Joe's Serengeti

Joe called this his Serengeti.  Hensley Lake was beautiful and we enjoyed kayaking there but it was super hot!  The hills were all brown dotted with trees.  Hardly any shade but kayaking and swimming in the lake gave much needed cooling down from the heat.

It was a tremendous blessing to have Joe discover he loves kayaking!  I was getting discouraged that we were running out of outdoor activities to try out. Joe has been suffering from a series of debilitating back issues that have limited what he can do physically.  We got that yellow kayak a few years ago.  It was a cheap one for me to try out and it’s a sit-on-top type.  While preparing for this trip, Joe saw the blue one at Walmart and he wanted to try it out.  He ended up not liking it.  It was too rickety and unstable for him.  We ended up switching while at Hensley and the yellow one was a better fit.

We just kept kayaking throughout our trip and we even tried fishing!  We don’t have very good luck fishing but we keep doing it.  It brings back great childhood memories for Joe and it’s relaxing.  Joe got some really good bites, lost a couple and caught a bass which he ended up releasing before I can get a good look!

 

The Return

 

My last post was September 2012.  Nearly 5 years have passed.  The hardest 5 years of my life but through it all, the Lord remained faithful and generous.  Joe and I went through fire.  Bits and pieces of that will come through in my future posts but for now I find myself more in love with him than ever.  We are looking forward to this new season, marked by our return to gardening and cooking! So I get to revive this blog. 

 

You can't really see the details of these roses but they are from our home.  Our "new" home since 2012.  We moved to the Capitol in 2014 to be closer to the business which we sold earlier this year.  A glimpse of that fire.

 

Joe got our  motorhome all ready for our trip to Hensley Lake.  This is our 2nd motorhome trip and it was last minute.  It's a 4-day holiday weekend so we were very short on options.  The view is spectacular and the lake is very accessible for our kayaks and fishing.  Two buts:  no sewer hook up and the picnic table and fire pit are on hill which is quite a steep hike from the motorhome!  The backdrop of trees in the rose picture is that hill.  I told Joe going up and down that hill means freedom to eat!

 

When I got home Friday afternoon, Joe has the rig all ready and when I walked in, the first thing I noticed was the mason jar of fresh cut roses from our garden!  Such a sweet and beautiful gesture to make this rig our home.  Joe has been specially attentive and caring these past few weeks.  Honestly borne out of the fire we went through and the healing path that the Lord has ordained for him.  I feel so blessed and just so, so loved.

 

no preservatives!

My Hubby is really sweet and thoughtful. For Valentine's Day he got me the usual bouquet of beautiful long-stemmed red roses delivered to my work and a funny card. I ended up staying home sick and went to work towards the end of the day to get my flowers. When he came home after work, he surprised me with Annie's Organic Ketchup! I was really touched and let me tell you why.

I absolutely love ketchup and eat it almost daily with breakfast. I don't eat a lot of it but I eat it often. For Lent I've given up preservatives...just trying to get all the junk food out and try to be purposeful about what I eat. For Ash Wednesday we had cornmeal-breaded cod for dinner. Now Hubby had introduced me to spicy ketchup - which is ketchup with sriracha in it and it's great with breaded fish. That night I couldn't have any. Hubby later told me he couldn't imagine how I would live a month without ketchup! So the next day he did some research about preservative-free ketchup and found me Annie's! I was so blessed by his gesture.

I did find a great beer for him that he hasn't had yet. Being the craft brew connoisseur that he is, it is becoming harder and harder to surprise him with one. Also got him some fancy dark chocolate with hickory smoked bacon:-) A great Valentine's Day for both of us.

choosing to be thankful

Hubby and I went to a great burger joint in town last month and shared some fries. I love the small, thin, crunchy ones. I never liked steak fries - I've always loved shoe string ones. We started calling them crunchies.

Once Hubby found out I love crunchies, he'd dig around for them and give them to me. Sometimes there'll be plenty and he'd put them in a pile. I would always be thankful and thought that was so sweet of him. And then it came out that he loves them too! I was truly moved and said, "And you've been giving them to me all this time???!!!" It was a no brainer for him and he continued to find me my crunchies.

I know these are just fries but I am trying to cultivate an attitude of thankfulness, regardless of how small or trivial it may be. I read about a blogger who wrote about how things really are. I don't necessarily have a problem with that but it gets tiring when the focus is always on how bad or hard things are. Those already draw focus on them - I don't need to do that. So while my posts seem to be trivial or always positive, that is purposeful. Although my life isn't perfect, I will choose to be thankful.

And today I am thankful for my Hubby who gladly sacrifices his "treasure trove of crunchies" for me:-)

new veggies

A very dear friend and her husband recently introduced us to parsnips. I've never had opportunity before to try it. They baked it with other root veggies and it was fantastic! So good that Hubby's decided to buy some.

