ODDS AND BODS 10/16/24

I am starting off with a poem today, and you know how much I love my poems. Often they are oldies but goodies, and sometimes ones I have shared before.

 How about this then? Could you live here? Take a short holiday? It’s really cute!  I would probably want a small garden though.

May I a small house and

large garden have, and

a few friends and many 

books, both true, both wise,

and both delightful too.

~Abraham Cowley(1618-1667)~

I thought these pumpkins were beautiful.

One more!

As we are coming up to Halloween at the end of this month, the witches are getting ready to fly.  They are…

A thought for anyone who has ...

friends or relatives in a retirement home. You may have done this already, but I thought what a sweet idea.

Now for some food pictures. I am in awe of these cake decorating designers.

Back to reality!

I grew up with fluffy dumplings and those are what I prefer to make, but these sound good… 

and these.

Talking about this as I was the other day, here is a recipe. 

One last recipe.

And now fun with food. 

Onto other things. 

I found this photo on Pinterest, along with a link to the lantern below. How pretty is this picture? Those nests are amazingly tiny. The lanterns are on Amazon and not that I am touting the company, but I just love this lantern. The advertisement says Hummingbird Solar Lantern - Outdoor - Waterproof, etc., etc. Will I buy it? If it was sold locally in the bird shop I used to go to, probably. I enjoyed visiting this family-owned shop, used to go there quite a lot back in the day. Sadly they closed. 

This is interesting. Don't forget to enlarge for better reading or seeing any of my pictures in greater detail.

I once had a friend who was learning English and she told me it was very hard. Years ago I took a class with six months of Mandarin Chinese and thoroughly enjoyed it, but it was as my friend said of English, very hard. We had to leave the area before the course was over. I never did get back to it, much to my chagrin. Looking after a baby/toddler obviously took precedence and I gave him all my time. Being a navy wife also had its responsibilities and I wouldn't have either any other way. Learning a language is great mental gymnastics for anyone. Gregg is trying his hand at French. He is French on his Mother's side. I always liked the idea of learning Spanish but I can't roll my "r's". I try and pick up a few words here and there, and find it fun to learn, but my memory isn't very good. Still, I even enjoy my snail's pace and am hoping something will sink in.

Wise words!

Did you know…

Very naughty of me but this is a gotcha moment! The above story is false, darn it! A good tale though. Just goes to show however, that we can't believe everything we read. Check, check and fact check again! We need lots of patience to wade through all those pork pies! And here we go again, off on another tangent.

What do I mean by 'pork pies'? Well, funny you should ask. Yes, I know you didn't but...

Apart from the literal meaning of actual pies filled with pork, 'pork pies' is a Cockney rhyming slang for 'lies'. With rhyming slang the actual portion that rhymes is often dropped in order to further confuse the outsider, so it becomes 'porkies'. So, someone 'telling porkies' is a liar, liar, pants on fire sort of a person.  If you want to know about Cockney rhyming slang, you can go here. My Dad always told me, and this was as far back as I can remember, that a Cockney was born within the sound of Bow Bells, which you can read about here. 

Oh my goodness, you never know where these posts are going. I definitely miss my walks around the gardens and yet I am having fun with all these things that I find.

Wise words seen outside a local church.

“Tweet others as you 

would like to be tweeted.”

Now for more poetry.

Love to read my poems. An oldie but goodie. It’s a bit sad when I deep think it. I welcome all opinions on any of these poems I share, or anything else for that matter.

Profound!

Hmmm…who could this be? 

He agrees!

Have a great day everyone 

and thanks for once again sticking through to the end of this epilog. Certainly no worries if you didn't. I am falling asleep too.

MONDAY MORNING RECIPE POST - EASY AIR FRYER CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

I was happy to find this recipe for cookies done in the Air Fryer. I am always looking for ways to use it. In the summer I stay away from the oven. This would be very nice to use when you fancy a sweet treat but don’t want the kind of heat the oven puts out when baking. This recipe came from Preppy Kitchen hosted by John Kannell. I found him on YouTube here, but I was happy to find he had a food blog, link on its name. The original recipe on that blog is here. It is always nice to follow along with the video, but I was happy that he also had it all written down on a website. There are more tips on John's website.

Air Fryer Chocolate Chip Cookies - makes a dozen cookies - approximately 269 calories per cookie.

