Braised Lamb Shanks

Not my picture, I will replace with my picture as soon as the dish is complete!

Ingredients
1 cup olive oil
1/2 cup flour
4 lamb shanks (about 8 ounces each)
2 cups medium diced onions
1 cup medium diced carrots
1 cup medium diced celery
2 tablespoons chopped garlic
3 bay leaves
2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme
1 cup red wine
1 pound new potatoes, quartered
2 quarts lamb or dark stock
1/4 cup parsley
1 tblsp. Essence

Recipe for Emerils Essence:
2 1/2 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried thyme
Combine all ingredients thoroughly.Yield: 2/3 cupRecipe Courtesy of Emeril Lagasse

Directions
In a large stock pot or braising pot, add the olive oil. Season the lamb shankswith salt and pepper. Season the flour with Essence. Dredge the lambshanks in the seasoned flour, coating each side completely. When the oil ishot, sear the shanks for 2 to 3 minutes on each side, or until very brown onall sides. Remove the shanks and set aside. Add the onions to the pan andsaute for 2 minutes. Add the celery and carrots and continue to saute for 1minute. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in the garlic, bay leaves, and thyme. Cook for 1 minute. Deglaze the pan with the red wine, scraping thebottom and sides to loosen the browned particles. Add the potatoes andstock. Bring the liquid up to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Add the lambshanks and continue to cook for about 1 to 1 1/2 hours, basting the shanksoften, or until the sauce is stew­like and the meat starts to fall of the bone.Season with salt and pepper.

Chocolate Pound Cake

This is the best chocolate pound cake recipe I have ever made.  Very moist as long as you do not over cook it.

2 1/2 cups of Sugar

1 Cup of vegetable oil (not olive oil)

2 eggs

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup butter milk

2 tsp. baking soda

2 1/2 cups regular flour

1/2 cup a good quality cocoa powder

1 cup very hot strong coffee

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease and flour a bundt pan.

Mix oil, sugar, eggs, salt and vanilla in a large bowl or your mixer bowl.

In another small bowl mix the cocoa and flour together,

In a 2 cup measuring cup or small bowl mix the buttermilk and the baking soda together well.  It will foam up a bit.

Now, adding alternately the cocoa and flower mixture and the buttermilk baking soda mixture to the oil, sugar, eggs, salt and vanilla mixture. ( I.E.  add some of the dry mixture then some of the buttermilk mixture and mix well in between each addition ending with the buttermilk mixture.)

Once the above mixture is mixed well add the very hot or boiling coffee to the bowl and start by mixing on slow speed and gradually increase the speed.  This is so you don't get doused with hot coffee.

Pour into your prepared bundt pan. and bake at 350 degrees F. for 50-60 minutes.  Do not over bake.  Cake is meant to be moist.

Let cool completely and sprinkle with powdered sugar or hot fudge and serve.

More ATC's to share

I just realized I hadn't shared these yet and I can't let that go.  :)  I love to share my art for you to see and for me to go back and look at for inspiration and to see if I'm getting any better or not.  :)
So here are a few more I've not shared.

The raffle bird house another update

I'm not sure about you but I LOVE seeing what happens to my creations.  I get updates from all over the world about many things I've made and sold or given away.  My little sack boy has been around the world twice and I've watched him every step of the way.  People that are so kind to send updates are just the best people to know!  Well, I've gotten another update on the little quilt shop bird house I made for the 2014 Tri-County Quilt Guild Quilt Show.  Bankie, who won the little bird house (remember the picture I posted of her and how excited she was, MY FAVORITE ALL TIME PHOTO) has sent me an update today.  She keeps it at her vacation home on it's own special shelf.  WELL, she's decorated it for Christmas, can you believe it.  WOW she's done a great job and I am so tickled to see it. I'm so tickled that she won it!  (Now to get her to come decorate my house :) )
Anyway without further adieu....

We Bee Quilters House Block Swap

If you have not joined your local guild yet you should.  It is a great way to have fun and fellowship with like minded people.  And of course you make lots of friends.  Guilds have little groups called Bee's.  I'm in the "We Bee Quilters" bee and we have done a block swap for the last two years.  I didn't have time to do it last year cause I was doing the quilt show boutique and of course that took up lots of my time.

Anyway, our block swap theme this year is house blocks.  Now mind you my block is a school house and at first the blocks were suppose to be all houses.  Then people started asking questions about doing barns, churches and shops.  Well I decided a neighborhood needs a school so that is why I choose a school house.  Mind you we need more houses than businesses so most of the swapper's will be making houses.  I have ordered my backing fabric already and am excited to get all the blocks this coming Wednesday!  I have a picture in my mind of what my quilt is going to look like.  I am so excited about being able to join in.

So here are my 21 blocks all finished.  Of course I left this till the last possible moment and wanted to had lots of details such as the hand applique flag, the school name, the bell and smoke coming out of the chimney.  But I got it done and that is all that matters right!

Here are all the swapped blocks I received this past Wednesday.  I am so happy with them.  There is only one that is not the correct size so either I will not use it or I'll try and make it bigger and make three more blocks to complete my house quilt.  

and my backing fabric arrived! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

All I've made for Christmas

I haven't done much of anything in the way of making Christmas decorations this year but these cute little guy's.  This is a Gingermelon pattern from Etsy.
Her patterns are the cutest and I've purchased many of these.  Most of the time I've reduced the pattern sizes so they can be used as 3D ATC cards.  :)  Yeah crazy right!  But these I left the original size and sent them out as gifts to some awesome artists I trade ATC's with.
I think they turned out great.  I didn't use felt but I purchase wool fabric from here at RubyMountainDyeWorks on Etsy and I found the natural wool fabric in cream at JoAnn's.  I spend the extra money cause I wanted these to be special little gifts.  I hope they love them as much as I did making them.

Merry Christmas!