T Stands for Tuesday & Rain's Art and Dinner Date

   Hello everyone,

     I thought I  would combine a couple of link ups in one post, as I have seen that many do this all the time. Will see how this goes and if I like it or not.

   T is where we gather with a drink related photo and share with friends over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog. Link in my sidebar

  Rain's Art and Dinner Date is sharing any form of Art and Dinner is sharing foods which was my Food Wednesdays  I am looking forward to this new pairing, as I am learning more about painting from Rain's videos and she always shares foods too, so I am excited that these are together now. link in my sidebar

  Thinking allot of you have been experiencing a very hot summer too. We are either in the mid 100's or high 90's F, but the good thing is, about every 10 days or so we have been getting a good rain shower, which has helped to save the flowering plants. I am very grateful for that, as one of the first years that we had moved to Missouri, we went from end of spring to late September with no rain.  So I am so thankful for the rain this summer when we get it. My perennials are doing pretty good considering.

 This has been one of those weeks for us. I didn't get photos as I was just too freaked out with the whole situation.  Long traumatic day but the short version our boat lift broke-an all day process to save the boat and get it off the lift- drive down to the conservation access, put on trailer and now safely in our driveway whew  This was a 104 degree f very humid day-with Larry's health on top of it-a freak out day for sure for the both of us. I thank our new friend that lives in a cove near us, and to our new good friend that was vacationing at his family's lake house that helped Larry accomplish this. I prayed for help and we got it.

  I suggested to research out the main companies for a new lift and just do it, if we have the money-we don't go in debt for anything any more.  So pretty fast I thought a new lift will be installed end of this month.  We learned that our old lift was on record from the company we chose to purchase from-50 years ago-so being on a main channel of the lake that gets allot of rough water I would say that was pretty good for that old lift.

   On to more fun things I am sharing this with T and also for Rain's Art   Last Thursday her video was sharing an easy technique with acrylics inspired by Bob Ross.  I really wanted to try this out, suppose to be easy-well it was easy but I had trouble with the white in some areas, and I was not totally happy with my trees but will try this again for sure-I used my wolf stamps and I made two paintings.

The painting below ended up with those footprints-loved that

Last week I saw posts of pizza-yum-I had not made us pizzas in quite awhile, I checked and I did have the shredded mozzarella cheese in the freezer. I wanted to try a thin crust instead of the thicker Chicago style I usually make. I asked Marie my Wisconsin friend-who also cooks and bakes allot-if she had a thin crust pizza recipe. She sent me two different links-I chose this one  It came with a gluten free flour option, and you could proof for 30 minutes or not. I chose to proof it. 

   Next time for the gluten free version, I forgot that it is better to roll out the dough on to the baking pan or stone and then let it rise for the 30 minute. If you do it before hand like for the wheat dough you will lose all the rise when rolling out.

  My pizzas and recipe are for both T and Rain's Dinner Date

Wheat crust  

     The toppings were simple I fried up Jimmy Dean's Italian sausage, added a natural and less salt sliced black olives, and lots of cheese.

Gluten free crust-and it was baked through and delicious. Many times gluten free doughs like this do not bake through So a keeper recipe for sure and simple and easy too-so many gluten free crusts are more complicated and do not need to be

My drink share for T 

     I grabbed two beers-gluten free to the left and Larry's favorite to the right I think this is the last bottle of Guinness that was in the frig-the original 6 bottles were in there now for at least 4 years haha

Monday morning in my inbox a newsletter from Dave's Garden featured this article How to make sun tea safely  Thought I would share as many of you like to brew sun tea.

I also wanted to share a video again. Saturday morning around 6 am I made me a cup of decaf black tea, fed the birds and grabbed my camera. You can hear the birds singing, the crows came in at the neighbors dock so you can hear them too, and the swallows were active that morning. This video is around 5 minutes long

Thank you so much for visiting, hugs to the T group and to Rain's community

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

A Cool May So Far & This and That

     Happy Monday Friends,

       We had lovely weather this past Saturday with many boats of all types on the lake, and there were lots of restaurants,sports bars etc opening up on the lake as well.         

     Saturday evening though we had a very rough storm with 65 mile an hour winds at times-woke me up, kinda scary sounding in the night. Sunday the storm had passed but we were left with a cold and dreary day. Feels more like April so far instead of May.

   Today-Monday-still very chilly but we do have a little sunshine peaking through. A couple years ago when we first bought our lake house we signed up for sewer installation. A crew did part of the work last spring, and last week a different crew started on the next phase. Since this is mostly solid rock they are boring instead of digging. The equipment was parked up on top in front of our home and mailbox for 3 days. I expected them back to work today but perhaps too wet and cold?  If we signed up for this project the work was all free, but once hooked up we will have a monthly bill. In the end this will be better for the lake as allot of tanks in the ground have been installed years ago and many are beginning to leak-so for the land and especially the lake this will be a good improvement.

  Over the weekend I was determined to get my kitchen towels project threaded. Sunday I worked off and on all day and when I got near the end I realized I was 4 threads short-yikes. lol  The total was 408 threads so I wasn't too far off. (smiles) I just needed to warp up 4 more threads and add them in.  I kept my goal and got that finished up, so this morning I am working on tying on to the back-and then will wind on the warp to the back beam, tie on to the front and weave.  The threading and tying on is all done standing and bent over so I needed to take lots of breaks and stretches-my body is not used to much exercise so a wake up call for me to get back to walking again.

                                             The 4 new threads

                             Tying on to the back-this is completed now

The front view-I added this raddle to the front of the loom to help keep all that warp (5 feet) from tangling as I wind it on to the back

                                                     Another front view

  I did make us pizzas, my gluten free crust-ah so so but it was at least edible.

                                                         Wheat crust

Gluten free crust

  Any of you watch Hallmark's long running series When Calls the Heart? 

       This was the 8th year and they will have a 9th next year.  I enjoyed the ending very much, this turned out to be a love triangle and I was rooting for the one she chose, plus they added in several new characters, enhanced a few other characters.  I thought the show was really lacking this season but they redeemed themselves in my opinion with better acting last night I think the writers were too caught up with the love triangle and perhaps covid restrictions have eased as well for these actors.

  Happy new week everyone

(image found online)

5:30 pm weaving update-I ended up working on getting the warp wound on to the back of the loom all day today-this turned into quite a job, thinking these finer yarns got tangled more than others-I am finally done with that process and just needs to get tied on to the front of the loom-and then I can weave.  My back is screaming so will wait til tomorrow morning to finish up  so glad this is wound on now.

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