Frozen Cranberries

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The cranberries I froze back in November and December are enhancing my winter meals. I like the flavor and color they add! Here are a few of my recent cranberry additions…

I processed frozen cranberries into bits to fold into oatmeal cookies; I liked the tang of the cranberries as a change from raisins. My husband surprised me by liking them as well since he usually says he wants plain oatmeal cookies – no raisins or nuts.

I processed frozen cranberries into bits to fold into oatmeal cookies; I liked the tang of the cranberries as a change from raisins. My husband surprised me by liking them as well since he usually says he wants plain oatmeal cookies – no raisins or nuts.

Cranberries also are great in spicy soups. The one I have enjoyed most recently was one I made with left over taco meat. I cooked arugula and cranberries before adding the left-over meat. The cranberries split as they cook…and can we squished…no need to process them beforehand.

Cranberries are always good with any chicken or turkey dish…probably because of the priming from Thanksgiving meals over the years.

…. I am savoring the supply I still have in the freezer.

Staying Warm in Winter

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We had some very cold weather recently…prompting us to implement our strategies for staying comfortable.

Staying indoors is the primary strategy. We do things like closing insulating drapes and blinds…opening them if the sun is shining through the window. Opening or closing vents to help the heating system do its job. Small sources of heat like candles or halogen lamps are also something I am conscious of in the winter. They don’t do much, but I like the extra bright light and the glow of candles on a winter night. Maybe the extra warmth is purely psychological!

Warm food also helps. My winter favorites are:

  • Hot tea or milk (with water) to drink.

  • Homemade soups. They are so easy with bouillon for the broth then veggies and meats. Right now, I am doing a lot with pumpkin puree that I cooked/froze last November and frozen cranberries. I rely on my spice cabinet…or use salsa as one of the ingredients. Leftover meats or canned chicken or quinoa are my favorite proteins in soup. My favorite toppings are fried onions or pumpkin seeds. Another strategy for a winter soup: a well-seasoned spaghetti sauce from a jar, added sausage bits, and arugula. You could still eat it over pasta…but I usually eat it as soup these days.

  • Stir fry. I like chicken, bell pepper and onions a lot….then add whatever other veggies I have in the crisper or freezer. I am still savoring the flavor of cranberries with chicken – adding frozen ones from last fall to stir fries. I also like apple and raisins cooked in butter for a winter dessert. I generally make enough stir fry for a second meal – very quick heated up in the microwave.

  • Meat loaf. It’s not a bad thing to cook in the oven in the winter…no reason to not put a little extra heat into the house. Still – I try to fill the oven when I do. There is generally a baked potato for my husband (I enjoy the skin!) in with the meatloaf…and I usually cook a pumpkin custard or some cookies as well!

Clothing is important too.

  • We keep our house warm but not too warm. We wear jeans, sweaters/sweatshirts, and wool socks with shoes indoors during the winter.

  • Being outdoors can be a challenge but we both enjoy winter walks/birding. Over the past few years we’ve ramped up our gear.

  • My coat is filled with down and styled to reduce air leaks. It works beautifully for my head and body.

  • We both have snow pants that we bought them large enough to go over leggings/skinny jeans. They keep our legs very warm.

  • Wool socks help keep feet warm.

  • Our hiking boots keep our feet warm enough if we are moving. If we anticipate that we will be standing or sitting for very long outdoors (i.e. sometimes this happens when birding), we add foot warmers to the bottom of our boots.  

  • A tube scarf works well for me to cover my head and neck. The hood of my coat goes over it and keeps my head very warm.

  • We’ve discovered that the masks we have for COVID help keep our lower face and noses warm! We haven’t invested in goggles yet!

  • Gloves are still a work in progress. We have some battery powered ones that work OK…not excellent. Prior to that we used hand warmers in the palm of gloves. That worked OK but fingers still were cold when not wrapped around the warmer…and the outer part of the hand got none of the warmth. Mittens might work better but it is difficult (or impossible) to use a camera with mittens.

Overall – we’ve been comfortable this winter even when the temperature outside was below 0 degrees Fahrenheit recently.

Pumpkins!

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My son-in-law held his annual pumpkin carving event the weekend before Halloween. My daughter doesn’t carve but she does help with buying the carload of pumpkins - one for each person in his research group (almost filling the back of the car).

