End of August Beginning of September

 The last two weeks have been full, as usual. Look at this beautiful collection of spices! My neighbor who grew up in India has been teaching me some of her recipes and these were the spices (some of them) needed to make Biryani this past week. 

I took Michael's mom over to visit my mom for lunch this week. All this outdoor entertaining is wonderful and it was the perfect weather.

My mom's flowers are just stunning, and they went with the tea cozy!

David and Laura picked out pumpkins from the patch they helped Grandma plant. Earlier in the summer they spent quite a few days helping with garden work. 

The pumpkin patch grows in a big field. 

Of course we had to say hello to Job the donkey and his attentive care-giver.

Mom keeps busy taking care of her people and bringing them lots of joy and love and good food! 

I took care of myself this week by scheduling a kayak time to my secret point. I enjoyed studying, planning, reading, and painting, not to mention watching all the wildlife and doing some plain old thinking.

I spent some time creating flat lay pictures for my nature blog -- do you know about that? It's where I blog about nature! And soon I'll be sharing some of my favorite nature books!

It's dahlia season and on the weekends my sister orders lots to put up for sale. They are just too pretty!

Sometimes my morning walk is extra special. What a gift.

Since I last wrote we had a son turn 18! Congrats Drew! We decorated by finding a whole bunch of things one can legally do when one is 18 and hanging those ideas from the bunting. Finally Drew can buy spray paint and actually get a job without having to get a work permit.

I've worked at the flower shop quite a bit lately -- lots of weddings and extra orders. This was an anniversary bouquet made to look similar to the original wedding bouquet. Those types of orders are fun to fulfill.

One Sunday afternoon we met at the park to celebrate Drew and cousin John's birthdays. 

The cousins enjoyed seeing each other -- we all enjoyed being in nature!

One weekend we had a lot of social engagements and I made A LOT of pies. 

This one was rhubarb:

This was a peach tart:

Once in awhile I get a chance to paint the flowers at work.

My online nature journaling classes started this week! I am very excited about them -- can't wait to "meet" everyone I don't know in person. My mind is bursting with ideas for the next five weeks.

One last picture of flowers.

Our Labor Day fun plan was cancelled due to rain so we are now working on house organization and the to-do list. Wondering if our evening meal will be rained out too! 

Life on the Home Front: First Full Day of Lockdown

In which I discuss Prince Charles, cake, and alien movies....

The first thing that I heard Wednesday morning was that Prince Charles had tested positive for the virus. That's just a little too close to the Queen for me! I am a very avid follower of the Royal Family. We grew up with an old book about the princesses (the Queen as a child) and a dollhouse they played with, then we lived in Uganda, a former colony of Britain, then two of my children were born in the UK, and of course two of my great-grandparents were also born there. It's inevitable that I be a royalist. I'm glad the Prince is not hospitalized and that he and Camilla are isolating way up in Scotland in a "cottage."

Sunshine today! I took a walk early afternoon to grab more footage for my nature videos. A neighbor was out moving flowers around in his flowerbed and promised to send me a bucket of daffodils he'd divided along with yellow lilies. I don't think I've ever seen so many people out walking in our neighborhood! Must be the new national past-time. People are more willing to say hello too. I found plenty of progress in the woods to report on -- lots of flowers making their way to the surface and a few actually blooming. Especially exciting was finding the ramps (wild garlic) poking up through the leaves.

Today was the first day when we actually knew someone who tested positive for the virus -- relatives in Connecticut. And friends in Rhode Island most likely have the virus too. And my friend in NYC continues to give me firsthand reports. Life there is very stressful, far more stressful than here. When someone you know gets the virus, that's when it all becomes real.

A friend shared a picture of her Glazed Donut Cake on Facebook and I thought it would be perfect to try for tea-time. James attempted a gluten-free version of it for us and it was SO delicious! How have we not known about this cake before??? The recipe we used is here. We used GF flour and xanthan gum and made buttermilk with milk and vinegar.

I started to putter in the garden -- mostly because I needed to deal with the plants I was given. After my long walk, and with a bike ride ahead (with Laura) I didn't want to do too much and over-do. I did find rhubarb coming up! YAY! Last year I planted some again to see if I could get it going. My attempts over the years have eventually failed.

I managed to get our linen closet re-organized. What a relief. So many more things to do like that. One at a time. The kids get the easy job: I ask them to pull everything out of the space I'm going to organize. I get the hard job of sorting and putting it back.

