Zucchini and Family

The last ten days we've seen a lot of family - SO nice.  Last weekend was Brooklyn's birthday party and Emmett's baptism and we had Jason's parents, Mary and Dave here, too, along with Jason's aunt and uncle Dar and Rog plus Jen's whole family of course!  Wednesday my Dad came over for dinner on his way back from IL, Thursday my aunt Kathy stopped in to see the kiddies bearing little Valentine's gifts, Friday my cousin Mike stopped in to say Hi and played hard with Graham and had a little lunch and then Saturday my Mom, two aunts, Connie and Julie, and cousin Emilie came to take in a play and dinner out!  WOW.  What a gift and a treat to see so much family in a short span of time.  Awesome.

These sunshine-less days get to me a bit...however, I've been trying to take a bunch of minutes to commune with God and pray and just be quiet, etc. daily.  God Calling recommended by my Mom and Jesus Calling recommended by my friend Beth - both UNbelievably fantastically calming, inspiring and they spur me out of any doldrums - along with that solitary, quiet time.  Thank God.

And on to Zucchini.  Another sultry pasta dish de Jason.  Woo.  Just so good.  He sautees coined zucchini and canned fire roasted tomatoes (these had some heat with chipotles!) and we had some feta in the fridge and it worked!  Yummmmmm.

A good meal, a vid post-blizzard and the Superbowl...Yahoooo Packers!

Jason picked up salmon and made a spinach salad with hot bacon dressing and some Tandoori rice along with the old reliables - bread, evoo and vino:

 

The snow was and still is overwhelming but was so fun...

 

Ryan and Jen had a Packer party and the Packers came up with a Superbowl W!!  Pretty exciting.

Estelle...

Gotta put a pic of Stelly up - she was sleeping during the shoveling and igloo sculpting...a FEWpics I should've said...

SNOW...

You can see the gate sticking out a little - rough shoveling the alley - nowhere to go with the snow!

The drifts were incredible.  You can see the imprint of the garage door behind Graham

The igloo

Jason's boots - I'm claustrophobic a bit - that entry is smalllll but next pic - I did with Graham's gentle?? encouragement!

Soooooo fun - what a blizzard.  Looks so beautiful outside.  Things are quiet and muffled by all of the snow and people are out armed with shovels and friendly and helpful and connected. 

Happy Birthday to our little 2 year-old niece BROOKLYN today!!!  And our good friend Nev is 6 today, too!  And it's groundhog's day AND it's a seriously awesome snow day!  The highway, schools, stores - all shut down!  No tracks in the road until the plows came through late morning. 

The pasta maker was out again:

Butternut squash ravioli.  Jason probably won't make it again - a lot of work and it's not loads better than store-bought - still really good...and really special knowing the effort and craftiness that went into it!

Final product with the ravioli

Homemade pasta with tomatoes and basil.

Finished reading the Power of Kindness by Piero Ferrucci today.  One of those that I could read over and over and over and over (like A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle)...everything makes so much sense and seems so obvious and essential yet I don't live by it day by day.  Paramount - being kind and others-focused - his chapters are: Honesty, Warmth, Forgiveness, Contact, Sense of Belonging, Trust, Mindfulness, Empathy, Humility, Patience, Generosity, Respect, Flexibility, Memory, Loyalty, Gratitude, Service, Joy.  So much yet so simple yet so seemingly difficult to attain or even aspire to in our consumer, self-serving, instant gratification culture.  God give me the strength and focus and calm to do it.  Let me know if you want to borrow the book.  Boswell has had it as their registers permanently for months...which is pretty cool - the preface is by the Hi Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Bunch of good stuff...

A few impressive meals by Jason:

Fajitas - this is the guacamole - Jason gets emails from Whole Foods and it's roughly that recipe.  My aunt Kathy makes the best guac - still - she adds a bit of green salsa and sour cream I think - always REAL GOOD, Kack.  *side note: I've been adding a pinch salt to the shaker for margaritas (instead of the rim) and Jason's lovin' it, I agree.

That top avocado seemed flawless.  It's avocado season - The most are sold in the month of January...I learned that from the Whole Foods guac article

Grilled chops from the pig that Aunt Dar bought, roasted broc & cauli courtesy of Jay & Ken's recipes and grilled potatoes

Bob M gave us Cooks Illustrated as a gift!  SO nice!  Thank you Bob!  And so useful for Jason - it's a neat mag.  The fish is nut-crusted according to a recipe from there then sauteed asparagus and a brown rice concoction that Jason makes

 Aaaaaand a bunch of pictures of sweet Estelle...I could eat her up, too!

And a picture of proud Graham with his K4 'culture collage' assignment.  Pretty cool.

And lastly, a soup that I actually made - my Mom makes it and it's so good.  Got the recipe from her...

A somewhat rare moment...I made dinner Sunday night.  Still good!  Onion and garlic saute in olive oil, chicken broth, boil then tortellini, can of crushed tomatoes and spinach last, with a little S&P!

Checking In

Jason made pizza tonight for Graham and himself and it's my dearrrrrr friend Kelli's birthday (1.11.11!) today and we went to La Merenda - complete awesomeness there.  Unbelievable.  Crazy good.  Happy Birthday Kels.

NYE was really great celebrating my Dad's retirement in Madison - grrrreat party.  And this past week I went to an former workmate from Baird's retirement party AND this past weekend we were up in Eau Claire for Jason's Mom's retirement party - also just really, really great.  So excited for all of our parents - they're all retired now!  CONGRATULATIONS.  So fantastic.

A good one and some Christmas snaps

Ooookkkk, so Jason got a pasta maker for Christmas...and we had homemade pasta with a brilliant concoction of fire-roasted tomatoes, onions and parsley - like a cappellini pomodoro type dish.  SO GOOD.  The pasta is fantastic - Graham helped crank it out.

We left Thurs for Eau Claire, went to cousins' Zach, Jake & Josh's HS hockey game, went to Dan & Cheri's Christmas Eve morn, celebrated Christmas Eve with some of Jason's Dad's side of the family, Christmas day we opened gifts under the tree with Mary, Dave, Ryan, Jen, B and E, headed to Madison and celebrated with my Dad's side of the family and on Sunday celebrated with my Mom's side of the family at her boathouse - it was a winter carnival of sorts!  Skating, broomball, bonfire, kayak sleighriding, etc!  And finally made it back home to celebrate yet again with just the four of us!  WOO.  Caught up on sleep and here we are.  Headed back to Madtown for my Dad's retirement party on NYE...