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Have A Blessed Day 

Good Morning

 

Menu Monday - A New Life Style

 Hello Dear Ones before  we get into Menus I wanted share an update. 

First  I got a new phone today! Happy Dance.  Blogging  should be much easier!  

I pretty  much can say.  Island Life is ago.  Just waiting  on papers!  We found a cute little place 2 blocks from the beach! 

We are super excited. And super overwhelmed.   There is soon much to do! 

Much more coming soon. 

But let's  talk about menu's.  I will be super flexible  on the meals the next 2 weeks.   A few things in the freezer  to cook up. 

MONDAY... Just Nachos. Super easy. We have a lot of late afternoon  appointments. 

TUESDAY... Fajitas  we were planning  on Monday but to push till Tuesday.  I will added some Mexican Rice and Borracho Beans

WEDNESDAY...Taco's any day is good for Teco's

THURSDAY...Spaghetti,Salad and Garlic  Bread

FRIDAY...Food from Freezer!  Not sure what is left.  It will be surprise! 

I am excited  about a new slor once lifestyle and going shopping  at local markets, produce stands and baker's. 

My menu planning  may change a bit but it will be fun! 

Have A Great Week

 

Simple Sunday

 

This and That-Lifestyle Changes-Vision Board

 I've missed posting like I used to. 

Sharing things, events archived photos. 

 

I like and enjoying sharing the Rustic Dinner Plate and the things I cook.  

And recipes that Authors share from the books...

This a great bread.  You buy on Amazon. Click Here

One-Bowl Brownie  

There’s nothing more satisfying than being able to whip up a bowl of brownies when the craving for chocolate strikes. Which is why this recipe is a favorite in my home and why I included it in THE CORPSE WHO KNEW TOO MUCH. I hope you enjoy the recipe.

One-Bowl Brownies

One bowl, a few ingredients and you’ll have delicious chocolate brownies in no-time. These are great to whip up for my nephew’s softball games or my niece’s sleepovers or for me and my sister when we’re hanging out together. Yes, Claire will indulge in a brownie every now and again. I mean, how could she not? And you’ll be finding yourself whipping these brownies up every chance you get. They’re that good.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, melted and cooled

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup brown sugar, packed

4 large eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup Dutch-processed or unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 ¼ cup chopped chocolate, divided

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9x13” baking dish. Line with parchment paper with an overhang on the sides and spray again. This extra step will make it easy to lift the brownies out when they are baked. 

In a large mixing bowl, combine melted butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract and stir until smooth.

Sift in flour and cocoa to the mixture. Add in the salt. Don’t over mix.

Fold in 1 cup of chopped chocolate. 

Spread evenly into prepared dish and sprinkle the remaining ¼ cup chopped chocolate on top of brownies.

Bake for 25-50 minutes on the middle rack until brownies are set to touch. Don’t overbake. They will set up as they cool. Remove from oven and set on cooling rack. Cool before cutting into squares.

How many servings you get will be decided upon how big your squares are. 

You can store any leftover brownies for up to 4 days but there’s usually never any leftovers.

We will be moving soon. 

 Today I don't know where. But with God's Grace we will find a place here... 

And this is the the kind of place I am hoping for...

I made a vision board.  There are things I want to do when we move.  

I want to have fun again. 

I want to get a bicycle and around town to shops and the library.  

And maybe to a park and sit in the cool breeze and read a book. 

I am ready for a new life style.  

The Island Life! 

Stay tuned!

Recipe Post feat Death Gone A-Rye by Winnie Archer Great Escapes Tour

 

Hello and Welcome to the blog.  I love to share recipes withe you and today I have a real treat.  

I have a recipe from Author.  This recipe is Featured in her new book 

Here's the recipe and thoughts from  ...

Death Gone a-Rye is set in spring. For me, Hot Cross Buns are the quintessential spring bread. They’re festive, fun, and have a glaze. And you can never go wrong with a glaze! Olaya’s are especially tasty. 

Enjoy!

Melissa

Olaya’s Hot Cross Buns

Yield: Makes 16 buns

Ingredients

For the Preferment

½ cup milk

1 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon instant yeast

½ cup whole wheat flour

 

1 stick unsalted butter

1 cup low-fat milk

⅓cup brown sugar

2 eggs, room temperature and lightly beaten

1 teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

3½ cups all-purpose flour

¼–½ cup raisins (optional)

For the Egg Wash 

1 egg

2 teaspoons milk

For the Glaze* 

1½ cups confectioners’ sugar

2 tablespoons milk

Directions

Creating the Preferment

Microwave milk until just warm. Add sugar, yeast, and flour. Stir and let sit at least 15 minutes until bubbly.

