| FEBRUARY 7, 2015 -- November 13 – “Cooking Demonstration” by Robin and Anne. Prior to this meeting, Anne handed out recipes that she asked us to try out and either bring the results to the next meeting or tell about them. These recipes were from an old Wallingford Grange cookbook titled “Choice Recipes” from the 1900’s. The recipes only listed the ingredients and the amounts but no cooking times or temperatures. At the time this cookbook was published, most people were cooking on wood or coal stoves. So it wasn’t like you could set the temperature of the oven like we do today. Some people did alright with them; whereas others had mixed results. I fell in the latter category. I followed the instructions to a ‘T’ but I was thinking dry ingredients. So when the coffee cake recipe called for a cup of coffee, I literally put a full cup of ground coffee in. So needless to say this tended to dry out the dough and I had to add more water than the recipe called for. When I baked it, I scoured some recipe books to get a temperature and time. It baked okay, but I went just a few minutes over my estimated time and the very top of it got very over cooked. I scraped that part of it off and salvaged the rest of it. It actually tasted pretty good. But when compared with what Anne and others did, it was obvious I did something wrong and then it dawned on me, the cup of coffee! I think it was called “Power-House” cake afterwards. Anne Cella demonstrated making micro-wave English muffin bread and it came out looking like and tasting like English muffins! While the bread was baking, Robin McCoy demonstrated an easy to make Tuna Spinach dip which was then used on slices of English muffin bread and crackers for refreshments afterwards. Needless to say the refreshments were tasty and interesting.
December 18th- Our original meeting for Dec 11 was postponed to Dec 18th due to icy conditions. Our annual Christmas Program: Before the meeting started, everyone signed about 30+ Christmas cards for the residents of the Regency House. Robin and Anne made the cards by hand. At our last meeting we also had signed cards for Thanksgiving for the residents of Regency House. Robin and Anne said that the residents were thrilled with receiving the cards at Thanksgiving. The Christmas cards that we signed were going to the long term care residents. We then exchange our own Christmas cards with each other and had our business meeting. Janet mentioned that last Saturday she and Mel stopped by the hall to pick up the donated food and toys to deliver them to Holiday for Giving. Jim, Lisa, Janet, Robin and Anne attended the Association of Connecticut fairs meeting. Anne was elected to the board for local fairs and she won an honorable mention in the state baking contest. It was mentioned that we start thinking about getting Fair Ads for this coming year. I had a real hard time getting our phone service back after an error in billing by AT&T and then getting Frontier to get us re-connected again. After the close of the meeting, we had our grab bag and delicious deserts with my favorite Christmas cookies!
Feb 12: “Trivia Night” Ref: Jane
Feb 26: “Winter Tales of Connecticut” Ref: Marcia |
