T Stands for The Cold Blast & Good Eats

  Good morning especially to the T Group (and to all of my readers),

      We have had ice with a dusting of snow on top and frigid temps. Well they feel pretty frigid since we were enjoying a week of temps getting up into the mid 60's F  New Years Day we woke up to the ice and 8 degrees f  It never warmed up much until a little bit today (Monday) where right now around 11:30 am we have warmed up to 28 degrees f  Felt like a heat wave when I walked up the steps and the steep hill to drop mail to go out in my mailbox.  Only one patch of ice still and that is right at the top of the steps where it doesn't get sunshine.

   I have made us some good eats over the last week.

 My pizzas turned out delicious, and using Bob's Red Mill gluten free pizza mix for my crust I enjoyed a good pizza this time. Pizza always freezes well too so we can have some later.

  I have several sizes of pizza stones, this time I wanted to roll the dough out thinner so I grabbed these two trays of rectangle clay stones made in Italy. I spray with olive oil and then scatter coarse cornmeal all over the bottom

   This one is the wheat pizza

My gluten free pizza 

     I  like my cheese more browned up a bit. toppings for both were sausage, green olives, and a can of organic portobello mushrooms and lots of mozzarello cheese on top

a close up of the wheat pizza

New Year's day I made up a shrimp boil for the two of us with a fresh green salad

   I churned up a keto ice cream with mint extract and swirled in Hershey's sugar free syrup Turned out delicious   I had just enough cream and half and half to make another batch so I made that this morning and added banana and strawberry extracts. I will churn that one up this afternoon  Treats in the freezer is always nice

For my bubbly New Year's Eve I chilled a bottle of dry white wine that I had purchased at one of the local wineries in Stover Missouri-when I visited with our Wisconsin friends. I like dry whites but I don't drink them often so this one was a treat. I chilled it just a bit which really brought out the flavors. This wine is aged in oak barrels I enjoyed a glass around midnight along with really enjoying the fireworks going off across the lake from us-how special is that?

This morning early when we were around 8 or 10 degrees f the eagles were here. At first it was one of the adults and their adolescent, by the time I grabbed my camera they were gone.  A bit later I looked out the front glass door and one was sitting on a top branch and I got to see the other one fly in-that was cool.  Grabbing my camera it was soooo cold just standing with the front door open that I took photos through the foggy glass window.  this was zoomed in 30 times with my old digital camera.  The were very talkative this morning. I love listening to them.

   For another drink share I wanted to share a new to me decaf tea. It is from the tea company that puts together American historic teas. This one was Martha Washington's favorite.  This tea has a rich deep flavor- I loved it.

To close I wanted to share this photo again for those of you that only visit for T. We were surprised with a 5th bloom on the amaryllis-amazing. This bloom was a bit smaller but still so pretty-Paintings behind to left gift from Barbara to the right gift from Debra, and the metal eagle cutout is a gift from our Wisconsin friends

Closing with this morning's sunrise

 

Happy T 

    I am off to finish up the pot of chili and to make up a cast iron skillet of cornbread for our main meal at 2 pm today.  What comfort foods do you like to make up for the winter months??   Also those of you that follow my Cast Iron Saturdays are you still interested in those posts for this year? thanks