1. In mixing bowl, cream butter using the paddle attachment. Alternatively, whisk by hand. 

2. Add milk, brown sugar, eggs, cinnamon, and nutmeg and mix until smooth. 

3. Add the preferment and stir until smooth. 

4. Add flour and mix until dough sticks together. 

5. Turn dough out onto work surface and knead, turning and adding only enough flour to form a smooth ball. Dough should not be sticky.

6. Add raisins to dough and knead until raisins are evenly dispersed. (Skip this step if you are not putting raisins in.)

7. Form dough into a ball and let rise for 1 hour in covered greased bowl. Dough should be almost doubled.

Forming the Buns

1. Grease two 8-inch square or round baking pans. Divide dough into two sections. Punch one of the dough balls down, and turn out onto floured surface. Roll into a 12-inch log. Divide log into 8 equal portions. Shape into balls and place in prepared pan, evenly spaced apart. Repeat with second dough ball. 

2. Cover each pan with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator to rise overnight!

            3. The next morning, preheat the oven to 350ºF. With a sharp knife, make a cross on the top of each bun. 

4. Create egg wash by mixing egg and the 2 teaspoons of milk, and brush buns. Bake for 25–30 minutes. 

5. While buns are baking, make the glaze by whisking together powdered sugar with 2 tablespoons milk.

6. Let buns cool for 5–10 minutes before drizzling glaze over top. Serve immediately. 

*Instead of glazing the buns, if you prefer, you can serve them with butter.

Buy the book  

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Visit the tour 

Visit the tour and read some great posts including Reviews, Guest Post and Interviews.  Click Here

Giveaway 

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Whole Latte Murder by Lena Gregory Character Guest Post Great Escapes Tour

 

Savannah Mills

Hi, I’m Savannah Mills, and I am so excited! My best friend, Gia Morelli, recently moved to my hometown of Boggy Creek, Florida. She was having a bit of trouble, thanks to her no-good, cheating, lying, scheming ex-husband, a man I never wanted her to marry in the first place, but what are you gonna do? She made her mistakes, just like we all do, and now it’s time to move on. Thankfully, she came to her senses.

So, Gia opened an All-Day Breakfast café. She bought a beautiful historic building right on Main Street, just down the road from the park. She could only fly down for an occasional weekend, thanks to the mess her ex made up in New York, so I helped her out. 

After she ordered tables for the café dining room, my brother, Joey, and I set them up. I spread navy blue cloths over them and made matching covers for the seat cushions. I even found a gorgeous, hand-painted wooden open/closed sign for the front window and picked up some paintings of local scenery at the street fair last weekend. 

She was thrilled with how cozy and homey everything looked. Now, glass cake dishes line the counter. I can’t wait for a piece of the breakfast pies that fills them. Gia makes an amazing breakfast! I can smell the bacon cooking already, and her home fries. Mmmm…out of this world.

Oops, now my stomach’s growling. I probably shouldn’t have thought of the home fries. 

I do have to admit, though, I was a nervous wreck. Gia loved the building that houses the café, but she hadn’t yet seen her house when she moved down. Don’t get me wrong, it’s adorable, but it’s a little out of the way. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much money left after buying the café, so I had to do my best.

The development is beautiful, acre after acre of woods, filled with thickly wooded, huge pine trees that brush the clouds. And I’m pretty sure she’ll get used to the abundance of critters that roam the development that sits right on the edge of the Ocala National Forest. I saw a couple of bear cubs playing in an open field last time I was out there, and I pulled over just to sit and watch them. But the drive to the café takes about twenty-five minutes, and, well, Gia’s from Manhattan, where you can find almost anything you need, any time of the day or night, without traveling twenty-five minutes.

That was one of the things I loved about the five years I lived with Gia in New York. One of the hardest things for me to get used to was the lack of trees. I’d look up, and instead of trees dripping with moss, I’d find buildings that pierced the clouds and sometimes seemed like they were about to fall over on me.

Anyway, since Gia’s been here, I’ve pretty much claimed her spare bedroom as my own. But now, Leo and I are getting married, and amid all of the excitement of trying to find the perfect venue, and the perfect wedding gown, and the perfect everything else, I’m a little sad I’ll be moving out. At least, I will if we can ever get through this wedding without anything else going wrong.

About the book  

Whole Latte MurderEx-New Yorker and local diner owner Gia Morelli is still getting used to the sweltering Florida sun. But this summer she’ll have to deal with a more dangerous kind of heat—when she’s hot on the trail of another murderer . . .