I found a great and simple recipe that called for parsnips and carrots sautéed in honey and rosemary. Hubby hates carrots though so I substituted yams. Yum, yum, yum!

I also decided to cook Brussel sprouts for the very first time! I simply sautéed it in crispy pancetta - can't beat that!

These new veggie side dishes bookend some delicious smoked tri tip by none other than my sweet Hubby of course. God bless this dinner to our tummies!

how's this for NYE dinner?

We spoiled ourselves silly with this dinner for New Year's Eve courtesy of my dear Hubby who really is an excellent chef! Grilled lobster, seared ahi tuna and I made some stuffed wonton soup. Hubby made delicious dipping sauces for both lobster and tuna. That lobster tail was huge; we split it in half and we still didn't finish our share. We had enough leftovers for lobster omelet for breakfast the next day. The Lord is so generous!

I should ask more often

My Hubby loves to cook and he is excellent and creative at it. I do it more often though because I'm more organized and it is how I unload after work.

But dinners like this makes me think I should have him cook more often! This was for Sunday dinner and I asked him to whip up something. I told him he's got prawns to work with - our own version of Iron Chef. He made prawns and pancetta soft tacos with red and yellow peppers. It was excellent! He threw in some of our homemade chipotle. Another fantastic meal! My Hubby blesses my socks off.

so romantic!

My Hubby came home from work Monday night, surprisingly chipper. He got home before I did and I was greeted with a big smile and a proud declaration: "I am so romantic! I made plans for a date night!" And he waved a piece of paper in front of me.

There it was - two tickets to a showing of "White Christmas" at the Crest Theatre (an old-fashioned style theater in Sacramento). I was so touched! And this is totally lame but both of us knew I would be even more blessed: he got it a groupon for it - two tickets for just $11!!! And he made sure I knew that. I'd like to think I am just a very conservative spender but to my Hubby's standards, I can be a tightwad. Anyway, I was just thrilled! We are both Christmas nuts - the traditional type, not necessarily the consumer-mentality holiday observers. This is just awesome and I cannot wait!!! Hubby has been heaping lots and lots of love on me. I thank the Lord for blessing me with this man.

hearty barley soup

Last Monday we made another 6 lbs of chipotle sausage. There was about a 1/2 lb that we didn't put in the casings - just because of how the sausage stuffer works. So I decided to make some soup with the bulk sausage.

I chopped up whatever veggies we had in the fridge: zucchini, red and yellow pepper, tomatoes and some canned corn. We also had some leftover roast chicken from Sunday. I cooked the sausage first, added the shredded chicken and then added the veggies and barley along with some tomato sauce. I simmered everything for a while. I also made a batch of corn bread to go with the soup.

Tonight we're having the last of it! I've had to add more tomato sauce whenever we reheated it because it got too thick. This is the third time we're having it for dinner and it's one of those things that tastes even better as leftovers! It's started to rain again so perfect for soup. We had a long day of brewing and now it's time to relax.

biscuits, sausage & gravy

Today is rainy, windy and grey and the thought of homemade biscuits, sausage and gravy got me out of bed!!! I used our homemade breakfast sausage and made the gravy with whole milk and a couple of tablespoons of flour to thicken it up. Fresh ground pepper is key and a bit of a heavy hand with the salt.

I need to practice making biscuits. These were alright. These are dangerous to keep making - I love warm biscuits with butter and preserves. And I still had some homemade strawberry ones! The eggs of course are from our chickens. Which are sadly now down to two hens...we lost one earlier this week. She went quick - a respiratory issue of sorts. She was sick for barely two days.

A great Saturday breakfast though!

first time: popovers!

Hubby and I are avid Triple D fans and we are always trying out recipes from the show. The latest are these cheesy popovers from a restaurant in Texas I think (great name: Foreign and Domestic). The ingredients are basic (eggs, milk, flour, cheese, black pepper). The key is to have the muffin tin hot and the milk warmed to the right temp. I made only a half batch (9 muffins). I think I may have stirred it too much - it was too light and hollow inside. Still fabulous but I'll try a lighter hand next time. The popovers were paired with my super-easy orange/rosemary roast chicken and a quick spring salad.

I should mention that we also smoked a couple of tri-tips and made 5 lbs each of Italian sausage and breakfast sausage. It was a very productive culinary Sunday!

cheers from the past!

I have been enjoying watching back episodes of The Office while on the treadmill. I'm now in the middle of Season 2 and thought I needed a break from all the office dysfunction. So I started browsing Netflix and to my heart's great delight, I saw Cheers on the instant queue list! Wow! Jackpot!

I became a Cheers fan back in college. And I became obsessed with it. I just loved the camaraderie and the community. And the humor! I didn't realize I hadn't seen the pilot episode and it was awesome. It was just pure joy watching it. I laughed great, big, belly-laughs. I loved the Coach's innocence and Carla's toughness. I was never a fan of Sam's womanizing and I loved Rebecca Howe more than I did Diane (she annoyed the crap out of me). But the chemistry in that cast was just amazing. I was so jazzed watching it I ended up doing the fastest sprint I ever did on that treadmill! I felt like I could just fly!

