Cats Etc.

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Espresso Brownie Tart

Espresso Brownie Tart

 A recipe from: From The Earth To The Table, John Ash

Makes one 8-inch tart  

• Butter and cocoa powder for dusting the tart pan
• 1½ cups sugar
• 1/4 cup (½ stick) unsalted butter
• ½ cup all-purpose flour
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• ½ cup cocoa powder
• 1 cup chopped walnuts 
• 1/4 cup instant expresso powder
• 3 large eggs
• Optional garnish: powdered sugar, unsweetened whipped cream, and chocolate shavings

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Butter and lightly dust with cocoa powder an 8-inch tart pan; save any excess for the ½ cup needed. Melt the butter and chocolate in the top of a double boiler and stir in the cocoa powder and expresso powder until smooth. Pour into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or a regular electric mixer; at low speed, mix the eggs one at a time, alternating with the sugar. Continue mixing at medium speed for 6 to 8 minutes.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, and slat. Fold the dry ingredients into the chocolate mixture along with the nuts. Pour into the prepared tart pan and bake for 25 minutes. The tart will be very soft when it comes out of the oven.

Refrigerate at least 2 hours before serving. Even chilled it will still have a chewy center.

Serve the tart cut into wedges and topped with a sprinkling of powdered sugar, unsweetened whipped cream, and chocolate shavings.

Birds At Our Feeder

Mourning Dove

Eurasian Collared Dove

Blue Jay

American Goldfinch

House Finch

House Sparrow

Brewer's Blackbird

Red Winged Blackbird

Northern Flicker - seen November 4, 2016

European Starling

Chickadee

Common Grackle

 

 

Online you can see these and more front range birds at Audubon Birds of Boulder County 

Moving Recipes Is Work!

A few posts ago I said I was working to move recipes from the old Jordan Recipes page to this blog. It turns out it is difficult to get them moved over. Formatting issues are a real problem.  If you don't want to wait, just go visit the old Jordan Recipe Pages

Margaret Lobbes Cookies

Sharon's mother was a wonderful cook. The following cookie recipes came from her family-famous recipe box.  

 

Aunt Caroline's Cookies

• 1/2 pound butter
• 1/2 cup xxxx sugar 
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

 Form into roll and slice. Bake at 350 degrees 10 to 12 minutes.  

 

Margaret's Scotch Shortbread

• 1 lb butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 cups sifted flour
• 1 cup corn starch

Cream butter and sugar. Sift flour and corn starch together and add by tablespoon into butter. Put the mixture into an ungreased oblong cake pan. Pat down firmly with hand. Put in refrigerator over noght or at least seven hours. Put into a cold oven and set at 300 degrees. Bake 1 1/2 hours. Cool and sprinkle with fine sugar. Cut into cubes.    

 

Scotch Shortbread

• 1 cup butter
• 3/4 cup confectioner sugar
• 2 cups sifted flour
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice

Makes 20, two-inch cookies Cream butter. Add sugar and mix well. Sift together flour and nutmeg. Add to first mixture and stir well. Stir in lemon juice. Roll the dough to a thickness of 1/3 inch. Cut into stars or other fancy shape. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes.      

 

Aunt Teen's Butter Cookies

• 1 cup butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 cups sifted flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

  Cream all ingredients and form into balls. Press down with fingers. Bake in 325 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes.      

 

Dutch Cookies

• 3/4 pound butter
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Mix all ingredients. Roll into rolls. Refrigerate for a while. Slice and bake at 350 degrees.  

Beef Stroganoff

I am pulling recipes from the old Jordan's Recipe pages on the old web site.

An unusual cookbook in Sharon's collection is "A Collection Of The Very Finest Recipes Ever Assembled Into One Cookbook" published by Cookbook Publishers, Hayward, California in 1979. If you want good, standard recipes. this is a sure place to find them.

In this recipe for Beef Stroganoff I questioned Sharon on the use of catsup when I first put this dish together. But, the catsup works! 

• 2 pounds beef, a tender cut works well
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/2 pound fresh mushrooms
• 3 tablespoon flour
• 2 teaspoon meat-extract paste
• 1 tablespoon catsup
• 1 can beef broth
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 1 tablespoon fresh dill
• 1 1/2 cups sour cream
• salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Trim the beef and cut into bite size cubes. Use heavy, deep pot, heat over high heat and add the olive oil. Quickly sear the beef until it browned. Remove from the pot and set aside. Reduce heat slightly and add the butter to the pot. Sauté the onion, then add the garlic and mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms are done. Remove from heat and stir in flour, meat extract paste, and catsup and blend into onion and mushrooms. Place back on heat and gradually add beef broth and bring to a boil while stirring. reduce heat and simmer for about 5 minutes. Add the beef, wine, dill, and sour cream. Simmer until beef is hot, about 10 minutes. salt and pepper to taste. Serve over noodles or rice. Serves about 6.