Summer in Boggy Creek has arrived, and Gia’s best friend, successful real estate agent Savannah, is getting hitched. Now she’s enlisted Gia’s sleuthing talents in a desperate search for the perfect wedding dress. But when Savannah mysteriously vanishes after showing a mansion to a bigwig client, Gia investigates the house Savannah was trying to sell. The first clue she finds is Savannah’s car in the driveway. Inside the house, they stumble on Savannah’s potential buyer—dead. Someone had apparently closed the deal—with a two by four full of nails to the client’s head. Soon afterward, a woman’s body is fished from the lake near the same house. The townsfolk are now sweating bullets over the murders, and the heat comes down on poor Gia to find her missing friend, and track down the killer . . .

Buy the book  

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Visit the tour 

Click Here

Peaches and Schemes by Anna Gerard

 

Character Guest Post 

 Mason Denman, owner of Weary Bones Antiques

            I must say, it’s about time someone brought me into the conversation. Everyone in the South Georgia town of Cymbeline knows that if you want the latest gossip, I am the man. Even if you don’t know me personally, perhaps you’ve seen me there on the main square. I’m a firm believer in owning a trademark look. Mine is my distinctive black pompadour hairstyle. (Yes, every strand of that glorious ‘do is mine; as for the color, you know what the old advertisement says about one’s hairdresser...)

Full disclosure. I also have a weakness for vintage pocket squares and wear one every day. My partner, Lowell, claims that I have forty-seven hankies. I suspect he missed a few when he made that count.

At any rate, as the divine Mr. Jagger says, please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Mason Denman, and I am the owner of Weary Bones Antiques here in Cymbeline’s historical district. Mine is not the only antique shop in our fair burg, but I humbly declare mine to be the best. Until recently, I was a sole proprietor. A few months ago, however, I convinced Lowell to join me in the business. He has his MBA, which means I let him handle the pesky financial side of owning a shop. He’s learning about antiques in between keeping the books, though it will take him a while to catch up to my forty years in the field.

But enough about me. I’m pretty certain you’re here for the scoop on my friend, Nina Fleet. She’s new in town, though she has fit in with us natives quite well despite the fact she lived in Atlanta for far too many years. She bought the Lathrop house, located a few blocks off the square, after dear old Daisy Lathrop passed on. In a manner of months, Nina has turned the place into a credible bed and breakfast inn while keeping the spirit of the old place intact.

Frankly, I don’t have a bad word to say about Nina, which Lowell will tell you is a first for me. All right, I do have one criticism. It pains me to say this, but her knowledge of fine art is, well, non-existent. Bless her heart, a few months back she brought in an oil painting she wanted me to appraise. She didn’t say it out loud, but I know she thought she’d found a long-lost Picasso in her closet. It was not, of course, which was why Daisy had stashed away that particular horror on an out-of-the-way shelf. More recently, Nina brought in a landscape that had been hanging in the inn’s parlor. While it had a primitive charm to it, again, the painting’s greatest worth lay in its frame. And bless his heart, Lowell felt compelled to buy it from her, and it now hangs in his bedroom.

Artwork aside, I will praise Nina about something else. Like any sizeable town, ours sees its share of unpleasantness, particularly with the constant influx of visitors typical of a tourist destination like ours. Recently, we’ve seen the most brutal of crimes—murder—happen right on our streets! While most people would leave the hunt for the perpetrator to our fine law enforcement officers, Nina does not hesitate to investigate, herself. And, surprisingly, she has proved quite the detective, uncovering evidence that even the sheriff misses. If she ever tires of the B&B business, I’d say Nina has a career ahead of her as a private detective.

Oops, that sound of ringing bells you hear means a customer has stepped into the shop. I must attend to business but do come visit me again next time you are in Cymbeline. I’ll be happy to spill the tea with you about anyone in to

About the book 

In Anna Gerard’s third delightful Georgia B&B mystery, Nina Fleet learns that despite the satin, lace, and buttercream trappings, weddings often prove to be anything but sweet…

 

Nina Fleet might be new to the innkeeping business, but she’s savvy enough to know that Cymbeline’s tourists aren’t enough to keep her fledgling bed and breakfast going. And so, Nina decides to tap into the destination wedding market by taking a booth at the Veils and Vanities Bridal Expo. The twice-yearly event is sponsored by the town’s two wedding pros: Virgie Hamilton, the sixtysomething owner of Virgie’s Formals, and Roxanna Quarry, a Gen X event planner and Nina’s new friend. But everything goes wrong during the expo’s fashion show, when Roxanna comes tumbling out of an oversized prop wedding cake, strangled to death by her own scarf. 

