Cooking Thursday

My sister gave me this recipe for a simple, but classy looking dessert which I made last week. It's Panna Cotta, which is like a custard, with a fruit sauce on top. It's easy to make, just needs a little time to cool and set up and the fruit over the sweet custard is so yummy! The original recipe called for strawberries, but Bob isn't a fan, so I made it with raspberries.  I think either would be good.

Vanilla Panna Cotta with Raspberry Sauce

1/4 cup whole milk
2 1/2 teaspoon (or one small envelope) unflavored gelatin
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup white sugar
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Raspberry Sauce:
1 cup raspberries (or strawberries, sliced)
3 tablespoons white sugar
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Place the whole milk in a small bowl and sprinkle gelatin over top. Allow to sit for 5 minutes.
In a small saucepan, combine heavy cream, sugar, salt and vanilla. Bring to low boil and simmer for 5 minutes.
Whisk in the milk/gelatin mixture until smooth. Pour into 4 small dessert dishes or glasses. Cover and place in refrigerator for 4 hours.

In a small saucepan, combine 1/2 cup of raspberries or strawberries with sugar, water and lemon juice. Bring to slow boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Add remaining raspberries or strawberries. Allow to cool and refrigerate.

Serve Panna Cotta with spoonful of fruit sauce over the top.

Wordless Wednesday

 Our flowers have been just gorgeous this year - so instead of my usual one photo, I'm sharing several...

Finishing Phase 2!

A while ago, I told you Bob was working on a project at Heathers house.  I'm happy to say that another portion of it is done.  But before I show you that, I'll show you something fun I did with Cassie on one of the evenings Bob was there working.

She's decided she wants to do crafts too, just like her older cousins. So here's an easy one we did at her house. We made inside "snow" and a Spring snowman.

To make the "snow", we mixed lotion and baking soda. We used lavender scented lotion, so it smelled wonderful.  She said it was hard to mix! Then she rolled it into balls and stacked them up. We added a twine scarf, and some cardstock paper circles for eyes and buttons, and of course - a nose!

The "snowballs" settled, but she still had fun making this.

In the meantime, the other project was Heather and Andrews kitchen. You may remember that last year Bob built new upper cabinets for them. Over the winter he built the lower cabinets and now that the weather is nice, they were ready for tear out of the old cabinets and installation of the new ones.

Here's where we left off last time. The top photo is the before, with cabinets that were extremely low and not in good shape. The bottom photo is after the bulkhead was removed and new cabinets installed.

Bottom cabinets almost empty and ready for demolition.

New cabinets going in!

Connor was watching the progress

And...   a dishwasher!  They didn't have one before, so this is exciting.

Time for a little Cassie break

Here's Heather - loading up the dishwasher for the first time!

Here it is! Phase 2 is done. New cabinets, new countertops, a dishwasher!  The drawer fronts by the sink need to be put on and  there will be tile backsplash going in, but not till the next section is done.  That involves taking out the wall on the left and a floor to ceiling pantry being put there.  In the meantime, the kitchen is much more usable with every section that's done!