Christmas Baking

/ Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Some years I do a lot of baking. Not so much this one because not going to see so many people because of Covid. Today I baked anyway, made pumpkin bread using Mom’s recipe. Many go out and buy new appliances. Not I. In this photo you will see the electric mixer my parents gave me decades ago. Yes, it looks a bit used and rough; it still works perfectly–metal, not plastic, but not heavy like the popular brands now.

Mom always baked her pumpkin bread in cans like this and gave some for presents. One can is just plain pumpkin bread, the other two have chopped walnuts. Mom’s recipe is on page ten in the cookbook, “You’re Gonna Eat That!?” I alter it a bit and here is the general way to make it:

Sift 3 cups flour with 1 tsp cinnamon–I used cinnamon from Ethiopia, 1 tsp grated nutmeg, 1 tsp allspice, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda. Set aside. Mix 2 cups sugar with 1 cup oil–I used avocado, add 3 beaten eggs and mix in the mixer until thoroughly blended. Add 1 tsp vanilla and a couple drops of clove essential oil. Add I small can pumpkin; mix. Gradually add the dry ingredients. Blend thoroughly. At this point I spooned the mixture into one of the cans. Then I added a cup of chopped walnuts to the rest and spooned that mixture into the remaining two cans. Bake at 325 for an hour or until tester comes out clean. Cool on rack and remove from the coffee tins.

Tomorrow I will make Mom’s pumpkin pie also in the memoir/cookbook.

Happy Holidays to all of you!!!

Wandering the World–Food

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My travels have not only enlightened me personally, but also enabled me to create recipes from my food adventures around the world. Due to the recommendations of friends and family worldwide, I created a cookbook/memoir with stories and recipes. Len Leatherwood, new President of the Story Circle Network, says, “This is a cookbook after my own heart, filled with a wide range of healthy recipes from several cultures that will add flavor, color, and variety to any table.” Jennifer Archer, award winning writer and editor elaborated further, “A feast for the senses…combines colorful stories, poems, and mouth-watering recipes that inspire readers to experience new places, new tastes…from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Scandinavia, and America.”

This would make a great Christmas present for foodies and people who want worldwide food adventures. It can be ordered online from: http://www.dreamcatcherbooks.com and go to Angel Books.

Recipes for the food in the photos above are included in the book. More food photos follow:

Lemon pasta with mixed salad topped with grated asiago cheese.

Many of the recipes feature berbere, a spice used in Ethiopian cooking. The book also includes four different recipes for salmon and many vegetarian and vegan recipes using spices from around the world.

Wandering the World–Recent Road Trip

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My family and I took a quick road trip to California and back over the Thanksgiving break. Why now in the time of Covid? Grandson is applying to colleges in CA and needed to see what he could. We did stay in hotels, picked them carefully, did not use any services–most are currently not available anyway. You put used towels, etc. in the hall, go to the main desk to pick up more yourself, etc. It was fine. For meals we did takeout and ate at the hotel. Twice we did eat at a restaurant outside where there was no one near. It was possible because it was not cold. I took a few photos which follow.

On a side street in a little town next to Pasadena.
Camp Pendleton Marine Base near San Diego.

Near the UPS store in San Luis Obispo.

At the University of San Francisco, one of the few places where we were able to get out of the car and walk around.

Crossing the Gold Gate Bridge on Thanksgiving Day on the way to Muir Woods.

This and the following several photos were taken among the redwoods at Muir Woods. This is how we spent Thanksgiving Day.

If you stay on the main, paved paths, it is rather noisy. Even when there are signs for people to be quiet, they talk.
Off the paved path all we could hear was one very annoyed crow.
On our way back we crossed the Golden Gate again. In the following photo, Alcatraz is off in the distance.
On the way to Flagstaff, where we stayed the first night, we had wanted to stop by Petrified Forest National Park but arrived about five minutes too late. Therefore, we made a point to drive all the way through on the way home.
Rather difficult to believe that a lot of this was once a swamp with dinosaurs and huge trees.

On the way out or in, depending on which way you go, you can see the Painted Desert. Guess I caught my own shadow in this one.

Wandering the World–Italy, Part Two

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It is an hour or so boat ride from Sorrento to Capri. Although not very crowded in November, apparently it is tourist heaven in the summer. The lower town contains many of the world’s major high end stores. This time of year most remained closed. Even though I am not a big fan of touristy destinations, I thoroughly enjoyed our day on Capri. I doubt I would like it so much in high season.

Looking down on the lower, main town from the town high on the island, Ana Capri. At the far point one can hike to the remains of Tiberius’ villa, where he hid the last ten years of his reign as Emperor of Rome. If he did not like you, off the cliff you went. I was standing on a trail with over 900 steps, carved by the Greeks even before the Roman times, that lead down to the lower town.
This walkway leads to the path mentioned in the previous photo. This time of year Capri is lush, relaxing, and peaceful.
This shop, among the few that were open, sold all sorts of chocolates with various limoncello products. The combination of chocolate, limoncello, and almonds is a taste of heaven.

I took all the above photos while strolling along the walkway shown in the third photo. Beauty lay everywhere I looked.

Capri is rugged. Houses hang off cliff edges, steep roads climb up and down near the sea’s edge. We strolled, went to a garden, found a little place to sit on steps and drink cappuccino .

Wandering the World–Italy, Part One

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Last November I spent a little over a week in Italy. We spent only 1/2 day in Rome then drove to Sorrento where we stayed for a week. From there we wandered down the Amalfi Coast, over to Naples, Pompeii, and Capri. Want to avoid the summer heat and crowds? Go in November. Yes, it is chilly and sometimes rainy with big storms at night. Nevertheless, you can really see what people do who live there and avoid masses of tourists. Here are some of my favorite photos:

The above photos taken in Rome. The following were taken in Sorrento.

Vesuvius. I think I saw it nearly every day.

Wandering the World-Costa Rica

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To share beauty and adventure, this past week two friends challenged me to share photos every day for ten days. This is day four. I decided to share some of the photos planned for day four here. The first three days included photos I took in Ethiopia and Italy (where I was this time last year). Today from this venue I will share photos of Costa Rica, a country I have visited twice, once when it was summer here and several years later during Christmas break in the US. Perhaps I will continue the challenge this way, sharing from my blog, but for today here are some of my favorite places in Costa Rica.

Frustration

/ Juliana Lightle / 2 Comments

My last blog post was over a month ago. Why you ask?? Well, I cannot figure out this new block thing, or rather do not have time to do so and cannot figure out fast enough how to get back to classic. These days I seem inundated with one frustration after another:

  1. The frustration of the above.
  2. I am teaching high school at a school where there is no mandate for any Covid safety precautions which means no masks, no social distancing, nothing. Thankfully, I have survived the first seven weeks of this. My doctor’s office has provided me with special face shields that come under the chin and around the sides more than the usual face shield.
  3. My pay is the same as last year but I have one extra class and 28 more students.
  4. I spend most of my life these days sleeping, eating, grading, working.
  5. For years I have been a judge for a literary contest. I have three novels to read in a short period of time with substantially no time to do it but have one down, the second 2/3 done, and one more to go.
  6. Today more papers to grade, house to finish cleaning, a literary contest to enter, that novel to finish, and that is just for starters.

This is not the kind of person I think I am. What is happening to cheery, positive me?? After I post this, I will do my morning yoga ( I already did meditation), shampoo my hair, feed the horses, and get to work on all the things mentioned above.

Have a great Sunday, inspire yourself, think positive, move on.