Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Brrrrrrr

So, this was supposed to be at the end.... but for the ****** i can't seem to get them down there, so here is the end first. A few shots Shannon took before they tore Lily from my arms and packed her off down the highway. 

Speaking of awesome outfilts! (we will later on....)





Gosh, has it really been 2 weeks!!?? Guess so. Time flies! Lots been going on here, had Shan, Lily, and Dad down for a visit last week, great time. We went downtown to powells, ate lots of great food, and, most importantly, had plenty of baby time. It was fun to have the two babies together ( the one living in my house and Lily) they actually looked at each other! Pretty cute. I did get to learn that Sophia does cry a lot more than Lily, although she is 9 days younger, soo, maybe that's why? Babies are all different. We took some  awesome pics, most importantly the tutu pics, I will include the whole set here. Sure got my brain churning.....














Camera Switch












And there were more. Oh, this is just the beginning.





Possibly my favorite Lily pic yet- she's gonna get it! Get it Lily!



Ya, ya, the outfit is wild, but I have to honest, it's growing on me. Ps, i will be changing the name of the blog from red truck tales to lily. Seems appropriate.


See there! I took a picture of someone other than Lily! My dad, harvesting chestnuts. Oh, ya, the chestnut harvest! Jeez, baby brain!
So, we showed up at the farm friday morning, geared up and ready to go. I had absolutely no idea what to expect from this, we were prepared for anything. Whitney and Alisha ( I'm sorry, dear, i will never spell your name right) were not there yet so we did an orchard walk, and didn't see the nuts. Or the husks, rather. Once we made it back close to the gate, we both squatted down and all of a sudden, there were nuts! They were everywhere, all over the ground. After our eyes ( this is ben and i, i forgot to mention) adjusted to chestnut vision, we were picking them up by the handful. Some of the trees had branches so low that you could stand and take the nuts out of the husks still on the trees. There were about 4 trees in particular that were rockstars, the rest you had to be choosy with. In normal years, i guess all the husks fall and you break them open, this year, i think husk breaking made up about 50% of the harvest- even when you got one, you opened it up and it had one lovely nut, 2 or 3 little ones. Still worth it. But the jackpot was on the ground. They were just everywhere. I'm sure this harvest was dinky compared to a regular one but we sure got all we could handle. I am estimating 20 lbs for mine, another 20 for ben's. Whit and Alisha were still there when we called it a day and took the baby home, their goal was to fill their 5 gallon bucket with nuts- and they did it! They also took home an experimental bucket- one filled with green husks in which the nuts hadn't ripened yet, to see if they will ripen if left. Waiting on the results from that...

My loot! 

So beautiful!



Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Winter Squash Bread

Fall! I love squash and it's always fun when the house gets cold enough to want to bake it. Had one of those days yesterday, it was freezing in here! Cranked the oven up, chopped an acorn squash in half and threw it in. When it came out, I was full from having eaten ice cream for lunch so I just left it on the counter and took a nap. I woke ready for a cooking project. I decided on squash bread after looking at the batter I had created and deciding I was too lazy to try to fry it into fritters, which had been my first idea. Baked up pretty quick, a little spicy, little bacony. Yum!




Winter Squash Bread

1 acorn squash, cut in half, seeds removed, baked until tender
3 slices of bacon, chopped up
1/4 onion, diced
4 T butter
4 eggs
1.5 c flour +
1t b powder
1-3 T curry spice mix
1 t cayenne
plenty of salt and pepper
Squeeze of lemon

Cook the bacon until it's getting a little crispy, throw in the onions and cook until the whole mixture is nice and brown. Add plenty of salt and pepper, the butter, and the spices, more or less if you like, you'll probably end up adding more later anyway. Turn off the heat and let it set, stirring a bit until the butter is melted.

Scrape the squash out of the shell and put it in a big bowl. Pour in your bacon mix and mix it up. Add the eggs, and lemon, mix well. Put the b powder in the flour and add those too. You may need more flour or less depending on the moisture in your squash, you pretty much want it to be corn bread consistency, or maybe a tag runnier. Zucchini bread consistency. Stir together, add more seasoning to taste ( the raw eggs are not going to kill you, i promise!) Bake 350 for 40 minutes or so, i put mine in a pie dish but any dish you like would work fine, adjusting cooking times accordingly. Enjoy!

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Paparazzi




It was when we hit Pt Townsend that this feeling really set in. Lily was strapped in her buggy and we were following, her entourage, lenses clicking away. Ha ha ha! Lily's paparazzi.




















Why is this picture sideways?


Also sideways