Getting Ready For Christmas!

Me loves Christmas!  ...and this year I seem to be especially feeling it!  I don't know....just sorta happier than usual.  I'm not supersticious...I don't think anyway...but when I get like this I sorta keep looking over my shoulder thinking maybe something is going to happen to ruin it...maybe it will, maybe it won't, but I'm going to have fun regardless.  I'm learning a little more each day to plan for the future...but don't forget to LIVE in the moment. 
Here are the bento's I made for the girls recently.  Penguins!  It's hard boiled eggs wrapped in nori and accented with cheddar cheese beak and feet and nori eyes.  The teachers love to look at the girls lunches!  I really hated waking and making traditional lunches everyday.  I actually look forward to making these lunches!

Close up of Artie the penguin.

We decided this Saturday would be sweets making day.  Tera helped by making brownies for the Youth Group Party that night and making the cupcakes for my Sunday School class this Sunday.  I teach the 10, 11 and 12 year olds.  I have between 25 and 30 of them every Sunday.  Challenging fun!

Don't you love Tera's improvised cooling rack?  It's the top part of a broiler pan on top of a food storage container.  Yeah and that's our prize winning, butt kicking ginger bread house in the back.  (minus a few eaten and falling off pieces)  Everyone else did traditional.  We did a beach and surf theme...the "Ho Ho Cabana".  Bring it on Doug and Debbie...   :-)...

Talia helping make treats to give to the girls teachers.  Very yum and easy...just spread peanut butter on town house crackers and dip in melted chocolate.  Talia became a world class dipper yesterday.... We also dipped pretzel rods and twists in chocolate and decorated with sprinkles and white chocolate.

These are Tera's hardworking hands perched on her retro apron.  See those clipped nails?  She forgoes the lovely nail look just like her Mother.  She really loves the lovely nail look, but she loves being able to play the violin unhindered a lot more.  I really try to steer my girls completely away from our societies idea that girls value is in their beauty.  I teach them that beauty is really nice...but very fleeting....I see 50 year old woman running flat out every day trying to catch it and not quite succeeding...beauty really is in who and what you become...and skills, talent and quality character you develop usually far outlast any beauty you might have been given at birth....I love my girls....

Look at that gurl dip!

Now for the icing on the cake...

....and pictures of the finished treats for the teachers!

...and a little holly for some Christmas cheer!

...lovely Tera....

...mmmmhhmmmm....

... an easy nice decoration touch...a red rose in the middle of a mint julep cup surrounded by holly berries and herbs!

My Arm Hurts & Around The House and Gardens & Spicy Pecan Recipe

My arm hurts from standing on a six foot ladder and finally finishing the sky on my living room ceiling.  Next I'm adding a reproduction of the "Creation of Adam" from the Sistine Chapel surrounded by a migration of monarch butterflies...and I'll lie on my couch and enjoy...

sigh not really....I'll probably add a few monarchs flitting about and call it finished finally!  Must say it's worth the deltoid pain...I do like to lie on my sofa and stare up at my "sky" ceiling...

Yesterday as I rushed to Tera's violin lessons I realized...oops!...last lesson before Christmas and no good tidings of joyous gifts to bring...

hmmm...ran back in grabbed a bag and filled it with turnips, mustards, collards, carrots and a head of lettuce....good tidings of joy!  Before I left lessons that night Tera's teacher's wife came in smiling with a tray of cut up seasoned veggies ready for roasting and explanation of what she planned to do with the rest of  the veggies the next day.  I'm still smiling!

I'm also still getting a crop of figs....unbelievable...even with the cold weather the "Alma" variety of fig is still bearing.  Duly impressed....

...I think turnips are lovely....they make me smile....

...with a light frost blanket I've been able to hobble more tomatoes from my large bush.  This vine is still covered with tomatoes in various stages of ripeness.  I pick them as soon as I see a hint of red and let them ripen inside...just in case....

When my Mom-In-Law cleaned out her home we found these cool old ornaments.  I haven't really decorated for Christmas yet.  The girls and I are going to make some natural decorations once they get out of school....but ....I love these old ornaments.  My M.I.L.  thinks she bought them when my husband was small at Audubon Park and Zoo in New Orleans.

Cute little crossed eyed tiger and patient adoring sweet deer....

...mischievous kitty...

...fun loving piggy....with giant overlord bird....

....not disease carrying mouse (unlike the ones currently partying in my attic) with still fresh plastic holly....

...and surprised looking angel with deer herd...

