Choosing to create slow cozy moments.

They finally ate the gelatin little donuts of seeds. It is four degrees right now and we have not even got the arctic blast that they're talking about and I think they're even saying we are expecting possibly a large snowstorm. Yay. Not yay. When I first started working in the kitchen on this recipe, I realized I was in sort of a fast moment and I don't know why. I felt like I had to speed through this. I had time. I wanted to make time and enjoy here in the kitchen and I was putting this oil on really fast and I noticed that. So I made the conscious choice to slow down. I had no reason to. The oil would still be spread but making this conscious choice of going slow was almost a zen moment for me and once again I didn't have to go this slow but it made me realize I'm living in the moment, enjoying time in my kitchen, making a hearty meal for my husband and myself. Now it looks like I'm putting a lot of salt on and trust me the recipe called for a lot more but what I'm trying to accomplish here is I want one the spaghetti squash to get flavor, two it's going to make it sweat pulling out a lot of the moisture and then I'll dab some of it up and I'm going to leave some and it helps make more of a spaghetti-like texture versus a very mushy spaghetti-like texture. It's now time to roast these and then I'm going to make a sauce. Now I halved the recipe. I'm going to post the recipe as it is from the book but I cut everything in half since I'm only using one squash even though I bought two. Now I was going to look this up on the internet but help me out here. Is plum-shaped tomatoes the same as actually plum tomatoes? I still bought them because that's all they had. I'm getting ready now to cook some garlic. I'm putting oil into my pot here. I'm going to then get some of the garlic. I'm going to just crush them, put them into the pot, let them cook for about 12 minutes and then I'm going to scoop them out and put them in the sauce later. So I'm just going to go forward and show you what I'm doing here to a little bit of music. I'm making sure to save all the bits and pieces, the skin, the hard ends of the garlic. Those are going to go in my bag in the freezer for when I make a vegetable stock. I'm going to warm up my oil now and once it's warm I'm going to toss the garlic into the pot and let them get soft and golden brown. Be careful they don't burn. Speaking of burn, I made two batches of the zucchini chips which I must say were very delicious but both times I walked away from the oven taking Willow outside, missed my timer and I overcooked them so I need to get more zucchini but they came out really good. I wish I had a picture of them but I'll show you the process that I did beforehand. There are times I wish I read recipes before I do grocery shopping. Now this called for buying whole plum tomatoes in a can yet it's going to have me put it in a food processor to crush them so I could have just got crushed tomatoes. You could also buy pre-made sauce for this but once again I did this so I could spend time in the kitchen and just have a slow relaxing moment making a delicious meal. The recipe called for fennel seeds that were chopped, red pepper flakes and oregano. I totally forgot the oregano. I realized it as I was serving it on the plate and I was a little bummed out because I had oregano that I dried from our garden that I would have loved to use but it also calls for wine. Do you remember the basil plant that I bought last week? This is one of the recipes that called for basil. I'm going to pick some of the leaves. I'm going to wash them, let them dry. I'm going to julienne them which is make them in long thin strips and then I'm going to chop them up just a little bit and then I'm going to save some or do actually a little bit more later to top the recipe as well. My garlic is all done. I'm going to add it to the food processor, give it a quick whiz and then put all of this into my pot. Then I'm going to add my herbs, the wine and cook it for a little bit longer. Once they cooled I'm going to scrape out the spaghetti squash. I'm starting with a fork. I went to a spoon. It was a lot easier and I think I mentioned it a little bit later I might edit it out. I was supposed to also leave some of the flesh of the squash along the sides of the skin. I didn't. I went right down to the skin but once again it tasted the same. I have made many meals with spaghetti squash over the years but I've always been intimidated by opening them so sometimes I probably make them more if I found an easy way. Well this recipe shared an easier way. It was as simple as putting the knife in. I gave it a little start on either side then with the knife in you whack it on the counter and it split open. Now will it happen again a second time? I don't know. I have another squash that I'll try that on but I was pleasantly surprised that it split right open in its halves ready to scoop out the seeds. I wish I videotaped that part. What I like about this recipe is you can make the sauce ahead of time, put it in the fridge and the next day you can make your spaghetti squash and put them together. This day I just had to wait for the squash to cool down a little bit but now I'm just putting it in the sauce. I'm going to let it cook down. I believe it was a half hour. Once again I will put the recipe on my blog and then I proceeded to put it back into the squash shells and bake it. Now you'll see