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I've finally figured out how to do links and all that other good stuff. Yippee! I need to start reading more blogs, though. My links look pretty puny compared to what many of you have up.

Elmo and Play Doh, Head to Head

Now that the teenager is here, getting online just about requires wrestling him to the ground and hog-tying him. The baby is wide awake tonight though, playing with the toys attached to her bouncy seat, and it's so late that even the teenager has gone to bed. Hooray! Alone with the computer at last.

Christmas has been pretty good so far. My husband took the rest of the year off (gotta use up that vacation time while we've still got it, after all) so we've got a full house. It's always so nice having the teen here. Everything feels complete, now. His absence during the school year is tangible, a great void that wanders the house and reminds us continually that someone isn't here.

I wish his mother hadn't chosen to move so far away.

Our living room carpet has a new design on it. The toddler got hold of a Sharpie, Christmas Eve, and did quite a number on the floor before I got to her. I don't even know where she got it from. This carpet is only 2 years old and cost us a small fortune. I'd waited for this carpet for years. Yes, I freaked a little when I saw what the damage was. It's especially bad if we have to move. Hard to convince someone to buy a house when you have black marker all over the floor.

Sanford's website recommends a product called Ammodex so I'll be calling them after the new year to buy some stain remover. I'd be glad to hear anyone's recommendations if there's anything better, though.

When the toddler hit the living room Christmas morning she didn't even notice the giant Elmo her daddy got her. She ran to big brother and hugged his legs, then hugged daddy's legs and only then noticed (after considerably prompting and pointing) the Elmo next to the tree.

Her reaction was not quite what we'd anticipated. She grabbed me and hung on for dear life, giving Elmo some very leary looks. I think she thought he was the real Elmo! After some coaxing, however, she calmed down, let go of mommy and cautiously approached Elmo. Within half an hour she was dragging him around with her arms around his neck and since then they've been inseparable. Elmo sits in the high chair next to her chair at all her meals and when she goes down for her nap Elmo has a nap too. He even says prayers with her every night and she holds his arms together to help him.

We've had to squash her attempts to feed Elmo, though. We caught her sharing her strawberry milk with Elmo that same day and since then his fur has already become rather stiff in places. I'm going to have to clean him up thoroughly, as soon as I can pry him out of her arms.

She got another great present a few days after Christmas when I hit the grocery store for some milk and Doritos. All the Christmas stuff was half off, of course, which included some Christmas presents. When I saw the Play Doh I couldn't resist. It worked out well. First thing she wanted to do this morning when she got up? To play with the "colors!"

It's so nice having a couple of toys that distract her long enough to keep her from destroying any more of the house.

Happy New Year to all of you! I hope you have a great one.

Recipe: Cherry-Blueberry Pie

Here's another recipe for those interested. I just stuck it in the oven for tomorrow's dessert. We had this at Thanksgiving, and it is delicious. Blueberry and anything else is almost always fantastic though!

If you're using blueberries that already have sugar added I would definitely leave out the extra 1/2 cup of sugar.

Makes 8 servings
Copyright (c) 2003, Orlando Sentinel, recipe from Pillsbury

1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 21-ounce can cherry pie filling
1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries
1 egg white
1 teaspoon water
2 teaspoons sugar
1 recipe pie crust for a double crust

Heat oven to 425 F.

In large bowl, combine 1/2 cup sugar, cornstarch and cinnamon; mix well. Add pie filling and blueberries; mix well.

Place one round of pie dough in a 9-inch pie pan. Spoon filling into crust-lined pan. Top with second crust; seal edges and flute. Cut slits in several places in top crust.

In small bowl, combine egg white and water; beat with fork. Brush over top crust. (Discard any remaining egg white mixture.) Sprinkle crust with 2 teaspoons sugar. Cover edges of crust with foil.

Bake for 45 to 55 minutes or until crust is golden brown, removing foil during last 10 minutes if necessary to brown edges of crust. Cool 2 hours before serving.

First Christmas

The toddler was baby Jesus her first Christmas. We had the newest baby at the time and the woman organizing the Nativity for our congregation's Christmas party thought it would be great to have a real baby instead of a doll. We were flattered and thought it was pretty exciting. What a great story to tell her about when she got older!

Everything went well the night of the Christmas party until our wee one decided she'd had enough and started to shriek (about 30 seconds into the scene). The married couple playing Mary and Joseph didn't know how to react. Mary, whose children were all in their late teens and early twenties, gingerly bounced the baby up and down. She got louder. Joseph looked grim. You could tell he was wishing he'd never agreed to do this.

