What am I doing New Years Eve?

This evening, I sat out in the shop watching LSU clobber GA Tech in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl (very boring after the 1st qtr) ... Reading a Dee Henderson book "Truth Seeker" ... while channel hopping between football, J-Lo in Maid in Manhattan, and Will Ferrell in Elf. We don't have cable TV in the house. Scratch your head and figure that one out ... meanwhile, Presley, our neighbor's mutt, had found a warm piece of carpet to sleep on and had no intention of leaving the workshop. Can't blame him ... the weather is doing a nosedive to 32 degrees ... which is why I had my insulated boots and winter coat on (with a warm windproof hood). About 9 p.m. some of the neighbors shot off fireworks ... and a couple others shot their guns ... But it's been real quiet since then. Our town is only 2 houses deep ... everything behind them is farms. I'll eat a few chocolate chip cookies and go to bed about 11:30 p.m. There are more football games to watch tomorrow. My wife is playing scrabble on the computer and managed to get 64 pts for playing "za". Triple letter, triple word score ... the computer flashed "You Won!" on the screen.

We are whooping it up with a bag of Gummi SourMix candy. And I still have a chocolate covered marzipan bar in my Christmas stocking. We are just really living it up tonight. (not)

Not Spring Yet?

Winter "officially" started on December 22nd ...

These flowers are blooming out front by the tree ...

There are a lot of plants out there that have felt such warm weather that they thought it was time to bloom.  Does this mean the fruit & nut trees will blossom and then the blossoms will be killed by freezing cold ... so there will be no harvest this next fall?

Red Onion Pecan Bread

Made some Red Onion/Pecan Bread yesterday.
We have a Sunbeam breadmaker machine which my wife requested for her birthday a couple of years ago. AND, she stipulated that I had to make the bread ...
So this last week she has been saying that "we" need to make some Red Onion/Pecan Bread. "We" (keemosabeh) means me. If you enlarge the foto, you can see the faded red onion pieces as well as the chopped pecan nut pieces. Instead of visiting the store, I picked up some pecans from the yard and spent half an hour cracking and shelling them. Then I put them in the mechanical food processor and cranked it about 10 times to chop the nuts. This recipe makes a 1.5 lb loaf.

Pecan & Red Onion Bread

1 package yeast (I used 2 tsp)
3 cups bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup plus 1 Tablespoon warm milk
1/4 cup butter (melted)
1/2 cup chopped fresh red onion
3/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

combine all ingredients in order given
(reverse that order for a bread machine)
use white bread setting

Well, that is the recipe ... and then there is reality ...

I was a little heavy-handed on both the red onion and the pecans ...

When the bread machine started twirling to mix everything, I noticed a few small balls of "dough" and a lot of granulated dry stuff sitting in the corners and on the sides ... so I grabbed a cup, loaded it with water, and headed for the bread machine ... I added a little water around the edges and pushed everything down and towards the center with my spatula ... while the machine was mixing. I'd add a little more water (sparingly), then push with the spatula ... eventually it all kind of glomped together to make a dough ball, while I was mashing down in the center to spread it out to catch any dry stuff ... until it looked a bit more than dry, not quite wet & sticky, but seemingly holding together. At this point I closed the lid on the bread machine and walked away. (adding too much water makes it rise really high and then fall down in the center) Either it would work or it wouldn't ... And I wouldn't know for sure until the beeper went off at the end.

In this case, it came out really good ... light and fluffy ... very flavorful.
While still warm, we cut the top off and slathered it with butter. YUM!

Boxing Day ...

Patient father with daughters

Today was "boxing day" ... the day after Christmas.

The day on which we got together with 3 of our children and their families.
Lots of pizza!!

There were grandchildren playing all over the place!

And the adults had a wonderful time ... mostly talking.

Part of this evening's entertainment was a sumo wrestling contest ...
a LOT of fun was had by all!
Due to recovering from a torn hamstring ... I did NOT participate.

Auntie J and two nieces compare heights.

Auntie is in her early 20's ...

the nieces are half as old

Brice shows off his headstand.

Very stable and well balanced.

Cian avoiding the camera

Granddaughter with MP3 player ...

just like 1001 other kids this year.

Talia and Mom

Happy ...