WINE COUNTRY GAL

Here I am at wine country holding a bottle of wine. This little adventure will be coming up for us again soon. My birthday is coming and this is my fave thing to do..........go to wine country. What is not to like? Gorgeous scenery. beautiful facilities and the most important amazing wine.
This year we will tour a few winery's and then finish off at King Estate and have a lovely lunch there and share a bottle of their pinot noir. A perfect day.
This photo was taken in the parking lot at Sweet Cheeks winery. We are so fortunate that we have these world renown winery's at our door step. A half hour drive and you are there. There are many and all different in what they have to offer as well as their facilities. We usually try to go twice a year.

We had my Mom in law for dinner last night. I worked in the kitchen all day as I knew she would love the meal. I made creamy, cheesy chicken enchilada's with black beans and mexican salad with sweet and sour dressing. For desert we had pineapple upside cake, just like my Mom made it in a black iron skillet. Wow, with a dollop of whipped cream on it it was an yummy mouthful. I will add the cake recipe at the end of this blog. I took a photo of it but it turned out to light and hey half of it was gone!

Another day of springs breath. It was chilly today though but the sun came out this afternoon after a brief shower.
I took a short walk. In one yard I passed there was a profusion of color all was doing so well considering the cool days we have had of late.
In another month we should be getting our veggie garden beds ready for planting. We will do the usual which is zucchini, tomatoes and peppers. This year we are adding scallions, butter lettuce, beans and maybe peas. I always have a herb barrel going with chives, rosemary, basil, lemon thyme and parsley. Believe me I am no gardener so if things do well it is certainly a blessing from the universe.

Pineapple upside down cake in a black iron skillet.

1/4 cup butter
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 (20 ounce) can of pineapple slices drained
1 1/3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup shortening
3/4 cups milk
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg at room temp

Preheat oven to 350 F
Melt butter in iron skillet
Sprinkle brown sugar over butter
Arrange pineapple slices on the top of brown sugar/butter.
Place a pecan in the center of each slice( optional) you can put any kind of nut, or a cherry , I put pieces of granola bars once and it was good.
Beat remaining ingredients till well blended.
Pour over pineapple slices and bake for 35-45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
Remove from oven and turn onto a heat proof plate. Now this is the most complicated part. As an iron is skillet is heavy I enlist the help of my hubby. You want a plate to fit just inside the skillet, I hold the plate there and hubby turns the skillet. Perfect!
Serve with a big dollop of (real) whipped cream.
This is good and an ol fashioned desert I remember from childhood. Mom always did a cherry!

Well tomorrow is another day and hubby is working all week. So I want to accomplish much this week. So till the next blog have a good day.