Out in the crowd, I was getting pretty unhappy myself. I very much wanted to hold and comfort her. From her cry I could tell exactly what was wrong. She was mad. She wanted Mommy. Why had Mommy abandoned her to this strange person? I started edging closer to the Nativity scene, wondering if it was possible to get my baby back without making even more of a scene.

The people around me were starting to react, amused at this twist in the traditional picture. Off to the side our pianist was playing soft Christmas carols and hymns louder and louder, struggling to be heard over the screams. Joseph had retreated to ignoring the whole problem, staring stiffly into the crowd. Mary was still bouncing the baby, swaying from side to side. I was practically dancing in place, wanting my child and wondering if this woman had ever cuddled a baby.

I don't know where she got the doll from, but the woman in charge finally showed up with a substitution. She beckoned to Mary, who stood up and in a hunched crouch awkwardly tried to walk away from the tableau without being noticed.

I didn't bother with subtlety; I just walked up, grabbed my baby and took off before anyone could suggest any other terrible ideas.

It's Gotta Be the Beard.

The toddler got to see Santa today!

After talking it over last night we decided that it was worth forcing our way through mall crowds to see Santa, so I looked up the mall's website and found Santa's schedule. At 10 am today all of us, including Daddy, headed off to initiate the toddler into the great tradition.

Surprisingly the mall wasn't too packed. We only had to stand in line for Santa about 45 minutes. Of course the display we were circling around was shoulder high to an adult, and the toddler desperately wanted to see the moving figures of elves and such, so Mommy and Daddy took turns holding her up high enough to watch.

It worked well, though, keeping her entertained until the very end of the wait. As the last few children ahead of her were let through the gate to see Santa, she kept ducking under the gate and trying to follow, wanting to check things out for herself. Finally we were allowed in and tried to escort her up to Santa’s great chair.

Naturally, at this point she panicked, complete with tears, clinging to Daddy and a chorus of, "No, no, no!" She was having absolutely nothing to do with Santa in any way, shape or form. We did manage to coax her into letting him give her a McGruff coloring book, but that was it.

She stayed upset until we got to the mall Christmas train, which she was most excited to get to ride with Daddy. It was so cute to watch her going around and around, cuddled next to Daddy and waving to me every time she passed. I couldn’t hear her, but I could see her lips shaping, "Bye-bye, Mommy, bye-bye!"

I Want to Believe.

I realized just today that I forgot to take the toddler to see Santa at the mall, something I really wanted to do. I forgot because it's just not in my head yet to do things like that. After all, it's not exactly a family tradition.

My first memory of Santa was looking at the Christmas ads in the paper, ads filled with drawings of this fat guy wearing red clothes. I could read the ads, so I must have been in the first grade.

I asked my parents who was this? They explained it to me, how he was a made up person who supposedly brought presents to good children at Christmas, but (and this was important now, so listen closely, little Jennifer) he wasn't real. He was made up, pretend, and not real. But I couldn't tell my friends that; their parents taught them that Santa was real and if I told them what I knew I'd make everyone very sad.

I asked my mother once if she'd believed in Santa when she was a kid. Oh, yes, she'd believed in Santa. Had dad? Yes, he'd believed in Santa, too. Why, then, did they not want us to believe in Santa?

"Well," Mom explained, "we were worried that if you believed in Santa Claus, when you found out he wasn't real, maybe you'd think God wasn't real either."

Huh? I thought that over for awhile and then asked her, "Why did you think we'd react like that? Did you or Dad think that when you found out about Santa?"

She tilted her head to one side, searching for the memory. "No," she said, sounding surprised. "We didn't."

"Then why did you think we would?" I was not feeling happy with her and it showed in my voice.

"I don't know."

And that was it. That's the most my parents have ever been able to tell me about why they taught us not to believe in Santa. And even nearing the end of my fourth decade I still haven't been able to fully forgive them for that. They took a huge part of childhood away from us, and they didn't even have a good reason. Wow.

There's no question of our three believing in Santa. The teen still pretends to believe, and we're currently teaching the toddler about it. Which is difficult because I don't know how it's done. I know the stories, I know the theory about how this works, but I don't know the nuts and bolts of it and that frustrates me.

My husband is having to lead the way. He knows how to do Santa presents, how to talk about Santa and tell stories, how to explain how the magic works. I stand by, silent and envious, wishing I had the background he does in this. What was it like to have believed in something so positive and generous? What was it like when my husband found out Santa's just a symbol, not a reality? What is it like to have believed in magic?