And I loved the theme song and it was even more poignant as my Hubby and I are in the middle of opening our own brewpub. I feel so humbled. I am so excited at the possibility of living out my own Cheers season in life! The Lord is so good.

I pray our own place would be so welcoming to others. Where everybody knows your name. Which is going to be hilarious because Hubby has a hard time remembering people's names.

lost a precious chicken

After 10 days in quarantine, we lost one of our hens this morning. Poor thing got worms and then just never recovered her appetite. She was still warm when I picked her up this morning. I was very sad but The Lord now has one very sweet chicken roaming His grounds!

august got too busy

I am bummed to see that I managed only one post in August. We got totally caught up in starting our new business...pursuing our dream of opening a microbrewery! Huge, huge undertaking - exciting and scary but it is all worth it given that my Hubby and I are partnering in everything. It is taking up a lot of energy and time and money and we are trusting that the Lord will continue to guide us with wisdom, faith and courage. We have the support of family and friends and it is an amazing blessing. I'm sure there will be more posts on this adventure but for now I will keep it real.


This is the bowl of table grapes we harvested earlier in August. They were good but could be better and bigger. Our focus has been on our wine grapes but these table grapes are more mature and make a beautiful wrap for our arbor. Somehow I would need to add caretaking for the table grapes to my list of gardening priorities.

my new local hangout

I can't really call this my hangout yet because I've managed to make it there only three times so far.  But I'd love to make this my hangout.  I've always enjoyed going to a coffee shop to do my Bible study and journaling.  Harkens back to my college student days I think.  But I get so busy on my Fridays off and I forget to go.  The last time I was there I had to take this picture because of the yahtzee game...Hubby and I play that when we're just chilling and need to give our brains a rest.  That's our default game when the weather is cool enough to hang out on our patio.  Anyway, this local coffee shop is very simple but serves great coffee.  And the people are great!  I wish them the very best.  In the world full of Starbucks (of which I have to admit I am a fan) I do still cheer for the mom and  pop coffee shops.

homemade pizza

The picture doesn't do it justice but I made homemade pizza for dinner last night: crust from scratch, the Italian sausage and pancetta we made a few weeks ago and leftover pasta sauce from last night using our homegrown tomatoes. Next time it'll really be bonafide homemade when I make the mozarella myself. Hard to do that on a weeknight. This pizza was so loaded we had to eat it with a fork and knife. Beautifully paired with my Hubby's blue-ribbon award winning Scottish ale at the state fair.

super cute project

I still need to post about a beautiful vacation that Hubby and I took earlier this month where I got the idea for this project. We did a winery tour and saw bird houses with corks for roofing and siding! How cute is that! Went to Joann's yesterday for Cars fabric to make birthday gifts for my nephew's 3rd birthday and they had $2.00 bird houses for sale. Sweet! We're in the middle of a heat wave this weekend so I had some rare downtime to just chill. I hope to finish at least one this weekend. Cutting the corks takes a lot longer than I anticipated. But this is a good use for the pile of wine corks I've been collecting. I've already made a trivet which ended up being too fancy so it's hanging in the kitchen.

the garden flourishes...selectively

The celebrity tomatoes are prolific this year: firm, sweet fruit. I made myself a pancetta, spinach and tomato sandwich the other day. Bacon cannot hold a candle next to pancetta. But the latter would be too savory for pancakes so the bacon lives:-) We are also enjoying some table grapes. Although the grapes are small we are thankful to even taste them before the birds finished them off. We put netting over the wine grapes so those should make it to full maturity.We're waiting for more tomatillos to come in, a few zukes and a few other tomatoes. The chickens have increased their egg-laying so our little pseudo farm life is truly idyllic!

an impressive dinner!

I am way behind on my blogging...lots of photos waiting for narratives. I thought I should follow up with whatever became of those hanging pancettas.

Hubby treated me to a wonderful dinner of homemade linguini with the homemade pancetta. It was divine! That was the first time I ever had homemade pasta and I was simply blessed watching my Hubby make it. Needless to say we used our own eggs to make the pasta. And we were so proud of our pancetta. It was as good as we had hoped and all the waiting while it cured was worth it. He also made some stuffed portabella to go with it. It was truly a gourmet meal. He outdid himself. He ended up cooking most of that week - he was so inspired by his own efforts and creation!

fantastic pancetta!

Hubby and I had a treat for breakfast this morning: our very own pancetta! The picture shows the pancetta drying in our wine fridge:-) My idea I am proud to say. We needed a controlled environment and protection from flies. We had to empty a couple of shelves to hang these cured pork bellies. We can't wait to make pasta and pizza using pancetta - they are just packed with flavor and these have more meat than fat. Woo hoo! Success!