Season's Greetings

December 25, 2011

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season with their loved ones, and a Happy New Year. I think this is the first time in the nineteen years that I have been in Deep Creek, that it hasn’t been a white Christmas. We had a fair amount of snow in October and early December and only flurries since then. But knowing Garrett County I am sure we will get our fair share soon.

Now that the new year is around the corner, I am sure many of us are making new year's resolutions. Mine is always to eat healthier and lose weight. I am hoping to achieve both these goals this year because my daughter Haley, who is a personal trainer and nutritionist, will be staying here for a while. I am hoping to get her to start some healthy retreats for a weekend and even some week-long ones. Since these will be more affordable than the usual spa retreats, I hope that we will get a lot of people interested. If you have a group of 6 or more persons interested in attending one of these, please drop us a line and we will see what we can do.

In the meantime enjoy your celebrations,

Love and blessings,
Kam

Here is a recipe for Soda Bread you might want to try over the holidays:

Irish soda bread

4 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoon baking powder
1 3/4 cup buttermilk
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 lb butter
2 cup raisins or cranberry

Combine flour, salt, soda, baking powder and sugar. Cut in butter. Add raisins. Mix egg with buttermilk, and then add to dry ingredients. Mix until well blended. Flour the counter. Turn dough onto counter and shape into 2 rounds. Place each into 8 inch pie pan. Make cross on each round. Bake at 375 degrees for 40 min. Check after 30 minutes. Use a lot of flour on counter or it will be too sticky.
A friend of mine told me that if you soak the raisins in hot water for 5 minutes, before you put them in the dough, they stay plump and taste yummy.