Month: May 2018

appetizers · Breads · Chocolate · Daily Thoughts · Desserts · Uncategorized

Cooking With Ginger

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We have a young chef who comes into our community once a month who is absolutely wonderful. Not only does she bring us amazing recipes, but she is funny and just livens up the people who show up. You come away laughing and in such great moods, it is just a great class to attend. Last week she made 4 really good recipes of which I have already made one. It will be one of our staples from now on. Open Faced Caprese Sandwiches. She also gave us the recipe for Butterscotch Peanut bars, Watermelon-Feta-Basil Salad and a summer mixed drink which I will post tomorrow. But today I am posting the Caprese Sandwiches and Butterscotch Bars.
I bet when you read the title you thought this post would be all about recipes which included ginger. Fooled YA!

Caprese Sandwiches
1 Roma Tomato, sliced into four slices
2 tables chopped fresh basil (or more depending on how many slices of bread you are using)
Fresh Mozzarella log, sliced thinly
4 slices of Italian Bread or baguette
Balsamic Reduction *Found it at some Walmarts and also Trader Joes
Butter and Olive Oil

Preheat oven broiler or toaster oven
Gently spread olive oil or softened butter on one side of the bread. Place in oven to lightly toast.
On opposite side of buttered or oiled bread, with a pastry brush, place olive oil on the dry side of the bread that has not been toasted. Place tomato slices on top of bread. (If you are making more than 4 slices of bread, use another tomato)
Top with slices of mozzarella. Again, use enough slices to make however many slices you need.
Place bread onto baking sheet and place under broiler for 1-2 minutes until cheese is melted and starting to bubble.
Top with chopped basil and sprinkle with the balsamic reduction. You may want to sprinkle each slice with sea salt.

Butterscotch Peanut Bars
This quick and easy bar to make taste similar to a Pay Day candy bar.

Bar
1/2 cup butterscotch flavored baking chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup salted Spanish peanuts or salted peanuts
1 1/2 cups miniature marshmallows

Glaze
1/4 cup milk or semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 teas shortening

Melt butterscotch chips, peanut butter and butter oven low heat in small saucepan, stirring constantly 3-5 minutes. Cool 5 minutes.
Stir in peanuts and marshmallows. Pour into a buttered 8″ square pan. Cover and place in fridge 30 min or until set.
Melt chocolate chips with shortening in a small saucepan or microwave until chips are melted. In 15 second intervals. Sir after each interval. Drizzle over the cooled bars and refrigerate until chocolate is set.
Cut into bars and keep covered in fridge.

Daily Thoughts · Uncategorized

Signs & Wonders

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Today was the 3rd day I have been to water aerobics this week. Will wonders never cease? We have been in a celebratory mood all week, as we are so proud that we have joined the group of folks here that really do believe that exercise is good for you. Who knew? So to celebrate our good choices, of course what does it make me want to do but bake. I made chocolate chip cookies and ate 8 of them. We went for Baskin Robbins on Wednesday night to celebrate that I didn’t die from a heat stroke playing 7 holes of golf before collapsing in the golf cart and promising myself I would never get back on a golf course until after the first freeze of the season. We had company over for dinner and what is a girl suppose to do but be sure that your friends don’t go away hungry. So chicken fried steak, gravy, mashed potatoes, hot rolls and key lime pie with whipping cream was the dinner of choice.
We have been so proud of ourselves for actually going to this class in the mornings that we have been calling friends we haven’t talked to in a long time just so we can hear ourselves say, “oh us, oh not much, just got back from water aerobic class and resting up to head over to the bocce ball courts after we cool down a bit.” We sound so cool getting to say that. Our old conversation use to sound like this, “oh us, well, we just finished some eggs, bacon and toast and am trying to figure out what to have for lunch. But right now, I’m in the kitchen baking some brownies and a pie for dessert tonight.” Now at least we can say “well, after exercise class we were both famished and just had to have lots of protein to replenish what was lost exercising this morning, so we made bacon and eggs.” And….”Trudy is hoping to have time to get a pie made before heading up to the clubhouse to sign up for line dancing.” Am saving that for June I think.

