Thanksgiving Catch'up

Gentle Friends.... as I usually do I took Wednesday off, and with Rico already on a week off (he has so much time built up they hound him to take time off) we headed to the SF Flower market Wednesday morning for a tasty breakfast at the Bechelli's Flower Market Cafe and then on to the flowers...  at our house for Thanksgiving I do the cookin' and Rico does the flowers...

... we walked around all over and saw some really lovely things.....  tons of roses......

...  aren't these proteas great and so many lilies, you would have thought it was Easter.....

... there is just building after building and this is one of the the many booths....

....  another Booth we frequent, but he had still not decided what to put on the table.....

... of course there was tons of greens for Christmas.....  and berries and swags and .......

.... cedar, which we will be coming back for this weekend since we gotta get our Christmas going.......

....  Rico did a really wonderful job once again!!!  This was the table Wednesday, set with my Mom's wedding china - Castelton "Lace," the smaller Pink Luster plates were my Grandmother Warren's, I got 4 when we broke up my Mom's house, and found a couple more of them on the bay of evil....  the crystal was my Grandmother Mathews', Tiffin "Persian Pheasant," and the silver, linen and cut glass pieces are from both sides.

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It was a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I'll finish up with the weekend tomorrow.  Thanks for stopping by do stop again!!

Take care,

edgar

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Gentle Friends......

edgar, Rico and the Who Hounds

Weekend Holiday Cookin'

Gentle friends, well, since it was "stir-up" Sunday , that's what I did, I stirred up my Christmas Cake.....  while I was creaming the butter and sugar - I prepared the spring-form pan...  double parchment layers on all sides, buttered and then two more layers tied around the outside....  this I think was that hardest part of the whole cake - tying that damn string - and it ain't pretty, but it held the parchment on!

... tied on a ready to go....... 

 ... the basic batter of butter, sugar, spice, eggs, flour, zest.....  all mixed together...

 ... alternately adding the nuts and "boozy" fruit by hand.....  the batter was getting really thick and hard to stir so I juiced the lemon and added the juice to the mix.......  I had read some recipes that called for juice others that didn't, but the addition of the juice made the stirring much easier...

 ....the batter was so very thick that it was basically a non-pouring batter .....  so.....  after "plopping" the batter into the pan and smoothing the top down it looked like this before going into the oven..... 

 ......  here is a snap after 3 1/2 hours and hot out of the oven ....  I tested it at 3 hour mark,  but it just wasn't there so I gave it another half hour and that did the trick.......

 ......  and here is the cake all cooled, I pulled the bottom paper off and wrapped the whole cake up in two layers of parchment and a double layer of foil and it now sits snuggle in a cake tin..... I had to let the cake sit out over night for it to get cold and I'll feed is a few teaspoons of rum tonight and then once a week until Christmas week.......  when I'll make my own marzipan to cover the cake - which has to dry a couple of days before decorating it with some home made fondant............

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..... I also got a start on Thanksgiving.....  I made my cranberry sauce and got my Onion/Jalapeno cornbread made and it will be good and stale by Thursday!!

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That's about it for today sports fans, thanks for stopping by do stop again!!!  I've had a couple of emails and questions about my Christmas Cake Recipe, and yes, I will post it - but at the moment it is just notes and and I need to transcribe it into recipe form - which I hope to get to this week.

Take care,

edgar

Christmas Cakin'

Gentle Friends, I started on the "Christmas Cake" last night - I got my scale out - and the dried fruit and chopped up everything that needed chopping, hauled out the liquor and......

... a big wooden spoon then stir, stir, stir.......  now, I'll stir this once a day, every evening until Sunday ..... when I'll mix up the cake and bake that sucker.   

After reading numerous CC recipes there seemed to be no real consensus about how long to soak the fruit, from a month to a quick boil up the day you bake it.  I think three days will be sufficient.  There was also no consensus regarding the types and amounts of fruit to use, so I went shopping with this statement in my head...  "If I won't put it in my mouth I won't put it in my cake."  So my fruit medley consists of four type of raisins (Black, Flame and Golden) and Currents (another raisin BTW), candied Pineapple, Cranberries, Dates and some Prunes....  I was going to also include some apricots, but they didn't look appetizing at either store I went to so they were left out.  I also wavered between Bourbon and Rum, finally going with Rum.

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That about wraps up the week, and now we're looking Thanksgiving square in the face.....  I've set my menu, and shopping list.  I'll start polishing silver and get a move on my cranberry sauce Sunday so it has time to "mature" before Thursday........  Have a super weekend and thanks for stopping by dos top again!!

Take care,.

edgar

A little Bakin'

Gentle Friends, I was in the mood to bake something really Fallish, and with my MIL and nieces visiting this weekend, I knew it was serendipitous that I make her wonderful "Apple Cake."  Just packed with apple flavour and Fall spices, it fit the bill and comes together so quickly!!

I've been making this cake a few times a year for about 5 years and it has been a hit every time.  I posted the recipe HERE back in 2010.  Since then I've tweaked it a bit.....

...  I usually mix up the apples to include some of everything available, each brings it's own deliciousness to the baked result.... and into this cake I tossed a double handful of roughly chopped cranberries, for colour and flavour, I really liked the additionally fruit!!!

I was asked a while back about how I send these baked treats on to work with Rico, so instead of the sexy shot of "Cake on Plate".... here's how I cut up and packed this cake....

sort of bite sized, I sprinkled the top with icing sugar.  In the snap you can see all the nuts, apples and cranberries.  With the additional fruit the cake was super moist.

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That's about it for today sports fans, thanks again for stopping by do stop again. 

Take care,

edgar

A Little Stitchin'

Gentle Friends, I've stitched a bit more on AaHRH, here's where it stands at the moment...

... finished up the yard and started on the house... and like the fence posts moving, I moved a window to make everything a bit more even and balanced.......

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We went out and gathered up all the fruits for the cake over the weekend.  I ended up having to go to two different stores to get what I wanted.......

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That's about it for today sports fans, thanks for stopping by!!

Take care,

edgar

An Exchange Arrives and a Little Thriftin'

Gentle Friends, I've been down with some kind of bug for the last couple of days and have not stitched or touched the computer....  now that I'm back at about 87% I thought I would wrap up the week with a post......

I saw on the HoE that my Autumnal Exchange had arrive at Rosa's...

....  it was a fun stitch and squirrels, nuts and leaves really say Fall for me ......

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Last weekend I found a few things...

...  a pair of heavy old brass candlesticks, a great large older "Brown Betty", a sterling footed wheel cut bowl, a handful of sand dollars....  a travel book about Provence and a DVD of an excellent film....  "The Magdalene Sisters."

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That's about it for today sports fans, thanks for stopping by - have a super weekend and see you next week.  I will be out and about shopping for that Christmas cake this weekend!!

Take care,

edgar