Another Day in Paradise

     Saturday was a day off and the sun actually made an appearance.  I spent the morning doing some honey do tasks, took care of the goats, ducks, and chickens, and put some finishing touches on my new chicken tractor.  In the afternoon and evening I spun some fiber, watched part of the Washington-Cal game on the tube, babysat grand kids, butchered our rooster and put him in the crock pot, shucked some of my Indian corn and made a corn husk doll with Madelynn. All in all, just another day in paradise. I did another corn husk doll with Abby this morning because she fell asleep on the couch before we did hers.

     Madelynn's new knitted tam hat was originally one I made for her mother.  Becky put it through the wash on accident and now it fits Madelynn. Fortunately it was made from wool which doesn't felt readily or else it would probably fit one of Madelynn's dolls.

    I found instructions on how to make corn husk dolls at villagevolunteers.org through a google search. I had done some last year with some of my other grand daughters and it seemed to be a big hit. I'm pretty well stocked with corn husks this year as I grew a bigger patch of Indian corn than I have in past years.  I grow Indian corn because I think the flint corn makes a better corn bread than regular field corn (dent corn).

   Corn bread is serious comfort food for me.  I use a recipe from my favorite cook book  "The Original Boston Cooking-School Cook Book" by Fannie Merritt Farmer.  My copy is a 100th anniversary facsimile of the first edition, published in 1896. I use the golden corn cake recipe on page 75 as follows:

    3/4 cup corn meal                   1 1/4 cups flour       1/4 cup sugar     4 teaspoons baking powder
    4 teaspoons baking powder     1/2 teaspoon salt     1 cup milk         1 egg
    1 tablespoon melted butter
     Mix and sift dry ingredients; add milk, egg well beaten, and butter;  bake in a shallow buttered pan in a hot oven for 20 minutes.

    I usually don't mess with the melted butter and often use olive oil or canola oil instead and I grease the pans with shortening rather than butter. I also add more sugar than the recipe calls for because I like my corn bread sweet and I always double the recipe. The book was first published when everyone was using wood burning cook stoves and didn't have the luxury of temperature gauges, hence terms like "hot oven"..