Blueberry Jumble

Ever since I lived in Vermont, I have been a fan of the blueberry. So when I tasted Magnolia Bakery in New York City's Blueberry Jamboree a few months ago, I nearly died and was reborn. It was that good.

Since I live over 2000 miles from the bakery, I searched the internets and found a recipe someone had put up. I don't know if it is actually the Magnolia bakery recipe, but I kind of doubt it because parts of it didn't make sense and I had to modify it a bit.

So I noted the changes I made, and have re-labeled it Blueberry Jumble. I made it for Thanksgiving yesterday, and it was superb. I'm posting it here so that A) I know where it is in the future when I want to make it, and B) so other fans of The Mighty Blueberry can try it out too.

BLUEBERRY JUMBLE

Blueberry Topping

• 2 cups blueberries
• 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1/4 cups brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons water

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ and then later you'll need...

• 1 ½ more cups blueberries
• 1 ½ teaspoons lemon zest
  

Crust

• 3/4 cups unsalted butter--room temperature
• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup toasted pecans, chopped fine and toasted ( I toasted, chopped, and then lightly toasted again)

Filling

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 pounds cream cheese--room temperature, cut into chunks
• 2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

What You Do

Prepare the crust:

• Toast the pecans, then run through food processor to chop. If you like, you can toast a little more after chopping, to get the innerds toasted. Or you can not. But I did.
• Melt butter and combine with flour and pecans.
• Butter a large (aprox. 9" x 13") glass dish and press crust into it. Mine was oval, but rectangular would work too. A triangle would be even cooler, but oddly, I haven't ever seen triangular bakeware.
• Bake at 325°F for about 15 minutes or until it just starts to lightly brown. I had to keep mine in for about 25 mins., but it could be that my oven is way off. Just keep an eye on it!
• Cool to room temperature.

While crust is baking and cooling, prepare blueberry topping:

• Dissolve cornstarch in water and set aside.
• In a large pot combine 2 cups blueberries and both sugars.
• Cook on medium-high heat stirring constantly until sugar is combined and blueberries start to pop and come to a boil.
• Add cornstarch/water mixture to the pot and stir until mixture becomes thick.
• Remove from the heat and stir in remaining 1 ½ cups blueberries, combine gently.
• Add in the lemon zest and continue to combine gently and fully.
• Cool to room temperature and refrigerate until ready to use.
  

While blueberry topping is cooling, prepare the cream filling:

• Whip heavy cream and set aside.
• Beat together cream cheese and confectioners' sugar.
• Fold whipped cream into cream cheese mixture until combined.
• Spread cream mixture onto cooled crust.
• Top with blueberry topping.
• Refrigerate for 1 hour or until set.
• Serve cold.
• Enjoy!

Guardian Angels

When I was engaged to wed Doc, my darling future mother-in-law offered to see if her mother, Beth, would be willing to let me wear a special heirloom necklace as my “something old, something borrowed” item.

I loved Grandma Beth. I had felt a kinship with her from the start. From the moment we met, three years earlier, she had been my ally. She seemed to me to be the person who most closely matched my conviction that against all odds, Doc and I would end up marrying one day. When he left for two years on a mission, she regularly sent me cards and sweet letters, encouraging me to hang in there and making me feel like I was part of the family already.

But her health had deteriorated significantly in recent times, and was so poor by the time of our wedding, she wasn’t going to be able to attend the ceremony herself. Wearing her special necklace would be a way of having her near me during that day of days, and I was grateful for the kind offer from Doc’s mom to bring it for me to wear.

After the wedding, I had every intention of getting the necklace right back to her, but none of us wanted to trust it to the postal system. So it sat in a small manila envelope on my nightstand for a few weeks, awaiting a visit from my new mother in law, at which point we would give it to her to return to her mother.

The day she arrived at our house, she hadn't mentioned the necklace yet, but while she and Doc were talking, I went into our room to get it for her only to discover that it wasn’t there. It had been there since the day we moved in, but now, it wasn't!

I searched everywhere I could think to look, frantic about it’s absence, while she visited with Doc in the other room, but without any luck. Not wanting to be gone too long and draw attention to myself, I returned to the living room. I was praying the entire time she was with us that she wouldn’t ask me for the necklace, and to my astonishment, she never brought it up.

