It's been an interesting week!

We've been busy!  Exciting things like Friday night dates to Home Depot, Saturday work-work, and Sunday yard work.  And we decided to cut down some trees!  Two were already dead, and one turned our backyard into a hard hat zone starting sometime in August.  We didn't know until after we decided to cut it down that it's a somewhat prized Black Walnut... but I don't want to hear your whining because it's already been chopped down.  It tried to kill us!  Throwing down heavy tennis balls at our heads, and then trying to trip us with them, not cool.  They allegedly taste good, but a little research showed a huge amount of work, permanent stains, and potentially moldy nuts.  AND, it turns out this tree is toxic to lots of other plants! (So no composting the leaves or using them as mulch for your garden).  We decided that it had to go.  But... it didn't go easily!  Here's what we came home to on Wednesday:

This picture is deceiving.  The pile was like 3 times bigger than it looks!  It was as tall as me, and twice as long as it was wide!  There was definitely more than our 3 trees in there... I know for a fact that we did not cut down a cedar, but we sure shoveled a lot of it... at least it smelled good :)

But you're still missing information:  The forecast for Thursday was torrential rain.  And maybe ice.  Sooo... this giant pile blocking our driveway was about to weight 10 times more!  We scrambled, and came up with a wheelbarrow with a flat tire, broken tarp, and an empty garbage can... but we got the job done!  Only took us 7 hours... we're well warmed up for winter!  Here's what it looks like now:

It rained a little while we were clearing, so you can see the footprint

We wanted the mulch for back here, since one of the previous owners decided it was a good idea to put lots of glass in the way-back yard.  We tried picking it out, but it was impossible.  Now there's a layer of protection!

And it's a good thing we didn't wait, a giant snow storm is coming tomorrow! While I'm waiting out the snow, I might eat all of the halloween candy before the trick or treaters come. If they slip on the icy walkway to my front door while trick or treating, can they sue me?  Do you think I can pay them off with candy?  Maybe I'd better buy some more...  Or maybe I'll just give them black walnuts.

Rosemary Snack Crackers

I just tried these, and they're surprisingly good!  Surprising, because I had trouble picturing lentils with a crunchy texture and cracker-like taste.  But they've succeeded!  And allegedly, they're healthy too!

Fall is REALLY here!

How do I know it's fall? Because I made butternut squash soup!  And I was going to write a post about it, and then I realized that I posted almost the same exact recipe last year! I did a few things differently this year:

• No beer (still trying to do gluten free)
• 2 small apples (was the perfect apple ratio)
• No tortellini (again, trying to be gluten free... i used brown rice noodles)
• I kept the sausage in the whole time, and even blended it in with the blender
• For spices I used a bit of oregano, cinnamon, black pepper, and a dash of nutmeg and cloves.

And again, it was delicious!

I also spent some time this weekend scouring the web for an easy gluten free AND low sodium/sodium free dessert ideas, since I was having dinner with my parents and my dad is on a new low sodium diet.  The year-of-slowcooking-lady has been a really great resource for gluten free recipe's, and I found this easy (crockpot, always easy) recipe for cinnamon sugar almonds.  Beat an egg white with 1tsp vanilla, stir in as many almonds as you want (I used 4 cups).  Then mix with a whole bunch of cinnamon, sugar, and salt  (I think I used the recommended 3 tbsp cinnamon with 1.5 cups of sugar, with half the recommended salt), place in a greased/sprayed crock pot, and cover and cook on high for 2 hours, stirring every 20-30 minutes.  Let cool.  Voila!

Dad loved them, and so did husband :)  I will DEFINITELY make them again! 

October Starts Tomorrow!

When you buy a house, you suddenly get a whole bunch of catalogs that you've never heard of, that mostly contain items you can't afford... but you  look through them compulsively every month anyway.  Yesterday, we got a new catalog from Plow & Hearth, which mostly sells expensive things for the outdoor living room room no one in the northeast has.  BUT, it also had these, and I think they're AWESOME!  I might actually buy them! $17 for both isn't so bad... if only they came with the pumpkins!  Not sure about the name though... what's so spooky about being cross-eyed?

Spooky Spider Pumpkin Holders

Crock Pot Adventure!

Tis the season!  Here's what's in the pot:

1 onion, chopped
2 carrots
half a red pepper
half a green pepper
4 or 5 chopped garlic cloves (did you know in spanish, they call them teeth?)
beef stew meat
1 sweet potato, chopped
3? small red potatoes, chopped
half a zuchinni, chopped
Red cooking wine (1/4 cup?)
Beef broth (1 or 2 cups?)

I added them in the order listed above, but saved half the garlic to put directly on top of the meat.  For some reason, I took the effort to brown the entire frozen slab of stew meat (it's chunks, but they were so frozen solid that they never broke apart), and then deglazed the pan with a tiny bit of red cooking wine and beef broth, and poured that into the crock over the beef.

Who knows what it will taste like, but it sure was colorful!  And gluten free!  And my 6 quart crock was quite full.

UPDATE:  It was really good!  The sweet potatoes and meat all fell apart when stirred, and made a nice thick, sweet stew.  I sprinkled a little bit of "pasta sprinkle" and black pepper on before serving.  It was ugly though, so no photo.