Musings

New pot

New pan

I’ve been wanting a stainless cooking vessel that is somewhere between a skillet and a dutch oven. I ordered it a couple of weeks ago using two big discounts, making it less than half the most overpriced retail prices I’ve seen for it. Yay! Last week, it arrived! Tonight I finally used it—chicken with vegetables, wild rice cooked separately. Yum! Sorry; no food photo; the original, perfect, never-used pan stands alone.

Tale of two pumpkins

Two pumpkins

Feast day here today, delayed from the traditional yesterday, meaning baking for me (love!). I ended up with two tins of pumpkin in two brands—varied color and very different moisture levels. Mixed together, they made fine pumpkin custard!

Prepping begins

Cranberry sauce coming

I got the first dish going for our family festivities—on Friday…Friday works for everybody…. I ended up with about 2.4 dishes completed. I’ll be busy tomorrow!

Maple spire

As it turns out, we made two runs for “last-minute, forgotten” items. This was during the first. The second was after dark. If we can’t get by for the next two days on what’s here in the fridge and cupboards, we have lost perspective!

Bean soup tale

13 beans soaking

The major reason today became bean-soup-from-scratch day was we got a ¼ ham earlier this week, and the bone was just begging (excuse the anthropomorphizing) to flavor some bean soup. Plus, the weather turned colder last week.

Recumbent pair

While the beans were soaking, I zipped—on foot (happy foot justifies the verb “zipped”!)—to the library to swap out two-for-one. On my way back, I scooted (happy foot justifies the verb “scooted”!) out of the way of a his-and-hers mounted pair of recumbent bicycle riders. They deftly navigated around me, and on up the street. I was slow to take a photo, so they were already stopped at the corner before I got a snap…edited to make them larger, so resolution is hammered.

And that’s all tonight, folks.

Oh, my

Silver fish

Silvery fish. Sooooo gorgeous. [We didn’t buy/eat.]

Mystery machine

Mystery machine. Vanilla flavor, we read on the packaging. [We didn’t buy/eat.]

What we did eat, at another location—mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Did I say (write) mmmmmmmmm? Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Lamb bacon

1073 entrance

Lamb bacon. I didn’t know it existed. Now I know it’s tasty. Especially with sweet potato, in an appetizer/small plate at the Five & Ten (sometimes Five and Ten). Lovely, celebratory evening. Thanks, everyone.

Watching the timeline

Puffball natively

I remember (have I already remembered this on these pages???) my dad slicing thick slabs of ready-to-saute puffball steaks. The puffballs were at about this stage.

I looked. I thought about the culinary challenge.

I punted.

We had leftovers, and the puffball stayed in the wild.

Tomorrow? 😀 😍 😩 🤩 😜 🤭

A very good day

Roofer action

One big to-do from our 2018 list has been: get garage roof re-done. We were despairing as we talked to the roofer (second job), starting in, was it February?, and, just weren’t connecting. We talked to him yesterday, and he said, geeze, kinda late in the year for me to have a window given the weather, blah-blah, so, geeze. Then, his boss said, no work tomorrow (meaning today), so presto, we were on the possible list and very excited! Then, the morning was solid overcast and rainy and not workable roofing weather. The guys came, then went to breakfast, returning later. By the time the day was over, howEVER, we have a complete new roof, all done! Ready for winter. Yay!

Now waiting for the call-back from the siding painting guy…. [There’s always something.]

Entree building

On another front, we hosted the relatives tonight. Here, I’m building chicken stacks that include sage leaves and hard salami…came out great!

Rainbow east

And, as we enjoyed our celebratory meal: a rainbow!

Autumn harvest

Foley food mill

Today was a Foley food mill day. And in autumn, that means…

Applesauce processing

…applesauce! You keep processing and squeeze the last juices out of the peels—and that yields a nice pink color not yet visible in the sauce. Tasty!—and with a minimum of added sugar.

Broccoli flowering

Picking the broccoli for dinner tonight, I saw the sun had come out to highlight the blossoms. The plants are getting ready for winter!

Diary using photos

Cozy livingroom

Our cozy living room….

Log playhouse

An artsy shot of one side of the log playhouse…sized for kids.

Nights veggies

Veggies fresh from the neighbors’ garden, and headed for our dinner table: kale, tomatoes, maize. Yum.