Buttermilk-Lime Tea Bread

I bought a quart of buttermilk to make a Buttermilk Pie.  Fortunately I had the occasion to make 2 Buttermilk Pies but still had two cups of buttermilk left.  I went searching for recipes and found this one on the Pillsbury site since I was there for another reason which I'll mention later.

When I was ready to do this post I googled for the recipe and found the exact same recipe on the Betty Crocker site with the exact same picture (the pic below is mine).  What do you know, General Mills is the parent company of everything out there - Gold Medal, Pillsbury, Betty Crocker, Bisquick.  I guess it doesn't matter to them what you use, they get all the money anyway.  Didn't this used to be called a monopoly?

Buttermilk-Lime Tea Bread

Filled with refreshing citrus flavor, this quick bread made with flour, buttermilk and egg is an all time favorite! 

Prep Time: 15 Min
Total Time: 1 Hr 15 Min
Makes: 1 loaf (16 slices

INGREDIENTS:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 egg

1 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons grated lime peel

3 tablespoons lime juice

1 tablespoon sugar

DIRECTIONS:

• Heat oven to 350°F (325°F for dark or nonstick pan). Grease bottom and sides of 8x4- or 9x5-inch loaf pan with shortening or spray with cooking spray; lightly flour.
• In medium bowl, mix flour, 3/4 cup sugar, the baking powder and salt; set aside.
• In another medium bowl, stir egg, buttermilk, oil, lime peel and 1 tablespoon of the lime juice with spoon until well blended. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture and stir just until moistened (some lumps will remain). Spread in pan.
• Bake 50 to 60 minutes or until golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Meanwhile, in small bowl, mix remaining 2 tablespoons lime juice and 1 tablespoon sugar.
• Brush lime juice mixture over top of warm bread. Cool in pan on cooling rack 10 minutes; remove bread from pan to cooling rack. Cool completely, about 1 hour. When completely cool, wrap in plastic wrap. Bread is best served the next day.

 Here is the Pillsbury link:  Pillsbury

and this is the Betty Crocker one:  Betty Crocker

Baked Honey-Mustard Chicken Bites

We went to Kim's on Thursday for the Boudens Christmas.  Everyone brought something to eat and it was my favorite kind of meal.  Appetizers and desserts and we had plenty of both.  Andy made an amazing peanut butter pie, the highlight of the night.
I made something that I knew I could eat and this could be my favorite thing to make for awhile.  I found the recipe on the Weight Watchers website and not only does it look good, it tastes good.

Baked Honey-Mustard Chicken Bites

Prep time: 10 min Cook time: 20 min
Serves: 24

Just dunk and pop them into your mouth. Go sweet with our honey mustard dip or make it spicy by adding hot red pepper sauce.

Ingredients:
8 oz refrigerated bread stick dough
1 pound(s) uncooked boneless, skinless chicken thigh(s), cut into 24 equal-size pieces
1/4 cup(s) honey mustard,

Dipping Sauce:
3 Tbsp honey mustard
1 1/2 tsp low-sodium soy sauce
2 tsp chives, fresh, minced

Preheat oven to 375oF. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Unroll dough and cut it into 24 strips; place strips horizontally in front of you. Top each strip with a piece of chicken and brush chicken with some mustard; roll dough around chicken (chicken will stick out on the ends).
Place chicken bites on prepared baking sheet. Bake until dough is golden brown and chicken is cooked through, about 15 to 20 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes before serving.
Meanwhile, combine mustard and soy sauce in a small bowl; sprinkle with chives. Yields 1 chicken bite per serving.

Movie Date

We're on our way to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo!

Decorations

We put out tree up and did a red and white theme this year.  In the past we;ve done white and silver or green and red but this year we decided to change it.  I went out shopping and Larry did a great job on the tree all by himself without my supervision or criticism :)

This is the wreath we use no matter what the theme although we may change the bow.

Hockey Quilts

When Hunter called before Thanksgiving to ask me to make hockey quilts for all the boys I quickly said yes.  Of course, I never made a quilt before and where was I going to get fabric with hockey images.  As it turns out, there were very few fabrics with hockey motifs and they all had to be ordered online.  And how fast would I be able to make three quilts?  I did find a video on YouTube for making a quilt in a couple of hours.  When I spoke to Greta a week or so later I blamed her for telling Hunter to call me, but then she reminded me that I didn't have to agree to do it.  She was right, but how could I say no.

Then, when I was on Shutterfly to order Christmas cards I saw that I could order photo blankets.  Of course, then I had to get hockey photos.  I looked online but I wasn't able to get any pictures that would be of a high enough resolution to be used for the blankets.  I knew Laura was going to Greta's for Thanksgiving so I asked her to take some pictures of the kids ice skating.  Then when I was talking to Greta, she said she had pictures of the boys playing hockey.

I don't remember what took me to the Walmart site, but they had the fleece blankets too but they allowed for a lot more pictures.  I went over to the store to see if they had one in there so I could feel what they were like.  They did have one hanging up, pretty high, so I couldn't feel it but the picture quality was real good.  Later, when I was at Target I took pictures of hockey equipment (I don't know why I didn't think of it while I was at Walmart) - a skate, glove, stick and a net (I took a picture of the picture on the box).

