Cinnamon Rolls for the Birthday Boy!

OK, this is my 250th blog, according to Google also called my semiquincentennial or bicenquiquagenarial! Try that after a glass of wine!

It so happened to coincide with James' 59th Birthday, which I don't think has any such Latin translation, and is not a 'big' one, unless you think of it as the one before your 60th! Eeks!

Or maybe you should think about it as it says on this card ..

He had hoped to go golfing that day, since one of the courses here gives you a free round for your birthday but it was just too cold and probably closed anyway because of the snow.
Like this:

Any-who, he didn't 'want' anything so he got cinnamon rolls, always a winner in his book, and he took it easy for most of the morning ...

His only request was pea-soup, so ...

Ehm .. yeah .. I screwed up, I forgot to buy split peas, so I invented a delicious black-eyed pea/pinto bean/lentil soup with veggies, ham hocks and sausage. Almost as good!

Real 'stick-to-your-ribs' food, which was very fortunate since we had very, very cold weather that day. 

The overnight low was 14F (-10C)! I'm not kidding! On top of that we had some more snow ... 

Everything more or less froze (except for our pipes fortunately), and we found ourselves once again in a winter wonderland.
Being Dutch, that immediately set of thoughts of  .. skating!
We got rid of our skates when we 'downsized' for our RV-adventure, but I remembered I had a very old pair of wooden skates in my 'saved-from-my-childhood' stuff, in a box under the bed.

     

Here they are! These are called 'Friese Doorlopers' and I first skated on them in the winter of 1965-1966. Look, here's proof, although you can't see them very well, but you have to take my word for it. Those are them. Over fifty years old!

So cute, my sister and me!

I couldn't resist trying them on! My feet, of course, have grown a bit since than, normally you would see the 'point' sticking out in front of your toe, but my shoe just fit on the wood ..

Funny!

Unfortunately, the ice wasn't thick enough to skate. Or as they say in Holland: 't Ken net'! 

('Net', usually means 'just', as in 'the ice is 'just' thick enough', but in the Frisian language it means 'not', as in 'it can not', meaning it's not possible/thick enough.

This, as you can imagine, can be the difference between having fun or getting wet (or worse, drown)!)

It has been freezing for several nights since, but it looks like the forecast is for much warmer weather for the coming week.

I actually liked the cold, much better than the week before when we had rain pretty much every day and the, as of yet not landscaped grounds, looked like this:

 

Yikes! Mud-fight anyone?

I haven't walked much lately, mainly because of the cold but also because I've been helping with some cleaning and painting at the B&B.
The one time I did, the only bird I saw was this little Bluebird ..

But I've mainly stayed warm and cozy inside. I finished my 'Christmas puzzle' and started a very appropriate 'winter' one ...

                       Lots of snow in this one. Not easy, I can tell you that!

Other than that, I drink a lot of coffee and I baked some Pignoli, Italian pine-nut cookies (with fennel seeds), which are possibly my favorite cookies ever .. for now!

              

Merlin sleeps even more than he already did with these temperatures and constantly wants to sit in our lap to warm himself. This weather is too cold, even for him!
He sleeps in in the mornings, on the bed, and doesn't even want to get up when I start to change the sheets ...

Smart cat!

That's it for now. See you soon, most likely in much warmer temperatures!

Happy New Year Y'all and all the best for 2018! 
I like the sound of it, 2018, it's a nice and round number, rolls easily of the tongue ... oh boy, I hope I don't have to 'eat' my words later on ..
As usual, our New Years celebration was a quiet one, although we heard a lot of very loud firework being set off all through the day. (Or maybe they were gun-shots, this IS the south of course!)

Per 'our' tradition (sort of) we had 'surf and turf' for dinner:

Lobster and Rib-eye steak, a dinner fit for a King!

The next morning, I was up in time to prepare the batter for the eagerly awaited 'Oliebollen'!

