Life as a Bird

 When you are a bird in winter you and dinner is offered -

You need to be cautious and look for danger before grabbing a snack. 

Then sometimes you have to work a little bit to get the snack - tippy toes might be required.

Selecting the right piece is also very important.

But in the end...

for all the trouble...

the effort is worth the snack.

Christmas Party 2010 + Snowy with a chance of Cloudy = Normal

Just in case you missed it.
The ManTech Christmas party started just like other years.
Snowy with expectations of more snow.

This was an accident we had to wait for along the way to Glade Springs.






The party was fun. Not too much craziness.

Then in the morning the snowmen were wearing extra hats and coats.
The roads were pretty clear all the way home.

Let's do it again next year!

Making Stuff

This weekend we rearranged a bunch of stuff and went to a birthday party for FabHub's 75 year old Aunt Nancy. It was an adventure, and the tale shall not be told here.
We also made a bunch of stuff.
You might remember a while back FabHub built me an awesome ottoman? He built a couple more this weekend. They have a purpose, not to be related here either.

Jake doesn't care about the purpose. He just wants to know why they are multiplying in His space. Yes, we do have more of that material. Why do you ask? :)

I of course decided to bake something. Planned on making something of which I could send left overs to work. That didn't happen, but I wanted to make a pie - so I made two since I had a box of those rolled up pie crusts and only needed half the can of pumpkin for one pie. Two was just easier.

This is a Pecan Pumpkin Pie. First you put the pumpkin in the crust, bake it for a while, and then put the pecan topping on and finish baking. Passed the FabHub inspection. The second one should make it to the holiday.
One of the stops we made last weekend in PA was at the Country Store. Amish bulk goods a plenty. I picked up a bag of rye flour since I can't find any around here.
FabHub doesn't care for rye bread, but I found a recipe for "That" Steakhouse Bread that turned out to be pretty close to the original and worthy of a repeat invitation for Sunday dinner. It only has one cup of rye, a cup of whole wheat, and two cups of bread flour. So the rye wasn't too much for him.

I forgot to mention in the previous post that we also stopped at the dry goods store in Germantown. I picked up a few kitchen tools that intrigued me, some metal bowls to replace what I had, a couple important parts for my out dated Victorio strainer, and a whole case of regular size jar flats. That was crazy, but they will get used. All that, along with enough sweet bologna and white guernsey cheese to last a few weeks of sandwich lunches, and we had our Amish fix.

Enough for this week. Later!

Visiting in PA

We went to Pennsylvania last weekend to visit our newest niece. 

Meet Annalise.

She has a pretty good place to nap worked out there on FabHub.

 He looks about ready to go out for the night too.

This is her big sister Olivia and Cally the cat.

Olivia is loving her kitty.

Cally is being pretty patient about wearing her pretty earrings.

"What are you looking at?"

This is Cyclo - and this is the only time I saw him not moving.

The dump truck in the background was FabHub's gift to Olivia. He has bought Tonka trucks for all of the kids over the years. Girls and boys alike. Olivia got lucky to get an old one we found in an antique store. It has never seen a sandbox and now is a Cadillac for dolls, bears, and a sock monkey.

FabHub and I were on our way back from PA and saw what we decided is a truck load of super condensed rolls of hay. Just add water!

The tiny rolls are much easier to haul in bulk, but you still need a big rig due to the weight.

Load distribution looks a little off on this truck though. Brother Dave would have done a much better job I am sure!

That is all of our PA trip, nope, no parent photos. We just wanted to see the girls. :)

Until next time.

Pizza Cookie

So one of the nephews decided to get married.

His Mom said the reception food would be brought in by family and that I could make something weird if I wanted to.

I like to experiment with new recipes whenever I get a chance.

This summer's experiment was stuffed peppers and that broccoli salad (the one with raisins, bacon, onion, and slaw dressing) that everybody likes, but I don't see to often around here. 

