T Stands for Tuesday & A Busy Week-Long With Lots of Photos

  I am posting for our T gathering with our hostess Bleubeard and Elizabeth where we share a post and a drink related photo.
  I am posting a bit early and will visit those of you that post on Monday (USA time)  as I have a dentist checkup Tuesday morning. and I broke a tooth or a crown back in December that needs to get checked out too-so I will be later in the day on Tuesday to visit the rest of you.

  My friend and I did have a good day in Springfield, Mo last week Wednesday. We made our appointment with our accountant an hour later than we usually do as I drove an hour to my friends home-near our woods house, and then another hour to Springfield. It was a cold, windy light snowy day.
   Of course we did some craft shopping and we always go out to lunch. It was her turn to choose a restaurant. I liked the idea of the restaurant when she described it to me-but I was not impressed.  I learned afterwards that this was an all you can eat.
     It was set up to grab a small bowl and fill it up with meats, veggies, noodles etc and then take it to this big circle grill that a couple people cooked up for you.
   I have to look for gluten free, so I didn't trust any of the numerous sauces and oils-so I stuck with sesame oil and lime juice-figured that was safe. The meat all looked strange to me-thin sliced and I guess it was all frozen but looked dehydrated-I chose the two fish that they offered and one piece of sausage. They did have zucchini noodles so that was good for me. They offered rice for an extra cost. The hot tea was cold-I was not impressed for $15.00-did not leave a tip I don't eat dessert out-usually not gluten free-and they had no desserts-thought that was strange too.

     This was mine-I should have piled on more veggies-I was hungry again after an hour of shopping

Note: all photos will enlarge just click on them

This was my friends food-the egg rolls were not gluten free, and she added allot of meat to her dish

I was disappointed that the water was lukewarm for hot tea-as it was very cold that day-I should have sent it back
  This is my drink share for this week.

I had a couple of things on my craft list but did not find what I wanted-but I did pick up a couple stamps and two colors of ink pads I did not have

I have been wanting a Paris stamp, Hobby Lobby had several to choose from-I liked this one the best, and other one was too sweet not to come home with me. I needed some brushes, and I fell in love with this little frog on a leaf-a USA product line I found

I don't know what I will do with this piece-but I have a collection of ocean beads etc as I always wanted to make me a mermaid wool purse or at least an ocean theme with embroidery-I may just turn the purse into a lake theme instead
 I need to get busy with some of my projects that have been sitting for a bit.

  I did make another journal page. I had stamped the Paris stamp on to handmade paper from Mia in two different colors-and decided to make another page with the one I did not use.  This is similiar to my previous journal page-so am not going to submit to TIOT or AJJ this week.

The butterfly buttons were also from Mia-I am using up things from her goody box she sent me last year
   I used a green pencil to highlight these papers and the background flowers are from a Brecks catalogue

This is recycled from a Valentine card I received, the fabric flower from Mia, and small scraps left over from the handmade paper-I used a green pencil for a bit of color

This is my last little piece left from the handmade paper from Mia

Saturday I decided to make us pizzas.
    This is a big project since I now make the wheat crust for Larry and the gluten free crust for me instead of just making one gluten free.
    I realized after I started that I had only one jar of the classico pizza sauce and I needed two-so I looked up recipes for homemade pizza sauce-and wow so easy, and it turned out very good and thick. Here is the recipe I used, after it was cooked I added the jar of sauce I had and stirred it all together.
   Don't remember if I shared this before but I have found a really good gluten free crust recipe that is the best I have come across so far.
   We are eating very little carbs now and no breads so this was very very filling for us. we ate it again on Sunday, and I froze the rest for two more meals.

  I baked both on pizza stones

      The wheat crust

The gluten free crust

The pizza sauce, and the back skillet is italian sausage

I had read about this new yeast from red star and wanted to try it. I took a chance and used one for my gluten free crust too-although this has rye in it. (I had read that some people that have celiac can tolerate sourdough based with gluten)
  There was a hint of sourdough flavor which was nice in the pizzas-but I would not be too impressed for breads
   I have not seen this in the stores here yet, I found it online awhile back

  So after looking at these food photos-here is dessert 😀

I figure myself as an accomplished baker but I have not baked up many cheesecakes. Our friend that comes down for a visit that lives in Wisconsin makes amazing cheesecakes-it is her speciality so I just don't bake them.
  Recently though I have been baking up keto cheesecakes-the only difference is using keto sugars instead of sugar, and changing up the crusts-I like nut crusts or almond flour crusts.
  I had the ingredients, my author friend Peggy gave me a link to her go to keto recipes so I thought I would bake up this chocolate cheesecake.  I recommend this site for good low carb, and some gluten free recipes.
   This was quite a project-allot of steps to it and I have really not worked much with chocolate.  To keep it short I misread her sugar free chocolate as being Bakers squares of unsweetened chocolate-so in the end my batter seized up-got very thick. I was suppose to have used keto chocolate-chocolate sweetened with keto sugars.
   I decided to just bake it and see what happens. I had thought of adding more cream to it but decided not to do that. I contacted my friend, she suggested to bake the cheesecake at a lower temperature than the recipe-225 degrees f. She said if over baked this would turn out very very dry.
   It baked up nice-it was late in the day and needed to really chill,  so I waited til Monday morning to cut us small slices for breakfast to see if it was worth making the chocolate glaze that goes on top.
   This actually came out creamy but thick, and not sweet at all. I am now used to eating the 80% bars of chocolate so I like the flavor. This was lacking the sweetness that was supposed to be in the chocolate.
    Larry says it was pretty good too but needed the glaze and he says you know though that Marie's are better-yep they are lol

Out of the frig Monday morning

The sun was shining in on the counter when I cut this

The chocolate glaze added. I added extra keto sugar to the glaze to up the sweetness

  If you stuck with me til the end-thanks for reading

Have to share a couple lake photos from the lake Sunday morning early

There was a huge number of Canada geese swimming by-by the time I grabbed the camera they were behind the neighbor's dock

and this photo of the snow goose was taken looking out the window in Larry's  extra room
  We are beginning to think that perhaps this goose can not fly for some reason. He/she has been eating allot and walks with no limp-but he/she is in the same area as yesterday (Sunday)
   Update-the snow goose off flew off around noon-she just wanted to hang out I guess lol

Happy T everyone!!
   and if you did not see my previous post-please read-excellent sensible things to do to protect yourself from the virus