Snow days = craft days ...

Let me know
if you want recipes!

 ... and cooking days.

     I finally made the two remaining meals from Green Chef, and both will be keepers.  The first, Parmesan-crusted Chicken with lemon aioli, green beans & hazelnuts, and marinated tomatoes.  The chicken was seasoned with rosemary, basil, and sage before being covered with lemon aioli and parmesan cheese and baked.  Diced Roma tomatoes were marinated in a basil vinaigrette.  It was amazing!!!

   The second recipe was Cauliflower Piccata Pasta, green beans & almonds.  I've never had roasted cauliflower before, and will certainly have it again.  The piccata sauce of garlic, capers and butter in a lemon-spiked vegetable broth was surprisingly YUMMY, altho I might make it in the future with fresh basil leaves instead of parsley.   There was enough pasta for three meals.  Next time I make it I will use whole wheat linguine, or some made with lentils or non-white flour.

    Like a dork, I broke my red feather while trying to adjust the hook on the back, so am now making another one, plus two more.  One to paint to resemble blue jay feathers I found, and the other to paint like a mourning dove feather.  More care will be taken regarding the hook on the back with both of them, and when dried and painted they will be hung in the kitchen.

     This project is one that I was going to do with the encaustic watercolor class that got rescheduled for February, and so will find another poem or quote for the class.  The first line of the quote has always been one of my favorites, but after finding the rest of it, it really resonated within me.

     February is looking like a busy craft month with projects three weekends in a row.  I'm super excited!

     We got about 10 inches of snow with Winter Storm Izzy over Sunday and Monday.  Charlie was a tad confused that we'd somehow gone back to Wisconsin.  Snow came up to his chin where it wasn't cleared.  The windchill Monday was about 12F so I didn't finish shoveling until this morning.  It was still cold, but waiting wasn't an option since mail needed to be delivered and trash picked up.

     Hope you are staying warm where you are, staying busy with fun things, and eating well.

                Hugs, Ci