The dough rose exceptionally well this year, it almost came out of the bowl!
There was a moment of horror when we realized that we had gotten rid of the big pan that we usually make them in .. gasp .. , but we made do with a smaller one and everything went just fine!

 

Look at those beauties! (the oliebollen, I mean)

As every year we vowed we will make them again over the summer, during the (dutch) 'Kermis' (Fair) season, and hopefully this year we will actually remember this and do it!

We watched the 'Rose-Parade' on TV:



And in the evening I made a traditional, southern, 'Good Luck' dinner (hey, every little bit helps), which consisted of: 
Black-eyed Peas (for coins), a Ham-hock ( for the pig, a 'forward foraging animal' which brings good fortune), Collards (for the green paper money) and Cornbread (for gold).

Another delicious, comforting dish made in my Instant Pot. 

I took me less than an hour to get this on the table (only 20 minutes actual cooking time), versus 3 to 4 hours if had prepared this on the stove.

And boy, do we need these 'stick-to-your-ribs kinda comfort foods!

It is brutal cold here in the south! 

The temperature had actually already come up a degree when I took this picture at 8 am, 20 degrees! Can you believe it? We're in the South! Now I understand why this is not really a 'Snowbird' destination per se ...

We'd let the water trickle overnight and had already wrapped up the water hose real good so we had no problems. What with all 3 electric heaters running (one in the bedroom) and extra blankets on the bed we were as toasty as bears in their winter den.

On Tuesday it never even got above freezing! Unreal!
When it warmed up to 45F today I braved outside for a short walk. After spending 2 days in the RV, I was in dire need for some fresh air.



And fresh it was, even worse of course if you consider the windchill.
Everything was frosty ...

James had until now been working as much as he could on the inside, but it was high time to tackle a project outside that needed to be done.
The balcony at the back, in front of the 3 guest bedrooms, needed to be separated by walls for privacy, so the guys donned their thermal underwear, multiple layers and hoodies and braved the elements!

      

It's at times like these that I'm so happy to be able to cuddle under the covers with Merlin in my cozy bed, when James gets up at 7 in the morning!

Talking about me, I'm not doing a lot at the moment I have to say. I'm working on getting our taxes 'done', or at least 'organized'. I've finished a pair of socks that I've been working on for over a year (!), I do a lot of (jigsaw) puzzling and reading and I'm determined to make even more use this year of the Instant Pot than I already have.

I made these Stuffed Cabbage Rolls. Actual cooking time: 5 +18 minutes!

Together with some mashed potatoes, oh my, they were delicious! That (sweet and sour) sauce!

OK, that's it for this week. I'll end with this hilarious play-off on the warnings on TV about the cold, and to bring your plants and 'pets' indoors!

 

Although you'd think it's pretty much impossible for Christmas to sneak up on you, not with all the decorations, the shopping, the hallmark movies, the endless carols and music everywhere, the parades and concerts ... but all of a sudden ... there it is! 

And almost just as fast, you just blink an eye, ..  and it's all over again ..

 

Our 'Cajun Christmas' was nice and relaxed, calm and peaceful .. just like we like it!

I'd baked a nice apple-cranberry pie for coffee and we watched 'It's a wonderful Life' later in the afternoon .. what can I say, it's a tradition ..

We were invited for lunch on Christmas day at Ronnie's house, so we had our 'own' Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve day.

I tried my hand on preparing duck for the first time, and used the Instant Pot to cook it, and the oven to roast it for a little afterward. If I ever do that again I have to slightly increase the cooking time for the IP because it came out a little under-cooked, but fortunately the microwave solved that problem within a few minutes.

Although the duck was good, the orange sauce that came with the duck was even better, I could have eaten just that with a spoon!

Merry Christmas sweet boy!

Merl' thought he'd died and gone to heaven when we gave him the whole duck carcass outside on a platter! He worked on it for a long time.
We went for a little Christmas-walk in the neighborhood. It was beautiful weather, but cold, around 36F! It certainly felt like Christmas!



