Showing posts with label cake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cake. Show all posts

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Cajun Corner - Vol. 5,, No. 25



Cajun Corner – Vol. 5, No. 25 – June 29, 2013

 

Bon Jour!  Welcome to Cajun Stitchery’s weekly email and welcome to our family.

 

ΘΘΘΘΘ

Don’t forget to visit us at www.cajunstitchery.com, www.flickr.com/photos/cajunstitchery, and, www.cajunstitchery.etsy.com often.   We are also on Twitter and Facebook. 

Visit our on-line catalogs at:



Last week’s Cherries In The Snow turned out okay, I guess.  It was very stressful.  A very dear friend of mine, who is a wonderful chef herself, corrected my recipe a bit for me.  She emailed and said that I should probably leave out the sour cream.  I did. 

Saturday began just fine.  I went to the store and purchased all of the ingredients.  The first step was the angel food cake.  This is a mix where you only have to add water.  How could anyone mess that up?  Well, guess what?  I bought some aluminum foil baking container things with plastic lids.  That way I could just leave it at my friend’s home and not worry about getting my plate later.  So far, so good.  The aluminum foil bake ware was pretty deep.  I figured that I would put just enough cake batter in each aluminum foil baking dish to come about half way up and then I’d have room for the whipped cream, cream cheese, and cherry pie filling.  This all made sense to me.

Got the bowl and mixer out, put the water and cake mix in the bowl, and began mixing these ingredients.  30 seconds on low to mix everything together; then 1 minute on medium.  Do not over mix.  The oven was on the correct temperature.  The box said not to grease the baking dish.  Everything was perfect.  I poured the cake batter into the dish and the batter only came up about ¼ to ½ inch.  Perfect!  I put the pan in the over and began mixing another cake.  When I finished mixing the second cake and put it in a pan, I opened the oven door and put the pan into the oven.  A few minutes later I went back to check on it.  OMG!  The first cake had risen over the top of the aluminum baking dish with a rounded top and the second cake wasn’t far behind the first.

At this point I panicked.  How am I going to get all of that other stuff on top of this cake and in the same pan?  I started thinking that maybe I could cut the cake in half and put the topping in the middle.  That would be ugly.  I made a panicked plea on Facebook.  One friend assured me that it would be okay.  Another assured me that she doesn’t cook either and I should go to the store and buy a cake. 

After the cakes finish cooking, I pull both beautifully rounded cakes out of the oven to cool.  They were at least an inch or two above the pan.  I sat waiting for them to cool.  That took much to long, so I stuck them in the freeze.  My patience was wearing thin with those cakes. 

Then I began the topping.   I put the heavy cream into the bowl and beat it at high speed.  Little milk sprinkles covered me and everything in the near vicinity.  It did thicken as the mixer continued to whirl.  The sugar was added.  Things began to look up.  The whipped cream was nice and thick and sweet.  Then I added the blocks of cream cheese.  The word “cream” is a misnomer for that.  You would think something that was cream would be smooth.  Oh no.  The blocks went into the whipped cream and the mixed was chewing those blocks of cream cheese and spitting them out.  When I say “spitting” I mean I had cream cheese all over me, all over my kitchen, and all over my dogs.  God bless dogs.  My companions licked up that cream cheese until I know their tongues had to be tired.  Nevertheless, the mixer kept whirling and eventually mixed all of the cream cheese with the whipped cream creating a mixture with a million tiny lumps of cream cheese.  That was about all of the time that I intended to spend on that mixture.

I then took the cakes out of the freezer.  Thank God, the cakes sank in the middle, like a low volcano.  The cream mixture was spread over the two cakes – much thicker in the middle than the sides.  Finally, the cans of cherry pie filling were opened and poured onto the top of the 2 cakes.

I must admit that in the end the cakes didn’t look bad.  I believe the cakes, at least most of them, were eaten with no ill effects.

Lesson learned.  Next time I’m going to the store and buying a cake.

At the dinner party I learned that more ladies received mysterious gnomes during the week.  Each gnome seems to be doing something indicative of the recipient.  For instance, one of the gnomes has a book and was given to a retired librarian.  The mystery continues.  There has been lots of speculation but the gnome giver remains anonymous.  However, a new gnome language is appearing.  A lady gnome is now called a “misgnomer.”  The entire affair is hilarious.  Everyone seems to wish they had been the one to think of carrying out such a wonderful prank.

