Finding My Voice and Strength Through Change (and a new blog direction)

Time is ridiculously cruel. How dare spring think she can rear her head up! It's only February for goodness' sake! Now here I am post-seven-years-of-solitude, and everything around me seems to be moving at lightening speed.

 I loved every minute of my time alone. Well, I wasn't exactly "alone" in the sense that I sat in my hovel worrying away every minute of the day in my own head--there were the dogs, my husband, our garden, the woods, books, my cooking, running, knitting. 

Every day had its ebb and flow. 

Mornings were set aside for morning stuff, like coffee (lots), reading, knitting, walking the dogs and running. 

Taming the Introvert Anxiety with LOTS of Knitting (new career, more gray hair: I Want to Believe!)

Well, week one went off without a hitch. I arrived, I met, I chatted, I learned. In the evenings I crawled into my shell and collapsed into bed for very hard, long sleeps. I got up the next day and hit repeat. 

Suddenly our whole world has been turned on its head by the arrival of my new career/J-O-B. 

I am in the book business now. Books and people, how bad can it be you ask? Not bad at all. . . so far.

I love books. I love people who love books. I love reading. (Truth be told, not much of that going on now that I'm the working girl again--though I sneak in as much as I can in the wee hours of the mornings or late evenings right before bed.) The working girl in me says, "calm down, this is the chaos part", this is the remembering what it's like to be surrounded by noise, people, and strangers all day. The introvert in me climbs out of her shell (yes the one who has spent the last seven years and mostly every day surrounded by canines, plants, food and my own quiet pace and rhythm)--and crawls into the depths of business/work. It's going to be a long road to my fully grasping every little detail of my new role.

Vegan Apple Streusel Pie Cookie Bars (and the "parking lot" incident)

This looks like apple pie. It tastes like apple pie. The topping is streusel. The middle is, of course,  filled with a staggering amount of sliced granny smith apples and a whole lot of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and what have you. And it was heavenly. The trick is to "chill" the finished pie. This requires planning as you may want to make it the day before you are planning to serve.

As the pie bakes, the apples shrink, the streusel topping gets crackly and yummy. With the thick pie dough to hold the pie up, once the dough is chilled, you slice the pie and serve on a plate as 

apple-pie-cookie bars. No fork required. One solid slice that stays stacked and solid after sliced. Skinny slices work--not your "normal pie thick" slices--to really get the true cookie experience.

(*Note: As you can see, I baked my pie in a pie shell, however, to get the true "bar cookie" effect, you may swap out the round shell for a square 8" pan.)

The parking lot incident is told after the recipe so as not waste anyone's time.

Here's how the "pie-became-cookie" recipe happened. 

Here She Grows! (. . . this is the story of how we keep ourselves sane during August in Missouri)

Two weeks left before the "baby" comes home. We can hardly wait. The anticipation is made even more maddening (though we have no complaints) by the puppy updates we receive from our new girl's human mommy (because canine mommy doesn't have opposable thumbs, she can't send photos). The photo from the top is from this past Friday. The one below is from the week before. We can see every week the weight she's gaining--how big her paws are getting and how much her head has grown. 

Pyrenees puppy-ness is getting me through these miserable days of this summer. While I type, the temperature outside is at a chilly ninety-nine degrees with a heat index of 110! Not real keen on cooking at all here lately, I do have a pot of my homemade marinara filling the air conditioned tomb we're relegated to with yummy Italian aroma. So at least I was able to throw that together, or else we may starve. 

Vegan Dill Pickle and Potato Soup (With No Regrets)

It dipped into the forties in the evening this weekend. Potato cravings ensued. I didn't want straight potato soup, mind you--you know the one, leeks etc. I sought a potato and then some. I love it when I can intuit how a soup might come together once I glance at a recipe. Skimming the ingredient list, I set about pulling from the drawers in the fridge and cool storage areas all the food stuff I have on hand to make this soup my own. It's not the prettiest soup on the block, but the pickle part intrigued me the most. It's a Polish soup. Old country as my mother would say. And I love dill pickles--you add them at the end of the cooking so you experience a tart, dilly bite with each spoonful. We loved this soup. So simple. And filling. Both characteristics qualify this soup as an official fall soup festival soup in our house.