Epic Snow Day

This snow day was one of the best days ever. I have to say, that although I’m sure I’m going to regret it when we are making up our snow days at the end of the school year, yesterday was filled with awesome after awesome.

I knew before we went to bed that the school was going to have a delayed start, but I woke up at 6 to my phone ringing with the news that we had the whole day off!

After that I tried to go back to sleep, but I was wiiiide awake. I got up about 7 and found Deb had already made coffee! Since we teach at the same school, we had the day off together. Let the fun begin!

We started out by watching tv and making breakfast- veggie frittata with spinach, mushrooms, bell peppers, and onions, and fresh blueberries! We were also enjoying the Casi Cielo coffee from Starbucks, which is one of our favorites in this house. It’s seasonal, so we’re all enjoying it while we can.

We caught up on 30 Rock and The Office from last week, and sat under the couch under lots of blankets. It was cold outside!

After breakfast, we decided to bundle up and go play in the snow. There wasn’t tons of it, but in Dallas you only get 1, maybe 2 good chances a year to play in the snow, so we decided to brave the cold temps and get outside!

After exploring the front and back we discovered that the snow was not, in fact, snow. It was ice. Sad day. No snowmen to be made. Deborah decided to do a little “snow-ga” in the back yard anyhow.

And she snapped a few photos of me too-

We also tried our hand at a little sledding and luging (more on that later!), before we officially turned into popsicles and had to come back inside. A few minutes later, our friend Tricia popped by to pick up her computer she had left at our house. She’s a Yankee, so she braved the weather over, but she had enough snow-know to realize she probably wasn’t going to make it home safely. Hooray, another friend to play with!

I started a big pot of chicken soup, and we started a movie while I started working on my new header! I liked my old one, but if was downloaded from another site and just wasn’t me. So the blog went from this:

To this:

Lots of pictures I’ve taken that showcase things I adore! Being outside, coffee, travel, books, teaching, being barefoot, going to festivals and fairs, and photography. It was hard to narrow it down! I didn’t even include cooking, friends, spinning, music…I could go on and on…

During the movie I also enjoyed my soup- Lemon Thyme Chicken Noodle. For the enquiring minds (who know I don’t like to follow recipes) I put 1 box chicken stock + 2 c water in a pot and added 2 small carrots, a quarter of an onion, and a few mushrooms on to simmer. Then I cubed 3 thawed chicken tenders (you could use 1 to 1/12 breasts) and dropped them into the water, poaching them. I added 2 bay leaves, s&p, and some thyme. I let it simmer for an hour or so, then dropped in some egg noodles. I finished my bowl off with lemon zest and juice. Yum!

I also served it with a piping hot mug of Earl Grey tea. And we all know how people in this house feel about tea!

Tricia thought it only fitting that we bake some cookies, so I whipped up a batch of cranberry dark chocolate chunk oatmeal cookies, which were only okay. (That didn’t stop me from polishing off several of them.)

Sarah got home from work about that time, and the four of us took our cookies with espresso- Deb and I had lattes, and Tricia and Sarah had theirs straight up with a touch of milk. (I need to branch out my coffee drinking to include straight espresso!)

Since most of our house has hard wood or red countertops, my photos are usually so warm! So I took advantage of the nice white snow to take some cooler photos. What a change! Also, for some reason I put my espresso in my milk before I frothed it instead of after, so my latte looks a bit funny. Woops!

After we had lots of warm beverages and cookies, Deb and I decided we had to introduce Sarah and Tricia to alley luge-ing. (I keep wanting to spell it luging, but that doesn’t look like it’s spelled right…)

We bundled up and headed out to the driveway again. Earlier I had taken this photo of my back alley with my pudding camera app.

Little did I know it was foretelling my doom.

We all sledded down the driveway, and took turns push starting each other into a luge down the alley. I took my turn, and well….you’ll see what happens.

Alley Luge

We laughed so hard for so long. As you can see.

Needless to say, that ended our outdoor adventures. I was soaked and my coat had lost a button, and we were all freezing. We scurried back inside, warmed up, and put on a movie. We had watched 2012 the night before and laughed our way through the ridiculous disaster drama, the bad movie lines, and the stage whispered monologues. So we decided to make a theme of it. Netflix instant viewing had Volcano, so we started that. Another ridiculous disaster drama. Just what the doctor ordered during what people are now calling “Snow-pocalypse.”

About that time we got the call that there was no school tomorrow either, because the roads were just too icy and the temperature wasn’t going up any time soon. Woo hoo! We realized that if we were going to survive another day in, we needed to venture out to the store and pick up a few supplies.