As soon as she had flown back home she phoned us, lamenting not getting the necklace for her mother. “But I’ll be coming out in a few months again” she said, planning to get it for sure during that visit.

I searched in earnest. I turned the room upside down looking for it. Doc was mystified by it’s disappearance as well. I emptied the nightstand drawer, took the drawer out of it's stand, looked behind, under and above the drawer…in case it had gotten wedged in there somehow. But it was simply gone.

We concluded that the necklace, in it’s small manila envelope, must have recently been knocked off the nightstand at some point without my notice, into the trash can that sat on the floor next to it, and was taken out with the rest of the garbage. That was the only explanation that made sense, but it made my heart sick. I ached with dread over breaking the news to my mother in law. As her mother’s life continued it’s slow wrap up, getting the necklace back to her before it ended seemed increasingly important.

I was wrought with stress over this. This was NOT how I wanted my relationship with my new in-laws to begin. I felt terrible guilt; it seemed like the worst possible first impression, and I was in misery over my carelessness with her treasured heirloom. Every time we spoke on the phone, it seemed to come up. The stress of avoiding the truth of the situation was eating me, but I couldn’t bring myself to concede it’s disappearance.

A few months later, my mother in law told us she was coming out for another visit. I both longed to see her and dreaded the thought…knowing that this time she would expect that little manila envelope to be placed in her hand as soon as she arrived.

I had prayed for help about what to do, but no answer had come. In the face of her mother slowly dying, I dearly wanted to avoid adding to her distress by admitting that the necklace was gone, but the day was finally upon me.

The night before her arrival, I was getting ready for bed, and like I had done a hundred times in the past few months, I opened my nightstand drawer to retrieve my lip balm, which I used every night before bed. Sitting there, right on top of my lip balm perfect as you please, was a small, familiar manila envelope. I looked over at Doc and said, “where did you find it?!”

“Find what?”, he asked.

I pointed at the envelope, almost afraid to touch it. “That.”

“What is it?” he said.

I carefully picked it up and opened the flap, then tipped the contents of it into my palm. The heirloom necklace spilled out, in exactly the same condition as it had been in those many months before when I had worn it on our wedding day.

“I didn’t put it there”, Doc told me.

After a searching look at him to make sure he wasn't teasing me, I knew this was a miracle. One of the first miracles I’d ever personally witnessed. I knew that necklace had been long gone, but now, amazingly, some guardian angel had retrieved it from the bottom of a heap at the dump and returned it in my hour of need. I did offer a most heartfelt prayer of gratitude for this tender mercy.

The next morning my mother in law arrived, and I handed her the envelope as soon as she came in the door. She gratefully received it and I was able to completely enjoy that visit. After leaving us, she traveled to visit her dear mother, where she at last returned her beloved heirloom necklace to her.

When Grandma Beth died not too long after that, my mother in law and her sister were sorting through their mother’s things. They searched high and low for that necklace. She knew it was there, somewhere, but neither of them ever found it. It was a mystery to them both, but I always felt like it’s return was only a loan. A gift, given solely to avoid incurring yet another loss during a time of grieving, and once it had served it’s purpose, it was returned to the place it had gone because of my carelessness. I've always felt like Grandma Beth knows, and she's okay with it.



Grateful for
1) The reality of miracles
2) This day
3) Audio books

Cake Week Finale

After all the other celebrations this week, tonight was the family party. Here's the chocolate fudge cake I made, with butter cream frosting and strawberry and chocolate fondant. It weighted like twelve pounds, and took me 9 hours to do. I don't plan to make any more cakes in 2010. The End.





Grateful for:
1) Creativity
2) Doc's presence at the party tonight for multiple reasons
3) My nephew fell and split his head open during the party, but he's going to be alright.

11-11-2010

Two-layer Cakes baked: 18
Batches of buttercream frosting whipped up: 18
Bowls of assorted sprinkles, candies and other deco: 9
Bags of frosting with inter-changable decorating tips: 6
Totally great kids in attendance: 21
Large pizzas consumed: 4
Liters of Soda drunk: 8
Ice cream sundae's served: 19
Nights in a row of too little sleep while flying and then baking: 7
Having a happy fourteen year old daughter: Priceless

The back of my car with the cakes loaded up to take to the party


Scenes from the party, including a number of the guests and their creations




























The little sister she never had...