I ordered the quilts and they came quicker than expected.  Good thing too, because I had to return the one I did for Hunter because it had a bunch of flaws.  No questions asked, quick return at the store where my account was credited and then I ordered a new one.  The workmanship was a little sloppy but because the return process was easy I would say that it was a good deal for the price and the boys seemed happy with their blankets.  The pictures below are from the website, not the actual quilt.  The actual quilt wasn't as square or even.

 

Myles's Blanket

 

Hunter's Blanket

Tucker's Blanket

Funny Smells GONE!!

On the Friday before Christmas, just when we were ready to leave to go to Greta's I noticed an awful smell in the basement. It was like a bad sewage smell. If we still had a dog we would have thought she might have had an accident. We didn't know if the toilets were causing the problem or if it was something from outside so we just shut off the water to the house and left. 

I had forgetten all about it until we came home yesterday and Larry mentioned that he still smelled it when he went down to turn the water on but he used some nice smelling glade spray to mask it. 
I woke up early this morning and could smell it again and later on in the morning it smelled more like H2S - hydrogen sulfide (rotten eggs).  When I googled to find the cause for that I saw that it could be a gas leak, but our carbon monoxide detectors weren't sensing anything.  We did have some work done on our furnace about a month ago and thought maybe there was something going on with that so we called our furnace company.  They sent the same guy out who did the repair and he checked out everything and couldn't find a problem.  He did notice that Larry had a marine battery charging and thought that maybe that could be the problem.  Larry had been charging it for about a week, since he's getting like me and forgetting about things.  He disconnected it and moved it out to the garage and we are no longer having ANY smell.  It turns out that batteries have sulfur in them.

Merry Christmas

• ˚ ˚★Merry★* 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •
• 。★Christmas★ 。* 。
° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * _Π_____*。*˚
˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ ｜ 田田 ｜門｜ ˚And a Happy New Year !!
...♥*•♪♫•*¨* ℒℴvℯ ॐ Light *¨*•♪ Joy to all! ♫•*¨* Peace on Earth ♪♫•*¨*

Need to wrap

Webster Park

We took a hike in Webster Park today and hiked the trail that we normally use for Cross Country skiing.  We hope that some of the downed trees and limbs will be removed before we have some snow, otherwise we'll need a big base so that we can get over some of them, especially this first one.

 I love these shadow pictures.  Love looking so tall and skinny!

 Lots of boy scouts were out camping.

Trail Mix

Wegmans has a trail mix bar now in the bulk food section and it gave me the urge to make some trail mix.  What a mistake!  It is so good it is hard to stop eating it and these pictures look good enough to eat.  I didn't use the trail mix bar, I just selected each ingredient and weighed it separately.  The next time I went to make trail mix, yes, I did it again, I weighed all the bags at the price of the trail mix bar $5.99/lb and had about a $1.00/lb savings.

 Dried Apricots

Craisins

Dates

Dried Strawberries

Sunflower seeds

Almonds

Raisins

Christmas M&Ms - peanut and plain

Pistachio mix (pistachios, almonds and cashews)

The almost finished mix until I decided to add some cereal and pretzels

Kashi Cereal

Pretzels

The mix with pretzels and cereal

NOTE:  After a couple of days the pretzels got soggy so I had to remove them.  I like the flavor of the crispy and salty so next time I would just add some before serving.

YIKES - my screen is huge!!!

If the screen on your mac has a window that got so big you can't tell what it is and you can't close it or make it smaller, someone may have accidently hit the keys that do this.
Try the following:

Hold down the "control" key and scroll with your mouse.  If you go down, it will become smaller, up makes it larger.

It's also a helpful tool if you need to see things larger than the standard size of the desktop.

Joy's Cranberry Bread from Audrey

I got this recipe from Audrey after I had a piece of the bread that was so good.  It's her mother's recipe so that makes it even more special besides being delicious.

Joy’s Cranberry Nut Bread

2 Cups sifted flour
1 Cup sugar
1 ½ Teaspoon Baking Powder
½ Teaspoon Baking Soda
¼ Cup Shortening

Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder and baking soda.  Cut in shortening.

¾ Cup Orange Juice
1 Tablespoon grated orange rind
1 egg – well beaten
½ Cup chopped walnuts
2 Cups chopped cranberries

Combine juice, rind, egg and pour into dry ingredients to dampen.  Stir with a spoon
Fold in nuts and cranberries

Spoon into a 9 x 5 x 3 loaf pan, sprayed with Pam.  Bake 350 for one hour.  Check for doneness in center by inserting a sharp knife into the center.   Cool on a cookie rack.
===========================
I  bought a fruit cake for Larry that we sampled at BJs so might not make this for a little while.

That fruit cake is dangerous, hard to take a little piece because of th ebig pieces of fruit.  It's in the freezer now and I'm hoping to get it hard enough to slice through those big pieces and get reasonable slices since it is so filling.