T is for Tuesday... and toasting the new year

 

toasting to a fresh start. Today is T is for Tuesday.... the glasses hold almond champagne sipped as we went to a zoom party with good friends from Maryland. 

We always spent holidays with Hal and Jacquie and their crowd, playing board games, eating good food, laughing and celebrating. Zoom allowed us to kind of do that this year although it's less simple to break up into groups of two to chat. I loved seeing old friends again, and making new ones. 

After midnight EST the party broke up and we looked at each other with two more hours til midnight here. 

"time is relative" we agreed and went to bed. 

My word of the year, (  read it here ) at least the first 6 months, is "recover" Not a simple process, and it has already become a goal several times already. When I wake up I now think of some one thing that's good, before leaving the soft comfort of warm bedding. When  I decide to drink water which is hard for me, I think of healing physically. When I choose to watch a baby elephant video instead of news I think of emotional recovery. Not denial of facts, just diversion so that my spirit can repair itself. 

(collards... clean leaves, fold in half and pull the stem free, layer leaves roll and chiffonade, then steam in water, salt and pepper and a bit of butter til tender)
We had the Southern Traditional foods collard greens and black eyed peas (for money and luck) as well as homemade cranberry sauce, and ambrosia.

(Sectioned red grapefruit, sectioned navel oranges, banana slices, Maraschino cherries and some juice, coconut, and if you can find it, fresh pineapple chunks)

before peeling the oranges we zested them and froze the zest for recipes... it's so much better than dried zest. So is fresh grated ginger better than dried.

I found a no knead recipe for cinnamon buns online, and tried it making the frosting with orange zest and almond extract instead of coffee. So good!

 changed it up a bit...but this is the recipe:

https://www.savingdessert.com/wprm_print/24972

 There are two of us, and we are sugar freaks so I chose to make 1/2 of this recipe which is already one half of the pioneer woman's recipe. It made 23 rolls at that. 

Before baking I poured a bit of cream on each bun because someone once said that makes them gooey like mall sweet buns and it worked a charm!

Changes made to frosting: 

again, used half this recipe which was for half of pioneer woman's and I used powdered sugar made with tapioca not corn starch (allergic to corn) and used a bit less than called for.

yum... the addition of zest and almond was inspired Mama

I sketched another lady while listening to a podcast

if I had curly pink hair this would be a selfie

to finish....

 donkeys like iced tea too...

I leave you with this quote, an affirmation by Gabriel Halpern (https://gabrielhalpern.com/affirmations-r-thru-z/)

"I desire truth in my inward most heart."

linking to

https://alteredbooklover.blogspot.com/