Friday, December 13, 2013

Reverting to Grey

Dogwood twigs against the dark sky.

Sunshine this morning and a frosty bite to the air.
We had errands--I needed to send off a parcel and buy stamps, J. needed items from the auto parts store.
Pebbles was nearly out of grain, so we also stopped at the mill store.
Waiting to pull out into traffic we noted that cars had been slowed by a tractor hauling in a cart load of shelled field corn.
There is still some standing in fields around the county--wet weather having delayed the harvesters.
Home again, I had thoughts of a quick walk along the road or around the edges of the soggy back field.
By the time I had done a few necessary things the sun had disappeared.  All was grey and gloomy.
I went out, but didn't have the heart to walk into the wind.
I foraged about in the lower garden and found Brussels' sprouts to cook for supper, and cut a large head of cabbage. The outer leaves were semi-frozen.  stripping them off I discovered a few green cabbage caterpillars, small and not looking lively. At the base of the cabbage, resting under the outermost leaves was a wooly bear--likewise stunned by the cold.

During the summer there were several families of robins bouncing about the dooryard.
I thought they were nesting in the two maples that edge the driveway.
With leaves off the trees I was expecting to see the large sturdy nests there.
Instead I noted one clinging to the high branches of the sweet gum tree.

Back inside, to cook the sprouts and warm up spaghetti from yesterday's supper.
Chatting with my sister on Face Book later, she mentioned that she wanted to make a rice pudding.
We discussed recipes until I, too, fancied a rice pudding.
I sweetened mine with maple syrup and added dried cherries and cinnamon.
It is about to become a bedtime snack!


10 comments:

  1. The rice pudding sounds so good and gave me another idea for using my dried cherries.
    Lillian

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    1. Lillian; I discovered dried cherries a few years back--I put them in choc chip cookies, oatmeal, muffins--I love them!

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  2. Mmmmmmmmmmm rice pudding always brings back memories of home. My Mum always cooked it in an emamel dish and I loved scraping the slightly burnt edges when the rice had all been dished up. Likewise I waited patiently for the lamb bone to scrape the marrow out with the end of an aplostle tea spoon. Small but tasty nuggets of flavour.
    Briony
    x

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    1. Briony; What a pleasant memory--scraping the dish for the last morsels of a favorite food.

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  3. I used to ring the changes by adding stewed apple and cinnamon to rice pudding. Yours sounds lovely too.

    Grey is definitelythe order of the day here too, although we have had a gale brewing during the afternoon, and accompanied by heavy rain. Sounds miserable out and I hope that the two outside cats (Miffy and Ghengis) are snug in the hay barn. After 10 or 12 years of being an outside cat here, Amber has elected to become a House Cat now. Who can blame her?

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    1. Jennie; Stewed apples sounds a great addition to rice pudding. Its a time of year for being inventive with meals since the fresh garden stuff is no longer with us.
      Several of our cats still like going outside, even in dreadful weather--then they hurry in to dry off in some soft, warm spot.

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  4. Sounds delicious! Happy Christmas!

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    1. Isabelle; T'is the time for comfort food. No Christmas baking yet!

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  5. It does look and sound delicious, but as rice pudding is one of the few things my OH can`t abide, I won`t be making one here. Boarding school food has a lot to answer for!

    I hope that Pebbles is well at the start of another winter.

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    1. DW; I can imagine that rice pudding could be institutionalized into a very unpalatable dish. I like to think my version rates well.
      Pebbles has her ups and downs--just now she is not being nice about her meds.

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