autumn

Today is the first day of autumn.

And this is what is outside my "door."  I am feeling extremely spoiled.

This is Panamint Cafe Mobil Unit Two or in another words, our travel trailer where I create yummy goodness for our tummies.  Russell would not know what to do if we had to go out to eat all the time.  We are seeing a lot of his brother and we are having to eat out.  How odd!  It means he will probably not get the choice to eat out again for months!

I finished the afghan I was working on the drive here.  For finishing it, it was advantageous that we had a tire disintegrate but that was not helpful for nerves.  You cannot see the damage to Aria (Panamint Cafe Mobil Unit 2) because I was very careful with picture.  That gave me the time to finish the last few rows but we were very ready to get to our "home."

HOME!

We get to be home for almost a week!  I am so excited.  Russell is taking a workshop on the making of Damascus for knife making.  He is also getting to see his brother which has not happened in close to ten years.

Me you ask?

 

I get to create in this kitchen after having shopped at a co-op!  I real live co-op!  It is something I have to come home to be able to do.

I get to find new yarn shops and try crazy things like make socks.  I get to drive crazy windy mountain roads and coast roads.  I get to walk on the beach.  I get to see the first colors of autumn.  I get to use my new sewing machine to create things.  The only thing I will probably not get to do is sew outside because the forecast is for rain all week.  I think I can deal!

This comes to you from Black Bear Coffee Company.  Fabulous pumpkin pie and coffee.

salted caramel frozen treat

I had this idea in my head and had to try it.  Russell never objects because the failures are actually few.  The real issue sometimes is that if I follow a recipe I know I can make it better if it is just mediocre.  This was just an idea I had and I knew I still had some of my Dad's handmade caramels.

Salted Caramel Frozen Treat

1 cup soaked cashews plus the soaking water to fill the holes in the cup 

1 cup hempmilk

1/4 cup caramels

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

Take the cashews and their water and put them in a blender.  Blend until they are smooth.

Measure out the caramels.

Put the hempmilk, sugar, salt, and caramels in a pan on the stove over medium heat.  Heat gently and whisk until everything is dissolved and/or melted.

Slowly pour into the cashew cream while still blending.  Freeze as you would for ice cream.

Enjoy!  This is so incredibly yummy!

bread pudding

We like french toast but I do not like all the work that has to go with french toast.  And I actually like to eat at the same time as Russell so we can talk.  We like to talk.  We like each other even though we have been married almost ten years.  It is a good thing.

So we can eat together, we have bread pudding instead of french toast.  This is my throw down recipe:

Bread pudding

4 slices of bread, cubed

2 eggs

1/4 cup maple syrup

3/4 cup original hempmilk

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon ginger

(or you can do 1-2 teaspoons of vanilla)

2 tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Put the butter in a medium size casserole dish (or cast iron skillet like I do).  Put in the oven and let the butter melt.

Put the cubed bread, eggs, maple syrup, hempmilk, cinnamon, and ginger in a bowl.  Mix well.

It takes some mixing.  I even step away for a minute so the bread will soften up a bit.  

Pull the casserole dish out of the oven and pour this mixture in.

Bake for 30 minutes or until there are golden edges.   Eat straight out of the oven with your beloved with big mugs of tea.  That will make me smile.

tea

I will not say today was better then yesterday.  That would be a lie.  All I wanted to do was come home and have tea.

So I did.

Tea and brownies.  Which was actually supposed to be tea and cookies but the cookie dough was too soft to roll in powdered sugar.  And I have no patience.  The tea is lovely.  The brownies are fine but definitely need tweaking.  Or just tweaked enough to be made into cookies.  I think it may take more then a bit of tweaking!

Russell has been working on my workbench.

It is almost done and it is beautiful!  Right now he is putting on linseed wax.  Then bees wax.  It is truly gorgeous.

More tea for me!