Alphabet Soup - part 1

I came across a blog prompt site that had a lot of great ideas. They had one for April that was a daily challenge. Blog about a different letter of the alphabet each day. I don’t want to commit to something like that, so I’ll just take a letter or two (or three) and babble about it a bit each week until I get to Z. No big articles, just little vignettes about the particular letter.

A – A is for Apple

Every child knows that. That’s in all the coloring books and papers that kids bring home from kindergarten. Although nowadays, a child pretty much has to know their alphabet, shapes, colors and numbers BEFORE kindergarten or they will be left behind.

When we were first married, we lived next to an apple orchard that was pretty much abandoned. We were told that we could have as many apples as we wanted. I made so many pies that first year! And they were fabulous. One of my favorite memories from that first year is when I had some pie leftover and I took it to Chico to share with my grandmother. I had every intention of giving her the whole portion, but she immediately got 2 plates out, divided the pie, and we shared some pie at the kitchen table where I grew up. Nice little memory. I sure miss Grandma.

B – B is for Brownies

My close friend Shirley lived across the street from me. We were at each others house all the time. She had a cookbook written for kids that had very simple recipes in it. One was for brownies. Shirley and I used that recipe several times and it is still my standard recipe for brownies. It’s in my recipe box, titled: Brownies (Shirley Plain recipe). One of the things I liked about the recipe, other than it was super simple, was that it didn’t call for nuts. I didn’t care for nuts in my brownies back then. I still prefer to throw in a few chocolate chips instead of nuts. Here is the recipe:

Melt 2 squares unsweetened chocolate OR ½ C. cocoa and 1/3 C. butter

Add 1 C. sugar, ¾ C. flour, ½ tsp. baking powder, ½ tsp. salt, 2 eggs

Mix and spread in a greased 8 x 8 pan.

Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Recipe may be doubled.