Papa's Brittle Recipe.

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This is a no tricks, simple and delicious brittle or granola. 

The trick to its wonderful flavor is the toasting of the oats, as well as the good pinch of salt. Salt and sugar makes the taste buds explode. 

Once you start nibbling on the brittle, you can't seem to quit eating. 

This brittle is great over ice cream, also a treat on top of your favorite cereal.  

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups oatmeal

1 cup crushed pecans or walnuts, or nuts of your choice

1 teaspoon salt 

1/4 cup olive oil --or your oil of choice

3/4 cup brown sugar --light or dark brown

1/4 cup Karo, or other corn syrup --light or dark

1/2 cup raisins or cranberries --by choice  

Heat oil in large skillet. 

Add oats and salt, mix quickly so oil is evenly soaked up by all the oats.

On medium to high heat brown the oats. Stir vigorously, turning them over and over until lightly toasted. Turn down heat when you first start to smell the toasting oats. You may even want to remove skillet to make sure the oats will not burn. (You could toast the nuts along with the oats.)

Turn heat to low. If the brown sugar has hard lumps, pre-soften in microwave.

Add nuts, raisins and brown sugar. Stir until all the sugar is melted and thoroughly mixed in. If this takes too long, turn up the heat slightly. 

Add Karo (corn syrup) and stir until totally mixed in. Less Karo makes the final product more brittle and hard. More Karo will make it more chewy. 

Empty skillet onto dinner plate to cool. . . Hint:  First spray plate with a little non-stick spray.

You can also experiment using molasses or honey instead of corn syrup. Or by adding your favorite cereal to the mix, or cinnamon.      

ALTERNATE MIX:   Add 1 cup of natural peanut butter instead of nuts, then cut into bars and refrigerate.

Enjoy!     Papa

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Burn Pile or Kindling?

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I'm not a pack rat, but to me EVERYTHING has value. My mother instilled in me not to waste.

I had stored a 2x12, in my basement shop in Bedford, that dated back to 1982. I had cut an arch out of it so the mason could use it as a guide to lay bricks to span a display window in the old B&B Printing building. Not long ago I needed a short 2x8, and after twenty-five years, that old arched piece of wood, good and seasoned, did the trick.

While our cabin was being built, much wood was thrown unto the burn pile. Bowed boards, split boards, cupped boards, bruised boards, boards too short, boards cut wrong, boards that had weathered and boards with mud on them.

Now, my option with that huge pile in Floyd was to burn it, or pay the backhoe man to burry it. Neither  option sat well with me. . . I got off my duff and made use if it.

My table saw turned into a sawmill.

For two days I dragged the usable stuff to the basement. The leftover logs, braces and other timbers I cut into 2x4s. . . It made a truckload of good lumber.

The trim that came off the boards presented a new option, kindling or burn?
If I burn the stuff, I need to reseed the grass. . . So more kindling it was.

A wheelbarrow full of small stuff.

How much need does a man have for kindling? This pile, still at the edge of the woods, got to be brought under cover before winter.

In the winters of 1944-45-46-47-48-49, with that pile, we could have stayed up in the evenings a little longer, instead of having to crawl into bed to keep from freezing to death.

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What Happened to the Brownbaggers?

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What happened to brown bags? I know, they all vanished. What I mean is, do you remember when people went to work, EVERYDAY, carrying a brown bag and a thermos? Folks then didn't worry about prestige. The money of not going out to lunch was put in the kiddy.

People used to cook. . . Remember, COOKING!  Cooking for leftovers. Leftovers that could be sliced, like a pork roast or meatloaf. All our kids carried lunch boxes to school. Snoopy, Charley Brown or Skoobydo lunch boxes.

I guess it is more fashionable now to complain about the school cafeteria's food, than whip out a p-butter sandwich.

No long ago I read a story of a couple in New York, doing the Brownbagging thing. They both had upscale jobs and could afford to eat out. For years they had eaten out every lunch and dinner, plus weekends. At their apartment they sported the most modern kitchen, stainless appliances, marble tops, indirect lighting, the works.

Their goal was to quit eating out for one year. The bottom line, they saved over $40,000.

Now I know you don't live in New York, but if you were to add it up, the both of you probably do at least $5,000 worth of eating out.

I know, I know, you are adding to the town's economy. . . . HOW MUCH ARE YOU ADDING TO YOUR RETIREMENT ACCOUNT?


We started our business in the basement of the house. After moving it to town, and after the sons joined the firm, we still sat together at lunchtime like we had done since they were born.
"What are we having for supper?" Our kids used to asked every day coming home from school. At least two or three times a week the answer would be, "We're cleaning out the frig."


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Let's Soak Some Beans

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Hey folks! Hard times may stay awhile.
Have you soaked some beans lately? Have you cooked for leftovers lately?

Years ago, old Johnny F. visited our church. He wasn't a regular church goer, but we were glad he came.

