Minnnie says, 'Whatever I did to deserve this, I take it back!'

So, I've missed a couple of dates worth commemorating lately, starting with my blog's birthday back on the sixth of December. It's seven years old now! I used to go through the previous year's posts to pull a quote from each month, but I've grown too lazy for that over the past couple of years. Last year, I found an image of something I'd made in each month, but this year you're getting screen captures from my flickr food set. Because it's pretty much just been about food, no?

I also missed the anniversary of closing on my house, which was the 18th. I think I waited until the 19th to start painting every room in the house. What a long way it's come. And it'll only get better in the coming year! Let's celebrate with another photo of food.

Yesterday was my sixth month Beaniversary. Unsurprisingly, it seems like she's been around a lot longer than that, and it also seems like she can't possibly have been wreaking havoc for six entire months. She's so full of personality; it's hard to imagine what life was like before her. And she's only a cat!

One date I haven't yet missed is tomorrow -- my birthday. I'm pretty excited, mainly about the cake I'm going to make (and then eat). I've been so excited about food (birthday meals and the whole gamut of Christmas-related celebrations, including the vegan Celebration Roast I'm bringing for myself on Christmas day) and about buying/making gifts for my family and friends. . . the idea of actually getting gifts this season seems almost offensive. Somehow, I think I'll cope.

Let the Christmas cookie baking begin! I've been itching to get started, but I forced myself hold off until now, to minimize the time cookies have to spend in the freezer before they're gifted. But yesterday I decorated my gingerbread rounds.

I've used the recipe here a couple of times now, and it's definitely one I'm going to try not to lose! The cookies are plenty/perfectly spicy, soft, and since they're not too sweet on their own, you can ice them without giving yourself total sugar overload. I rolled this batch slightly thinner than I normally would, and they only needed to be in the oven for five minutes (the first tray = six minutes = burnt cookie bottoms).

They smell so divine, as do the Russian Teacakes I made yesterday evening. So many delicious cookie smells, and I have to save them all for other people!

Well, maybe I tasted one. The sprinkles weren't evenly distributed -- quality control. You understand.

. . . to eat nothing but sugar, right? I hope so. I used half of my roasted squash to make soup the other day, but I used the other half (after cutting off the salted edges) to make bread. With chocolate chips and walnuts. I more or less used this recipe. The people, they liked it.

And then! On Saturday! S and I went to Fast and Furless in St Paul, where they sell VEGAN MARSHMALLOWS! Yay. The company that used to make them (in bags like regular marshmallows) has taken them off the market, supposedly for more R&D (they were vegan; they were marshmallows; what's to develop?). The new company sells them as a gourmet treat, so they're kind of expensive. But if you haven't had a Rice Krispie treat since before the other vegan 'mallows left store shelves, it's worth it.

I think the package has fifteen marshmallows inside. If that's right, I used thirteen (there are two left in the package, at any rate), plus two Tbsp margarine, and three cups (and a bit more) Rice Krispies. The marshmallows do melt eventually, but it takes quite a while, and you want to keep the heat fairly low. The 'mallow/marg mixture never got as 'thin' as I remember real marshmallows getting, and I wasn't sure they'd mix up with the Krispies, but they did.

Yum.

So, now that there's a foot of snow on the ground (give or take a few inches), produce from the garden must be out of the question, right? Not right! Because I picked two butternut squash a month or so ago, and I finally cracked one open today.

I was worried it wasn't entirely ripe before I cut into it. Butternuts in the store are so peach/tan coloured, and mine have stayed lighter; some of the early striping is still visible. But the flesh inside was bright orange and smelled amazing. Here it is, ready to go into the oven for roasting:

I realized after I salted and peppered it that I should have left some of it plain, in case I wanted to use it for something sweet rather than savoury. Ah well. There's still one left for another day.

So -- garden: 1, winter: 0.

It's sort of strange that here in America (and other western countries) we have an entirely different menu for breakfast. Lots of places get by with eating the same types of food throughout the day, but not here. Of course, most people I know would claim breakfast food as their favourite, so I'd like to suggest we start a new country which eats breakfast all day long. Because sometimes you need to have blueberry pancakes and tofu scramble for lunch, say:

I wonder why some foods are so safely trapped in the breakfast category. Plenty of people enjoy eating cereal at other times of the day (maybe the majority of people?), but it's still thought of as strange. Stop the breakfast foods stereotyping!

I made peanut butter granola the other day. Here it is pre-oven:

I added a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon to my batch; I really liked it. Here's the baked granola the next morning, with fresh and dried banana, over vanilla yogurt. Delicious!

This cat cracks me up:

I uploaded a heap of pet pictures to a new flickr set yesterday, by the way. For people who like to look at other people's pets. But back to Beany. I find her so fascinating because she has hobbies. Booty doesn't. He sleeps and eats (and occasionally throws up), and looking for a new place to nap is as active as he gets. Aside from the sleeping and eating, Beany splits her time between:

-- Galloping around the house/playing with her catnip mouse.
-- Disappearing downstairs to 'try things'.
-- Gazing out the living room window.

Her basement experiments are the most interesting, because there's always a range of noises that drift up the stairs, usually on the falling/crashing spectrum. I mostly leave her to it, because I'd rather she smash things down there than upstairs, but every now and then I venture into her world to make sure she hasn't hurt herself. Once I found her staring down at me from a perch that she must have shimmied across a wooden beam to reach. Shimmied upside-down and hanging by her claws, of course.

Staring out the window isn't that unusual, but her squat posture, with arms folded on the window sill, always gets to me. During the day, she sees the birds in the bushes, and at night she watches the city buses zoom by out on the main road and dreams about her great escape.

Oh Beany, what a rich inner life you have.