Lazy Monday Afternoon...

Now that we have started on the 1.week of Advent I feel entitled to dig into a collection of the fine German Christmas Goodies, which we received in a package sent to us by a German cousin. 

She knows that it is hard to find these goodies in Canada and U.S. so this is very thoughtful of her indeed.

Nevertheless, Christmas is not Christmas without having my favorite lard cookies, which I pride myself having made every year. 

The recipe is from northern Germany and I learned it from my mom. Lard, sugar, flour, vanilla are all the ingredients. They must be mixt until a solid lump of dough is produced. One rolls out small portions of the dough to sausages, then cut appropriate small portions of the "sausage" and form it to cookies. Bake at 180F for 15minutes and let cool. You can make them as white cookies or with cocoa/chocolate as dark cookies. Both are great with coffee.

So besides of baking cookies I encountered a sudden problem with charging our batteries. Looking at our charge controller I discovered a loose wire. As soon as that was corrected, our 600W solar panels delivered power again. Solar power is a true blessing for RVing. And while solar panels used to be very expensive back in 2005 when we started using them on our RV, my 2 300W panels cost just $70/piece. They actually came with an extra charge controller, which I did not use, as I already had one. An incredible deal, I found at WISH.com. And they were sent from a ware house in Vancouver, BC. Of course, they are made in China, but so are also much more expensive panels. They have already served us 3 years without the slightest problem.

The afternoon was spent chatting with a neighbour and undertaking a nice walk along the scenic water canal.
 
A little bit of a breeze kept temperatures at a comfortable level around 70F.
 
Dixie rewarded us for driving the extra miles from TX to CA by giving us a show of wild exuberant racing back and forth in the desert. While usually being a very calm measured minded dog, she sometimes gives us the "crazy-dog" performance. That's when we know she is overly happy. And nothing else could make us more happy than seeing Dixie playing "crazy-dog".

Today it was my turn to prepare dinner. And I must mention "Opa's Sausages" made in Fredericksburg,TX. Many years ago we were staying in Fredericksburg and I had the opportunity to visit the producer of "Opa's Products". Already back then I loved their sausage products. It is made after old German recipes, thus the name "Opa's".

Under our short stay in TX a week ago I discovered their product in a grocery store and grabbed it. Naturally, I should have bought a bunch of them, as they keep well in unopened packages in the fridge. They are smoked and they contain real meat. I have never tasted better ones in North America. So today I made dinner with them. Since they are ready cooked, I just warmed them in gravy and served with potatoes and carrots. Just extremely good!