in a moment my mozzarella did not melt like it shows in the photo so I must have had the wrong one but once again it tasted good. Unfortunately true to my nature I scanned through the recipe, wrote down things I needed. I saw small mozzarella balls. I didn't see a type. I didn't realize there were a lot of types of possible mozzarella. I still haven't even researched that but I know it didn't melt like it shows in the photo and it does mention if I couldn't find the mozzarella balls I could use a sliced mozzarella which I wish I did because that is what I usually buy anyways when I do a lot of my tomato mozzarella side dishes. I put it back into the oven expecting it to come out looking like this but nay nay it came out looking like this. The mozzarella didn't melt but that's okay. Once again that's okay. A for effort. It fed us. It was delicious, nutritious and I will absolutely make this again but I'll get the correct mozzarella next time. I was being super careful to keep my fingers away from the blade on this mandolin. It did come with some gloves and I also have the attachment I'll be using in a while but if you use these they are super sharp so please keep your fingers away. Now let me tell you about the zucchini chips and I'm going to make them the third time which makes me kind of feel or think about Goldilocks. This batch was too thin, the other was almost too thick and neither of them were cooked at the right temperature. I should have shown you the afters but I was rushing from one thing to another but trust me they were overcooked so I feel the third batch is going to be just right. For this batch I tried using my roasting pan thinking the air coming through would help. I think this is one of the reasons maybe they overcooked. I did another batch on parchment paper. They came out a lot better but that is the batch that I was outside with willow for too long. I came back and those were not edible. The first batch, these that I'm making here, were edible and I'm using smoked paprika in these and I really liked the flavor. The recipe calls for regular paprika. This made me think of almost barbecue chips. I was very pleased with the flavor so when I make these again I will be using the smoked paprika. All I'm doing here is some olive oil, salt and pepper, just enough to coat everything so that the paprika stays on the zucchini chips. I'm making a second batch. The first batch I made them too thin. This batch might be too thick but with the smoked paprika, let me tell you, it made me think of barbecue style potato chips without the potato. I'm going to try these. I'm going to try it at a lower temperature too. Let's see how this goes. Last time I put them up on a little roasting pan with some tinfoil under it and some of them were just too thin and they burnt but I still ate so many of them. They were good. They were really good. Now I'm going to try it just on parchment paper. Air fryer maybe. I don't have one. My oven has air fryer mode but I really haven't seen a huge difference. That's something I think I might have to learn about a little bit more. I'm going to give these a go and see how these taste. They tasted burnt. That's all there is to it. I'm going to do it again. Another side that I'm making is some brussel sprouts. I'm just going to roast them in the oven. I cut them in half and then I've tossed them in a little olive oil. I had some hickory smoked salt that we sell. We're sold out actually but if any of you have that, I put it in here with the brussel sprouts. I haven't done that before and then I put some bacon in here. I lessened my olive oil because I know the bacon's going to make oil itself and I'm just going to roast it and this will be something that we will snack on a little bit later today with lunch or I'll just reheat it tonight with some chicken for dinner. But the brussel sprouts were starting to pass. I took off the outer skin and I wanted to cook them up now while I had some time and once again I'm making a slow moment of it. It's sunny out right now but in a couple more days they're saying it won't be. This is by no means what I would call heart healthy but I had the bacon. I want to use it up and it just smells so delicious. I wanted to show you how much the paper whites have grown in one week but I have something else that is very exciting to me. Actually the roots are pushing themselves out but all right here's my one of my little tiny squill bulbs. Ready? Let me see if I can get this. It has little roots. Now I don't know if it's going to bloom or not but I'm making sure that that just stays in there enough to get some water when I do keep adding it to come up to the top. Now on this side I first found, let's see, oh that one has roots too. Wait a minute. This one got rotted so I'm going to put this one back in. Sorry for all the movement. So I'm going to put this one back in. This one got rotted like I mentioned but the one behind it has roots. Little tiny roots. I'm going to make sure that that stays in there but once again not too much that it will get wet. I know I tucked a few more in here. I don't know. Little roots on that one too. So I think if I did this again for the tiny little squill bulbs I'd probably use the gravel like you find in aquariums. I'm just going to pop this back in here so that when I add a little more water I know it's going to get that. Yeah so this is one that we already saw. I have some others tucked in here but I'm going to