Worth Sharing This Week: December 21-27

The Nester shared her minimalist Christmas and I went to view it.    It's nice, not too much, not too frou frou.  I do admire those who know their aesthetic and stick to it.  However it was the quote she put in that post that seemed most appropriate as a phrase to use over the next year.





From the January 1944 Elsa Connors column in Woman's Day magazine was the suggestion of a new sort of dairy to keep: Things Worth Remembering..."I am going to copy a friend of mine who has produced a journal that is a treasury of living, in which she has, for years, recorded Things Worth Remembering.  The title, she says, prevents her journal from accumulating grievances and immortalizing petty nothings."

Do you know what I did last week?  I tore the pages from four years worth of journals and shredded them, following Sarah's long ago advice to add the shredded pages to my compost and let those journals become part of the land on which I've lived those years.  I didn't read through them first because honestly those past four years were best lived through just once.  I don't want anyone in my family to come across them later down the road and be hurt by my words of worry or criticism.  Those things were best kept to myself and the privacy of those journals.  And now they are kept by the compost bucket in which they become something more fertile than what they were.

 I will continue journaling in the difficult places as I find it often opens my mind to solutions and facts I might not have seen for emotion clouding my vision but I'm going to keep a separate notebook titled  'Things Worth Remembering', as well.  How nice would that be to read back through year after year?



Carolyn shared this video about turkey via email last week.  It was a fun watch but full of good ideas.  I think the recipes sound good but of greater interest to me was the way she put the turkey in the fridge and just covered it with a tea towel.  I think I'd like to try that Turkey Pinwheel recipe.



Oh what a happy day!  I found new posts up on The Cultivating Project.  These are lovely Christmas posts.  And you must know that yet again "O Come O Come Emmanuel" is involved once more.  I think it would be lovely to listen to The Piano Guys version as you read these posts...



I have a whole listing of blogs that are either practically ancient they've been around so long or are defunct but still up to be read.  I keep them in a file called "To Explore Deeply" so I can go back in the archives and read while they are still online to study.  This past weekend I read this post from Lanier Ivers about old books.  Lovely truths, and exactly why I feel as I do about the older books to be read, often I admit, to the detriment of new books that might also be excellent.  I am forever caught in a web of the past one way and another.

"White Christmas", the movie, with Danny Kaye, Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen.  Let's just pause a moment for the gorgeous (!!) dresses the girls wore....sigh!   "White Christmas" is a lovely song of course, but by far my most favorite was  "Counting My Blessings".

A stumble upon on Prime this past week was this old movie, "Beyond Tomorrow" which opens on Christmas Eve at dinner time.  Rather a nice movie though why good boys must be swayed by obviously bad women is beyond me and no I'm not giving anything away.  You really must watch it.  It was all grainy and flickering at points, signs of an authentic old film.


It was sunny Christmas Eve.   I had encounters of all sorts that day though I pretty much stayed at home.  First, when I sat down to read my Bible, I glanced out the window towards the cemetery behind our house and there was a great black bulk that my mind registered first as horse and then acknowledged that we have no horses here.  I knew immediately it must be the big buck deer that Sam has been stalking for the past few months and indeed there were three young does there as well, much more brown than he.  When I slipped to the back door to open it and peek out, he was gone immediately.  The does stood around and looked after him and around as though to say "What?"

When I picked up mail on my way to carry off the trash a little lizard greeted me inside the mailbox.  I'm just grateful I saw him before I took up the mail or he'd have dashed up my arm and into the car and I just wasn't up to that much excitement.  I left the mail box door open while I went on to the trash site and when I returned there he sat sunning himself, sigh.  I encouraged him very gently to leave the mailbox, but I suspect he rather liked the dry space to be in over the past few days.

That evening I went out and had a nice little sit on the back porch.  I shushed Maddie's whining by burying my bare toes deep into her fur.  She was so warm and it felt so good, a nice shield against the slight chill creeping into the air that near sunset.    The birds were happy with the sunny day and tweeted and chirped.  I could see the glint of sun on their wings when I looked over towards Sam's as they flitted from tree to bush and back again.   And then I heard the peepers singing...It might well be angels' voices we have come to expect but it was peepers I heard trebling away in all our wet spots.



Now Christmas is past, it's the time to consider buying bulbs for forcing indoors.  I love Amaryllis but I think this year I'd like to try my hand at a pebble filled bowl of daffodils or hyacinths.  Not paperwhites.  They are just fine for the yard but they smell awful...I know this first hand.  Granny didn't care for hyacinths.  She always called them 'Funeral Flowers'.  I've no idea why she associated them with funerals but she always did, however she loved the tiny little grape hyacinths, also known as muscari.  Those too might be forced, as can crocus.   I have a lovely blue and white china bowl my former mother in law gave me one year and it was filled with crocuses in bloom, quite lovely.  I think I'd like to fill that bowl once more but alas I've planted my Staghorn Fern in it and it's flourishing so I am reluctant to move it.  But wait...I have a blue and white stoneware bowl I bought at thrift store that would do even better.  Oh yes! note: found Amaryllis for $3 each at Lowe's and got two.  Didn't see any other bulbs.


A lovely performance of Mozart's Laudate Dominium by Barbara Hendricks.  I was never exposed much to operatic singing but when I was in physical rehab following that run-in with the drunk driver years ago, the evening charge nurse shared with me her great love of opera and I've listened with a growing appreciation over the years since.


A very intriguing article in my state electric co-op magazine revolved around newly invented musical instruments.  I am always intrigued by how some(i.e.John) can hear rhythms and make music from them, how children can often create instruments  from simple things so I had to go listen to these new instruments. Some I like really well, some not so much but just the same I was happy that technology offers me the opportunity to have a listen to them.

