Sledding

We got more snow this week!  That's our car covered in it...

There is Olivia in the midst of shoveling Peepaw and Grammie's driveway.

Afterwards, we went to pick a friend up and go sledding...

We packed 2 stainless steel flasks with hot chamomile lavender tea...and some dark chocolate from Trader Joe's for a mid-sledding snack.

I blanched my own almonds (4 cups of them, I got a 16 oz. bag of them at Trader Joe's for $4.99), by letting them sit in a bowl of boiling water for a minute and then pouring the water out and removing the skins.  It took me a full hour!

My old Hamilton Beach food processor (which was given to us USED by an elderly man from church, after his wife passed away), which was probably 15-20 years old, stopped working a couple of months ago.  Finally, this past Saturday, we got a NEW Hamilton Beach one for $49.99 at Target...it shreds, slices and purees.  I use it to shred cheese & carrots often and also want to use it like a blender to make smoothies. 

The snowballs were good, but still too wet and squishy, didn't set up nicely.  I just used vanilla extract instead of amaretto, maybe that's why they didn't seem great.

I made a second batch and used "Just Cashew Meal" ($5.99/16 oz. bag of simply ground raw cashews) from Trader Joe's in place of the coconut in this recipe (I like that it called for maple syrup instead of icing, and I think the coconut oil helped it firm up a bit better)...I rolled those in confectioner's sugar, instead of shredded coconut so they looked the same. 
 
Cute new flannel bedsheets with Russian matroshka dolls on them, from Target!