have to kind of adjust these guys at one point but that's where we're at. So we might have some striped squill. I'm not sure but these should be blooming soon. Exciting. I just turned this around because these little smarty pants are going towards the sun. They're trying to lean towards it so I turned it around to try to straighten the one in the back and I'll keep turning this because they're going to keep trying to go towards the windows. And who remembers that beautiful mauve little rose that I got at the grocery store last spring? I'm going to have to probably move these roses but I wanted to show you this color. I found these at the grocery store. It's two pots that I put inside of my aluminum container here and then I just put more of the Spanish moss that I used in last week's video. Or was it this week's video? I'm already forgetting. But anyways isn't this a gorgeous color? Now they want indirect sunlight and I have it right here in the kitchen window but I just had to have it here to see how pretty it was. And this is that mauvey color that I'm hoping to add a lot to the garden and these can go indoors and outdoors. So if I can keep these alive I will be planting it outdoors at one point. That was a big if I can keep it alive. Never got it planted and it kept getting spider mites but I kept cutting it down, kept cutting it down. I had it on the porch and this is it from last spring. So I don't know when I bought it but it's coming up close to a year and hopefully it will go out in the garden this year now that we don't have all the construction going on. Knock on wood. No construction going on other than something we select. That's the goal. And I have some more veggies in my basket here. I think I'm going to make a roasted red pepper soup for this weekend possibly when the snow storm comes. That's the plan at least. But we are kind of springified here even though I'm not rushing winter away. Do you remember my poem I did last year with that? Do I love hibernating and nesting now in the winter? Very much so. Very much so. As long as we don't lose power I'm looking forward to it. A little impromptu here so I just put them on the kitchen counter while the sun is out. I have quite a few books that are being put onto our library of the shop. One of them being this Country Comforts book and I already have a lot of pages marked in this one. I have quite a few of these and then also I have my Vermont Country Table. This is Jacine Bullock Prado. Yep, that is Sandra Bullock's sister. She lives in Vermont. And then I have some pillowcases that will be coming out. I have this sly little fox. I have this little squirrel. Once again, apologize for the shadows. It's very impromptu. I have a pheasant and another squirrel. I had to do the squirrels. I just kept thinking of Willow and her squirrel friends and us finding the baby squirrel. I ordered these about a month and a half ago though so this was before the baby squirrel thing. But I have those and then I have something else to show you. I was working in here on my computer a while ago. I got in these gorgeous faux flowers. We have peonies and tulips and in a moment I'm going to show you these tulips mixed in with live tulips. I couldn't figure out which was real, which was fake when I was even filming them. I mean look at these. These are called Real Touch and they are gorgeous. Even the leaves have the look of real tulips. So I have quite a few of these in stock right now and once I saw these I ordered more. But those won't be arriving until March because these do take a while to get to us. But the peonies have almost a vintage look. Almost like they're starting to pass but not quite. And these are sold by stem. So every stem has also a peony bud. So I have them in pink and I also got them in cream that have a touch of pink to them. And for the tulips I just have the cream. I got cream. There was also white. I believe these are cream and the pink. Over here my real tulips are starting to die. But I'm going to show you right now just a little video I took the other day when those tulips were a bit healthier with these tucked in and try to figure out which is which. Well I have real tulips here and fake tulips here. The fake ones will be on our shop starting February 1st until supplies last. They look so real. And wait till I show you some of the other flowers. Can you tell which is real which is fake? Now I'll give you a hint. The real ones started opening so they are a little bit tighter. But these are the fake ones. These are the fake ones right here. So we're going to have these groupings available. Look at that. Very very extremely realistic. And let me show you the peonies. I am so excited. So here they are. Now we have the pink tulips that I showed you. I have single pink peony stems that also have a bud. They are beautiful. I have some cream colored ones that have just a hint of pink. Now that I've seen the quality of these I'm going to order some more items from this company and possibly look into each season. I'm not sure yet but I'm so thrilled. So thrilled. Look at that. Beautiful. And then these are the small bags. Earlier in the week I went to the office. I had to grab some things to photograph and I was just awestruck by the beauty of the snow on the trees. I just feel so lucky to live in an area that has the Four Seasons. And if you don't have the Four Seasons I am feeling blessed that I get to share it with you for you to enjoy as well.