me: talking my head off and making lists,

Steoffrey Language has got to be some of the cutest people ever.
Their Christmas video is just plain adorable.
Oh ma word.
How cute is this? For real???
Scooting? Golly. Don't ya love that stage. Except for, well, the eating of all the crap on the floor, all those tiny things that need the vacuum but replenish no matter what and are always found by expert little fingers.
And the way Caleb (my brother) loves lawnmowers and everythang, I can just see him doing something like this someday. Seriously. How. Sweet. And hilarious.
Oh man.
*shakes head and smiles*

Okay. So it's 5pm. The focaccia bread dough is rising. Dad will be home around 6. I have to pack, so of course I'm picking out some music to listen to.
And I gave in to two small squares of this:

Yeah, 65% chocolate.....yum. and with coffee in it. i haven't had coffee since...friday?? christmas morning i woke up with a sore throat and headache. yeah, that was fun!! drank green tea and honey nearly all day long. :D

Tomorrow, Tuesday, I shall wake at 6am. 
Shower.
Dress.
Be hopefully very awake.
Wake Anna and Mom up.
Brave the super-cold and put all my bags in the van.
Eat something hardy.
.........and leave sometime around 7am when Anna and Mom are ready.  
Drive about 2-3 hours south.
Meet Jen and her passenger and Anna and I will transfer our stuff to her car.
Drive south some more. 
.....the rest I cannot plan:) 
I've just heard from Anna that I might be head of decorating the reception area or something like that. As in, the person in charge. I'll be told what she wants, but I'll be freaking left in charge if everything. Um, okay. Lovely! Hope I cope well and it's simple. And the people listen to me. I have no idea who's going to be under my charge. Oh boy.

i love audrey assad's music.

I still have a watercolor painting to finish; it's a romantical quote that Jen wanted. :)
My laundry's in the washer. I should get to packing.
Have a lovely week and New Year's, because I don't know when I'm going to blog next!!

Jen and Craig's wedding is January 1...our family will be heading home on Sunday.

:)

minestrone soup:)

Okay, so I might like taking pictures of the randomly-junked-up counter, huh?
Um, yeah.
I made this December 17. Man, it's crazy how December's nearly over!!

:) There ya have it: my work space when I cook. Music, knives, a hot stove over back there, and ingredients.

Onions, diced diced diced. And beans. I used 2 or 3 cans in this not-too-big pot of soup. Navy beans. I think you can use whatever kind you want, though.

Basic soup stuffs: carrots, celery, onions, all sauteing away. :)

Noodles!! Loves noodles. I do, I do....

Ah, yes. More counterspace for your viewing. Hahahhaha.

Moi. And Lyd and Ito in the background at the table, playing chess:)

Yum. Yum. YUM. Chicken broth, of course, and....a bit of Italian seasoning.

And it was good.
And let me tell you: the family food critic had absolutely nothing to say about it!! He was pretty much silent, and I have got to say that I counted it an accomplishment. ;)

Ze chicken, finishing up cooking....

Ginger peach tea:)

Coffee!! For after dinner. Yes. Some days I brew to the 4-6 on the pot at dinner time. Don't tell me I'm addicted. We're all facing the fact silently. ;)

With the chicken added. Picked off the bones, and sliced into bite-size tidbits. Yummers.

Pre-dinner salad!! It's the bomb.

Seriously. Really really really. I love it so much:)

And......right about to sit down to dinner. :) Okay, so it's pre-dinner coffee..........hehe.

And....after-dinner kitchen duty. Fun, fun!!

The other night, Anna got me hooked on Lark Rise to Candleford. 

How weird is it that in a few days I won't be writing 2010 in my journal anymore?? WEIRD!

Okay, well, I'm going to be painting a canvas for Jen and Craig asap, so I'm going out to the shop to watch help Ben make the canvas. ;)

Hope y'all have a lovely Sunday night!! It's snowy here! And I get to see my best friend PJ in just a couple days...along with her family, her older sister who's getting married on New Year's, and all their lovely cousins and friends, too. How great is that? :)

trolls exist....

how many of you have seen this movie??
it's really good. really cute. and i liked it, when i finally got to see it. :)
lyd got it for Christmas, and so of course she's watching it....
one of my favorite parts. hehe. "trolls exist! they steal your socks. but only the left ones; what's with that?!"
lyd's imitation is hilarious.
hope you all had a merry Christmas!

mac n cheese lentils.

but this is way healthier than normal mac n cheese.

and other than how much cheese you put in it, it has no dairy.
and it's lentils.
how much better can you get?
ha. ha. ha.

hand art.

dicing peppers...about 6-9 for our family, but maybe 3 for a normal recipe. heheh. 

around 32oz of chicken broth, lots of peppers, parmesan cheese (we only used one of those containers, though some went ahead and put another handful on. psh.) 2 cups lentils, and one onion minced. oh, and garlic.

and coffee. ;)

it was pretty darn easy and very yummy like always, so i don't think anyone would mind if i made lentils every day for the rest of my culinary life??

