Supper Club

New Years always brings resolutions and mine is to keep up with the blogging.
Things happening in life here;

We have started a local supper club with friends in Bastrop. This came about after my comment of "I don't want to spend money going out to eat and have bad food anymore"....wallah,,,,,everyone was anxious to get on board. We had homemade pizza night for the first one, I made the Neopolitan Style Pizza Dough from my sister Marjorie's little cookbook she made for the 'fam' one Chrismas. We had bowls of a variety of pizza toppings. I have a pizza stone and a pizza paddle which made everyone feel like they were pizza making pros.

All to the tunes of The Italian Cafe by Putamayo

Neapolitan Style Pizza Dough

1 teaspoon yeast

1 and 1/4 cup warm water

2 teaspoon salt

3-4 cups flour (sometimes I start with 1 cup of whole wheat flour)

Dissolve yeast in water, stir in 1 cup of flour and salt, then stir in remaining flour to make a stiff dough. Move dough to counter and knead adding more flour until smooth. Put in an oiled bowl, turning the dough over one time so the top is oiled, cover with plastic wrap and towel and let rise in a warm place at least 1 1/2 hours. You can let this rise as long as you want.

This will make two pizzas.

The next Supper Club is tomorrow night; Everything is going to be chocolate. Appetizers, Salads, Side Dishes, Main Course and of course Desserts.

How about some Youngs Double Chocolate Stout.

Chocolate goes with anything right???

After 2-3 weeks of below average freezing weather,,,,all garden plants are dead, and broken water pipes all over the state. This week we will be gifted with temps in the 70's so we can assess the overall damage a bit more. Weather here is "RANDOM AND QUITE A SITUATION", best to just go with it....

Passion of Life or Avitar Flower in Real Life

This Passion Flower is my favorite flower right now. Well honestly, it's about the only flower that looks good. It is HOT. That "fry an egg on the blacktop" kind of hot. In the 100's these days. But I have to say I am in love with the BIG Blue Sky and BIG White Puffy Clouds. As I drive along the country road in the morning I usually have all the windows down and can smell the BIG fields of hay they are cutting. Did I say that everything in Texas is BIG? LOL

I read this quote today:

if you do not expect the unexpected you will not find it,
for it is not to be reached by search or trail.
Heraclitus said that, and he was right.
Life is delighted to bring you The Unexpected.
Are you delighted to receive it?
Indeed, belief in the coming of The Unexpected is the
genesis of hope. How can you hope for anything breathtaking or
exciting if you can only hope for the already expected? Therefore,
you must always think that anything can happen. Form your ideas
and your dreams within that framework! Remember,
God specializes in The Unexpected.

I welcome the pleasure of The Unexpected....

Wide Open Spaces and Ranch Gates

I am intrigued by these creative and artistic ranch gates.






I am taking a new trail to work these days, the back country road. I have 3 choices in my drive to work which is about 50 minutes whichever way I go. There is the fast and traffic filled highway, or the second category highway which is also fast, full of traffic and lots of stops or this back country road. It is still fast, some parts are 65 mph, but it is beautiful too. The weather is in the high 90's everyday now and even at 7:00 a.m. it is already 80 degrees. Ahhhh the beauty of air conditioning. It is also very humid and I am being told that this is not normal for this area, that it is usually much dryer. Everywhere and Everyone is experiencing climate changes.
I just wish there was some way to make all the mosquitoes go away and any other biting insect, like the fire ants.

Variety is the Spice of Life in Texas Too

So we have a peacock that is one of our friendly neighbors who comes over to hang out. Today was the first time I saw him put on his show, flashing all his feathers in the big spread. They are amazing birds, and the variety of beauty in their feathers all over their body is a true picture of Awesome! He just follows me around outside, keeping a distance of about 3 feet and squawks for attention, or hopes of getting some sunflower snacks. I just love that feather thing he has on his head.
The beautiful garden is at Festival Hill in Round Top, Texas. This was taken about a month ago when I took my intern students out there for a tour. There isn't much in Round Top, Texas except 2 times a year when they have miles of antiques and flea market stuff for sale. Now that IS AN EVENT!!
I have been fascinated with the plan of nature and re-producing itself. I had the milk thistle pictures earlier and now the poppies. I want earrings that look like these little shrines. The seeds get tossed out of the little openings around the top, just under the umbrella part. So as the wind blows it shakes out the seeds. So Cool !!!!
Gotta have boots, and are there boots to pick from, how does a girl decide????

Girls Having Fun

These girls are having fun!! They were dressed up for the Yesteryear Festival in downtown Bastrop, my local little town. They also found the guys who were all dressed up like outlaws and lawmen and they staged a gunfight in the street!! Good guys won!

Job Opportunities Downtown

JOB OPPORTUNITIES IN TEXAS
I probably don't want to know why there are so many Bail Bonds signs in our little town! But this is my favorite one of all. The surprising thing of all is that most of them are women. My cousin goes to get his hair cut by a woman who owns a hair salon and also has a business being a bail bonds-woman. Now I bet she has stories to tell. I have read quite a few of the series of novels by Janet Evanovich who writes about a woman being a bail bonds-woman in New Jersey and they are hilarious.

Thistles and Thorns

Believe it or not, this is a gift from nature. This is a Milk Thistle plant in my garden at work and it is getting ready to present it's gift. I harvested some of these seeds last week, which meant that I very gently put my fingers on top of that fluffy part and pulled out the fluff. Each seed is at the end of it's own fluffy umbrella, just waiting for the wind to take them away and start a new life. I was amazed at looking into the opening flower. The 'whole' plant is prickly and thorny, I am thinking it is for it's own protection. While the plant is growing, it is making very special medicine and it needs to protect itself during that process, then it opens itself totally up when it decides to share. Are we as humans like this too?? I think we are. Sometimes we surround ourselves with thistles and prickly things to feel safe and protected.
The jar full, really isn't a harvest, because you can only use the little brown seeds, but I wanted to see all of that beauty filled up in the jar. Milk Thistle is excellent for your liver. Best used in a capsule or tincture form. For now, we are just eating the seeds as a little snack and that work too.