I'm not sure if Mom has already posted this recipe or not. If it's a repeat, I apologize. ;o)
Ukrop's had strawberries (red, ripe, gloriously smelling strawberries) for $1.50/box today and I decided we would have strawberries with fresh whipped cream over lemon pound cake for our Valentine's treat. This recipe works best if you have a stand mixer as you have to beat it for 15 minutes.
Granny Tess Lemon Pound Cake
3 sticks butter
3 cups sugar
5 eggs
3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup milk
1 t vanilla extract
1 t lemon extract
Cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Add eggs one at a time and beat, scraping bowl as needed. Alternate adding the flour and milk (1/3 each time), beating between each addition, again, scraping bowl as needed. Add vanilla and lemon extracts and beat for 15 minutes. <--This step is especially important as it makes the batter smooth as silk and quite fluffy. (I added a little lemon zest today, just because.)
Bake at 350 for about an hour and fifteen minutes, checking often after one hour. (I usually use my nose to tell me when it's getting close to done. Once you've made the cake a few times, you get the scent of it.)
Turn out onto a cooling rack and let cool completely.
This next step is optional (Jessie's not a particular fan but B and I LOVE it).
Glaze:
1 cup lemon juice and 2 cups confectioner's sugar and mix well. Pour over cake after cake is cool. I do this by putting the glaze back in the bunt pan and putting the cake back in the pan and letting it soak in.
This cake is an excellent picnic/church function/bake sale/office surprise cake. It's quick, easy and SOOOOO delicious. 
Enjoy! :o)
--Rach
A few new acquisitions from the last several months:
Reader's Digest New Complete Guide To Sewing
Simple Gifts To Stitch by Jocelyn Worrall
The Salvage Studio by Amy Duncan, Beth Evans-Ramos, Lisa Hilderbrand
French General Home Sewn: 30 Projects For Every Room In The House by Kaari Meng
Stitched In Time by Alicia Paulson
Quick and Easy Slipcovers by Gail Abbott
and last but not least,
101 Crochet Stitches by Harmony Guides ...
I can finally crochet more than a double stitch! Woohoo!
I spent ten years working on my flower beds at my Blacksburg house. The "soil" is awful--red clay (fill dirt). Over ten years I amended the soil with top soil, manure, sand, you name it. For many reasons I became a daylily gardener. Oh, the joys of daylilies are many! By the time I moved to North Carolina in 2004, I had over 50 varieties of daylilies in my flower beds. I credit them with my winning the town beautification award. I had the most wonderful ritual during daylily blooming season which lasted from May until frost because I purchased daylilies that bloomed at various times. Each day when I would come home from work, I'd take off my shoes and head outside barefooted. (I can't help it; I grew up in Florida where shoes are always optional.) Then, I'd stroll along my flower beds oohing and aahing over every bloom. I would deadhead the previous day's blooms and pluck out any new weeds. It was the most relaxing time of my day and brought me indescribable pleasure. Since I have been in North Carolina, my flower beds in Blacksburg have gone to wrack and ruin. It would bring a tear to your eye if you could see the mess they have become. However, I will be moving back to Blacksburg and though it will take me a couple of years to rectify things, I won't mind all of the work. Yesterday, my new Oakes Daylily catalog came and I've been drooling over it. Oakes is the BEST place to buy daylilies in my opinion. If you don't believe me, head over to their website and see for yourself.
I want an Amazon Kindle so badly that I could spit. Well, maybe not actually spit but pretty close to that badly. Let's just say that I really want this little gadget, moreso than I've ever wanted any piece of current technology. I am unimpressed with fancy cell phones, the Wii, iPods and iPhones yet this electronic reader that fits in your purse has me obsessed. Obsessed I tell you.
Every time I scan Amazon I see books that I want to read right now and the Kindle price is always less than a real book. I have read multiple reviews of the Kindle that assure me that it is pleasurable to read on and is extremely handy to boot - has reference guides and newspapers and dictionaries as well as being able to hold 2,000+ books. Did you just read that last sentence? 2,000 books! An entire library that will fit in your purse. Mecca, heaven, bliss, to me at least.
Alas, I am not buying a Kindle. They are expensive and I am trying to scale back and I have stacks of real books that I own and from the library all over my house just waiting to be picked up and read. I just want to stop obsessing about the Kindle. Please, if you own a Kindle tell me all the awful things about it, OK?
