Conner and Leon and Madeline

Grandpa and Madeline

 Madeline in Michael's hand

Contented Madeline

Give them the old one-two punch!

All clean

Decorating Over My Doors

I have discovered a new to me blog site.

It's called

Balancing Beauty and Bedlam.

I went through and was reading some of her old posts.

There was one that posed the question;

do you decorate over your doorways?

I never thought about it 

but,

yes, 

I suppose I do!

But now I am left asking myself;

why is all that empty space

left there?

http://beautyandbedlam.com/over-the-door-plaques-over-the-door-decor/

Cooking Soothes The Soul

Or at least mine it does.

It's been a rough month or so for me.

I've been "cooking" but not 

"creating."

Today I created and I feel a bit better for it.

It's a gloomy day here, and for once it's not

just my mood.

So gloomy screams soup to me.

Mom and Big bequeathed a butternut squash 

to me a couple of weeks back.

I scoured around my vegetable bin and came

up with:

said squash,

a sweet potato,

a couple of carrots,

a red onion

and 4 garlic cloves.

And did this to them. 

I left the garlic cloves in their paper, 

it's supposed to protect them while roasting 

but still have them get all mellow and buttery.

It did, and they did.

I drizzled olive oil over the whole mess, 

threw on some salt and pepper, 

and then roasted them at 425 degrees for 

30 minutes.

My house smelled amazing!

Once they were all roasted up put them in batches

 in my handy-dandy Vitamixer with some

chicken stock and made this:

It tasted as good as my house smelled.

Here's a little idea I had, know how you 

deglaze pans when browning meat?

Well, I deglazed the roasting sheet with

 some of that chicken stock. 

I didn't want to lose one bit of the stuff that

smelled that good!

I may toast up some chopped pecans in butter

to put on top......

or I may just grab a spoon and start eating right out of the pot!

More Tomatoes

And here we have 

Pearl Couscous With Olives

And Roasted Tomatoes.

http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2007/07/24/pearly-whites/

I, like Ms. Smitten, am a sucker for

Israeli couscous.

And I have a plethora of tomatoes.

I think what intrigued me the most about this recipe 

was the dressing you make using some 

of the roasted tomatoes. 

It's primarily a combination of 

tomatoes, roasted garlic and olive oil. 

The possibilities for that alone are interesting.

I did veer from the recipe as written in that my box of

couscous only had 1 1/3 cups of couscous

(as opposed to the 2 1/4 cups the recipe called for)

and I left out the mint.

I did add some finely chopped red onions

and a hit of cayenne pepper.

From the looks of it I had plenty of couscous.

And while I did get some mint past 

Mike a couple of days ago, 

I felt it was best not to push my luck.

PS, it's a keeper.