Harvest Cake

This is a good recipe that I sort of created a couple of years ago. I call it "Harvest Cake".

I cheat and use a cake mix and canned frosting, but you can use homemade if that's important to you!

Harvest Cake
1 spice cake mix, with ingredients to prepare
1 cup applesauce
1 cup pumpkin puree
handful each of raisins, dried cranberries and chopped pecans
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
t tsp. ground cinnamon
cream cheese icing

Make the cake mix according to package directions, then stir in the applesauce, pumpkin, fruit, nuts and spices. Pour into a bundt pan sprayed with cooking spray. Bake at 350 degrees for amount of time listed on the cake mix box for the bundt pan. When it's done, cool it on a rack and then ice it with the cream cheese icing. I like to put it on a pedastal cake plate and put dried cranberries around the bottom. Very festive and pretty!!

I hope you enjoy this cake..it's very moist and tender. However, due to the high moisture content, be sure you put the leftovers in the fridge.

Gratefully,
Cathy

Thanksgiving Looms!

Oh, yeah! It's time to start preparing for my favorite holiday! You just have to love a holiday that doesn't focus on anything but gratitude, food, football and fellowship!! No gifts to buy, no elaborate decorations are necessary (but they are nice if you like to do that sort of thing) and nothing to worry about but the kind of pie you'll have for dessert...gotta love that!

Here's a recipe that I found in Susan Branch's Autumn From the Heart of the Home cookbook. If you're not familiar with Susan Branch, check out her site and think about ordering her books. I got mine from Amazon last year, and they weren't at all expensive...I can't remember how much I spent, but I know for sure it wasn't much or I wouldn't have ordered them. I like them as well as the Gooseberry Patch books, which you all know I am crazy about.

I think I'll make this for our Thanksgiving celebration this year...it just sounds so good and fall like to me.

Warm Salad of White Beans, Sage and Garlic
9 oz small white beans (dried)
1/4 c. minced fresh sage
1 tsp. minced garlic
3 Tbsp. minced flat leaf parsley
1/3 c. olive oil,
1 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste
Arugula leaves

Sort, rinse and drain beans. Bring them to a boil in 4 cups water; reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes. Remove from heat, cover and let sit 1 hour. Rinse beans and return to pan with 8 cups fresh water. Simmer 20 minutes so beans are tender but not mushy. Rinse again in hot water and drain. Put in bowl. Mix together sage, garlic, parsley, oil, vinegar and salt and pepper. Pour over beans, stir gently. Let sit 1/2 hour. Add celery and taste for seasoning. Serve warm or at room temp. It's pretty on a bed of arugula.

I have to be honest...I'll probably use canned beans, drained and rinsed and warmed. But doesn't that sound good? It's all the flavors I put in my dressing. It sounds like a great side dish for a grilled chicken breast too. And you know, don't you, that beans are full of fiber. A surgeon friend of ours told me once that the reason so many people have colon related problems is because the typical American diet is too low on fiber and water. So drink up and eat bean salad!

Keep watching for more Thanksgiving related posts in November...tis the season!!

Thankfully,
Cathy

Scarecrow re-do!

Did you notice the new header picture? I don't really like the way it doesn't completely fit the space, but I'll work on that when I have more time! But isn't he the cutest scarecrow you've seen today?

I picked him up at a yard sale for...are you ready for this? $5! Honestly! $5!

Here he is before I took a Sharpie marker to him:



And here he is after! I'd planned to completely repaint him, and I may still, but not this year. I have too much other stuff to do. I am going to make him a cute little vintage looking banner to hold for the Boo!Bash2, and then he'll have some pumpkins and hay to keep him company for Thanksgiving and the rest of fall. I just love him!

I think we'll call him Henry. He looks like a Henry to me...look for Henry again soon!

In the mood!

I am in the mood for Thanksgiving! Now that I've got Halloween under control (she said sarcastically), I'm anxious for my favorite holiday of all...Thanksgiving! Several sitcoms have had Thanksgiving episodes on lately, and it really makes me ready for it!

I love Thanksgiving. I used to always use the Friday after as the day I started decorating for Christmas. However, several years ago after Lynn's grandfather passed away, I inherited Thanksgiving dinner for his side of the family. Since most of us have other obigations on the actual Turkey Day, we decided to make the Saturday after our Thanksgiving Dinner day. That meant that I wouldn't decorate for Christmas until we were done with all the Thanksgiving festivities. For all my holiday goofiness, I am a bit of a purist...I like my holidays one at a time! So, that first year it was difficult, because I was itching to decorate for the holidays. But as the years have gone by, I've embraced Thanksgiving weekend as just that....a whole weekend to celebrate with family and friends and, most importantly, thank God for our blessings.

An added bonus is that I can usually get most of my dinner supplies on sale the day after Thanksgiving!!

So, don't be looking for colored lights and HO HO himself at our house until at least the Monday after Thanksgiving..he'll be too busy eating turkey and dressing and pumpkin pie!

Hope you have a wonderful fall!

Cathy

It's Coming...

...and it won't be long now! These are the first pumpkins from our crop!! Thanks for bringing them home, Keith and Debbie! I've loved looking out my front door and seeing them there! It gives me hope that fall is not far away!!

20 minute fall craft!

I did a quick little 20 minute craft this morning, and I wanted to show all of you! I loved the way it turned out!

Here's what I started with:

A couple of bags of leaves, picked up at Wal-Mart for $1 each, and a table runner that was on sale for $5, also at Wal-Mart. I wasn't all that crazy about the color of the runner at first, but after I finished it....


I loved it! I just used my hot glue gun and glued the leaves on, focusing on the ends mostly, but sprinkling some on the middle of the runner, too...

I plan to use it on the dessert buffet at our Thanksgiving celebration!

Pretty cute, don't cha think???

Ever Grateful,

Cathy

PS-hop over to Haunted Hamlet and see what's on my front porch!!

Yearning for Fall!

At this time of year, I'm always more than ready for fall. We've had several straight days of 100+ degree heat and I'm tired of it! I want cool mornings, warm days and crisp, cool nights...I want a fire in the firepit (which we can have way before a fire in the fireplace!), snuggly socks on my feet, the red, gold and oranges of fall foliage and the holidays looming ahead!

I am ready for sweater weather and football, for pumpkins and gourds, for pots of mums and Yankee Candles in yummy scents. I want school to start, and a routine to get established. I want to start planning my Thanksgiving table, and not sweat when I think about it! I want the flies and mosquitos to go away...but not the fireflies!

I want fall!! But, as we all know, God promised us that everything has a season and a purpose...I'm sure summer is no exception. Perhaps it's purpose is to make us grateful for fall!

Thankfully,
Cathy