Yearly Archives: 2011

So, my butternut squash apple cider soup…

…was not quite the hearty, creamy, flavorful, tasty meal I was envisioning. In fact, it was kind of gross. Pretty, and just the right consistency, but gross.

And I’m really sad about this.

Not only did I spend a couple bucks and nearly three hours preparing it, but now I have a giant vat of not-so-tasty soup taking up room in our fridge that I have no idea what to do with. The soup was inspired by an absolutely phenomenal butternut squash apple cider soup infused with roasted red peppers that we had in Door County last month. It was so delicious that I was just dying to recreate it!

I like butternut squash. I like apples. I like apple cider. I like onions. So what’s the problem here? Sunday night I plucked two different recipes for this soup off of Food Network and Epicurious.com and, like I usually do because I like to tweak recipes and put my own twist on things, I combined them to form one recipe of epic awesomeness. I don’t change big things, just little ones here and there. This has never failed me in the past, but this time I’m not quite sure what the culprit was.

I have a sneak suspicion it was the yellow onions that both recipes called for. I think they added an awkward sweetness and odd flavor mix to the apples and butternut squash that could have been avoided by using a spicer onion, like a white onion. But if that’s the case, then why did both soup recipes receive rave reviews and nobody else seems to think the yellow onions were a problem? I took a bowlful of the soup out of the pot and tried adding a bit of roasted red pepper paste to spice it up, which helped tone down the sweetness a touch, but did nothing for the flavor. So I scooped out a bit more of the soup and added some cream to it. It helped neutralize the flavor a good deal so it was manageable to choke down a spoonful, which was better than nothing, but by adding cream the soup went from super healthy to less healthy and more creamy. And it still wasn’t good enough to eat an entire bowl of.

Sigh.

So, do you think I can salvage this? I talked to a few soup connoisseurs at work today and one suggested adding a squeeze of apple cider vinegar while the other suggested adding more curry powder. They’re both good ideas and worth a try, but it’s not just the sweetness I’m concerned with. It’s the actual flavor.

Anyone have any advice on how to fix this? Do you think it can still be salvaged as a soup, and if not, can it be salvaged as anything else? Perhaps a base for something?

I love the smell of fall in our kitchen on a cool October day. I raise the blinds, open up the windows and enjoy the windy gusts that send brightly colored leaves spiraling down from the treetops by the hundreds while the church bell a few blocks away chimes out the time with a series of lyrical gongs. I cut apples, and pumpkins, and squash, and garlic, and unwrap caramels and appreciate the mornings I have off to take advantage of the tasty fall crops. Sometimes I turn on music, and sometimes I just enjoy the silence and the sounds of nature. It’s relaxing and helps me regroup or stay grounded in the midst of a busy life.

Despite the strains of adjusting to life in an apartment again, I am grateful to still have a pretty view and a full backyard, even if we do have to share it with other families. Though I loved our backyard at the house because of it was huge, and gorgeous, and Secret Garden-esque, and very private, it was also uneven, ridden with large holes from the wildlife that set up camp there, and the grass was questionable as to whether it was going to be dirt, weeds, or simply dead that season. Here we have a large, expansive track of soft green grass bordered by a forest of healthy trees that are now breathtaking shades of yellow, orange, and red. We have a few too many dogs living here for there to be bunnies, unfortunately, but we do have a handful of very large, bushy-tailed, bold, squirrels who frequent our grass and occasionally patter right up to the back door, nut in mouth, to say hello. They’ll hop up on the top of the grill, directly outside the living room window and stare at you while you stare at them, and then they’ll take a seat on the Adirondack chair to snack on their prized nut. Gutsy, aren’t they? But I love squirrels, so I take delight in this. Today I watched one, not more than 6″ from our window, use his claws to diligently dig a small hole for his nut, bury the nut, carefully cover over it with grass and dirt, then pick up a leaf and place it on top, for good measure.

