batches of shortbread and 4 batches of biscotti.

I think I got the baking bug yesterday. I found out my sister was coming over for her birthday so I took it upon myself to bake her a cake. We'll I also decided to take her for a visit to the Hutterite Colony, so I decided to bake a couple cakes, since my friends birthday is on the 21st, and she'll be gone. So I baked 2 Pina Colada Cakes, Orange Chocolate Truffle Tarts and a brand new cake called "Double Chocolate Mousse Cake".

Well I am in AZ right now for a few days and ate at a wonderful Greek Restaurant called My Big Fat Greek Restaurant. It was a very friendly atmosphere. My husband Dan and I went with my grandparents and Sophia. There seemed to be no problems with kids and they even had a kids menu with crayons and highchairs.

When I was a child one of my fondest memories was making homemade play dough. I would make a batch, then color it and play with it for hours. Carefully when I was done storing it in baggies until the next time I got it out. It never did last long with brothers and a sister wanting to play too, but we did have many fun hours with it.

This is the recipe I used. Try it and enjoy it with your kids. I think Sophia is finally getting old enough to give it a go, at least she won't be constantly eating it. :)

2 cups flour
2 cups salt
2 tbsp. cooking oil
4 tsp. cream of tartar
2 cups water

Well the holidays are here! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends this year. I always breath a sigh of relief to know I have successfully put one meal under my belt... Only 3 more to go before the new year. :)

Christmas Eve is traditionally always been a steaming pot of oyster stew. Christmas Day just depends on my mood. New years is always a German meal consisting of Sauerbraten, Sweet and Sour cabbage and Spaetzle. I am making my mouth water just thinking of these things. I will post recipes to all the succulent dishes mentioned above soon. Yummm...

I just have to blog about jam. Before this fall I had never made it. I've done some canning in the last few years. Mainly pickles and picked onions, so I thought I'd try my hand at jam. I get a lot of rhubarb in the summer and really enjoy working with fruit and I though,"How hard can it be?" Not hard at all! I loved it and so far I've made and canned 151 jars of jam and Apple Butter, and my newest venture fruit syrup. This jam from start to finish once it's in the pan only takes about 12 minutes to make.