We got snow again

Snow still falling. We shoveled the steps yesterday. This morning B is out with the big snowblower.

Snow??

It's gloomy outside at 1:30 as the picture shows. Usually the sun is shining right in my eyes right about now. A bit of snow remains from the small amount that fell Christmas Eve. More as snow on the way with the question how much

The nut roll I made several days ago really turned out GREAT! That makes up for the first effort that bombed. We had prime rib from Price Chopper for Christmas and it was exceptional! Right now we are looking at The Chew. While a repeat that we saw, it's still good.

Minimal goals for the day. I'm going through magazines and throwing them out after the re-read. I'm also trying to email a recipe using a new program I got a bit ago called Master Cook. Something is not working...so I have to reread the directions. When in doubt, read the directions.

Merry Christmas

A bit of snow last night gave us a White Christmas. Honey is busy enjoying her present while B is on his iPad. I'm looking at the paper and we are in joking Good Morning America. Merry Christmas!

Heavy Rain Now Snow!

Yesterday was rather warm and we were expecting a storm. It's been gloomy most of the week with light rain. Yesterday late afternoon the winds were kicking up a bit and we could tell the rain would soon reach us. What we didn't expect to see was SNOW which was very evident when we turned the outside flood lights on to take Honey for her final evening walk around 9:00. Out we went and the air did not feel very cold. The snow quickly turned to rain and it rained all night - at times quite hard. This morning it was in the 40s with wind and heavy rain. The water was racing down our road and the stream by our property was fast and wide. Honey did NOT want to venture out despite the fact that she needed to "go potty". So, I tried the old back door sneak - for some reason when she balks in going out in the rain by the front door she will go right out the back door. It was still dark but the back floods were on so out we went through a downpour and back in - both of us rather wet. We went out to breakfast and could see the lake was high and run off from the woods and yards cascaded down the gullys and yards pushing leaves into the road. By the time we were back home the temperature had dropped several degrees. Later this morning the rain turned to snow. The snow isn't amounting to anything - just tiny little flakes that disappear when they hit the ground. It's 34 outside (3:00 PM) and our low tonight should be in the 20s.

My main goal for the day was to make nut roll. B and I were talking about various holiday food and his mom's nut roll was part of that discussion. I had a cook book she had gotten for me that had a number of Polish recipes in it. I found one for nut roll but it called for a yeast cake. Now I know what that is but haven't seen them for sale for quite some time. After several google searches I found a conversion from yeast cake to rapid rise yeast. The recipe called for half a yeast cake so I halved the yeast not realizing that the cakes are two ounces rather than one. Well, the dough was like lead never rising. I threw it out and went back to the Internet where I found an "easy" Croatian nut role recipe that only took one rising. The filling is cooked on the stove to thicken it and then the dough made (very sticky). The filling came together well, the dough was so sticky I added flour and then followed the directions.

Half the dough was rolled out and the filling spread over it. It's been a long time since I've made a bread roll so I took a lot of pictures to refer to. I was surprised how easily this rolled out once I had the dough the right consistency.

 

 

 

 

 

I rolled from the bottom up and then pinched the two edges and used some water to seal the seam.

 

 

 

 

Only a little of the filling leaked out on the left side. They baked for 30 minutes.

 

They are cooling right now - I'll report later on how they tasted!

 

A productive day!

 

 

 



The Week Before Christmas

It's hard to believe that next Tuesday is Christmas! The house is decorated - lights on the railings outside and on two smallish "Christmas Trees" at the steps to the front door. It really looks nice. Inside we have a small tree on a table in the lower level. Since Honey came, large trees on the floor don't seem like a good option. So, the main level is minimal decorations. There is a ceramic tree in the loft - one that was made for me by a co-worker who owned a ceramic shop. The two angels that another friend made are on the mantel in the bedroom (along with our Christmas stockings). It really does look festive but minimal. Works for us!

Monday we took a trip to Target in search of a door mat. It's been rainy and warmish (above freezing) and so it's very muddy. Our last door mat vanished around the time we had the deck painted - we probably threw it out due to age and condition. Target had some on sale so off we went. We found a very nice one with three large ornaments on it. We also found a non-holiday one that says Welcome that we also purchased. Picked up one or two other things. Yesterday we went to two places for kielbasa. There had been an article in the Scranton paper about these two so we figured we would get a ring from each place. Tonight is the tasting - perhaps we will just try one tonight and the other another night. I'm planning on making nut roll. B's mom made the best nut roll for the holidays. I found a recipe on line that sounds similar so that's on today's schedule.

This morning, when we headed out around 7:15, the windshield of the car needed to be scraped. The past several days, while rainy, were warm enough that that was not a concern. At least today is sunny. The chance of snow over the weekend is in the forecast. We will be happy if that doesn't happen.

Next up - Honey is indicating she needs to take a walk!