Life Through the Lens

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Autumnal Week: Fall on the Farm

As we meandered our way back from the Shenandoah a few weekends ago, I was determined to stay off the interstate & take the back roads. There are always so many pleasant surprises when you take the road less traveled (literally). A great find we stumbled upon in Upperville, Virginia was Ayrshire Farm, which just happened to be having their annual fall festival. What great timing!

We wandered around the farm, playing with the many animals (including more turkeys than I have ever seen in my life), enjoying apple cider doughnuts & taking in the autumn-ness of it all. They even had a hay ride* to take you from the parking area up to the farm.

Photo (c) Christina Saull - All Rights Reserved

clearly the leader of the group... he hopped right up there onto the bucket, asserting his superiority over the other turkeys

*There may or may not have been an incident in the hay covered parking area where there were hundreds of grasshoppers hopping around. I may or may not have screamed repeatedly & refused to walk to the car. Once finally arriving at the car, a grasshopper may or may not have jumped into the car with me/on me, resulting in more screaming, resulting in the grasshopper hiding under the passenger seat. Which may or may not have resulted in me refusing to sit in said passenger seat & insisting on driving. All this may or may not have resulted in Brad repeatedly saying "You can take the girl out of the city, but..." Hope the grasshopper likes his new home in Alexandria.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Autumnal Week & Recipe Tuesday... all rolled into one!

What a great blog day! Day 2 of "Autumnal Week" & Recipe Tuesday, all rolled into one post!

Today, I give you this:

Corn Chowder*

This became a favorite of ours during last year's snowpocalypse, round I (not to be confused with this year's snow pocalypse, round I I).

Prep Time: 20 Minutes
Cook Time: 25 Minutes
Ready In: 45 Minutes

Servings: 4

Ingredients:
6 bacon strips, diced
3/4 cup diced celery**
1 small onion, diced
1 cup diced potato
1 cup water
1 (14.75 ounce) can cream-style corn
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon pepper

Directions:
In a saucepan, cook bacon, celery and onion over medium heat for 10-15 minutes or until bacon is cooked; drain. Add potato and water. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes or until potato is tender. Stir in remaining ingredients; heat through (do not boil). Refrigerate or freeze leftovers.

* There is nothing healthy about this recipe.
** I leave out the celery since Brad doesn't like it.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Autumnal Week: Oh Shenandoah...

To celebrate our wedding anniversary (and, honestly, to get the heck out of the city), we ventured out to Shenandoah National Park a few weekends ago. A highlight of the trip was a Sunday morning drive along Skyline Drive, which offered beautiful views of both the Shenandoah mountains to the west and the rolling Piedmont to the east. The fall leaves were spectacular - more muted than the colors in New England, but still pretty none the less.

The Shenandoah area of Virginia is just beautiful. This place was on my (embarrassingly long) list of places I haven't been to in the area, despite living here for over five years. I'm glad I finally made it out there.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Three years ago...

On October 20, 2007...

I walked up the aisle with this guy...

got some new jewelery...

walked down the aisle with this guy...

and lived happily ever after!

Ode to my previous years of marriage:
2009
2008

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Recipe Tuesday: Bishop's Bread

Last weekend, Brad & I went to a little B&B out in the country for an anniversary/get-of-out-of-the-city getaway. Sunday morning for breakfast, the owner made the most delicious Bishop's Bread (along with some other extremely yummy breakfast items).

I thought I would share this recipe I found, which I can't wait to try.

Bishops bread
Cook Time: 1 hour, 20 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour, 20 minutes

Ingredients:
* 1 egg
* 1/2 cup granulated sugar
* 1/4 cup vegetable oil
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1 cup buttermilk
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 cup chopped pecans
* 1/2 cup chopped well drained maraschino cherries
* 1/2 cup raisins or chopped dates
* 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preparation:
In mixing bowl, beat egg with electric mixer until light, about 1 minute. Add sugar, oil, and vanilla. Beat well. Blend in the buttermilk. In another bowl sift together the flour, soda, and salt. Add pecans, cherries, raisins or dates, and chocolate chips; blend well. Add to the first mixture and stir until just combined. Pour the batter into a greased and floured 9x5-inch loaf pan. Bake in preheated 350° oven for 1 hour, or until a wooden pick or cake tester inserted in center comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes then remove to a rack to cool completely.

Makes 1 loaf of Bishop's Bread.

