Early December; baking, visiting, craft projects.

 We're still finding plenty to do around here, between cleaning & organizing, crafts and sewing, computer maintenance and various cooking endeavors we stay busy. Busy is happy!

We seemed to have moved into our winter weather pattern, a bit gloomy at times but nice temps around 70°. Windows and doors opened for a big swath of the day.

The other day the Boss got busy on the windows and screens of the florida room, which run the whole width of the house. Thank you Honey!

He does a *much* better job than me - very thorough.

Meanwhile I did something for him (and me), I baked a fruitcake. Some people might groan but we love fruitcake, loaded with pecans, raisins and candied peel.  We split a slice with our hot tea after dinner & it can't be beat. 

I have more baking plans but this had to be done early so I could season it properly with bourbon before it's debut in a couple or 3 weeks.

An easy recipe which turns out beautifully
each time. You can find it on the 
svdreamtime.com recipe page if 
you are interested in checking it out.

I also managed to (finally) have a lunch meet-up with Nancy, a friend from cruising. We went to a deli/butcher shop, which turned out to be very popular with the lunch crowd, deservedly so. Saw this amusing "old-timey" sign when in line to order. We found a nice table out in their outside dining area and chatted away.

We joked about them needing another sign about using "inside voices" as some rowdy car salesmen were "conversing" (shouting) with each other, a little decorum guys.

I found a good price on ham shanks and bought one a couple of weeks back. Doubled down on collard greens too and had quite a feast on that, with lots of yummy leftovers.

Sliced ham ready to be bagged up and put in the freezer.

Collards and cornbread can't be beat. I sauté onions, chopped ham or ham hock in olive oil, add fresh minced garlic, chipotle sauce and chicken stock (1 C), then add the washed and chopped collards to the pot and let it simmer for a few hours. So good, and good for you too.

Mincing garlic has always bugged me. I've never found a garlic press that worked for me - until now, that is.. I love it.

I keep the peeled garlic cloves in the freezer, then 
do the rock-a-bye thing on them to get the above result.
So easy and quite an easy clean up too.

Got a few decorations out and set up our 2 small trees plus made up a couple of floral decorations too. It was fun. Here's a small countertop lighted vase that I put onto the kitchen counter. So pretty lit up at night.

Next blog I'll do a bit more show and tell on the outside decorations and on my newest sewing obsession.  Meanwhile, here's a shot of some of the fabric I will be using.

Wonder what I've got in mind?? We'll see.

On the computer repair front, the Boss was having some power issues with his 'vintage' HP. Since the battery was shot and was generating a CMOS error during boot, we ordered a replacement, then proceeded with making sure we had a good recovery usb and backup.  The next step was popping the skins and making the swap. I was nervous as I hadn't done any hardware maintenance on a laptop in a long time. I got started and got-er-done.

Pretty daunting, but knowing we had a new Dell on order helped
alleviate the jitters. I was so nervous I had to close the door to my work
room. I work well under pressure, just not so much with an audience.

That's it for this addition, thanks for stopping by, and we'll see you next time.
 

Things are chugging along and a new toy

 Well here we are well into 2022 and things are just chugging along as per usual - thank goodness. We're all healthy, we've got good food to eat and the weather is just about perfect. So far we haven't done much in the way of dismantling Christmas. We're still enjoying the cheerful twinkle lights of our trees, but yesterday our outside lights came down until next year.

On New Year's Day we had a traditional dinner of baked ham, black-eyed peas, collards, rice and cornbread and boy, was it great. A large meal like this is best served mid-day (2pm-ish) we think and gives us plenty of time to digest while putting away leftovers, cleaning up the kitchen and dishes. I tried to do a bit of decorating to make the table more New Year's and less Christmas. 

New Year's Meal and spruced-up table.

7.5# shank potion ham waiting to be turned into leftovers -YAY.

The ham came out great and it's such a treat to cook one and have several packages of ham in the freezer for good meals in the future.

Ok, what is this new toy you were talking about?  A Colorado brand 9' Pontoon boat for rowing around on our lake. Wow! It went together quite easily and we'll all look forward to getting a little fresh air and exercise on our 9 acre lake. It's amazing how different it looks from water level as opposed to our deck level.

He's trying it out first.
Heading toward the islands at the south end .

At rest at the dock. Should be fun!

Still baking cookies, the lemon/ginger/almond ones were very popular around here, so I made another batch of them. So good with a cup of hot tea after dinner. You use a lemon cake mix as the base and go from there. Tasty to say the least.

It doesn't make a lot, but they did fill up 2 cookie tins. 😁

Another funny thing from my kitchen - I've always loved the longevity of Roma tomatoes, it almost seems like they can hang-out on the counter just pleasantly ripening up, but then you glance at it and see this - LOL!

Yikes! - Alien alert!

A great ham shank and some demolition going on

I had been doing some daydreaming lately about re-doing our New Year's Day dinner of ham, black-eyed peas, rice and cornbread and finally yesterday I made it so.  A 7.5# shank portion Smithfield ham went into the oven at 1:30 and by 6:00pm I was carving up all that luscious, succulent goodness and cackling about leftovers, ham stock and  ham-infused grits. Wowza, so much fun! (Yeah, I know - I'm easily amused, lol).

The fat cap is still on at this point. Took it off, scored the ham and back into the oven for another half hour - oh, I added some more water at this point too.

The next morning some ham, diced baked potato (with creole seasoning), fried egg and toast with homemade peach jam got our motors started.

Later, I will get my Instant Pot out and pressure cook the bone, and the scraps, along with water, some herbs and seasonings to make a delicious stock for soups, stews, and preparing grits, or barley for additional breakfast sides.  I'll use what stock I need for cooking, then I add some powdered bouillon to it to get a very concentrated stock. This, I usually freeze in an ice cube tray, then decant the cubes into a freezer baggie for later use, like stretching a stew or making gravy.

The Demolition

When we moved to our quiet neighborhood some years ago there was an old, unused concrete racquet ball court facing our roadway.  We loved the house and backyard views so much we just figured we'd live with the eyesore out front.  Well, guess what? The new owners just had it demolished and it gave us a much better view! In a matter of a few hours it was knocked down, cleaned up (all materials to be recycled), and the ground prepped for sod or whatever (I'm kind of hoping for tomatoes - haha).

The racquet ball court before, not too pretty

The after, although the new owners has landscaping plans too.
So much better!