Making Winter Feel Better

Here we are already past half of the first month of the new year 2016. The older I get the faster it goes. Tonight it is so very cold. I will not complain because Kentucky has been blessed with warm weather all through autumn and even a couple of 50 degree days this month. How do we get through these cold and snowy days like this picture of my backyard a few years ago.  Today we do not have the ice like in the pictures but it has snowed the entire day drifting and blowing and i am wish for spring to hurry.

Burr! This says cold definitely but sun shinning on the ice is beautiful

What I do is bring in a couple of pieces of my decorative wrought iron outdoor furniture. Usually a chair and a table of which I place a beautiful spring bouquet or a flat container that can hold several small pots of flowers. I usually put this in the kitchen where I can sit down and read from a book when I have time to relax. The artful bouquet below was created by a great friend Greg Hofelich. As you see he put a mix of flowers and vegetables and it looks like a garden. Just brightens your inside and makes you feel good and helps to forget Ole Man Winter on the other side of the door. 

I love to have a tea party on the spur of the moment. I will call in one of my neighbors to partake of some delicious, sweet, scrumptious delight and sip some Raspberry Zinger Tea or some other flavor. I set up a card table or use one end of the dining room table with the good china, white tablecloth and napkins. It makes us feel special while having a wonderful time. The bouquet below is in one of the standard vases that I painted red with the white polkadots and the bouquet is supposed to represent polkadots also. Actually this was a bouquet that I made for my grand daughters tea party. I always left it up to them to pick the colors for the party which they loved doing but now they think they are much too old for such delight. I say not so! Every year my husband would say it was my party for me, maybe?  Whatever, it was fun and time spent with the girls. I call it "Creating My Memories" that I will revisit in my mind when the time comes.  Remembering things that were said that were and are precious to me.

If not a tea party, then how about a small brunch on those days that the snow is surrounding your world. Serve some strawberries, crepes and whip cream. Add a little almond

flavoring to the whip cream. Blueberries, cantaloupe, pineapple and honeydew all made up of cheerful colors. Serve pastries such as Tea Biscuits of which I will share the recipe : 

​Ingredients:
3 1/2 Cups of Unbleached Flour
1 Teaspoon of Salt
3 Teaspoons of Baking Powder
2/3 Cup of Shortening
1 1/2 Cups of Milk
 
Syrup:
2 Tablespoons of Butter
1 Cup of Brown Sugar
1/2 Cup of Water
Bring to a boil on stove. Remove Quickly.
 

 Add ingredients in the order which they are written. Mixed the shortening until it makes pieces the sizes of peas and then add the milk and mix until it comes together. Let set for five minutes put on a floured board and then knead a bit and roll out until it is about 1/4″ thick. Spread butter on the top side and sprinkle cinnamon over the buttered side. Lift the opposite side toward you and role into a log. Slice 1″ pieces. In the mean time mix ingredients for syrup bring to a boil on stove and remove immediately and pour in the buttered cake pans, spread over bottom and put the slices on the top of the syrup. Put in oven 450 and cook until biscuits are brown or 20 min. Turn the pan upside down and empty tea biscuits on a plate. Do quickly so as it will not get too hard and stick to pan.

To turn this into a VEGAN recipe and you can please all:

Change the shortening to vegetable or coconut shortening
Milk to Rice Milk
Butter to a Earth Balance

Make the tea biscuits, get the linens & china, call your friend and sit down to enjoy the sunshine in your world while, "Ole Man Winter," stays outside.

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