Yesterday evening I went to get the mail.  As I walked into the front yard, a young man who appeared to be in his 20s, was riding what appeared to be a new, red, shiny bicycle, stopped and said, “Hi, my name is Jerry.”  He stuck out his hand and I shook it.  He continued that he was looking for someone to hire him to do yard work because he needed $20; he is homeless; and he needs a place to stay.  Just something about this guy hit me wrong.  It was kind of creepy.  Sam, the giant dog, was next door barking his head off and the guy seemed a bit startled by Sam and mentioned the big dog.  I politely said no to the guy and off he went.

This morning my Mardi Gras King called me to say that his truck was stolen from his driveway last night.  My King lives only a couple of blocks from me.  He said that whoever it was went through his sister’s car and then stole his truck.  He contacted the Sheriff’s Department but was also getting the word out to everyone he knows in hopes that someone sees his truck.

Later in the afternoon, one of his friends did, indeed, see two guys driving his truck in this area.  Stupid thieves didn’t even leave the vicinity.  They called the Sheriff’s Department and the truck was found abandoned near a park a few blocks from me.  My king was thrilled to have his truck back.  As we talked, I mentioned the guy on the bicycle from yesterday.  My king said that a guy on a bicycle had been riding in his area yesterday and appeared to be scoping out the place.  One of my neighbors saw the bicycle guy, too.  In fact, he said that the guy had gone into several cars but never took anything; not even money.  The whole neighborhood is on alert.  How odd that the thief rummages through vehicles and doesn’t take anything.  Hmmmm, I wonder what he is up to?

The flour sack towels with the little mermaids on them are doing well.  They are $15 each.  There is one for sale in our Etsy store.  More can be made.  Get ‘em while they are hot.

My poor son had to have his dog put down this week.  The whole family is grieving.  Pets become such an important part of any family.  They are family members and it hurts when they pass.  Her name was Paradise and she was only 6 years old.  They spent the week back and forth with the vet trying to figure out what is wrong with her and finally it was an internal tumor that burst causing her to bleed from her nose.  She is no longer in pain.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY
 
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Thank you Courtney Winstead for the following:

THIS IS A GOOD One for the history
              books.

ON JULY 20, 1969, AS COMMANDER OF
              THE  APOLLO 11 LUNAR MODULE, NEIL

ARMSTRONG WAS THE FIRST PERSON TO SET FOOT
              ON THE  MOON.

HIS FIRST WORDS AFTER STEPPING ON
              THE  MOON, "THAT'S ONE SMALL STEP

FOR MAN, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND,"
              WERE  TELEVISED TO EARTH AND

HEARD BY MILLIONS.*

BUT, JUST BEFORE HE RE-ENTERED THE 
              LANDER, HE MADE THE ENIGMATIC REMARK

  "GOOD LUCK, MR. GORSKY."
              
             

MANY PEOPLE AT NASA THOUGHT IT WAS A 
              CASUAL REMARK CONCERNING SOME

RIVAL SOVIET COSMONAUT. HOWEVER, UPON
              CHECKING,  THERE WAS NO GORSKY

IN EITHER THE RUSSIAN OR AMERICAN SPACE
              PROGRAMS.

OVER THE YEARS, MANY PEOPLE 
              QUESTIONED ARMSTRONG AS TO WHAT THE -

“GOOD LUCK, MR. GORSKY” STATEMENT
              MEANT,  BUT ARMSTRONG ALWAYS JUST
SMILED.

ON JULY 5, 1995, IN TAMPA BAY, 
              FLORIDA , WHILE ANSWERING QUESTIONS

FOLLOWING A SPEECH, A REPORTER BROUGHT
              UP  THE 26-YEAR-OLD QUESTION ABOUT MR. GORSKY TO ARMSTRONG.

THIS TIME HE FINALLY RESPONDED 
              BECAUSE MR. GORSKY HAD DIED, SO NEIL

ARMSTRONG FELT HE COULD NOW ANSWER
              THE  QUESTION.