I tried one Christmas to pretend that I believed in Santa. My parents were very concerned and had a long talk with me about how he isn't real and did I understand that? I told them I did, and quit pretending. The lecture took all the fun out of it.

But I still want to believe. Maybe, if I watch my children closely enough, I can figure out how.

All You Need is Love

My little Caillou fan has decided to rename the cat. She is now known as Gilbert. Unfortunately, Bagheera doesn't understand her name has been changed and stubbornly refuses to respond to plaintive cries of, "Gih-boot! Giiiih-boot!" Not that the cat ever responded to her real name. She really dislikes children and as far as she is concerned we have ruined her life introducing these two aliens into the house. She avoids them ardently and runs away whenever the toddler gets too close. It’s funny, because the toddler adores the cat and chases her around the house trying to persuade her to play.

A few nights ago, after being put to bed, the toddler popped back out (of course) and started calling to the cat. There she was, head peeking around the bedroom door, lovingly crying out, “Geeeera! Geeeeeeeeeeera!” (This was before the cat was renamed.) It took me forever to persuade the kidlet that the cat wasn't lost or hurt, she just didn't want to come.

Poor cat. She won’t be able to run away for ever. Sooner or later she’s going to have to let herself be loved.

Trim the tree? Why? Did it grow too much?

Christmas trees are magic. I remember my Grandma's trees when I was a kid. They had a tree stand that would play Christmas carols while the tree revolved. They wouldn't turn it on very often (and looking back I can see the inherent instability in having a fully loaded Christmas tree spinning around) but when they did I would sit on the couch, leaning on the arm nearest the tree, watching those spinning lights, mesmerized. If I closed my eyes most of the way the lights would blur into streaks of color. Those were the best Christmas moments, sitting enveloped in music and light in the warm, sweet-smelling house that my mother grew up in.

We put up our tree last night. Kind of late by some standards, but it works for us, especially with a curious toddler in the house. She's had to be reminded not to play with the ornaments about a thousand times already, with a few billion more reminders to come.

The tree is an artificial one that I bought our second Christmas. It was $20 for a 6 foot tree and looks pretty good. Considering how much real trees cost I think we've done pretty well.

(I would never have considered a fake tree when I was younger. Plastic and metal? Heresy! Never, never, never would I give in to convenience and buy an abomination. So there! Then I got married and found out my husband had some real issues with Christmas. His previous marriage was bad, very bad. Christmas is just one of the many areas of his life where he's shell-shocked. After 6 years together he's much better than he was at first, but it's still hard for him. Our first Christmas I couldn't get him out to buy a tree until just before Christmas, and even then only because I practically pitched a screaming fit. Our second Christmas I could see the writing on the wall and took preemptive action. An artificial tree is second best, but if it lets us have a happy Christmas I'm thrilled to pieces!)

I put the tree together every year. This year the toddler helped, pulling branches out of the box and handing them to me while her adoring daddy took pictures. We hung the ornaments together. The toddler pointed to where mommy should put the ornament and I did my best to comply.

It was fun. Very simple and short. We only used a few of our ornaments this year in order to keep the whole thing down to a managable time for the toddler and then we turned on the lights and just enjoyed it. Magic. Absolutely.

Not Now, Maybe Later?

I'm calling a halt to toilet training for the time being. I just don't think the toddler is physically ready for it. She hates having a wet or "'tinky!" diaper on and earnestly want to use the potty like Mommy and Daddy do, but she just can't seem to recognize when she needs to go, which is pretty essential. If we let her run around butt-naked she'll urinate without even seeming to notice what she's doing. She even urinated while washing her hands after an unsuccessful potty visit the other day. Nothing in the toilet, but plenty all over the floor!

So, I think we'll wait a few months and see how it goes then. Hopefully much better.

The Doctor Is Our Friend. Really. I Mean That.

We had a well baby check-up this week. I was a little apprehensive about it. When the toddler was at this point I got treated like an axe wielding maniac who was only prevented from beating my child right then and there by the fact that They Were Watching Me.

This time went very well. I'm not sure who changed, them or me. Was I really telegraphing New Mom that broadly, or was it just military medicine at its worst? I can't say I felt all that much more experienced this time. The toddler was running from one end of the clinic to the other, the baby was fussing and unhappy and I was feeling seriously frazzled. (Which showed - the doctor was moved to give me a lecture on taking care of myself as well as the little ones.)

Or is it just that having two children automatically confers an assumption of competence upon a mother? Presumably, if you haven't killed or maimed the first you can be trusted with the second?