The Glide, Airsticks, SpiderHarp and the Koritas may be listened to by clicking on each of the links herein.



Eye of Round Roast is something I've not had often but found it to be relatively inexpensive at the grocery this weekend and not typical of the roasts I'd normally buy.  I brought it home and looked it up online.  The Round section of roasts and steaks are cut from the hindquarter, which is the working muscles of a cow.   These cuts are very lean and generally require slow cooking to tenderize them.  It wasn't what I had in mind, however.  I'd wanted a more elegant sort of cut to be honest and I went on over to YouTube and several websites to look for means to make my pig's ear into a silk purse.   Fortunately I found I could indeed make this cut taste more like a tenderloin roast.

Typically the eye of round roasts  are cut into 3-4 pound roasts.  You'll be slicing this meat thin and since it's a boneless cut it will net you enough meat to serve about 8-12, I should think.

This is the way I cooked mine, since I have a gas oven.   If yours is an electric one it will hold heat better and can be finished differently.  I'll share that method at the end.

Take meat from fridge about an hour before you mean to start cooking it.  I stripped the paper wrapping off mine and salted it with sea salt and spread minced garlic over it.  Rosemary would have been lovely but I got distracted and forgot it.  Shame too since I have that big bush nearly three feet round at the back steps...   Now let the meat sit for about an hour.

About 15 minutes before you want to start cooking pre-heat your oven to 500F.  Place meat in pan.  I suggest you lightly tent it in foil, but do not wrap it, because the fat will spatter the inside of the oven and things might get a bit smoky indoors.   Put pan in hot oven.  Plan to cook meat 20 minutes for every pound.  My roast was almost 3 1/2 pounds so I cooked mine at that temperature for 60 minutes.  I then cut the heat back to 350F and cooked it another half hour.  I removed it from the oven and checked the internal temperature which read at 150F.  I covered it with foil and let it sit on stove top for another half hour.  This produced a medium rare roast that was tender and very flavorful.

An alternate method is to start at 500F for twenty minutes per pound then cut down to about 200 or even warm on the gas oven for an hour.  I wanted to cook the Cauliflower dish and needed the higher heat.  It worked in my favor.

Now for an electric oven, do all the initial steps of bringing meat to room temperature and seasoning and pre-heating the oven.  Then cook for 20 minutes per pound at 500F (tent foil over).  Cut off oven once the meat has cooked for that period of time and let it sit for an hour in the oven.  Check internal temperature and if it's around 145F cover with foil and let sit for 15 minutes or so.

So when you're in the market for a 'nice roast dinner' consider this lovely cut and this method of cooking it.  It makes a lovely bit of pan juices for gravy or au jus.

Coconut Thumbprint Cookies

My two youngest have a favorite Christmas cookie that is simple as can be but they fight over the things so that I must make up a batch for each of them.  I'm going to share the original recipe with you, just as it was written when I first found it in a magazine years ago.  I'll share at the end what I changed because over the years I've adapted it to suit my family's tastes.

1 roll of sugar cookie dough
1-2 cups moist coconut (see my notes at bottom!)
1 small jar strawberry preserves

Cut sugar cookie dough log in half lengthwise, then cut in half lengthwise again, so you have four logs.  Cut each log into one inch pieces then roll into balls between palms.  Roll balls into moistened coconut.  Place on ungreased baking sheet about 2 inches apart.  Gently press thumb into top of cookie ball and fill that depression with 1/4 tsp strawberry preserves.  Bake 350F for 11-13 minutes.  Remove from oven. Let sit for a couple of minutes then transfer to wire rack to cool.

This makes a lovely cookie for tea by the way.

notes:  True this is delicious just as written but Katie is allergic to strawberries so I sub in raspberry jam.  Still tastes great.  I would like to try it with lemon curd or pineapple preserves but my children would mutiny if I did this at Christmas.

In a fit of economy one year I mixed up a batch of my sugar cookie recipe and used that instead.  Works just fine.  Ultimately you'll end with about four dozen cookies and you'll likely need a little more coconut as this tends to make more than the store bought rolls of dough.

I don't buy the more expensive moist shredded and sweetened coconut.  I buy the least expensive which is more dry.  Then I add about 2 tablespoons of water to two cups of coconut and pop in the microwave for about 20-30 seconds.  Out comes a bowl of moistened coconut.  This little trick will save you $1-$2 per bag!



I have learned that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. ~ Thoreau



New Year's Resolutions...Have you made any?  I have a few that I have been pondering on these past two weeks.   Like making reading a habit once more and taking myself off to the library where I  choose more diversified reading than I collect here at home.  There's the Algebra textbooks John gave me for Christmas that I'd like to begin to work my way through.  Crochet, knitting and embroidery.  Aprons.  Flowers.  Here are a couple of links that might intrigue some among you.

If art is something you're interested in, you can find free videos about watercolor painting or hand lettering just now...and other videos that pertain to the kits they sell.  You do not have to buy the kits to benefit from the videos.

I found this site on how to 'dress your personality' from a link Parisienne Farmgirl shared in some very old blog posts.  It's an interesting approach.  I listened to one hour long video the other day.  Again, it's geared to selling a service but the videos are free.

My handwriting is hardly stable.  One day it slants to the right, another day it's upright with far too many curly q's and then another it slants to the left.  Some days every thing is so round I can hardly read it but I've long admired the old Copperplate Cursive Writing.  Perhaps I can learn to write more nicely.

I could go on and on, but I won't.