Archive for ‘January, 2013’

Kitchen puttering

I am still getting back in “the swing” from the holidays, although last week was much smoother on all fronts and a full work week got done leaving me the weekend to catch up on chores and even putter in the kitchen a bit.

I saw the recipe for these bars and liking absolutely everything in them and the fact that there is no refined sugar and no flour of any kind…they were first up on my fun list. Medjool dates provide the sweet as well as the stickiness for binding the rest of the ingredients: nuts, cocoa, coconut and a little salt. Fresh from California, Medjool dates are currently in my favorite natural food store and they are so plump and fresh that I skipped the soaking in water step in the recipe.

These are Mom’s Kitchen Handbook Chocolate Coconut Bars.

The bars are chewy and delicious. I used walnuts and almonds per the recipe. BUT, I was tempted to use the hazelnuts that I had just skinned and roasted in place of the walnuts and will try that next time.

What I did use some of the hazelnuts for was a try at hazelnut cream using the same process as for cashew cream. The cashew cream is made with raw cashews and has no taste of cashews. Making the hazelnut cream with roasted hazelnuts…good golly!! – the cream tastes like liquid, creamy hazelnuts.

I didn’t use the hazelnuts in the bars this time, but I did make a hazelnut cream egg nog this morning to go with a bar or two. YUM!

And not only is today, Monday, yet another sunny day … 5 or 6 in a row in mid-January in Montana – yowza!! …

A bit of California sunshine-in-a-box arrived on Saturday: Meyer Lemons from Lemon Ladies Orchard.

Happy Monday!

My happy list

1. Walking in the woods with Bear (my dog).
2. A morning snuggle with Bob (my cat).
3. Coffee in a dark kitchen (house or motorhome) with just a few undercounter lights glowing.
4. Sitting on the front porch or my chair in the sideyard with a cuppa and Bear and Bob near.
5. Sitting in front of the woodstove with a small fire going
6. Most of the time – my work!…from my home office :)
7. Puttering in the kitchen making anything!
8. Watching the snow fall.
9. Snowshoeing in the woods with my dog (is this a repeat of #1?)
10. Anything… anything quiet, at my home, with Bob and Bear

A blog I sometimes read…a few or several weeks ago…talked about the author’s “happy list” and her desire to do 1 or 2 of the things on her list daily.

Hmmm.

I whipped off my list.

AND…I realized that I do most of them every single day!

Caveat(s). I am single to her married with children. I am 57 to her thirty-something. Still. I am so very grateful that I made the choices I made.

I am a happy person, fortunate through opportunity and choice to be living exactly where I choose and doing things I love 95+% of the time.

It is Friday evening.

I worked until 2:00 today.

Then, Bear and I jumped in the Jeep and headed to town to do some supply gathering.

We stopped on the way at the wild fowl regeneration/public hunting conumdrum (EVERY time I look at the signs, I just wonder??? It is the U.S. Department of the Interior…wild fowl regeneration and public hunting ???) Anyway, it is a beautiful spot and I am guessing that wild fowl hunting is NOT in season as I haven’t seen trucks and bird dogs there for several weeks.

Bear and I walked toward the lake, through a grove of century old Ponderosa Pines…hoar frost from the freezing fog making everything a work of art.

Addendum to the happy list: walking with Bear on a path to a lake in freezing fog.

Freezing fog along the road home

Enjoying freezing fog is a guilty pleasure of mine. It can make the roads slick with black ice. But I love a little of it – it has made for some of my favorite photos and whether it is with or without sun, there is something about the air when it is filled with freezing fog.

I left home this morning, with Bear in the Jeep, to run some quick errands in Bigfork and take the boy for a walk somewhere. The sky was blue, clear and sunny at my house.

As we descended through the treed section, I caught glimpses of fog over the valley.

Freezing fog.

The fog was low, the sun was high and above the fog, the sky was icy blue.

Sunshine at the right angle flashed thousands of miniature rainbows in the tiny prisms of fog and snow crystals. I had no success catching them with the camera and they seemed almost surreal in peripheral vision, disappearing as I turned my head to find them.

Headed home, the fog thinned as the road ascended from the valley floor.

At home…

…it was still sunny and bright. Bob, Bear, the herbs (the parsley is in the other window enjoying its own sunny spot!) and I enjoyed.

Sleeping arrangements

I have wanted to get rid of the too big bed I have for some time. It is too big for the room and too high for Bear to be jumping up on, even when he is 100%.

I wanted to duplicate what I have in the motorhome which is a platform with mattress and foam topper. I sleep wonderfully on that.

I saw a sale on a plain platform bed and bought it without much thought. I put my too big set in the Mountain Trader but I didn’t have much hope…the size is not a popular size, but I thought I’d try and I put off worrying what and how I’d get rid of the set if it didn’t sell.

It sold by noon the day the paper came out to the 2nd caller and I’ve had no other calls. The buyers were not so concerned with size as they were with wanting the exact style: a BeautyRest Classic. Bottom line – we all got what we wanted. They picked up everything on Sunday and helped me bring in the motorhome mattress which I’m going to use on the platform until I buy another for the house.

The platform had not arrived yet so the mattress has been on the floor. It is no different for sleeping than on the platform but getting out of it is more of a challenge.

Monday, I received word that the platform had arrived and would be delivered today…so only 2 nights “on the floor”. I took down the gate to the bedroom when the big bed left and thought maybe Bear would join Bob and I but he did not.

This morning, though, he went in the bedroom and got on the bed. He tried to see out the window and then circled on the bed a number of times and looked again. It appeared that he couldn’t figure out what happened to the rest of the bed and why it was low and all was just a bit confusing.

He stayed for only a short while…it just was not right.

Bob didn’t care one way or another and stuck to his cat house/my light box.

The new bed…which is entirely covered by the comforters.

I like it!