Crossing Things Off The List

I'm getting there, although I confess that I keep adding things to the list, but I'm making headway.  This morning I cooked up a pot of cranberry sauce.  Durwood and I are big fans, and this time I squeezed an orange's worth of juice into it.  It's not too much but I made the last batch plain the way he likes it so this batch got a little orange in it the way I like it.  No zest or cinnamon stick but I can't have everything.

While sitting at the table reading over the vintage 1962 green bean casserole recipe (no, there is no canned soup in it, nor do french fraud onions go on top) when I saw a big dark shadow pass the patio door.  I looked out to see the hawk land on the fence dividing the patios.  By the time I got my camera up and ready it had flown to the fence at the back of the lot.  The frequency of hawk visits probably explains the lack of bird and squirrel visits lately.


Next I assembled all the ingredients (mis en place) for making the green bean stuff and got going.  It's an involved recipe with browning onions and mushrooms in 1/2 stick of butter, flour stirred in, milk and half & half in to thicken, then a bit of soy sauce, S&P, and 3/4# of sharp cheddar slowly stirred so it all goes together to make a wonderful cheesy, creamy sauce that gets poured over cooked french cut green beans and a can of water chestnuts sliced.  Once it's all combined, you top it with toasted slivered almonds.  Mmm, I can't wait to dig in at Christmas dinner.

I had a brainstorm this morning while trying to figure out where I was going to store the bean casserole because the downstairs freezer is chock full and the upstairs one had imminent avalanche potential.  Eureka!  It's bitter cold in freezers.  It's bitter cold outside.  So I relocated a box to the rear of the van and carried all the frozen meal parts out there to await their turn to thaw and get cooked.  Brilliant.  I think I'll go downstairs for the 2 bags of bagels and 2 loaves of bread so everything frozen is in the same place.  

I didn't write last night and I have no knitting that I can show you.  I kind of pooped out yesterday afternoon in the cooking and knitting worlds.  Instead I made space for our impending company.  That makes a successful day, don't you think?  I do.  It's about time for us to leave for (yet another) doctor's appointment, this time for some test that I'm glad I'm not having, and because it's so cold I need to warm up the van so Durwood can breathe.  He likes to breathe, go figure.  Toodle--oo.
--Barbara