I didn't know some of the people that were going to be there so I thought the salad would be safe.

Then I asked the nephew what HE wanted to eat at the reception.

HE said that picking up a few Little Ceasars pizzas would be fine with him.

So I got creative.

Cause that is what I do.

What we ended up with is a Sugar Cookie Dessert Pizza.

Does it look real?

It is really tasty. Cookie tasty, not pizza tasty.

Want to make one yourself?

To make it you need just a few ingredients.

The powdered sugar, marshmallows, water, and food coloring are for the fondant that makes the pepperonis.

The strawberry frosting and food coloring are for the sauce.

The cookie mix, egg, butter, and flour are for the crust.

And the white chocolate is for the mozzarella cheese.

 I mixed the dough up per instructions and then spread it out in a foil pizza tin, which seemed pretty thin.

Then I put it in the oven on top of my own pizza pan to keep it from burning.

I had read other giant cookie recipes that use cookie dough from the pop open can and they seemed to have problems with the dough rising too much and spilling out of the pan. Not a problem with the kind I used. I spread it all the way to the edge and it turned out perfect using the instructions on the bag.

So then I made the fondant, which we will look at in a minute. This is the sauce, which lost out on having a more tomato color when I realized that I didn't have as much red food coloring as I needed. So after making the fondant pepperonis what red coloring was left for my "sauce" wasn't nearly as much as it should be resulting in more of a pink color, luckily I started with the strawberry frosting so it gets the point across.

Then I got out the box grater and shredded some white chocolate into little mozzarella looking curls.

If I had a little propane burner I would have browned some of it too. I think that would have been great!

Then I rolled out the chilled fondant. I won't go far into how much trouble that stuff was to make. I cut a regular fondant recipe, which I have made successfully in the past, into a fifth and the result was a mess.

In the end I got it to work and found a bottle cap that made the perfect size pepperonis.

 I put them on the pie just like making homemade pizza and then sprinkled with a bit more white chocolate.

 The result turned out tasty and looks almost like a real pizza.

This photo is of my test case. Most of it should make it to the office on Monday.

Those poor guys get to listen to me brainstorm about making some of my weird experiments. It is only fitting that they get some of the extras. I haven't heard any complaints yet. :)

So my Facebook friends if you see this, come on by the cube and try a piece, I cut them small.

And to HH, tell him to be on time or he might miss it. :)

PS. Yes, those white specks on my deck are snow!

I took this at about 1215 on Saturday. The sun is out and it looks warm, but in the shade, not so much.

This has been another tale of fun with cooking. I hope you enjoyed.

Come on out and see us sometime!

Charleston Trip 2010

FabHub had a two day Algebra conference on a Friday and Saturday in Charleston in October. I happened to have the Friday off, so I went along for the adventure.The conference was held in the Embassy Suites, which is also were we staying.
Our room was on the top - 9th floor. It is a long way down from the top of this building.

On the Pioneer Woman blog, when she goes on book tours, Ree always shows pictures of her hotel rooms. So I thought I would do that too. Mostly because of the humorous comparison. 

This was a suite, which is the only thing we had in common. Her rooms are always beyond huge. Like apartment size huge. Like such a huge waste of money for one night on a business trip huge.
Our room was adequate. We were there for two days and other than the sinking middle on the couch it was a nice place to stay.
Funniest thing is the art hanging behind the television in the front room.

On Friday, after FabHub went to this conference I headed down the street. First stop was Taylor's Books. An awesome bookshop in the historic district. I picked up a couple of books on back to nature, homesteading types of subjects. Books and subjects that are very likely to never be on any audio book listing. I also picked out a magazine and after making my purchases went to the coffee shop section of the store and tried to have a snack in a really nice atmosphere. Unfortunately, the staff was failing for the people in front of me, I gave up and headed off to my next destination.

The Clay Center. 

