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Archive for December 13th, 2008

Now my feet are beginning to pulsate with pain.  I’ve been on them all day, but in a very good way.  The day was spent in the kitchen creating some delicious sweets.

1.  Fruit Pie. 

saturday-baking-fun-003 This pie was made with fruit that had to be used up. It includes 3 apples, 2 pear, and about 12 strawberries.   I added 1/4 cup of flour to thicken the juices while cooking plus 1 tsp vanilla extract, and finally 1 cup 100% Natural Fruit Spread sweetened with fruit juices. There is no other sugar in this pie and it is outstanding!  I’ll be putting recipe on it’s own page…”Joannes Old Fruit Pie”.

Next up were cookies and bars.  Among those cookies were some peanut butter. Now those took about 3 hours to make. This is why… I needed peanut butter. Ted was so kind and volunteered to do the grocery shopping why I did some wash and other chores as well as doing some baking.  So I started the cookies but had to wait for Ted to get back with my key ingredient.  When he finally did,  I had mixed up the dry mix and part of the wet. I added the long awaited peanut butter and started forming cookies. Hmmmm… they seem very light…. I wonder if they’ll hold together when I press them?  Oh No!  If forgot to add my eggs… as they stood there staring at me from the counter!   So after my recipe correction was made, I finished the cookies and they turned out totally delish! (as she says patting herself on the back). 

What else to do for my chocolate loving customers… Chocolate Chip Mocha Bars. 

saturday-baking-fun-005 They were pretty easy. Basically a chocolate chip cookie made in a 9 x 13 pan but with cocoa and espresso added.  I will post this recipe as well.  These were also held up by the grocery shopping guru because I needed butter.  But no missing ingredient…at least that I can remember at the moment?! 

The grand finale of the sweet treat baking feats… Almond Tortes. I finished 4 of them! I am happy with the way the first batch finished but will make changes to the other 4 I have left to do later this week.  The instructions will be posted but not sure when because the making of these tortes is a very lengthy, multi step process. It really is one for the baking fanatic and not the simple slice and bake Baker. 

What else you ask?  Well, Shane did WONDERFUL in class today.  We are proud. He is absolutely zonked right now.  Poor puppy. 

Dinner for two tastes.

Dinner for me was the 13 Bean Veggie Soup I had in the freezer left from last week. But I added the Vegetarian Chorizo Sausage. Wow! That was good. I also had a wonderful salad with added steamed veggies.  I topped both the salad and the 13 bean dish with F/F Feta.                                            

saturday-baking-fun-004I promised Ted I would do him a chicken dish tonight. But I didn’t take a pic. because it’s not vegetarian and I really do want to only post vegetarian pics on my blog.  However, since he raved about this little concoction, I will share for those who do eat meat.

Take 2 pcs. of skinless, boneless chicken breasts, put in a large plastic bag and beat each pc. one at a time until fairly thin. 

Mix together about 1 TBS honey mustard, 1 1/2  TBS whole grain Dijon Mustard, 1 TBS Lime juice, 1 TBS grated cheddar cheese, 1  TBS Blue Cheese, and 1 TBS olive oil. 

Salt and pepper your chicken breasts and then rub the mixture over one side of each breast.  Add some baby spinach leaves and roll up. Secure with toothpicks. I used 1 each end = 2 per breast.  Saute on high heat in olive oil about 2 – 3 min. per side. Put in a 375F oven for 20 minutes (until done).  According to Ted, you taste the blue cheese and a hint of the mustards but nothing over whelms the chicken…. the main feature. 

Tonight? Well, we have the dvd Batman, Black Knight .. or something like that. But it’s a long one and it’s been a long day so I’m not sure if we’ll get to it.  As for you all…take care, sleep tight, sweet dreams and good night.

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Still no dishwasher. Tuesday is the earliest we can get a repair guy to come fix the problem.  He will regret waiting so long because there are quite a few dirty dishes in there and on a couple of occasions we had fish.  I don’t even like to think about it. 

Last night, Ted and I had time for a little happy hour fine wine before heading to dinner.  We opened the bottle Bob and Nancy gave us at Thanksgiving and it was wonderful.  Ted said it reminded him of the wines he had made.

Beaujolais Nouveau 2008

Georges Dubceuf: Beaujolais Nouveau 2008

We then went to one of our favorite places for fine Italian in New Hartford, Bella Cucina.  I had a wonderful Chardonnay and Ted enjoyed the Chianti.  We then indulged in the Margarita Pizza appetizer and took it easy on the delish bread since we had ordered that pizza.  We both ordered the same entre’ which is unusual, but their Frutti De Mar is out of this world. 

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bread and parmesan

bread and Parmesan

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I didn’t take a pic of the salad because, as usual, it was quite unimpressive. Typical ice burg with a couple of tomato and cuc slices, topped with nasty raw onions. However, the coffee was as smooth as silk and a wonderful conclusion to an almost perfect dinner.  friday-dinner-at-bella-005                 

Saturday Starts…

I looked at the temperature and it was 11 degrees.  Ok, so Shane and I will only go a couple of miles and see how we feel.  We ended up doing 6.5 miles and it was a good run.  I was a little nervous going past the houses where I had seen dogs before, but no one or thing was around at that early hour.  We went down by the industrial park and then took the side streets back behind MVCC to avoid the Parkway traffic. The sidewalks are not cleared and we were having to run in the road. I don’t necessarily enjoy being a target for early morning, coffee induced aggression.   

Breakfast was my usual eggs and veg:  3/4 cup eggbeaters with asparagus, spinach and sliced cherry tomatoes.  Feta cheese, salsa, and hot sauce added.

I put the omelet on top of my homemade English muffins. Those EM’s seem to be lasting me a while! 

As for today’s activities, I am chopping up some pears, apples, and strawberries which need using up and putting them into a pie.  I’ll sweeten the pie with jam instead of sugar. 

It’s a cookie baking day.   That’s always fun.  I also have to finish my almond torte experiment since we want to get those to friends before we leave for S.C. next Saturday. 

That’s my agenda. What’s yours?  Whatever it is, enjoy.

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