Soup and Cookies

Last weekend I decided to do some outside clean up in preparation for the snow that I know will be coming.

On Friday afternoon, with a little help from my tenant, I got the log splitter off the tractor and then got the yard rake on. I did not take a photo but I got one side of the driveway repairs,,no more ruts.

Then I cleaned off the back deck. I moved and stowed all the furniture and covered the chiminea and tied the cover on the grill.

Sunday was a chilly, raw, miserable day in the mountains so early in the morning I built a fire to keep the house warm. A good fire can get the living room up to 70 degrees, and that keeps the heat from kicking on.

I had found a recipe for a German Barley Soup and decided to make a pot of it for lunch for the week. I need brats, barley and chicken broth.

Also required celery, carrot and a leek. I am proud to say the leek came from my garden.

It is interesting how some trees are almost bare and yet others have all their leaves.

While the soup was simmering I started peeling kisses for cookies for my co-workers.

As the day went on the temperature dropped. Here it is at 39.7. That was the high for the day.

I took this photo so you all can see the deplorable conditions I work in :-)

In no time at all the cookies were done and cooling.

The clouds rolled in and by later afternoon this was my view,,,nothing.

Just Because,

Just because the outside work is done does not mean our heroine has nothing to do indoors.

Saturday morning she opened the closet on the front porch to stow a bag of trash until Monday. When she opened the door she saw that some mice were thinking about moving in for the winter. After she pulled out the three pairs of wellies this is what remained.

The little buggers had even gnawed a hole in one of Richard's wellies and not one of the cheap ones. It brought to mind a question as to why do we have 3 pairs of wellies? Our heroine got even however and got one mouse in a trap by Sunday morning and another one this morning. She hopes that is the end of them but will keep a trap baited and ready just in case.

After cleaning up from the mice our heroine went out and picked the last of snow peas and some of the green beans. She then blanched and froze them.

That done she headed up to her sewing room. She is still not sure what got to her but she tore the room apart to clean it out and re-organize it.

She eventually ran out of time on Saturday and after her Sunday morning coffee this was the view as she walked in to the room. It was not a pretty site. But filled with her morning coffee and a good breakfast our heroine went right to work.

A few hours later she was very pleased with her work. Richard's mother's sewing machine is in a space to itself and ready to be used.

The monster machine is also ready at a moments notice. Our heroine found the old Jolly Roger that they used to fly on their boat and realized that it made a pretty neat curtain.

She took metal shelving she had and put it in the closet, after she moved all the wood and other stuff that had been stowed there.

Our heroine was so please with herself that she headed downstairs for a treat only to find out that she had eaten all the pumpkins that were in the bag of Fall Mix, bummer.

She promised a friend a picture of the trees. There is not much color at our heroine's home yet.

It was now getting late in the day and our heroine had promised her co-workers an apple pie on Monday morning so she got right to work.

While the pie was in the oven she scrubbed, oiled and salted two potatoes for twice baked potatoes

As the pie and potatoes baked she ran down to put the seat cover on Tonto only to realize that she has not measured for the entire metal seat part. Damn!! At least it is better that it was. Our heroine also realized that using Sunbrella for a drawstring seat cover was not very smart as Sunbrella is very stiff and does not like to be used for things like drawstring seat covers.

While cleaning out her sewing room our heroine found a yard of this Hawaiian material. While the pie and potatoes baked she cut it out to make 4 dinner napkins and two cocktail napkins. She still has to sew the hems on them.

At last the pie was done.

Finally, our heroine finished the potatoes and with a sigh she sat on the sofa with a glass of wine to watch her favorite show WHEW!

If she can do this much in two days our heroine wonders what she could accomplish during a four day weekend,,,,hmmmm.

Pink Glove Dance

About a year ago I had learned of the Pink Glove Dance video and then the sequels. This year our local hospital group decided that we should do one. I was so excited to be a part of this.

The day of filming the survivor and supporter portion my friend Emily showed up in full face paint,,so cool!.

