i {heart} the first day of “fall back” daylight savings time

i especially heart it when i don’t remember that we’re an hour different until about 10:30 a.m. when my husband gleefully yells from the basement that it’s really only 9:30!

and so i spent the day in the kitchen.  i didn’t really set out to do that.  i meant to bake some bread because i was trying to have a “vegan day” after the rest of the excess that happened this weekend (see previous post on stripey cake) and i didn’t have any vegan bread in the house and i wanted to eat some with the vegetable soup i was planning to make for dinner.  so i put together the bread dough and set it aside to rise.  then, i decided to go ahead and make the roasted red pepper recipe from the “well-preserved” book.*

we didn’t have any white wine vinegar, so i hopped on my bike and rode to the nearest grocery store (maybe a mile away?) and picked up the vinegar and a few other things i needed, then headed home.  so nice to have not frigid weather!!  when i got home, i broiled the peppers, peeled them, cooked up the marinade in the book, shoved the peppers and the marinade into prepped jars and processed them as instructed.  i’m a little distressed by the large amount of marinade that’s leftover (shouldn’t it all have fit into the jars?) but i’m hoping it will all turn out okay….

i also had some tomatillos that i didn’t need to use in the next few days and didn’t want to waste them, so i washed, blanched, then pureed them, put them in a ziploc and froze them.  then i made a batch of hummus to go with my lunch (a lovely salad).  after lunch, i finished baking the bread for dinner,and took the pound of ground beef i’d gotten at the farmer’s market yesterday and i made a batch of mini-meatballs.

then i started roasting vegetables.  i had two squash (butternut and a new one called “buttercup”), a bunch of yellow beets and some sweet potatoes and since i had the oven on for the bread and the meatballs, i figured i might as well roast these veggies.  i also made some of the buttercup squash into a pureed soup which i froze in small quantities since mr. happy stuff and i both appreciate that soup in “amuse bouche” type quantities.  i gave up taking pictures long ago, so you’ll just have to imagine the beautiful yellow roasted goodness coming out of my oven.

then i snuck in a tiny bit of sewing (work project) while i waited for some cream to come to room temperature for this recipe.

and in about 20 minutes before i hopped on my bike to go to church, i cooked up my first batch of caramel.  and that’s when i sort of cheated on vegan day.  but can you blame me?

after church i cooked up the batch of vegetable soup i’d been thinking about all day (turned into more like minestrone, but still tasty and still vegan!).  and now….   all i wish i had was a little magic wand to make these dirty dishes disappear!  (i did do two dishwasher loads during this whole process today!)  whew! and also ahhhhhhhhh…….. feels good to have some yummy things to look forward to this week.  and for the rest of the winter.

*this is such a great book.  i think i’ll add it to my wish list.  it’s got all of these small-batch recipes and ingredients for how to can or freeze them.  so instead of feeling like i have to can 32 pints of roasted red peppers, i can just make this recipe for 3 pints.  and not use up an entire day.  genius.  i’m also trying her sauerkraut recipe.  we’ll see how that one goes!  it should be ready sometime next weekend.