“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.” -Dumbledore
∇ Roasted turkey using this method
∇ The best make-ahead creamy mashed potatoes (I once made gallons of this for a wedding rehearsal dinner and they were a hit!)
∇ Roasted butternut squash, pureed with a little maple syrup, a dash of salt, and some butter (I used cultured vegan butter to make it dairy-free)
∇ No-knead dinner rolls (dough can be made ahead!)
∇ Broccoli salad (so many delicious versions of this)
∇ Corn Pie (an old family favorite, see recipe below)
New to me recipes this year:
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Here are some random things that brought great joy to my life this past summer. Can a cheesy hashbrown casserole actually do that, you ask? Yes, yes it can. Here is the proof which I first made for Father’s Day breakfast and will probably become a fall favorite as well:
∇ Easy Breakfast Casserole with Potatoes & Ham
I owe everything to food bloggers.
∇ Free Panera coffee! If you never signed up over the summer, you can still do so and get your first month free. {Not recommended for coffee snobs; best for frugal ambivalents like me.}
∇ Reading in general and my new-from-Goodwill book Lilac Girls: recommended by literally everyone I asked about it. {It gets over 4,500 FIVE STAR reviews on Amazon, I checked!} I did find this historical fiction piece fascinating. It’s based on real people and is a well researched story of what happened to a group of women who survived concentration camp “experiments” and those who waited for them back home and became their voice, their advocates when they had none. Have you read it? I’m always behind on the popular books as well as basically everything in pop culture.
∇ Our new Target outdoor sectional that I waited and watched for and bought on sale and which we all love so, so much. (it’s frequently sold out-just click the “notify me when it’s back” option!) At least two people nap on it daily. I call it our Napping Couch.
∇ Postable-for when you don’t have just the right card on hand and want to skip the store and send something immediately. In addition to sending cards throughout the summer, I’ve been using Postable for years as an online back-up address book. They have a great selection of cards to personalize and they print, stamp, & ship for you because you don’t have stamps, either! Postable tells me this about referrals: “Send your friends your personal promo code MRQ85DUI and when they sign up and spend $20 you’ll both get $5 of credit!” Also of note: they frequently offer discounts.
∇ Being outside: camping, canoeing, hiking, walking with a friend regularly, and did I mention just simply sitting outdoors on comfortable furniture and reading a book?
These are a few of my favorite things!
Every year Easter weekend looks different for us. In recent years we’ve had some variety-traveled to visit family, shared a meal with church friends who graciously invited us into their home, hosted our own extended family gathering, or kept it simple with just our group of five.
I rarely dye eggs. My interest level in that is a 0.5 at best. I may plan our spring outfits in advance, or, more likely, survey closets the day before and wonder if I can pull off a new, fresh spring look with whatever we have and minimal effort. I love Resurrection Sunday and all it represents; I’m ambivalent about everything else. {Or lazy. You could also say that.}
I do care about FELLOWSHIP and FOOD, and this year I get to host a smallish family dinner, which is perfect.
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Dear Candace,
It feels suspiciously like fall outside with the sky an electric blue and the temps dropping to a lovely, cool 60 degrees. It’s the fifth of August. I will only accept such weather behavior as a reprieve from the heat and not as the early onset of fall. I love fall, but in its place; it must bow to summer. It’s summer’s apology for being over. I can’t think about this right now. I need summer with all my heart.
My head is full of books and lessons and lists as we prepare for a new educational year with the kids. Classes signed up for, new math books started, it’s all underway and I am being reluctantly swept along!
I am trying to think about what happened this past week…how do summer days escape so quickly?? Our HVAC unit was replaced, so there was a lot of in-and-out related to that. We hosted a total of four nieces and nephews one day while their mama went to the doctor, I accused the deer of razing down some plants when really it was Tom trimming things up, we went to all the lessons and all the things, another sister-in-law and her girls visited, Caleb’s snake (Mango) returned home after a summer spent at a childrens’ camp, the garden started churning out tomatoes and now my counters are lined with them (BLT’s 4EVAH*), I started reading Seabiscuit, and about 40 other things.
Remember when I started the book Simply Tuesday, something life half a year ago? I’m almost finished reading it. I’ve been savoring it-a few lines here and there during my morning reading over the last several months.
Here is what I read this morning, and it’s sticking to me like a burr:
I sat on a bench with a book and a journal at a local park, but I did more staring than reading. I watched the moms and babies stroll by, the workers with their good intentions toward the public bathrooms, the guy on his bike who roe without a helmet. I read a little about David, how he was both a man after God’s heart and a killer. I thought about how none of us are just one thing, but many shades of light and dark and shadows of gray, proof that we need Jesus.
-Emily P. Freeman
Love,
Rachel
*Facebook post about this: Here is the thing. It’s tomato season and you need plenty of home-grown tomatoes (I can help you with that), thick-sliced bacon (hard for me to share but I will make an effort), crisp lettuce (not weak, watery iceberg; the real green stuff), and mayo (you know you want the chipotle or sriracha kind). Sourdough bread is delightful, too, but if you’re avoiding bread then just wrap everything else together and throw in some sliced jalapeños for good measure. Breakfast, lunch, dinner-boom. Menu planning is over.