So far this season I have made pumpkin mac n’ cheese, chili, autumn apple Waldorf salad, caramel apple cider cookies, taco bowls and Philly cheese steaks (it is football season, after all!), homemade applesauce, roasted pumpkin seeds, and now a butternut squash apple cider soup infused with a roasted red pepper glaze and a touch of cream. It’s simmering on the stove. We’ll see how it turns out. Still to try on my “fall goodies” list are homemade soft pretzels with a beer cheese queso, pork chops and applesauce, butternut squash ravioli with apple cider broth, baked pumpkin oatmeal, creamy cauliflower soup, zucchini bread, turkey and white bean chili, french onion soup, pumpkin snickerdoodles, sweet potato casserole, and thai lettuce wraps.

The most challenging recipe so far has been this butternut squash apple cider soup. Good Lord. I would liken cutting a butternut squash to cutting through elephant tusks. I actually had to look up directions on how to peel, cut, and seed them because I thought “I must be doing something wrong” when my vegetable peeler simply couldn’t hack it’s way through the skin. Turns out butternut squash are just tough little buggers. Though I did learn that their seeds can be salted and roasted just like pumpkin seeds – so I’ll be eagerly trying that out tonight as well. Butternut squash, much like humans I suppose, do not like to be skinned, cut open, or gutted. I cannot say that I blame them. It sounds uncomfortable, doesn’t it? I think I’d put up a fight too.

I don’t do this every day. I typically have Monday and Wednesday mornings off to cook, clean the house, do laundry, run errands, blog, catch up on emails, work on scheduling and planning, and do educational outreach work for the dance/theatre/pedestrian movement company I work for. On Monday and Wednesday afternoons I teach musical theatre classes at an elementary school as part of their fine arts program. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I work at the theatre doing any number of ed. outreach related things, teaching, or straight-up arts administration, and on Fridays, Saturdays and some Sundays I’m still at the museum. In between all that I often have meetings for any one of the four jobs. They are all going very well and I’m thankful to simply be employed, but I really love my Monday and Wednesday mornings to catch up on life.

I’ll post photos and the recipe for the butternut squash apple cider soup if it turns out as tasty as it sounds. Happy Wednesday!

Thank you all so much for the congratulations and well-wishes on our anniversary! We are so lucky to have such sweet family and friends.

We had a really nice anniversary weekend – it was perfect! We both had to work Saturday for a few hours in the morning and early afternoon, but after work Ted picked me up and we spent the rest of the afternoon at EnterTRAINment Junction, a model train museum in northern Cincinnati up near West Chester. We both like model trains so it was neat to walk through miles of track and see all the detail that is put into the models, scenery, and even the little people in the models. Hidden throughout the models and in the scenery were tiny halloween pumpkins and a number of little dinosaurs that you could try to locate, which was a fun challenge to try to find them all. There were also a lot of train fun facts and quizzes. We enjoyed the museum a lot and thought it was a lot of fun to check out such an interesting hobby. It’s something we’d both like to get into one day – in like 50 years when we’re rich and old and super boring, but still absurdly happy (we hope!).

For dinner we tried to finally get in at the fancy, delicious Italian restaurant Bella Luna (it always wins at the Taste of Cincinnati festival) but the wait was over two and a half hours. Lesson learned. So our second choice was Montgomery Inn Boathouse downtown on the river between Cincinnati and Newport, KY. It’s a beautiful location with a gorgeous view and the food is always fantastic – a crowd favorite and a nice place to celebrate something like an anniversary. Because there was a wait there too, though certainly not as long, we enjoyed a tasty drink of Jim Beam Red Stag at the bar and then dined on ribs and duck for dinner with a pretty backdrop of the downtown skyline and the night time city lights reflecting off the river. Our food was completely delicious as usual and it was so nice to just spend time together, talking and enjoying each other without all the distractions of busy schedules and technology.

