Hello, friends. Last week, I cut stained shirts into rags, and saved the buttons. One had a lovely saying from Mary Engelbreit. I pondered doing something with it, but decided to just enjoy a smile whenever I use it. A jar of astragalus root glycerite was started. I realized I'd been making things for J he didn't necessarily need to eat, which cost us more money. So, I made some of the regular pasta for him, which we had in the pantry, and made a smaller amount of GF pasta for me. The next day, I made sweet potato pies, a GF one for me, and non GF for him. While I had the oven going, I added two butternut and a spaghetti squash to bake. The ends of GF bread were placed in a pan to dry in the oven, for future bread crumbs.
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| canning jars emptied and ready for storage |
I saw a post about cleaning the washing machine, which I'll admit, I rarely do. I was able to pull two pieces from the top of the agitator and wash them, wiped down the drum and outside, then ran a hot water wash with vinegar. It definitely looks better. Two books were requested from the library. When they were picked up, I had a little time before meeting my sister, so I checked my list, and picked up two children's books I've been wanting to read, one of them a winner of the Caldecott Medal. I've been regularly starting alfalfa sprouts this year, to supplement our salads. I've mentioned that I'm not a fan of the taste of squash, either summer or winter. But it's good for us, grows well in our garden, and is good when doctored up. I made minor changes to suit our needs and what we had on hand, but we thought all of these were good.
Cinnamon Pecan Roasted Butternut Squash
Creamy Curried Butternut Squash Lentil Soup
Creamy Vegan Tuscan Spaghetti Squash
I made suet for the birds, using dehydrated bits left from canning tomatoes and grapes. For dinner on a cold night, our garlic and veggie broth were used with chard. Mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy, and peas rounded it out. Another small corner of the house was cleaned. Little steps. I cooked way too many sweet potatoes, in anticipation of making the two pies early last week. Another pie was made on Sunday, and a sweet potato casserole for dinner, along with salad and home canned lima beans. I still have a quart of sweet potato puree, which probably just needs to be frozen. My intention was to take the Christmas tree down, but as we're still waiting on vacuum bags, that didn't happen. It's getting really fragrant, and is obviously drying out. That's always been a favorite fragrance of mine. My Mom used to gather up vintage handkerchiefs around the fir needles from her tree, and gift them to me, because I loved the scent so much. When taking them out of the Christmas boxes the next year, it always surprised me how wonderful it still was. Such sweet memories. Wishing you a week with some sweet moments.
