Candles and Socks

I've spent the last several days selling handmade candles on the Roanoke City Market. A wonderful couple from Floyd County make them and I have been burning these candles for years - working on the city market helps me to muster up whatever amount of holiday cheer I have....this year has been a hard one. Oh, I have completed my first pair of knitted socks!

I made these with yarn my sister in law bought for me during her recent trip to Germany. On to work now for the next three days...

Soup

Made two wonderful pots of soup tonight from Nava Atlas' Vegetarian Soups for All Seasons - both shared many ingredients so I decided why not make both since I'm doing all this chopping. Soup is even better tasting the next day and will be a great lunch for me the next two days of work. I have enough that I can share with a couple friends at work that appreciate my vegetarian cooking....


Curried Millet-Spinach Soup and African-Inspired Quinoa-Peanut Soup - I'll be making more soups from this cookbook. BTW,I ran 3 miles along the Roanoke River Greenway this afternoon!

Well, I did it!

Ran the Jingle Bell 5k - about the same time as last year but much colder....brrrr! Sometimes you just gotta get out there....

Happy Holidays

Sometimes Life is Hard....

But I know it will get better....meanwhile, cleaning out the refrigerator and creatively using leftovers -
First, I punched up some tomato sauce my husband said was "bland" with onions, garlic, table dry red wine and simmered (the sauce, well I did simmer a little from that comment) for an hour or so then pouring it over pasta for a great work lunch tomorrow.
Secondly, sauteed garlic and onions in olive oil, mixing in fresh kale and rosemary from my fall garden the last few minutes of saute time....mixed that delicious concoction with leftover mashed sweet potatoes. Scooped that beautiful fall mixture into a baking dish, topping it with french bread crumbs (another leftover) and baked at 350 degrees for ~45 minutes.
Since the oven was on, I also baked a small fall squash to use later this week after scooping out the seeds and roasting them with olive oil, rosemary and kosher salt!
I cut some of the fresh rosemary to take to work tomorrow for a dear, appreciative coworker.

Third, made a fresh salad from the leaf lettuce still growing outside.

Last, finished up a red sweater for a coworker's little daughter.
Going to bed now and read the latest issue of "The Sun"....tomorrow will be better.