Wednesday, January 14, 2015

First cold of the 2015

And it sure knocked me out. Three and half days of blowing my nose, hacking to my throat was raw and achy-iness that made me think I had a flu without a fever. But I guess I just have a really bad head cold. I used up a whole box of tissues, I'm on my second. I just wish it would go away.

The house and the kitchen is a mess because I have no energy to do anything but lay in bed, watch TV and knit or crochet. I wanted to start this pattern with some worsted weight wool I have. I thought i would make a great throw. But I was not in the right frame of mind, to tired from this stupid cold.


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old vintage pattern that someone passed on to me
Not much of a post, just moaning about my misery. WG has to keep his germs away from next time. This is horrible.

Saturday, January 10, 2015

The First Bloom

love the pink edges 
My mom, the plant whisperer, sprinkled geranium seeds that she got from my sister's house in my pots on the front steps close to a year and half ago. This is the first bloom. Almost looks like cherry blossoms.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Walks

I decided to try take a picture [or pictures] from a my weekly walks. 

I sort of promised myself I'd try and walk or do some exercise at least 3 times a week for at least an 1/2 hour. Doesn't sound like much but at least it is a start and hopefully it will just start fitting into my crazy life.


From 010415: first neighborhood walk of the year
010415 walk
The charging station in my neighborhood
010415 walk
river running quickly because all the rain
010415 walk
Someone left this on the bridge?
010415 walk
Trees 
010415 walk
Leaves
From 010515: walk @ work; cold and blustery; forgot my calendar [haha, what was it thinking] phone, no pics.

From 010615: walk @ work; light snow and cold

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a light snow as we walk
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walking partner at work

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tracks in the snow

Friday, January 2, 2015

To start my new year off

I baked two recipes that I had in my new recipe baking queue. Baking for the restaurant always put new recipes on at the end of the queue.

First up, smittenkitchen's Cranberry pie with thick pecan cumble. This has been in the back of my mind since I read the post. I love anything with crumble and this combination with of the tart cranberry filling and a sweet crumble sounded great. 

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Right out of the oven
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first slice, dust with powdered sugar and dollop of whipped cream
The cranberry filling isn't really that tart. It really goes will with the crumble and whipped cream. smittenkitchen's pie crust is so delicious, so buttery and flakey.  I'm sharing this one with the restaurant and hope the customers like it.

Next up, RasaMalaysia's Pineapple Tarts. Found these on pinterest and was hoping I had a free moment in my baking schedule to make these up. I think what got me was the pineapple jam. 

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pineapple jam  and egg wash
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tarts filled, scored and washed
golden brown
first bite, YUM!
With this recipe, it is all about prep. I made the jam first, takes a while to get out the water from the pineapple. Not like your normal jam that sticky and syrupy [I guess I could make it more like that with more sugar]. It's more chunky and not too sweet. 

Then I got the egg wash ready, I made this up now before I forgot. I add some condensed milk as the note at the end of the recipe suggested. Adding condensed milk to any this is good.


The dough at first looked like it was going to be trouble. But the more you kneaded it stop sticking and it wan't too hard after that. 


These tart are so good. The jam are perfectly sweet and the dough is light and slightly sweet. I think I may try this dough with an pan. 


For my last item of the first day of the year, Ozoni. It's a soup, clear broth, I usually make a chicken soup with mizuna [japanese mustard greens] with mochi. But I didn't plan this out well and didn't have most of the ingredients plus started to get lazy. So I decided to go to the restaurant to for the soup and add the mochi to it. Here's a recipe from PBS Food/Marc Matsumoto for Ozoni if you want to make up some. Ozoni is usually eaten on New Year's Day for good luck for the coming year. But it is a great filling soup for anytime of year. Have great 2015! 
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Clear broth with mixed veggies and garlic oil from the restaurant with mochi