A Touch of Snow

 

Monday the 17th, we woke up to THIS INCREDIBLE SNOW!! And I even got out to take pictures in it.

COVID19: We're Vaccinated!! Also: More Tasty Grub, Storage Container Follow-Up,

Jack and I got our first dose of the Moderna vaccine earlier this week (Tuesday), and even though we'll need a booster in 4 weeks then 2 more weeks of waiting for immunity to develop, we feel such relief that our every conversation circles back around to how good we feel to be underway with the vaccine series.

When I called Mom and Dad to tell them we'd gotten our shots, Mom answered and yelled, "HOORAY!" as soon as she heard.

We're all feeling relief about lots of things these days. Jack generally wakes up a bit before I do. He checks the news and gets caught up while I'm doing my yoga-sprawl and cat calisthenics, and it's wonderful to ask, "What's happening today?" and hear mostly things that make sense from the national headlines. 

Whew. Sigh. 

We've been thinking and talking a lot about the one year anniversary of the last time we did all kinds of different things, because those dates are hitting the calendar like bugs against the windshield on a foggy July evening. 

The last time we went to WalMart in person is a year ago this coming Saturday. The great hunkering-down was about to start. 

The last time I hugged Lucia and Beatrice was a year ago this past weekend, and that's a long time. Our visit, though, sustains me until we can again hug and waller-around slumber party style. 

I got fancy with a batch of pizza dough last weekend. Not really fancy. I added a tablespoon of olive oil to my typically lean (i.e. no fat) ingredients just to mix things up a little bit. We used to make pizza dough that way all the time - like, every single batch, but I switched to a no oil variety back in the spring after a conversation with my buddy, Matt, about different ways to make pizza. He uses a lean dough, and I gave it a whirl, we loved it, and that's where we've been for the last ten or so months. 

My most-used cookbook's recipe for pizza dough is very much like our old recipe with olive oil, and when we were jonesing for pizza over the weekend, I made that dough. It was fine and the pizza was delicious, but neither Jack nor I prefer it to pizzas with lean dough crust.  It baked-up crispy and beautiful, but the back-crust lacked the chewiness we normally have even with a thinner pie. It was delicious, a little bland - I didn't get enough salt in the dough - and something to make again for some other purpose.

After the first pizza - the recipe makes two pies - and our clear preference for lean dough pizza, I decided to use the other crust for pigs in blankets. 

We had four hot dogs on the verge of loitering in the deli drawer, so I wrapped them in half of the remaining dough. I stretched it into a rectangle then used the rolling pin to create a 4" x 12" strip of dough. Using a metal ruler as a straight-edge, I cut the dough into 4 1"-wide strips. Each strip was wrapped "tennis grip style" around a hot dog with the edges barely overlapping/touching. 

Once they were wrapped, I gave them a roll on the board to smooth the edges before moving them to a parchment-lined sheet tray to bake for 30 minutes at 450 degrees. Before sticking them into the oven, I brushed the tops of the blankets with egg yolk (1) and water (1 T) and sprinkled them with Maldon salt.

They were super-delicious and looked really cool, like little tennis racquet handles:

They were without a doubt the best-looking pigs in blankets we've ever had, and like I said, super-delicious, but the dogs, which plump when you cook'em, also shrink as they cool, so by the time we got into our second dog, we had to position a finger over the bottom hole to keep the pig inside the blanket.

Next WalMart order, I added Johnsonville Beef Brats, the pre-cooked ones that look like hot dogs, and they were exactly what we needed for the best pigs in blankets we've ever had. We'll be buying these again. We rarely eat hot dogs, but when we do, we want a good one, and this is our new favorite.

This one.

Question for the foodie philosophers: Is a pig in a blanket a pig in a blanket if it's actually a beef thing? I say, "Yes," but that's just me.

When I got our repeat pigs wrapped and rolled and ready to go, there was still a little wad of dough left, so I scratched around in the fridge and found a few brave spears of asparagus who volunteered for snack duty. A brushing of egg wash on the pastry dough, a sprinkle of Maldon on the pigs, a sprinkle of sesame seeds on the 'gus, and 35 minutes later, we had the cutest, tastiest little snack for supper. 

An egg yolk mixed with a splash of water makes them shiny and gold.

