a "been-there" mom of six offers encouragement
to wives, young mothers, and those not so young,
and simple common-sense approaches to
the "ings" of life:
child-rearing (hints and helps), homemaking (all areas),
cooking (simple, cheap, and do-it-yourself)
making (toys and gifts), preparing (for the unexpected),
maintaining (sanity and peace in this increasingly crazy world) and more---
all aspects of making the most of making do on little---
and having fun in the process.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

My Season to Harvest . . . Corn


This actually looks good enough to eat!

Autumn is candy corn time.  Even though you can buy it all year round I try to hold off until the season is right. You will probably think I am crazy but I find it sad that many things we used to anticipate are now available all the time. It seems to take a lot of the excitement and fun out of it.

Fireworks are another example. Wasn't it more fun when they were rare and eagerly awaited?

My final gripe is with wonderful squishy once-a-year Peeps.

The way I saw it, there was a special treat for each of the four seasons: candy corn in the last quarter of the year, fireworks at the very beginning of the new year and as the middle-mark of  summer, with yellow Peeps, coming into their own in Spring.

I love love love candy corn but I am getting too old to handle its sweetness.

Daughter Heidi solved that problem by introducing the combination of candy corn and peanuts!

One of our family year-round stand-bys was "gorp," our name for the now-called-trail-mix-combination of peanuts, raisins and M&M's. It was a great snack for watching ball games, playing board games, or----any reason was good enough for us.

I used to make a ton and divide it into eight bags before we took to the road for a vacation. (Some of us ate faster than others!)  Another time I sneakily made two batches, one batch divided six ways for the kids, and two where I extravagantly substituted cashews for the peanuts. An expensive disappointment as the cashews were overpowered.

Recently I discovered that butter-mints and/or those little pink, green, yellow and white pillow-looking mints are a great addition to the traditional combination.

'til we eat again,
          Simply, Gail

No comments: