Monday, April 13, 2009

Another New Project

I am not going list the piles of photos waiting to be scrapped or the stacks of fabric waiting to be cut and sewn into dresses and blouses not the stacks of magazines waiting to be culled or the bag of scraps waiting to become a quilt or needless to say the stacks and piles of book to be read. Instead I am going to ell you about a new project I feel must be done (read: started). Gathering and organizing recipes. Why, should this be done now? Because I lost or shall I say can't find because it's probably buried or attached or stuck in some cookbook somewhere a recipe. My carrot cake recipe. It was a photo copy of a handwritten recipe card of the wife of someone that hubby used to work with. I've had it and been making it for Easter for I don't know maybe 10, 12 years until this Easter. I couldn't find it anywhere. I spent 4 evenings looking for it. Nada. I remember most of the ingredients but not the measurements and so began my search on the Internet. Gratefully, I found what I thought was a comparable recipe. Crisis averted. The key to this recipe is baby food. It makes it sooo moist and yummy. I made it and am told that it was a success. I don't particularly like carrot cake but I tried it and it wasn't horrible so that would be good for everyone else.

Now, I realize I don't have babies and don't buy baby food on a regular basis but let me just say Boy! have things changed! I remember their being 3 stages of food and 2 maybe 3 brands. Stage 1 was completely strained, 2 was strained but a few little chucks to start giving them some texture and maybe learn to chew a bit but they really didn't have to if they didn't want to and 3 they had to chew if was babied down real food. Now there are like 1/2 dozen brands including organic and since its on the same shelf space the variety has been greatly reduced. I could not find my stage 2 carrots! I needed strained with little bits in it. Not happening! Only strained carrots were to be found. So, I ended up grating real carrots AND using the baby food to get the texture I wanted in the cake. More work than I had bargained for but apparently worth it.

I was given an altered composition book quite some time ago designed to put family recipes in but honestly I haven't used it because its so pretty. I have only stuffed it with the scraps of paper that I find recipes on after the family has tried and approved them into the pages of the book. It's like I don't want to mess up the book by actually writing on the pages. I want to leave the possibility for fantasticness. If I write in it then the magic of how great it could be will be gone and then what?! I had this same problem as a kid with my Disney princess coloring books. I would color the entire book except for the one introducing the princess in her dress. I could never bring myself to color the dress because I might mess it up. What if I didn't pick the bestest combination of colors, shade it right, color it even, make it beautiful enough? If I colored it, it would be a done deal. As long as it remained uncolored the possibility for unsurpassed beauty, creativity and the perfect princess dress were still an option.

So, I am going to bite the bullet and write in and put tried and true recipes in the book that was made for me with love for that purpose. At least that's the idea for the new project. I'll let you know how it goes.

3 comments:

Hilda said...

That sounds like fun! I can help you rummage through books and notebooks if you want.

Marcia Pirani said...

You haven't used it because it is so pretty?????? You have to be kidding right!

Cristina said...

Hilda - this is for sure something for us to do during football season while the boys are glued to the TV.

Marcia - Yes. It's pretty. I might mess it up. Thanks :)