Rustic Plum Tart

Rustic Plum Tart

Crust
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2″ pieces
3 tablespoons ice water

Filling
1 1/2 lbs. plums, halved, pitted and cut into slices
6 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 egg, beaten to blend (for glaze)
1/4 cup apricot preserves

Blend flour, sugar, and salt. Add butter and cut in until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add 2 tablespoons ice water; blend until moist clumps form, adding more water by teaspoons if mixture is still dry. Gather dough into a ball, flatten into a disk. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss plums, 4 tablespoons sugar, ginger, cinnamon in a bowl. Roll dough on floured surface to 12 1/2″ round. Transfer to rimmed baking sheet. Mix 1 tablespoon sugar and 1 tablespoon flour in a small bowl; sprinkle over dough leaving 2″ plain border.

Arrange plums in concentric circles on the dough, leaving 2″ plain border. Drizzle with melted butter. Fold dough border toward center. Brush border with egg glaze; sprinkle with 1 tablespoon sugar. Bake tart until plums are tender and crust is golden, about 35-45 minutes.

When making tarts in pans, use one that is nonstick and has a removable bottom.

Stir preserves in saucepan over low heat until melted. Brush over plums. Cool tart 1 hour on baking sheet. Run long knife until tart to loosen. Transfer tart to serving plate and serve at room temperature. Makes 6 servings.

Easy Bread Pudding

Ingredients

• 1 (10.75 ounce) loaf day-old bread, torn into small pieces
• 4 cups milk
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup butterscotch or chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Butter a 9x13 inch baking dish. 
2. In a large bowl, combine bread, milk, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla and butterscotch chips; mixture should be the consistency of oatmeal. Pour into prepared pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven 1 hour, until nearly set. (It should have a "thigh wiggle" or wiggle as much as a well endowed thigh.) Serve warm or cold. 

Best Oscar Dresses

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Motivation to Exercise

• How you feel after a workout. I always feel great after a good workout. It’s a high. And I let that motivate me the next time: “You know how good you’re going to feel, Leo!”
• Having fun. Exercise should be fun. If it isn’t, try a different kind of activity that you enjoy. As long as you’re moving, it’s good for you.
• How you’re going to look. Imagine a slimmer, fitter you. Now let that visualization drive you.
• I'd like to return to my 2008/Canadian figure! I went to the gym 3-4 times a week and went down two dress sizes.
• Magazines. It motivates me to read fitness magazines. Not sure why, but it works.
• Blogs. I enjoy reading blogs about people who are into running, or losing weight. It can show the ups and downs they go through, and you can learn from their experiences.
• Rewards. If you exercise for a few days, give yourself a reward! A week? Another reward. Do it often in the beginning.
• Fitting into new clothes. Wanna look good in a smaller size? Work out!
• I want to fit into my old pre-pregnancy clothes!
• Being attractive. That’s always a good motivator, as I’m sure we all know. 
• Stress relief. Wound up after a long day at the office? Get out and work off that stress. It makes a world of difference.
• A workout partner. Best thing I’ve done.    
• I miss my exercise partners - the girlfriends who would work out with or without me, but who got me up and out the door.  I miss the chats at the gym, the walking and discussing everything from politics to setting up friends together.
• An exercise class. Sign up for a class, perhaps with a friend, and you’ll be motivated to get there and work out.
•  Classes have always worked really well for me. The pressure of keeping up with the group, the fun music...but I am not a member of a gym right now.
• A coach or trainer. Worth the money, just for the motivation.
• I am going to try exercising by myself but know this is a fall-back option.
• An exercise log/graph. For some reason, writing it down is extremely important. Really. Do it for a week and you’ll see what I mean.
• Your before picture. You often don’t realize how far you’ve come. Take pictures.
• A 5K race or triathlon. Just sign up for one, and you’ll be motivated to train.
• The dread of feeling “yuck” from not exercising. I hate how I feel after not exercising. So I remind myself of that when I feel tired.
• The scale. It’s not motivating to weigh yourself every day, as your weight fluctuates. But if you weigh yourself once a week, you’ll be motivated to have it keep going down, instead of up. Combine the scale with the measuring tape, and measure your waist.
• Reaching a goal. Set a goal for weight, or your waist measurement, or a number of days to work out, or a number of miles to run this week. Setting and tracking a goal helps motivate you to complete that goal. Make it easily achievable.
• Posting it on your blog. Tell people you’re going to lose weight or exercise daily, and report to them. You’ll make it happen. 
• A blog seems too public, but telling my husband or emailing a friend may be good. 