HERE IS THE ANSWER TO "WHO WAS MR. GORSKY":

IN 1938, WHEN HE WAS A KID IN A
              SMALL  MID-WESTERN TOWN , HE WAS

PLAYING BASEBALL WITH A FRIEND IN THE
              BACKYARD.

HIS  FRIEND HIT THE BALL, WHICH LANDED IN HIS NEIGHBOUR'S YARD
              BY THEIR BEDROOM  WINDOW.

HIS NEIGHBOURS WERE MR. AND MRS.
              GORSKY.  AS HE LEANED DOWN TO  PICK

UP THE BALL, YOUNG ARMSTRONG HEARD MRS.
              GORSKY SHOUTING AT MR. GORSKY,
              
"SEX!  YOU WANT SEX?!  YOU'LL GET SEX  WHEN THE KID NEXT DOOR WALKS ON  THE MOON!"              

IT BROKE THE PLACE UP.
               

NEIL ARMSTRONG'S FAMILY CONFIRMED 
              THIS IS A TRUE STORY.  


BUT, JUST BEFORE HE RE-ENTERED THE
LANDER, HE MADE THE ENIGMATIC REMARK
"GOOD LUCK, MR. GORSKY."
MANY PEOPLE AT NASA THOUGHT IT WAS A
CASUAL REMARK CONCERNING SOME
RIVAL SOVIET COSMONAUT. HOWEVER, UPON
CHECKING, THERE WAS NO GORSKY
IN EITHER THE RUSSIAN OR AMERICAN SPACE
PROGRAMS.
OVER THE YEARS, MANY PEOPLE
QUESTIONED ARMSTRONG AS TO WHAT THE -
“GOOD LUCK, MR. GORSKY” STATEMENT
MEANT, BUT ARMSTRONG ALWAYS JUST SMILED.
ON JULY 5, 1995, IN TAMPA BAY,
FLORIDA , WHILE ANSWERING QUESTIONS
FOLLOWING A SPEECH, A REPORTER BROUGHT
UP THE 26-YEAR-OLD QUESTION ABOUT MR. GORSKY TO ARMSTRONG.
THIS TIME HE FINALLY RESPONDED
BECAUSE MR. GORSKY HAD DIED, SO NEIL
ARMSTRONG FELT HE COULD NOW ANSWER
THE QUESTION.
HERE IS THE ANSWER TO "WHO WAS MR. GORSKY":
IN 1938, WHEN HE WAS A KID IN A
SMALL MID-WESTERN TOWN , HE WAS
PLAYING BASEBALL WITH A FRIEND IN THE
BACKYARD.
HIS FRIEND HIT THE BALL, WHICH LANDED IN HIS NEIGHBOUR'S YARD
BY THEIR BEDROOM WINDOW.
HIS NEIGHBOURS WERE MR. AND MRS.
GORSKY. AS HE LEANED DOWN TO PICK
UP THE BALL, YOUNG ARMSTRONG HEARD MRS.
GORSKY SHOUTING AT MR. GORSKY
"SEX! YOU WANT SEX?! YOU'LL GET SEX WHEN THE KID NEXT DOOR WALKS ON THE MOON!
IT BROKE THE PLACE UP.
NEIL ARMSTRONG'S FAMILY CONFIRMED
THIS IS A TRUE STORY.
BUT, JUST BEFORE HE RE-ENTERED THE
LANDER, HE MADE THE ENIGMATIC REMARK
"GOOD LUCK, MR. GORSKY."
MANY PEOPLE AT NASA THOUGHT IT WAS A
CASUAL REMARK CONCERNING SOME
RIVAL SOVIET COSMONAUT. HOWEVER, UPON
CHECKING, THERE WAS NO GORSKY
IN EITHER THE RUSSIAN OR AMERICAN SPACE
PROGRAMS.
OVER THE YEARS, MANY PEOPLE
QUESTIONED ARMSTRONG AS TO WHAT THE -
“GOOD LUCK, MR. GORSKY” STATEMENT
MEANT, BUT ARMSTRONG ALWAYS JUST SMILED.
ON JULY 5, 1995, IN TAMPA BAY,
FLORIDA , WHILE ANSWERING QUESTIONS
FOLLOWING A SPEECH, A REPORTER BROUGHT
UP THE 26-YEAR-OLD QUESTION ABOUT MR. GORSKY TO ARMSTRONG.
THIS TIME HE FINALLY RESPONDED
BECAUSE MR. GORSKY HAD DIED, SO NEIL
ARMSTRONG FELT HE COULD NOW ANSWER
THE QUESTION.
HERE IS THE ANSWER TO "WHO WAS MR. GORSKY":
IN 1938, WHEN HE WAS A KID IN A
SMALL MID-WESTERN TOWN , HE WAS
PLAYING BASEBALL WITH A FRIEND IN THE
BACKYARD.
HIS FRIEND HIT THE BALL, WHICH LANDED IN HIS NEIGHBOUR'S YARD
BY THEIR BEDROOM WINDOW.
HIS NEIGHBOURS WERE MR. AND MRS.
GORSKY. AS HE LEANED DOWN TO PICK
UP THE BALL, YOUNG ARMSTRONG HEARD MRS.
GORSKY SHOUTING AT MR. GORSKY
"SEX! YOU WANT SEX?! YOU'LL GET SEX WHEN THE KID NEXT DOOR WALKS ON THE MOON!
IT BROKE THE PLACE UP.
NEIL ARMSTRONG'S FAMILY CONFIRMED
THIS IS A TRUE STORY.
Cajun Stitchery
(850) 261-2462
P.S.  You are always welcome to stop by and look at all of the catalogs and pass some time with me, cher.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Cajun Corner - Vol. 3, No. 48