...this is a gift I'm working on....will post when finished.  It's a very easy baby blanket...that is if you can crochet and if you can't....learn!....it's easy too.   Just cut two pieces of groovy flannel the same size (baby blanket size)...put the back sides together and pin....blanket stitch the edges together using crochet thread (size 10)....my tiny steel crochet needle goes through the flannel with little difficulty...do a triple chain stitch around that and then finish with a shell stitch to make it lacy!  I like to use stitches without large openings to keep baby fingers and things from getting caught.  Will post when finished.  But don't you just love these groovy prints....they're from a line called Urban Flannels.

Now here is a spicy pecan recipe for all my garden club friends.  I got it from Martha Stewart's Christmas Cookbook.  Luckily it's simple for Martha.  I didn't have to travel or rob anyone to get the ingredients.

Spicy Pecans

1 tblsp coarse salt

2 tblsp cayenne pepper

1 1/2 tsp paprika

1/2 cup sugar

2 large egg whites

5 cups pecan halves

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Combine salt, cayenne, paprika and sugar.

whisk egg whites until foamy.

whisk in spice mixture.

stir in pecans and coat well

spread on baking sheets

bake 15 minutes

reduce heat to 250 degrees F.

Rotate sheets in oven and cook until nuts are browned and fragrant about 10 minutes more.

Transfer to another sheet of parchment and let cool

Yum and addictive!

Around The House And Gardens & What's up

This month has been a full speed ahead hectic, emotional, traumatic, crazy month...My Father-In-Law has Alzheimer's and has taken a downward turn.  My Mother-In-Law can no longer take care of him in their home.  So we had to make the very hard decision to place him in a nursing home. 

Eeeeks...I never knew how traumatic that would be.  Especially for my Mom-In-Law and for myself as well to a lesser degree.  It felt as if we were abandoning him, although we knew that it was the best decision for Him and Her.  Many tears later we are getting used to it.  It still doesn't seem right that he isn't sitting in his recliner when we go to visit.

Then many, many other things have happened at the same time.  Trying to me, but trying for you to read, so I'll spare you.  Hopefully I'm on the other side of hard and it'll get easier.

The girls went back to school today...so...I made them this cute froggie couple with cauliflower clouds, Cheddar flowers, and tomato cherries....

Talia's is a little different with cheese and ham roll ups on a bed of lettuce since she "doesn't like" cauliflower.  I still put a little piece in case she wanted to try it.  The bottom tier was filled with satsumas and pecans.  The cauliflower and satsumas were grown by neighbors.  The pecans, tomatoes, and lettuce I grew myself.  The ham was from a local company.  So the only things I don't know were it came from is the rice and cheddar. 

Supposedly it's best to eat local first, then organic, then otherwise if you choose.

The pecan crop isn't so hot this year.  Usually it's every other year and last year was bumper.  My Mom's trees are doing pretty well though.  So I'm scrounging every single pecan I can to make Praline or Sugared pecans.

Delicious yummy praline coated pecans cooling and waiting....

to be weighed and placed in....

six ounce bags....

to sell at my neighbor's Farmers Market.  I make 30 bags at a time and it seems I'm barely home and she's sold out.  That's how yummy they are.  If you use a candy thermometer they come out perfect every time.  I actually let the coating mixture get a couple of degrees above soft boil to make sure they get hard.  The recipe is HERE.  I posted it a few years ago.

Today's harvest:  carrots, Thai winged beans, habanero peppers, tomatoes, green beans, tennis ball lettuce (seed I got from Thomas Jefferson Heritage Festival at Monticello), and eggplant.

Love this tennis ball lettuce ....  soo sweet....My friend told me that someone told her it was too late to plant in this area...ha!  Here's proof.  This is the best time ever to plant around here!

Everything washed up and ready for the fridge...all except the tomatoes.  They go on the counter top to finish ripening.  Love these food grade storage containers for veggies in the fridge.  The veggies last perfectly in them.  But they are too yummy to last long.

Foggy November

Around The House And Gardens

The citrus is ripening and we've already picked all the fruit from the early ripening satsuma tree.  Seleste single handedly ate most of them!  She would run out to the tree before or after school, pick a satsuma and drop peelings all the way back to the house.  I began to call her Gretel.  She could just follow her trail back to the tree and home again!  The satsumas are first and now the Paige Mandarins and Meyers Lemons.  The navel oranges are huge!  They should be ripe in December.  I also have Louisiana sweets, pink grapefruit, and blood oranges.  The blood orange trees are new this year so no fruit. 

Everyone should be a little Johnny Appleseed and plant a fruit bearing tree where ever they live no matter how long they plan to stay.  Think of all the joy you'll give yourself and someone else.  Plant a fruit tree this year!

The carrots are doing well.  They seem to have been tiny then all of sudden large!  Maybe I've just been distracted and not in the garden as much.  I usually go out to the garden 4 or 5 times a day.  Not possible lately.