                                                                                                                            From: zenhabits.net

You're probably telling yourself something like "I should exercise right now. If I don't work out, I'm never going to get fit." This statement has many hidden obstacles. For one thing, feeling like you should do something makes it seem like work, or an obligation. That's no fun. You're also thinking about what will happen if you don't exercise--in other words, you're threatening yourself with punishment (the image of being unfit). Subconsciously, you're flooding your mind with negativity. Instead, remember that exercise is a choice, and it's about whether you want to, or not! And instead of thinking about how you'll look if you don't work out, think about how great you'd look if you did!

• Focus on starting, rather than finishing. When you focus on finishing something, you direct your attention to a vague, highly idealized future. Visualizing a finished project is motivating for many people, but for someone who’s having a hard time starting a task, visualizing a hard-to-grasp future can be overwhelming — even depressing. The solution in this case, then, is not to focus on finishing, but on starting. Forget for a minute about the finish line, just concentrate on giving your first step. Bring your focus from the future to what can be done right now. We all know that if we start something enough times, we'll eventually finish the task. Starting — all by itself — is usually sufficient to build enough momentum to keep the ball rolling.

• Get back on the horse. Have you not exercised for a week? A month? A year? A decade? Who cares? Don't punish yourself. Don't think about how hard it is to get fit. Live in the Moment. Do you want to get in shape? Then work out. Eventually, you'll get momentum going, and you can fine-tune your routine. But that will come naturally, from feeling good about yourself and wanting to take better care of yourself. Until then, just establish in your brain that working it out is a choice, a fun choice.

                                                                                                          From: www.wikihow.com

                                                                                                         

What to do with old bananas?

Banana Cookies Recipe

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup of unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 egg, room temperature
• 1 cup of mashed bananas (about 2 ½ large bananas)
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 2 cups of flour
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground mace or nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground cloves
• 1 cup of pecans (walnuts and chocolate chips are fine alternatives)

Method

1 Preheat the oven to 350°F. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the egg and continue to beat until the mixture is light and fluffy.

2 In a bowl, mix the mashed bananas and baking soda. Let sit for 2 minutes. The baking soda will react with the acid in the bananas which in turn will give the cookies their lift and rise.

3 Mix the banana mixture into the butter mixture. Mix together the flour, salt, and spices and sift into the butter and banana mixture and mix until just combined.

4 Fold into the batter the pecans or chocolate chips if using. Drop in dollops onto parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Bake for 11-13 minutes or until nicely golden brown. Let cool on wire racks.

Makes about 30 cookies.

Welcome New Year!

Follow your heart.  

Be true to yourself.  

 Do what you need to do fulfill your dreams.  

Say what you need to say.  

Be kind to others.  

Offer a helping hand when you’re able.  

Love those who deserve to be loved, and cherish the bond you share.  

Appreciate all the things you do have.  

Smile.  

Celebrate your small victories.  

Learn from your mistakes.  

Forgive.  

And let go of the things you can’t change.

January 1, 2012

Some Christmas Photos

Christmas cards from loving friends

Christmas turkey

Red shoes

Fabulous Shoes

Mike and I wandered around a shopping mall today searching for Christmas present inspiration.  We didn't have much success, but we did see some fabulous pairs of shoes!

Time...

There isn't enough time in the day to accomplish all that I want to do.  I always feel rushed and harried.  Nothing seems to get done and the list of undone grows longer daily as new tasks are added.  Here is how I want to feel:

I must govern the clock, not be governed by it.
Golda Meir 

I have tried to get up earlier and create more time for myself before the work day takes over, but I find myself unwilling to leave my bed or preparing breakfast, coffee, reading email sucks that 'extra' time away.

So during those first moments of the day, which are yours and yours alone, you can circumvent these boundaries and concentrate fully on spiritual matters. And this gives you the opportunity to plan the time management of the entire day.
Menachem Mendel Schneerson

At work, I try to strike a balance between pleasant social interaction with colleagues and getting down to business. But it happens that time disappears during conversations with people who talk a lot and I don't know how to politely move them along.  Short of turning my back and continuing to work on what I had been doing, I haven't yet discovered the easiest way to end these chats.

Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
Carl Sandburg

When I was studying for the bar exam, my friends drew up a rigid schedule and made us stick to it.  It was the most productive time for me as someone else was managing the clock and enforced strong policies.  It was hard to stay focused for 2 months straight, but worth it in the end.  I drew up lists of things that I would do after the exam, from shopping to reading certain books and cleaning my apartment.  Those lists allowed me to write about the distractions that I wanted to do and therefore avoid doing them because they were on the 'list for later.'

Work is hard. Distractions are plentiful. And time is short.
Adam Hochschild  

Now between work, work events, social events, taking care of the apartment and errands, spending time with my husband, keeping in touch with distant friends and family, finding time to relax, preparing for the future, exercise (maybe)...there is no time left.  In short: 

Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.

William Penn