Cajun Corner – Vol. 3, No. 48 – December 5, 2011



Bon Jour!  Welcome to Cajun Stitchery’s weekly email and welcome to our family.



ΘΘΘΘΘ

Don’t forget to visit our blog at www.cajunstitchery.blogspot.com, and www.cajunstitchery.etsy.com often.   We are also on Twitter and Facebook. 

Visit our on-line catalogs at:



Last Saturday on Buy Local Day, Cajun Stitchery had a table at the Perdido Bay Golf Club.  One of my WBL ladies manages the place and generously offered vendors a means of getting their wares to the public.  This was not just your run of the mill craft fair.  She had a generously sized table and chair for Cajun Stitchery right in front of the door from the bar/restaurant to the golf course, covered, of course.  Then she had hors d’oeuvres served periodically throughout the day.  The crab cakes were to die for.  You couldn’t have asked for nicer weather.  Several ladies from WBL had tables and I met several new friends.  It was a wonderful day.  I would definitely do this one again, if the opportunity arises.

I finally worked with the boring needle.  Oh, that is a nice addition.  In the past when I make the can wraps, I have Boudreaux stitch out the design and included in the design are 4 little eyelets to enable me to run the elastic.  After the can wrap is embroidered and taken off the hoop, I take a hammer and hole punch to get the fabric out from the inside of the eyelets.  The hammer and hole punch method is a real pain and time consuming, not to mention that there always remains bits of fabric in the holes.  With the boring needle, I can stitch out the design but when it gets to the eyelets, it does a circle with the boring needles, which takes out that inner fabric, then, the machine stitches the satin stitch for the eyelet.  I do have to stop the machine each time the boring needle punches a hole and remove the little fabric circle, but that is much easier and cleaner than otherwise.

The other new method of removing those little eyelet holes is grommets.  I have had and have used the grommets for eyelets in golf towels.  The problem with that is you have step one, which is to hammer the die to create the hole, then, step two is to hammer the grommet into the hole.  The grommets are usually loose at first.  I keep hammering to tighten the grommet, frequently smashing it.  This week we received our newly purchased grommet machine.  It is not the big automated one.  It is manual.  You place the grommets in the dies, then put the fabric in between and press the handle and voila, you have a grommet attached with a hole.  This machine was pretty expensive but Cajun Stitchery can use it and it sure makes the process easier and much more professional looking. 

The next machine that I want isn’t a machine at all.  It is snap dies for the grommet machine.  With the snap dies, I can attach snaps to items.  I guess the real purpose of the grommet machine is for tents and sails and other canvas type items, but it will work on my items, too. 

