Under a Red Roof

Snow in April

April 21, 2023 in Cooking + Baking, Friendship, Listening by Colleen | Permalink

My best love is doing pretty amazing in the guitar department, becoming the king of riffs and lovely melodies. I’m not sure he’s ready to play an entire song, but what leaps and bounds he’s traveled these two years of learning. I am so proud of him!

Another point of pride! My dear friend Liz (Guerra) was a presenter at the El Pueblo History Center in Pueblo last month. It was a real moment of triumph, with a room full of eager listeners, after a long journey of creating unique spaces for healing and teaching. I wish I had gotten a picture that better captures her dynamic energy and enthusiasm for her Mind-Body work.

Mushroom Taco Tuesday! All the homemade things, yes ma’am.

We grilled green chile burgers burgers on the first nice day. I put the chile in the burgers and on top for double happiness and topped it with a chipotle sauce!

If you recall, I am not a cooking show person. I do, however, like cooking on a show, sometimes, if all the elements are right. Like Stanley Tucci’s tour of Italy (I am a sucker for a fine landscape!) or the wonderful Vivian Howard’s A Chef’s Life, which probably went off the air five years ago? Anyhoo. I stumbled upon a few episodes of Ina Garten hosting famous people. I caught Emily Blunt’s giant sleeved appearance and thought her recipe for turkey bolognese looked pretty tasty. My friends, this is (mostly) it and quite delicious, to boot! I shockingly only made one change, which was a reduction of celery to a single stalk. I had an unfortunate pasta dish at a short-lived Italian restaurant in Portland (a connection, methinks), that had a ridiculous amount of it, which obviously made an impression, and wanted no such repetition. Make it and be glad, though it will test your patience, aromatically bubbling away in the oven.

Snow in April, twice. The first was a regular storm. The second started as three hours of rain, followed by fat fluffers accumulating into eight inches overnight. Delight of delights, which melted by the end of the day. That, my friends, is springtime in Colorado!

Magpie

March 27, 2023 in Cooking + Baking, Decorating, Eating, Friendship, Shopping by Colleen | Permalink

Hiya! A little bit of everything for you today. First, some lovely morning light illuminating our hang up your hat station. The beautiful tree print on the left is one of the treasures we bought from Lezle Williams at Laughing Crow Studio during our stay in Albuquerque. I love how it harkens back to Gustave Baumann.

I made delicious chocolate cupcakes with torched marshmallow frosting to celebrate a visit from Jeff. We ate at our favorite 503W, walked the Juper-dog, played Firefly (two by two, hands of blue), and this cool-looking city building game whose name totally escapes me. Always a stellar time!

I spent Thursday, Friday, and much of the weekend clearing out the house, Marie Kondo style (this item brings no joy!), building IKEA furniture, organizing both of our offices, and a couple of kitchen cabinets. We have a mega pile of boxes to cart off to various charities and chests puffed with pride at the state of our spaces.

The above photos are what it looks like when you take nearly everything out of a 9×9 room in order to make it marvelous!

A peek into my office closet, reorganized and rather dandy.

The view from my wheelie chair is a goodie! We bought the desk at Crate and Barrel in Pittsburgh, and it mostly did nothing in the basement since moving to Colorado Springs. Then, I got a bee in my bonnet to clear the clutter off my much larger desk and realized the smaller one, with an actual drawer and little storage nook, would suit me better. It really, really does!

It is a heart-filler to stand in the door and see this view! I’ve got my favorite portraits of our dearly departed kitties, a very girly trash can from Grandma Tess, and my desk cycle. I attach a velcro “leash” between it and my chair and am prolly last place in the imaginary races but feeling the burn!

The shelf is another IKEA find and perfect for my highly controlled magpie tendencies! It makes for a lovely display. The cute stuffed animals on the chair are Greg’s. I’ve added my yellow ducky and may take a picture of the cheery trio at a future date.

Before the Reset

January 11, 2023 in Celebrating, Cooking + Baking, Exploring by Colleen | Permalink

Happy Wednesday dear reader! How are you? Are you feeling refreshed this new year? Greg and I are knee-deep in our diet reset and feeling quite good.

