Chai Tea-Original recipe

Only 7 ingredients!
4 cups water
Loose tea- 2 tablespoons
3 cups milk (I use 1%, but you can use any milk, even soy or almond)
Whole cloves-6 to 8 whole cloves
Anise seed-1 tablespoon
Whole cardamom-5 to 6 seed pods
White sugar, depending on how sweet you want it. I tend to use about 1/4 cup

Here are some pictures. Instructions are posted at the bottom of the page 🙂

1 tablespoon whole anise seed.

1. Using a 2 quart saucepan, heat 4 cups of water on the stove (high heat), toss in loose tea.
2. Meanwhile; crush the seeds and cloves in a stone bowl or smash with a rolling pin on a cutting board, toss into the water. Turn down heat to medium.
3. Slowly pour in 3 cups of milk, stirring.
4. Next Put in white sugar. The amount is up to you. I generally use about 1/4-1/2 cup, depending on my mood. Start out with just a little. See how you like it and add from there. Turn up heat just long enough to warm tea back up.
5. Turn off and immediately pour through a sieve directly into a carafe.

ENJOY!

This is my original recipe. To make this tea even happier, I enjoy adding 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, just toss it in. I have used fresh orange rhine as well. Play with the recipe, and have fun!

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Need a laugh? Here you go!

This makes me laugh every single time!!

Off On An Adventure!

Ok, one guess where I’m going? Does the suitcase give it away? Hahaha!  I’m a bit nervous because I’m traveling alone.  I have gotten use to my daughter coming with me the past few years.  But this is not a “family” trip, this is a “me” trip 🙂

I would move to England in a heart beat, if possible!  Sometimes dreams actually come true.  Have you ever been somewhere new and you just feel like, that’s where you belong…..? That’s how I feel in England, France being a close 2nd. 🙂

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Soft Ginger Cookies

What you will need:
4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves (Yumm!)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup unsulfured molasses
1 1/4 cups white sugar
1 cup butter or margarine (I use margarine. If you use butter, the cookies tend to spread)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions below, after pictures 🙂

Here are some pictures

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Place foil on cookie sheet. No spray or oil is needed.
2. Cream the butter with the sugar until light and fluffy. Stir in molasses and eggs. Gradually stir in vanilla, flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and salt. Form balls by spooning dough out of bowl. Dab ball of dough into sugar on a plate. Place on baking sheet. Note: the sugar on the plate is not included in the main recipe. Just scoop out about a 1/4 cup on the the plate or bowl for dunking 🙂
3. Bake 14 minutes. Remember-everyone’s oven is different! I always check my cookies around 8-10 minutes in. If you want softer cookies bake around 10-12 min, for more of a cake texture, bake closer to 14-15 min.
This is an easy, fool proof recipe. Great for new bakers and children. 🙂

Irish Cream Cake

Fresh out of the oven. Needs to cool down before you put the glaze on top.

Glazed, wrapped, and ready to be delivered!

Here’s the recipe:
CAKE INGREDIENTS:
1 cup chopped pecans
1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
1 (3.4 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding
4 eggs
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup Irish cream liqueur. I used Bailey’s

THE GLAZE
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup water
1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup Irish cream liqueur

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 C). Grease and flour a 10″ Bundt pan. Sprinkle chopped nuts evenly over bottom of pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine cake mix and pudding mix. Mix in eggs, 1/4 cup water, 1/2 cup oil and 3/4 cup Irish cream liqueur. Beat for 5 minutes on high speed. Pour batter over nuts in pan.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then invert onto the serving dish. Prick top and sides of cake. Spoon glaze over top and brush onto sides of cake. Allow to absorb glaze. Repeat until glaze is used up.
4. To make the glaze: In a saucepan, combine butter, 1/4 cup water and 1 cup sugar. Bring to a boil and continue boiling for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in 1/4 cup Irish cream liqueur.

Side note; I used 7 mini-dishes. The cake rises a good amount, I filled the mini-dishes 3/4 full, and baked for 40 minutes. If you are nervous about using a Bundt pan, I would just use a 9″x13″ dish. After cooling-poke holes as directed, drizzle glaze on top of cake. Do what’s comfortable for you 🙂 Have fun and enjoy the delicious cake!

Would you care for a glass of………..lights?

A very talented friend of mine made this wonderful piece of art as a gift for me.

Using an ordinary wine bottle, you drill a small whole in the backside. Then feed the lights into the bottle, leaving the plug on the outside of the bottle.

Plug in, and viola!

Debbie used a multi colored string of lights in this bottle. In others she used white, yellow or blue. Every bottle is a unique creation. I have such great and talented friends 🙂

Much Better!

I found a multi-faced watch, that actually works! Hahaha. For $23.00 including shipping and tax, this is an awesome watch! I’ve been wearing it every day, getting ready for my upcoming trip to London. It keeps great time and has a slim profile. Gotta love Amazon! 🙂

1929 Blower Bentley

I love old cars, they fascinate me. I love the trunk on the back of the car. And check out the exhaust pipe. It’s on the left side of the car. It’s “y” shaped and relatively flat. With an exciting rumble from the engine, this car is super cool! Here’s a bit of history about this 1929 Blower Bentley:

“The Bentley 4½ Litre was a British car based on a rolling chassis built by Bentley Motors.[1] Walter Owen Bentley replaced the Bentley 3 Litre with a more powerful car by increasing its engine displacement to 4.4 L (270 cu in).

Bentley buyers used their cars for personal transport and arranged for their new chassis to be fitted with various body styles, mostly saloons or tourers.[1] However, the publicity brought by their competition programme was invaluable for marketing Bentley’s cars.[citation needed]

At the time, noted car manufacturers like Bugatti and Lorraine-Dietrich focused on designing cars to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, a popular automotive endurance course established only a few years earlier. A victory in this competition quickly elevated any car maker’s reputation.

A total of 720 4½ Litre cars were produced between 1927 and 1931, including 55 cars with a supercharged engine popularly known as the Blower Bentley. A 4½ Litre Bentley won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1928. Though the supercharged 4½ Litre Bentley’s competitive performance was not outstanding, it set several speed records, most famously in 1932 at Brooklands with a recorded speed of 222.03 km/h (138 mph).”
source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bentley_4%C2%BD_Litre

“Art is inspiration wrestling with constriction, the constriction of the physical doing battle with the idea.”

Love this quote…

Art of Quotation

“Art is inspiration wrestling with constriction, the constriction of the physical doing battle with the idea.

…For in whichever medium the artist chooses to clothe his muse, he must struggle with the characteristics and the limitations of that medium. After all, he is trying to coax that which is beyond the physical to reside within the physical.”

– Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair, photographer

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