He lived on East Main and knew where our place of business was. Toward the end of the month, money often got tight. He'd come by and kindly ask for help. Sometimes it was for kerosine and other times he needed to fill his belly. We did not mind helping. Been there myself.   See "A Time And Place, The Making of an Immigrant"

I remember the last time, before Johnny died, I brought some sacks of vittles to his house. It was a drafty old house. A pretty young girl, late teens, was also there playing with her young child. His great-grandbaby he said. I pulled from the bags can goods, bread and other staples. Among them was a large bag of dried pinto beans.

"What's that?" the girl said.

That question has never left me. After seeing POVERTY in several third-world countries, it shocked me to realize that a most inexpensive and nutritious staple was not a means to make it to the next check. A bowl of beans or rice, once a day, is what most of the world survives on.

Now you can elevate a bowl of beans, slow cooked with a hunk of country ham, to a status of supreme. Add a handful of chopped raw onions, a hunk of buttered cornbread in one hand an a soupspoon in the other, and you're ready to go to town. Yum. Yum. Wash it all down with a tall glass of buttermilk, it doesn't get any better.

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Finally Rain

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The year was dry, dry, dry when we excavated for the pond.

The contractor arrived with his dozer, looked at me sideways and said, "You want me to dig a pond, aye?
"Yes," I said, "as big a one you can make!"

"Ok." He walked to the stream, looked at the water source which eventually would fill the pond, looked at me, . . . and I'm glad he didn't say out loud what he thought.

The stream was dry. No water flowing. Just a few muddy spots indicating a little underground wetness.

"It'll come," I said. "It flowed last year."

He probably thought, whatever you say fool, at two-hundred dollars an hour I'll dig until you tell me to stop.

Well, he did a wonderful job. And then the rains came, lots of rain. Enough rain to green up the fields, water the trees and gardens, saturate the earth and raise the water table.

The fish we added multiplied. Wildlife came and communed with the new water source.

God keeps supplying the rain needed, as He chooses. On the just and on the unjust. We can trust Him. The cabin got built. God kept supplying. Over the gutters it poured.

The pond has not gone down since it filled. Enough water for this guy to get around.

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The Wood Shed

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Up in Floyd County, among the trees and bittersweet vines, hanging on to old age, are the support structures for the 100 year old two story home. There is the barn, the wood shed, the smoke house, and the parlor of contemplation.

Hidden among the overgrowth is the wood shed.

Behind this woodshed is a boxwood bush that towers as tall as the shed itself. I imagine at least a handful of kids have received their "correction" out behind the woodshed. And, don't you suppose, a young maiden may have receive her first kiss out behind the woodshed.

Just inside the door of this shed is the well worn chopping block. On this chopping block many-a-sticks of kindling had been chopped, and, maybe a few heads of chickens.

40 plus years after the main house was last occupied, the chopped sticks of kindling are still in the shed waiting to comfort someone, heating a teakettle of water or stew.

To further my suspicion that the old homestead was owned by Europeans, or even Germans, I found currant bushes. ( see post, "If that barn could talk").

They are white currants. One plant had struggled to produce a few berries. My grandmother in Germany grew white, red and black currants. (get my book about the old times as a boy, www.fxbiii.com )
With little sun, the bushes have almost succumbed to creeping vines and perpetual shade. I will make an effort to transplant and save what I can.

I love exploring the old homestead. A person realizes that all things must die. There is nothing permanent in this world. Even you and I are mortal. If you think the worms will have the last laugh with your flesh, I feel sorry for you. As for me, my body may decay, but my soul will be with my Lord. He created us and has given us a choice, in this life, to choose to be made righteous through Jesus, or to reject Him.


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The Year My Tonsils Died

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I remember it well. It was the year of 1961. I was twenty-one and deathly sick, high fever, swollen tonsils. Two weeks in the bed, trying to sweat it out.

By sweating it out I mean I covered up to get the sweating going until the fever broke. But that time it did not work.

A doctor was finally called. He came to the house and jerked the covers off me, and, believe it or not I instantly felt better. . . So much for old remedies.

My point to this whole story, we never heard of Government assistance. In my book you can see how we hung on to the American dream. (Click Here)

Well, my tonsils did die. Never missed another day of work because of them again.

But, but, but, . . . I'm ashamed to say it. A co-worker convinced me to apply for out of work benefits and I received one week's assistance from the State.

50 YEARS LATER, a friend suggested to look into using available assistance from the State to fence in the spring that feeds our pond. I called. Four, very polite young people, arrived to check out the lay of the land. Two folks from the State and two folks from the Feds came. Both teams drove a brand new, large, four wheel drive SUV. ( ain't the gettin' good?)

I qualified for assistance. Great.

But my gut feeling was not in it. As nice it would be to take $2,000 from the Government, I JUST CAN NOT DO IT. NEVER!

With the help of the Lord, this Country has given me everything,  Why should I sponge? Don't we have too many sucking the sow already?


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