Even the birds we came across sported the appropriate Christmas colors, like this fiery red Cardinal, who stands out even more now the trees have lost their leaves, and a, very noisy, Red-bellied Woodpecker :

              

Like I said, the next day we went over to James' boss Ronnie for dinner. We met some old (who we'd seen last year) and some new family members  and had a really good time.
These people are the most inviting and relaxed people ever, they always make us feel like family ...

Ronnie had prepared a Turkey in his 'egg' grill/smoker, which was delicious, and a very nice Ham in the oven.
Their house was beautifully decked out for the season, everything was just perfect .. 

And, like last year, upon leaving, Ronnie handed us an envelop that contained a nice Christmas bonus. Sweet!

As far as the B&B goes, now the pressure is off (after the building inspection), James is working rather relaxed on the 'puncture-list'.
Ronnie's crew is off until after New Years, and they're not coming back afterward either, since the bigger jobs are done and James can handle most of the rest himself.
The painters will be back for some touch-up work, as will the electricians, and there's some little finishing jobs left for several others. 
The owners come by fairly often to check and/or measure for furniture and what-all, but it's all much quieter and relax-ter around here now than it has been for the last couple of weeks.

Here's a few pics:

This is the enormous living room, with the kitchen in the rear left, and, oh boy, such a nice kitchen it is ...

This is one of the two seperate counters and sinks in the master bathroom. I love those concrete sinks:

This is me, staining some boards that will end up in the elevator shaft ..

 

Here's James, hanging a pan-rack above the kitchen island ..

And this is the 2nd story kitchenette where Laura, the owner, will be preparing breakfast for her guests ..

It's all starting to come together and it looks like it will probably all be finished around the 15 of January, when there will be a final fire inspection, and sign-off on the project.

Happy Winter Solstice Y'all!

Although it's the first day of Winter today, it actually looks more like fall at the moment, than it did when it was Fall.

 See? Fall colors!

Oh well, it's the south, they're a little sloooow around here ...

       

We've had a whole lot of rain last week. It turned everything around here into thick red mud, which is especially nasty since we're basically living at a building site, where trucks and other heavy equipment turn the place into a big mud hole!
The temperatures are unseasonably high at the moment (where did I here that before), and together with the rain, it made these little flowers take a chance and pop up ...

The B&B passed it's fire inspection, besides a few minor issues that can easily be fixed, and tomorrow is the BIG building inspection, so everybody is crunching to get everything done.
Despite all the goings-on, we made time to go and see the Amite Christmas Parade, last Thursday.

Amite is a small town and we didn't expect much, which was a good thing, because it it was probably about the smallest parade we ever saw. Talking about small-town America!

They did their best-est though, with the High School marching band, several dance groups, a Queen and her court, several local businesses and the obligatory fire-truck.

Afterward we met a colleague of James, Mike, and his wife Catherine, at a local Sushi place.
They live in Amite and had wanted to get together for a while now, and we just never found the time, but now we finally made it work.
I wasn't too impressed with the Sushi, but the company was good, so we ended up having a good time after all.

Like I said in my previous post, I've started my holiday baking. After last week's Gingerbread men, I made my personal favorites, Hungarian Butter-horns ...

And the notorious Chocolate Crackle Cookies that have such horrible sticky dough, its 'enough-to-drive-you-stir-crazy' and than some ...

 

But Gawd ... they are so good!

Laura and Jeff, the owners of the B&B, called us over one morning when they were up at the house, and surprised us with a big bag of Laura's homemade Christmas cookies and candies, and a $100 gift certificate for a good steakhouse in Hammond! Sweet!

And James Boss Ronnie has invited us again, just like last year, to have Christmas lunch/dinner with his family at his house on Christmas Day, how nice is that?

So .. we're enjoying the season, and are making a cozy, sweet time of it .. life is good!