Baking with Lizzy

There is no way I can top what Ford wrote in his letter to our new-soon-to-be-daughter; it was so sweet and just what I wished I could have written! I will write about something in my comfort zone - food! This is going to be a series of my favorite family recipes to give to Lizzy. At least my posts won't make you cry!! I always loved baking desserts, biscuits, coffee cakes, pies, muffins etc... I love fruit desserts best especially pies and strawberry shortcake, and in the last few years I have made all different types of cheesecakes: New York style, Key Lime, Peanut Butter, Chocolate Chip..... Love them all. My Mom was very good at teaching us the regular household "chores" and skills that girls of my era were all taught. I really enjoyed baking. Something just made it enjoyable (I don't know if my Mom remembers it the same way - we usually put up as much of a fight as we could when it came to doing any chores). Now we don't eat all those desserts... well maybe a small slice. We usually have them when we have dinner guests or at the holidays. I used to bake every weekend that Ford worked but about five years ago Ford was very fortunate to be reassigned to a "day" job - no more shift work and no more weekends alone for me!! My baking also dropped off dramatically as we discovered we gained weight when over indulging and not working as hard physically (well, it may have something to do with our ages too)!!! I even have some recipes very near and dear to my heart from Ford's family too! My SIL Joan has shared some favorites and my MIL, Joy, is a prolific cooker and baker and has a wealth of recipes she loves to share. I don't think I will ever perfect the fried crappie & hushpuppies; that will be left to DH along with cooking the steaks on the grill! So one of my contributions will be to teach Lizzy to bake. I hope she enjoys it and I think I can sneak in some math lessons too (baking is great for learning fractions). So in the near future, I will post some of the recipes I plan on baking with her and are my family favorites. Many thanks for the recipes from my Mom, Aunt Elsie, Grammie, E-E, the "Aunties", Joy, Joan, Terri, Melissa, Hilary and Charlotte. They are all my baking inspiration!