It was David's night to pick a movie, I think? Anyway, the movie was about humans fighting aliens and seemed to follow a similar line to the Groundhog Day movie. I spent the time knitting while we watched (and I secretly catch up on texts too).

Food Eaten: toast and tea for breakfast; leftover rice salad and eggs for lunch; glazed donut cake for tea, round two of taco salad for dinner with cut apples.

Welsh Cakes Recipe

Yesterday, being March 1, was also St. David's Day and that reminded me that it's the best day of the year to make Welsh Cakes! You see, St. David is the patron saint of Wales, and St. David's Day is a day on which the Welsh celebrate their country (daffodils are usually involved too, since daffodils are the representative flower of Wales). Welsh Cakes are one of the delicious treats that the country of Wales is known for.

WELSH CAKES
makes about 3 dozen tiny cakes

2 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. mixed spice (or pumpkin pie spice)
1/2 tsp. baking powder
8 Tbsp. butter
1/3 cup currants
1 egg
milk to bind

Mix the flour, sugar, spice, and baking powder in a food processor. Cut in the butter and pulse until small crumbs form. Tip the mixture into a bowl and add the currants and beaten egg. Pour in enough milk to make a stiff dough that can be rolled out on a flour-dusted counter. Roll dough to a 1/4-inch thickness. Cut out cakes. Cook cakes on a griddle (I use my electric pancake griddle) for about 4-5 minutes per side.

I make these gluten free by substituting gluten free flour.

Easter 2016

What a beautiful day we were blessed with on Easter Sunday! The weather was glorious! We had a baptism at church which always seems to make the service more special. And, there was a crowd of friends around tables laden with delicious food.

We came back from our spring vacation just a few days before Easter (can't wait to post about that!) so there was a day to shop and a day to bake! I started with these gluten free hot cross buns. I use Bob's Red Mill Pizza Crust mix as the base and add in lemon and orange zest, mixed spice, and golden raisins and currants.

Then came the "true" hot cross buns which I made in large quantities because my kids love them so much. This year I only baked one tray at a time in the oven and that did make them even better!

 I found beautiful chocolate eggs at Costco and they made the table look so festive. Not only that but my daffodils were in full bloom and even though I picked large bunches for inside there were still so many left outside!

There were no pictures of the appetizers but for lunch we had ham, rice salad, spinach berry salad, carrots, and roasted asparagus.

Here is the girls' table:

And the boys' table under which one of mine is hiding!

And the long adult table which managed to squeeze 16!

The funniest thing about this gathering was the mix of food allergies/intolerances. Nearly everyone coming had something. I almost wanted to make a chart. Some people could have gluten but no eggs, or no gluten and no eggs but dairy, or no gluten and no dairy but eggs, and then I remembered one person was allergic to earl grey tea and I'd soaked the fruit for the regular buns in earl grey so managed to leave it out of the gluten free. On and on it went!!! Ha ha!

So, for dessert we had a gluten free cheesecake with amazing berry filling and topping, a gluten free pavlova with lemon cream, gluten free/egg free cupcakes, gluten free/egg free key lime pie, and gluten free, dairy free, and refined sugar free lemon curd tart! What a riot!

And up close picture of the cheesecake!

And one of the pavlova, whose recipe is here.

And the GF, DF, SF Lemon Curd Tart which I made from Paleo Patisserie. Wow this is so, so good! Thankfully there were lots of leftovers. I've been eating a piece everyday! The crust is made with almond flour and maple syrup, the lemon curd with maple syrup as well and the coconut cream has vanilla and maple syrup.

We had tea, of course! Hands down everyone's favorite tea from recent events is the special Chinese tea that a friend from China sent to us. Not being a huge fan of Chinese tea, I'm surprised at how much I love it. In fact, it's nearly addicting. Our only dilemma is how we can get more of this tea!!!

I also tried some maple syrup sweetened coconut candies which turned out very well and will be repeated next year. I tried some mock peanut butter eggs with sun butter. You know, I just can't get used to sun butter. I think we'll stick with coconut.

Another friend made these dairy free caramel filled hearts. She made the caramel with honey!!

Here is a kid picture from the Easter egg hunt.

The sky was such a lovely blue and the kids could run around without coats!

I love this picture!!!

 I found a basket to display our Lithuanian Easter eggs which we have collected over the last 5 years. Every year we get a little better at it.

Now Easter is just memories but it is nice that we still have this week off of school. I'm busy trying to get the household chores done that get postponed while we are in school. And I'm also enjoying spring!!!