#SeaSnow

Seattle is undergoing some really intense weather. We've had freezing temperatures and snow storms and sleet and ice storms the past few days. The power has gone out at our places of employment and at some of our co-workers homes (but not for us, thank goodness!).

We are grateful that Matt's work is closed because of the power outages and hope that my evening work shift will be canceled as well. I really don't wish to be driving on these roads, especially after dark. Our tiny car was not built to handle such wild conditions, nor have I much experience with them. (Update: my shift tonight was cancelled!)

We are safe and warm right now. Drinking lots of hot tea & hot chocolate, eating chili & oatmeal. Thank goodness I stocked up on food and good library books a few days ago! Thus far, we are enjoying being snowed in and are hoping to remain so until the weather & road conditions become more reasonable.

The winter wonderland we woke up yesterday!

When the snow was just beginning....

Snow on all the plants & cars

Sledders in our backyard

The snow after the sledders got to it. It melted some yesterday
& then refroze during the night. The snow isn't so soft and fluffy anymore.

Finally we were brave enough to venture out for a few minutes!

Ice clinging to the tree branches.

Icicles on the bushes

Back indoors with my cookie monster feet to keep me warm!

Wednesday Wise Up: Farewell Food Funk

I think I am finally out of my food funk. For a while, Matt and I have been subsisting mainly on homemade burritos, fish sticks and ragu spaghetti sauce for dinner. I just haven't been inspired to work in the kitchen and create tasty dinner dishes. 

Monday marked a changed cook in the kitchen. I made poppy seed rolls at lunchtime to eat with sandwich fixings. For dinner, I made a creamy garlic & spinach sauce to go on top of fusilli pasta. Afterwards, I fixed up a chai spice concentrate to put in my tea. On Tuesday, we enjoyed a late lunch of sage-rubbed chicken with roasted butternut squash & pecans. That night we enjoyed hot buttered rum while I tried my hand at making yogurt.

Today, I haven't the time to create anything special but I am plotting deliciousness in the near future - chocolate pumpkin spice cake with caramel sauce and spiced wine. Oh how I love food! Just in case you want to cook and bake along with me, I have the recipes and links I used listed below.

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Poppy Seed Rolls from French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano

Makes 12

1 egg

1 tbsp water

1 1/3 cups plain yogurt

4 tbsps olive oil

2 1/2 cups unsifted flour

2 tbsps sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp poppy seeds

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix together egg and water. Reserve. Whip the yogurt and olive oil to a smooth consistency. Sift together the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Make a well and pour the yogurt-oil mixture into the center. Using your fingertips, mix into a smooth dough. Make 12 round rolls and place on baking sheet. Brush with egg/water mixture and top with a sprinkle of poppy seeds. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the rolls are golden.

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Creamy Garlic & Spinach Sauce

Makes about 3 cups sauce, good for 1 lb of pasta

3 tbsp olive oil

4 - 5 cloves garlic

1 bunch spinach or about 2 big handfuls

1/4 - 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper (or more to taste)

1/4 - 1/2 tsp salt (or more to taste)

pinch of crushed red pepper (or more to taste)

1 cup heavy cream

1 1/4 cup milk

3 tbsp flour

1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese, plus more to top the pasta

Saute the garlic in the olive oil. Add the spinach one handful at a time and cook until just wilted, seasoning with the pepper, salt and crushed red pepper. Then add the heavy cream and 1 cup of the milk to the pan and heat until boiling. While that heats, whisk together the flour and remaining milk then slowly add it to the sauce, mixing all the while. Reduce heat to a simmer and let thicken, stirring occasionally. Once thick, add the parmesan cheese and stir until it is a homogeneous mixture. Serve over pasta with extra parmesan cheese on top as desired!

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Chai Spice Concentrate

Makes about 28 cups of Chai

1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk

1 teaspoon granulated sugar

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

pinch freshly ground black pepper (optional, but I prefer the concentrate with this additional)


Empty the condensed milk into a jar or plastic container with a tight-fitting lid that you will want to keep the concentrate in. Stir in the sugar, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and pepper. Store in the refrigerator. Mix 2 - 3 tbsp into 1 cup of black tea (preferably Assam or Darjeeling tea). Sip and Enjoy!

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Rubbed Sage Marinade (a recipe from the McCormick Rubbed Sage bottle)

Enough for about 2 or 3 lbs of chicken

3 - 4 tbsp olive oil

1 1/2 tbsp rubbed sage seasoning

1 1/2 tsp seasoned salt

1/2 tsp garlic pepper

Mix all the ingredients and spread over the entire surface of the chicken pieces, including under the skin. Cook chicken as desired.

