Gathering Around The Table

7/14/08

Belated Birthday Brunch and Keepers from the Recipe Box

Saturday morning was supposed to be the belated birthday brunch for JEJ and Silver Valley Girl at Mom's house in Kellogg. They both celebrate their birthdays on July 3rd. Because of our wind and power problems and fires close by we had to postpone to brunch until today. Today we honored SVG and Z2 (whose birthday is tomorrow) because JEJ needed to stay home.

The Menu

Mimosas

Breakfast Pizza

Overnight Citrus Pull-Apart Rolls

Melon Salad

sparkling cider, orange juice, coffee

It was exciting to have Raymond Pert's wife The Deke in Kellogg. It was perfect weather for a brunch surrounded by Mom's flowers in the back yard.

Two recipes:

Citrus Pull-apart Rolls

I always do the overnight recipe option at the end. It works really well!

1- 25 ounce package frozen roll dough 1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted

1 cup granulated sugar, divided 2/3 cup (6 oz) 1/3 less fat cream cheese, softened

2 tablespoon orange juice 1 egg 1 tablespoon grated lemon rind 1 tablespoon grated orange rind 1 cup powdered sugar 5 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Instructions:Thaw roll dough at room temperature 30 minutes. Cut rolls in half. Place 24 halves, cut sides down, in bottom of each of 2 9" round cake pans coated with cook spray. Brush melted butter evenly over rolls. Cover & let rise 30 minutes.While rising, combine 1/4 cup granulated sugar, cream cheese, orange juice, and egg. Beat at medium speed of mixer until well blended. Pour sugar & cream cheese mixture evenly over rolls. Combine 3/4 cup granulated sugar & rinds. Sprinkle evenly over rolls. Cover & let rise 1 hour or until doubled in size.

Preheat oven to 350°F.Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cover with foil if they start to brown too much. Let cool 15 minutes. While cooling mix powdered sugar with lemon juice. Drizzle over rolls.

Overnight option: After pouring the cream cheese mixture over the rolls, cover with plastic wrap and set out about 15 minutes then and refrigerate overnight. Gently remove plastic wrap and sprinkle with rind mixture. Let stand at room temperature 30 minutes or until doubled in size. Proceed with recipe at Preheat oven step.

Breakfast Pizza

1 tube crescent rolls

1lb. sausage, crumbled, browned and drained ( I used bacon and want to try Canadian bacon)

2 cups frozen hash browns

1 C. cheddar cheese, shredded

5 eggs

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray a 9 x 13 pan with cooking spray. Unroll crescent dough and place on bottom of pan. Press perforations together to form a rectangle.Top with sausage, then add the hash browns. Slightly scramble the eggs. Pour over potatoes. Top with cheese. Add the salt and pepper. Bake for 25-30 minutes.

7/13/08

Outdoor Concert: Perhaps God

Last night the Christian Life Center in Kellogg hosted an amazing outdoor concert.

Silver Valley Girl's family opened the evening with worship songs and the Crigger family from the Pinehurst Assembly of God church followed them. Above are my nieces Z2 and The Princess.

They warmed up the crowd as people enjoyed a BBQ and a beautiful sunlit evening. This is Silver Valley Girl and my niece Kiki Aru harmonizing.

My brother-in-law PKR was the emcee, organizer, drummer, and vocalist.

The "main headliner" for the evening was my brother-in-law's sister Laurie Roberts. She featured the songs from her new CD entitled "Perhaps God", some from her first CD and a few new numbers. Laurie has composed most of her own gospel songs. She was accompanied by Tammy and Tim McMorrow as back-up singers and PKR as her drummer. Here is how she explains the title of the CD.
"Perhaps God refers to a story in 1 Samuel. Saul’s son Jonathan, finding himself greatly outnumbered during a war with the Philistines, says to his armor bearer: “Come let us cross over . . . perhaps the Lord will work for us, for the Lord is not restrained to save by many or by few.” And his armor bearer replies: “Do all that is in your heart . . . here I am with you according to your desire” (NAS, 1 Sam. 14:6-7).

