Slices

The "Quick bar cookies" recipe on this post, which is actually a recipe for chocolate chip blondies, is very forgiving. I've recently tried substituting vegetable oil for the butter. This works all right, but comes out a little drier, as butter contains some water that the oil doesn't. I also tried adding cocoa powder and peppermint extract to make something more like a brownie. The family liked the result, and didn't realize that it was almost exactly the same recipe. Rolled oats were not in the original recipe, but I almost always add them, for nutrition.

--------------------------------------

We've been very busy, and I was looking for a quick and fun project, and decided to paint one of our stump tables. The stump is a chunk of a large pine tree that my husband brought home from the county yard waste site last year. The wood was very green, and quite wet, so I kept it in the garage for months to dry it out, turning it occasionally. It picked up some dirt during that time, and lost over twenty pounds of weight, maybe as many as forty--I weighed it early on, and then later, but I don't remember the exact numbers.

Eventually I brought it in, and debarked it in the kitchen. There was some mold growing under the bark, so it had to come off.

The stump found a home in our living room/indoor parkour course. I counted the rings; the tree was sixty years old when it was cut down, and more than two feet in diameter.

Anyway, I mixed some paint to approximate a color that would fit into the decor, and painted the sides, just wiping the paint on with scrap fabric. I very soon had several eager helpers.

The color came out a bit bright for the room, so I plan on wiping on another coat at some point.

---------------------------------------

A child wanted to learn to make angel food cake, after a lady from church brought us one. I had never made a foam cake, but our efforts were successful.

---------------------------------------

Our resident papier-mache artist is thinking ahead to Halloween, and has made a good start on armatures (support structures for the papier mache) for upper and lower skeleton jaws, made out of milk jugs and tape.