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Butternut Squash with Pecans and Blue Cheese by Nigella Lawson
Serves 8 as a side dish


4 1/2 lbs butternut squash
3 tablespoons olive oil
6 stalks fresh thyme or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 cup pecans
1 cup crumbled Roquefort or other blue cheese
Salt and pepper to taste


Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Halve the squash, leaving the skin on, and scoop out the seeds, then cut into 1 inch cubes; you don't need to be precise, just keep the pieces uniformly small. Put the squash into a roasting tin with the oil. Strip the leaves from 4 stalks of thyme, and sprinkle over the butternut squash. (If you can't get fresh thyme, use dried.) Roast in the oven for about 30-45 minutes or until tender. Once out of the oven, remove the squash to a bowl and scatter the pecans and crumble the cheese over it, then toss everything together gently. Check seasoning and add the last of the thyme, torn into small sprigs to decorate.
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Hot Buttered Rum from Full Circle's Holiday Recipe eBook
Makes about 8 drinks


1 stick unsalted butter, softened
2 cups light brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
pinch ground cloves
pinch salt
24 oz dark rum
boiling water

In a bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt. Refrigerate until almost firm. Spoon about 2 tbsp of the butter mixture into a small mug. Pour about 3 oz of rum into the mug and then top with boiling water.
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Homemade Yogurt

This recipe is a little lengthy, so I will just link the post at The Frugal Girl blog whose recipe I followed exactly. The jar of yogurt I opened this morning was perfectly set and tasty! I can't believe I have let big companies make my yogurt for so long when it is so easy.
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New Acquisitions

Hello all! Today is Tuesday which means Matt and I have officially been in our apartment one week. This is exciting but would be more so if our stuff had come in and I could announce that we were all settled in the new place. In reality, we are less than settled with the only furniture we have in our apartment being a folding card table, two folding metal chairs and an air mattress.

Over the weekend, we added a small bookshelf and two lamps to that short inventory! The book shelf only cost us $10 at a yard sale and is in great shape, one lamp was new from Fred Meyer for $6.50 and the other lamp base is gorgeous but doesn't have a cover or light bulb yet (which is why it was only $2 at the yard sale). I love buying items secondhand. It makes me feel better to know that these things get a new lease on life and won't end up in a landfill, especially when they are still in good working condition!

This lamp has an 80's electrical
cord which makes Matt unhappy.
He says apartment fires are bad
even if we have renters insurance.

We had a decent amount of furniture in our last apartment (most gotten secondhand) but we were not attached to many of those items and did not bother to ship them across the country. The few furniture items we did keep were our bed, our bed side table and a folding card table (that came with us in the car instead of traveling in the moving van).

Of all the items we do not currently have, the things I miss the most are from my kitchen. Over the past few years I have grown very fond of cooking and baking. I was originally intending to bring some kitchen items with us in the car for the two weeks we would be here without the bulk of our stuff. Unfortunately, I never got around to it because I knew when it came down to choosing which of my beloved kitchen items would stay in storage and which would be free to come with me, I would panic. I wanted to bring them all! So instead I chose to bring none of them.

Here is a picture of the $4 tea kettle I bought from good will.
When I realized I didn't have any way of boiling water
to make tea, I almost fell over. This was my first household
item that was purchased when we got into our apartment!

Call me crazy, but it seemed the only fair thing to do (I didn't want to hurt the feelings of any of my kitchen supplies!). Currently, we are living off of microwaveable and no cook foods (like fish sticks, sandwiches, granola bars and cereal). Before we left, I nicked a few pieces of mismatched silverware from our old set and we bought some paper plates and compostable cups.

I sure do miss me some home cookin'. Warm and cheesy baked casseroles, mellow melange soup with squash and coconut milk, quesadillas from the george foreman, homemade pizza hot from the oven, birds nests for breakfast, etc, etc. Oh food! I think the first dish I am going to make is this baked blueberry oatmeal recipe I became obsessed with over the summer. It is so good and good for you.

I originally read about this recipe as a peaches and cream casserole but it is so excellent when made with blueberries! It is super easy to tweak for personal tastes too - for a sweeter casserole add more sugar, for a different texture vary the amount of oats/liquid, for a different flavor add a different fruit, for a less creamy version use water instead of milk! I have made all these changes and was never disappointed with the results, but I might be biased by my love of oatmeal!

Sigh. All this writing about food I can't make is making me feel gloomy. Therefore, I shall end with a picture of the flowers I bought to cheer up our new apartment. Enjoy!

This obviously wasn't taken today because there is awesome sunshine in the picture. Today is all clouds .