Week Two, Not Much New

Best laid plans of mice, as they say... well, I'm sure you know the rest. My Art Every Day Month was sadly interrupted by a family tragedy. My grandfather passed away very suddenly. He was a great man and a great father and grandfather; he had a great sense of humor, a great faith, and a great heart. I travelled out west with my parents to see him laid to rest, and to spend a few days with my dad's side of the family. As you can imagine, I didn't have much time or energy for art after the first couple days of the week. When I did, I worked on lettering a title page for a notebook I'm using to keep notes as I work through a tarot card book. 

So, here's my meager update, with two fauns I drew before we had to travel. 

She's supposed to look like she heard something behind her and is turning to look. 

He's supposed to be what she heard, and he likes what he sees ;)

I still need to ink these, and then I plan to Zentangle inside the outlines. 

Tonight I felt more culinarily creative, probably owing to my inclination to nest at this time of year combined with having spent time in the kitchen with my aunt who is a home economics teacher (and a fantastic cook and baker - she and my other aunt made our wedding cake!).  So I tried a three-ingredient beer bread recipe I found, and threw together a butternut squash and cranberry something-or-other to put in my bento boxes this week. 

Next week, I hope to be back on the wagon with seven days' worth of art to show!

Experimental Dinner

I have to share my dinner with you.  In a virtual way.  Because I made it up, and I'm very proud of how it turned out:



I wanted to write down the recipe and share it, but I made it up as I went along, so I can tell you what I did but the measurements will be imprecise.  In case you want it, here's the how-to:

Italian-style Stuffed Acorn Squash
Serves 4
You'll need:
2 acorn squash
olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, minced
about a half pound of ground beef
about 1 1/4 teaspoon of dried sage
a handful of parsley, chopped coarsely
salt and pepper
a 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes, drained
a little over 1 cup of stuffing mix or if you're like me, the heel of a small loaf of french bread, cubed and toasted in a skillet because you have that but not stuffing mix and you want bread cubes in the filling
grated parmesan cheese
a large skillet
a baking dish
knives and stuff... ok you get the idea

So you preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and while that's preheating, lightly grease the baking dish (I sprayed it with olive oil), halve the acorn squash, scoop out the seeds, and lay the halves cut-side down in the baking dish.  When the oven is ready, put that in and set a timer for 30 minutes.

While that's in, coat the bottom of the skillet with olive oil, heat it over medium heat, and put the garlic in.  Try not to burn it like me.  When the garlic is nicely sauteed, stick in the ground beef and brown it.

Season the ground beef and garlic with the sage, parsley, salt and pepper until it tastes good.  Really, this was trial and error.  (Try to account for the fact that you will be adding more stuff and over-season it just a smidge - otherwise you'll end up adding more after the next step like I had to.)

Add your (drained!) diced tomatoes, your parmesan, and your bread cubes/stuffing mix.  Stir it all up and let it simmer for a few minutes while the squash finishes roasting.

When the timer goes off, check your squash to make sure a knife will easily pierce the skin - that's how you know it's done (according to the interwebs).  Take it out of the oven, flip the squash halves over so they're little bowls (yes they will probably roll around a little and not sit straight), and fill them with the mixture.  Spray with a little olive oil to keep it all moist and sprinkle parmesan on top.  Stick in the oven for another 5-10 minutes to get the cheese a little melty, remove, and serve.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy! (As my Latin professor used to say.)

Okay, so I'm not likely to be publishing a cookbook anytime soon, and the world is a better, less frustrated place for that.  But if this sounds good to you, give it a try and let me know what you think!