Everything Pumpkin

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Pumpkin (and associated spices) is everywhere since I’ve been home.

I am slowly but surely beginning to use the pumpkin puree that was prepared and frozen in the first weeks of November: Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies (Quaker Oats has several more pumpkin and oats recipes I am going to try as well), soups (just add a little broth, some protein, and some other veggie to the pot…fried onions or pumpkin seeds on top), and custard. The soups don’t have the pumpkin-pie-spices but just about everything else I am cooking with pumpkin does. The pumpkin just melds together with cinnamon, ginger, and cloves to create my favorite late fall and winter smell.

Recently I have been burning a pumpkin spice candle in my office too…carrying the smell far away from the kitchen.

Recently I have been burning a pumpkin spice candle in my office too…carrying the smell far away from the kitchen.

It provided the scent for one of my favorite afternoons recently – hot apple cider rooibos tea, snow outside the window with the dried hydrangea from last fall on the sill, good books and music on the computer.

Glad to be Home

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As I write this, I have been home again for a week after being away almost 7 weeks. It had taken this long to get settle back into an at-home routine….to relax enough to feel truly rested! At first, I felt so exhausted that I took naps – which didn’t seem to help. It took me 5 days to fully empty my car. I needed the alone time after being so engaged with people all the time; I didn’t want to talk on the phone at all…had to force myself to check my text message. My emotions were still volatile, and I consciously started trying to unwind. Cutting back on caffeine, getting more exercise and quick neighborhood hikes (even though it was cold outside) finally worked.

It’s such a joy to just be home. I’ve enjoyed returning to spending more time just being in my house…cooking, reading, writing, making Zentangle tiles, and planning one or two vacation travels for the next 6 months. I pampered myself included burning a scented candle I’ve had for years, a facial (using supplies from a Christmas gift), hot apple cider rooibos tea, big red peppermint stick, and pumpkin oatmeal cookie bars.

As the days passed, I fell myself recovering…although there are some aspects of the past 7 weeks that might be a permanent change. I’ve learned more about how I deal with stress --- holding off its effects until the crisis is ‘over’ --- and then requiring time to recover. It is a strategy and provided enough resilience, but I might need to bolster by stress reduction techniques in preparation for the next crisis; more self-care during a crisis might make recovery easier (or unneeded).

I’ll be taking off for another trip to Carrollton TX soon, but the trip will be only 6 days this time! Much easier!

Favorite Foods of December 2021

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November and December and January are probably the peak months for me to try some new recipes…and making old favorites…enjoy ramping up the foods we enjoy in winter!

Rice Pudding

I had a container of left-over rice from a Chinese food delivery on the Friday after Thanksgiving. I knew I wouldn’t eat it right away, so it went into the freezer. A few weeks later I decided to make rice pudding (recipe). It started out easy since the rice was already cooked. I used cinnamon instead of nutmeg and honey instead of white sugar called for the recipe and didn’t measure the raisins (probably added at least double the amount!). The results were yummy but could have used even more raisins (I added some to the top of the serving in the picture). Next time I make it I’ll round up on the milk as well. It seemed a little to dry for ‘pudding’!

Quiche

I made a quiche with what I had in the refrigerator and pantry…made up the recipe as I went along. It turned out to be high protein!

  • 6 eggs

  • 1 cup milk

  • 1+ cup ‘Mexican blend’ grated cheese (didn’t measure just make a layer of cheese that I mixed with the veggies before I poured the egg and milk mixture over it)

  • 1 red bell pepper

  • 1 cup shelled edamame

  • Pumpkin seeds on top

Yummy and colorful too!

Chocolate Mousse (made with avocado)

Yummy 2 servings of the dark chocolate treat (I made half the recipe…using honey for sweetener and cocoa powder as the chocolate) and ate it over 2 days for 1st breakfast rather than my squares of Lindt Dark Chocolate. It turns out that is slightly less calories than the Lindt! It appeals to me because the ingredients are so straightforward….not as processed as the commercial chocolate.

Red Velvet Pancakes with Cream Cheese

I started with this recipe but then modified it because I wanted to use beet root powder rather than red food coloring….and add a citrus note to the flavor….and avoid refined sugar. Here’s my markup of the ingredient list (I didn’t end up using any milk in the glaze even though I forgot to mark it off).

It was partially successful. I didn’t like that the pancakes turned brown on the outside (they were red on the inside). The big success was the ‘cream cheese glaze’ which melted very nicely over the pancakes and the orange flavor was wonderful. I will be using it on gingerbread cookies (and anything else I want a little touch of sweetness); it would be excellent on raisin bread toast, for example.