This year it was raining on the evening the carving was done so the party was moved from outside into their garden room – with a big tarp on the floor to help with clean up later. The students picked the seeds out of the pumpkin guts and roasted them while they carved. The finished carvings were, as usual, spectacular. My son-in-law did the spider one which he later entered in a pumpkin carving contest at the local climbing gym and won a $50 prize!

The student that carved the Yoda pumpkin didn’t have a place to display it, so it stayed with the spider pumpkin through Halloween. A day or so after Halloween, the squirrels started eating the carved pumpkins; the first part to be eaten was one of the Yoda ears.

Meanwhile, there were two uncarved pumpkins left after the carving night. I took one to Carrollton and cooked it the Sunday before Halloween; it was so big I had to cut the top off to fit it into the oven! I made pumpkin soup (topped with pumpkin seeds that I roasted) and then pumpkin cake (made in muffin pans). The pumpkin soup was easy and yummy: pumpkin, picante, canned chicken, arugula…topped with pumpkin seeds and a sprinkle of Everything Bagel seasoning.

I still have a lot of pumpkin puree to use; most of it is in the freezer. The second pumpkin will be cooked in a few days – also will be processed and headed for the freezer. I am enjoying that we have a second refrigerator in our house to store the winter’s supply of pumpkin puree!

Cooking a Big Pumpkin

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One of the 10 pumpkins my daughter and son-in-law bought for their pumpkin carving event was not used.

My daughter volunteered to bring it over for me to use as decoration for Thanksgiving or to cook; I decided to cook it. I had cooked smaller pumpkins whole…but this one was too big to fit in the oven. I cut it in half.

I scooped out the seeds and put the bottom half in a large pan.

After cooking, it for 1.5 hours at 350 degrees (the top half was covered with plastic wrap and put into the refrigerator to cook another day), it was soft enough that the pulp could be easily scrapped off the skin.

I filled two of my larger Pyrex containers with it and planned to use some in recipes the next day.

The next morning - I processed the pulp into puree in the food processor. It was a good color…more a yellow orange than a deep orange.

I made 3 recipes and used about 3 cups of the puree: pumpkin oatmeal muffins, pumpkin quiche, and pumpkin peanut powder soup.

I froze 2 cups of the puree, and another two cups is in the refrigerator. I’ll make a pumpkin custard with the refrigerator portion….and then I will cook the top of the big pumpkin. I am going trying a lot of pumpkin recipes over the next couple of months!

10 Objects that Defined 2020

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BBC Future had a blog post last week that listed 37 objects the defined the year. It prompted me to create my own list…what objects will I remember most from 2020. I didn’t limit myself to objects that would be good for a time capsule…some of mine are perishable…but everything on the list is a physical object that will remind me of this pandemic year from now on.

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The face mask – I’d never worn a face mask before this year…and it took some getting used to. The masks were hardest to wear when it was hot…but now that the weather is colder they are not as bothersome. It could also be that I am more adept at wearing them now. There are some that are ‘in the mail’ from my daughter – ordered a few weeks before Christmas to see me through to a time we don’t have to wear masks (hopefully in 2021 when a large number of people have been vaccinated and new cases plummet).

Hand sanitizer – We never leave the house without a bottle of hand sanitizer. At first, we thought we’d be using huge amounts of it but the places we go often have dispensers…and we aren’t out and about away from home that frequently.

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Bar soap – At home – we use soap and water on our hands rather than hand sanitizer. We switched from liquid soap dispensers to bar soap in our house with it was hard to get the dispensers early in the pandemic. My husband has gone back to the soap dispensers, but I like the artisan bar soaps and will continue to enjoy them even after the pandemic. Added benefits: the ones I am using don’t seem to be as hard on my skin….and I buy bar soap in paper or cardboard packaging so no plastic!

Pecan topped custard (pumpkin, sweet potato, butternut squash) – I discovered pecans put on the top of custard stay on the top (like pecan pie)…and will always associate that dish with the pandemic for years to come.

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Haystacks – I made haystack cookies (Chow mein noodles coated with melted chocolate/butterscotch) for the first time; it all started when I realized I was missing the holiday cookies from events usually held in December – but cancelled for this year. Making this treat helped improve my mood for the different sort of holiday we had this year. I’ll probably add it to my repertoire of sweets for the holidays going forward.