At least it's over and I don't have to go back for two months. Hopefully I can avoid losing the baby's shot record this time.

Delirium Rambles

The toddler woke up coughing, her body shaking with the force of her body's efforts to expel the wet stuff from her throat. I gave her some Robitussin, then, when she begged me, curled up on her bed beside her. After she fell asleep I snuck out, or tried to anyway. She woke up and cried for me as soon as I climbed off the bed.

I remember getting sick when I was a kid. I always seemed to get the serious stuff. I had strep so many times we lost count. Bronchitis, tonsilitis, pneumonia - I had them all. Mom would put me on the couch, with a towel over my pillow and a pot by my head and I'd sleep through the day. I must have been an easy sick kid.

Nights were different. I'd wake up after everyone else had gone to bed, tucked into my own bed. I never told my mom about those long nightmarish hours. I'd call her if I started throwing up (vomiting always made me panic) but I endured the rest alone.

Fevers were the worst. My senses would go berserk, magnifying everything until I was sick just from the distortions. Small crumbs would become jagged mountains, their surface projections catching on my heated fingertips like knives. A roll of toilet paper, to blow my nose, became as soft as my pillow, but larger than any bed. Frightened, I avoided it, feeling as if that softness would swallow me, suffocating me before I could free myself. Even the air moving past my face felt like sandpaper.

I would lie there all night, trying to entertain myself, feeling the air moving in and out of my superheated lungs and periodically moving my pillow to try to find a cool spot. All I wanted was to fall asleep and let the illness pass through my body unnoticed. Relief never came until long after dawn.

I wonder now what my daughter is experiencing. Will she remember this night and others like it, being woken by her body's response to the illness her immune system and I could not protect her from? Will she continue to call for me in the middle of the night when she wakes up feeling sick, or will she choose to suffer alone as I did?

I don't know why I never told my mom about those nights. I just never thought about it.

Bugs, Germs and Antibodies

Everyone except Daddy has a cold.

We got flu shots Tuesday, so when the toddler started acting sick Wednesday I figured it was just the vaccination. By that evening, though, her nose was running so furiously I had to tie her hair back to keep it from getting plastered to her face. It wasn't the flu shot, it was something she caught Sunday at church. I should have known. Go to church on Sunday, get sick on Wednesday, miss the next Sunday, repeat!

Thursday, at 4:50 pm (yes it hit me that hard) I got sick. The baby started having trouble breathing about 4 hours later. I guess breastfeeding doesn't protect her from an illness that I don't have antibodies to yet.

So, no sleep to speak of last night. The baby kept waking up and crying because her nose was congested. I'd suction her out and then we'd have serious hysteria for a few minutes. Try to nurse with little success, get her back to sleep, catch a half hour of sleep myself, then go through the whole thing again.

Life does tend to go in cycles with little ones, doesn't it?

Success

Yippee! We have had a successful attempt, although I'm not quite sure she grasped the importance of it all. She was pretty excited about being praised for it though and tore around the house until she had to have a time out to calm her down!

Sitting and Waiting

Potty training seems to be the thing to do at our house. This is the third day in a row that the toddler has asked to go potty. I’m thrilled. Nothing has happened yet, but she seems to enjoy sitting on the seat. Hopefully she’ll put everything together before too much longer. I don’t mind changing diapers (really I don’t - they’ve never bothered me) but my hands are showing the effects of all this washing!

Generation Gap

I made my grandmother’s sugar cookies tonight. I’ve had the recipe for years, ever since I wrote it down, standing by her side at the kitchen counter as she threw everything together, the normally effortless process disrupted by my insistence on getting exact measurements.

Grandma, my mother’s mother, made the best sugar cookies I’ve ever had. When my parents were courting my father would head for the cookies as soon as he came over. Grandma told me, laughing, that she thought he married mom just to make sure he had adequate access to a continual supply of her cookies.

If he did, I can understand. She was one of the best cooks I’ve ever run across, and her cookies melted in your mouth, dissolving on your tongue like a little piece of heaven. Dip them in milk and they were better still, if you could get them in one piece to your mouth.

I’ve never made them before this. It was hard to make them now. Not because it’s a difficult recipe, but because of some reluctance in me to infringe on my memories of her. She’s been gone for 15 years; you’d think I’d have said all my good-byes by now.

Maybe this is the last good-bye, this handing off to a younger generation. I’m sure what I make won’t be nearly as good as what she made, if only because I'm not 80 years experienced. But, tomorrow, my daughter will be cutting out sugar cookies for the first time, and how could we do something so important with anything less than her great-grandmother’s recipe?