Air fryer with 6-quart basket

½ cup unsalted butter softened (113g)

½ cup light brown sugar (110g)

¼ cup granulated sugar (50g)

1 large egg at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1½ cups all-purpose flour (180g)

¼ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (180g)

In a large mixing bowl, combine the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar. Using an electric hand mixer, beat on medium-high speed for about 3 minutes, stopping to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl halfway through, until well combined.

Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat on medium speed until well combined, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl again.

Add the flour, then sprinkle the baking soda and salt evenly over top. Mix on low speed until no dry bits of flour remain, 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand with a spatula.

Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces (about 2½ tablespoons each) and roll into balls.

Preheat the air fryer to 300°F if your model requires it.

Line the basket of an air fryer with parchment paper (cut to fit the basket if you don’t have an air fryer liner). Working in batches, place 4 pieces of dough in the basket, equally spaced.

Air fry for 14 minutes at 300°F. Remove the basket from the air fryer and let the cookies cool for 4 minutes on the parchment paper, before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely. Continue cooking the rest of the dough balls.

John's notes:

Chilling and freezing instructions: If you don’t want to bake the whole batch of cookies immediately, you can cover and refrigerate the cookie dough balls for up to 72 hours. Alternatively, freeze them on a cookie sheet until solid, then transfer them to a freezer-safe container, and freeze for up to 3 months. Air fry from frozen.

To enhance the flavor: Sprinkle the cookies with flaky sea salt once they are finished baking.

This was an experiment as I have never cooked cookies in an air fryer before. I was happy they turned out as well as they did. 

I preheated the air fryer first, and used a parchment liner.

We thought they were excellent but they are very rich. I made enough for two each but found one each was enough. I froze the rest of the dough in single scoops to use whenever we felt like a cookie.

I divided the dough in half as we both have different tastes in ingredients. I added chopped pecans and mixed them in for both of us. I divided the dough and in one half I added chocolate chips, in the other I added chopped dates to suit each other's taste. Just a handful, you can see by looking how much you would need, probably about half to a cup for each depending on how much you like or will fit the recipe. If I had raisins I would have used those.

These are the chocolate chips I used.

I didn’t have any unsalted butter and used regular. I will put unsalted on the shopping list for next time.

All this being said, you can always use your oven if you don’t have an air fryer.

You can copy and paste the full addresses below if you prefer.

Website: https://preppykitchen.com/air-fryer-cookies/

YouTube: https://youtu.be/G36OLNSiOFY?si=RcHc6OLGtioyIca8

MONDAY MORNING RECIPE POST - SOFT APPLE COOKIES

I was very happy with these cookies, different to any cookie we have tried before.  Not too sweet and more like a miniature cake than a cookie. I found the recipe on a YouTuber’s video called Cooking Lyrics, and you can watch if you click here.

Soft Apple Cookies:

2 eggs at room temperature 

100g or 1/2 cup (or 3.5 ozs. sugar)

Pinch of salt

100g (or 3.5 ozs.) butter, softened 

320 to 340g plain flour (or 2-1/4 cup to 2-1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, or 11 ozs.)

14g (or 3 teaspoons) baking powder

2 apples (I used Granny Smith)

Icing/confectioner sugar for dusting cookies after baking

Preheat oven to 180 deg C (Or 350 to 365 deg F (my oven is on the cool side so I used 365 deg F - I will leave it to you to be the judge on the heat you use - temperatures are a guide-line).

Add 2 eggs to a mixing bowl, also a pinch of salt and all the sugar. Using an electric mixer beat until sugar is dissolved and mixture looks light.

Add the softened butter until thoroughly mixed.

In a separate bowl thoroughly mix the baking powder into the flour.

Add half the flour mixture and mix into the eggs until combined. Add the remaining flour, this time folding in with a spatula until combined.

Peel and core the 2 apples. Cut into small dice and fold into the batter. 

Line a large baking tray with parchment paper.

Using a spoon, scoop up your apple mixture and put onto the baking tray in mounds, leaving a 2-inch space between them.

Bake for 20 minutes or until golden.  It’s always hit and miss for that first batch. They looked light on the top but were brown on the bottom. I took them out of the oven and they were done. The second batch I left them in a couple of extra minutes, and they browned more. Here again I will let you be the judge. The timing is only a guide.

Carefully transfer to a cooling rack until you can try one.

Using a small strainer, sprinkle icing sugar on top of all the cookies before serving. 

It goes great with a cup of coffee or tea.  

I recommend watching the video first, just to get a clearer idea of the steps in the recipe, or if I wasn’t clear enough when writing out these instructions.