Hope you are enjoying old and new treats for the holidays too!

Zooming – October 2021

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I selected 19 images to represent this month.  Here are some stats:

  • The normal locations for photography: home(2) and neighborhood (1)…and then day trips to Patuxent Research Refuge (5) and Longwood Gardens (11).

  • 6 indoors (including the conservatory at Longwood Gardens and a high key image of a day lily from my office)…the rest outdoors

  • 17 plants (2 fiddleheads and 6 waterlilies), a bird and squirrels

Enjoy the slideshow for the October zoomed images!

I’m saving most of the fall foliage pictures for next month!

30 Years Ago – September 1991 (1)

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Two big events happened in our family 30 years ago in September 1991 so I am doing two ‘30 years ago’ posts this month. The first was my daughter’s 2nd birthday. It stands out in my mind as the birthday celebration that included a full day of activities that she thoroughly enjoyed. The night before we looked at pictures from her first birthday…giving her some clues about what the day we be like.

She opened presents in 3 sessions. The first one included a wagon and we used it immediately to go to the neighborhood park. The day was sunny, 60-75 degrees, light breeze…. perfect weather to be outdoors. She loved the swings – particularly the tire swing which was new to her and required concentration to hold on as it went back and forth and around. As we walked home, we heard a big airplane noise and looked up and saw the Concorde (at that time it was flying into Dulles Airport to the south and west from where we lived in Maryland).

When we got home, we set up a tent in the back yard. She spent a lot of time going in and out the screen door…tickled that she could stand up in the tent while the adults had to sit.

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After lunch, the next round of presents included bubbles and pipes. She enjoyed chasing the various kinds of bubbles all over the yard….and then heading to the house saying it was time for nap….which it was.

She took longer to wake up from her nap than usual….she was still a little sleepy for the third round of presents. She played with her new stuffed animals and toys – watched by the cat. We enjoyed a simple computer game with animal pictures and letters that we played (her on my lap saying the name of the animal and me doing the keyboard) – primitive by today’s standards!

The big finale after dinner as the strawberry ice cream butterfly cake and ‘2’ cookies. She was able to blow out her 2 candles! She didn’t like the icing on the cake – only at the strawberry part.

I had made the batch of ‘2’ cookies for her to share with the other children in her day care so she had munched on a few of those before her big day. They were a good size for her and not overly sweet. I’d purchased a set of number cookie cutters for this birthday intending to use them for subsequent birthdays, but I don’t remember using them again. I found a clipping of the recipe in my notes!

“2” cookies

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp vanilla

3 cups flour

Preheat oven to 400.  In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar with electric mixer.  Beat in egg and vanilla.  (I added food coloring at this point.)  Add baking powder and flour one cup at a time, mixing after each addition.  The dough will be stiff, blend in last flour by hand.  Do not chill dough.  Roll out dough to approximately 1/8 in. thick on a floured surface.  Dip cutters in flour before each use.  Bake cookies on ungreased cookie sheet on top rack of oven for 6-7 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.   

Overall – a great birthday for a 2-year-old!

Ten Little Celebrations – December 2020

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A month with lots of celebrations…with some old and new ways of celebrating.

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Snow. My husband and I celebrated the first snow of the year by making snow ice cream, attempting snowflake photography, and having a fire in the fireplace. The way we celebrate snow is something that hasn’t been changed by the COVID-19 pandemic; maybe it was better because we didn’t bother to shovel the driveway since we knew we weren’t going to be going out!

Maryland Water Monitoring Council Conference. I enjoyed two mornings of Zoom presentation that were this year’s version of the one-day conference held in December. This was another instance of something better in some respects than the pre-pandemic….no crowded conference rooms or not being able to see the bottom of the slides! I am still celebrating by reading Rita Colwell’s book (she was the plenary speaker) – one chapter per day!

CSA stevia. I thoroughly enjoyed putting a few stevia leaves dried from my collection of it at the CSA into pots of hot tea….a little sweetness to celebrate in something hot to drink on a winter’s day.

Getting stuff put away…given away. I am celebrating getting our basement a little cleaned out. There is still a lot of stuff we won’t ever use again (i.e. to give away…or somehow get it out of the house) or we won’t need in the next year or so and can be boxed up to better preserve it. Getting it sorted and organized feels good….like we are back in control rather than being overwhelmed by possessions!

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Making haystack cookies. This was a first for me. I had eaten them at holiday events previously and remembered how much I liked them. None of those events are happening this year so the only option was to make them myself. What a great treat! They will probably be something I make every year…a new tradition coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sunny afternoon. The weather has turned colder but there was one sunny afternoon that was warm enough to open the windows a little and get some air exchange with the outdoors. I celebrated the day…so different from the others of the month.