No Bread For You

The paddle to my bread machine is missing. We love homemade bread around here. My husband is so addicted to my bread that he won't eat storebought bread in fact. That's why we bought the bread machine. I can make bread by hand, in fact I've been doing that for the last few weeks, but it takes way too much time. Since I've never found kneading to be the satisfyingly ruminative activity other people experience, I'd rather spend that time with my family, or writing. (Kneading is great for the biceps though! Try it sometime instead of weightlifting. You'll be amazed.)

The paddle disappeared while I was in the hospital having the baby. The friend who was watching the toddler for us decided to clean the kitchen for me. I have a hunch that she might have tossed it in her cleaning frenzy. I've torn the place apart, and it is absolutely nowhere. Nor is this the only thing missing. A recently filled prescription disappeared and so did some paperwork that I left sitting on the counter. I'll bet they also went into the garbage.

She meant well, I know she did, but, honestly, is there anything more humiliating than having a friend come over to clean up your house? It should be such a nice, loving gesture of friendship, but what it is really, is an indictment of your cleaning ability, an attack on the way you keep (or don't keep) your surroundings. And considering I'd spent the two weeks that I was overdue cleaning like crazy, I didn't appreciate the thought.

This is the second time this has happened to me. After the toddler was born I had a major gallstone attack. I wound up spending a week in the hospital and having two surgeries. I got home to a "clean" house. A friend had come over with her sister-in-law and picked up for me. Everything was put away, every surface was clear and free of all extraneous objects. It was so sweet, and it made me so crazy, because it took me months to get everything put back where I wanted it! Some things (like my daughter's immunization record and the hardware to a shelving unit I hadn't finished putting together yet) never did turn up.

You have to realize, I've never minded a certain amount of clutter. After all, I live here! When I was single I always hated having roommates who wanted the place to look like House Beautiful all the time. It was like constantly living in your best clothes. You can never get comfortable because you don't dare wrinkle them.

But clutter isn't dirt. There's a big difference between clear and clean. I'm a little obsessive-compulsive. I don't like germs; I very much like bleach. I don't care whether the plates are drying in the dish rack, or put away in the cupboard, as long as there aren't bits of food on them. And while a certain amount of clutter is OK, a lot keeps you from keeping things clean. (Hence, Flylady. I'm having a hard time learning how to keep things reasonably tidy with 4, sometimes 5, people living in the house.) It's a constantly changing balance that our whole family is working on. Some days are better than others.

So, if you ever get to know me in real life, don't ever come over and clean my house. In return I promise never to comment on how your teenager is dressed (or not, as the case may be.)

Excuse me, I have a suspicious silence to investigate

I wonder if God made 2 year olds to prepare us for teenagers? There are a remarkable number of similarities between the two groups, after all. Both are in the process of realizing how much power they can exert over their lives simply by making choices, and both are very determined to exercise that power, regardless of the consequences or wisdom of their decisions.

The only difference, it seems to me, is that you can pick the 2 year old up and forcibly remove her from the dangerous situation. The teenager is a little too big for that (6 feet tall and well over 200 pounds.)

I inherited the teenager. Granted, I've known him since he was small enough to sit on my lap, but the important work of shaping his personality was accomplished long before I came along. Our relationship isn't very parent/child, but more like an aunt and her favorite nephew. He'll listen to me when he won't listen to his parents, but his primary relationship is with them not me. Nevertheless, as he progresses further into these teen years I have not been exempted from the eye-rolling, sigh-heaving, head-shaking behaviors that let me know I am simply too stupid to breathe and how exactly did I make it this long? (It's been a nasty shock, because this kid used to be every parent's dream come true. You never saw such a well-behaved, courteous, mannerly, thoughtful, compassionate, and intelligent boy.)

The whole thing has gotten me thinking. I look at my two adorable little ones, so sweet and loving, and wonder about the alien lurking inside them. Will they undergo the same transformation as their big brother? I have a bad feeling the answer is yes.

This morning, the toddler wandered into the living room where I was nursing her baby sister, holding both the new can opener I bought last night and haven't washed and put away yet, and the old, nearly dead, can opener that got left out on the counter this morning. She crouched down with her back to me, and started to play with the two items.

I was not happy about this. I just don't think that can openers are a particularly safe or appropriate plaything for even the most mature 2 year old. So I told her, "No, no," and asked her to put them both in the sink. You can imagine what her response was.

