Preparing for Winter

Winter is on its way and for the last month or so, I've been feeling this really strange sense of impending gloom and cold. The weather has been gorgeous--warm, dry (but not too dry), pleasant breezes and all the sorts of things that make you want to spend time sitting outside soaking up vitamin D and fresh air. I can't say why, when I go out into that, my urge is to run to the farmers market and snatch up every preservable fresh vegetable I see, but the urge is there nonetheless.

Can you eat these? I don't know but something deep inside of me wants to
pick them all and hide them in a hole in the ground. For later. Source.

And I know I'm not the only one. I've asked other people and, at least here in the midwest, it seems to be a pretty universal feeling among the seasonal eating crowd.

Part of this, I think, is that the more we settle in to a truly seasonal diet, the more aware we become of the lack of certain foods in the winter. Last winter we didn't really prepare much at all and, once the stored winter vegetables ran out at the market, we spent a few months living on pretty much nothing but meat, hydroponic lettuce, and the occasional bag of frozen vegetables from Whole Foods. I am still sick of lettuce.

So this year, we're preparing. We don't have the time, space, or ready cash to really put an entire winter's worth of food away, but we're doing what we can to buy up fresh vegetables now in order to save them for later. I've been doing some canning and we were very excited to find a brand new deep freezer at a yard sale a month ago for less than a hundred dollars which is letting us freeze and store lots more meat and vegetables than before.

What are you doing to get ready for winter?

Recipe: Cream of Kale and Leek Soup (GAPS-legal)

Mr. Scrimp recently got a new job that lets him come home for lunch every day, which means two things. One, I no longer eat my lunch at the computer while I work. Two, I had to start thinking a little more clearly about what my (now our) lunch was going to be.

You see, in the past, lunch for Mr. Scrimp has been dinner leftovers, and lunch for me has been... whatever I scrounge up when I remember to eat. It might be peanut butter on a spoon. It might be chicken alfredo. It just depends on what's in the fridge, what my mood is, and whether I care to spend my lunch break cooking instead of relaxing (or blogging).

I'm at the end of my first full week of the GAPS diet, working on healing some GI issues, so I've also had to find lunches that are GAPS legal. This one was quick, easy, and full of gentle, healing ingredients. Yesterday on the fly I came up with this: cream of kale and leek soup. It's delicious! Thick, warm, and packed with flavor that is just perfect on a gray, rainy fall day.

So green, so tasty

Best of Pinterest: Pumpkin Pictures

For those of you who aren't on Pinterest (or who are, but can't get enough), I decided that today I was going to do something slightly different and collect a series of photos and links that qualify for the title of best of pinterest.

Call it my own spin on Wordless Wednesdays. Well, not quite wordless, but almost.

Circle Pumpkins

If you're looking for Halloween decor ideas, pumpkin carving inspiration, or just like looking at pumpkin pictures--today, this is the blog for you.

Menu Planning Monday: Week of October 3

Well, October is here and here with a vengeance. It's cold and wet and I have a throat tickle that is making me very suspicious of its long-term intentions.

This is going to be a weird week for us, food wise. We're continuing to eat low carb, with great success. Mr. Scrimp has lost about 15 pounds since the beginning of August and I've lost 17 1/2. Yep, it's true. By and large, it hasn't even been difficult. But some weeks are easier than others when your groceries are chosen at the whim of someone who doesn't know about your dietary restrictions.

Roundup: Pumpkin Patch

We're halfway through October and the neighbors two doors down have started lighting up their jack-o-lanterns every night.

Remember me saying how I love pumpkins? Well, there seem to be a lot of other people on the Internets who feel the same way I do. I was looking for one or two DIY pumpkin projects to share with you all, and I found too many to choose from. There's one here for pretty much every taste--or you could mix and match and have an assortment of pumpkin decor that lasts until it's time to put the Christmas things up instead.

Pumpkin Village

So, Mr. Scrimp and I don't really do much for Halloween. I grew up in a no-Halloween family, and while Mr. Scrimp has many happy trick-or-treating memories, he's not super devoted to it. We go to a party with some friends, but that's it.

I do, however, love pumpkins. I love them uncarved. I love them carved. I love them painted. I love their seeds, and I love them in soup and pie. There is pretty much nothing about pumpkins that I don't love, in fact.

Which is why I thought this idea on ohdeedoh was so cool (picture after the cut)