Comfort Food

“We learn much by tribulation, and by adversity our hearts are made better.”
― David McCullough, The Wright Brothers

It's rainy and windy out today. Yesterday was nice so we got a ton of outside stuff taken care of before winter. One of those things was covering the wood piles - good timing as it turns out.

I was in the mood for some comfort food since I wasn't feeling "up to par" today. I don't know what it is, seems to be sinus related. I always tackle something on days I don't feel well. I think it goes back to the days of raising the girls when getting sick and doing nothing just wasn't an option. So, today I decided I wanted to make hamburger gravy over mashed potatoes. I would normally use cream of mushroom soup but I didn't have any so I decided to make it from scratch. I know how to make a roux and I used beef broth for the liquid. I used to have trouble remembering how much of what I needed so I came up with what works for me. 1/4 - 1/4 - quart. 1/4 lb butter 1/4 c. flour and a quart of liquid.

I threw one of those gorgeous carnival squash in the oven with a little butter and brown sugar, roasted the seeds just like pumpkin seeds. Used sour cream in the potatoes instead of milk. It was perfect!

Angie got me a really useful kitchen tool that works wonderfully for mushrooms. I'm sure it works equally well for other things but, so far, that's all I've used it for.

We had a visitor early in the week. I tried to take a picture with my phone through the glass door. I had to zoom so it's not a great picture but you can see him but maybe not identify him. It was a hawk, not sure what kind but saw it fly in.

We took an impromptu drive earlier in the week fearing the weather would turn and we wouldn't get to do our annual "fall color tour" so we loaded up Coop and took off. Well....the colors were few and far between and I didn't even capture one picture. One thing was right though, with this rain and wind the leaves are coming down pretty steadily at home here.

Picture of the week: 

Neighbors

P.S. We won (we would have tied but the "guys" decided to risk it)