More Squash and No End in Sight

On Sunday, we made squash-based oatmeal cookies and squash-based muffins. (If you use squash, you don't need eggs! This is excellent for lazy people who want to wait as long as possible before going to the grocery store.)

Tonight, Bryan made squash gnocchi. They were delicious with parmesan, black pepper, and olive oil, and there are enough for lunch tomorrow as well.

All of our food seems to be yellow....

There's only about a cup of squash left from the giant one we roasted on Saturday (except the half that we froze already). Just five butternut and a small Queensland Blue left. We are hoping Bryan can pawn off a few butternut on some co-workers.

Experimental Cooking Goes Right!

I know it will be such a treat for all of you to get a thorough description of how home-cooked meals happen at our house.

It's getting to be that time of year again, when winter squash seem to be reproducing on the counter (or decomposing, but that's another story). Bryan said on Thursday, when I brought home the most recent load of squash, that we absolutely must use some squash this weekend. We started with the oldest and largest, a Queensland Blue about six inches tall and fifteen inches in diameter, weighing maybe ten pounds. Bryan hacked it in half and scooped out all the seeds, and then it took an hour and fifteen minutes to roast it, and I browsed the internet to try to find a recipe I thought I'd read somewhere the day before, didn't find it, but did find a variety of other recipes.

(Concurrently: Bryan cleaned off all the squash seeds, boiled them for an hour or so, and toasted them with salt and oil for a tasty treat.)

We also have a build-up of other vegetables. While the squash roasted, we peeled and grated two parsnips, two carrots, and three fist-sized potatoes, and mixed them with a small minced red onion, about a tablespoon of dried parsley, and about half a teaspoon of fresh ground pepper. When the squash was done, Bryan mashed about a cup and a half of squashed and mixed it with all the grated veggies, then mixed in four pieces of fried, crispy bacon, crumbled, about a half cup of flour, and a few tablespoons of vegetable oil. Bryan formed the mixture into patties, put them on an oiled cookie sheet, and popped them in the oven to bake.

(Also concurrently: We had some cornmeal in the cupboard, and still plenty of squash. I made the Moosewood cookbook's cornbread recipe, except instead of an egg, I used about a cup of mashed squash, and instead of plain yogurt, I used French vanilla, since we had some.)

The veggie patties weren't getting firm in the oven, so Bryan pulled out the griddle, made more patties from the second half of the mixture, and fried those for maybe five minutes on each side. Then, we took the baking patties out of the oven, tossed those on the griddle, and put the fried ones in the oven to bake for a few minutes.

At the end of several hours, we sat down to our version of root vegetable pancakes (with sour cream) and cornbread. It was delicious and worth the wait. And, because we analyze this during/after every meal, here's what we'll do differently next time:
- we'll grate the veggies into a collander rather than a bowl, and press out some liquid
- we'll add more flour (maybe whole wheat?)
- we'll fry first, then bake
- we'll add just one parsnip (dominant flavor), and maybe a beet if one is available.

Don't you feel like you were here for dinner last night? Would you go nuts if you had to cook with me all the time?

Darleen Still Whining

I just looked my birthday up and I was born on a Wednesday. You know, "Wednesday's child is full of woe". Well, my woe has lifted a little... I am finally feeling better, coughing less and my nose is no longer running away. BUT NOW Rachel and Jeff both have it. I sure hope they get better faster than I did. The cool water vaporizer has been running non-stop for weeks now and will probably run a few weeks more.

My biggest problem right now is I can't get out of the house. Well, I could if I wasn't afraid of falling. The back porch, including the steps are a glare of 1" thick ice. The sidewalks and driveway are all covered in ice. Smooth, clear, nice ice. I could skate if I still skated. The neighbor behind me worked on his driveway ice yesterday and again this morning. I have seen him fall already 3 times and it's not like I just spend all my time watching him. I just glance up and there he is falling again. Even the snow looks like it is covered in ice. (Jeff actually tried to "plant" our Christmas tree in a large snowbank yesterday and the trunk kind of bounced off the icy snow.)