Try This!

Try this recipe! Easy and delicious sole in onion crust with anchovy butter.  

Whew!

What's that in my driveway you say? One ton of Colorado flat cobble 4"-12" delivered in the morning. I have been dreading this, but decided the weather would be a little milder this Tuesday. I started moving rock at 8:30am and had moved all of them to the back and placed most of them by noon. By 1:30pm I had placed all of the rocks and had a beer. Mission accomplished. The pond is now cloudy with dust and dirt from the rocks and it looks like it will take a few days to clear, but the project looks good and I think I am done. I placed the rocks without anything to "glue" them together so I have to be careful until the settle in a bit. I did try some foam designed for use in waterfalls thinking it would allow me to set rock on the edge of the pond. No such luck that stuff may work for directing the flow of water in waterfalls but it is not adhesive (except on fingers). All of the pots and plants around the pond now have irrigation in place and hooked to the rest of the back yard irrigation. The plants get about 40 minutes of water every other day and everything looks to be thriving. Sharon planted lettuce and beets. The lettuce is sprouting and looking good. No beets sighted yet. (A complaint here. I have recently noted online that more and more people are using "site" in place of "sight". They are different words with different meanings.)

Pond fish update. Once the waterfall was rearranged, the Shubunkins were unable to jump out. Did I write about that earlier? We now have four Shubunkins and all seem happy. I've got a couple of water lettuce which are growing and multiplying and once the water clears I should have a lovely pond. 

Last Thursday, August 11, I visited my new oncologist at the University of Colorado Hospital Anshutz Cancer Pavilion Bone Marrow Transplant Clinic. Wow that is a mouthful! The drive took about an hour and I avoided the worst of Denver traffic by taking the tollway north of Denver and then coming back to Aurora on The road to the airport and then I70. Quite an adventure. The University of Colorado Hospital Campus is HUGE! But, following instructions they sent me, I went to valet parking, was asked if I could walk or not and was directed to the proper area to turn in my car and keys. Then it was a short walk to the hospital entrance, a stop at the information desk, a walk to an elevator, another stop for directions, then down a long hallway to the clinic door. After lots of paperwork I headed back for labs. I knew I was in trouble when the technician did not like my suggestion of using my hand for the blood draw. She attempted my left hand over my right and had failure #1. She could not hit the vein. Then she got a device that allows you to view veins. With that she finally went to my suggested vein but had issues getting into it, finally blood flowed but eventually stopped resulting in her trying another vein and failure #2. So we are up to three attempts, she has not bandaged any of them, and she calls in help. This technician looks at my arms, picks a spot, inserts a needle, gets a good blood flow, and finishes. Four holes, one capable technician, one who needs more experience and should not be in the Bone Marrow Transplant Clinic. I finally got to see the oncologist. She was up on my diagnosis, knew my history, explained lymphomas from top to bottom, described my options, poked around my lymph nodes, determined a course of action, and told me to come back in four months. I liked her,. She is a straight shooter. I've since made an appointment with an internal medicine doctor who will hopefully become my general doctor here. Dr. Kamdar, the oncologist, is going to make me finally have a colonoscopy.

Now more fun stuff! After my workout on Tuesday moving and placing 21 wheelbarrow loads of rock (207 rocks) I took the day off on Wednesday. I ran a couple of errands then wen t to our local fly shop to get a fishing license. I was excited to be getting a resident fishing license for $1. Foiled. It seems I have to be a resident for six months to get a resident fishing license. Damn. With that news I headed for the mountains. I went west on 66 to Lyons and then onto 7 toward Estes Park. It was a very nice drive along the St. Vrain River - the north fork I think - and I ended up in the Wild Basin area of Rocky Mountain National Park. I had to put my top up because of dust rising from traffic on the road and headed to the parking area. It was full. I went back about 1/2 mile of so and found a parking spot. It was right along the river and I walked downstream along the river for about 1/2 mile. Very relaxing. Sharon and Peg hiked here two years ago, and I suspect Sharon would like to come back.

