a popuri post

Happy Holidays!!

if ray and i were little singing snow people, this is what we would look like.

i hope everyone is having a good holiday season. i am loving the cold weather, even though it puts a little damper on outdoor activities. i would love it even more if i had a wood burning fireplace. the smell and warmth of a little fire really calms me. unfortunately in our house, all we have is this ventless gas contraption that stinks and gives me a headache when we turn it on. so for now i will have to warm myself with thoughts and dreams of a little house in the country with a wood burning fire place, a gas stove, an outside wood burning oven, and land for which to grow food and have chickens and goats. someday!!! till then i will get that fuzzy feeling from feasting on a good cup of coffee and homemade cranberry orange scones on a cool and crisp saturday morning.

whole wheat orange and cranberry scones.

good morning mr. scone..... get in my belly!!

this recipe was tweaked a bit from the scone recipe in my america's test kitchen baking illustrated cookbook. the original recipe is as follows:

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
3 tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp salt
5 tbsp butter
1 cup heavy cream

i used whole wheat pastry flour and substituted the heavy cream with one cup sour cream and the juice of one orange. i also added a good handful of chopped up fresh cranberries and the zest of the orange that i juiced. basically, you combined the ingredients as if making biscuits and bake on 425 degrees for about 15 minutes. easy and yummy.

so i must confess that this post is a going to be a mish mosh of subjects. in that spirit, here is a 3-G project update. since we were still eating the thanksgiving leftovers into the beginning of last week and since i still had left over ingredients from past weeks, i really did need much from the earthfare in the food department, but my cleaning supplies were starting to dwindle. so last week's trip to the store is fairly boring unless cleanliness really turns you on.

let's see....we got laundry detergent, tissues, kiss my face soap, dish washing liquid, powdered bleach product for the laundry, toilet paper (this stuff is from recycled material so you gotta wipe gentle as to not cause any damage), tea lights made from palm oil, fair trade shade grown coffee, ray's tea that he likes, two kinds of organic mushrooms and conventional but USA grown brussel sprouts = $55
(i'm sure i also spent $5.50 on milk as well.)

half of the mushrooms went to make the cream of mushroom soup that i spoke about in the last post and the brussel sprouts were braised in some home made chicken stock and served up along side a wonderful deer meat meat loaf that i made for thursday SURVIVOR night. (i am rooting for sugar and bob)

speaking of cold weather and deer meat...meet my good ole friend... mr. crock pot. he's not to big, not to small, a little funky country in looks and a bitch to clean, but he makes a mean chili.

low and slow is the way to go.

that skinny semi-homemade blond don't got nothing on me.

the secret is in the tamarina sauce chili

1 big 28 oz can of organic tomatoes
1 can organic red beans
1 small bag frozen organic corn
1 orange pepper
1 green pepper
1 onion
1 pound ground deer meat
couple to tbsp brown sugar
tomato paste
tamarina sauce

season deer meat with salt and pepper and cook. chop peppers and onions and saute in some butter for a bit. open can of beans (you can drain and rinse them, but i forgot to do this and just plopped in the entire contents of the can) and open can of tomatoes. dump contents of both cans into slow cooker. i started with the tomatoes, liquid and all, first so i could smash up the tomatoes a bit. then in went the beans, followed by the peppers, onions, bag of corn, brown sugar, and the cooked deer meat. added a couple of good squeezes of tomato paste and a good helping of the tamarina sauce. the tamarina sauce is good and spicy with a nice little kick so i didn't feel the need to add any other spices. cook on high for 4-6 hours.
i may not win any chili cook off with this, but i though it was pretty darn tasty.
and i had a warm semi-homemade lunch for a few days.

now it's time for a few fun finds. as we prepare for the holiday season, a whee bit of shopping for presents is in order. just as we did last year, on my side of the family, were are forgoing presents for each other in lieu of charitable donations. my mom and sis spent the money they had set aside for me and ray on their adopted family, and i will be giving to heifer international. however, we still enjoying making the rounds at our favorite local arts and crafts guilds. today we drove up the blue ridge parkway a bit to check out the southern highland craft guild. although a lot of the crafts in the store were the same as last year, we did manage to pick up an cute little ornament at the holiday sale in the auditorium for the "dirty santa" at our friend joy's christmas party. if you are in the area and haven't been to the craft guild, i highly recommend going. and don't forget to go upstairs and check out the items on display from the permanent collection and the new traditions cabinetmaking show they have going on right now.

southern highland craft guild

and if the crafts guild wasn't fun enough, we came across the pecan lady. you know me and ray had to stop and buy some nuts from a truck parked on the side of the road. we got some almonds, pecans, and hazelnuts. the almonds will be going into ray's morning shakes, but i see in the near future some sort of chocolate desert made with the hazelnuts, and of course some sort of pecan tart/pie.

love the truck!!!

this lady is brave, cause it was cold!!!!!!
i think we past a bank whose digital sign said it was 27 degrees. burrrrrrr!

not just a hot dog, but a GRANDE hot dog!!!!!
notice that the sign doesn't say "authentic" mexican.

ok, no mish mosh post would be complete with out a picture of the puppies.... complete with dog snot on the glass.

mr. keebs and moo moo.
that's jackson sitting down on the left. this pic was taken while he was here visiting over the thanksgiving holiday. he belongs to nicki and matt. as a refresher for you... nicki is the girl who used to have the pig i would feed my food scrapes to and matt is the guy who killed the deer that is now hanging out in my freezer.

tomorrow i will post up the pictures from the fun time we had today visiting the historic johnson farm.