I'm thankful I don't have to go anywhere today but tomorrow is another story. I may have to slide carefully across the back porch out to the steps, try sit down carefully and bump down the 3 steps on my bottom. I might bet a little wet and cold but that way if I slip, I will already be down! Then to get to the garage.... hum. I will have to think about that.

Fond du Lac Christmas 2008

Andrew said I should post the Christmas Party Pictures right away. Well, I missed a few shots and it took me longer as I had to learn how to put the text next to the individual photos but here it is...


Emily crocheted Andrew a rug out of old plastic bags. Just hose it off and it will last forever! She had at least a dozen of us looking for "colorful plastic bags" in our bag stashes.

Note Bette's use for the tulle bow.



Darleen sewed pillowcases for Pete; seasonal fabrics and just some fun quilt prints. Pete commented he is afraid Jackie will one day see just the print she needs for a quilt block and he will find a hole in his pillowcase!





Jeff received a really cool wooden shelf filled with neatly marked containers of screws, nails and bolts. I think Pete took on the project partly to prove to Jackie that there really is a good use for all those Crystal Light contains that he has been saving for years. Jeff and I are hoping this shelf marks the beginning of a HUGE basement clean up at our house.

Rachel gave her Grandmother a pot she threw.















Bette got one of those fantastic glass blown pumpkins from MIT. We all admired the fancy stem.














Rachel opening some of her many gifts.


















Gordon gave Jackie a collectible Disney Tea Table.













Jeff covered a picture frame in birch bark and used the frame for the picture above on Fresh Bait as a gift to Chris.

Chris painstakingly preserved dozens of beautiful fall leaves for me. She also make a book safe, by gluing all the pages of a book together and then cutting out a hole in the middle for me to hide treasures.

Joe cleverly got his Dad a few boxes of junior mints, popcorn and 6 months of NetFlix.

Deanna knit Emily a beautiful circular scarf of variegated yarn.
The design has a name but I don't recall what it is, basically it is one big circle of a scarf!

I heard the tale of Amanda's gift of beer from Andrew.... poor Jill had to stand in line for hours......

Bette gave Joe a bunch of old wooden pulleys and a duck decoy.

I didn't get to see Bryan's quilt. I saw the pattern and helped pick out the fabrics. Maybe we can see a picture of Bryan and Amanda cuddled under the throw drinking the famous beer!

Darleen Whines

Be prepared... I am going to whine - To complain or protest in a childish, annoying fashion.

It started with a tickle in my throat Thursday night. Now I barely have enough energy to get out of bed. I can't breath, can't sleep, can't stop coughing and my ears hurt. I believe it is the common cold. I am miserable.

Electricity, Story Time, and Christmas

In the past month, we have lost power 3 times. It has been quite an adventure. It makes me a little nervous, since we haven't even had a nor'easter yet. I have now become accustomed to keeping my headlamp near me when we have a storm. The first time was due to 60 mile/hour winds that knocked down a huge tree near our house, we didn't have power for almost 46 hours. I was house sitting and dog sitting for a neighbor with a generator at the time, which was good since I had to make the dog's food everyday.




The other two times were due to wind and an ice storm but the outages were not as only, only a few hours each time. The morning after the ice storm I took a walk around our house. The above is a picture of our house from the edge of the field. See our house way in the distance. I also found a rock wall in the woods that morning. Sorry the picture is a little blurry, it was still pretty wind.





My job at the library is going well. It is beginning to make sense, although it is difficult to not have a designated boss/supervisor and working at home. For one thing, there are many distractions such as Huckleberry, our cat who really likes to jump up on my desk. One day, I left to get some tea and came back to find him sitting on my laptop. He is trouble. Right now he is trying to catch flies again, which is good.



I have started a Pajama Story Time on Thursday nights for preschoolers. We read a couple of books, sing some songs and do an easy craft. They really like to glue things. It is quite the success. I normally have about 8 kids. (This is good for our library. Our Wednesday morning story time has on average 4.) This is a picture from our first night. If you are wondering the space you are seeing is almost our entire children's room. We also had a really fun Halloween party at the library. I dressed up as Minnie Mouse. I thought of the costume the night before and am pretty proud of it. It was inspired by my yellow clogs.



