Aunt Pat's Salted Caramel Sauce

In the wintertime, we long for warm summer days when we sit out on the porch in the

sunshine with a bowl of creamy vanilla ice-cream smothered in chocolate and caramel sauce. But you can make your own warm caramel sauce. It is wonderful on baked apples and bread pudding and... ice-cream! Here is how you do it:

Gather all your ingredients together, as this process happens fast and requires you to stir constantly:

1/3 Cup butter

1 Cup brown sugar

1/2 cup maple syrup

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup heavy cream

In a large, deep pan, melt the butter, syrup and sugar. Cooking at medium heat, bring this to a boil, add the salt.

Keep stirring until it begins to thicken (about 5 minutes). The sauce will begin to pull away from the pan a bit as you stir and you will know that this is thick enough.

Remove from the heat.

It won't take but a few seconds, after you remove the sauce from the heat, for it to stop boiling. Slowly add the cream with one hand and stir with the other. You do not want to add the cream to the boiling sugar, as it will curdle!

If you want caramel sauce for ice cream, set this aside to cool and put into a glass jar--very yummy! Refrigerate what you do not use immediately, once it has cooled. It will get thick in the refrigerator, but all you have to do is stick it into the microwave for 15 seconds, and it will be soft again.

Rhubarb Cobbler

Growing up, when we would visit my beloved grandma in Lodi, CA, one of our favorite desserts that she would make us was her wonderful Rhubarb Cobbler. When I was grown, she shared her recipe with me. I had no idea it was such an easy

thing to make! Let me share it with you:

Grease a 9"x13" cake pan. Into the bottom of the pan, pour about 4 cups of sliced rhubarb. Then pour a regular-sized bag of mini marshmallows over that. THEN, sprinkle the entire large box of raspberry or strawberry jello (dry) over

the marshmallows. Next, turn the oven on to 350 degrees. While it is heating up, make a HALF recipe of lemon cake mix (Most mixes call for 3 eggs. It really does not make a lot of difference if you use one or two.) Drizzle the cake batter all over the jello-covered marshmallows and bake this at 350 for 45-55 minutes, checking with a toothpick, to make sure the middle of the cake is done. Pull out of the oven and cool. Serve with whipped cream.

If it lasts that long, this cake is better the next day, and even the day after that!

***Rhubarb is only available in the springtime, in most places. But guess what! It freezes so very nicely! I get my hands on as much of it as I can, wash it and slice it, and freeze it in quart-size freezer bags for future use. In January or February, this cobbler reminds us that in the not-to-distant future, the snow will indeed melt, and things will again begin to sprout in the warm sunshine.

Dental Work...Again

From 1993 to 2021, I worked the front office for 3 different dental offices. But I began seeing dentists when I was only 8 years old, when we were in a terrible car accident, resulting in my brand new upper front teeth being knocked back. I spent the following years wearing a retainer and rubber bands in an attempt to keep them straight. By the time I began working in dental offices, I had two root canals, three crowns and fillings in most of my teeth.

Inadvertently, working for dentists was the smartest move I ever made...I inherited terrible teeth! And, before you say it, no...aside from not having fluoride in our water sources while growing up, I did everything a child should do to keep their teeth healthy: we drank lots of milk, were forbidden sweets except during holidays, ate lots of fruit and vegetables, and brushed our teeth twice a day. I just have had bad teeth...

This past year, I decided to bite the bullet and just have the last six teeth in my mouth that did not yet have crowns...well...crowned. It took 10 different appointments, mostly because of the disparity of color shades. Who knew there are so many "Whites" possible?

When my brother, Jon, retired earlier this year, my only advice to him was, "make sure you plan financially for dental services...they are not cheap!" If you are young, and have bad teeth, start saving now...FLOSS, and SEE YOUR DENTIST REGULARLY!