We headed to the lake today – a beautiful sunny winter day. Chris was visiting from Florida. Ireni and Laura joined us. A great day! This was the sunset from the marina at the end of the day.
Big bloomers.
Tonight I went over to Laura’s for a girls’ night in: wine, pizza & a movie (The Help). She had this large bunch of lilies in a vase on the counter. The blooms were enormous – as big as your head. Very pretty. And very fragrant.
Wine me, Marge!
Happy National Drink Wine Day!!! Of course, I obliged:
For dinner, I made a side dish I’ve been wanting to try for a while.
Roasted Curried Cauliflower
– 1 cauliflower head, cut into bite size pieces
– 1 tsp lemon zest
– 1 T curry powder
– 1 t garlic powder
– 1/2 t tumeric
– 1/4 t sumac
– 3 T olive oil
– 1 T coconut oil
– kosher salt and ground pepper to taste
Heat oven to 400 F. Combine spices and oil in large bowl. Toss cauliflower florets in spice mixture. Turn out onto jelly roll pan. Roast for 40 minutes, stirring and turning at halfway point.
The colors of dusk.
Spring is in the air! The nights are stretching out a bit every night. This was the sky on my way home tonight.
Heart of a tulip.
Happy Valentine’s!!!
The doctor is in.
I’m going into work up for all day meetings this week. Had to look up my office number again. I’ve been working from home for much too long.
Faces in open places.
The weather this winter has been a roller coaster of sunny-and-70s then sleet-and-20s-and-30s. About three or four turns so far and one more on the way tomorrow. It was a beautiful day today, so I threw open the windows and took a walk through the greenbelt.
Along the way I came across this rock and saw a face in it (sort of). If i squint a bit i think i can make out Jay Leno…
Oh YEAH!
So sweet. I’ve been rooting for this team for 37 years. This season made it all worth it. Congratulations Seattle!!!!!
Mmmmussels.
Super Bowl Eve dinner.
1 lb mussels, 2 cloves sliced garlic, 1 diced shallot, 1/4 c chopped parsley, several stalks of thyme, pinch of salt, dozen or so pieces of saffron, tbsp butter, 2 cups white wine.
Toss all but mussels in skillet, bring to low boil for 5 mins. Add cleaned mussels. Cover and cook for 10 mins til mussels are open. Shake pan a few times. Add a couple pieces of toast and yum!
Getting ready for Mercury.
According to Sky and Telescope, Mercury is at its highest tonight, and reportedly the best view of it, all year. So, after sunset, I toodled over to my favorite nearby west-facing vantage point and caught this shot of it to the top left of the crescent moon.
For those of you that are inclined to look towards the stars for influence on our day-to-day lives, be warned that Mercury will enter retrograde from Feb 6 to Feb 28. Get ready for some weird happenings and funky vibes. More background here. And you may want to bookmark this link for future reference.
And, let me wish everyone a happy Chinese new year. 2014 is supposed to be the year of the horse. But let me just add….. GO HAWKS!!!!!
There’s nothing better than homemade pasta.
Tonight Monte made pasta. I “helped” by hovering over the stove while he was making a light white wine sage cream sauce repeating how hungry I was.
Homemade pasta is nothing short of amazingly delicious. We have pasta roller and pasta cutter attachments for our KitchenAid mixer that make the prep pretty easy.
He used Mario Batali’s recipe for basic pasta dough. You can find a version of the recipe here. He made a smaller batch (3 eggs and 2.5c flour) and kneaded it for 10 mins, letting it rest for 30 mins before rolling & cutting. Here’s the finished product. We cut it fettuccine size. Yummmmmmmm
Laps lapse.
Last year I started swimming laps at my gym. I’d never been a swimmer-for-exercise before that. But I really enjoyed it. Several months ago, because of the drastic change in my fingernails, I stopped. The chemicals in the pool had turned my otherwise strong, long healthy nails into splitting, cracking stubby messes. I’ve tried OPI nail strengtheners of all kinds. I started taking biotin. I’ve increased calcium. I put oil on them before and after. Nothing helps. I finally gave in and decided I would rather get the exercise than have my nice nails back. Oh well. If anyone has other suggestions on how to protect my nails, I’d love to hear them.
So… I’m back to swimming again for about a month now. Lets see how long I can keep it up.
Another weather indicator.
We’re in the midst of another blast of cold weather, sleet and ice. You can listen to weather report to get the latest. Or, you can look at googlemap’s traffic view. Yuk!
Risotto to the rescue.
Today called for a quick decision re: dinner. Tonight’s verdict: Risotto con fungi e prosciutto. Yum. (and a dash of truffle oil!)
Sheila365 