T Stands for Cold, Snow and Food

    Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. And hello to everyone who stops by Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's      blog to T day. 

    Last week was another quiet week for me. It's been a relatively quiet month, even though I've  had some outings with friends, mostly I've been home. My husband is still improving from his back issues. Not as quickly as he wants to be improving, and he's had a few bad days, but he is driving again. He just doesn't have a lot of longevity yet without needing to rest his back or even more so, one of his legs. 

     Like so many other people, we also had some very cold weather and some snow last week too.  So far from this past weekend's storm we've gotten about a foot of new snow/ 30.5 cm, and it's still snowing as of this Monday night. The 2 photos in this post are not from this storm but from one we had earlier last week.  In this first photo you can see how we sheltered the bees this winter, and although I haven't yet checked them since this really bitter cold set in, last week I was still seeing signs of life in the hive.  👍

    And since I don't want the hubby to go backwards in his back recuperation,  I've been doing the shoveling and bringing up the 40 pound/18 kg packages of bio-bricks (compacted sawdust bricks) that we burn in the woodstove. By bringing up I mean carrying the bio-brick packages in from the garage, through the basement, up the stairs and then over to the woodstove. Who needs to join a gym when you can get a good workout right at home? 😈😉 For all I comment about doing these things to my husband, I am getting some muscle building exercise doing these extra chores. 

   You can also see the ice that is under the snow. Good thing there are grippers ,which if you don't know, are things you slide on your boots or shoes that have  metal pieces in the bottom that help you from slipping on the ice.

   Last week with the cold I spend some extra time in kitchen. Besides my regular food preparation I made a couple of loaves of anadama bread. Anadama bread is a traditional New England bread made with the addition of cornmeal and molasses. 

     I also cleaned out the fridge and made a big pot of soup. I'm calling it clean out the fridge soup because I added some leftover sausage and chicken, and a bag of green beans (from my garden this past summer) that were in the freezer. After I took this photo I also decided to add some green peas.

    I need a drink for T day, so here's my photo and the story that does with it.

    My husband had to go get some paperwork at his doctor's office so we went for a little drive one day.  On this drive we passed a sandwich shop we like to go to, and even though we didn't stop I got an over-powering urge for a tuna melt or tuna sandwich or something with tuna. Nothing else would satisfy me. Not far from our house there is a little market that makes sandwiches besides selling some items, and so my husband stopped. I went in to see if they had tuna on the sandwich board. (Yes, I know I could have made my own sandwich, but by this time I was actually starting to have a bit of the hangries  because it was  now mid-afternoon. )

    Anyhow, guess what? A tuna melt was their special sandwich of the day.  That made me very happy.

   The guy who waited on me was very chatty, and he mentioned he grew up in a town down at the coast that attended the high school where I taught. I asked him and yes, he did go to the school where I worked. He didn't have me (but I did recognize his brother's name), so while I waited we had a chance to talk about "the good old days" a bit. Well his good old days when he was a student, but still fun to chat.

   Lisca also asked for the sour-dough discard brownie recipe (that I showed you last week), so here it is: Sour Dough Discard Brownies

1 cup/170 grams chocolate chips

1 cup/ 227 grams of unsalted butter

1.5 cups/300 grams granulated sugar

1 cup/220 grams firmly packed brown sugar

1 cup /125 grams all purpose flour

3/4 cup/64 grams unsweetened cocoa

2 teaspoons/6 grams salt

5 large eggs (250 grams)

1 tablespoon (13 grams) vanilla extract

1 cup sourdough discard at room temperature

and then whatever you'd like to add to the brownies like nuts or chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 dgeres F/ 180 degrees C. Use a 13x9 rectangular baking pan (not sure what that is in metric) and grease it or line it with parchment.

2. Melt the chocolate chips and butter. Stir smooth, Remove from heat and whisk in the sugars.

3. In a clean bowl, mix the flour, cocoa and salt. Set aside for a few minutes.

4. Once the melted mixture is a bit cool, add the eggs. (You don't want to add them when its hot and cook them.) Add the vanilla and then fold in the flour mixture. Add in any additions like nuts of chocolate chips and then spread the batter in your prepared baking pan. 

5. Bake for approximately 38 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let them cool completely in the pan before removing. 

    That's all for me today. I have plans to go on another snowy owl hunt later this week; fingers crossed it isn't too brutally cold and that my friend Deb and I see one. 🤞I hope everyone has a great T day and week ahead also.