The Clay Center is an arts and science center that according to their website is a place for creativity, learning, and wonder. I happened to arrive just before the press conference supporting the opening of the new Exploratory. The governor's wife was there. Oooh.

There were also a whole bunch of third graders and pre-ks. That was okay until they tried to play with the stuff I was.... okay never mind. :) 

The Clay Center has a lot of fun activities and art on display that everyone can enjoy and might even learn something. 

I was actually there to see the domed theater movie Fighter Pilot - Operation Red Flag. When I was in the Air Force I knew all about Red Flag, a military exercise at Nellis in Vegas. It was a great show. I enjoyed it. The third graders seemed to also like the show.

 

Out in front of the Center there is a sculpture called Festival of the Performing Arts. It is a bronze sculpture that has a character depicting each of the different arts. 

I thought they were kind of cool and freaky at the same time, but then this done by a famous artist so what do I know.

After that I went back to the hotel and then over to the mall to do some shopping. Nice day in the big city.
On Saturday I walked down to the Capitol Market. It is the nicest farmers market I have seen. Not saying much really, since the only ones I have seen are Princeton and Hinton - mostly anyway. That would be not counting the open markets in Europe of course. Now they know how to sell to their neighbors.
Capitol Market is a year round market that sells whatever is seasonal outside under the old railroad shelter.

This time of year there are lots of pumpkins and marigolds. There were also plenty of late season vegetables and things that store well. I was walking again so didn't have space to carry much or I might have left with a bunch of stuff.

There was a pumpkin decorating contest going on at the market on the day I visited. Can you tell who was sponsoring it?
Of the two that were on display while I was there, these are the two that I really liked.

On my way back to the hotel I stopped and picked up some fresh baked sour dough bread from the Charleston Bakery. I would be in so much trouble if there was a bakery like that around me. I love fresh baked bread. I can do it myself, but the variety from a bakery would be very nice.
Well that is all I have to post this time. We had a nice weekend. Did some shopping. Enjoyed a couple days out in the big city, but ended up coming home appreciating what we have because we are just a couple of small town people who love to travel and enjoy coming home to the farm in the end.

Take Care Everyone!

Fall Flowers

FabHub wanted me to take pictures of the flowers since they looked so nice this year. It was so wet this spring and then hot this summer that some of my regular bloomers didn't do anything at all. So these fall flowers are kind of a surprise.

I started over by the garden and all of its beautiful marigolds.

My tomatoes and beans... well nothing did really good this year, but the garden provided us some nice fresh vegetables and kept me out of other trouble so it was worth planting.

Poochy even got in on the photo fun.

Click on the picture for a closer look at all those marigolds.

I like having marigolds in the garden. Whether or not they help with bugs is a good question, but I just like them. This year I got some plants and had some seeds. 

Obviously lots of seeds germinated and all on top of each other too. 

I planted a whole bunch of basil too. You can see it in the pictures above and below, it is the tall spikey looking stuff. That is what you get when you ignore it.Weedy looking stuff that smells good.

The marigolds and basil did help with weeds in nothing else. Nothing short could get any light to grow.

 The flowers FabHub really meant in his photo request are the mums in the background, but they didn't photograph very well and I wasn't really happy with the whole adventure.

And then...

... and then I found these little guys hiding in the flowers.

What a bunch of flirts. Very cute though don't you think?

The volunteer petunias are still hiding under the cart.

 And the mums do have a ton of color to share.

So it wasn't a bad idea at all.

 In the backyard the windmill waits for spring with a new crop of tulip bulbs under fresh dirt.

The dogs are supposed to be on mole and squirrel alert back there.

I can't keep tulips for more than a couple of years once those things smell them and manage to dig them out. 

I guess I could do something about it, but the dogs enjoy the game and don't get much enjoyment out of the flowers, so why not share the fun.

Well, that is it for now.

Come back for new adventures soon. We have holes to dig and fence to build.

Might even do a bit more in the home improvement department. 

You never know with us.

Take care!