Sarah and I piled into my Jeep and with the help of my four-wheel drive   and lots of slow driving, we made in safely to the store, picked up our staples, and made it back home.

We finished the evening with board games (Balderdash and Taboo) and frozen pizza, along with wine all around. After such a long, fun day of lots of excitement, we got pretty tired. And the wine didn’t help.

Day off work full of friends, baking, movies, soup, board games, wine, and lots and lots of laughter. What’s not to adore?

Apple Pie Tout De Suite

Craving. Sweets.
I had an early dinner and by 8:00 I needed a sugar fix. Our house was devoid of any instant gratification, and after rummaging around in the fridge and cabinet, all I produced was an apple. A honeycrisp apple, which I love, but not at all the caliber of sweets I was looking for.
I sliced it and sautéed it with some pumpkin pie spice, bit of brown sugar, and just a touch of water in the bottom in the bottom of the pot to get things working.
I rummaged some more and realized that I had a pie crust in the fridge left over from Thanksgiving. Bing bang boom, pie crust in dish, apple in pie crust, fold over, 30 minutes in oven. (I also did an egg wash and sprinkled some turbinado sugar on top.)
Final product?

Yum. While it was baking Deb asked if I was planning on grabbing 2 spoons, and remembered that Sarah still had some cinnamon ice cream in the freezer (eternal perks of living with a chef ). Perfect combo.

It was warm and sweet and definitely satisfied my sweet tooth. Super easy, super yum.
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Still Cookin'

Day 2 of my three day Thanksgiving cooking marathon. I’m le tired. But I’m really excited for Thanksgiving tomorrow. This is the first Thanksgiving I’ve ever hosted, and other than the turkey, it’s 100% made by me. Wow. So far I’ve done:

• Buttermilk Potato Rolls and Bread
• Cayenne Caramel Corn
• Supremed Grapefruit
• Spiced Apple Pear Pie
• Pumpkin Pie
• More Cranberry Nut Bread
• Cornbread for the cornbread stuffing
• Pumpkin Dip

On the agenda for tomorrow morning:

• Breakfast Casserole (for breakfast, of course!)
• Cornbread Stuffing
• Green Beans
• Cranberry Sauce
• Reheat previously mentioned rolls and pies
• Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes

And with some help from my mom (who arrived today with my dad!) and the turkey covered by my sister and brother in law, we will be ready to feast. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Have something you adore? Share it in the comments, or email adoretoday at gmail dot com.

Bread, I said!

Last year for Thanksgiving I decided to make bread for the first time. Long story short, it turned out awful. I over kneaded the bread, I added too much flour, and it just turned out terrible. Even more unfortunately, I convinced myself it wasn't that bad and still served it. (Sorry family!)

So I asked Sarah for a recontamination for an idiot-proof bread recipe.  I decided to try the Buttermilk Potato Bread from Joy of Cooking.

 It was a long process, from the cutting, peeling and mashing potatoes, to the proofing, rolling, and baking the bread. But it was a lot of fun, and best of all, the bread turned out amazing.

I made cloverleaf rolls to eat with Thanksgiving dinner, and a loaf of bread to much on in the mean time. Yum!

I also made cayenne caramel corn, spiced apple pear pie, and roasted pumpkins for the pumpkin pie. It was a busy baking day, and tomorrow's more of the same. It's nice to have time to do all these fun projects in the kitchen- I'm counting down the days until I can bite into one of those rolls!

Have something you adore? Share it in the comments, or email adoretoday at gmail dot com.

Pre-Thanksgiving

I always try to make my lunch for the week on Sunday and then bring it with me to much on all week long. It’s a perfect solution to both laziness in the field of lunch preparation at 6:00 am and the fact that I only have 25 minutes to eat lunch.

So on Sunday, as I was putting together my grocery list, all I could think about was Thanksgiving food. The result was a quick and easy Thanksgiving knock off.

-Rotisserie chicken

- Steam in bag green beans

- Stove Top stuffing

-Cranberry sauce

-Mini pumpkin pies!

The cranberry sauce was a quick mix of cranberries, ½ c sugar, ½ c water, juice and zest of 1 orange, cinnamon stick, simmer over stove until jelly-like. I love anything cranberry. Have I mentioned that?

The pumpkin pies were my friend Michelle’s pumpkin dip: ½ can pumpkin, 1 block cream cheese, ¼ c powdered sugar, pumpkin pie spice to taste. I piped the dip into frozen pre-cooked phyllo cups. Holy Yum.

I am loving eating Thanksgiving leftovers all week long. (I think my co-workers are slightly jealous.) This was quick and easy enough that you could make it any time, not just the week before Thanksgiving!

Have something you adore? Share it in the comments, or email adoretoday at gmail dot com.