Christmas Day At MacKenzie Acres

Most of the family made it to our home. We are blessed!

Gift of the Ornament

Every year I receive ornaments for our tree. Though I don't need them, it doesn't stop me from loving them.

                                                       Thanks Deb

Liz knitted the Christmas stocking.   Thanks Liz.

Soup Fest

Yummy soup was the order of the day.
Catherine invited us to stop over for a bowl of soup and a visit. Both were delicious!
I mean the soup and the visit. This is confusing since she had two different delicious soups.
Tomato basil and Bean soup.
We were also treated to singing by Christian and Zoe.  Also delicious.
Very delicious  visit.

                                                  Carl                     Catherine

 

Zoe and Christian

                                       

 

Liz.........John   ...  Joe

The Forgotten One

Remembered that Raspberry Mousse Cake was in the freezer as guests were prepared to leave. !

Chef Costco is not pleased.

Just enough to be beautiful!

                                         Building built by Joe

                                              View from our deck...

Another Day another dessert

Had a good baking day today. I tried Pignoli for the first time.  They are a pain to make but worth it. I browned the pine nuts first. If I made them again I would try to be more artistic with the placement of the pine nuts. The dough is very soft and I had all I could do to get them in a one inch ball. Then the nuts were sliding everywhere. However, they taste great and it was a good first time.

Next Joe helped me make mini-berry pies. I had blackberries, wild blueberries and a few marion berries to use. Of course there are a few seeds, thanks to the Himalayan blackberries.

Another plus, the cookies are gluten-free.

Disatrous dessert!

Our friends, Michele, Chinh & Kenny were over last night for dinner. They are always a pleasure to have around.
Kenny, a teenager, is always polite. He  made me happy when he  enjoyed the pasta three times.
I roasted vegetables and made a layered salad and garlic bread. All well received.
The only failure was the pumpkin pie. Luckily they were full.
After they left, Joe and I tried the pie. Joe was extremely verbal and said he would never have pumpkin pie again. Never, never, never!
The pie was so bad that the crust tried to escape and fell away from the filling. I don't know what I did wrong. I do remember using part buttermilk for the evap. milk. That may have done it..

Always prepared for failure I served a platter of cookies which were delicious!

As the saying goes, "Can't win 'em all."

Bladder Me Timbers!

Title makes no sense whatsoever but it came to me and I feel the need to share.
Life on MacKenzie Acres  is back to normal for now. Hope it stays that way.
The story of the plugged line is not a pretty one. The sinks started backing up so Joe to the rescue.
He got out the bladder to fasten to the hose..what hose, all hoses are frozen.  Let's see, is there a hose in the motorhome? Yes. On with our plans. I was stationed outside near an open window, when Joe yelled I was supposed to turn off the water. This happened rather quickly with added shouts of "Help help". I ran in the house as only I can run (slowly) Joe was soaked with water from the pipes. He asked me why it took so long . Hmm. We tried several times but no go, Joe.  We decided to refrain from using the sinks and try again the next day. Joe decided to drive up to McLendon Hardware and try to buy a larger, more powerful, bladder.
Next day we had success. Joe was in a better mood and I overlooked all the harsh conversation (one-sided) from the day before, as I knew he was frustrated with the situation.
As usual Joe saved the day.

Pasta Sauce Nonna Style

I decided to try to duplicate the color of my Grandmothers sauce. I remember it being reddish orange. I would watch her put fresh spinach from her garden in the meat grinder. I thought maybe that would do it. I don't put meat in mine so that would change the color a bit.
Also, I was cleaning out the freezer so I found red, yellow, orange peppers, pesto, oven roasted garlic and cherry tomatoes. All in the blender and into the pot. Then my mind began to work...always dangerous. Should I add the leftover hummus with pine nuts? Why not. Into the blender. Better use up the onion and fresh basil.  Blender again. Sauce is still green. What to do...cherry tomato, can of Italian chopped toms...on and on until I almost have the color I remember. I forgot to mention that I now have two huge pots of sauce.  I made a lasagna for freezer, a gluten free pasta for freezer and still have way too much sauce. I'll need some for the filled shells but not that much. Oh well, it is all in the freezer now, packed in sensible sized containers. Let's hope the power stays on...oh wait,we have a generator!

                                     This is a lot of sauce!

                      The first layer of lasagna dish.

Cheese fillled shells ......ready for the freezer.

                                     Look a little messy but sauce will cover our mistakes.

                                       Lower photo.  The broken ones for dinner tonight.

                                           Our regular salad...also will roast veggies. I'm getting hungry!

A Small version of the car that Mike built.

Dad thought photo could have been at a better angle, but you get the idea.

Not for the faint of heart!

Just happened to have my camera with me at Costco.