Snowed in

Last weekend, we had fun with Byrne. He came over Saturday afternoon, and for dinner we went out to Chili's to celebrate Jess' uncle Louis' 60th birthday. We don't usually drag friends along to family events, but we didn't want to give up a weekend with Byrne, so we brought him. On Sunday, I prepped, Byrne cooked, and we ate like kings. We made a salad of baby greens tossed in a balsamic vinaigrette I made up, with peach slices, sundried tomatoes, and corn relish, with some of the Pepperidge Farm Hearth-Fired Classics bread (in the frozen section) that had rosemary in it. It was pretty incredible for frozen bread! Then we had a casserole-type thing made with pumpkin, covered thinly with pesto, then covered in parmesan cheese. and a fabulous chicken cacciatore, with onion, garlic, crushed tomatoes and a little Ro-tel tomatoes for spice, fresh basil, fresh parsley, etc. It was wonderful. If you ever have Byrne over, have him cook. You won't be disappointed, I guarantee it.

However, this weekend was a totally different story. We braved the supermarket Saturday night as the snow began to fall - it was a madhouse as everyone scrambled to have enough groceries on hand that they didn't have to go out Sunday. We were snowed in Sunday with 22 inches of snow. There was no going anywhere. So we took a nice relaxing bath in the soaking tub, then came down and had some leftover Italian food from Saturday's wonderful lunch at Vincent's, one of the tastier Italian places out here. (We had lunch portions and still had enough for a full meal at home!)

We built a fire in the fireplace, printed our taxes to file (good refunds - yeah!), and cooked a roast in gravy, with onions, carrots, parnips and celery.

It was nice to be able to just sit there and enjoy watching the snow fall from our comfy sunroom.