happy new year - oliebollen recipe

Happy New Year! On New Year’s Eve we made our traditional Dutch apple fritters, called oliebollen. The Dutch believe that eating oliebollen (literally, “oil balls”) on New Year's Eve brings good fortune - anything circular is good luck because it symbolizes the “completion of a cycle of a year.” (My son recommends Ritz crackers in line with this reasoning…) And who can’t use some extra good luck?
Here’s my recipe that I translated from a Dutch recipe (the metric volumes, not the language):

Oliebollen (makes about 10 fritters)
1 cup flour
1 cup warm water
1 ¼ tsp salt
2 ½ tsp sugar
4 tsp yeast
¼ tsp cinnamon
lemon juice
2 Tbs raisins
4 oz chopped apples
Oil for deep frying
Powdered sugar to sprinkle on top

Mix flour, water, salt, sugar, yeast, cinnamon, lemon juice, raisins and apples. Let rise about 45 minutes in a warm location. Heat oil to 350 degrees F in a deep fryer. Form balls of dough using an ice cream scoop and drop into oil. (The dough is very loose, so its a bit of a challenge to produce a round ball...) Fry about 6 minutes each or until they're golden brown. Drain on paper towels and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

My family's original version of the recipe is to core and peel the apples and then slice them into rings (flat sections from peeled quartered apples are easier, but less lucky). Make the dough, omitting the raisins and apples. After its risen, dip the apple to coat with batter, then fry in a skillet with a layer of hot oil.

Christmas in Mississippi

There's nothing like a Christmas celebration with family. Reds and greens and lots of food. A tree and presents. A slideshow of my Mississippi Christmas photos is here.

Christmas in Mississippi - a year after the storm

Christmas Day 2006: Still not much reconstruction in this area on the coastline near Bay Saint Louis in Mississippi. I took the first picture near Geri's (Granma's) old house, which was completely washed way with all of its contents and memories in the storm (Hurricane Katrina). There is still clothing hanging in the trees and alot of debris littering the ground. In the photo, there are several FEMA trailers in the background. The second picture is a beautiful pink camila that was blooming on Christmas Day. The third photo shows the downtown streets of New Orleans. They looked lovely in the dark on our way to dinner out on the town. However, you can't see the miles and miles of abandoned homes we passed on the way in. We wondered where everyone from New Oleans is this Christmas, a year and a half after the storm. I hope everyone had a happy holiday.

merry christmas

This is our Christmas tree this year. A little one, since we will be traveling south to Mississippi. The tree has lots of lights - red and white and etc... Also, a new Christmas martini creation that I recommend: one olive, one peppadew and a spiral cut cucumber. Ahhh! Skippy is already at his holiday care-taker's place today. He's off to run in the woods of western Massachusetts for a few days without us... We're sad without him.
Merry Christmas to all!

ice

Icy. Ice on the clover. Ice on the dead oak leaves. Ice on the pond. Not much yet. But Skippy is having fun checking it out.

first day of winter

To mark the winter solstice, here's an animation of worldwide snowcover as the seasons change. A positive thought about winter: each day has progressively more sunlight and is progressively closer to gardening season!

skippy

planting wildflower seeds

It was a nice warm day so Skippy and I went out to the garden and planted some wildflower seeds. Some Joe Pye weed seeds that I got for a birthday present (from Wildflower Farm) and some tansy and wild heliopsis seeds that I collected.

planting&planning

after the big test

Here's a picture of Skippy after his big test. He took a loooong nap. (Maybe he'll get a bigger bed for Christmas...)

skippy is a therapy dog!!

He passed! Skippy is now an official pet therapy dog! We will have several training sessions over the next few weeks where an experienced handler will work with us in real group sessions at an elderly facility. Then we'll get our badge and tags.

Skippy seemed to enjoy all the attention during the evaluation. He did his cute little head tilt when people spoke to him. He did all of his obedience stuff very well. He was a little anxious and jumpy with the walkers and crutches and the elevator test, but they didn't mind that I held onto his leash tightly and reassured him often.

What a good puppy. Yippee Skippy!

big test tomorrow

Tomorrow is Skippy's evaluation for working with Caring Canines as a pet therapy dog. My son is sure Skippy will be too excited and will jump on the evalulators ... which, I agree, may happen. If he does that, he won't pass. To wind him down, I'll take him on his regular 2 mile walk right before the evaluation. Today, I'll give him a good bath, buy a 4 foot leash, and find all of the paper work I completed back in October. Though I'd really like Skippy to pass, I'm trying to be prepared for failure. If he doesn't pass, we'll try again in a year or so. I'm sure he'll get calmer as he grows up. After all, he's still just a puppy at 1-and-a-half (20 months). Here's a link to Caring Canines and a link to my observation of a Caring Canine visit.

land of the setting sun

These days the sun seems to be always either rising or setting. Even though I am told that sunrise is late (7:00 am), I'm not one to get up and take pictures that early. These photos are from Skippy's afternoon walks this past week. We go between 3 and 4:30. Since the sun sets at 4:12, we see a nice sunset.

first snow on the backyard

backyardphotos

squirrel

I'm a pushover for a cute squirrel.

leaf

A small spot of color in the backyard. This is a strawberry leaf that has turned yellow and is surrounded by fallen brown maple leaves.