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Dear Candace,
July is in full-swing and with it some familiar heat and humidity, but it’s still such a beautiful summer!
Blackberries. With July comes memories of blackberry picking as a child and all the scrumptious treats first my mom, and then my sister and myself, would prepare; namely: jam, cobblers, and best of all PIE. Blackberry pie is my jam. The butter to my bread. It’s only contender is peach pie with warm cinnamon sauce. But in July, there can be no other pie except the humble yet remarkable blackberry.
In the early nineties, before cell-phones and helicopter parenting, Mom would drop Mara and I off at a nearby conservation area. We were given a wagon, buckets, water, and instructions to be at the rendezvous point at a specific time. Then we were left alone, trudging through the wilderness, to a familiar patch of wild, thorn-encased blackberries sharing space with poison ivy.
It’s remarkable we didn’t meet our demise in those lonely woods, by wild animal or serial killer hiker. One hot July afternoon, Mara began to feel the twinges of heat exhaustion so I laid her out in the shade and kept right on picking. There are sacrifices to be made for blackberry pie, you know. I would often get poison ivy on my face from those outings, turning into an oozing, puffy spectacle known as Cauliflower Girl. The boys were mad about me in those days.*
We’ve been traveling deep in the Ozarks for Hosanna’s horsemanship lessons, to a little farm nestled by a creek and woods. It’s a lovely drive through rich green countryside, and I’m never exactly sure what the speed limit is, though farm trucks and motorcyclists pass me regularly on corkscrew roads. We drive by old white farmhouses, garden patches, fields of corn, and homemade signs that say things like WE HAVE WORMS.
During our recent visit to the horse farm, the owners graciously led us to their blackberry patch to pick the biggest, sweetest, juiciest berries I’ve ever seen! True story. Those blackberries were the epitome of everything a blackberry should be. Three times larger than my thumb, one berry filled your mouth with its juicy goodness. While Hosanna was working with the horses, Drew and I stained our fingers and mouths roaming through the bushes. In short order we picked enough berries for a pie, which became my one fixation. No matter how tired I was, or how many dishes and chores needed to be done, we must! have! pie! Back at home that evening, I quickly put together a homemade crust** and filled it high with the glossy berries. Pie for dessert, pie for breakfast the next morning; that’s how July is done! Until peaches are in season, I’m quite content in my current relationship with Missouri’s obsidian jewels.
Thinking now of blackberry wine,
~Rachel
*There were no boys. Mad or otherwise.
**I must be out of practice! It was not the best crust, being a bit chewy and rather a poor representation of the large amount of pies I’ve made in my lifetime. Such things keep me humble.
Dear Candace,
The weekend is lazy, breezy and bright. June’s last parting gift, a reprieve from summer heat. I’m loving this Missouri spring and summer! One never can tell with Missouri.
Last weekend’s camping adventure was a delight. Specifically, camping in CABINS and not in tents or hammocks IN THE RAIN. I could get used to that kind of camping! Your breakfast of Scotch eggs was so delicious. The perfect marriage of breakfast food staples: eggs and sausage. I want them in my life more. Crispy spheres of perfection.
As I reflect on the past week, two things stand out. The importance of relationships, and the brevity of life. We hosted a few visits from family and friends at our home here in STL, and mis-mashed between those was a car accident.
The boys were driving with one of the aunts to a nearby park when their car was rear-ended. Tom and I were able to quickly arrive at the scene, even before police did, and found everyone shaken but unhurt. Drew was in the backseat. I have to stop myself from letting my mind consider all the “what ifs”…our time isn’t in our hands, and I can’t live in fear. The “what ifs” are in God’s hands. We know this, but when something like a car accident happens or cancer is diagnosed our focus becomes more narrow, more exact. Suddenly we see everything which had formerly been overlooked or not given its proper attention… the feel of warm summer, freckles on a child’s nose, being present in a moment, the full gift of life being lived.
The boys have been checked out and both received chiropractic treatments which were helpful. Then I started developing neck pain and tension with a side of massive headaches, because clearly I wanted it to be all about me. I have some thick muscle-relief salve which I applied on Thursday and am still trying to wash out of my hair. It’s very hard for me to be glamorous these days.
I am currently reading: Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal. I’m a fairly new Twitter user, tweeting in stops and starts, but always mesmerized when I scroll through my feed. That 140 character limit is BRILLIANT! It’s all so very succinct and clever. Foodie bloggers, spiritual leaders, politicians, comedians, authors, that one guy with the big family I met once who likes to #humblebrag, it’s all remarkably out there in the world, in 140 characters. It feels less cluttered than Facebook to me, which is probably why I gravitate to it more. The book delves into the people and stories behind the startup of what is now a world-wide phenomenon.
Yes, I did once tweet a message I meant to text Tom. Since I discovered this months after the fact, I could only be grateful no one really reads my tweets plus it was mundane and appropriate for all audiences. One must be very careful which platform one’s 140 characters land on.
#love
Rachel
This letter contains affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase after clicking through one of my links, I will receive a {very small} commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting this blog! It means the world and a stack of letters to me.