Cold front came through! When Ashley was little, because I love Winnie the Pooh and because I love words, I taught her to say, "It's a blustery day!" when it was, in fact, blustery. Very funny to hear coming from a little golden, curly-haired, round-tummied toddler. And it has been most blustery out here in the desert.
Today is amazingly busy -- I am substitute teaching in PE at the elementary school (yes, me and my boot!), have physical therapy after school, then Ashley has a basketball game until well past my bedtime. I confess I had my alarm set for my 5:30 a.m. bicycle class, but just couldn't do it today. Anytime I do that, I usually lay in bed wide awake feeling guilty for skipping, but not today! Slept that extra hour just fine, thankyouverymuch! With such a busy day that is also cold, it just calls for soup in the crock pot, doesn't it? Today it's tortilla soup. Oh, I have so many yummy soups I love to make!
I put my 'menu plan' on our family calendar in pencil at the bottom of each day's square. I really do it for myself -- my shopping, and to know what to set out in the morning, but of course the kids use it to judge exactly how seriously they should snack after school! A few years ago, Riley hadn't really gotten the hang of reading cursive and I was trying a new crock-pot recipe that the book called, not very creatively, "Crock Beef" -- and that was on our menu.
Riley checked the calendar/ menu and asked, "We're seriously having 'Crock Barf' for dinner?" Which was funny enough -- until I made it. It was awful, inedible, and dinner for Duchess that night. It was basically 'Crock Barf'. A night for Crock Pot meals always makes me think of the night I made Crock Barf for dinner.
Besides a bubbling soup in the crock pot, a cold night at home also calls for homemade chocolate chip cookies in the oven, and/ or a fire to roast marshmallows over. Yes, at this house, if a fire gets going, marshmallows get roasted. I LOVE a golden brown, almost liquified roasted marshmallow.
What about you? When the cold wind blows, you just HAVE to have a big pot of .... ? what? on the stove? Or what baking in the oven?
Also, if you have a recipe to share, feel free to ask to be a contributor to this recipe blog, or just email it to me and I'll post it over there, giving you ALL the credit/ glory, of course.
