WINTER IS COMING AND I LOVE IT

I love it.  The high temperature tomorrow will be seventy and the low tonight forty-nine.   The trees are starting to show red and the daylight is getting shorter.  

It is great to be alive right about now – this is my time of year: moving toward winter.  

I still have some chores to finish up before the first snow fall, and the time to do them; meanwhile my wife starts to decorate the house to the season.

Winter is coming, along with our favorite holidays: 

Thanksgiving, Halloween, fall equinox and winter solstice.

I feel good

the Ol’Buzzard

WHY SWEAT OVER A STOVE ALL DAY TO PRODUCE A MEAL THAT WILL BE EATEN IN LESS THAN AN HOUR?

save a turkey - eat a chicken!

 ANOTHER SLOW COOKER RECIPEE

After reading Kulkuri’s comment about baked beans on an earlier post about slow cooker cooking, I decided to share my slow cooker bean recipe: should anyone be interested.  

I soak baby lima beans overnight.  Place them in the slow cooker next morning, cover them with two chopped onions, a ham steak cut into one inch cubes, a cup of diced celery, two minced garlic cloves, a can of diced tomatoes, one bay leaf, a teaspoon each of dried oregano, thyme and basil, a dash of crushed red peppers to taste and four cups of Chicken stock (again we use McKays.)
 

I set the cooker to high and cook about six to seven hours.
   

Baked beans, a glass of cold beer (Canadian) and crusty bread – you can’t find a better winter feed.

THANKSGIVING IS SLOW COOKER TIME AGAIN

A five pound chicken (I prefer chicken to turkey) stuffed with two lemons quartered; add I cup of chicken broth, two garlic cloves, a bay leaf and sprinkle the bird with Herbs of Provence. Cook on high for six hours.

My wife will make mashed potatoes, savory dressing, green peas and cranberry sauce when we are ready to eat - a glass of  Beaujolais.

Life is good. 

The only way this could be any better would be to live in France and work in a vineyard like microdot.

the Ol'Buzzard

THANKSGIVING DINNER

We are now approaching the Winter Solstice (my wife and I don’t celebrate X-mas.)

As you grow older time seems to pass faster; we go from one season to another in what seems a blink of and eye (I have a theory about that; but more later...)

The point is that we just got through Thanksgiving and now we are headed into another holiday season.  

So, before it changes again I decided to share my Thanksgiving dinner with you. 

In years past we have traveled five hours to have Thanksgiving with family.  There would be twenty-five to thirty people or more (most who we did not know,) the noise level was high - the dog show ran continuously on TV; the food was great but …

This year we decided to stay home. 

My wife prepared turkey breast cutlets that we got at a local farm store, along with mashed potatoes, savory dressing, peas, squash and cranberry sauce.  

We broke out a good bottle of Beaujolais wine and laid aside a Maine wild blueberry pie for dessert.  

Me in my long johns, my wife in pajamas – we had a great meal

while watching and old tape of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow

It doesn't get any better than that.

the Ol’Buzzard