Snow

The amount of snow in December was record breaking for our area. Our mailbox was completely covered and had to be dug out with the snowblower before the mailman could deliver our mail. Poor Chuck, (that's our mailman) he's got a tough job in the winter

I love the snow when it is all white and fluffy and stays for 3 days.

I found an interesting web site about snow. It is SnowCrystals.com The author has a special microscope on his camera and takes close up photos of individual snowflakes.

Aren't these lovely?

Makes you looks at the piles of snow in a whole different way, doesn't it?

Pomegranate Martinis

Happy New Year!

After the decision to make Hoppin' John for New Years Day (which was very good) , I decided to check out what other foods are traditional and found that pomegranates are also supposed to be lucky so I decided we needed to incorporate them into our New Years Day meal.

Hmmm.....

Pomegranate Martini's are a favorite of mine at a neighborhood restaurant so the choice was obvious. I found a recipe and headed off to the markets to get the ingredients. I used this recipes to make the martinis.

Pomegranate Martinis
4 fluid ounces pomegranate juice
2 fluid ounces cranberry juice cocktail
2 fluid ounces raspberry vodka
2 fluid ounces orange-flavored liqueur
1 fluid ounce grenadine syrup
1 cup crushed ice
DIRECTIONS
Combine pomegranate juice, cranberry juice, raspberry vodka, orange-flavored liqueur, grenadine syrup, and crushed ice in a shaker. Shake vigorously to chill. Pour into martini glasses, and serve.

I love how the outside of the shaker gets all frosty when you shake it.

I wanted to incorporate some real pomegranate seeds into the drink so I also picked up a couple of pomegranates.

Did you know there is a really easy way to separate the seeds from the membrane or "pith" (the white stuff is the pith and I used this word in scrabble last month and my son didn't believe it was a real word!) When you open the pomegranate and start to peel the pith from the seed, you do it in a bowl, underwater. The seeds all drop to the bottom of the bowl of water and the pith floats to the top where you can remove it easily.

Wow, those little pomegranate seeds are juicy and yummy. I added lots of them to my martini, where they floated to the bottom, beckoning me to finish my drink and gobble them up.

When I started looking up information about pomegranates ,I was really surprised to learn that grenadine, the syrup that is often used in drinks, is made from pomegranates, I had absolutely no idea. There are many interesting facts about pomegranates, they go back a long, long time; they are even mentioned in the bible . In history, it's a symbol of fertility (so not something I am interested in!) and they are supposedly a nutritional powerhouse too.

I think they taste great, especially when mixed into this cocktail.


Cheers.





Let us welcome in the New Year, full of things that have never been.

Angels among us

Today my husband pointed out something interesting in the snow on our deck. It seems our dog was having some fun in the snow. He made a snow angel !!!

Hoppin' into the New Year

My husband and I were talking tonight about what we would eat on New Year's Eve. We've decided we are staying home. Last year we had French Onion Soup and Seven Layer dip and we are going to have the same thing again this year.

We have a lot of food traditions in our family. We have the same meal on each holiday each year for Easter, St Patricks Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We've sometimes had seafood on New Years Eve but it's never become a tradition like corned beef and cabbage on St Patricks Day; ham, cauliflower salad, and hot cross buns on Easter; prime rib, spinach salad, Yorkshire pudding, mashed potatoes and cheesecake on Christmas; Turkey on Thanksgiving and appetizers on Christmas Eve. We do everything the same down to the side dishes for our holidays. I've tried to change things occasionally but everyone seems to want things to stay the same. It is a nice family tradition.

This year we are having Hoppin' John for New Years Day. I understand it is a southern tradition and is made with black eyed peas and rice. I'd not heard of it until last year someone mentioned having it on New Years Day. When I looked up the history of Hoppin' John I found this old southern saying:
"Eat poor that day, eat rich the rest of the year. Rice for riches and peas for peace."

I found Hoppin' John is that it is supposed to bring luck for the rest of the year.

Apparently it is tradition to serve the dish with a dime mixed in with the peas before serving. The lucky person who got the coin was assured good luck for the rest of the year (assuming the Heimlich worked). I'll be leaving the coin out.

It isn't known why the dish is called Hoppin' John but several theories are told around the south. One interesting story is that it was originally sold in the streets of Charleston, South Carolina by a crippled African American man who was known as Hoppin' John. The dish has African or Afro-American roots as the black-eyed pea is the seed of the cowpea which is treasured in North Africa.

The Hoppin John I'm going to make will come from the allrecipes site; it's a soup. I've copied it below. While I don't believe it will bring me luck for the year, it looks tasty so perhaps it will become our newest food tradition

INGREDIENTS
1 pound sage pork sausage
1 (6 ounce) package uncooked long grain and wild rice mix, with seasoning packet
2 (15 ounce) cans black-eyed peas, drained
2 (14.5 ounce) cans diced tomatoes, with liquid
2 (14 ounce) cans chicken broth
2 cups water
salt to taste

DIRECTIONS
Crumble sausage into a skillet over medium heat and cook until evenly brown.
In a large pot, mix the cooked sausage, rice mix with seasoning packet, black-eyed peas, tomatoes, broth and water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 20 minutes, or until rice is tender. Season to taste with salt.

Clean Slate

Every year, right after Christmas, I have this overwhelming urge to clean and organize. It’s not so much a New Year’s resolution as a conviction that my life has slipped onto the slope of sloppiness and I can’t take it anymore! I need to start my year with a clean slate, so to speak.

The moment that I opened a drawer in my bathroom, the one in which I store my makeup, I knew that it was the time of year I feel like purging and organizing. I have a couple of dividers in this drawer but absolutely nothing was in a proper place. I took everything out of the drawer and it took me less than five minutes to go from this:

To this:

(I'm not sure why I need 18 different, but very similar, shades of brownish eye shadow but I've been told it makes my eyes look bluer so I keep buying it )

I need to keep reminding myself how easy and fast it is to organize and clean the little spots that drive me crazy.

I did some laundry and took it to my closet. When I put clothes in the correct spot, organized by color, it possibly took ten seconds more for the whole load than if I’d hung them willy-nilly.

I like the projects that stay neat and organized for a while. Keeping my closet organized by clothing type and color is easy to keep up.

Keeping my dog’s nose prints wiped off the windows, not so much.