Bird feeder cam – We got the bird feeder camera in early 2020, before we understood that a pandemic would dominate the year. It was something we enjoyed all year long…a continuing project to learn more about the birds that visit out back yard feeder.

Cut flowers (from the CSA and then from Wegmans) – In previous years I would cut flowers occasionally at the CSA…for Thanksgiving and Christmas, I’d buy flowers. This year I got flowers every week during the CSA season and now I buy flowers every time I go to the grocery store. It’s something easy to do that brightens my mood every time I see them….and my husband likes them too.

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Magnifying glasses with lights – There have been so many photographic mini-projects during the pandemic…things we could do without leaving our neighborhood. Most of the time we already had the equipment we needed…but the magnifying glasses with built-in lights were new…and I found myself using them for a lot of different things…some of them not involving photography.

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Layered Zentangle tiles – I moved from making Zentangle patterns (sometimes with shading) to using that as just a starting point…adding coloring and highlighting – sometimes in stages rather than completing the tile all at once. I had more time to spend making tiles…and I enjoyed taking the tiles in a different direction than previous years.

Home – It’s a physical and emotional place…but an assemblage of objects as well. Over this year, my perception of it has deepened because I have been surrounded by it for more hours. There are some objects that I’ve found easier to put in the donation pile…others that I have used more frequently….a few that are rediscovered objects to treasure. My appreciation of my house and home has increased dramatically.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

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Soup for a winter day. Pureed sweet potato, a few pieces of beet (both have great color), garlic, onion powder, Italian seasonings, left over brisket, beef broth with pumpkin seeds and Chinese noodles on top. Yummy and pretty too.

Sweet Potato Soup

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The forecast for our area this morning was for snow showers. We didn’t see a single flake! But – the cold did get me in the mood to make soup. I had cooked the last haul of sweet potatoes from the CSA a few days ago so I opted to start with the sweet potato puree for the primary ingredient. Things evolved from there.

I put some powered chicken bouillon with water in a pan…added a few cubes of frozen beets (also from the CSA) to increase the potential color of the soup. The beets cooked and softened while I got the other ingredients prepared. The seasonings were garlic (from the CSA too), fresh finger, onion powder, and curry. They were added while the beets were cooking.

I thawed 2 turkey sausage patties and cut them up. I decided a small handful of frozen cranberries would add to the flavor complexity.

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After the beets were soft enough, I used the potato masher in the pan…then added the pureed sweet potato, sausage, and cranberries. I cooked everything until the cranberries began to split open.

When I poured it into the bowl, I realized the color had turned out to be similar to cream of tomato soup. The cranberries and sausage cubes floated on top.

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Then for the topping of Chinese noodles (I like them better than crackers).

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A fabulous winter-time lunch! One of my favorite things about soups is the combination of ingredients…the grand experiment. I just add ingredients that I want to taste together…because that’s what happens in soup. My experiments have become dependable enough that I am confident it will be edible….even tasty! This time it was also a success for the color – a seasonal shade between Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Ten Little Celebrations – September 2020

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Another month in 2020…celebrating that we’ve stayed healthy (keeping up the mask wearing – distancing – hand washing regime)….and finding plenty of little celebrations during September.

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Finding Monarch caterpillars. After not seeing Monarch butterflies or caterpillars much during the summer…there were caterpillars in September. I never did find the chrysalises…but the caterpillars were so big that I hope they made it to butterflies and are now making their way south.

Watching Enola Holmes. My husband and I enjoyed the Enola Holmes movie on Netflix…celebrating having high quality movies available for low-risk viewing (at home).

Grilling again. After months of being out of propane, we finally got a full tank (via Propane Taxi) and celebrated with hamburgers and corn on the cob.

Watching virtual birding festivals. It’s such a treat to see and learn about birds vicariously (next best to being there). In September we enjoyed Yampa Valley (Colorado), Puget Sound (Washington), and Bosque del Apache (New Mexico). We are making plans for post-pandemic but celebrating that we didn’t completely miss September birds outside of our immediate area.

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Collecting a maple seedling. I collected a maple seedling for my office window – celebrating the new life (although it came up in a place where there wasn’t room for a tree) and savoring its presence in my office through the fall.

Emptying crispers. I am finally not completely overwhelmed by the CSA share…which is good since the freezer is very full. It’s great to be cooking and celebrating the bounty of things like butternut squash and hot peppers.

