Third Snow

This is our third snow this season and it's going to stick around for a little while I think. That's Cooper at the end of the driveway. He absolutely LOVES the snow and could stay out in it all day.

Randy had to get out his trusty snow shovel this morning and clear the driveway.

My little bird house looked cute with a snowy roof. The snow is definitely putting a stop to the paver patio project on the west side of the house.

West Yard Pavers

We chose gray/light brown pavers for the patio area in the west yard. This is the yard that is fenced and contains the garden.

The pavers compliment the stone on the fireplace as the fireplace is two plus stories high.

We are going to have two areas of pavers with "fake" turf in between. It will be a nice area to relax. I am on the lookout for some good deals on comfortable patio furniture.

Happy Holidays

Hope.....

Love...

Joy......

Wishing you lots of reasons

to celebrate this season.

Luminarias at the Desert Botanical Gardens

Each year, in the month of December, the Desert Botanical Gardens is open in the evenings for a unique holiday event. A special dinner is served......Caesar salad, fruit salad, roast sirloin of beef, chicken, herbed focaccia bread, potato gnocchi, roasted red potatoes, sautéed vegetables, and pumpkin cinnamon spice tiramisu.

Entertainment happens throughout the garden.......Native American storytelling and flute.

A group called Traveler......world music and dynamic violin.

8000 luminarias light up the garden. (Real candles)

The trees and cacti are also illuminated.

We especially enjoyed this steel drum group. Randy bought one of their CDs.

One of my favorites is always the handbell group. "Silver Bells" never sounded so wonderful! We listened to eleven different groups......a nice evening.

Catching Up....

The focus for December's Cooking Class was high altitude baking. We started the class by sampling a Chocolate Pound Cake.....very rich and yummy. It has some odd ingredients....potato starch, turbinado sugar, vanilla powder, brandy......but it was delicious.

We then made a Pineapple Upside-Down Cornmeal Cake....also delicious. We made a cake from scratch and worked on our ratios...flour and eggs for structure, fat and sugar for tenderness. Too much structure equals tough and dry. Too much moisture equals too tender and falling apart. I have lots of notes and hopefully I will be able to adjust a recipe for our higher altitude.

We have a new car! I traded in my Mazda for a 2010 Volkswagon Touareg. It only has 17,000 miles on it and is in excellent condition. We found it on CarMax....had it brought to the valley from Las Vegas. CarMax made it easy....we were out the door with the new car in 2 hours. It has more "bells and whistles" than we have ever had on a car  but we are enjoying the "luxury."

We have started to work on our side yard. Matt, the builder, (and Cooper) are laying out new irrigation lines. This area will be part pavers and artificial grass.

Matt will be building an arbor and privacy screen so we don't have to look at the garden, which can be ugly depending on the time of year. We had to move one flower bed down to the garden area and will be filling in areas with more granite. We will use this area for lounging and may include a fire pit. I'll keep you posted!

Thanksgiving

The table is set to have dinner with our neighbors. We jokingly called it our first Block Party.....we are the only two houses on the block. I used the cross-stitch placemats my Nana made and got some new plates at Target...wish I had gotten more as I really like them. The gourds were grown in our garden.

We started the meal with margaritas on the west deck....it was sunny and 70 degrees!

The turkey is ready to be carved. Randy used the "Cooking for Engineers" classic roast turkey recipe. The unique thing about this recipe is that you roast the turkey upside down to cook the breasts at a slower rate. Starting breast side down gives the legs a head start on cooking. This is desirable because drumsticks and thighs need to be cooked to a higher temperature in order to remove any trace of pink flesh. The breast would become very dry if cooked to temperatures as high as the legs.
You also roast the turkey for 15 minutes on each side and then rotate it so it is breast side up for the last 30 minutes.

We had a delicious meal......mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry, acorn squash, carrots, green beans with bacon and onions and our neighbor's special southern dressing. Our neighbor also made a superb pumpkin cheesecake for dessert.

Randy made soup the next day.....got this whooper of a carrot out of the garden. We still have lots of carrots.

This is a bad iPhone photo of Randy and Cooper post-Thanksgiving meal. Yes, Cooper got some turkey too. Someone should tell him he is too big to be a lap dog.

Blue Point Beach

Our photography class drove 60 minutes south of Payson to Blue Point Beach.

This is the lower Salt River Recreational Area. It's a great place for hikers, bikers and tubers.

Don't you just love this saguaro? I bet it has stories to tell.

Wildlife in the area consists of coyotes (I saw several), mountain lions, foxes and occasionally herds of horses from the Salt River Indian Reservation located nearby. Several tarantulas kept us company on the trail.

A Sprinkling of Snow

We woke up to a sprinkling of snow this morning. It was 23 degrees so we may be saying goodbye to Fall.

They say that the pansies will make it through the winter.....hope so......we put them in all of our window boxes.

Maybe it's time to put the umbrellas away........hard to know as the sun comes out and it's lovely to sit on the deck even in the middle of winter.

Fire Wise

We are in a drought period in AZ. Many fires get started from lightning strikes. Our local fire department wants everyone to be fire wise. We need to cut and rake out the dry grass.

Randy weed whipped the front portion of our lot. It looked so much better but we needed to do more.

The back section of the lot is difficult as one has to climb over and through lots of rocks.

We got a permit from the fire department so we could burn the brush instead of hauling it all to the dump.

Weed whipping definitely helped but we needed to hire someone to prune the trees up 13 feet from the ground and take out some of the manzanita.

Guess who supervised?

The next photos were taken after the pruning was done and manzanita was taken out.

You can see the rocks now and our lot is more clearly defined.

This shot is in the front of the house, facing the street, to the left of the driveway.

We also got a cord of nice oak to burn this winter......half the price of a cord of wood in CA.

Cooking Class.....En Papillote

The focus for Judy's Cooking Class this month was En Papillote (In Paper/Parchment). Twelve women gathered in her kitchen for a demonstration lesson. She has a class every Wednesday and repeats the "theme" for the month. (iPhone photos)

We assembled Salmon En Papillote and Lamb Shanks en Papillote with Leeks, Carrots, Rosemary and Orange.

The lamb was cooked in individual foil packets with vegetables, herbs, vermouth, and a silver of butter then roasted until luscious and fork-tender. Foil was needed as this dish bakes for 2 1/2 hours.

The salmon was cooked in parchment as it only took 12 minutes to cook. It was cooked with sautéed mushrooms and herb butter.

The lamb was so yummy and the carrots were incredible.

The cool thing about this dish is that you can cook the lamb the day before and prepare the bags 1-2 hours ahead of cooking. Judy served both the lamb and salmon with polenta with parmesan cheese. Mashed potatoes would also be a nice side dish.

Truly elegant dishes for company.......and easy to prepare!