Ingredients for a tasty weekend

Tags

bitter cold, cooking, food, homecooking, hot meals, postday2013, soup

Today was bitterly cold for poor Jack and I. I promise you that our walks were unenjoyable to say the very least; the high today was a mere 21 degrees Fahrenheit with a wind chill factor of I don’t know how much lower. The only thing that can get the chill out of your bones is hot and hearty soup and if not soup, than perhaps some slow cooked pork roast.

So that is what prompted me to take pictures of this weekend’s ingredients. These vegetables will be transformed into various hot and delicious dishes. The butternut squash will become roasted butternut squash soup with sage and roasted garlic, the broccoli will be blanched and then sautéed with garlic,that is the plan for the vegetables. The accompanying members of the meal, the meat and fish will be transformed as follows; the pork shoulder will become slow roasted pulled pork and the flounder filets will be sautéed and sprinkled with lemon. All this will transpire during the course of this weekend. Just the smells emanating from the oven and the kitchen, I think will be enough to warm our cold bones. I hope that what the smell and anticipation does for me, it does the same for Jack. He isn’t allowed table food but he is allowed to smell what is cooking and I hope that in some small way the smells makes him feel all warm and happy.

A tale of exhaustion

Tags

bitter cold, fatigue, Law and Order U.K, postaday2013, T.v, writing

I woke up today completely wiped. I couldn’t tell you why, just that upon opening my eyes I felt so weary. The feeling of utter weariness didn’t negate my enjoyment of my breakfast. Breakfast is truly my favorite meal of the day. I had my rye toast with peach preserves today; I don’t know which preserves is my favorite; fig, peach or wild blueberry. It doesn’t really matter, I just rotate them so everyone gets a turn.

I mustered up enough energy to go run some errands downtown in Westfield; I had thought to go to the Mall in Holyoke but feeling the way I do, I thought it best to postpone returning the items at the mall some other day when I felt better. Digging the car out from the snow on top was a chore however it did give me a good deal of satisfaction feeling my biceps and core muscles at work. Any physical effort no matter how small is always good for your heart and circulation. That is what I tell myself whenever I am doing something that I would rather not be doing; it’s good for me. Believe it or not, it helps.

Right now I am resting and watching Law and Order U.K. I have been meaning to watch it for such a long time but since it’s not often advertised or promoted on other channels I miss it. My hubby recorded a marathon of episodes so I am taking advantage of my bone weariness to watch all of these episodes. The British version is just as sharp as the American one and the chemistry between the characters along with the sometime rivalry between the prosecutors and the police makes for excellent t.v. Jack has been watching it with me and he agrees. He only watches quality t.v.

I know that I’ll feel better tomorrow because I have weight class to teach. I also spent some time wrapping a few caramels into cute little packages for all the ladies in our class. A belated holiday present if you will, I was too overwhelmed before the holidays to make them anything before Christmas, so I am making up for it post holiday season. A sweet way to start the new year.