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Eating potato soup. Just as the CSA started providing potatoes…it got cool and potato soup was the perfect meal. I celebrated the great timing.

Getting car maintenance. Both cars got their delayed regular maintenance…in a relatively low risk way. We’re celebrating that it’s done….hoping the vaccine for COVID-19 will be available before maintenance is due again.

Appreciating Project Drawdown. The recent webinar was uplifting….the solutions available to address climate change are cause for optimism and celebration…and then action.

September sunrise. Celebrating a beautiful start to the day…timing is key to see it!

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Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Fitbit moved from wrist to ankle. My Fitbit was bothering me on my wrist, so I moved it to my ankle. It doesn’t measure my heart rate as reliably but seems to count the steps about the same. A side benefit - I am enjoying the freedom of being ‘watchless’ again (I also turned off the silent alarm). I seem to be the type person that does too much based on what time it is. When I started my post-career, I stopped wearing a watch for a time and now remember how good it is to be on my internal clock when I don’t have to sync to someone else’s schedule.

Racoon again. Our birdfeeder cam got video of a racoon in the early morning hours of 9/19 (between 2:43 and 2:54 AM). It does reasonably well in low light. The racoon clearly is attracted to the feeder…tries several approaches to get seed…and leaves frustrated. The feeder wins again!

Art of Bridges – September 2020

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Bridges in art is the theme for this post. I’ve collected the images over the past month as I browsed through art slideshows on Internet Archive. The post on the same theme in August can be found here. These images give me the idea of doing more photographing of bridges once I start traveling again; it’s a relatively easy thing to do on a road trip when my husband is driving….and the windshield is relatively clean. Of course, there are other – sometimes more dramatic – view of bridges from the side rather than the bridge surface. Maybe we’ll make a point to find vantage points of complex bridges…a short stop for a few pictures!

There are 12 artist featured this month – from showing different countries, time periods, and styles. The bridges are made of stone, concrete, steel and wood – and they are not always crossing water! The artist name/link is to the slideshow where more of their work can be seen. Enjoy these images…and look at the other paintings from these artists in the Internet Archive entry on their work.

Wayne Thiebaud (1920 - )

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Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Cool morning….breakfast adjustment. I like smoothies but when the outdoor temperature is in the 50s, I want something warm. The past few mornings I’ve started out with hot tea with coconut almost milk and a few pieces of dark chocolate. At mid-morning (when I was having a smoothie with the consistency of soft-serve ice cream because of all the frozen ingredients), I have something that is decidedly more lunch-like. I’m changing the name of the light meal from 2nd breakfast to 1st lunch! A bowl of potato soup  with lots of good veggies from the CSA tastes so good on a cold morning!

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/4/2020 – March 2020 Contemplation

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Arriving bugs. We ordered them back on 3/18 and are letting it sit on the living room floor for a few days – let any viruses die. Then we’ll start our photography project!

Savoring favorite recipes of the past week. I’ve enjoyed experimenting with food a bit this week.  

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Kale‘n’eggs. I got a bag of kale pieces in my grocery order over a week ago. I’d been using them in smoothies but thought to do something different – maybe as a spinach substitute in scrambled eggs. I chopped the pieces in to small bits using my small food processor, sautéed them a bit before I added the beaten eggs. As little Mrs. Dash for seasoning. Tastey!

Sweet potato soup. I had baked a larger sweet potato than I could eat with the rest of a meal, so I had it left over in the refrigerator along with some chicken. I made a light broth with chicken bouillon and dried onion then added the mashed sweet potato and cut up chicken. Fried onions (the store brand like French’s Fried Onions) made a great topping…or I could have used black bean chips.

Whole wheat biscuits. I don’t eat breads very often. When I do – a batch of drop biscuits is probably my favorite thing to make. It’s a highly modified version of the recipe in my 1960s cookbook (the one I got about the time I became a teenager): Set the oven to 450 degrees. Combine in a bowl (2 cups whole wheat flour, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 1 scant teaspoon salt). Combine in a measuring cup (1 cup milk (I used non-dairy), 6 tablespoons olive oil). Pour the milk and oil into the dry ingredients then blend with a fork to form the dough. Drop onto an oiled cookie sheet; I tend to like a heaping teaspoon size drop biscuit. Eat them hot with butter or orange marmalade or ginger preserves. I usually eat about 1/3 of the biscuits on the 1st day and freeze 2 packages for other days.