My roommate, Nate and I put up a Christmas tree last week. We only had a few ornaments from his mother, so we collected leaves and pine cones and painted them silver, gold, and blue. I was a little skeptical at first, but they turned out really nice. The picture doesn't do them justice. We also had a few friends over that helped us make the garland.


















Ok, I better get back to work. I'm flying back to Wisconsin on Friday so I'll see most of you soon!

Christmas Party at my Mom's Nursing Home

Mom in her room with the wreath I won.

My Mom and I.

It was the annual Christmas Party at Vintage on the Ponds. We attended last year and were entertained by a huge buffet, a nice "one man band" ( guitar and electric piano) with a wonderful voice ( he even sold CD's) and I won a door prize--- a great LLBean wind-up flashlight. The party is a bit of excitement in a very dull world.

This year was also great- although Jeff was disappointed there were not little wieners and meatballs in BBQ sauce like last year. Piano and drum duets, acoustic guitar and Girl Scouts entertained us. When we arrived, my mom was sitting next to one of the more mobile male residents of the home, Bob. At the Valentine's Day Ball last year Bob really danced up a storm with not only female residents but the staff. I think in his youth Bob would have been a "ladies man". He had those women really swinging around without their much needed walkers. During this Christmas Party he was REALLY excited to be sitting next to Rachel.

Bob also had lots of food, on his plate, on the table and on the floor. Peanuts were everywhere and I kept trying to brush them back towards him. Unfortunately, we got up to get food and came back to my "pureed only food" mom eating peanuts. At the same time an aid stopped by with a piece of lemon meringue pie for her and said " I don't think Faith can have peanuts". Well she may not be able to have them but she sure enjoyed them and did a good job of chewing them up!

They only give out 8 door prizes and I won again. I selected a wreath and we put it in my mom's room. Jeff also won. He picked out this odd, 18" long snowman ornament that would complement a Dr. Seuss themed Christmas. It is kind of cool but we are all puzzled as to what to do with it. I didn't take a picture of Jeff with his prize but if we figure out some way to use it I will post it.

Graduation and What Comes After

There are not many photos from Andrew's graduation last weekend, because the auditorium was dark and difficult to photograph. However, there's a good picture of his T-shirt quilt as well as a nice shot of Andrew looking thoroughly graduated.


After our whirlwind week, we spent this weekend at home: finishing holiday cards, drying the cranberries left from Thanksgiving, canning Bryan's sauerkraut, making granola to see us through the week...and decorating for Christmas. Since we're gone so much, we didn't want to have a tree, but we did want to put up our decorations and display ornaments.


Okay, other people should post now!

More Thanksgiving Photos

Deanna emailed me a few more Thanksgiving photos. So check out the slideshow again.

The Big Thanksgiving Feast of 2008

A Huge Thank You to Jackie!
Without her help and expert advice, Thanksgiving Dinner would have never gotten on the table.


The Menu

Beverages
Cranberry Punch
Hot Wassail
Manhattan's
Assorted Coffees

Hors d' oeuvres
Whipped Brie with Cranberry Salsa
Crudite Platter
( which included yummy carrots Jeff dug the previous day from our garden)
Cheese Platter with Assorted Crackers
Deanna's Bean Salsa with Chips

The Feast
Turkey with Herb & Wine Sauce
Cornbread & Mushroom Stuffing
Sausage & Herb Stuffing
Grandma Bette's Creamed Corn
Mashed Potatoes with Gravy
Praline Squash Casserole
Roasted Root Vegetables & Brussels Sprouts with Rosemary & Thyme
Cranberry Jello with Grapes and Oranges
Chris' Molded Cranberry Jello
Cranberry Sauce with Oranges and Apples
Mr. Whiskers Cranberry Bread
Squash Dinner Rolls
Burnt Dinner Rolls ( Sorry!)

Dessert
Jackie's Pumpkin and Pecan Pies
Darleen's Apple Cream Pie
Jill's Apple Cake
Sweetened Whipped Cream for Everyone!

Don't forget you can click on the picture to make it larger.