Changes made: I didn’t have any plain/all-purpose flour. I used self-rising and left out the baking powder.

I also had no icing/confectioner’s sugar, so before baking I sprinkled on regular sugar and they were great. I made two batches. The second batch I left the sugar off and they still tasted very yummy. (Added note: see Donna’s comment about making confectioner’s sugar. Such a great idea, thank you Donna!)

The batter seemed a bit stiff so I used a few drops of milk until I got the consistency I wanted. 

A commenter at the video site said they used half regular sugar and half brown sugar, and that they tasted like a caramel apple. I might give it a try next time.

Everyone’s taste is different but we gave these cookies a 10 out of 10. Different to any cookie we have had before, and tasted like miniature cakes with delicious bits of cooked apple inside. As mentioned before, not too overly sweet so you can add a little more sugar for your own taste.

One of these makes a lovely snack. I also ate one for breakfast along with a container of lemon-flavored Greek Yogurt. It was a delicious combination.

It looks like this is good to freeze. I didn't want to leave a whole batch out. I froze them after baking the day before, took one out and microwaved it for 30 seconds. It was as delicious as if it were fresh out of the oven.  That’s when I had it for breakfast with the lemon yogurt. 

If you are not keen using the microwave, it thaws out pretty quickly, but you can always leave one to thaw the night before in the fridge and take it out to come to room temperature. Or pop it in a toaster oven to heat up a little.

This is the full address to the YouTube video.

https://youtu.be/dOR_i8waGU4?si=zCYsgaSBYvwVkGJd

  

BOXING DAY!

I hope you all had a wonderful day yesterday.  I am looking forward to visiting and seeing all your photos.  

A short post here, mostly relaxing and putting our feet up. These are a few leftover cookies we bought from a bakery a few days ago. I will be sharing photos from our Christmas Day and the visit to the bakery over the next few days.  

The day after Christmas is Boxing Day where I grew up. There are several stories of how it came to be, but one story I was told was that it dates back to the Victorian era when neighbors came together to fill individual boxes with generous donations, so that people who were experiencing poverty could knock on their doors and receive one of these boxes. I believe Boxing Day originated in Great Britain but is also celebrated in several Commonwealth countries.  Our Canadian, Australian and New Zealand friends, and elsewhere, might be able to tell us more.  

My memories are that my parents invited family and friends over and Mother fixed a tea with all the leftover food from the day before, sandwiches and cake, that kind of thing.  

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Boxing Day!

 

THIS AND THAT - NOVEMBER

I really love some of these pictures I find at Pinterest.  The bear almost looks like he is thinking, "It's been one of those days!"

The Tufted Titmouse is looking as if it just asked us a question and is waiting for the answer.

I was trying to think of what I wanted for lunch.  Gregg was out of the house for most of the day and I decided to fix myself a pork sandwich - yes, from the accidentally bought 8 lb. piece of pork!  I put 2 ozs. on Italian bread, and a little coleslaw on the side.  The dear man made the coleslaw earlier. Neither of us have had much success buying it at the store lately.  It always seems too soupy, or maybe we are just super-picky.  This homemade version was excellent and suited our taste perfectly.  Another win for the dear man I told him.  The rest of the pork is now in the freezer. 

A couple of hours later I made this for a treat, a chocolate chip cookie for one, with a 1/4 cup of vanilla ice-cream on the top.  It's a recipe I have made maybe only once since that first one.  I added walnuts this time instead of pecans.

You can find it at this link if you think you would enjoy it.  I took more photos, dressing my plate up for Fall.  A little ‘busy’ perhaps but I liked it. This year I bought some decorative leaves for our Thanksgiving table, which I added to the plate.  The placemats we have had for a couple of years. I got carried away with all the colors and made a little art with my ArtCard app.

But here’s the finished product, and it really was delicious.

Love these!

I'm adding a little humor because I know we've all been there.

Sharing some of my favorite flowers.  I will be buying them next week. I can't believe Thanksgiving is almost here!

This is a lovely poem and describes my feelings exactly.  When we drove to the Shenandoah National Park the other day, we passed trees that were shedding their leaves in every neighborhood.  They decorated the gardens beautifully, and some of the grass showing was still green, not dormant, a real pretty contrast to the red and gold fallen leaves.  A lot of people will be busy raking over the next few days.

Wouldn’t this be a pretty table setting at Thanksgiving?

Interesting owl art.  I like this.  I love owls!

That's all for today's This and That.  I hope there is something in here that you like.