We have gone a whole week without problems with our U-verse.  However, this week we have been working with AT&T on our smart phones.  For all of the years that we each had the little razer phones, we never dropped a call.  Now, with the smart phones, George will call me from Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Lowes, etc, and I either get his voice garbled or we cannot make a connection until he goes outside the building.  He has always been able to call me from these stores with the little razer phone without any problems.  Also, now I seem to be dropping calls a lot.  When we look at the little bars on the phone that indicate the wave strength, we only get one or two bars and sometime none.  So, we have spent a good portion of this week on the phone with AT&T.  Yes, in the middle of talking with the AT&T lady the call was dropped.  They tell us that the issue was turned over to one of their engineers and should be fixed by Tuesday.  We’ll see.  In the meantime, we are still learning to use the phone.

Speaking of the phone, the main reason we got the smart phones was so that we could use The Square to accept credit card payments.  I took The Square to the Buy Local Day event at Perdido Bay Golf Club but never needed to use it.  One of my customers did pay with a credit card this week, though.  It worked and was simple to use.  Now that, my friends, is one pretty cool little device.

I received a belated birthday gift from a dear friend of mine this week.  Earlier this year, she and her husband had taken a cruise in the north Atlantic to whale watch.  On the cruise they went to Quebec and Nova Scotia.  While in Nova Scotia, she located some craft ladies who she had make me a scarf.  She wanted to give me something from my ancestral homeland.  I cried when I received it.  It is so beautiful and delicate and I will wear it with pride.

A lot of my time this week has been spent listing Christmas items in our Etsy Store.  Please browse the store and, of course, if you have questions, just ask me.  We have 3 or 4 more items to list and that’s it for Christmas.

We are gearing up for the next holiday season and that is Mardi Gras.  Yes, I’m still making the custom Christmas Stockings, aprons, etc.  We are just not making anymore Christmas items that are not custom.  We’ll sell what we have in stock now.  I do have some ideas for Mardi Gras items so stay tuned.

If anyone is interested in bath robes, let me know.  I ordered some waffle weave robes, 48” long, hotel quality, one size fits all.  They are going to cost about $50 each, plus shipping.  Of course, the more I purchase, the lower the shipping rate.

We still have all sorts of ready made items in stock, such as napkins, pillowcases, towels, shirts, jackets, totes, etc., plus handmade items that have not been listed in our Etsy Store.  Please feel free to come by and look at all of the items for a unique Christmas shopping experience.  Call first to make sure I’m at home, though.  The coffee is always ready at Cajun Stitchery. 

CHRISTMAS is around the corner.  Get that Christmas shopping done now and enjoy the holidays.  Shop local and buy made in the USA.

If you are not a subscriber and would like to receive Cajun Corner weekly, please email cajunstitchery@yahoo.com and let me know to put you on our email list. 
===============================================================

Thank you Marshall Larrivere for the following:

Boudreaux staggered home very late after another

evening with his drinking buddy, Landry. He took off his shoes to

avoid waking his wife, Betty Lou.

He tiptoed as quietly as he could toward the

stairs leading to their upstairs bedroom, but misjudged the bottom

step. As he caught himself by grabbing the banister, his body swung

around and he landed heavily on his rump. A whiskey bottle in each

back pocket broke and made the landing especially painful.

Managing not to yell, Boudreaux sprung up, pulled

down his pants, and looked in the hall mirror to see that his butt

cheeks were cut and bleeding. He managed to quietly find a full box

of Band-Aids and began putting a Band-Aid as best he could on each place he saw blood.

He then hid the now almost empty Band-Aid box and

shuffled and stumbled his way to bed.

In the morning, Boudreaux woke up with searing

pain in both his head and butt and Betty Lou staring at him from across the room.

She said, “You were drunk again last night weren't

you?”

Boudreaux said, “Why you say such a mean thing?”

“Well,” Betty Lou said, “it could be the open

front door, it could be the broken glass at the bottom of the stairs,

it could be the drops of blood trailing through the house, it could be

your bloodshot eyes, but mostly ..... it's all those Band-Aids stuck

on the hall mirror.”

=================================================================

C’est tout, mes amis



Peggy Henshall

Cajun Stitchery

(850) 261-2462




P.S.  You are always welcome to stop by and look at all of the catalogs and pass some time with me, cher.