Hello Blog Friends!
Here we are already rushing towards the end of September, AGH!!! It has been a full week around here. Office time has been divided between continued editing and tweaking of the e-book “Come Together” and general office work such as the assembling of content for CTM’s quarterly “Networks” newsletter, which is due to be published just before Thanksgiving. There are always small bits and pieces to tidy up such as sending e-transfers and other day to day banking and there are occasional random emails that require follow-up.
Thursday evening we held a small planning group meeting to begin preparations for the Autumn Day Retreat on November 6th. It was great to hear from our guest speaker, Jenna, and we were fortunate that Miriam & Donna (our music team for the Retreat) were also available to join in.
This afternoon we will be going live with our first episode of the Day Camps “Autumn Cook-Along” WOOT WOOT!! We will be welcoming just a small group of campers to the Google Meet event but we really did not want to cancel and disappoint any budding chefs! All week I kept badgering a couple of “maybes” and it is possible they might join us for one or both of the other 2 upcoming episodes.
Tomorrow afternoon is a CTM Board meeting so I have also been doing prep for that too. When we meet online I have to take the minutes by hand as I don’t like taking up my computer screen with a document since then I cannot see the faces of everyone at the meeting, but by not using that option it does add another layer to prepping and transcribing the minutes.
Tuesday afternoon there were more minutes as Diocesan Council met for the first time since June, (we do have a summer break🙂). Thankfully those minutes have now been transcribed and the draft has been sent on to my colleague, the Clerical Secretary, so that she can do any necessary editing.
All in all there has been limited time for crafting, although I did finish the first pair of socks I am knitting as Christmas gifts for my 4 Godsons and have made a good start on the second pair.
Thursday I also squeezed in the mowing of the lawns as the grass had grown quite a lot since we have had more rain this week but it was a lovely sunny early autumn day so I enjoyed the task 😊. There will likely only be a couple more mowings as once we have had a killing frost it is best not to cut the grass again until spring.
This morning I got my baking started bright and early, as most of the afternoon will be devoted to the Cook-Along. I’ve kept it simple- GF loaves, a miche, chocolate chip scones and rye crispbread I had bett.er get back to baking as Thomason will also need a good long walk before lying down quietly while I’m on the Google Meet.
Last weekend I made some Apricot Pistachio Biscotti, they turned out really well so I thought you might like to try them 😊
Apricot Pistachio Biscotti
- 1/3 cup butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 cups flour
- 2 tsps. baking powder
- ½ tsp. salt
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup chopped dried apricots
- ½ cup chopped pistachios
- 1 ½ tsps. fennel seeds
Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut in the butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Beat in the eggs then mix in the apricots, pistachios and fennel seeds. Bring the mixture together to form a dough, then divide it in half On a large parchment-lined baking sheet form each half of the dough into a 2”wide log about 12” long.
Bake in the preheated 350º oven for 25 minutes. Cool on racks then slice diagonally in ¼” thick slices. Return slices to the baking sheet and continue baking for a further 20 minutes or until lightly browned and crisp.
Makes about 3 dozen.