Monday Musings: 11.09.2009

This past weekend was market weekend.  I do love visiting the public market!  Even this late into the fall, there are still great things available – a fabulous variety of apples, squash everywhere, and of course, greens.  Lots of greens.  I grabbed another trashbag full of mustard greens – for $2.  How could I pass it up?  And it’s not that much.  Not really.

So, I got on the scale Saturday morning for my weekly weigh-in.  This is what I like to see!

(I know, I know.  I changed the battery.  I liked it better like this, though. It’s just nice to have the validation, you know!)

Reason #9,037 why time change week sucks:  Now that everyone is getting up an hour “early,” I have to deal with actual traffic on my way to work in the mornings again.

Here’s hoping that this week will see a return to normal traffic patterns.  It’s MY highway at that hour of the morning, darnit!

And fall is well and truly here.  I noticed last week that the Christmas cactus is just starting to form buds!

It usually does right around time change week – something to do with when we shut the lights off in the kitchen and when the sun goes down and how many hours of darkness versus how many hours of real or artificial light the plant gets . . . I don’t know.  I took geology.

I just know that this means summer is really, truly over.

You may recall that I picked up a bag of butternut squash at the market a few weeks ago.  And a couple of weeks later, I also scored several acorn squash.   They’re so neat to stuff – which we did one night for dinner (I’ll tell you all about it later on).

And one of the by-products of either squash is the seeds – it’s not just pumpkin seeds you can roast, you know!  I’ve been using a boil-then-roast method, and they’re so good that way!

This time, though, I decided to play around a bit with the seasoning – rather than just oil and roast them, I coated the seeds with about a Tablespoon of maple sugar and maybe half a teaspoon of cayenne, plus a teaspoon or so of canola oil.  The result was surprisingly tasty – sweet and spicy and I couldn’t stop eating them until they were gone!

You remember how Peeps mentioned the, uh, gravy incident the other day?   Yeah, it was a mess.  Frankly, I think he was a little shocked when I called the one-man dog “cleanup crew”  and told him that this is why people have dogs!

But really, does he look like he minds?

But don’t worry – Jarly’s not the only one who received a special benefit that day!   The gravy was from a veal roast that I’d put in the slow cooker that morning.  In addition to the regular players (onion, celery, carrots), there were also a couple of anchovies . . . and look who helped me clean out the tin before recycling it.

Doesn’t she almost look like she’s smiling there?

And once again, it’s time for the weekly menu plan.  I just can’t believe how fall is flying by!  We’re well into November, and my Christmas cactus will be blossoming before we know it!  However, we do have the good fortune to be enjoying an “unseasonably warm” spell for a few days, and we know what that means – grilling weather!

Monday – The forecast is calling for mostly sunny and nearly 70°!  In November!  How can we not grab one last chance to throw some burgers on the grill?  In addition, we’ll pan-roast some potatoes and toss a salad.  Kind of a farewell to summer dinner.

Tuesday –  Although it will be a little cooler, we should be able to squeeze one more grilled dinner in.  I’ve got some chicken marinating in an orange-tarragon marinade, which will be terrific with some steamed broccoli and a specialty rice that we picked up on quick-sale.  Really, rice on quick-sale!

Wednesday – Back to November weather AND it’s swim night.  Peeps is going to put together some red beans, which will be seasoned with some leftover ham and some fresh and dried herbs, and the whole works will go in the slow cooker until we get home from swim class and cook some rice.

Thursday –  In the interest of clearing out the freezer, we’ll defrost and reheat some of the veggie lasagna we stashed in there a while back, along with another fresh tossed salad.

Friday –  As always, Friday night is pizza night!  I’m not quite sure how I’ll top it yet – maybe some broccoli?  Some leftover chicken?  Just plain cheese?  We’ll have to see what’s in the fridge, I guess.

Be sure to click on over to The Organizing Junkie’s Monday Menu Plan post for loads and loads of other ideas.