In follow-up to my storage dilemma, these airtight storage containers from Amazon are great. Mom got some back in the summer and has had nothing but good things to say about them, so I broke down and actually bought something new. I'd been using a combination of glass jars, and while there's lots to love about jars, they break. They don't stack. They're not as easy to clean. You can't scoop out of a jar. I fell immediately in love with the first set and have picked up another with different sizes containers. Find them here:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B08LFWV8JW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

COVID19: Cat Shenanigans

Handsome Kinky

Several minutes - almost an hour - after we went to bed Thursday night, we realized Kinky was closed up in the linen closet. I kept hearing a cat pawing and pawing and pawing at something and thought it was just the cubs playing in the bathtub because they get loud in there. I finally got up and figured out there was a cat in trouble. 

Kinky has had a "not fun" week, and this episode was part of it. 

He's always hated storms, but it's been much worse since the really bad storm in April when Jack and I thought the roof was coming off the house. That's the night Kinky screamed out once and went into a catatonic state for a couple of hours. 

He's been different since then, and now all he has to do is suspect a storm is on its way, and he gets into protective stance. He has a couple of different places near the kitchen door, which seems like a strange place for him to want to be, that he'll move to and just huddle up. He gets so focused on listening for and to the storm that he's unresponsive to almost everything else. 

I say "almost," because on Wednesday, in the middle of a storm which caused our power to blink off and had some crackly, poppy thunder and lightning with, I spilled a whole tumbler of iced coffee all around Kinky's fraidy spot. I didn't spill any directly on him, because he did manage to scamper out of harm's way in time, but there was a mess to clean up, and as soon as I got all the coffee and ice cleared away and a dry towel spread out, Kinky was back on duty for the duration. 

Yesterday when we decided to let him finish Phoebe's lunch leftovers (Fancy Feast kitten pate), Josie immediately commandeered the bowl, then last night he got closed-up in the closet. 

I was ready to take blame for yet again terrorizing one of the sweetest cats who ever prowled this world, but Jack too responsibility for shutting the door on his way to bed after brushing his teeth.

Phoebe was doing her nightly training exercises. We don't know what those are about, but she gets fired up about midnight and romps around for a couple of hours at breakneck speed, jumping from here to there then scampering to the back of the house as fast as she can. She has different patterns and obstacles, and the big boys are in on it with her, but they are more passive participants and don't get fully involved in her madness. 

We've wondered what in the world she thinks she's ever going to do to use any of these skills. "Phoebe, you're a house cat, and you're never going outside," we tell her at least once a day as she stares at squirrels through the window before zooming through the house for a quick turnaround on the windowsill over our bed before hitting the bathtub at a dead run and bouncing back into position by the window.

She has never - none of the NowCats have ever - shown much interest in the outdoors beyond watching wildlife through the window. We are careful when we go in and out the front door and shoo the critters away whether any are in the vicinity or not. 

Bill ran outside by accident once during cold weather, and he was more than ready to be picked up and brought back inside. 

Carlton was the last cat we had who'd try to run the door out of the blue, and thank goodness, he stopped doing that during the last few months of his life. Even when he was super-elderly and mostly a lay-around-and-sleep cat, he still felt the call of the wild and would try to make one last leap for freedom. 

Here are some recent pictures of the kitties.

Phoebe takes a selfie of herself with Bill.

Snugglers.

Sweet Kinky.

Bill's favorite pose.

2016: Snow #2

On the heels of our first snow of the year came the second, and by Middle Tennessee standards, it was a doozy.

Heavy rain moved in last Thursday night into Friday morning. Jack and I walked the dogs around 9 a.m., and just as we stepped off the porch, raindrops magically turned to snowflakes - BIG ones. By mid-morning Friday, our deck and moss beds were white, and the snow just kept coming.

Jack and I sat for a couple of ours, drinking coffee at the dining table, watching the snow fall in wads as big as cotton balls and as fluffy as goose down. It was spectacular and reminded us of all the "good snows" we used to get when we were kids.

At some point, someone on Facebook mentioned snow cream, so we put a big bowl outside and let it fill up throughout the day and overnight. By Saturday morning, we had plenty of snow for a nice batch. Jack stirred in some cold half-and-half and a touch of vanilla, and "voila!" - breakfast. And I'm not even kidding. With coffee and a couple of homemade crispy lemon shortbreads, it was the perfect way to start a snowy day.

Warmer temperatures on Sunday followed by rain on Monday melted and washed everything away, which is fine with us. Having a pretty snow is great; being snowbound for more than a couple of days isn't.