Group shot of some of the guests



Grateful for:
1) Shelah & Ed
2) Good girls for Bunch to have as friends
3) Time to work on my NaNoWriMo again! (I'm a solid week behind now.)

For Bunch, and Everyone Else Who Loves Her

Grateful for:

1) My Happy Family
2) Fourteen years of motherhood
3) A working oven

NaNoWriMo

Yesterday I noticed a status update of a facebook friend about this NaNoWriMo thing. I'm pretty sure I'd heard the phrase in years past, but had some vague notion that it had something to do with Mork and Mindy.

So I asked what it was. Which led me to the official NaNoWriMo website. In a nutshell, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, which runs from November 1-30th and during which participants strive to write a 50,000 (minimum) word novel from scratch.

I've toyed with writing a novel before. Heck, I've toyed with writing anything, but I've had a hard time A) committing. B) feeling like it would be worthwhile. C) coming up with an idea D) sticking with it when I've started. (I've gotten as far as a most excellent title saved in Word a few times...)

But this idea of putting it out there in one month intrigued me. After reading a few pages on the official website, I decided to throw my hat in with the other 172,000 (aspiring) writers and go for it. Nothing to lose for trying!

To complete the goal in 30 days, with my trusty calculator I've concluded that I'll need to put out 1,666 words a day, every day, which is kind of a scary number if you think about it (no, I'm not referring to that 666 thing when I say this, either). Yesterday I only got 207 written by midnight. But at this moment, I have 3,350, so it was a good day.

I'm flying the rest of this week, and it's slated to be a very busy month already, but I am honestly excited about this. So far I'm actually digging my story quite a bit. And I don't think there is any higher compliment than the one Gator gave me as I tucked him into bed tonight. "I can't believe you wrote that story mommy! I mean, it's like a real book!"

Both Bunch and Gator are dying to see what happens next. And so am I, as it turns out! I'm just winging it as I go. The best thing about this is the advice they supply at the website. Things like this are pure genius:

1) It's okay to not know what you're doing. Really. You've read a lot of novels, so you're completely up to the challenge of writing one. If you feel more comfortable outlining your story ahead of time, do so. But it's also fine to just wing it. Write every day, and a book-worthy story will appear, even if you're not sure what that story might be right now.
2) Do not edit as you go. Editing is for December. Think of November as an experiment in pure output. Even if it's hard at first, leave ugly prose and poorly written passages on the page to be cleaned up later. Your inner editor will be very grumpy about this, but your inner editor is a nitpicky jerk who foolishly believes that it is possible to write a brilliant first draft if you write it slowly enough. It isn't. Every book you've ever loved started out as a beautifully flawed first draft. In November, embrace imperfection and see where it takes you.

So that's what I'm going to be up to for the next 27 days. I'll try to check in, but meanwhile, if any of you are also NaNoWriMo'ing, hollar! I'd love to be your buddy so drop me a line. And if any of my friends want to be a rough-draft reader, shoot me an email.

Grateful for:
1) Friends and authors J. Scott Savage and James Dashner, who have both been oddly instrumental in me getting to this point...though they most likely don't realize it.
2) The dream I had last summer that inspired my story
3) A successful first day...with lots of moments where the next idea just came to me right when I needed it. I feel like the God of Inspiration was with me today.

A Bedroom Story

I've written about my room in the garage before, so I'll pick up from there.

For about a year I slept on the cot that started the whole thing, while systematically nosing my way through all the crap that surrounded me, consolidating and off-loading as I went. During that year I managed to clear out a good amount of the space, including the large, metal, industrial desk that I suppose was meant to serve as my dad's "office". He was always slightly protective of it, though never once in my life did I see him use it.

The place was just starting to look more habitable when I went to a school rummage sale one fine Saturday. As a 7th grader, furniture acquisition wasn't really on my radar, but while poking around the yard I saw a full-size wooden bed for sale. That would be a major upgrade from the cot, I thought, and I had saved up a my babysitting money for a while. But unfortunately, at $100, it was out of my range.

