Ghirardelli truffles

truffle recipe from the Ghirardelli website.  How is this  pronounced??  It comes out different each time I say it.  Ghirardelli.

Mine came out in squares because I left the Pyrex dish of chocolate in the refridge over night.   You are supposed to   form into balls after 2 hours in the fridge, but when I checked it after 2 hours, it wasn’t firm enough for rolling into balls.  I should have came back to it after another hour or two, but I forgot about it till morning.

These taste like Dove chocolates!! So now I know Dove Chocolate’s secret- lots of whip cream to give it a creamy consistency.   See the cocoa on each one?  You roll them in cocoa.

too many kitties

The things we do to make our kids happy….. at least we don’t have mice around here.    This little guy doesn’t have a name yet.

                                                      

update:   Thank goodness he’s of that bottle.

Crystal Clear

Here’s a crystal clear under water photo. Understanding  “the more excellent way” that Paul talks about in  the bible has just been made crystal clear to me from listening to Pastor Paulson’s 2 hour message  on rightly dividing the Word of God.  Paul’s Greater Commission presentation by Mike Paulson.   Just click on this link and it’s  in audio mode, on the “Paul’s Greater Commission presentation on the page.

He made it clear! got questions?  Listen to this specific audio piece that took place in Ohio the last week of July.    It’s too much of a big thing to  ignore.  You’ll gain understanding by listening to this,   especially if you’ve been lied to all these years from  Pastors who don’t understand what they are saying.   Wish I could articulate  the whole issue of rightly dividing the Word of God like he does, nevertheless, at least I can direct you to an audio message on it, and remember   the books of the bible are not in  chronological order, but  are in dispensational order.  This is such a clear presentation, don’t miss it.

Some good fudge

Macedonian fudge

I found a recipe online for some fudge and modified it a bit.  First I’ll  list the recipe and then my version.

Old Fashion Fudge from Cook’s Illustrated magazine.

• 2 cups semi sweet choc chips
• 2 oz’s  unsweetened chocolate
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 14 oz of sweetened condensed milk
• 1 Tbsp vanilla
• 1 cup chopped nuts
• spray oil
• 8 inch Pyrex
• little mini muffin tin liners

My Version

• 1  12 oz bag of semi sweet   chocolate chips
• 1  4 oz bittersweet chocolate bar (baking isle of store)
• 1/2 tsp of baking soda
• 1/8 tsp salt (omit if you put in salted nuts)
• 1  14 oz can sweet condensed milk
• 1 TBSP vanilla
• 1cup chopped nuts (I used Macedonian)
• 8 inch Pyrex
• little mini muffin tin liners
• ##################################################

1. chop unsweetened chocolate
2. over double boiler (or water in a pan make shift double boiler with mixing bowl on top of sauce pan with water in it) put in chocolate chips, bittersweet chocolate bar,baking soda and salt.  Stir it up.
3. add condensed milk
4. stir it and get it melted, but not over too high of heat.
5. Add the nuts
6. Pour into Pyrex and level the top with a spatula.  Let it cool for 20 minutes or so and then refrigerate.
7. Cut it up after an hour in the fridge and cut it in squares to put in little mini muffin tin liners.

Downtown train photo and pickles

Sorry about the tree in the way!  I was downtown at Farmers Market getting some cucumbers for making pickles and just happened to have my camera.  This train has a lot of graffiti on it, but you can’t tell so much, since I didn’t get it close up enough.

Pickles made from the cukes I bought after I took the train photo

my garden cages

Here’s one of my garden cages.    This one shown has green pepper plants in them.  I could take it off now, but the hose goes right through there and snaps off the peppers, so I leave it on.

I just bend a piece of cattle fence or whatever it is and my little green peppers in there won’t be stepped on by clumsy me.  The hose won’t drag over them and ruin them either!  I have about 4 of them in use right now.  Green peppers in one row, bush green beans in 2 others, row of lettuce in one too.

another slip

This one is a double bodice and works great for tank dresses, some of my longer ones.  I love this slip.  It’s made from a dress pattern.  These slips are nice enough to wear for sleeping in.

Here’s the pattern I used- a Simplicity 2 Hour dress or jumper.

camisole slips to sew

Using camisoles you already have can be turned into wearable slips.  I took my favorite camisole and put this skirt on it from some leftover material bin.  The skirt is a kind of heavy  cotton which normally would be too heavy for this lightweight camisole top, but it works because the skirt is short.  If it was longer, it’d be too heavy for the camisole and would pull it out of shape.  I have one dress where this slip is perfect for.

Here’s what I did with this  (had forever) pink camisole/ undershirt.  The $1.50 a yd pink cotton starch material is perfect for dresses where I want a stiffer skirt.   It’s almost the feel of bed sheet material- stiff cotton.  I did a post on slips a year ago… if you go in the search box to the right, just type in “ slips” and it’ll pull up.

Hope I gave some ideas for all the camisoles tucked away in your drawer that you are not using.

zucchini fries (baked)

First time I ever made these.  Two days ago someone left 4 zucchini’s at my door!  The funny thing is  the night before, I  came across this zucchini fries recipe ( at the time I was looking at the graham cracker recipe I’m going to make).

zucchini fries recipe I was looking at.   There are a lot of photos of these all over the web- fun to  see,  but this photo of my fries  is distorted because they look bigger and chunkier than they really were.  I didn’t put any parmesan cheese in the bread crumbs, but good thing I had a baggie of homemade breadcrumbs in the freezer.   These were delicious.

Stuffed some zucchini with sweet onions .  Here it is before I flipped it over.  I coated it in olive oil and that’s paprika and some other salt on it.

Cacao essential oil

    updated photo of what I did with some of this coconut/cacao essential oil (that smells like coffee).  Bath Salts!  I had a jar from Wal-Mart bath salts and re-used it.  I think it needs some orange essential oil to lighten it up since it’s kind of heavy smelling. If you order some cacao essential oil (chocolate smell of course), then what?  After some thought about what to do with my little 5ml vial of cacao oil, I invested 1 ml which is 20 drops  into this jar you see.

Had some used up vanilla beans soaking in  brandy (for homemade vanilla for cookies), so I put them in this honey jar with unrefined coconut oil with the date and ingredients on label.  I don’t know if it’ll turn out to be salve at a later date, bath oil, lip balm or something else- maybe perfume oil.  Just thought you might like to know what this jar is doing in my cupboard.

Here are the cacao pods growing on the tree.

Here are the cacao beans that are in the pod.