Monday, October 18, 2010

One last glimpse of Boston

as we sailed out of the harbor...

Bah-ston

Actually, we did not hear a single person with a true Boston accent the entire time we were there. Disappointing really.

My expectations were really low for our visit to Boston. I have no idea why, for the city has never given me a reason to doubt it. The good thing about low expectations is that they are easily exceeded. And boy where they. What a great place! The history! The architecture! The green public spaces! The cannoli! Ohhh... the cannoli in the Italian district was to die for.

So bravo to you Boston. I've now added you to my list of places I would like to spend a little bit more time in.

Beautiful Beacon Hill windows

Photo (c) Christina Saull - All Rights Reserved

obligatory Cheers photo

Photo (c) Christina Saull - All Rights Reserved

historic Faneuil Hall

Photo (c) Christina Saull - All Rights Reserved

the best cannoli I have ever had, including the one I had in Naples, Italy - thumb's up to Mike's Pastry!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Hello out there!

Hello faithful blog readers!

A bit of a confessional: I'm still editing vacation photos from August. This has made blogging quite the chore. There is so much that I want to share with you... and yet not enough hours in the day to do so.

I've been thinking about changing some things up in this here bloggity blog, but I'd like to hear from you first: what do you want more of? Less of? Any ideas? And, most importantly, who are you? Google analytics tells me people are reading this... but I'm not sure who you are. So drop me a comment below if you read my blog on even a semi-regular basis!

For your hard work, here's a picture that makes me smile:

Friday, October 8, 2010

Titanic

The city of Hallifax, Nova Scotia & the Titanic disaster are linked, probably more closely than many Nova Scotians would like. It was trans-Atlantic cable laying boats that were sent to recover bodies of Titanic victims from the North Atlantic. The survivors went to New York City. The dead went to Halifax.

328 bodies were recovered from the water, with 209 being returned to Halifax. 119 badly damaged, or deteriorated bodies were buried at sea. Of the 209 brought to Halifax, 150 are buried there - 19 in Mt. Olivet Catholic Cemetary, 10 in Baron de Hirsch Jewish Cemetery, and 121 in Fairview Lawn Cemetary. 44 of these souls remain unidentified. (The rest that were identified were shipped out to their families')

There are Titanic artifacts that you can see at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, a museum well worth its cost of admission. These include one of a handful of surviving deck chairs (that's it below) & a tiny pair of shoes that belonged to the "unknown child," who was recovered by rescue crews a few days after the Titanic sinking and was unidentifiable.

Seeing the artifacts & headstones (almost all identical & provided by the White Star Line) was really interesting & made the disaster seem very real, despite the almost 100 years that have passed since.

John Dawson, whose story has nothing to do with Jack Dawson from the movie "Titanic"

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Autumn

A brief break from summer vacation photos for an ode to my favorite season, autumn.

(wedding photos by the fabulous Mary Kate McKenna)

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Recipe Tuesday: Butternut Squash Soup

I've been trying to cook at home more & try new recipes, so I thought I'd start a new thing on this ol' bloggity blog: Recipe Tuesday. Every Tuesday (give or take a week or two), I'll share a recipe that I've found, successfully made & managed not to kill anyone with. If I'm extra good, I'll try to include some photos of the cooking process.

This week: Butternut Squash Soup , courtesy of one of my coworkers.

When the weather turns chilly, there isn't anything better in the world than homemade soup. I made this for dinner Sunday night along with a grilled cheese sandwich for Brad & had it again for lunch on Monday. It will refrigerate well for a few days, & also will freeze well in small batches. My biggest tip is not to puree it too much - we might have been over-zealous, & it made the soup a little thinner than my personal preference.

¼ stick butter
1 onion, chopped
4 lbs. butternut squash – peeled, seeded cut into chunks
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 gala apple, peeled, cored, diced
2 cups half & half, light cream or milk
2 tbsp. apple brandy
½ tsp. ground nutmeg ( I like a little more)
salt & pepper to taste

Melt butter in large pot over medium heat. Add onion, sauté until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add squash, broth, apple. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer until squash and apple are tender, about 30 minutes. Working in batches, puree soup in blender until smooth. Return soup to pot. Add half & half , brandy, nutmeg, salt & pepper.

Adjust seasonings to taste. Also can add more liquids to adjust to desired thickness.

Note: after adding half & half, soup should not boil.