Chipotle take out. I enjoy my own cooking…but also a change of pace. And my husband has something he likes from Chipotle too. We order ahead and he picks it up.

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Sunrise moment. The color of sunrise light on our forest….always a few moments to celebrate when it happens at the beginning of the day.

Finale of Mandalorian season. We watched every new episode as it came out then celebrated the finale and the prospect of more Star Wars spin offs…nothing too serious but fun to watch.

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Last big leaf falling from the sycamore. That last leaf signaled the end of fall…the beginning of winter. I celebrated the passing of the old season…and the new one too.

Yummy Haystacks

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I’ve missed the annual holiday gatherings with holiday cookies…and decided to make one that I always looked forward to eating but had never made myself: chocolate butterscotch haystacks. I did a Google search to find a recipe and bought the ingredients on my last trip to the grocery store. The ingredients are meltable morsels of chocolate and butterscotch (or other kinds of ‘chips’) and crispy chow mein noodles.

I melted a cup of each (dark chocolate morsels and butterscotch morsels) in my largest Pyrex measuring cup in the microwave, stirring to make sure they were thoroughly melted, and then folded in the noodles with a spatula. The coated noodles are dropped in small heaps on parchment paper and put into the refrigerator to harden the coating again. They store well in a tin or cookie jar….if they last long enough to need storage.

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They are easy to make and a very satisfying treat.

Next time I make them, I am going to mix peppermint candy chips with the dark chocolate for one batch and then make another group of haystacks with butterscotch coating. They will be different colors. The noodles I got seemed a little too long so I would probably break them up a little before I coated them. I also would round up on the noodles. My first attempt was too heavily coated!

If I were making them to take to an event, I would probably try different kinds of chips to give the platter a variety of colors. I also thought that for a nature related event  – maybe they should be called ‘brush piles’ rather than ‘haystacks’!

Birdfeeder Camera – November 2020

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The action captured by the birdfeeder camera has been more than black squirrel antics. Raccoons visit a couple of times a month, usually around 2 AM…they have gone away frustrated so far. They leave poop on the deck or the steps between the deck and ground. I wonder if it is before or after they attempt to get a meal at the bird feeder. Also – is it the same racoon or different animals? I know that the river (Middle Patuxent) is like a highway for young racoon seeking a territory of their own.  

There are two new bird visitors to the feeder I discovered when I reviewed the videos:

Red-breasted Nuthatch. This is the first year I’ve seen this bird in our yard. I had seen it fleetingly on the deck several times. It was at the feeder on the 20th and was gutsy enough to stay there when the Red-bellied Woodpecker showed up.

Eastern Bluebird. Birds are not frequent visitors to our yard – and I’m glad it came to the side of the feeder visible to the video camera. It flew to the feeder while white-breasted nuthatch was there. The nuthatch left and the bluebird took the perch where it had been. Then the female red-bellied woodpecker flew to the feeder and the bluebird departed. Shortly after the woodpecker left the bluebird returned.

I’m thrilled that the video camera managed to capture some birds at the feeder that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

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Applesauce muffins. I am making holiday foods a few days early…and we’ll begin enjoying them early too. The applesauce spice muffins will be great for breakfasts.

Oatmeal cookie bars. I use the recipe from the Quaker Oats box but this time I added the rest of applesauce that I’d opened for the muffins into the batter. The cookie bars are more cake like – very yummy with chunks of apple from the applesauce. They’ll work for breakfast, snacks, or dessert.

30 Years Ago – August 1990

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30 years ago – in August 1990 – my daughter and her cousin were getting close to being a year old. My sister’s family traveled from Texas to Maryland so that the girls could spend time together. Both babies were cruising…but not walking yet. We planned outings that they seemed to enjoy. At the Smithsonian’s Air and Space museum the babies interacted with each other as well as their surroundings. They were wheeled around in strollers.

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At Brookside, they rode in back packs – taking in the sights and sounds of the gardens.

They enjoyed homemade elephant shaped cookies for a special treat.

After our company left, it was still a busy month with me getting ready to go back to full time work. We bought a new car for me – a Honda Accord – that we owned for long enough that my daughter remembers it.

My parents in Texas were in the process of moving to a new house…trying to get it done before my mother started the school year (teaching middle school).