The tennis ball lettuce seed I bought at the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Festival is getting large too!  See the onions poking up?  The onion seed I planted didn't do very well.  Only one variety had a good germination rate.  The fact that one variety did come up so well makes me wonder about the quality of the other seed.  Hmmmmm

I planted some early maturing pie pumpkins late in the season.  They are large and starting to mature.  I pushed the envelope this year and planted a lot of varieties I might not have this late in the season.  Unless we have a very early frost I think they'll do well.  If one is predicted I plan to construct a poly tunnel over them in hopes to preserve them. 

I believe with a little effort in our zone we could grow tender vegetables almost all year long.  The hardest months would be December, January and maybe February.  I plant my corn at the end of February.  If I wait any later it doesn't do as well.  Whew, it takes years of experience to work out the micro climate nuances of your land and the weather loves to throw a lot of unpredictability in there to keep you scrambling.  Lots of fun!

Cauliflower and more lettuce!

And here is something I've been working on for a while!  Thai winged beans!  I planted this variety in the spring and it did nothing.  The plants grew and grew over our hot summer without a blossom to be seen.  I allowed it to take up my precious bed.  Now in the beginning of November....Winged Beans!  I wonder if this is something to do with the Asian varieties.  If you look back the same thing happened with my Chinese Asparagus long beans.  They must need an extremely long growing season or perfect 70's and 80's weather with cooler nights!?  If this bean doesn't taste wonderfully awsome...I'm not sure if I'm willing to give up a precious bed for that long again.  Maybe it'll be banished to the fence line.

Here's the beginning of one of it's beautiful blue green blossoms!

The green bean patch is giving me basketfuls of sweet yummy green beans.  Yesterday I put this batch in the crock pot (you can use your sun oven too...I didn't because I had too big a batch for my sun oven pot....I need a larger one).  I cooked down an onion and some sausage in a little sunflower oil and threw that in the crock pot with a little salt and pepper and crocked it all day....yummmmm......Oh I Love My Garden!

Yummiest Blue Berry Pie Recipe Ever and Recent Wedding

My sister NeeKee gave me this recipe for blueberry pie and it's the bestest ever!!!  Everyone adores this pie...some people even steal it from funerals (snicker...Miss Riya!)....

Blue Berry Pie

1 pie crust

1 1/2 cups frozen Blue Berries

1 stick melted butter

1 egg

1 cup sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1/3 cup all purpose flour

Put blue berries in crust.  Mix all other ingredients, pour on top and bake 1 hour at 350 degrees!

Wow that's easy!  But more yummy than easy!

Pictures from the recent wedding I did at the New Orleans Botanical Gardens....such a lovely night....the wedding was perfect!

Pork Dumplings

I'm not a bit Asian...but My Family (including me!) loves Asian food.  I'm determined to learn the basics of their cooking....There's so much to learn, and each Asian culture has their own unique way of seasoning and preparing their food.  I love the simplicity and attention to aesthetics that the Japanese pay to their food....Really....I'm not even sure if the food I try in restaurants is really authentic....but I love the fact that there are lots and lots of veggies used in most dishes.  I love Thai food and the unique seasonings they use.....I know .....I'm rambling....but you get the idea.   I wanna learn to cook Asian food!  I am learning too!  Sometimes I even make up my own recipes....like ginger garlic shrimp on bamboo skewers....served over rice...yummmmmm

This recipe calls for Chinese cabbage, which I did not have at the moment....so I just skipped it.  My family devoured them!
Basically it's as easy as mixing up the seasonings and the ground pork.  I bought a large pork roast on sale and ground it myself using the grinder attachment on my Kitchen Aid mixer  (Did I ever tell you I adore my Kitchen Aid mixer?  It's without a doubt the most used small appliance in my kitchen not including the microwave.).  After making 54 dumplings I still had 1/2 the Asian pork mixture left, and a 1 pound and 1 1/2 pound ziplock bag for the freezer.

Put a heaping teaspoon of the mixture in the wonton wrapper, moisten the edges and fold over...

steam for 20 minutes and yer dun!!!  I used a bamboo steamer I bought from our local Asian market.  Hong Kong Market.

Here's the recipe:

Pork Dumplings

100 wonton wrappers
2 lbs ground pork
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger (I used more)
4 cloves minced garlic
2 tblsp thin sliced green onions
4 tblsp of soy sauce
3 tblsp of sesame oil
1 egg beaten
5 cups of finely shredded Chinese cabbage  ( I skipped because I didn't have)

Mix it all up then make those yummy dumplings!   Serve with fried rice, broccoli, egg plant...whatever!