My Contribution to Snow Removal

I rarely help with snow removal.  I leave this task to my husband who 1) seems to like it and 2) has devised a very efficient system where he shovels just two tire treads worth of space up our driveway and then leaves the rest of it to melt at  some point in the next few weeks.  I honestly don’t know why more people don’t do this – what’s the point of shoveling an entire driveway when you really only need to make sure the car can get in and out?  This obviously wouldn’t work in a situation of more than 8-10 inches of snow… or in a climate that doesn’t see temperatures above 35 degrees all winter…but in most cases around here,  it works just fine.

The main reason I don’t help with the shoveling is because I don’t want to.  I would rather be inside where it’s warm – plus, it’s kind of a pain to get my snow boots out of the front closet (the laces on those things are a bit excessive).  So… to ease my tiny (and they are quite small) feelings of guilt for leaving this task to him, I attempt to compensate by making a hot breakfast of some sort. 

These days, I’m on a hot cereal/porridge kick… one of my favorites being a millet based porridge that’s almost as easy to make as your standard oatmeal and reheats well.    A close second favorite is an amaranth porridge – which consists of nothing more than cooking up a pot of amaranth and adding some honey to it.   Another close second (tied with amaranth) is a new blend of grains that Wegmans has started carrying called “Sunrise Blend“.  In my opinion, it requires the additional of maple syrup to truly be considered in the breakfast category, but with a little syrup – its really good. 

Earlier today, there was a post on the “Joy the Baker” blog with two recipes for a breakfast polenta… Perhaps I’ll give that a try the next time I’m watching my husband shovel snow for hours on end (which, given the winter we are having, shouldn’t be too far away).  Sigh.

Please Remind Me in February…

… or for that matter, anytime outside of the months of October or November… about pumpkin.   I love pumpkin – pumpkin muffins, pumpkin pie, pumpkin ravioli – it smells fabulous, tastes wonderful, and I like pretending that the baked good I’m eating is actually somewhat healthy.

For some reason, I seem to all but forget about pumpkin once Thanksgiving has come and gone.  Well, I’ve decided not to let that happen again – I’m stocking up on pumpkin puree this season, figuring that a dozen cans of pumpkin puree staring at me in the cabinet should help prevent my pumpkin amnesia of years past.

This picture was taken Sunday morning, while we had two batches of whole wheat pumpkin muffins in process – it’s our second batch of these things in the past month.  As you can see, Zoe did most of the measuring and mixing – Caroline is doing her part helping with the eating.

Apples and More Apples

We went to Baugher’s farm to go apple picking this weekend.  I love apple picking – as do the kids.  It just seems like something you are supposed to do in the fall.  Dan’s not a huge fan, but is willing to go along for the sake of a family outing.

Regardless of how many times I go to an apple orchard, I am always shocked at what a quick process apple picking is.  45 minutes to get to the farm, another 30 minutes to figure out how to get from the place where you park the car to the place where you actually pick the apples, and then about 3 minutes for the kids to fill up two big bags that inevitably get so heavy that they need to be carried by someone beyond the age of 10.

So here I am with more apples that I know what to do with… and it’s really a bit of a quandary.  There are hundreds of options for using apples in pies, cakes, and other such high sugar/not-so-great for you items.  I could make apple sauce, but that’s an awful lot of work to make something that you can buy perfectly good versions of at Wegmans.  I guess I’ll go with a few batches of whole wheat apple muffins… I imagine (hope) these will freeze well