Christmas Eve

In my family tradition, and Kasy’s, Christmas Eve is where it’s at. This is the real Christmas – lots of food, hanging out, talking, watching movies, opening presents, and laughing.

So, Happy Christmas (eve)!

I made a batch of these delicious cookies that were going around my flickr-friends and twitter-friends and have plans to bake some more later today, after my Christmas present to myself (2 hrs at the tattoo shop getting more color in some tattoos in progress). They are easy as can be, all from ingredients I had in the kitchen, and taste like a dream.

Hope you are having a peaceful and cozy day with those you love.

Looking up on a Friday

Thought it was time for another Looking Up post.

Things that make me happy right now:

Cooler morning air. Cooler evening air. The signal of the change in season.

Making headway on the new backporch (details soon!) being built by us in the space that used to house our old kitchen.

A return to hot coffee from a few months of iced coffee (see first bullet).

Making good, healthy, wholesome food from scratch every night for dinner, and always having leftovers the next day.

Feeling grateful that the old bones in this old rowhome have withstood the intense amount of (more) rain we got this week. So far so good on the no rain *inside* the house. Our basement is dry and our roof is sturdy. My heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones, lost their home, and have to deal with more flooding damage in Pennsylvania due to the overflow of the Schuylkill, Delaware, and Susquehanna.

A great guy who works on beautifying my bicycles for me. My Surly Steamroller fixed gear has been lovingly retrofitted, switched over to freewheel, and we swapped out the bullhorn bars for uprights. It’s a lovely lovely smooth ride and I am so happy that I have good, strong bicycles.

Hope you are looking to the positives, on this Friday.

(And on a sad note. The hurricane kitty has passed away in the loving hands of his foster. He was doing well for the first few days and then took a nosedive. I’m thankful for the amazing help my friends provided as I was trying to save him from a life on the streets of South Philly and am sad that he was unable to make it to a long cat life. So it is, sadly, the circle of life.)

Looking Up on a Tuesday Afternoon

I took a wee break from work to go outside to take a picture of this:

and then I looked up and saw this:

Inside, a soup just like this one is bubbling away on the stove:

All in all, an excellent Tuesday. Hope your day is also going well!

Soup weather

Philadelphia is getting chilly! I’m not quite used to the cooler temperatures yet, on account of having the hottest summer ever, but I’m looking forward to the winter. We’ve been eating a lot of soup around here, to ward off the evening chill.

I usually make a big pot of bean soup but this time I tried something new. Having a few vegetables around that I wanted to use, and knowing that I love pureed soups, this was a no brainer.

Ingredients:
1/4 Green Cabbage Head, chopped
~5 Yukon Gold Potatoes, chopped
~5 Purple Potatoes, chopped
1 small Butternut Squash, peeled and chopped
Milk (I used Rice Milk. Water could work too, I guess)
Garlic, salt, pepper, other spices to taste

Directions:
Boil the chopped cabbage, chopped potatoes, and chopped squash until soft.
Drain and blend (I ran it all through the food grinder on my Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer)
Add (rice) Milk until the mixture reaches consistency you like.
Simmer on low, adding garlic, salt, pepper, etc to taste.

And enjoy!

Have a great day. I’m cooking up another batch of this soup this afternoon! Soup galore!