Birdie Birdie

Finally seeing some birds at my feeder! I think the blizzard made the food and shelter attractive!

Today we had dark-eyed juncos, white-throated sparrows, and Carolina wrens visit! I honestly can’t tell you how excited Tom and I were when we woke up to the photo notification. We are getting old.

We also woke up to around 14 inches of snow. At least this snow is prettier than the last one, which didn’t really stick to the trees.

Saturday we ran around getting food, at Sprouts and Target (because Acme looked insanely crowded). Sunday morning, I was worried it wouldn’t be enough, so I did an Instacart order from Wegmans (I have free Instacart plus for another few days). Once that arrived, I settled in to cook and bake.

Tired of chocolate chip cookies, I settled on pumpkin bread, to use up the frozen puree from my garden pumpkin. I took the time to cook away the excess water from the puree, and it turned out nicely. Recipe here.

Later, as the storm really began to kick in, I made chicken cutlets, mashed potatoes, a baked sweet potato, steamed broccoli and corn, for dinner. For the cutlets, I breaded a couple with pulverized pretzels and tortilla chips, just to try it. They were a little… too much. Too salty. But it was a nice meditative evening in the kitchen, methodically passing the chicken down the assembly line and into the pan, listening to “Mountain Stage” on XPN.

Tonight, we had two variations on chicken soup: one with broth and tortellini (for F), and one with broth, ditalini, rotisserie chicken from the freezer, lemon juice, and a can of Campbells chicken noodle dumped in (that was T). In any event I was happy to see that chicken get used up (F had some on the side with broccoli). Meanwhile, N and I shared a Wegmans buffalo chicken pizza.

Back to Saturday. It was 50 degrees out and for one glorious day you could see the grass. I checked on the garden to find the sage,  oregano, and snapdragons still alive. The strawberries seem OK. And there are more garlic shoots, two more since the fall, I think.

Inside, I started three types of lettuce seeds and put some basil in water to get it to root.

That seed tray is a tray from our old oven that I never got around to tossing.

Meals last week:

Sunday: Everyone but me went to Passariello’s with my family (I was party prepping)

Monday: pasta fagioli, rotisserie chicken, Tom’s scalloped potatoes

Tuesday: chicken fettuccine Alfredo a la Tom, and cheesy garlic bread

Wednesday: We scrounged, but can’t remember the specifics.

Thursday: Ordered from Oasis (Mexican)

Friday: Leftover Oasis

Saturday: PJ’s

Tuesday lunch: leftover pasta fagioli

Wednesday lunch: sandwich of leftover baguette, rotisserie chicken, cheddar cheese, and dijonnaise.

Friday lunch: bought at work

Tuesday night, I froze leftover wine and leftover soup. Wednesday morning, I sliced bread and froze it before it got too funky. Wednesday night, I froze the leftover rotisserie chicken and the carcass. F laughs at me for putting everything in the freezer, and not everything always gets used… but a lot does!

I’ll end this post as I began, talking about birds. The movement to get our town to allow backyard chickens is reviving! We have new town leaders for this first time in years, and they may be more receptive. Excited to see if this gets any traction! I was involved in the first push, several years ago. Considering getting involved again; we’ll see!