Scalloped Sweet Potatoes & Apples

Recipe:

6 medium-sized sweet potatoes
½ cup brown sugar
1½ cups sliced apples
4 tblsp. butter
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. mace

Boil sweet potatoes until tender. Slice in ¼ inch pieces. Butter baking dish and put a layer of sweet potatoes in bottom, then a layer of apples. Sprinkle with sugar, salt and mace, and dot with butter. Repeat until dish is filled, having the top layer of apples. Bake in moderate oven (350-f) for 50 minutes.

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The Sweet Potato

I love it when I find great books that are old enough so that their copywrite has expired.  I will be sharing several articles over the next few weeks from a few of these books.  The following is taken from:

Science in The Kitchen

BY

MRS. E.E. KELLOGG, A.M.

Superintendent of the Sanitarium School of Cookery and of the Bay View Assembly School of Cookery, and Chairman of the World's Fair Committee on Food Supplies, for Michigan

1893

This book is full of everything you wanted to know about Cooking in 1893, I am starting with the subject of Sweet Potatoes.

Description.—The sweet potato is a native of the Malayan Archipelago, where it formerly grew wild; thence it was taken to Spain, and from Spain to England and other parts of the globe. It was largely used in Europe as a delicacy on the tables of the rich before the introduction of the common potato, which has now taken its place and likewise its name. The sweet potato is the article referred as potato by Shakespeare and other English writers, previous to the middle of the seventeenth century.

Preparation and Cooking.—What has been said in reference to the common potato, is generally applicable to the sweet potato; it may be prepared and cooked in nearly all the ways of the Irish potato.

In selecting sweet potatoes, choose firm, plump roots, free from any sprouts; if sprouted they will have a poor flavor, and are likely to be watery.

The sweet potato is best cooked with the skin on; but all discolored portions and the dry portion at each end, together with all branchlets, should be carefully removed, and the potato well washed, and if to be baked or roasted, well dried with a cloth before placing in the oven.

The average time required for boiling is about fifty minutes; baking, one hour; steaming, about one hour; roasting, one and one half hours.

RECIPES

Baked Sweet Potatoes.—Select those of uniform size, wash clean, cutting out any imperfect spots, wipe dry, put into moderately hot oven, and bake about one hour, or until the largest will yield to gentle pressure between the fingers. Serve at once without peeling. Small potatoes are best steamed, since if baked, the skins will take up nearly the whole potato.

Pool is Done!

I posted a while ago that I was finally able to realized one of my Dreams......the purchase of a large above ground pool!  We finally got it installed, up and running.  Here is a little photo montage of the progress!

The first step was to level the yard ~ we used sand.  The youngest daughter
had to play in the pool while it was filling up!

View from the deck above, daughter is still playing!

Still filling up - overall it took about 9-10 hours to fill.

Proud Hubby - it's almost full (we had to finish filling it the next morning)!

All Done!
Daughter playing in the pool....it's still too cold for me!  The pool is 18 feet diameter
at the base and 15 feet at the top.  The overall depth is 48 inches, but you only fill it to
about 42 inches ~ plenty of room to still swim around!

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One of My Many Hats.....

I cannot believe it has been a week since my last post!  My life is crazy busy right now (like many of yours) and one of the many hats that I wear is that I volunteer for a Non-Profit Animal Rescue Group ~ this usually doesn't involve too much of my time as I am the behind the scenes kind of gal, doing Facebook promotions, helping work our information booth at various events, etc.

One of our Games from last years EXPO ~ musical chairs!

But, this year I took on the monumental task of being the Chairperson for our large Annual Outdoor Fundraiser ~ which is complete with vendors, food, demonstrations, raffle, games, contests and more!  We are at less than 6 days before the event happens, so as you can imaging my life is quite hectic to say the least! 
As soon as our EXPO is over I plan on fully engaging in my business again and look forward to posting regularly!  In the meantime, I appreciate each of my followers and your patence!

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New Picnic Table!

Our New Picnic Table From Start to Finish.  I'd like to say that I "helped" my Dad build this, but I was pretty much the "go fetch gal" and "hold the tape measure here gal".  But I did make us a nice lunch of BLTs when we were done and we ate our lunch on our new table!  On a side note my hubby was out of town, otherwise he would have been the "go fetch guy", however I still would have been the official "lunch maker"!

Deck "before", it is a really small deck only about 8' x 10'

Our "High Tech" set up!

Fitting the legs, this was all done with no pattern except
the one floating around in my Dads head!

Holding the legs for the cross bracing,  The legs and cross
bracing were made out of treated 2'x4's.

We brought the legs up to the deck to attach the top slats.
The top slats were made out of composite decking material,
both for stability and weight - it needed to keep my umbrella
in place when it was windy!

Eating lunch on our NEW custom Picnic Table!
I LOVE YOU DADDY!

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Daughter in Training to Follow My Footsteps!

My youngest daughter (8 years old)  had been pestering me since winter to let her go out and do a Kool-aid stand (she was pushing for a hot chocolate stand in the winter).  I finally gave in and told her the next weekend day that is sunny you can do your stand......
She quickly set to work making the sign for her stand, she found a 1/2 of a poster board, pulled out her crayons and started designing.  The next thing I know she is proudly presenting me with her finished sign.  I looked at it and as any proud Mama would do, promptly pronounced it "Wonderful!"....but wait, what is this?

"You're going to charge a whole Dollar for a cup of Kool-aid?, I asked.  She replied quickly without hesitation, "It costs more because Kool-aid is too expensive, remember?"  To which I replied in puzzlement, "What do you mean?"  Her response back, "Duh, you always said you can't buy Kool-aid because it's too expensive!"  The memories these kids have!  Saying it was too expensive was way easier than having to explain why she couldn't have a Kool-aid stand on any of the  given days she kept pestering me for a stand!  Lets hope she has not been going around telling her friends we can't afford Kool-aid!  So lesson learned on Mommy's part ,don't fib or it might come back to haunt you!

Moving on to our first sunny weekend day....the sun was out and the temps were in the low 80's, most of the kids in the neighborhood were playing in pools or sprinklers, but not my little entrepreneur ~ her mind was on making some money! Just a little side note, we live in a small little development in a county town with a population of around a 1,000 so I was bracing myself to deal with her disappointment when she only had Mommy and Daddy as a customer!

We gathered the Kool-aid, cups, paper towels, garbage bag, money box and rolling cart.  We affixed the sign to the cart and rolled it to the end of the driveway, and lest I forget to mention ~ we also live in a cul-de-sac which lessened the potential traffic to about zero.....

Kool-aid, chair, table, cups, kid and sign were ready to enter into the professional world of entrepreneurial endeavors!

I go inside so I can get my mandatory dollar for my cup of Kool-aid. Back outside I go and make my purchase (she was so happy). Back into the house so I can keep an eye on her through the window (while playing on my computer, of course). I see Daddy go out about 15 minutes later to purchase his cup!

One hour later I figured out she had to be done and probably very disappointed so I went back out to rescue and console. "Are you ready to come in now, honey?" I asked.

Her response, "Are You Kidding I've Made Eight Dollars!"  Unknown and unseen by me, the neighbor's had a guy re-model party going and all the guys had came over to buy Kool-aid which resulted in one very happy little girl!

Thank you neighbors!

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