I guess he lives here, he came out of the garden! I think it’s called a Black snake or a chicken snake.
I don’t know, I guess I live under a rock,
but not the rock that the snake was living under all winter!
I’d never heard the Sneaky snake song until two days ago.

“…Well, sneaky snake drinks root beer, and he just makes me sick
When he is not dancin’, he looks just like a stick
Now, he doesn’t have any arms or legs, you cannot see his ears
And while we are not lookin’, he’s stealin’ all of our beer…”
I immediately thought of certain relatives who most undoubtedly do not like snakes! And thought this song is for them.

I ran over Sneaky snake’s identical twin, I swear it looked just like him! lounging crossways in the road, stretched out about 4’ in length. I guess the twin took it literally when he was told go play in traffic. Only thing was I didn’t know he was Sneaky snake’s twin until I came home  and saw Sneaky snake leaving the garden.
As he was leaving he said something about God never told ME not to eat out of the garden.


Now maybe you won’t see him, maybe you won’t hear
But he’ll sneak up behind you, and drink all your root beer…
 

And then sneaky snake goes dancin’, wigglin’ and a-hissin’
Sneaky snake goes dancin’, gigglin’ and a-kissin’



I don’t like old sneaky snake; he laughs too much you see
When he goes wigglin’ through the grass, it tickles his underneath




Sneaky snake song for you in case you live under a rock
but not the rock that Sneaky snake spent the winter under.

Strawberry season is only complete with strawberry shortcake.


Butter and sugar.


Cream together

 Add egg

 vanilla

and milk

beat well. Then Combine dry ingredients  to the creamed mixture.

I use the butter wrapper to grease the pan. My mother always did it that way. If you think that's being too frugal that's OK.

Pour into pan.


Spread in a greased 9-in baking pan. Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes.

Slice up some straw berries.

Add a little maple syrup to them.

Pull the cake out and let cool on a wire rack not a pot holder!

 Don't let bossy people tell you what to do.

Whip some cream

Add a few tablespoons of maple syrup as it starts to thicken.

This is the important part:
Split each serving horizontally and fill with whipped cream and strawberries. Replace top of cake; garnish with more berries and a dollop of whipped cream. Serve immediately.

Strawberry Shortcake

Ingredients
•    2/3 cup sugar
•    1/4 cup butter
•    1 egg
•    1 teaspoon vanilla extract
•    1/4 teaspoon salt
•    1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
•    2 teaspoons baking powder
•    1/2 cup milk
•    Whipped cream
•    1/8 cup maple syrup
•    1-1/2 quarts fresh or frozen strawberries, sliced
Directions
•    In a bowl, cream sugar and butter. Add egg, milk and vanilla; beat well. Combine dry ingredients  to the creamed mixture. Spread in a greased 9-in. square baking pan. Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes. Cool on wire rack.
•     Split each serving horizontally and fill with whipped cream and strawberries. Replace top of cake; garnish with more berries and a dollop of whipped cream. Serve immediately.

I like to play around with my photos and see what happens. This morning I took some photos.

It looked like this straight out of the camera. I'm not super awesome with a camera by any stretch of the imagination  yet so that's what it looked like.



Here, I increased the vibrancy a little bit and desaturated every color except blue.
I think it's fun just to be able to do this.
So I did.

The Larkspur SOOTC -straight out of the camera.
F stop 3.5
1/250 sec
ISO 200
50mm

Cropped and added a little vibrancy. It helped the blue purple or is it purple blue? Well, it stands out, that's what it does.

Every once in a while I like a photo SOOTC -straight out of the camera and this is it, the one and only photo that I didn't have to adjust anything on!
F/3.5
1/400sec
ISO-200

I gave this a dreamier feel.
I brought the vibrancy up and the saturation down dont ask me what that does, it does something. They've got to be different otherwise there wouldn't be two options.
I look at it and if I like it I leave it.
I gave the highlights a yellow tint and the shadows a blue tint.

I promise I will never always do the dreamy thing to my photos!
I'll just do it sometimes.

 How it looked SOOTC -straight out of the camera

 take some pictures and if they come out bad take some more.

Ginger lemonade, I made ginger lemonade from a recipe from Melody Jones and after modifying it substantially I like it a lot!

 I had only five lemons so I made a half small batch.

 squeezed them.

Sliced the ginger real fine 

 And then chopped it up.

 I poured 1 cup of water,

Not quite a quarter cup of honey, I was being cheap and regretted it later when I tasted it. And then had to add the rest later.

1/4 cup sugar.

a cup of lemon juice

and the ginger. I boiled this for 5 minutes or something like that. I actually got a little distracted  and hurried back just i time.

Then I let it sit for 15 minutes exactly! Sure.

Strain mixture. Add to remaining cups water. And if you just don't have the patience to refrigerate and let it chill, add lots of ice and serve.

But you have to cut a few slices of lemon for garnish.
It's part of the recipe.

Adjust with more water and or honey to taste.

Ginger Lemonade 
modified from Melody Jones

• 3 cups water, divided
• 1 inches fresh ginger root, peeled and thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 honey
• 1 cups fresh lemon juice (about 4 - 5 lemons)

In saucepan, bring one cup water, ginger root, and sugar and honey to boil. Boil five minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat. Add lemon juice, cover pan, and let steep fifteen minutes. Strain mixture.  Add to large pitcher with remaining cups water. Refrigerate two hours or until chilled.

Slice zucchini 

Slice onion

Combine zucchini, bell pepper, black pepper and onion in a large bowl

 drizzle with 1 1/2 tablespoons oil.

 Toss.

 Arrange vegetables on a cookie sheet.

Bake at 500° for 15 minutes.

Slice up mozzarella  

Roll dough out, cover with a teaspoon of olive oil and Spread tomato sauce. 

  Sprinkle 1/2 cup mozzarella over sauce

 top with vegetables. 


 Sprinkle 1/2 cup mozzarella and red pepper over zucchini mixture. Dollop with ricotta



 Bake at 500° for 11 minutes or until crust is golden.

Sprinkle with basil.

And serve!

I did a test, a taste test. Does it taste better with a fork 

or in hand?
Results: dead even tie.

Roasted Vegetable and Cottage Cheese Pizza

• 1 pound refrigerated fresh pizza dough
• 1 cup (1/4-inch-thick) slices zucchini
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 medium red bell pepper, sliced
• 1/4 medium red onion, cut into thick slices
• 5 1/2 teaspoons olive oil, divided
• 1 tablespoon yellow cornmeal
• 1/3 cup tomato sauce
• 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 1/3 cup cottage cheese
• 2 tablespoons small fresh basil leaves

• 1. Position an oven rack in the lowest setting. Preheat oven to 500°.
• 2. Remove dough from refrigerator. Let stand, covered, for 30 minutes.
• 3. Combine zucchini and next 3 ingredients (through onion) in a large bowl; drizzle with 1 1/2 tablespoons oil. Toss. Arrange vegetables on a cookie sheet. Bake at 500° for 15 minutes.
• 4. Punch dough down. Sprinkle a lightly floured baking sheet with cornmeal; roll dough out to 15-inch circle on prepared baking sheet. Brush dough with 1 teaspoon oil. Spread sauce over dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Sprinkle 1/2 cup mozzarella over sauce; top with vegetables. Sprinkle 1/2 cup mozzarella and red pepper over zucchini mixture. Dollop with ricotta. Bake at 500° for 11 minutes or until crust is golden. Let cool a little then sprinkle with basil and serve.