We had originally intended to try to catch a movie after dinner, likely 50/50 or The Help, but damn, we’re getting old and because of how far away pretty much every movie theatre in the city is from our apartment and the late show times, we pansy’d out when we realized it would be well past 1 a.m. by the time we got home. We’re lame, we know. But even at the ripe old age of 25, 1:30 a.m. is well past my bedtime! So instead we rented the new Transformers movie and came home.

We broke out our crystal toasting flutes and cake service set from our wedding, pulled out our wedding cake topper, and played our first dance song through the speakers in the living room. We danced to our first dance song, shared slices of cherry cake from the top layer of our wedding cake (and wow was it incredibly delicious for having been frozen for a year!! SO good!!) and toasted to our first year of marriage with a bottle of our favorite wedding wine from Door County. We watched Transformers until I fell asleep, which was approximately 20 minutes into the movie, as usual. It was a really lovely night.

On Sunday Ted had to head in to work for a few hours again, but I had the day off so we went to mass together, did our weekly grocery shopping together, and then I stopped in at the Cincinnati Art Museum to check out the new Art Deco exhibit – fashions and design from the 1920s. Obviously, I couldn’t pass this up! I adore1920s fashion. Anybody want to buy me a sweet pair of t-strap heels and a cloche hat? Please! It was a beautiful exhibit! But then again the whole Cincinnati Art Museum is pretty incredible! We spent the rest of the day watching football and cheering on our Packers.

How did we get so lucky? :-)

Last Friday, in honor of my miraculous day off work from all four jobs and our impending one year anniversary, I called an impromptu “Treat Yo Self!” Day.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBBAyWLX6dE]

Sounds expensive, right? How I wish I could afford a Treat Yo Self day with the likes of fine leather goods! Oh, the things I’d cross off my “maybe one day” list! A new quilt that isn’t ripped for our bed, a purse that isn’t falling apart at the seams, some pretty new clothes! Sigh!

Alas, we’re still on a budget and the last time I checked, this is still reality. So Treat Yo Self day had to be luxurious but also done on the cheap.

The last time I got my hair cut at a really nice salon was….never. That’s right. Never. The nicest place I’ve ever had my hair cut was at a place called Snippers. Simply put, I’ve never had the money to blow $75 on a haircut, and when I have had $75 to blow, I’d much prefer to blow it on a new outfit or some other more sustainable treat that lasts longer than six to eight weeks. My hair isn’t particularly finicky. It doesn’t require high maintenance styles or perms or coloring or special treatments even, so the run of the mill hair cutting place has always been fine by me. But that’s all those places are – just fine. You tell them what you want, they spray your hair with a water bottle, they cut it, they charge you $12, and you’re out the door. If you want it shampoo’d or blown dry, that’ll be an extra $7, please. By then you’re up to $19, plus tip.

But my hair was getting really long, dull, lifeless, and just plain grungy. I haven’t had a real haircut since before we got married. That’s pathetic, people. It was time. I’d planned on going to any old place, like I usually do, paying my $15 for an average haircut, and moving on with my life. But then I discovered I had one whole entire day off work with no obligations! What to do! What to do!? Ah, yes! Enter “Treat Yo Self!” day. And then I remembered that Cincinnati has not only an Aveda Salon, but an Aveda Fredrick’s Institute where they teach students cosmetology and the art of great hairstyling. Then I read that those students need people to practice on. Then I read the slew of awesome reviews and how wonderfully pampering it was there. Then I read that it was only $17. Then I was sold. I booked my appointment and happily made the 45 minute jaunt to the far north side of Cincinnati to try my luck at a cheap yet luxurious haircut.

Y’all, I want to live there.