The first three photos are evidence of our year-end dietary wonders. First is a seafood lasagna, recipe from Inspired by Charm (Hello Pittsburgh!), which served as our fabulous Christmas dinner. We swapped the noodles with thin sliced butternut squash, and it still felt quite indulgent. It also made for spectacular leftovers! I hadn’t made pumpkin bread for ages and did a fine job of it. Pizza on a very cold day when the indoor oven would not stifle the house was the tops. Absolutely!

The weather is winter-still, icy cold. Dog walks are bundled in the thin warmth of afternoon or not at all, poor Juniper. Though she minds less when we are prompt with morning and afternoon snacks. Our girl remains food motivated.

The dazzle of moonlight was New Year’s Eve. 100 years of AdAmAn meant our sleepy souls didn’t have to wait until midnight for Pike’s Peak fireworks, but got a little preview at nine p.m. Yay! It was a bit too cloudy for much of a show, but we enjoyed a neighborly chat with a woman and her grandchildren in the church lot while we watched and waited. Hooray for childhood and human connection.

Modus Operandi

December 2, 2022 in Cooking + Baking, Friendship, Gardening + Nature by Colleen | Permalink

Two decent snowstorms in two weeks, huzzah!

Peregrine Falcon methinks…

Wonderfully beautiful and delicious Basque style cheesecake – the wild crinkle of parchment serves as the crust, which is why I wanted to try it, as I feel most serve no good purpose. After making it, I saw it on the cover of a magazine and all over the interwebs. Unbeknownst trend follower. Ha!

Jeff came for a visit! In keeping with our usual modus operandi, we walked, laughed, ate very well (see above), visited the library, and played fun games, of course. I love our time together.

Lap dog dreaming…

Thanksgiving Feasting

Downtown Wandering

Mountain Gazing

A Mexican style lasagna, of sorts. Spicy, smoky roasted mushrooms and tomato, sliced butternut squash, chipotle sour cream, and cheese, of course. Delicious!

Never gets old…

Hope your holiday season is off to a fabulous start! Be safe, be well.

Happy Birthday in heaven Grandma Tess. One hundred years!

I Think I Like It

November 15, 2022 in Cooking + Baking, Gardening + Nature, Loving, Making by Colleen | Permalink

The last of our garden tomatoes, before and after roasting into a delicious soup.

The first year since moving to our Colorado house that the garden aspens actually turned sunset hues. They’re usually killed by frost or snow before the opportunity arises. What a show!

Juniper looks so little when she sleeps.

Jett came for a visit. We gorged on Italian food and homemade ice cream, shopped, walked, and puzzled. It was a great day!

Doing a lot of meat over shredded cabbage, as of late. This is a middle eastern take on ground chicken, with tomato, onion, raisins, and hot honey pinon nuts. It was delicious.

Have you watched Sprung on freevee? If you haven’t and are a laugh out loud and nice show person like me, get to it! It’s a super fun series about three people released early from prison because of COVID. I’ve watched it twice and highly recommend the same.

I am holding a John Wayne casserole made after seeing it on the show. It has a biscuit base, ground beef, cheese, and a million different iterations after that. In keeping with old school casserole vibes, I added a can of cream of mushroom soup, then a mixture of garlic and chile powders, tomato, green chile, and corn. Tasty!! I’d make it again in a heartbeat.

When Greg and I were in Wisconsin, we had some really good maple pecan fudge. Its only defect being it was a bit too sweet for us. I couldn’t get it out of my head and decided it could benefit from the bitterness of chocolate. I made a batch this past weekend, dividing the basic five-minute fudge recipe, two thirds with white chocolate chips and 3/4 teaspoon maple flavoring (real maple syrup was a major fail), and one third with the usual chocolate chips, and layering the two. It is amazing peeps!

Bought a jar of wonderful creosote and rosemary cream and a delightfully scented candle from Sonoran Rosie. So pretty and smells like the desert in bloom.