"No!"

I tried to work with her, with no result. Even a threat of a time out had no effect. Finally I had to put the baby down and forcibly remove the can openers from her little hands. We then had time out - two minutes in her chair, facing a blank white wall. She cried piteously the whole time, making Mommy feel horrible.

I don't know what's the best way to deal with her. I want her to be both independant and obedient, to use the intelligence she's been given to make her own decisions, but always listen to Mommy and Daddy and trust our advice. I can't help feeling that if I can just figure out the right way to discipline her now, the magic technique that will ensure her obedience, then I'll have a handle on her teen years. The key has to lie somewhere in persuading her to want to obey me. Anything else will backfire later on. She's got to respect my opinions, to love and trust me; if I can accomplish that, then maybe I can steer her away from the worst dangers of the teen years.

I never realized until I became a mother how much of parenting is nothing more than guesswork. The most important thing I'll ever do in my life and I'm as unsteady as a new driver, veering from side to side, unable to steer a straight line. Boy, that's scary.

The Turkey That Ate Memphis

I love Thanksgiving. It's absolutely my favorite holiday, probably because it's the only holiday my family had any real traditions about. Any positive traditions at any rate - there is the annual Christmas tree fight, but I can't say I ever particularly wanted to share that one with my children!

Even Thanksgiving didn't have much in the way of traditions. Basically it boiled down to a turkey stuffed with dressing that was made the same way every year. That's all it took though to make that a holiday full of warm associations, one that I look forward to all year.

I spend weeks planning the menu, days cooking the desserts and side dishes. I buy the biggest turkey I can get every year. This year it was a 22 pound monster that, stuffed (according to Mom's recipe), I could hardly lift. I felt like the Tim Taylor of the kitchen set! I even hooted for my husband (badly though - I've never been good at impressions.)

When the cashier at the store rang the turkey up she was astonished. "How many people are you having over?" she asked. "I only bought a 12 pound one for all of us!"

I just smiled and kept my mouth shut. There were four of us eating, me, my husband, the teenager and the toddler. In reality that makes three and a half adults, considering the toddler doesn't eat anything, and the teenage boy eats like, well, a teenage boy. The two balance each other out, which means we made it through one breast.

This, however, was what I'd wanted. After the meal I deboned the turkey, cutting up some of the other breast for sandwiches, and cubing the rest of the meat. I now have 5 one quart bags in the freezer, ready to be thrown into whatever dish I feel like making.

I went back tonight, the last night they were on sale, and bought another turkey. Unfortunately, they didn't have anything larger than 12 pounds on sale. Since this bird is only destined to be cooked and cubed for the freezer, though, it'll work.

Here's a new recipe I made just the other night using some of the leftover turkey. It turned out very well, and has joined our list of keepers.

Savory Turkey Bake

The original recipe is from the DVO Enterprises program Cook'n Deluxe. I say this only to give credit where credit is due. Personally, I would never recommend the program. I regret buying it and feel I wasted my money. There are, however, some good recipes on there. This one has been altered by me to suit my family's tastes and my cooking style.

The original recipe called for fresh mushrooms, green onions, and home made croutons for the topping. Next time I'll make sure to brown the onions until they're slightly caramelized, and the mushrooms until they're slightly crispy at the edges, to add more flavor. Serving tips - I served it over egg noodles with steamed yellow squash on the side. Next time I think I'll try serving it with rolls instead of noodles. Steamed zucchini would be good, too.

3 tablespoons margarine or butter (I used olive oil)
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt or 1 clove garlic, diced
2 slices bacon, cut in pieces
8 oz. can of mushroom pieces or 3 cups mushrooms sliced (about 1/2 lb.)
1 cup onion, diced
2 cups turkey breast tenderloin cubed cooked (about 3/4 lb.)
1 teaspoon rosemary dried, crushed
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
5 tablespoons flour
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup half and half
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 cup soft bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a shallow 1 1/2 -quart baking dish.

In skillet, saute bacon until crisp. Remove bacon; set aside. Add butter to bacon drippings. Saute mushrooms and onions until tender. Add turkey, rosemary, garlic salt and pepper. Sprinkle with flour. Cook and stir for 1 to 2 minutes or until lightly browned. Stir in chicken broth and half-and-half. Stirring, bring to a boil and boil until thickened. Stir in bacon and lemon juice. Transfer to baking dish. Top with bread crumbs.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until mixture is bubbly around the edges and crumbs are browned. Place under broiler if necessary to brown. Makes 4 servings