Comfort Food

Today is a typical dark and dreary winter day,  there's not a ray of sunshine in the sky.
I'm making a Shepherd's Pie for supper to cheer ourselves up.

A concoction of ground beef, onions, carrots, and peas cooked in a beef gravy and tomato sauce, with herbs and spices; then topped off with mashed potatoes and browned in the oven until the potatoes are nice and crispy.

I buy the Colman Shepherd's Pie mix, available through Publix grocery stores, on the English import isle.
If it's not on hand, then the gravy part is made with Oxo's or beef bouillon cubes and tomato paste, rosemary, thyme, garlic, and parsley.

 

 

Shepherd's Pie was the first meal I cooked  as a newly wed , it remains one of my husband's  favorites to this day.
It will be accompanied by boiled cabbage, mashed 

 with lots of butter, and fresh pepper, that's how my mum used to serve it.

Serve with a slice of pickled beetroot or a few pickled onions on the side, and a nice crusty loaf of bread.

Yum.

Doc Martin Season 10 preview

• To help break up the monotony of long winter nights, our local PBS affiliate is treating its viewing audience to new seasons of beloved favorite shows.

  Doc Martin Season 10 aired this past Thursday, I'm already hooked.

  Thank you Public Broadcasting Service and our local Nashville Public Television.

  Check your local schedule for times and dates.
  
  

More Snow

I'm beginning to get cabin fever, and just as slightly warmer temperatures arrive, an entire new weather system is headed our way.
More snow, and sadly combined with frozen precipitation.
The school children have been afforded an extra week off school,  and yet their presence outside has been scarce.
Back when my daughter was young she would spend an entire afternoon outside with her neighborhood friends, sledding and building snowmen, only returning to the warmth of  home for a change of gloves, and some hot chocolate. Nowadays, it seems like the children stay inside and play computer games or watch TV.
Times have changed.

Silent and Soft

We awoke this morning to a winter wonderland.

Soft, wet snowflakes, blanketing the ground, cocooning us in a world of silence.
A gentle accumulation, it's as if Mother Nature took her powdered sugar shaker, and gave the landscape a sprinkling.
Magical.

 

 

 

Out of the cloud-folds of her garment shaken,

Over the woodlands, brown and bare

Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

Silent, and soft, and slow

Descends the snow.

~~By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.~~

 

Talking In Their Sleep

"You think I am dead,"
The apple tree said,
"Because I have never a leaf to show -
Because I stoop,
And my branches droop,
And the dull gray mosses over me grow!

"But I'm still alive in trunk and shoot;
The buds of next May
I fold away -
But I pity the withered grass at my root."

"You think I am dead,"
The quick grass said,
"Because I have parted with stem and blade!
But under the ground,
I am safe and sound
With the snow's thick blanket over me laid.

"I'm all alive, and ready to shoot,
Should the spring of the year
Come dancing here -
But I pity the flower without branch or root."

"You think I am dead,"
A soft voice said,
"Because not a branch or root I own.
I never have died, but close I hide
In a plumy seed that the wind has sown.

"Patient I wait through the long winter hours;
You will see me again -
I shall laugh at you then,
Out of the eyes of a hundred flowers.

Edith Matilda Thomas  (1854 - 1925)

Hobbit Days

As with much of the nation we are experiencing a blast of cold winter weather.

It's predicted for much of the coming week, so hearty soups are the go-to meal of the day.

 

 

I've made a fifteen bean soup today, chocked full of country ham, celery, onions, tomatoes, carrots, garlic, and chili spice.

Served with a slice of buttermilk cornbread, it's the ideal comfort food, on a blustery cold day.
Come join us for a bowl.

 

 

 

 

We'll leave the light on for you ! 

 

 

 

 

If you feel like making your own pot, here's the original recipe.

• 1 lb. smoked sausage, ground sausage (browned in pan), ham hocks or diced ham. Our favorite is to use a leftover hambone with some meat on it.

• 1 pkg of Hurst 15 Beans
  1 lg. onion, diced
  1 clove garlic, minced
  1 tsp chili powder (optional)
  1 can diced tomatoes (15 oz.)
  Juice from 1 lemon
  Bay Leaf

• 
  

• I also add:  

  Two stalks of celery
  Three cubed potatoes 
  Two sliced carrots

• Optional: Hot sauce or crushed red pepper to taste

 Original 15 Bean Soup® recipe Hurst Beans