A) They just relocated and had officially moved in only last week, so the place was gorgeous, and B) I was paired up with the super sweet and very talented Laura (she pronounces it Lara, just like me!…it was fate!) who made my life pure heaven for the next hour and 45 minutes. My session started out with a hairstyle consultation with Laura, and then her supervisor/instructor Ben came over and all three of us consulted together and came up with a style that would work well with my hair, face shape, style, schedule, etc. I was offered piping hot tea and whisked off for a relaxing neck, back, and shoulder massage, followed by an oh-so-amazing hair shampoo and conditioning session with a scalp massage, and then a mini hot towel and soothing lotion facial in a quiet little back room. After that little piece of heaven that I absolutely was not expecting, it was time for my haircut. And it was incredible. There was such attention to detail, and such a desire to make sure it was done correctly, and that I was happy every step of the way. She cut 7 inches off, took her time cutting and layering my hair, then she applied all sorts of lovely, yummy smelling Aveda products, dried, and styled my hair. It took well over an hour. And I love me some yummy-smelling Aveda products! All for $17. Seriously, $17. And they’re not even allowed to accept tips! All that pampering and it’s even cheaper than Great Clips! It was, quite literally, the best hair cut I have ever had in my life. I am so happy to have discovered this place that I might actually do what I’m supposed to be doing and go in every 8 weeks to get my hair trimmed. I mean, hell, if they treat you like that even my limited budget can afford a Treat Yo Self day for less than $20 every other month! Plus, I don’t look like a rat anymore. Pure bliss!

Earlier that day I’d done my own pretty manicure and pedicure, and for dinner Ted and I used a gift card to one of our favorite little pizza joints – Hyde Park Pizzaria – that my sister got us for our birthdays. For $17 (um, plus fuel…Cincinnati’s a big city, friends) I got a luxurious massage, facial, shampoo, haircut, style, manicure, pedicure, and dinner out!

I’d say Treat Yo Self day was a complete success!

P.S. The pictures totally don’t do it justice. It’s really hard to take a flattering picture of a hairstyle by yourself…it looks much better in person!

How would you spend Treat Yo Self Day?

Yesterday looked something like this.

So I opened all the windows to get a pretty view of the fall foliage and to let in the sunlight and cool fall breeze, turned on some relaxing tunes, and spent the morning and most of the early afternoon cooking up a storm of festive fall treats and comfort food. After moving last weekend, working constantly, and being sick for a week, It was so calming to enjoy my down time in peace.

I took a break mid-afternoon to go teach a musical theatre class, then headed over to the sweet little house with the fire pit we lovingly made (that we are still renting until the end of this month) to prepare for the fall fest bonfire extravaganza we were hosting that night as a get-together with my fellow theatre interns.

Shortly after the sunset the gang arrived. We chowed on my homemade Texas chili, pumpkin mac n’ cheese, green apple and dried cherry waldorf salad, hot apple cider mulled with oranges, cinnamon sticks and cloves, and caramel stuffed apple cider cookies. They were all delicious and the pumpkin mac n’ cheese was a wild success – it positively flew out of the casserole dish. And the caramel apple cider cookies were another big hit. They will be permanently added to my iPad’s recipe book and I think I’ll have to make them often!

Ted built up the most wonderfully toasty bonfire and kept it going for us. We planted ourselves outside around the fire to roast peeps, make s’mores, and talk away the evening. Glow sticks may have been involved.

After a few hours we headed inside, laid out a giant tarp in the kitchen (this is where having a completely empty house comes in handy!), and hopped to making a huge slimy pumpkin gut mess as we drew our designs, carved our masterpieces, and clawed through the goop to salvage the pumpkin seeds for the roasting.

And a good time was had by all.

I’ve been a little glum lately. With the onslaught of a nasty cold striking both Ted and I early this week and rendering us utterly whiny and useless coupled with a move that has been wreaking fierce havoc on my emotional state for many reasons, it’s been tough to remain calm and positive lately. But I’m really working on it because that’s enough of this foolishness and mayhem. Fall is my favorite season and I’ll be damned if I’m not going to enjoy it – house or no house, cold or no cold, money or no money.

But today is a beautiful fall day. The kind of day that can brighten the scowl of even the crankiest of naysayers. There isn’t a cloud in the sky, it’s a fair 60 degrees out, the sun is shining, the trees and streets are awash of bold, vibrant autumn colors, and there’s a sweet gusty wind a’brewing.