I am trying to figure this out. My good friend Bonny, yarn expert that she is, has been giving me some lessons and has been incredibly patient. Knit, purl, knit, purl, hope to not make any mistakes since I am clueless on how to go back and fix them! Crochet is a bit more forgiving, you just pull the yarn and bye-bye mistakes. This is supposed to be a hat. Let's hope it doesn't take 12 years to make like my first crochet project did.
Are you ready for this? These are all the seeds I have plans to grow. Now, it seems like an incredible amount of plants but these seeds will take me from February through late Fall '09 with planting. And the herbs will all go in pots all over the place - the deck, the front walk of my house and the patio that we will be having poured this spring. My neighbor and I are splitting some of the seeds and I am sending even more seeds on to Liz to see how they fare in her garden in Virginia. Bob and I are building another long skinny bed that will just be for tomatoes and basil and two more in ground and mulched flower beds in the backyard. We are trying to make the backyard a pleasant place to sit, entertain, and for child's play so we are trying to carve out little "rooms" that will make the small area as efficient and pleasant as possible. I spent far too much money last year on annuals at the plant nursery so this year I chose direct seed, fast growing varieties and a few that will most likely self-seed for next year and the years to come: poppies, globe amaranth, sweet peas, bishop's lace, four 'clocks, hollyhocks, forget me nots, zinnias and sunflowers. And I am planning on trying the Indian companion planting of corn, squash and beans to get the most bang for the space. 
I will note with a * if the seed is a repeat from last year.
Lettuces (split to be started in four cold frames in early March and then in early September):
De Morges Braun
Black Seeded Simpson
Henderson's Black Seeded Simpson
Amish Deer Tongue
Lollo Rossa
*Red Wing Lettuce Mix
Garden Cress
Mache- Verte D' Etampes
*Arugula
Spinach:
Giant Noble
Summer Perfection
Chard:
*Rainbow (no success last year due to pests)
Flamingo Pink
Vulcan
Radish/Petite Dejuener
Asian Varieties:
Asian Winged Bean
Chinese Red Noodle Bean
Komatsuma Tendergreen
Ching Chang Bok Choy
*Siamese Dragon Stir Fry Mix
Chinese Chives Mix
Herbs:
*Genovese Basil
*Siam Queen Thai Basil
*Lime Basil
Yarrow
*Lemon Balm
German Chamomile
Bee Balm/Lemon
*Dill
*Parsley/Giant of Italy (I grew this and flat leaf last year and both were excellent)
*Peppermint (still alive on my kitchen windowsill)
Lemongrass
*Cilantro
*Rosemary
*Oregano/Wild Zaatar
-I am not growing feverfew again- wow that is a prolific (weed-like!) plant.
Melons and Squash (in ground in community garden):
Butternut Squash (maybe, I am the only one in my family who likes it)
Zucchini/Black Beauty (maybe)
Amish Pie Pumpkin
Green Fleshed Pineapple Melon (Ananas D'Amerique A Chair Verte)
Sugar Baby Watermelon (ice box sized)
Corn/Country Gentleman
Peppers:
Red Belgian
Patio Red Marconi
Thai Little Red Chili
Brussels Sprouts/Catskills (Fall planting)
Carrots/St. Valery (free pack of 800 seeds, probably try them in a deep container)
Cucumber/Early Russian and Early Fortune
Beans and Peas:
Asian beans listed above
Dragon Tongue
*Contender
Sugar Snap Peas
Tomatoes:
White Tomesol
Amish Paste
Paul Robeson
*Green Zebra
Orange Fleshed Purple Smudge
Ananas Noire
White Currant
Sub-Arctic Plenty
Sioux
Brandywine (maybe)
SuperBush (hybrid)
Italian Pompeii (hybrid)
And last but not least, the flower varieties:
Zinnias:
Giants of California
Polar Bear
Green Envy
Bachelor Buttons/Red Boy
Poppies:
Oriental Scarlet
Buttercream
Sunflowers (we are dedicating a corner of the yard for a sunflower bed with zinnias in front):
Lemon Queen
Short Stuff
Mexican Sunflower- Torch
Moonshadow
and various varieties of:
Red Angels Trumpet
Nigella
four o' clocks
sweet peas