 ^^mine....^^ben's.

he laughed and started singing racist coffee, by julian smith. pshaw. :)

just because. i like pouring pictures.

me and the brother. :)

saute the peppers and onion and garlic first, then throw the lentils and broth in.
salt it up. not too much though.
make sure you stir and scrape the bottom a lot. don't want it to burn.

ze recipe:)

the parmesan cheese. pasta you'll want to cook when the lentils are almost done.

lentils done, i threw the pasta into the same pot after i rinsed it.

toss it all in there on top of the still-hot lentil mixture. stir it up:)

it'll get nice and cheesy. add more cheese if ya want to. ;)
.......this stuff is really good.
it's one of the only lentil dishes lyd likes.

funny thing, today i had to buy 20GB of space on here for photos. good thing it was only $5 for the year/20GB. this past year of blogging has had me filling up the 1GB they have you start out with. fun, fun!

well then.
we're off to Dad's family gathering.
i guess now that it's the eve of the day, i'll say it....
merry christmas!!

creamy potato soup....with real bacon.

So. Set the bacon to frying. :)

Chop that celery.
When your bacon's crispy, save the bacon grease for sauteing the celery and onions.
I love the k5 knife by Cold Steel.

Music playing on the laptop..... coffee in a sweet purple mug......thanks, justin and sarah! :)

My view of the counter. 

See those embers? Uh yeah...I had socks on, but I stepped in them...and suddenly something was getting warm....I wiped my feet on this brick, but I was still freaking out. All's well that ends well, I guess. 

Carrots and celery...cooking away...I guess I only sauteed the onions in the grease this time 'round.

Real live bacon. Heh. I wanted to do some sort of sausage, but Dad requested bacon.
This stuff was more fatty than the stuff we've had in the past, though. :P Not my favorite.

Make a sort of roux....for a white sauce. ^^ Diced crispy bacon.

Milk and flour, whisk it well then pour it into the onions that are mostly wilted from sauteing in the grease.
Or you could do more healthy sauteing. As in....olive oil or something. Whatever.

Whisk....whisk.....it'll get hot again and bubbly. That's good. Add milk once in a while so you can build it up; keep in mind what ratio of potatoes/white sauce you're having for your soup.

Po-tah-tos! Mash several.

Mixy-mixy. This is with the celery and carrots thrown in, all nice and cooked up.

And the bacon. I blended some of this with a potato or two to get it a bit smoother.

Hot ginger-peach tea. Oh yum. Right now, 9:48pm on Wednesday night, I'm waiting for the kettle to heat so I can have just that.... ^^

This was Monday night. I had it in a mug, because someone didn't have all the dishes washed... hehe.
Mmmm it was good.

My gosh. Funny quote, huh?

There is no sincerer love than the love of food.

[George Bernard Shaw]

3 words: coffee. chocolate. creamcheese. ;)

It's cheesecake, dahlings!!

It happens to the best of us.....dishes waiting for attention...

Here's the recipe, but I'll type it out so you can copy and print it. ;) Or here's a the same recipe, but detailed. :)
2 c Oreos, crushed
4 tbsp and a tsp butter, melted
4 8-oz. cream cheese
1 c sugar
1 1/2 c chocolate chips, melted
1 tbsp vanilla
4 eggs
[optional: 16 Oreos coarsely chopped for topping.]

I ground some coffee beans into the finest powder my grinder could do. :)

Lovely cream cheese. Gosh, I was proud of myself today--hardly had any of the delicious batter.
Most times I OD on it....well, batter of any kind.... ;)

You can also use instant espresso powder, though I used about 1 cup of strongly brewed coffee, and the powder I ground. I didn't use any instant stuff this time.

Oreos!! I love them. I had ....well, only 3 or 4. I promise. Ahem.

Crush those up. 

View of the lovely counter. Heheh. 

Oh yum.

Can I help it that they're so good? Okay, so I ate that naturally-broken half.....

 Crushed up, awaiting some melted butter.

Vanilla. Another one of my favorite things. I always add extra to recipes that call for it. 

Some of the Oreo crust in a small one, for Jen and Craig. ;) ^^Batter, waiting to be poured into that small 6" and a larger one for our family. 

Bake at 325 for about an hour. 
I used 5 cream cheese and 5 eggs, altered it a bit, and it fit into that glass bread pan and the pie pan....I couldn't find our normal-sized cheesecake pan!! Golly. Hate it when things are lost like that. 

Ben said this was a good picture. Heh. :) Black coffee, Mahogany by Caribou. Unforgotten, the book I'm reading. And..my laptop, playing music and getting ready to blog this. 

It's not snowing, but it's foggy.
Here's a more detailed recipe for the cheesecake. I just made it shorter and less detailed because I've made it before. :) So...those of you who want it, here it is.

A friend shared the discovery of Audrey Assad with Anna, so my new favorite song by her is Restless.