A softer Sunday

  It's been a stormy rainy 24 hours.  We are still under a severe thunderstorm watch until about 2 PM. Everything looks so green and soft out there  (well--more like squishy) lol  We did escape the in line winds and the hail...but it poured like a monsoon. Not raining right now, but the sky looks like it could if it wanted to. It's 52 degrees right now, and feels a little chilly. I've decided to make a batch of soup this late morning and put on some sweats.  Snuggling in seems like the order of the day.  I have the radio on, playing a station on satellite called Moodscapes, which sounds like the stuff they play when you're getting a massage. It's all conspiring to make me so laid back, I'm about to tip over.

  So much for getting any seeds planted this weekend.  I got home yesterday right as it started to rain, after having a nice lunch with my new friend, and doing a couple of errands. Had to get some more of that wonderful organic soy yogurt from Dierbergs and made a stop at the Green Earth grocers for some shampoo and some garlic powder and stuff. I came home and made a wonderful peanut sauce and  soba dish full of edamame and broccoli and savoy cabbage and green onions, ginger and garlic. I am officially out of garlic, so I think I'll have to make a run to Pappy's market here in a minute to pick some up. Can't cook without garlic. Well, I could--but why would I ?????

  I bought some organic lemons to make a batch of Violet Dandelion Lemonade this week. 3 lemons will make a half gallon, and I found the recipe on another blog. It looked absolutely gorgeous. I'm also going to start another batch of kimchi  either today or tomorrow. I have a fridge full of cabbage and was thinking I'd try mixing up a couple of different kinds, instead of using all napa cabbage. Last time I also used kale, along with garlic, ginger, carrots and I don't remember what all.  I really should start a kimchi recipe book, so I can document and track the recipes.  Figure out which ones we like best, and more importantly, remember what ingredients I used. LOL

  I'm also in the mood to make some kind of dessert to go with tonights supper...not sure what the Irishman has in store for me, but so far, everything he has fixed has been wonderful. We have both tempeh and tofu in the fridge...plenty of rice and vegetables and such.  I'm considering a coconut milk custard --but I'll have to buy some more eggs...the chickens are moulting and not laying worth a damn right now.

  I can hear the chicklets in the room next door--sounds like they're getting rowdy. This next week they are going outside. They're getting big and I am tired of the mess in that room. It is always a relief (even if it's a little scary for a while) to get them outside into the chicken coop. I love chickens...

  I need to make some bread today too, we're almost finished with the 2 fallen loaves. lol  The Irishman has loved them, and eats at least 2-3 pieces a day with butter and honey.  They are very dense and moist...The mixture of the rye and buckwheat flours turned them a little grey looking though, which I'm not crazy about. I still have a lot of the old restaurant  woman in me to not have my food look beautiful as well as taste good., lol.

   Well, that's about it for my computer time here on Honeysuckle Hill on a damp Sunday morning. The dogs keep going in and out and can't decide what they want. It's chilly and damp and they like to be curled up in here with me when the weathers like that. Except Caylee-the venerable outside dog.  But I think I hear her at the door now too (the others have been back in this time for an hour).

  There is a plant sale going on at Pappy's market and I usually try to hit it. I've had a hankering to plant some flowers, pots, perennials, --I don't care.  My big purple Irises are blooming like crazy with the rain, and I am going to go out and get a vasefull like last year's..

  I hope YOUR Sunday is filled with rainbows and flowers...

Namaste.

Whew....

  The Christmas holiday has passed, the messes are pretty much cleaned up. Sort of, lol. We have had a lot of ice and snow from the big storm that swept through the country...probably 4-5 inches and it made a mess of the roads.  Very beautiful though...and we made it to my sons on Christmas morning without a hitch...the Irishman utilizing his best northern Wisconsin born and bred  driving skills. Had a wonderful and loving morning there , complete with a killer breakfast cooked by my son.

  I did have to park up top of the hill on Christmas night coming home from work because the roads were too bad to be able to make it down and then up into the driveway. There was a truck AND a tractor in the ditch in front of my house.  lol  They did eventually get out, God bless them. I didn't risk it. There's residual stuff out there now...and it melted some yesterday,but then glazed back over into a sheet of glass as the night temps plummeted to 10 degrees.  

  I have to take a cat to the vet for spaying today, and then try to get something wonderful made for my husband's supper. I guess something easy like a chicken and rice casserole, which can be cooking while I'm heading for the vet. I have to go in to work early today, so that will cut down on my home time once again. I long for the old days sometimes, lol, when I didn't have to make any plans to leave the house all day long if I didn't want to.