Getting a grocery delivery. The only time slot available when I first tried to do the order was for delivery between 8 and 9 on Saturday night! I took it. The order was left on the front porch and we brought it into the house…to the floor of the foyer. We put the refrigerator items away then put the non-perishables in the back of my car in the garage – with the intent of simply waiting 48 hours for any coronavirus contamination to dry up and die before the items were put away in the panty.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts  here.

And now a little contemplation of what happened to us in March 2020….

On the national level, there were 75 cases of COVID-19 at the beginning of March and 188,000+ at the end; 1 death to 4,000+ deaths in the same time period. Things have changed on a personal level too…and that is what I am thinking about today. Here is the timeline for me:

  • 3/1         Touch Tank and Discovery Cart at Robinson Nature Center

  • 3/5         Grocery store early. No crowd. Used hand sanitizer when I got in the car. Washed my hands with soap and water before and after putting the groceries away.

  • 3/7         Cancelled trip to Texas originally planned for later in the month; decided not to go to training or volunteer gigs after 3/8

  • 3/8         Touch Tank at Robinson Nature Center

  • 3/9         Carload of ‘stuff’ to landfill

  • 3/10       Following “stay at home as much as possible” guidance from CDC

  • 3/11       Grocery store early buying to keep 2 weeks of food in the house always in case we got sick. Store not crowded.

  • 3/15       Starting the daily “Filling a Day of Social Distance” series of blog posts

  • 3/16       Last trip to the dentist for me (finishing some prior work)

  • 3/17       Last trip to the doctor’s office for my husband

  • 3/18       Grocery store early…but they had changed their hours to open an hour later. More crowded. Carts outside. Wipes and hand sanitizer at the door to use before shopping.

  • 3/19       Another grocery store early to find things we couldn’t at the previous store. Not crowded…found a few things

  • 3/20       Another grocery store during senior hours still looking for a few items. More crowded than I expected (all older people too).

  • 3/25       Scheduled 1st grocery delivery…deciding to make do with what we could get delivered

  • 3/27       Telemedicine appointment for my husband

  • 3/31       Gutter clearing – all arrangements made online

During March, we started changing in ways that are fast becoming habitual: more frequent hand washing, using a lot less toilet paper (water spray bottle and toweling), eating at home all the time, appreciating home and family more consciously. We are also paying attention to keeping ourselves mentally healthy…engaging in activities we enjoy and exercising rather than watching the news all the time. Yes – we are worried about family and friends near and far. But we’re all taking precautions to stay healthy. I try to accept that and move on to whatever activity is next in or around our home.  

What’s planned for April? The calendar is empty. We have arrangements to spend even more time at home than we did in March…keeping healthy.

Soups for Winter

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Homemade soups are my winter lunch favorites. I like Root Soup: easy to make with fresh beet, potato, and carrot…seasoned with onion, garlic and basil. I let it cook long enough for the vegetables to become soft enough to mash a little. The pumpkin seeds on top provide just enough crunch (and protein too).

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I’ve already had a cold (and ear infection) this year and Homemade Chicken Noodle soup tasted so good. I made it several different ways. This one started with chicken bouillon with orange peel, dried onions and garlic, soba noodles and canned chicken. The soba noodles only take about 5 minutes to cook. While the soup bubbled on the stove, I use the scissors to cut up some arugula into the bowl. At the end of the 5 minutes, I poured the hot liquid over the greens – gave a stir. The arugula was part of the soup but not overcooked! So good… and just what I needed to get better.

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Red Soup

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I have become a fan of beets. I love the color and flavor they add to soups and salads. Beets were a major ingredient in a soup I made on one of the first cool mornings of our fall.

The ingredients were:

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Bullion

Beet

Tomato

Rosemary, thyme, parsley…whatever seasons you like

Mushrooms

Sunflower seeds

I started by letting the fresh beet cook in the bullion while I got all the other ingredients ready. I added the tomato and seasonings after the beet began to soften then used the masher while the soup continued to bubble. I added the mushrooms and continued cooking until the mushrooms reduced in size.

The sunflower seeds were sprinkled on top after it was in the bowl.

Yummy!