T Stands for Tuesday A This and That Catch Up (long)

   Tuesday is T Day over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's. Find link in my sidebar. We gather to share with each other along with a photo of a drink reference.

  It was busy days for me last week. I drove in three mornings to the woods house to continue packing up Larry's scope repair shop. A friend that lives near there meets me to help-we do pay her for her time. Got allot accomplished. The second day I decided since bitter temperatures were coming in I better check on the thermostat in the house. Good thing I did as the wall thermostat went out. So the next morning early I picked up a new one along with batteries and met another friend that changed it up for me. He would not take any money but he did say "I will be visiting you December to pick up my Christmas goody package though"  That had me smiling. 

  I like to bake and cook etc and since I don't really have anyone to gift with goodies anymore I started making cookies and candy etc to gift this friend and a few of his friends for Christmas. They always enjoy the peanut brittle especially.

  When I got home I needed to clean house as our Wisconsin friends were coming down on Friday to visit us and check out wineries.  Marie always bakes Larry a "real" cheesecake (he gets a keto one from me haha)  As always we had a good visit. We've been friends for around 30 years or so now.  I drank more wine over the weekend with them then I do in 6 months or more. 😀 There are two wineries in Stover Missouri that I have shared in the past-wow they have both really grown. They also went to one on their way down to us and they didn't care for that one at all.

  Here is just some of the bottles we drank-I am wanting to save the labels on these. These are my ticket into T

Our favorite winery this trip was Dale Hollow in Stover, Missouri. on their site is this video

   The last time we visited was two years ago and it was very chaotic at the time. Covid was still around, so everyone was masked, they had an outdoors band at that time and people were coming into the small building to buy bottles of wine to enjoy. So the place was very hectic. I had bought a bottle there and really loved it. My friends had bought a case but their experience was that it was too crazy busy. 

   I really wanted to go again this weekend because I just really liked the wine there.  Wow what a difference 2 years has made. They built a beautiful large building to showcase their wines, have tastings, and/or sit and enjoy wine with friends. They had expanded their vineyards too-Very professional winery. They have won ribbons on some of their wines too. My friends said wow what a difference from last year and they loved the wine more this trip.

  The day before they go back home, we almost always make a steak and shrimp dinner for all of us.  We went into a small supermarket-the same company that bought up the small store nearest me to check out the meat options. Neither one of us took the time to take photos but oh my gosh what a delicious meal She spotted two huge tomahawk steaks.  Larry and I have never been big meat eaters, but it is a treat for us when they come down. Marie and I are both good in the kitchen but I said I have noooo clue how to grill these so this is up to you how to prepare the steaks.  She said she just learned about doing a reverse sear on these-you bake them to a certain temperature and then grill them on a hot grill pan to the desired temperature. They were perfect-Larry and I want just before well done and they eat theirs on the rare side.  I can't even describe how good these were. Marie "nailed it" on the steaks.   I picked up a small bag of mini potatoes and I had frozen green beans in the freezer to complete the meal.

  Then we had the cheesecake 

 Here is a photo from online I found-I have never heard of these steaks before I really wish we would have gotten a photo of ours, as they were bigger than this photo. We each bought one for two people.  I saved the trimmings and bones to make beef broth for later.

As the weather people promised we went to bitter cold with low 20's f Friday evening-that will continue for the next couple of weeks.

   Before our friends arrived I had been working on a page for my journal for AJJ's theme of collage fodder with hostess Bleubeard and Elizabeth. I finished it today (Sunday morning) Hoping this is considered a collage fodder page

clicking on photos will enlarge for better viewing.

  I decided to make a two page spread in my German cookbook mixed media journal and titled these pages November

I used a dried wet wipe that I use when I am painting for the background, added a practice sashiko piece I stitched on one of my hand dyed fabric scraps, stamped trees, stamps, birch bark-one of my last pieces, an eco printed piece I did on paper, November words from the farmer's almanac, and a little leaf in handmade paper from Mia 

   I have a friend that told me once, to know when to stop-and not over do. I decided to use from Crayola a brown watercolor crayon and go over the two tree stampings, a little bit over the bison stamp, and Mia's leaf. I then decided to go over the page that was showing (on the top of journal) and forgot that cookbook pages are Not watercolor papers-lol  I think it did work out ok in the end I also added the green ribbon that came from a liqueur bottle 

   

This page shows the cut out script from the Farmer's Almanac, stamped trees, eco print on paper, the birch bark, little leaf in paper, and I had saved a stack of these utility bills when we lived in Illinois-they used cool stamps on postcards This page I had covered it first with a scrapbook type paper then the cloth I used when painting.

This page has a cut out bear foot print and a cut out leaf from magazines, the stamped tree, a stamp, the sashiko on my hand dyed fabric and the paint cloth.

  A few views here at the lake house.

Sunday morning geese

We love winter squash and this area in Missouri the summers are too hot to find good ones-our friends brought us down these from a market Little things are just special aren't they?

Happy T and new week