As I looked at the pictures and read my notes about the month – it was obvious that we were adjusting…getting more acclimated to what it was going to be like with me putting in more hours at work. It still was not easy. I was missing spending as much time with my daughter and my husband was figuring out ways he could help more. We were both experimenting with new routines…but realizing that we’d made positive changes since July.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Sweet Potato Sprout. I found a sweet potato sprouting in my pantry…and broke off the sprout before cooking the potato. The first picture is the way it looked on the day I put it in water….2 days later it has roots! I am going to wait until it has a green leaf before planting it out in a cleared place in the front flower bed. It won’t have enough time to make sweet potatoes before frost, but I should get some tender salad greens (leaves and soft stems)!

Natural Holiday Sale

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Last weekend Howard County Conservancy hosted their annual Natural Holiday Sale. I volunteered – as I have for the past few years – to keep the refreshment table full of goodies. So many people brought in loads of cookies…it was easy to keep the variety of delicious cookies (dried fruit for garnish). Making the Russian tea from the powdered mix and taking it out to the urn took more coordination!

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There were garden clubs and other vendors filling the room…and live music – piano in the morning, harp in the afternoon.

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The usual collection of natural materials took some space – lots to choose from to make ‘critters.’ I took my pictures just before the event opened to the public with the glue guns and materials were still relatively pristine!

There are so many ways to combine the materials….lots of creative minds at work on that side of the room!

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There is quite a food tradition in the kitchen for volunteers and vendors: scones and coffee for the morning

Then BLT salad and soups/chilis for lunch. My favorite is the chicken chili with tomatillo salsa.

Overall – a great way to finish off the volunteering with HCC this year!

HCC’s Natural Holiday Sale

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I’m catching up on some posts for the events early this month. Back on the 1st of the month, the Howard County Conservancy hosted their annual Natural Holiday Sale. Volunteering in the kitchen for the sale has become a tradition for me; it’s a great way to start the Christmas season. I keep the big coffee urn suppled with Russian Tea (Tang, instant tea, lemonade mix, spices) and restock the trays of homemade cookies for shoppers. The table requires near constant attention to look bountiful and festive.

This year the garden club added suet decorations to their holiday arrangements. I bought two garlands and a large pine cone. My deck will be the most decorated part of my house – all for the birds!

The bins of natural materials and glue guns were a big hit as they are every year…lots of creativity…center pieces that tell a story. See some pictures of the event from 2016 here; it changes a little every year but the cookies and Russian Tea and critter creations are a constant!

Ten Little Celebrations – December 2017

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Merry Christmas!

It’s be a month full of little celebrations too! I’ve picked 10 to highlight.

There has been luscious food all through the month. I managed to spread it out and enjoy it more:

My birthday slice of carrot cake has so much icing that I saved half of it to spread on toast for two days following my birthday!

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There were a large variety of homemade cookies to enjoy at the annual Howard Count Conservancy (HCC) Natural Holiday sale. It’s wonderful to enjoy just one of my favorite kinds rather than having to bake a whole batch myself.

A few days afterward there was a surprise event for HCC volunteers…as celebration of our 2017 activities.

I did make oatmeal cranberry bars and enjoyed the cookie dough first…and then the bars (another multiple day celebration).

I celebrated a hike in the woods…seeing a lot of different kinds of shelf fungus…

And a conference about water monitoring….well worth the registration fee and time.

We had our first snow – it was easy to celebrate because it didn’t snarl traffic but stuck enough to make a surface for animal tracks.

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There is something to celebrate in almost every shift I do with the Brookside model trains because there are always young children there enjoying the trains – a vicarious celebration.

I also celebrated a special engine during one of the shifts: it has smoke swirling out of its smokestack!

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Finally – we’ve had such dry weather recently, I found myself celebrating a rainy day – realizing that even in winter, plants need moisture. I also celebrated that it was a day I was spending at home.

Thanksgiving

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Our Thanksgiving always revolves around a big meal at mid-day. This one is no exception. I have a brisket curled and cooking overnight in the crock-pot I’ve had for my entire married life.

They’ll be winter squash as one side.

The relish is going to be pureed fresh beets with crystalized ginger with a splash of lemon vinaigrette.

There’ll be a leafy green side salad.

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Unlike Thanksgivings when I was growing up, I’m not making homemade bread and pastries. I bought a loaf of Rosemary Sourdough for the meal instead.

The cranberries will be in the oatmeal cookies that will be around for dessert (and snacks).

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I’m keeping a pot of mulled cider going in the large coffee maker all day: a cinnamon stick and lemon slices steeping in it. I’ll add a splash of cranberry juice – maybe.

Overall – a great meal is in the offing even without turkey and canned sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top and raisin buns and gelatin salad and cranberry sauce and kolaches and cobblers; those are the foods I remember from my growing up Thanksgivings. Good memories but I like my 2017 menu better!

Happy Thanksgiving!