Our hearts are saddened at the loss of a precious little girl, Rhiannon. The family is part of our church family, and I think it has affected each person in our church. She was a happy little girl who also had Down's Syndrome, and we loved seeing her mischievous grin!

On Thursday morning, she quit breathing at home, and after being life flighted to a larger hospital, she died that evening around 7:30. She has 2 older brothers who will really miss her as well as her parents; and a 2 1/2 month old sister who will never get to know her as we did.

Call 1-800-MERINGUE

This morning as I was assembling the chocolate pies at work, the cook came back and said there was a phone call for me on line 1. Glancing at the clock, I saw that it wasn't even 5:00 and I wondered who could be calling so early in the morning. I wasn't too worried that it was a family emergency, as they would have called my cell phone before calling the work phone. On my way to the phone, I asked Julia the cook if the call was for me by name or for the 'pie baker'. She answered that is was for the pie baker. Probably someone wanting to order some pies to-go, I thought.

I answered in my most professional voice, "Hello, this is Carolyn. How may I help you?"

"Hi, my name is Traci and I hope you weren't too busy."

"Just making pies!" I answered cheerily, thinking to counteract the weariness in her voice.

"I hope you can help me! I thought to myself that calling the pie baker at the DK is the answer to my problems! You see, I have trouble with my meringue pies," continued Traci. "Every time I make them, they weep. Can you give me some pointers? I made a lemon pie last night, and I had the edges sealed perfectly and still the meringue pulled away from the edges!"

OK, so I confess, I started feeling just a little hysterical, and had to really be firm with myself so that I wouldn't break out in giggles. This poor lady got up to call me-Carolyn the Pie Baker-at 5:00 and I wondered if she had slept at all, worrying about her pie.

Traci told me that she whips her egg whites with 1/8tsp. cream of tartar and the sugar and she just didn't know what she was doing wrong. I told her that she could try putting the meringue on hot filling, and making sure the edges are always sealed. She has put the meringue on hot filling. She has put the meringue on cold filling. She has sealed the edges. IT STILL WEEPS.  I told her to try adding a little cornstarch and baking powder. We used to have a mix that we made when we still separated the eggs and used those whites. Now we get pasteurized whites in cartons and they already have some whipping agents in them, so all I add now is sugar and cornstarch.  I had no idea what quantities to tell her of each, so I took a stab at it,, but I really didn't remember the amounts that we used to use, as that has been several years back already.

I told her my Mom has a good recipe that call for making a syrup and beating that into the stiff egg whites, but that it was at home in my kitchen. (obviously not helpful) I felt very inadequate in my advice. I should have taken her number and called her back with my Mom's recipe, or I could have advised her to

buy your pies from the Dutch Kitchen!!

In the meantime, it makes me laugh when I think of someone calling the restaurant at that time of the morning and asking for meringue advice!

I am off to bed now!

Positives/Negatives

So here I am to give you an update on how we are rating the mega-cooking day we had and how we now feel about it.

The first thing that came to light and caught me a little unawares was that I didn't realize how good it felt to have that many entrees in the freezer and how hard it would be to actually use them! It's humorous in way, really, but in the days after we stocked our freezer, Jennifer and I both found it really hard to pull a dish out and use it for a meal! The whole mind thing we had going on was that we had worked so hard to get them there and how could we use them so quickly after all that work! The whole purpose was to use them obviously, we just hadn't anticipated the fact that it was hard to see the stash diminish!

The other side of it is that we find it a great timesaver when we have a full schedule to pull out a dish in the morning and have it ready to go by mealtime that night. I love that part of it and I really like not having to stress about 'something quick that I could throw together', but rather know that my family is actually getting something quality to eat.

I am making notes as we go, so that I know what to do and what not to do the next time. We like cabbage in bierocks, etc. but I absolutely shudder when I think of the Crockpot Cabbage Rolls that have already made their way out of the freezer and onto the table. The rest of the family liked them ok, but I certainly did not! They were also a very unattractive green and red mush (red because of the diced tomatoes that the recipe called for) This was the first time I had tried that recipe but it was from a fairly trusted source so I thought I was going to be ok with it.

