Snowy day here

Hey yall!! WOW what a storm we had last night!!   We experienced snow in the am, rain mid afternoon and snow and ice last night!! BUT it is most beautiful out there!! the snow is just clumped on everything.  Here's a couple of pics I took when I went out to do chores this am.

My poor birdies, their feeders were iced up so I cleaned em up and put more seed out, they were happy and came back asap.

Looking out to our deck

This tree is gorgeous!****

LOVE SNOWY DAYS!!***

hazelnut sandie cookies

nice n golden brown

My grandmother Rose's english muffin bread all baked.  They are so aromatic and toasted with some butter and sorghum......yummo!!

had to take a taste of warm out of the oven bread~~~it doesnt get better than homemade warm bread

Susan made a batch of almond macarons!! they are waiting to get in the oven and do their magic!!

I also made some chocolate chip cookies, some brown sugar shorbread cookies, some of our "eggcellent" egg or challah bread and some foccacia and coconut macaroons dipped in chocolate.  Productive day and we are ready for market tomorrow!!

I also bought a few things for the new house, sanded and primed a few more of the kitchen cabinets and picked out a nice cafe latte color for the base of the cabinets.  We are going to go look at tiles this weekend to make our own backsplash in the kitchen.  FUN stuff!!  She should be ready to rent by early summer!!  and boy it could also be our summer place away from home LOL only 8 miles away!!

Hope yall have a wonderful weekend and stay warm and safe out there in this wintry weather!!

HUGS

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

Hey yall!! WOW it is almost 1/2 way thru August already!! where the heck do the days go??  wayyyyyyyyy to fast that is for sure!
So last week my mom and I were busy busy!! We had the annual blueberry festival in South Haven on saturday and then I had market thurs in Allegan plus we had lots of rain and storms again and more coming possibly tonight!!  Fingers crossed we dont loose power again!   We roasted some zucchini slices for the vegetable lasagna.  Oh my goodnes!! zucchini at it's finest here!! I will never never ever fry it again!! We sliced them lenghwise into thin strips, sprinkled with olive oil, salt and pepper then placed in a hot oven for 10 minutes.  These were better than any kind of fried veggies~~I think this week we are gonna make some zucchini chips.  Keep them in the oven a bit longer til crunchy!~~ cant wait!!~

tater gnocchi ready for sauce!

Gnocchi dressed and chillin

coconut macaroons  YUMMY!!

these are my zucchini lasagna pans

My mom decided to add a bit of bling to them and sliced up some fresh tomatoes and parm cheese

this was a squash casserole, we topped it with crumbled butter crackers, only Ritz will do for this job!! LOL and baked til golden!!

Our newest idea!! Cake cup parfaits!! We did my loaded carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and then red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting *oops forgot those pics* they looked so amazingly yummy!!

5 sheets of my cinnamon graham crackers baking

all done and baked to crunchy perfection!

red velvet cupcakes patiently waiting for their filling.  I take an apple corer, pull out the centers and add cream cheese frosting up over the top and then top with crumbled cake.  they looked wonderful!  Red velvet is probably my favo cake!!

homemade gazpacho, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, onions, herbs blended up.  I did leave it a bit on the chunky side and it was delish!!

Swiss chard, zuccchini, sweet red peppers, red onions and pork sausage sauteeed for the breakfast casseroles. 

dilly beans out of the canner

rustic round rosemary loaves  so yummy and super easy peasy to do! The recipe is in my album on pinterest  Darlene Stumpf-Westfahl

Farmers morning breakfast casserole 

my mom aka pretzel princess did 2 pans of these up.  First dipped in homemade caramel, then in our milk/dark chocolate and rolled in chopped peanuts.  

So that is about it for now to share!!  This is gonna be a full week too.  Tues night market in Kalamazoo, Thurs Allegan, Saturday South Haven, we have a full day baking tomorrow!! cookies, breads, cakes, muffins. 

Be back soon to share more!!

Hugs

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

It is hot!!

This week has been so hot here!!  WOW, this is usually july/aug weather~~ not june so not sure what to whill happen next month.  We are scared to be loosing alot of the crops, the corn fields are not looking too good, with this drought we are experiencing and the extreme heat this isnt good.  I am worried about feed prices, they have doubled already from 2 years ago and this week when I bought some it was up $1.49 a 50 pound bag.  Which doesnt seem like alot but we go thru alot and we are small!!  Cant imagine what this will do to our meat prices either!! 

So my mom is doing a bit better today, she has had one issue after another since her surgery.  She got food poisoning this past weekend and it took her by storm, she was so dehydrated the doctor called telling her to go to er asap, she needed fluids quickly.  So we spent the day playing word games on my laptop in the ER while she got bags of fluids.  Thank goodness for laptops!!  I have to say a huge THANK YOU to Holland Hosptial!! the er staff was friendly, prompt, very professional and so caring!! The doctor she had was amazing, he was so compassionate and also he came in at least 4 times while we were there checking on her and kept us updated on how what was going on!! THANK YOU!!

So this week I didnt get alot done, we had spent so many hours running back and forth to doctors appts and so on I only had a few hours at the kitchen. 

One of my menu options was stuffed zucchini.  I cut them in 1/2 then used my small cookie scoop to scoop the innerds out, put them in a shallow pan and just lightly steamed them in a hot water bath.   

Here's what they look like filled.

Susan made my italian herb foccacia which is really the best dough to work with.  A bit on the sticky side this recipe makes 6 pounds of dough and actually my favorite to make. 

Here's the filling for the zucchini.  I cooked some brown and jasmine rice up, meantime sauteed onions, orange red yellow and green peppers, tomatoes,  celery, carrots, and sweet corn plus the innerds of the zucchini, some chopped yellow squash and some dried herbs.  Thyme, oregano, a touch of chili powder,  basil, garlic powder, cracked pepper, and salt then topped each one with a sprinkling of parm cheese and cheddar cheese. 

fitting the foccacia into the sheet pans

my salad fixins  just add dressing and enjoy!!  I also made a cold pasta salad with fresh cut veggies and a delish fresh lemon herbed vinegrette, some black raspberry buttermilk and  blueberry buttermilk muffins, some veggie kabobs(which i forgot to take pics of )  some tater cheese pierogi, and my veggie burgers.  Tomorrow will be a busy day making alot and I will put my camera in my bag tonight so I dont forget to take it with and share more with ya!!

Have a wonderful evening and keep cool and hydrated!!

HUGS

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~