Amish County Day

The morning of our second day in Pennsylvania Dutch Country I took some photos of the quilts hanging in the hotel. Sundays are known for most things being closed, so we didn't have a lot of choices of things to do.

We decided to hit the outlet mall to start the day and I picked up these two purses for about $5 each from a shop called Ten Thousand Villages.

I also picked up some necklaces on clearance, and we bought some goldfish snacks.

We then hit the "links" at The Village Greens miniature golf. We hit 24 holes of putt-putt. My husband won the game, but I did get a hole-in-one on the last hole and earned us a free game. Since we couldn't use it again on our trip, we passed it off to a uniformed soldier we knew probably lived in the area.

We stopped off at an ice cream parlor in Strasburg and had a snack.

There was also a winery next door, so we stopped for a bit of wine tasting.

We saw buggies and carts pulled by horses.

And we ended the evening eating at the Plain and Fancy Farm restaurant.

Yum, buttered noodles!

Carolyn "Care Bear" King

We are NOT an Amish Family

On June 11, 2011, our family took a short vacation to Lancaster County Pennsylvania. We picked a lovely hotel called Amish View Inn which was just slightly off the beaten path. The hotel had lovely rooms, a delicious hot breakfast every morning with a chef who made egg dishes to order, and a nice pool for the kids.

The view from our hotel room was of a quite farm.

The hotel was adjacent to The Plain and Fancy Farm restaurant and gift shop. They had adorable little Amish figurines and lots of novelties including the deck of cards labeled with all the strange city names like Intercourse. Blue Ball, and Virginville. It was fun to peruse the aisles.

While our daughter swam, the rest of the family caught up on our electronic technological devices. We are definitely NOT Amish.

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In the evening we took a murder mystery dinner train ride on the The Strasburg Railroad.

The ticket stub (above) had some funny "rules" of the ride. The meal was delicious, but the train drove down the tracks at a pretty slow speed and only went about 9 miles up and back. I had prime rib, while others had chicken cordon bleu and crab meat stuffed flounder.

We saw farmland including this place that was planted for a future corn maze. The path for the maze (yellow patches) was killed with some form of Round-up to prevent it from growing all summer long.

 My son won the prize for "solving" the murder mystery. It was pretty arbitrary, but nevertheless we walked away with a package of old fashioned candies for our efforts.

Carolyn "Care Bear" King

Fresh Baked Bread

I can't eat much of it on my current diet, but it sure smells wonderful. (I did take a small bite). I found this recipe on another blog I follow and just had to try it. Delicious. Feel free to try it out.

Dough in the pan before cooking.

Just taken out of the oven and a small pat of butter rubbed on the top crust.

Cooling on the rack...Can hardly wait.

And here is a yummy slice ready for butter and jam. My house smells wonderful!!!!!!

To make the bread you will need:

1 1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
3 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup rolled oats
2 tablespoons ground flax seed
2 tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Place all the ingredients in a bread machine and use a basic bread setting.

I don't care for how my bread tastes when it's baked in the bread machine itself, so I set mine on the dough setting. After the dough is done, I place it in a greased bread pan, let it rise in the pan until the dough is about an inch over the sides of the pan. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

{I actually started my yeast in a bowl of warm water and sugar and let it get foamy, then I kneaded the dough in my food processor. I let it rise until double its size, punched it down and placed in a loaf pan, let it rise a second time and baked according to the about directions}

Carolyn "Care Bear" King

Green Smoothies

I started a new diet 9 days ago using the nutritional shakes purchased from Body by Vi. Information can be found on my website  https://carolynrking.bodybyvi.com/. I've lost 4 pounds in that time drinking two smoothies a day and eating 2 sensible snacks and one sensible meal. I've heard about people drinking "green" smoothies in the past and always thought it was a gross concept. But the other day I made my first green smoothie using a handful of kale and it was delicious in my Vi-Shape shake. I enjoyed it so much I made another for lunch and also for breakfast the next day. It mentally feels good to know I'm putting so many good vitamins in my body. This morning I made another, and here is the recipe for my creation.

My new KitchenAid blender from Bed Bath and Beyond works wonderfully. I'd highly recommend it, but it is noisy. (So was my last one, so no big deal for me). I started with a handful of kale and 1/2 frozen banana and about 1/2 cup of 1% milk.

Here my blender is pulverizing the kale into little pieces on the "liquefy" speed. After the kale is in very tiny pieces I add another 1/2 cup of 1% milk, 26g of my shake mix, and about 1/2 cup of crushed ice.

Pouring into the glass. I love the bright green color. It reminds me of Shamrock Shakes from McDonalds, but doesn't have that minty flavor.

Trying to get out every last drop from the blender pitcher. Calories: shake mix 90; 1 c 1% milk 110; 1/2 banana 45; 1/2 c kale 20; total calorie count 265.

And here is the final product. It's thick and foamy and yields about 18 oz. of smoothie. My husband says it tastes like freshly mown grass, but I don't think it's bad at all. One thing to mention is, what goes in green also comes out pretty green too. That was a surprise the next morning!

Let me know if you'd like any more information about Body by Vi

Carolyn "Care Bear" King