Kitchen Activities…..with Donna Harvey.

Have you ever worked in someone elses kitchen without them?  That is exactly what is happening with me today.  As you can see from the picture  the garden tomatoes are coming in nicely.  These tomatoes were started from seed back in February, I think by Billie Crumly.  They were nurtured carefully and planted just a few days before she went to the hospital on April 29^th, 2014, for her hip replacement surgery.  She loved good tomatoes and tomato sandwiches and has taught me to love the same.  She will not experience these wonderful fruits this year.  Seems strange to call them a fruit but that is exactly what I understand they are.  These would have gone nicely in some of her homemade vegetable soup which everyone, except her daughters, simply loved.  The tomatoes just had to be worked and put up this evening after I had finished my day’s computer work.  I chose to boil the water and pour over the tomatoes so they would peel easily.  Put the peeled and cored tomatoes in one of mother’s big yellow Pyrex bowls, one was  her original and one I bought on ebay and gave her a number of years ago.  She would use these two bowls for her sourdough bread to rise.  This bread is one of the things that I never even got the recipe for but I am sure it is here somewhere.  I just haven’t had time to tackle this one. 

I think I told you about making the square pound cake and here is a picture of the half that I gave Dad.  You see it is in mother’s glass cake plate which some years ago had a mishap and the cover has a glue job and continues to function.

Another thing that I have gotten into today is making some hummingbird food and Daddy had been taken by a good friend to see his sister who is in a nursing home nearby.  I was told that today she knew who he was and they enjoyed a nice visit.  Hummingbird food does not have to be red but my sweet  husband thinks it does.  Mother has always made her hummingbird food with a four (4) to one (1).  I put ¼ cup of sugar to 1 cup of water and put it on the stove on a medium temperature to heat.  It should really boil to make sure they are mixed well.  Would you believe that I went back to work and hummingbird food was the last thing on my mind?  At least, that is until I smelled something and the kitchen was covered in smoke up high and I found that ¼ cup sugar would expand to cover an entire saucepan with all the water gone.  It looked somewhat like burned cotton candy and the poor pan was terrible.  I was certainly hoping that the smoke detector did not come on and call the fire department.  That would have been another embarrassment.  As it was I had to apologize to dad for causing the house to smell like smoke.  I did find the air freshener and went through the house spraying and I had the screen open to the storm door attempting to get the smoke out of the house.   All fans were turned on trying to cause some dissipation.

While all the excitement was going on, I decided that I needed to find a recipe that one lady had asked about after the funeral.  I do not remember who this person was but I did find the recipe that she has said Billie called “Banana Split Salad”.   This is a salad but is sweet enough and good enough to serve as dessert.  The folks would keep this frozen and eat it when they remembered that they had some in the freezer.  Here is the recipe for whoever wishes. 

Banana Split Salad (Billie Crumly)

8 oz cream cheese softened
½ cup sugar
20oz can crushed pineapple
10 oz. pkg.  frozen strawberries
2 bananas chopped
1 cup nuts of your choice
1 – 12 cool whip
red food color (optional)

Beat cheese and sugar.  Add berries, pineapple & bananas, then nuts.  Fold in cool Whip.
Pour into greased 9 x 13” dish.  Cover & put in freezer at least 3 hours.  Remove from freezer 30  minutes before serving.

Tomatoes for freezing, hummingbird food and Banana Split Salad are just some of the kitchen excepts from country living on this day in July.