It’s perfect out! What a great day to have a picnic in the park beneath a massive oak, or to rake the leaves in your yard and then go pouncing through them, or hit up a farmers market, or head to a real farm to pick apples and pumpkins and take a hay ride, or go romping through the corn maze, or bake cinnamon sugar cookies and hot apple cider to snack on on your front porch, or take a hike through a leafy nature trail, or hop an open-air train ride through the forest of fall colors on one of Ohio’s many scenic railroads. On a day like this, you’d think the great outdoors would be positively swimming with people. But where are they all today?

At the museum.

Indoors.

Sigh.

What is wrong with people!? Don’t they know the museum is reserved for rainy, snowy, unbearably cold, or blistering hot days? While the museum is awesome in so many ways, it is NOT for gorgeous fall days that are just crying out for exercise and a breath of fresh air!

I have a terrible urge to cook up a kitchen full of awesomely autumn recipes, to slip on a mustard yellow cable sweater with brown buttons down the shoulder (I have yet to own this fictional top but, evidently, I’m dreaming of it!) and some brown boots and I’d take a walk trough one of the many phenomenal parks nearby. If I had the day off, you’d know where to find me. If Ted had the day off I’d be demanding that he teach me how to play football in our backyard and we’d head up four hours north to Amish country to bask in the beauty of the fall colors and dine on delicious meats and cheeses and pet the goats and take a scenic trip on the railroad and pick apples. And then we’d down all those delicious fall recipes – everything from pumpkin mac n’ cheese to cinnamon apple cobbler – and we’d carve our pumpkins.

Outdoors.

Because that’s what you do on pretty autumn days.

You wear cute fall clothes and do fun, outdoorsy things.

And yet the museum is packed. There is no justice in this world when the person who longs for a carefree day outdoors is cooped up inside, and the people who should be appreciating their good fortune to have a day off are voluntarily choosing to spend it inside a cold, dark museum.

Now, that’s an epic fail if ever heard one!

Although if you ask Ted he’d say the major epic fail of the week is our dim-witted UPS guy. Or perhaps the number of times I’ve whacked my head on a sharp wall corner because I’m not yet used to the layout of the apartment. Or the number of absurdly dangerous drivers in Cincinnati that seem to be multiplying by the month. Or the infectious colds themselves. But to each his own.

Please don’t be an epic fail today. If you have a fabulous fall day today, get out there and enjoy it!

I thought I’d take a moment to share some new color in our lives!

First we have my new specs, Coach Avery in plum. I really needed new glasses and these stylin’ frames totally fit the bill. They’re a great fit, awesome color, and I actually look forward to wearing my glasses now. And who knew Coach make glasses frames? I’d post pics of me wearing the new specs, but both Ted and I are battling nasty colds and I don’t feel up to including myself in a photo shoot.

And we have our walls at the apartment painted for accent. One of our living room walls is painted this really neat pencil lead grayish blue color pictured right and one of the dining room walls is painted the mossy green pictured on the left. They look really cool and do a lot to make the place feel more like a home. Painting was a pain in a good decision. Full apartment pics coming soon!

My iPad is still adding a pretty pop of color. Red and white was the way to go, folks! It’s vibrant and classy. I wavered back and forth a lot over the color decision, but I’m really pleased with the choice!

And of course we’re enjoying big, beautiful splashes of fall color as well! These pictures are pretty lame so they don’t even begin to do it justice!

What color have you been enjoying lately?

Not to be a killjoy, but I hate moving.

I’m over it.

And though the apartment has its share of redeeming qualities, I miss the house already.

And I want a nap, pronto, because apparently I am incapable of sleeping in the new apartment and within 5 minutes of living here it gave Ted a wicked cold. Awesome.

Leaving the house behind has been much harder than I ever thought it would be.

I guess I am kind of a killjoy.

Too bad.