Egg in a Nest - Gluten Free Easter Treats

Photo Credit: CK Worley

They are fun to make and simpler than they look. I created this recipe by using a Martha  Stewart base recipe and changing it up.

Here is what you’ll need.

Ingredients:

3 large egg whites
3/4 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon coarse salt
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 Tablespoon pure vanilla extract
4 drops doTERRA Wild Orange essential oil
( http://www.mydoterra.com/growit/#/ )
8 ounces semi sweet chocolate morsels
1  3/4 cups pistachios (I roasted then ground them up)

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and spray that with cooking spray.

Combine egg whites and sugar in a double boiler and whisk until the sugar is melted.

Next add the salt and cram of tartar. Remove from heat.

Beat with a mixer until stiff peaks form, then add the vanilla extract and the wild orange essential oil. It will smell really great and strong but don’t worry - it will even out.

Photo Credit: CK Worley

Place the meringue into a large sandwich bag, then cut the tip off one corner.

Pipe the meringue onto the cookie sheet making little dollops. They won’t spread so you can put them pretty close together.

Photo Credit: CK Worley

Bake for an hour and 20 minutes until they get hard enough to move off the cookie sheet easily.

While you are waiting for them to cool put the chocolate in a microwave safe dish and set the microwave in 30 second intervals - mixing as you go along until the chocolate is completely melted.

Photo Credit: CK Worley

Now take a little meringue egg and dip the bottom into the melted chocolate and then roll that into the ground pistachios.

Put them on a sheet of waxed paper to dry.

These are light and so delicious! The Wild Orange really makes a difference. And they are gluten free!

So! Now what do you do with those egg yolks?
You can freeze them! Just add a 1/2 teaspoon per egg, whisk them up and put them in an ice cube tray. Once they freeze you can remove them and store them in a freezer bag until you’re ready to use them.

Photo Credit: CK Worley

Why the sugar? It helps keep the proteins in the yolk from breaking down. Just remember when you use them for baking that you’ve added a little sugar.

Photo Credit: CK Worley

 Happy Easter!

Lichen and Turkey Tail Mushrooms on Trees and Branches

Lichens are pretty cool and harmless to trees. They come from the marriage of Fungus (which grows on the tree) and Algae (which likes the moisture Fungus creates and becomes food for the Fungus). So one thrives on the other.

I was walking with my friend Katie at Kennesaw Mountain Battle Field.

http://www.nps.gov/kemo/index.htm

They have lots of nature trails but this particular trail was new to me. The Little Kennesaw trail.  All along the path we found Lichens and mushrooms on the trees. They were so pretty that I began taking photographs of them.
Here is an example of both Lichen and mushrooms. The mushrooms look like butterflies.

Photo Credit CK Worley

Lichen is sensitive to pollution and likes clean fresh air so it’s a good sign. If you have some on your trees and don’t like it, just scrub it off with soapy water. That should do the trick.

The rest of my pictures are mushrooms, possibly "Turkey-Tail". These mostly grow on dead hardwood. Turkey-Tail mushrooms have been used in Chinese medicine and now research is being done on it's curative abilities here in the United States.

One of the more humorous things I have read is that ladies used to decorate their hats with some of the more colorful ones. Leave it to the girls to find a way to use mushrooms as a fashion accessory!

Here are some of the photos I took of the mushrooms.

Photo Credit: CK Worley

Photo Credit: CK Worley

Photo Credit: CK Worley

Making Art out of an Ant Hill

Making art out of an ant hill. Sounds crazy but it’s being done. Our pest treatment guy told me about this so I had to visit the site.

Ant Hill Art

http://www.anthillart.com/castings/071/

If you click on the link above you can see a video on how they take molten aluminum into a field and pour it into an ant colony opening.  The size and shape of the sculpture depends on the kind of ant.

The end result reminds me of the job given to the character Jake Perry in the movie  "Sweet Home Alabama". If you saw that movie you learned how his character made Fulgerite art by using a metal rod stuck into the sand at the beach. When the lightening stuck the rod during a thunderstorm,  the sand around it turned into a glass sculpture. The idea is to have the electricity from the lightening strike melt the sand. (This is a very rare occurrence by the way). The best sculptures (when created in that way) are made in very dry desert sand - not wet beach sand).

Here are a few photos from the ant site. You should watch how this is done. Fascinating.
After the sand is brushed away from the cooled metal you end up with these kind of art pieces.

Ant Hill Art

Ant Hill Art

Our Anniversary Trip - A Stay-cation.

Being a tourist in our own home town is a good way to spend a couple of days.

We decided to start our adventure by having lunch at the Majestic Diner located at 1031 Ponce De Leon Ave NE, Atlanta.  The Majestic has been serving food 24 hours a day since 1929 and it is still going strong. http://majesticdiner.com/

Next we visited Oakland Cemetery founded in 1850. It’s the resting place of many of the original settlers of Atlanta.  http://www.oaklandcemetery.com/

Photo Credit: Trip Adviser

This 48-acre city owned cemetery also doubles as a city park, and it’s treated as such. You can take all kinds of tours from architecture to botanical. They also hold private events, weddings, and road races there.Oakland has it’s own green house which recently was moved from the Cyclorama.

One of the most interesting grave sites for us belongs to the famous golfer Bobby Jones. Legend has it that if you leave a golf ball there it will improve your game so there are plenty of them.

Photo Credit: CK Worley

From there we made our way to a bed and breakfast built in 1836 called Twelve Oaks located in Covington, Georgia. Voted one of the most romantic places to visit (we couldn’t argue with that).

Photo Credit: Trip Adviser

If you live in the Atlanta area it’s a great getaway and if you come from Buffalo New York (Like our new friends Gary and Joell did) you’ll get a feel for the true Gone with the Wind south. We stayed in the Cannon Ball Run Grand Suite located on the third floor. Nicole and John run this beautifully restored home.  http://www.thetwelveoaks.com/

Photo Credit: The Twelve Oaks

Wine and cheese in the early evening are served and the most elegant breakfasts in the morning, (one is pictured below). Even water and chocolates by the bedside when you return in the evening are little touches that make such a difference. Conveniently located within walking distance of the town square.

Photo Credit: The Twelve Oaks

The Atlanta Movie Tour on Monday was great. Clyde drove the bus and we were accompanied by Sally Smith who never broke character playing our tour guide Margaret Mitchell. We were shown all the high spots of Margaret’s life and death (the intersection where she was tragically run over by an off duty cabbie).
http://atlantamovietours.com/tours/gone-with-the-wind-tour/. 

Photo Credit: The Margaret Mitchell Museum

We had never toured the “Dump” (as Mitchell called it) where she lived while writing Gone with the Wind.  Afterward we visited Oakland again on the tour but this time we heard all the stories behind many of the residents there from our very knowledgeable tour guide "Margaret". We also visited Mitchell’s grave site there.

Photo Credit: The Margaret Mitchell Museum

Afterward we had lunch at Mary Mac’s Tea Room were they have been serving southern fair for over 70 years. We started lunch with Pot Likker with cracklin’bread and fried green tomatoes. It’s a nice friendly place with lots of history. http://www.marymacs.com/

This weekend was well planned by my sweat husband who orchestrated all of our little trips. I’m grateful for him everyday. This was taken about 19 years ago but it's still one of my favorites.
Happy Anniversary!

Photo Credit: Maura Nicholson