Emily did such a great job on her face that she got to help most everyone with their face paint.

The fireman waited patiently while we ladies got our warpaint on. One of them would eventually go up in the cherry picker to film us from above.

Here was our youngest dancer. I loved her pink sunglasses with the rhinestones.

Susan was in the back of all of us dancers. She and Emily stood in front of me.

Getting ready for our dance,

At the beginning,,,,

Near the middle,,,,

Near the end,,,,

And when all was said and done a group photo.

Last Supper, First Supper and Brunch

This is sort of three posts in one.

My summertime neighbor and good friend Nan was getting ready to leave for the winter so she invited my kids and I over. It is truly a good friend who will let you bring all 3 of your dogs over.

Nan had me pose with her Pug Bucky and Morgan. NO, I am not fat I am wearing a pair of Richard's sweat pants because I don't have any and it was chilly out.

Then she thought we should get all the dogs involved. I have no idea what Kele is looking at nor why Lili looks like she is in trouble.

For our last supper together for this year Nan made a doctored up frozen pizza and a wonderful salad.

A few days later she was gone but her winter tenant moved in. I invited Joshua over for dinner. I made Emeril's Chicken Pot Pie. This time I used my crust recipe so it didn't fall apart. The recipe for the pie can be found somewhere in one of my older posts.

Josh enjoyed a glass of wine while I finished getting dinner together.

Time to eat. I also made some cheddar garlic drop biscuits from a mix I can only find at my local Merita Bread Outlet Store.

The very next day I had my ex-husband Bill and his girlfriend Rhonda over for Brunch. I made a praline topped French Toast casserole, Rhonda brought the champagne for mimosa and Bill brought his Bloody Marys.

After brunch we got talking about moonshine. Here is the only picture from that day, Bill is getting ready to try a sip of 'shine. And no he did not go blind.

Bored

It is Sunday in the mountains. The weather is overcast and there is rain in the forecast. The football games that our heroine can get on her cable TV suck. To help calm her boredom she runs on her treadmill, finds an Indian Jones movie on TV and heads into the kitchen.


She starts out by making a pumpkin roll for the office. She makes the cake and sets it to cool while she gets the filling ready.

In no time at all she has the pumpkin roll ready to go into the refrigerator.

Next she decides that she really wants some peanut butter cookies. The only recipe she has that does not require chilling for 2 hours is the one for peanut butter blossoms. So she gets out her bag of Hershey Kisses and peels 2 dozen of them.

While the oven is preheating for the cookies she makes the dough and rolls it into balls.

When the cookies were done she put the kisses onto each one and put them on a rack to cool.

As our heroine finished the cookies she realized it was time to start dinner for her and her tenant. She had previously thawed out, peeled, cooked and chopped up a pound of shrimp.

She then got out some garlic and one of her favorite kitchen toys. You place a clove of garlic in the yellow rubber thing, press down and roll it a few times and your garlic is peeled. Then you grate it in the bowl and it purees the garlic super fast.

The pureed garlic is ready to go in the pot. Our heroine made garlic shrimp and grits for dinner.

Once the garlic is pureed and the shrimp is cooked the meal comes together in about 20 minutes. It is sooooooo good.

Of course all the playing has it price and in this case it was a good amount of dirty dishes.

Our heroine donned her rubber gloves and got right to cleaning up the mess. She is good at this.

Still bored but at least with a full stomach and a clean kitchen she looked at all the tomatoes on her counter.

She got out her new canning book that her wonderful daughter got her for Mother's Day. Our heroine read that if she peeled the tomatoes and cored them she could make some crushed tomatoes and then freeze them for future use.

She put all the peeled tomatoes in a pot, crushed them and them simmered them for a few minutes.

Once they had simmered she measured out how much she had. Added the required amount of lemon juice, put them in a tupperware and froze them.

All that done she cleaned up the tomato dishes, got a glass of wine and sat down to watch her favorite show.