Ufta

   The big day arrived.  These are the waiters and waitresses.  Kids can hardly wait until they are old enough to be able to help.  And they stick with it.  12-6 is a long stretch!  Sometimes they get tips and it thrills them!  One little gal then went and spent all her money at our bake sale!  It's called "recycling".

   This is the lull before the storm.  Tables are set, church is full of hungry people and the food is ready to serve.

   A view of the kitchen before all lutefisk broke loose! Guy in the orange sweatshirt, Erik, is the potato masher.  To each huge kettle, a # of butter is added plus seasoning and milk.  That's right--a whole pound of butter!  No wonder we Scandinavians are hearty ( and heavy) stock!

   This year as you can see we got t-shirts!  Isn't Job cute!!  He was hiding a can of pop under his party hat!  Let the fun begin!!

   Here's a newbie to lutefisk.  Bryce is being brave and trying it for the first time!  I don't think he even gagged.  He did have ample butter....ample.

  Well, what do you know--here's Job again...still cute as ever.  he always has a twinkle in his eye.
             Jolyn

Oh oh...

  I'm having problems...I need help..in my home...something about no more storage in my file?  Until I get this figured out..try to be more patient than me.
Jolyn

Potato Peeling Party

   We use real live potatoes for our mashed potatoes and klub.  Thankfully we are able to use a potato peeler some one else owns and the pictures show the workers  taking out the eyes or anything else the machine missed.  Here's Larry and son Joshua and Deb.

   On this picture I recognize Erik's "Wussy Boy" sweatshirt.  To his left is Charles, Johnny, Mark pouring out potatoes for them to work on, Todd, and  Pastor Joe is hiding someone--don't know who.




  Mark is loading up another table to keep the other Mark, Deb and Kim busy

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This is the machine they used...what a time saver!  Don't ask me why there are some potatoes on the floor.

Here's Mark's father-in-law, Pastor Joe, Erik, Charles and Johnny.  Wayne took the pictures (and of course helped.)

Jolyn

Making Meatballs

   As we get closer to the Lutefisk Supper, there's lots of work to do.  Today was meatball day.  Charles is running this renovated sausage stuffer that shoots the meat mixture out and Gina cuts it to size and the rest of us then roll it into meatballs.  Charles is multi-tasking..eating a doughnut and cranking the machine. 

   We line them up on trays to be baked.  Jane, myself, John and Gina doing the rolling.  When it was all done, we had filled over 7 roasters with meatballs.

   Glen is taking the temperature of the meatballs to see if they're done.

   Erik and Gerhald were in charge of mixing all the hamburger, pork sausage, eggs, cracker crumbs, evaporated milk and all the spices.

   Of course we had to eat...and laugh.  In one of the last blogs I had mentioned my white cake from scratch failure.  I just couldn't throw that overbaked creation out to the dog...not when I had used real live butter.  So this morning I cooked some chocolate frosting (yep--Dell cookbook) reasoning that it would help selvage the cake.  Mission accomplished and only crumbs are left tonight.  (I will be working next week to lose those pounds!)

   Back to rolling.  Wayne has taken over Gina's job. 

  These are the designated thinkers!  Lots of note taking and planning.  Tomorrow a bunch will gather at a farmer's machine shed (heated..thank you) and get those 450 pounds of potatoes peeled!  Mostly men that show up for that.  Just like at home! 
   Jolyn

Cabin Fever

  Just a couple of quicky quilts.  I give away a lot of baby quilts, plus  my girls often need a gift to give and beings I like to make them and they like to give them...it's a perfect match.  After finishing flannel quilts or quilts with flannel backs, I cut the leftovers into 3 1/2" x 6" pieces.  So I just grabbed the bag with pieces and made these two quilts.  Have some more of the yellow used in the second one( for the wider pieces) that I'll use for the backing and bindings.

  I never get tired of being home.  It's my joke that I could be home all winter and never get bored.  With my "stash", I never run out of things to work on.  But today it hit--cabin fever.  We were going to go to town yesterday, but thought the weather would be better today.  It was in that it was sunny, but cooooooooold!!  So it was decided to wait another day.  Staying home is ok when it's my choice, but when I don't have a choice....
  So this is what I accomplished...hearts for the still standing Christmas tree.  No pictures of the "from scratch" white cake as I got distracted on the computer (bad computer) and baked the cake twice as long as I should have.  It would have been a work of art...I'm sure.  
                                     Jolyn
 
                                 

Egg Cracken' Time

   Minnesota tried real hard to blizzard today, but was kind of a "mini" one. No school today or yesterday.  The day brighteners are the birds that come to our bird feeder.  This morning at one time there were 3 cardinal "couples", some juncos, couple different woodpeckers, nuthatches, sparrows and feisty blue jays.  The blue jays are the bosses--even bossing each other.  They seem to enjoy tossing the seeds out of the feeder.  Thankfully the other birds aren't too proud to eat off the snow.  With the heavy snow...the squirrels sometimes join them.  Even the blue jays give up their post to them. 

   Baking day today.  After my bread was done, I got out a bunch of eggs and let them warm up.

   Sifted the dry ingredients for three batches.

   Got out my trusty mixer.

   And baked three angel food cakes.  The tricky part for me is knowing when they're done.  We've eaten a lot of "not quite done" angel food cakes.

   The back two were pretty good, but didn't have a spring pan for the front one, so decided we really should test one anyway.

  I talked Wayne into helping me.  Little dab of cool whip and topped with yogurt.  Let's see--eggs, flour, sugar, dairy--most of the basic food groups!  
                Jolyn

  I apologize for not getting a picture of the treat that Linda B. brought me...an Almond Snicker...it just disappeared! (didn't even ruin my dinner!)

Basketball

   I think basketball is my favorite sport.  You don't have to wear a dozen layers of clothing, lighting is good, you can see who each player is, you don't have to sit on frozen metal bleachers, and I understand the game (100 years ago I played in Iowa when it was six-man, half court....that does age me.)  I never watch it on tv, just in person.  Last Saturday we went to Brandon's tournament.  The gym was huge and 4 games were being played at once.  Had to be confusing for the kids with all the cheering and whistles and buzzers.  They won their first game and lost the next two.

   This is basically the team that played.  Bailey is in the next picture with the red shirt..  Front row: Tyler and Chandler
Second row: Cole (I think),  Eythan, Brandon and Colin.

  After the game we rewarded ourselves with a "little" dessert at Applebees!  Mine is the front one...look at Wayne's little one behind it!  I think I got the better deal!  (He helped me eat mine...not that I wanted him to!)
                Jolyn