Tea Time (Sort Of)

I don't drink, but I have shot glasses. I don't smoke, but I have an ash tray. I don't drink coffee or tea, yet I have...

teacups! And I am sure you can see why.

Both my mother and my Grandma Honeywell collected teacups, and I inherited their collections. I let family members take the ones they wanted, packed the rest away, but this one is kept on display in my china cabinet.

As a child, I used to trace the route of the hunt starting with the outer rim and following the black line around the spiral to the center of the saucer.

It's an old piece although I don't know just how old it is.

Like the saucer, the cup has a circling pattern.

There is just as much happening on the cup

 

as there is on the saucer.

The house and three horses and the hounds all gallop around the cup.

I may not drink tea or coffee, but you know what? Hot chocolate tastes really good when it is in a pretty teacup like this!

Tomorrow we will look at yet another item I have that I acquired simply because it is horsey.

Stay 'tooned!

Grandma Honeywell's Cherry Pie

 Last November just before Thanksgiving, I shared Grandma Honeywell's pumpkin pie recipe here on Horsiemama. It is my favorite pie, but the rest of my family thinks her cherry pie is even better. I will be making both this week and thought that I would share her cherry pie recipe this year.

This recipe does not use store-bought cherry pie filling, it uses pitted tart red cherries.

My original recipe card from the mid 1970s. You can tell that it is well loved and well used! I have also added notes to it - they continue on to the back. (I double the filling now despite what my 1997 note says. And, I omit the salt.)

Grandma Honeywell's 1955 Cherry Pie Recipe

2 cans of cherries, drained in a colander with the juice saved

1 cup sugar

2 1/2 tablespoons quick cooking tapioca (NOT the pearled!)

1/3 cup of the saved juice (discard the rest)

1 tablespoon butter, thinly sliced into pats (sometimes I omit this, too)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Combine the sugar, tapioca, and cherry juice in a medium bowl. Stir until well mixed and let stand while preparing the pie dough. Roll out half the pie dough (or use a prepared crust) and place bottom crust into a 9" pie pan. Mix the cherries into the sugar/tapioca/juice mixture and then pour into the pie pan. Place thin butter pats on top of cherry mixture. Roll out the other half of the pie dough (or use prepared pie crust) and place on top. Cut a few steam vents into the top. Bake at 450 degrees for ten minutes, then turn the heat down to 350 degrees and bake for 30 minutes. 

Now, because there are 29 Isenbargers and every last one of us loves homemade pie, I always double the recipe. It's easy peasy - I use 5 cans of cherries and 10" pie pans. (Just roll the dough thinner to fit the pie pan.) I do not change anything else in Grandma Honeywell's recipe.

When doubling, I make each recipe twice in separate bowls. 

The cherries and sugar/tapioca/juice have been mixed together and poured into the pie pan.

Dotting the top with butter before adding the top crust.

The top crust has been added, the edges fluted, and the steam vent cut into the top crust. (Use the tip of a sharp knife to cut your vents. Hold it vertically to the pie crust and cut with a quick, shallow, up and down motion.)

Hot out of the oven and cooling on the counter.

Cowpoke Ian checking out the desserts - the cherry pie is the bottom right pie.

Because our family is so big and there is so much food being prepared, we run out of space quickly. The solution to the space crunch? Putting completed dishes that do not need refrigeration in other places in the house - on top of the the washing machine, outside on the patio table (which sometimes doubles as a second refrigerator if the weather is cold enough), and...

... in the tub in my bathroom. As you can see, Cowpoke Ian has discovered them. Usually all the grands have to come take a peek. They get the giggles when they see pies in the bathtub.

Grandma started baking this cherry pie recipe in 1955, maybe earlier. It wouldn't be the holidays to me or to my family without a slice of it.

I feel very close to her when I make it and often get a little teary, too. She passed the recipe to my mom who passed it to me, and I have passed it on to my children. An unusual legacy, but a very important one, too.

Enjoy your cherry pie, and Happy Thanksgiving!