 

Keeping Busy

The yard is done, for now. Sharon and I have been buying pots and perennials to fill them. I have been running drip irrigation lines to all of the pots. This week I went to a tropical fish store in Boulder and bought three Shubunkin goldfish. Two remain as one jumped out and rolled down the hill and dried out and died. A second has attempted to kill himself two times, once while I was watching and once he was lucky enough for me to find him before he was finished. My guess is that these guys like playing in the stream from the waterfall and jump into it. I have made a couple of adjustments to make it less likely they will jump out. Time will tell. I still have to place more rock around the pond - need to order one ton, but I want it to be a bit cooler before I tackle the job. I suppose there is no hurry to get this done.

A little excitement in the neighborhood this week as a hot air balloon flew over the neighborhood and landed at the end of the block. Neighbor Lindsay got some good shots of it going past our house. Also, the Miata is now an official Colorado car with Colorado tags, emissions inspection, and a title on the way.

I need to get back into the basement and make more pull out shelves for the kitchen. Next week! Today we have furniture delivered - chairs and night stands for the bedroom. This afternoon I meet a new oncologist. I'll report later!

 

 

 

 

And More!

Yesterday I worked on the waterfall and am pretty happy with the results. I also spent a bit more time on irrigation and now all pots in the back are covered. I am learning a lot about installing drip irrigation. Fish? Done and gone. I took a water sample to Petco and they declared the water to be good. However, they told me that their feeder fish come in with nothing to normalize the water temperatures. In the summer especially the feed fish have been terribly stressed and have little chance of surviving. I am going to let the pond rest for a while. I put in some more beneficial bacteria and added additional filer media to the filer falls. This will hopefully help stabilize the pond water. This weekend Sharon and I will look for pots and plants and next week I will order more rock. The pond continues to be a work in process.

Yesterday I watched a male house finch on the bird feeder and a male goldfinch on the nyjer sack. I know that at least a couple of birds know we are here. Perhaps they will spread the word. Today I built and filled a bird dust bath. I will now wait and see if birds will use it. I have not seen any birds using my bird bath area of the pond. I just have to be patient.

We now have all of our solar shades up in the house and on the patio. As summer comes to a close we are ready for summer. Our house is coming together. We still have unpacking to do in the office/bedroom upstairs and I have to rebuild the desk. I built it for the attic in Glen Elllyn and designed to to hold two full size PCs and monitors. It is way to big now and needs to be shorter and shallower. I also have to build the murphy bed for that room. We are waiting for nightstands for the master bedroom and our comfy chairs for that room. Then there is the big job in Sharon's office of book shelves and cabinets. With those we can unpack all the boxes in there.

 

More Pond Progress

This is what .28 tons of Rocky Mountain Flat Cobble looks like. I should have ordered a full ton - and I think I will order a ton to add to what I have. I think the rock was a good choice and looks good, I just need more of it. Looks like another trip to Colorado materials. This pond is getting expensive but we will enjoy it. One fish did not survive, the night and I have seen seven or eight today. Some of them seem to have taken to their new home quickly, others have not.

Yesterday evening Peg and I went to the Left Hand Brewing tasting room. We each got a different sampler and enjoyed our choices. I was very pleasant sitting outside under the trees. I am likely to go back, but I don't know if Sharon will join me. I wonder if they have wine? 

I am still trying to figure out this blogging editor. I lost an entry earlier. I am not quite sure how it happened. It does have a spelling checker which is a big step forward from Blogsy that I used to use.

Today we have solar shades going up on our patio, mounted on the pergola. Thus will keep our house cooler and make our back patio more useable in the afternoons. Currently the sun is just too intense out there. We have both west and north exposure in the afternoon and the Colorado sun is fierce. Pictures to follow!

Pond Progress

Today fish joined the pond. A dozen $0.35 small feeder goldfish are now swimming around. I added a strawberry pot so they would have shelter from the sun and from critters. I also bought and had delivered .28 tons of Rocky Mountain Flat Cobble. I thought this would be enough to complete naturalizing around the pond. It turns out a quarter ton of rock is not that much. I think I can use about two times that much more. We shall see when I get them installed. I also picked up a preformed "stream". My initial idea on the pond included a stream on the north end, but it turns out mother nature combined with the grading of the lot conspired against me and the slope in the yard went the wrong way. WIth the preformed stream I should be able to support it underneath and get it to flow south. LIttle did Peg know when she came to visit that I would have her moving rocks from the driveway to the pond.