Friday, November 06, 2009

Loafing

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly
unless one has plenty of work to do.
~ Jerome K. Jerome

I'm grateful for rest, time-off, relaxing, fun, me-time.

It rained a little bit last night, but not enough to get the deck wet under the trees and it didn't even get the chicken feed damp. It was a cold, damp day and stuff was still falling out of the trees. So, with that as an excuse I took the day off and stayed inside, played on the computer and made stew. And I have to add that knowing I have lots of stuff to do and not doing any of it did add to the loafing experience.
Later in the day I heard a bunch of thud type noises I thought were either more stuff hitting the roof or the stew was doing something strange on the stove. When I went to check, I found a chicken pecking away at bits of carrot ends I had tossed on the porch with the peelings. Noisy little hen. Morgan was interested too. Don't know if she actually ate any carrots. Maybe?

I took my camera with me when I went to unlock the gate for Kristine and was happy to see that some of the trees actually had some color. We haven't had a frost yet so this is a surprise. There is a new layer of leaves covering everything. I don't think even half the leaves have fallen.

Today when I made stew I added lentils to all the regular ingredients. I used one cup and cooked them before I added the lentils along with the water I cooked them in to the stew. Kristine loves lentils and I have to say that they made the stew thicker and I like the lentil flavor. Next time I would like to add the uncooked lentils to the stew and see how that works. I know I will have to check on it more often to make sure the lentils don't soak up all the liquid. Don't want burned stew. More photos of my easy wood stove beef stew.

Kristine brought home two loaves of French bread yesterday, so I didn't make biscuits. A lady Kristine knows was given a lot of loaves and she gave two to Kristine. Good thing I didn't buy bread.

[1 egg today]
Smiles
~:>

7 comments:

diane b said...

Good for you. I had a loafing day today as I have just completed a two week contract at my old school.The stew sounds just right for a cold night.

Kentucky Farm Girl said...

That stew sounds good. Wish I had a pot simmering for later today to go with the sourdough rolls I'm baking.

I noticed your hens have slowed down with their laying also. I'm only getting one or two a day right now. I have frozen several over the last few weeks so I'll still have plenty for Thanksgiving and Christmas baking.

lisa said...

I see I am not the only one who likes to cook in the cast iron!

RoeH said...

Thanks for the tip on my blog. I will try it with PATIENCE next time. :) And do I ever love your blog. Can I keep you? I like chickens. And country!

Callie Brady said...

diane: Glad to hear you took a day off and rested!

KentuckyFarmGirl: Yum! I love sourdough bread. I'll have to try the freezing thing.

lisa: I love cooking in cast iron. Food tastes better!

Lucy: Hope the photos work better for you. Glad you like the blog.

Tanya said...

I've thrown dried lentils into a soup and they cooked up just fine. Of course I can rarely get lentils in Japan so I haven't had too much experience but the soup tasted great!!

Callie Brady said...

Tanya: Good to know that! Thanks! I'll try adding them to the stew next time.