A few minutes later the principal made an announcement over the PA that for the next ten minutes, everything was half off. I dashed over to him, "Even furniture?" He said yes, so I pulled out $50 and said "I'm buying the bed".

And that's how I acquired The Bed. Never would I have guessed that I'd be sleeping in it for most of the next 30 years.

It was a double bed, and I felt like I'd landed in the lap of luxury my first night in it. I sprawled out like a giant letter X, arms and legs splayed every which-way. Oh the space! And as it turned out, there was a dresser that had belonged to my great-great (or was it great great great?) grandma, which was a really good match to the bed, so I eventually inherited it, too.

Years went by. The bed stayed in the garage when I went off to my freshman year of college. But three years later it joined me and became our marriage bed. It moved with us everywhere we went during the next 20 years. That bed has witnessed all my dreams and most of my tears, and heard almost as many prayers as God has through the years.

Because of it's headboard and footboard, my tall Doc couldn't actually stretch out flat in it. Through the years there were a number of times that I asked him if he wanted to get a new bed, but always he declined, saying it was fine.

And it was! It was a fine bed and I have been grateful for it.

But now, I've finally figured out what style I'm drawn to, and our dear little bed really isn't it. If I were looking for furniture today, I wouldn't have ever glanced at it. Plus, it is small, not even queen size. Don't get me wrong...I love snuggling with my sweetie, but there have been times when it would have been nice to have the option of spreading out, too.

So now that we're for sure going to be staying in this house for the rest of Doc's training, and since I'd given up on someone surprising me with one of those HGTV or TLC room (or house, or yard) make-overs, we decided to celebrate not having to move anywhere with a bedroom remodel!

Ikea finally came to Utah a couple years back, and I had come to really like the style and clean lines they're known for. Doc liked it too, so we headed out to pick our new look, and with the help of Davis, my oh-so-handy, awesome lil' bro and his tools, we transformed our room.

Things I love: After 9+ years of nearly always being in some stage of packing to leave or unpacking upon return, my luggage finally has a home! Now there is room for everything that used to be displaced. Little by little I'm making our space into a place I like.

I still haven't accented the room. It's just bare bones so far because I can't decide what color to go with yet. Doc defers to me, but says "of course you have to pick blue. You ARE blue!" and he may be right. But if I do, which shade shall it be? And there are so many lovely greens, browns, oranges and reds as well! I realize it's easy enough to swap accent colors, but which to start with?

Anyway, the old furniture is now in my garage and I'm not sure what to do with it. If I had a big house with a spare guest room, I'd refinish it and put it in there. I confess to feeling some reluctance to just sell it on Craig's List, since the dresser is a family piece that allegedly came across the plains with my great great (great?) granny...who I am actually named for. It was later restored by my grandfather who was a carpenter born in 1900. The bed is really old, too. Hand-carved cherry wood and they actually do match each other quite nicely. So, much to Doc's chagrin, it's now out with all the other stuff I've been storing for my siblings the past several years, and we're enjoying the new space and clean lines of our room.

Here's the old bedroom. And no, it was NEVER, not once, EVER this clean! I took these photos thinking I'd need pictures to list the furniture for sale...and then promptly began the remodel.




There have been times when making the bed included arranging up to 14 pillows. I will never go there again!

Funny tidbit. I bought this bedding in Vermont 10 years ago. Nine months later I visited my inlaws in Utah and discovered that out of all the possible bedroom sets IN THE WORLD, they had purchased the very same one! Neither of us had mentioned our purchases to the other...it was just the one we both liked. Only they have a king-size bed, so mine won't be any use to them.

Here's the new look so far, taken from each corner of the room.

Doorway view of our new lovely, spacious, queen-size bed!


My chic new bookshelf, where I am free to have any books I like on display. Note, the paintings I did haven't yet found their real home. They're just hanging out here for a bit.


From the next corner, facing the door. In addition to my little desk and chair by the door, you can see the major addition here...


...THE WONDERFUL WARDROBE! This beauty has more than tripled the available space. I'm in love with it.


Grateful for:
1) Finally figuring out what style I'm drawn to...and discovering that Doc likes it, too!.
2) Sales on already-affordable furniture, and Davis' amazing power tools.
3) A good night's rest.