A Chilly and Cold Winter Solstice

Today is the shortest day of the year - the winter solstice. My Grandma Honeywell used to call my mother on the day of the winter solstice and say, "Spring is coming!" My mom and I continued that tradition until she passed away, and now my daughter Sarah, calls me and says it. It's sort of like whistling in the dark only about winter.

Although the earth is actually closer to the sun now than it is in the summer, we have been in the deep freeze in Indiana.

It's been really cold here the past couple of days. Thankfully, things are due to warm up soon. 

And lucky me, a bonus of having a retired Seeing Eye Guide Dog is that she has been trained to go to the bathroom on command. I can take her out, tell her to do her business, and we are back in the house with a minimum of shivering!

Pepper doesn't seem to mind the cold and absolutely loves to play in the snow. She and Lisa are playing catch with snowballs in my front yard.

The horses have shaggy winter coats and free access to two barns so that they can choose if they want to be outside or not.

Yesterday, despite the chill, they were all out in the southwest pasture, enjoying the weak winter sun.

It's Abby's favorite time of year - candy cane season! And of course I had a couple to give her. (Look at the snow that she and Diablo are sporting on their noses!)

Trouble and Sultanna were hanging out together by the gate. Tim has told me that Sultanna is definitely in foal.

Trouble and Hokey meandered off (with a little encouragement from Diablo) while Diablo and Sultanna continued to enjoy that weak winter sun.

 Ever hopeful, Abby waited by the fence, just in case I came back with more of her favorite treats.

But I was too cold to linger. I was just making a quick barn run to check on her and to put Tim's gift on his desk in the new barn's office, then heading back home to finish my Christmas cards.

In the meantime, I keep reminding myself, spring is coming!

The Cherry on Top

Model Horse Blab has a long running thread for sighting Breyer horses in places like television, movies, and so forth. I think I may need to start a similar thread for Pony Pal Mila.

 Using their mini trampoline as a table

and some teapots and teacups that were my mother's and grandmother's, Pony Pal Mila and her mama had a hot chocolate party yesterday in their basement playroom. As I looked at the photos that Vanessa sent me, I wasn't surprised to spy a horse next to Mila's saucer.

"That one she has named 'Abby,'" Vanessa texted me.

Oh, my. Wrap up my mother and grandmother together with some of their cherished treasures and two other people I dearly love, and I am smiling through my tears.

The addition of "Abby" was the cherry on top.

Grandma Honeywell's Pumpkin Pie

I am a pretty good cook, but what I really like to do is to bake. And since we always host the family gathering for Thanksgiving, I have made a lot of pies in my time.

Today I will be making a pumpkin pie, two cherry pies, a Christmas Jello, at least one cheese ball, stuffing for the turkey, and several other things. Pony Pals Mila, Julie, and Kate, Cow Poke Susie, Ian, and Lukas have asked if I will take them out to the barn so that they can ride Diablo - definitely there will be a time crunch today!

 Maybe this year I will add a horse head to my pumpkin pie! (Photo from Google Images.)

Pumpkin pie is my favorite pie of all and I always use my Grandma Honeywell's recipe. It has been in our family at least since the 1950s and probably longer than that. Grandma passed her recipe on to my mother who then passed it on to me.

This is one of the first recipe cards I made as a newlywed way back in 1976.

Grandma's recipe is MUCH better than any store bought pie and very easy to make. I thought I'd share it this morning in case anyone would like to have it for their own holiday.

Grandma Honeywell's Pumpkin Pie

3/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon flour

1/2 teaspoon salt (I omit this, but am including it since it is part of the original recipe)

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

Mix the dry ingredients well, then add:

1 beaten egg

1 cup milk

1 cup plus 2 heaping tablespoons of pumpkin

Mix all ingredients well, then pour into an unbaked pie shell. Bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes, then turn down oven to 325 degrees and bake 20 minutes longer. (You may need to adjust that second time. I  just watch the pie and when it is firm, I know it is done.)

The recipe is very easily doubled - the only reason I am not making two pumpkin pies this year is that I know I would eat them both and having worked so hard to lose weight, I don't want to regain it. Haha!

If you do try the recipe, please let me know how your pie turned out!