  Between the busy-ness of the holidays and the weather and work, I haven't been able to get back here to blog for a few days. Today promises to be another busy one, but I wanted to make sure to stop in and say that once again, we have survived the storm of holiday activity and paced ourselves even better than years past. The Irishman loved the dvd sets...The Vicar of Dibley and Waiting for God.  We are now watching the 20 year old version of CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia...it's a hoot, especially compared with the new whiz-bang productions that are coming out in the theater.  Husband is back at work today....

  Okay. Time to throw together the casserole, get out of the pj's and get dressed and move on into this day.  Here's hoping you all find some peace and tranquility in the post Christmas days, and prepare for a new year that's abundant and prosperous...in all the ways that matter. 

  Namaste.

A great day behind me...

Today was a great day. I didn't get everything on my list done, I'm afraid, but I did get to spend a whole day doing things I love best. It felt a whole lot like nesting, as a matter of fact. I started off the morning with a steaming cup of Starbucks Sumatran. There is absolutely nothing like strong rich coffee from those islands! Is that Micronesia?? (Stimmy??) I don't have an atlas in front of me at the moment. I believe the island of Sumatra is volcanic, as well, and I think that adds to the soil making some kick-ass coffee growing conditions. (Or I could be full of misinformation...lol. )


After a few sips of that magickal brew, I made a list of things I hoped to accomplish today. I am a list maker, as you know. I think I did a whole post about that particular idiosyncrasy once. It's really just a way to help me feel productive. That list was a number of things I felt necessary to have done so I wouldn't have to do too much the next couple of days after tomorrow's surgery. I wanted to back-up the food supplies, have some ready made meals in hand, get all the laundry done, and certainly vacuum and dust. I made a good dent in it.

I started out the morning putting in a load of laundry. Then I turned to the cooking portion of the list. First things first, one of my sponsees was celebrating 19 years at our meeting tonight,. so I needed to bake her a cake. It's what I do. She said they could buy one. I said no, not as long as I can hop on one leg. lol She is a very special woman in my life, and so she got the best cake I make. I told her tonight that I don't make this cake for just anyone. It's especially labor intensive, all beating and whipping and separating egg whites and yolks, whipping the whites stiff, folding in ingredients by hand. ..you get the drift. It's an Italian Cream Cake. It is probably my piece de resistance. She was flamboozled by it. Everyone was. They always are. It's a beautiful cake, topped with a slightly sweet cream cheese frosting and toasted coconut and chopped pecans on top. And there was enough for her to take home a third of it as well. It has 5 eggs and 2 sticks of real butter and is simply marvelous.

So, after the cake was in the oven (prep time on the cake part alone is half an hour, minimum), I started peeling potatoes, cleaning carrots and celery and chopping onions to make a big pot of Cream of Potato Soup. It's my favorite comfort food, and is garlicky and rich and easy to heat up for a satisfying meal with a nice slice of honey oatmeal bread. I always saute the celery, carrots and garlic and onions in butter before putting them into the simmering diced potatoes, and it makes something wonderful happen. By the time all that was cooking away, I was ready for some brunch, so I ate a Pink Lady apple with sea salt. YUM!

While that cooked, I started chopping vegetables for a chicken pot pie. The Irishman loves this particular meal, so I always make it in a 9x13 baking dish so there are plenty of leftovers. It reheats marginally well in the microwave, and very well in the oven. Went out to the freezer and brought in a bag of boneless skinless chicken breasts, thawed out 3 of them and went to work building that bad boy. After I had the filling all made, I whipped up a couple of batches of basic pie crust to line the baking pan and make a cover for it as well. The cake was cooling by now, so into the oven it went. I love the look of a good piecrust....


Last night I made a chicken and rice casserole...one of those delectable things that cook for 3 hours at a low temperature. We had that for supper and of course the leftovers from it will make another meal. I did not get another loaf of bread made, and I did not get my vacuuming done. Ran out of time, as I had to be at the meeting by 7...and take a shower too.

So...a long day and I need to get in bed. But the furnace is playing games again, and now I've had to shut it off and try to restart it in about 10 minutes. It's cold tonight--about 22 out there. But the minute I get that bad boy going...look out sandman--here I come !! I have to be at the hospital by 10:30 in the morning, and the surgery is at 1. I am sooooooo ready to get this done.



Going to try to get the picture of the cake on here....we'll see what happens. lol Since I have to stay up now until the furnace cycles through. Arrgghhh.....it's annoying, and will work properly for days and days, and then do this again. I hate to call a repairman, because the last time, when he got here, it was working again.


Probably won't be posting tomorrow, but you never know. I am one determined woman sometimes....once the anesthesia wears off.*wink




Namaste.