Since I have talked Randy into going with me, telling him that this will surely help his balance, and is an activity other than eat, that we can do together,he has decided that it is fun and has joined me. I told him that he can go, but I like to be in the shady part of the pool. He loves the sun so we are on opposite sides which is fine with me. That way, he isn’t able to see me just standing still when the exercises get to hard for me. I tell him that I might look like I’m standing still, but I’m doing cross country skiing under the water. So this morning, I look across the pool at him and smile and he sends me a little hand signal. Some of the ladies around me saw him and ask me what he was trying to tell me. I just smiled and told them that he was trying to make a heart like you see people do on Ellen a lot. They said, “ah…that is just so sweet of him to do that.” After class as we are all getting out of the pool, a couple of the ladies told Randy how neat that was for him to be watching me and sending me a heart sign with his hands. He said, “what? oh no, that wasn’t a heart, I was trying to tell Trudy I wanted to go get a donut after class.” The ride home on the golf cart was pretty quiet. In the first place, I want the ladies to think that we go home and have a fruit shake, NOT donuts. But, anyone who really knows us, knows that we are much more likely to celebrate our “good choices to exercise” with ice cream, donuts and pizza than we are fruit shakes. That is something you will never have to wonder about. Am seriously thinking about signing up Randy for a sign language class.

Daily Thoughts · Uncategorized

Sweets Or Swim

Chocolate Castles3 Comments

Well, after me saying I would never join an old ladies water aerobics swim class, I am now searching for a new swim suit. Over the last few months of driving by the pool in our community on the way to the donut shop in the mornings and me making fun of those sweet old ladies swishing their arms in the water as their hips swung side to side, I could not think of any excuse not to go with a friend of mine to the class. The only excuse I could think of was, “I don’t ever go anywhere without earrings or makeup” when Randy spoke up to remind me that it was just last Friday that I rode with him to the donut shop with no makeup and no earrings. He was quickly rebuked with, “yes, but I didn’t get out of the car, I let you go in for my donuts”. It was then that he also reminded me that some of the ladies he has seen in the pool were younger than me. Things began to get a little tense at this point so I gave in and went with Judy to swim class. It was better than sitting at home and listening to Mr. Smart Mouth.

Well, it has been 8 hours since surviving the first class and I can barely move. Lucky for me, my fingers don’t ache so I can search on-line for a new bathing suit. The positive outcome of this exercise stuff has given me new opportunities for getting new clothes. A few months ago, because I decided to try, after 15 years, to take another stab at golf, Randy finally gave in and took me shopping for some cute little golf outfits. It took me awhile to talk him into the idea of, “if I’m still not good at golf, I have to at least look cute while chasing the ball out of the rough” and another great line: “you wouldn’t want my rear to look big when I bend over to retrieve the ball would you?” That one worked. He agreed to take me shopping for some cute little golf shorts that have enough spandex in them to keep me standing tall and letting my golf partner be the ball retriever. So after this morning, I came home and told him that since I haven’t exercised in a little over 25-30 years, I needed to look like the other ladies in the class and have a cute little bathing suit, with matching hat and cover-up and a new beach towel. It was embarrassing using the hand me down Barbie beach towel that Jodi left here. Apparently she didn’t appreciate that Mother’s day gift from 5 years ago. When I get up 1 hour early this morning to prepare for the swim class, it was hard to decide which suit to wear; One that is 2 sizes smaller than I am now (I almost had to wear that one, as it took several attempts to get it off after seeing the fat that hung out of the top (when did all that back fat come from?) or one that has a skirt, which seems to hide more of me than I care to expose to the general public. The one with the skirt won. After 30 minutes in the pool, I discovered that those “cute little skirts” always float up to the surface and…well, ended up making me look like a fat floating little ballerina. Even a cute hat and earrings wouldn’t help that look. So here I am, headed out to the local store, Ok, I admit, I’m going to Walmart to look for a bathing suit to wear to class in the morning. That was the only place I felt might have larger women than me, trying to find the “perfect” suit.
This has given me a new lease on life. The exercise wasn’t what was fun, but all the socializing going on in the water. We laughed and talked about all the lazy ladies who were probably still in bed while we were out there, swishing our arms and hips to the movement of the water.
Tomorrow, my reward after class is going to the donut shop. I gave up wearing earrings in pubic for an hour, but I’m not giving up my donut run. I’ll just do some extra swishing at class on Thursday.