Showing posts with label recycle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recycle. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Cream puffs for Mother's Day!






A treat for Mom on Mother’s Day

Mom came for dinner tonight - nothing special, just burgers & brats.  The sun is finally shining, and the screens are up on the door, so it MUST be time to grill. Granted, D is a year-round griller, but that’s beside the point.
Anyway, I asked Mom what she’d like for dessert, and she requested... cream puffs.
Delightful!  They are so easy, and can be customized in any number of ways, although we tend to stick to the tried and true.  If you like them but have never made them, you’ll love this simple treat!
Simple Cream Puff Shells

1 cup water
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 cup flour
4 eggs

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Heat water and butter to a boil;

stir in flour.  Stir over low heat for 1 minute or until mixture forms a ball.  Remove from heat and stir in eggs one at a time until mixture is smooth.  Spray cookie sheet with baking spray, and drop large tablespoons of mixture onto sheet.  


Bake for 35-37 minutes.  This batch makes 12-15 puffs.

Cool for about 30 minutes, then cut off top third of each puff and pull out any strands of soft dough.  

Fill with your choice of sweet treat, ex pudding, whipped cream, fruit pie filling, etc.  You can garnish the top with a myriad of things, too, although I almost always go with frosting  :)
My family usually chooses to fill the shells with vanilla pudding (Jello makes a really yummy sugar/fat free version).  I personally always like the texture of a cook & serve vs. instant.




There are a ton of options for what you can create.  Lemon cream pairs well with a dusting of powdered sugar or a thin vanilla glaze.  
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Peppermint flavored whipped cream would be amazing with a dark chocolate ganache.

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Using your own imagination as your guide, you can customize a cream puff into almost anything.  Try some soon, and let me know what you did to make them your own!






xoxo,
Tami

ps... all those egg shells that you toss away every week?  Coffee grounds? 


They're the bomb for your garden.  Bell peppers especially benefit from the shells, as they're almost entirely calcium and can all but eliminate blossom drop.  Coffee grounds are great in clay like soil to lighten it up, and the residual caffeine is a growth stimulator.  Hey, recycling is cool!

Also... If you like what you're seeing and you read *still crazy* anyway, please jump on the bandwagon and become a follower!  I love knowing that there are folks out there actually reading what I'm putting out there.  :)


Linking to:


Thursday, March 10, 2011

Thinkin' Thursday

Today I’m thinking green.   
Green for the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day, 
green for Spring,

and Green for eco-awareness.

In my life, reduce, reuse, and recycle are important and daily activities and goals.  I hate throwing something away if there’s more life to it... not just for the frugal factor, but also to see something complete its journey.  Every day we talk about finding a lamp, chair, or picture frame that could “live” again, if only we’d find a way to repurpose it.  
How sad to throw things away, if someone else could use it and love it!  And if you can see the sadness in that, how incredibly tragic does it seem that when we die, over 62 percent of Americans plan to take their organs with them?  Only 38% of us are actually registered as potential donors, and of that number, many haven’t had the donation discussion with their decision-making next of kin, and the organs cannot be used without their consent.
On March 8th, 2010, a young girl named Taylor Paige Storch submitted the following poem for a school assignment:
I AM
I am outgoing and friendly.
I wonder how long is forever.
I hear support from my family whenever I need it.
I see myself helping people in every way I can.
I want to be on the Ellen DeGeneres show.
I am outgoing and friendly.
I pretend I can do anything I want to.
I feel touched by the generosity of my sister.
I touch people's lives.
I worry about failing.
I cry at the thought of losing a member of my family.
I am outgoing and friendly.
I understand how to make people feel happy.
I say with pride that I am Christian.
I dream about becoming a teacher.
I try to make every day like my last.
I hope to become successful in life.
I am outgoing and friendly.
Taylor Paige Storch
Taylor was 13.  She died as the result of a skiing accident exactly one week later, but because of who she was in life, her parents chose to donate her organs, and five people were saved through “repurposing” what she could no longer use.  Her mother, Tara, created and represents taylorsgift.org in an effort to help others see the need and the value of donation.
I heard about the Storches through the Ellen DeGeneres Show; here is the clip that made me cry and touched my heart.  

Please visit their site, 




Click here for TaylorsGift.com


and talk about donation with the important people in your life.  If you’re not already a donor, and want to register, you can visit Donate Life on Facebook.



My final thoughts, on this Thinkin’ Thursday...  I’ve had a lot of jobs, in all kinds of positions.  About 15 years ago, I was working as a secretary at a paper mill, and it was one of my duties to screen all the calls that came in for my 121 departmental employees.  It was pretty strictly enforced that no personal calls were to pull the guys from their work, so I would take messages and they could call back on their breaks.  
One day a call came for one of my plumbers, and I was doing my evil screener impersonation when the caller started to get upset with me.  I was doing my best to get some info so my worker could call back, when the caller said, “Ok, but I really wanted to tell him myself...  this is his daughter, and they found me a heart.”  
Needless to say, she was on hold in a heartbeat (no pun intended), and I was running like a track star to get him to the phone.  Some rules are meant for breaking!  I’m happy to report that her transplant was a success, but it had been a close thing for them - she was 14 and running out of time when that call came. 
That call changed my life; I can only imagine what it did for them, and it ranks as the most important call I ever took, true life and death.
That’s what I’m thinkin’ about this Thursday.

xoxo,
Tami