Deanna, of course it is. There are optional nuts in this recipe, but Grandma never used them. We nearly always had this hot from the oven, with vanilla ice cream. It's one of the few desserts I really liked even though it didn't have any fruit in it. Plus, it gets mixed up right in the pan, so no extra bowl to wash! HOT FUDGE PUDDING CAKE 1 cup flour 3/4 cup sugar 2 tbls cocoa 2 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp salt 1/2 cup milk 2 tbls vegetable oil 1 tsp vanilla 1 cup packed brown sugar 1 cup nuts (optional) 1/4 cup cocoa 1 3/4 cup hottest tap water Heat oven to 350. Mix flour, sugar, 2 tbls cocoa, baking powder and salt in an ungreased square pan, 9x9x2 inches. Mix in milk, oil and vanilla with fork until smooth. Stir in nuts, if used. Spread in pan, sprinkle with brown sugar and 1/4 cup cocoa. Pour hot water carefully over batter. Bake 40 minutes. While still warm, spoon into dessert dishes and top with ice cream. Spoon sauce from pan onto each serving 9 servings I haven't made this in a long time, I'm going to have to put this on the dessert menu soon. Annie

Diane - A word of warning on the pecans...they will not keep long if they are cracked unless you freeze them. Of course that may not be a problem, if you are eating them that fast. LOL The reason that I know this is that my niece gave me a bag of cracked ones one time and I left them in the bag for a little too long. One day I opened the door to the room where they were and I had about a thousand littles moths flying around. They had hatched out and been well fed in the bag of pecans. Diane - You have come to the right place for the piecrust. I cannot even stand the thought of using lard and I think it would be way to much trouble if I had to do the frozen chipped butter thing, or the ice water thing that some people do. Warning: You are going to think this ingredient list looks funny, but give it a try. Make sure you have waxed paper. 2 cups flour (scant) 1 teaspon salt 1/2 cup cooking oil 1/4 cup buttermilk You can stir this with a spoon and it should be a soft dough. It will be much softer to roll out than most pie crusts. The trick is in handling the crust, so read this part carefully. Take out a little more than half for the bottom crust and place it between two sheets of waxed paper. Roll out with a rolling pen. After you have rolled it to the proper thickness, remove the top sheet of paper by carefully pulling it from one side. Lay it back down on the dough again. That was just to release it from the paper and make it release better later on. With both sheets back in place, flip the entire thing over so the bottom piece of paper is now the top piece. Remove the paper that is now on top and set it aside. Now here is the tricky part. Pick up the dough, still on the paper, by using both hands placed about 2/3 back on the crust and your pie pan in front of you. Let 2/3 hang toward you and let the 1/3 drop back over your hands. Starting with the 2/3 part, place it in your pan with the paper still attached. As you lay it down, the paper is now on top. Now slowly peel off the paper. This sounds like it slow process, but it really isn't after you get the hang of handling the dough. If you have a problem, just patch it. Since you didn't add more flour in the rolling out process, you can throw the scraps back into the bowl and use them as part of the next crust. I have quadrupled this recipe several times without any difficulty but I would suggest you make it as a single pie the first time so you know how the dough should feel. I predict you will never go back, once you have tried this one. Very little mess to clean up since the rolling pin never touched the crust, and there is no flour mess to contend with.

Most years someone comes by and asks us if they can pick up the black walnuts out of our yard and we let them. In years that they don't, I pick them up and put them in a big flower pot under the shed and the squirrels get them out for food when they want them. However, I don't want the squirrels on my bird feeder because they can empty it in one day. At first I had some plastic tube feeders and they would eat big holes in them or chew the perches off so the birds couldn't sit and eat. I finally found a big heavy duty feeder which makes them 'eat like a bird' out of the tray. It hangs on a heavy metal shepherd's hook and I have to move it far enough from a tree that they can't jump on it. I had one squirrel that would climb this little metal pole on the shepherd's hook. One day I mixed hot, hot pepper in some Crisco and coated this post and waited. Here came the squirrel and tried to jump up to the first branch of the hook. He started sliding down the pole. He would try again and slide again. Finally he realized that he had something slick on his feet and it must have been burning a little because he would stand upright and shake both front paws in the air like he was trying to shake it off. Then he decided to wash his paws, and starting to shake his head to get the heat out of his mouth. I laughed till I cried. I'm not sure if it kept that one for coming back but it was sure entertaining. There were so many more to take the place of it that scaring one off didn't make much difference. In the last few years we haven't had as many so someone is probably giving them more that spicy feet. There are so many walnut trees in our neighborhood that they have plenty of food and my neighbor keeps corn out for them. Also, they aren't as bad about getting into attics here because there are so many huge trees. In southern Oklahoma they drove us crazy by getting into the attic. My biggest problem with them is digging up all the walnut trees they plant.

PRUNE PUREE Fat Replacement for Baking Combine 1-1/3 c. (8 oz.) pitted prunes and 6 T. of hot water in food processor or blender. Pluse on and off until prunes are finely chopped and smooth. Store leftovers in a covered container and refrigerate for up to 2 months.