So, I have made notes to not make those again and to stick to tried and true recipes for future cooking days.  Also,  the Sausage Crepes were good, but the crepes took way too long to prepare on that day. So we need to either cut that recipe out or prepare the crepes the day before.

We are learning as we go. We like having the entrees in the freezer, but at the same time I am dreading the day we might do it again, because it is a very long day of food preparation. All things considered, though, we will probably do it again.

So I am not feeling much like a Superwoman anymore! More like a very tired chef. It took a lot longer and more energy than I had envisioned.

At the start of the morning, I was feeling very idealistic and excited about the day. My cookbooks were all ready and we had put all the meat in the ice chest so that it was right there in the kitchen ready for use.

Jennifer started out by cooking beef and sausage, which she usually enjoys doing. However, even she got a little tired of the smell toward the end.

I had been thinking that we would surely be done around noon or so. This is taken at 12:30, and Jennifer needs to be heading for bed since she has the 7 to 7 shift tonight. I am also working tonight but at least I don't go in until 12 and can sleep several hours tonight. We also realize at about this time that we have only 7 of the 12 dishes made. I begin to feel very un-Superwomany and start longing for a nap.

A couple more dishes have been put together and now I only have 2 more to go:

And finally, after much clean-up was done and a whole lot of dishes were washed, I swept and mopped the floor and all is peaceful again.

Would I do it again? We'll see how I like having the dishes ready to go, but at this point, I think I probably would. I need to screen my entrees a little better, as one of them took way too long and really made the preparation time long. I feel good about my freezer, though! Surprisingly, after they are all frozen, they will all easily stack into my garage refrigerator freezer.

This is what we made:

Poor Man's Steak

Lasagna

Sausage Alfredo Lasagna

Chicken Breasts Scottsdale

Creamy Tator Tot Casserole (2)

Slow Cooker Enchiladas

Chicken Enchiladas

Mock Ham Loaf

Underground Ham Casserole (2)

Crockpot Cabbage Rolls

Sausage Crepes (2)

Cheeseburger Soup

We had one of the Tator Tot Casseroles for our meal tonight.

And now it's off to bed!

Currently Once-a-Month Cooking, Revised and Expanded: A Proven System for Spending Less Time in the Kitchen and Enjoying Delicious, Homemade Meals Every Day By Mary-Beth Lagerborg, Mimi Wilson see related

It's Superwoman!

Or is it a  Proverbs 31 woman?

They seem rather entwined in my mind.

OK, so I am neither one. However, I feel as if I have a little of both in me right now. Jennifer, Megan and I pored over recipes, made out a shopping and to-do list and came up with 12 dishes that Jennifer and I will assemble tomorrow forenoon.

I know that there are women that will do Once-A-Month-Cooking, but I just wasn't sure that I was ready for that challenge, and some of the recipes that they recommend just sound strange to me. So we decided to stick with our tried and true recipes and come up with 12 that we thought would work well.

We then embarked on the great grocery shopping spree. We didn't leave until 6:40, although our plans had been to leave earlier. I found out that it is quite time consuming to go over each recipe, making sure that we have everything so we can stay in our cozy little cottage all morning long, cooking. We had only 2 places that we planned to shop, and the first one was a larger supermarket (Dillon's) and that gave way too many options for a 14 year old and 21 year old. It became quite difficult sticking to only the grocery list. Oh, and we were doing the thing one should never do-we were shopping hungry!

The 2nd place (Aldi's) was much better because there just aren't as many options, and we got through relatively quickly. By then we were moving at a pretty good clip, since the stop after that was the Chinese Buffet place that was on our way home. The girls had found out several weeks ago that taking carryout is a very economical way to go, since you pay by weight. We each filled a plate and came away spending $12 for 3 plates which I thought was really reasonable.

Unloading the van took some time, but it's all in the kitchen now, waiting for the morrow to come, in which we will whip those 12 dishes together.

In the meantime it's off to bed for me, so that I can get up while it is still dark; 
       to provide food for my family. (Proverbs 31:15, my paraphrase)

Good night to all.