Virgie is arrested for the crime, thanks to Nina’s statement to the police about having overheard the woman accusing her partner of embezzlement. Meanwhile, the situation grows tense with her sometimes nemesis and current tenant, the dashing out-of-work actor Harry Westcott. Harry is concentrating on plugging his most recent side hustle …but he’s not too busy to break the news to Nina that her ex-husband is engaged to be married again.

Certain that Virgie’s only offense is a bad temper, Nina decides to do her own investigating. First, however, she and Harry retrieve Roxanna’s now ownerless dog, planning to foster him until a new home can be found. But local gossip soon convinces Nina that others beside Virgie might have had reason to murder Roxanna. As Nina gets close to the truth, she’s putting her own life at danger. And when Virgie vanishes after being bailed out of jail by an unknown benefactor, Nina fears that if she can’t find the dress shop owner in time, tying the knot will take on a whole new meaning for them both.

Buy the book

Visit the tour 

To read reviews guest posts and interviews click Here 

Giveaway 

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Simple Sunday

 

Pink In The Studio

 Come into the studio today . . .

Sharing a few Junk Journal Pages I've made for SWAPs.   And a few I have received.  

This year my fb group is doing a different color each month.  

For March it was Green. 

My goal is for every part of the page to be the prompted color. 

For February the prompt was Pink.  I loved the little hexagon cut papers.  I glued them to look like the Mother's Flower Garden quilt pattern. 

I always try to include a dooley.  This one is dyed wit an Avacado.  Did you know the rind of an Avacado will be Pink when you boil in water? 

I also include a shaker with glitter, sequins, and jewels. 

Lots of papers and journaling cards that I make. 

Little snippets from fabrice, textiles and paper that I make. 

This Journal page was so easy.  I had a lot of a

pink.   I sewed around the he edge and left the thread hanging for texture and interest. 

I punched out Butterflies and Flowers and left them loose so when my partner opens it they fall out.  Oh I hope she likes it! 

More Green.  My favorite part is making the pieces on my machine.  I hardly throw anything away.  Every little snippet no matter how small can be used! 

I enjoyed making this one and using the but of map.  I had received it from Europe when I did Paper Swap.  Postage is so expensive now I am not able to mail out of the U.S. 

While I had Pink thread in the machine I made a few pieces to send to my friend that makes Prayer Pockets.  I live her ministry to nursing homes and Hospice patients. 

Sorry my photos are out of order.  This is the front of the Green page with lots of goodies tucked inside.  I love the playing card with a Green Background! 

I included a Magnetic Book Mark.  Green if course!

Journaling  cards, pretty snippets all layered up in a tuck spot. 

I always make a mini notepad to include. 

Lots of fun journaling cards and spaces. 

Did I already show you this one?  

I usually always include a couple of Paint chips.  

More fun fabric snippets and mini file folders. 

Making Junk Journals is a fun and inexpensive hobby.  

Junk Journals are literally made from junk.  

But most J.J. artists make them pretty! 

I hope you enjoyed this visit to the studio.   

I'll be packing up soon.  But hopefully I will get a chance to show you the May J.J. page.  The prompt is Yellow!  

I hope your day ideas Blessed!  

And thanks for coming by! 

Foodie Friday

 A few Rustic Dinner plates . . .  

First sharing a favorite family recipe 

Cut from a magazine when we were very first married.  A little rough around the edges. You can tell I've cooked this dish alot. 

I tried a few variations of ingredients but it is never ad good. 

The funny thing is my mother cooked this Pepper Steak.  The recipe was on the box of Minute Rice.  My mother would not touch Chinese food. 

Because we are moving I have already packed the Rustic plate.  Using a few plates I will give away.  

This was a yummy meal of Pan Fried Pork Chops, Rice, Black Eye Peas and Gravy and Biscuits.

Here's  my dinner plate.  You can see the stack

Of dishes ready bro he packed. 

Missed match plates.  I love the white plates but we are down sizing.  

 I tenderized then dusted with flour and brown d some Sirloin.  Then baked in the oven with onion soup for a few hours.  Then I just stored a low sodium Brown Gravy mix.  Served over package instant potatoes. And Corn on cob.  I boiled then cut off the cob and put in a pan of butter. 

Our lunch today.  I made grilled cheese from some french bread.  I live this bread.  A warm and yummy meal with Split Pea Soup. 

The next couple weeks will be super busy getting ready to move. 

We have found a place and are waiting approval.

Fingers crossed!