Questions, Answers, Comments, etc.

Karla, I know just what you mean about the leak at the back door.  I wonder if your set up is similar to mine.  We only have the deck on the back of the house and in a heavy rainstorm the water runs along the top of the door frame.  It then drains down through the frame itself and between the door and storm door.

Fingers crossed here... we're getting an estimate worked up on putting up more stable railings and a roof over our back deck which will officially make it a porch.  It occurred to me this evening that means furniture, plants, porch decor.



We do not store things under our  home, but that is a good idea.  Our reason for NOT doing so is simple.  Our home sits in an old terraced field.  It so happens we're on one of the low areas that sort of dips, so water routinely runs under skirting around the house.  Eventually we hope to have it underpinned and landscaped in such a way that water is channeled around the house and doesn't seep under it.   There's a home owner on the road before ours who has blocked up his house and he uses that as storage for yard tools, his mower, etc.  So it is a do-able idea.

Angela, Mrs. Catherine aka, Catherine Staat, was a former blogger on Xanga.  She and her husband also self published a magazine for a time as well, and I contributed to that publication.  She was doing some Youtube vlogging here as The Practical Housewife.  Her cleaning methods are very detailed.  One of her hints that works really well for me is to  take a digital photo of each area of a room and use that as a guide to declutter, clean and organize.  She is so right that the photos often point up 'stuff' that we've become so accustomed to seeing that we are blind to when we look at it in person.

Louise, Challah is also known as 'Egg bread' because it is yeast risen bread made with eggs and has a yellow dough color.  The recipe I used called for saffron, no doubt to offset the lack of color you get with store eggs as opposed to farm raised ones.  I won't be buying saffron for this or any other recipe but if I could find farm fresh eggs once more I'd buy them in a split second.

Sarah, Yes, I planted the root end of a cabbage I bought. I was looking at it after I cut it up and discovered it had a few roots starting to grow already so I set it in a cup and put in just enough water to cover the root portion.  Well, the thing started to grow leaves and this time (this is my second one to do this) I took it out and planted in a pan of dirt.  There's an actual baby cabbage forming on it now!  I just really settled the thing in the dirt, didn't cover it quite completely.  I'll let you know further progress.

Shirley, The shower cleaner (Dawn and vinegar) does work well and makes cleaning soap scum so easy.  I've used it on my stainless kitchen sinks, too and boy do they shine.  I don't stick exclusively to Dawn either.  I've used Palmolive with success as well but I've not tried it with my Aldi Breva detergent yet.

Angel Biscuits:
6 cups of flour
1/3 cup sugar
Dash salt
1 tsp soda
1 cup of shortening
2 pkgs Yeast dissolved in 1/4 cup lukewarm water
2 cups buttermilk

Sift flour, sugar, salt, soda.  Cut in shortening.  Add yeast and buttermilk.  Dump onto floured board and knead well, adding more flour if necessary.  Cut out biscuits and bake at 450 until risen and light golden.
(This makes a great deal of dough. We used to just cut out the number of biscuits wanted for one meal and then the dough was stored in a covered bowl in the fridge for up to two weeks).  It is not necessary to let the dough rise before baking.  The biscuits are light and have a nice yeasty flavor.

Squash Casserole
3-4 cups well drained cooked yellow summer squash
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 sleeve butter flavored crackers, crushed

Mix all but the cracker crumbs.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Top with cracker crumbs and bake in 350 oven until puffy and firm (about 30-35 minutes).

The word verification feature I activated has cut out ALL the spam comments entirely.  I went from about a hundred spam comments daily to zilch just that quickly. It's so nice to see comments from just the readers of this blog.  I dislike the feature but it is a very useful tool.  I was honestly beginning to feel I'd stumbled into a plague of spammers.  Nice to be rid of them!

That's about all the comments and questions I wanted to reply to.  I hope you will try the recipes, they are Tried and True in my home.