Laurie is an amazing multi-talented woman. I first met her when I substitute taught in her sixth grade class when I was still attending college. Our paths have crossed throughout the years from being in the wedding of my sister and her brother to visits at holidays in Kellogg. Laurie is a high school English teacher now in Boise and I had the privilege of spending more time with her at the recent writing retreat we both attended that I blogged about a couple of weeks ago.

It was awesome to work with her and hear other forms of writing she does along with her music lyrics. She did give us a mini-concert at our open mic time during the retreat so I knew I was in for a treat last night. It has been a pleasure to get to know Laurie on a deeper level recently. It was a spirit filled evening as she sang her original compositions and a beautiful arrangement of "Amazing Grace".

Later The Princess and Z2 posed for their aunt.

Erika, a prophetic artist painted this creation while listening to the music all evening.

Here is Silver Valley Girl and our mother Mary posing for me at the end of the evening. If you want to learn more about Laurie Roberts and her music go here.

No Power Part 3 :Reading by Candlelight

Last week I decided to spend some time reading poetry. I was pleased when the books I had reserved at the library all arrived Thursday. Another way to make the time pass is to relish a table full of candles and a stack of poetry books.

I had some volumes by Billy Collins, Mary Oliver, Ted Kooser, and Neruda. Because of the shorter length of text, poetry is very soothing to read by candlelight. The only sound around the the purring of generators around the neighborhood as people attempted to keep freezers going. This was a favorite I read by candlelight Thursday night.

Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means. Billy Collins

Straightening the Tree and No Power: Part 2

I am happy to report that the power came on yesterday about 2:30 p.m. Thanks for the many kind words of concern about our situation. Things are calming down up our way. Since I am away from home I was thrilled that JEJ got the wireless and the TVs working and stored food came out of the coolers without a hitch. I'll bet those clothes that were on rinse cycle when the power went out are extra clean now.

JEJ decided Thursday evening that he could straighten the flowering plum back up that was leaning against the house.

When you are without power you always need to project to help pass the time. The question as you look through the series of photos might be how many pets does it take to supervise the tree project? Of course I was the photographer!!

Kit wanted to make sure the towline was secure.

He rode on the top to help navigate the truck.

Foreman Finny and assistant Kit gave the thumbs up on the tree straightening project!With a brace now helping the tree to stay upright JEJ thinks it is straighter than it was originally.Shelby was pleased with a job well-done, but was glad her crew boss job was done so she could jump out and get back to being a dog. Lily stayed out the way, but gave her approval after the job was done from her post on the old dog kennel.McDuff guarded the hose just in case we needed to some extra water for the tree. What a team effort by all!

7/12/08

Wind, No Power, and Fires North of Us

When Wind Storm 2008 hit our place in the afternoon Thursday it blew our flowering plum tree toward the house. We were able later to pull it back up. ( pictures to follow soon) The wind broke lots of branches and trees around our area.

This pictures shows a new view we have from our deck. Fortunately the tree that blew down didn't damage anything when it feel. About the hour later the power went out. A tree knocked down the live wire up the county road from our house. When we called last they were predicting power by Sunday p.m. I had to leave this morning to come to Idaho so JEJ is home manning the house and property. Without power we are soon without water since our community system works with pumps from wells.

Along with the huge wind storm came fire. Fires broke out in many locations on both sides of Lake Roosevelt in Stevens and Ferry Counties. This is the smoke as you head north on Highway 395 past Kettle Falls toward Canada.

The fire jumped the road and was burning on both sides in the brush. I believe two houses were burned.

This is looking north on the bridge across Lake Roosevelt that divides Stevens and Ferry Counties. We feel blessed that we are safe. Reading at night by candlelight isn't so bad and a gas BBQ can heat up water for a great cup of coffee. Hopefully all the ice with keep our food cold and we will soon be able to water our parched plants.