French vanilla cupcakes with my Nana’s chocolate coffee icing and a chocolate covered coffee bean on the top. A perfect afternoon snack for a fall day!
Going, Going, Gone!
Tag: fall (page 12 of 14)
Knock! Knock!
Welcome October!
Today we have both been off kilter. We are fighitng off colds and back to school tiredness and so a meal of true comfort was in order. So, tonight I made our first pot pie of the Fall season. It was delicious and Mr. Michie said it was the best I had ever made! We made a turkey pot pie and I decided this time that I would roast the turkey and the celery and carrots instead of my usual sautéing the vegetables and boiling the meat.
I tell you, it had the most wonderful flavours and the turkey was so moist. When I pulled my roasting pan out of the oven, I went to work on making a gravy and when it was almost ready I dumped the cut up meat and vegetables into it, stirring in some beautiful red onions that I had leftover from breakfast the day before and some frozen peas.
The house smelled so delicious. As it baked we worked on making some mashed potatoes which were a wonderful and homey accompaniment to dinner. They were mashed with my favourite French butter, spring onion and cracked black pepper cream cheese, fresh parsley and goat’s milk. They were sinfully divine.
To top it all off, we did something we don’t normally do, we sat on the couch and watched TV while we ate. This has been a long week and so we vegged out and caught up on NCIS. I can’t think of anything better tonight then turkey pot pie and watching the adorable Mark Harmon on TV! Delicious!
Fall has many flavours and one of them is the warming taste of butternut squash soup. We made it this weekend and as I was slicing up some warm crusty bread, Mr. Michie ladled the soup in our bowls.
With this one, he somehow by magic ended up with a heart on the top that had a polka dot in the middle! That made it taste all the sweeter.
This weekend has been very cool. The leaves are starting to change, the sunlight is moving, evening is drawing in sooner and all of these little things add up to signs that we are welcoming Fall in.
So today we got up early and placed two beautiful fat little butternut squash into a roasting pan and placed them in the oven. As they began to roast to house filled with the smell of squash, its fleshy inside getting softer as its skin began to brown and caramalize in the pan.
As it roasted, we worked together outside. Pruning back a few plants and I had the chance to plant the golden mum Mr. Michie bought me as a surprise as well as the orange ornamental pepper plant by the front door, I just need a pumpkin now, but it is too soon for them to be ready!
Once the squash was finished, we scooped out its orange pulp and began to create a warming soup that is now simmering away on the stove, filling the house with the smells of autumn.
Today was the last day of Summer for us, we went back to school this morning, waiting patiently for the bus, while frost formed from our breath and hung in the air, the morning had a true autumnal feel to it!
Bleary eyed I jumped in the shower after Mr. Michie at 5:30 this morning and proceeded to move about the house very quietly after that, eating my breakfast, listening to Classic FM, and inhaling the scent of Mr. Michie’s coffee brewing.
So, today I said goodbye to: sleeping-in in the mornings; to being able to watch “The Gilmore Girls” while I eat my breakfast; to having the day open to any possibility and to having time just for me.
I am now ready for a constant whirring at work like bees dipping and diving around the hive and the search to find a little calm for my boat in the waving ocean.
But in all my goodbyes to Summer, I now get to say hello to: my students (new and old); to frosty mornings, where we run to the coffee shop before work; to leaves crunching underfoot and soon the orangey glow of pumpkins and so I am ready to embrace autumn.
Goodbye Summer…
I felt it today, that slight shift in the seasons. The sun shone a little brighter and higher in the sky, the shadows were a little longer and cooler, the air had a hint of crispness in it.
It is here! Going back to school season, hot apple cider season, pumpkin season, autumn is on its way, I can feel it!
All the preparing, stressing, family gathering and it is over in a flash, a snap of your fingers. That brings us to “The day after Turkey Day ” and there is nothing better than the glorious leftovers on “The day after Turkey Day”.
After you have stuffed yourself to the gills and you swear you will never eat again, somewhere around midnight you are famished and so you raid the fridge! That first leftover turkey sandwich of the season, is somehow, the best one of all!
(Image found here)
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
We are just a little over a week away from Thanksgiving. Not a holiday here in England, but we still celebrate it in our little cottage. There is something to this time of year, as we approach Christmas, there is just so much more hustle and bustle and everything takes on a more frantic pace. There also seems to be something in the air lately, everyone seems to just be fed up!
Maybe, it is because evening crawls in sooner and with less hours of daylight we feel pressured to complete more tasks than usual. Maybe, it is simply the pressure the media puts on us, there is not one store I have entered lately that is not stock piling their Christmas displays or has already decorated to the nines. It seems that as we approach Thanksgiving there is more pressure than ever.
Thanksgiving, can be a stressful time for many, you are possibly dealing with family that you would prefer not to see, you are anxious that your turkey will turn it out just so; the new bride cooking for everyone for the very first time. All this pressure, seen and unseen, seems to mount for everyone and comes to a head.
I think, of all the Christmas gifts, I have to buy and what seems like no time to do it in. I think of all the things I have to do at home and only the weekend to complete everything. I feel the pressure, that Thanksgiving seems to be the “hurdle” we have to get through on our way to Christmas, and once Christmas comes we can all sit back and take a breath.
I refuse to look at holidays like that. I want to enjoy them for all that they are, I want to soak up every drop of time I spend with my family. I want to simply take a breath and be open to just being, not be pressured by society to have everything just so and by a certain date, I am willing to just take it as it comes and drink in the moments as they present themselves. Because, I believe that I am where I’m supposed to be right now and I will come to it with not only an open heart but a grateful one!
(Image by Craftily-Ever-After)