Tis' Amost The Season...

We are so excited for Christmas!

Christmas will officially begin when our two favorite grandsons arrive but in the meantime we are enjoying the pre-Christmas preparations!!

Wiley and Lucy Lu during Thanksgiving week

The boys loving on Miss Lucy

Wiley and the Buddster

Spaghetti Factory with the boys

The past 2 years have been very eventful, some amazingly good and some devastatingly hard but I expect to be back to a new normal by the time 2017 arrives. Still recovering from a second major surgery and some other setbacks but hope springs eternal and I have high hopes for the future! I need to start taking pictures of food again to share with the new recipes I plan to post soon!

It snowed today!

And it's still snowing 3 hours later!

Enjoy every busy minute of December 2016!

2016

HAPPY NEW YEAR

EXPECTING AN AMAZING

2016

Almond Tea Cakes

Wow, only 13 days until Christmas!! In case you are wondering where I have been, I am just now coming out of a fog that began five weeks ago. I'm not sure if time flies by or drags along when you are forced to lay low. That's not the way I live my regular life but life has been far from regular these past weeks. For now I will explain it in a few well-chosen words:

AFib - 911 -  ambulance-fire department - near-death - revived - ER -  near death - revived - battered+bruised - over-drugged - blood-work - black-out - attached to heart monitor 24/7 -  "they are trying to kill me" - heart stop - heart reset - over-drugged -  can't drive, need to be driven - "they are trying to kill me" - fainting - vertigo - house-bound - nausea+vertigo - downloading heart monitor - fainting+vertigo -  that repeated day in and day out, plus 11 trips to ER and urgent care explain our last few weeks. It is a long story and I am looking forward right now and spend very little time looking backwards! I might share more sometime next year. That's not a promise!

I was given a new cookbook "Good Food Great Medicine" a while back. It is very interesting and has tons of great looking recipes. I decided to make the almond tea cakes. Someone shared their last bite with me, otherwise I would have missed out. One bite wasn't much to write a review on but the rate in which they were devoured tells the real story! I heard "these are so good" "what are these, a cookie or a muffin" "are there any more" so I will base my review on those comments. They are super easy to make and I would make them again. They are gluten free and technically sugar free but they do have a half cup of honey. Even so, they aren't overly sweet from what I tasted. I place of flour you use ground almonds. I buy mine at Trader Joe's for under $5.00. This recipe did use up the remainder of our delicious Blackberry Honey so we will need more very soon!

So... here is the recipe...

Enjoy!

Gingerbread Scones

I have not had much appetite lately but I have been craving anything spicy like ginger, cinnamon and cloves. The holiday spices. I love the wonderful smell they bring to the kitchen while they are baking. I searched out some gingerbread recipes and what a surprise, I decided to make some gingerbread scones. I combined a few recipes and then used a few healthier ingredients. I used white whole wheat flour from Trader Joe's and I used coconut sugar in place of brown sugar. I wasn't disappointed with the smells that filled the whole house. Oh wow, it almost made me want to take a bite of one warm from the oven, but I passed. As soon as dear hubby opened the door into the house, I heard him say, "Oh Wow!" Yep, I did it! I succeed in my quest to fill the house with the smells of Christmas.

As you can see from the picture, I drizzled half of them with the lemon icing.

P.S. I ended up drizzling all of them with the lemon icing. They taste good!



Enjoy!

Happy Anniversary to Us ~ 42 years...

...and they have been the best 42 years of my life!

I was 14, he was 16 way back in the day... 1969

(No we didn't get married at 14 & 16)

Since that day, he has been the bright spot in every day!

He is always kind and compassionate

He keeps God first in all things

He is honest and true

He is my very best friend

He is always there for me, no matter what comes our way 

He is the best companion and partner a wife could hope for

 

He supports me in every way

His warm hands warm my cold hands

He loves me with his whole heart

He always respects my opinion

He gets better with age, not worse

November 25, 1972

In 1975, our amazing son arrived

In 1977, our beautiful daughter joined our family

So cute

Hon, there has not been a day that I have not felt and seen your unconditional love for me and our family!

San Francisco, CA 2014

Now we are older, both in the "60's" 

We don't look like teenagers any more

But your heart has not changed nor mine for you

I still love you more every day!

 I thank God for you and our family everyday!

Thank you isn't a big enough word!

I'm looking forward to many more years with you!

 You are my one and only true love!

Flashback Friday

Back in the day...

Squeaky clean

Blackberry Honey

A couple months ago, a Portland morning show, AM Northwest, featured a lady that knows everything you ever wanted to know about honey. One of the things she said that I kept thinking about was regarding flavored honeys. I have never been a lover of honey, but what she said about honey intrigued me. She said that orange blossom honey does not taste like orange, naturally. Same goes for all other "flavored" honeys, with one exception, blackberry honey! Who knew! You probably did but I didn't! I was intrigued by this and started looking for pure "Blackberry" honey. Let me just say, It wasn't easy to find. We finally found blackberry honey in McMinnville, Oregon, of course! We have found many good things in that beautiful city.

Don't judge us! We are aware that we have used almost half a bottle!

Of course we wanted to try it so as soon as we arrived back home. We had to do a taste test. Oh my, I knew instantly that I love "Blackberry" honey! We decided this honey needed some  Buttermilk Cornbread so we could really try it out. I can tell you it is very good on cornbread. It would also be good on a scone, a piece of toast, or with a spoon! There is a new honey fan in town, as long as it is "Blackberry" honey. If you are interested in more information about all things honey from an Oregonian, you got it! Click here and you will find all you need to know about honey. Marie Simmons also has a cookbook "Taste of Honey."

If I didn't make you want to drop everything and go on the hunt for Blackberry Honey, I haven't done my job. Go find yourself some "Blackberry" honey and...

Enjoy!



P.S. Did you notice the little bee above the label? Until I just saw the bottle this big, I though the honey bottle had a blemish. It makes me happy that it's actually a little bee!