Christmas is here, bringing good cheer

Does Carol of the Bells make anyone else feel a little frazzled? I love love love the song (although I love most Christmas music, I know, I know), but it just has this suspenseful feeling to it that - along with the general rush of the season - reminds me of driving around for that last Christmas errand in the rain totally exhausted, or staying up until 1am baking and wrapping presents the night before I have to be up early to leave work early to drive to family. Maybe it's a sign that I'm crazy that I still like the song.

My holidays really tend to consist of the two holiday-related posts I've made:

Step 1: Plan and think about what to do. Do some of it, but mostly procrastinate and think about doing it. Think lots, mostly about how much time there is to do stuff.

Step 2: Oh crap it's Christmas. Do as much as humanly possible, and then some. Only think if it's about how to do less, or how to cram what has to be done into the time left.

Somehow Step 1 rolls really quickly into Step 2; there is no nice getting stuff done time in between. Anyways, Step 2 is most definitely here and I've started to cut stuff out. Like I said before, I'm doing all this for my own enjoyment, so I do have to stick to my guns and cut stuff when it's time to cut. If only I could do that at work, I'd have good cheer to spare.

One of those things that's getting cut lately is the glut of posts I have waiting in the back of my brain and the memory card in my camera. Things should quiet down just a bit after this week, but we have plans after the holidays, and some of them involve saying goodbye to the little apartment, so I make no promises. But there is pie coming eventually...

We're so frugal

Or not, since I'm Not Laura Ingalls.

But on another semantic note, I have a hard time kind of putting a term around the way I eat and live sometimes. It's sustainable, it's frugal, it's healthy, it's old fashioned, it's back-to-basics. These aren't all things that people automatically lump in together, and certainly something can be old fashioned without being sustainable, or sustainable without being frugal. Even sustainable without being healthy, but don't get me started.

So this little excerpt from Wise Bread: My Favorite Guides to Frugal Living Are Not Guides to Frugal Living was right up my alley. It's been quite the while since I reread the series; I might take another crack at them.

The Little House Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Whaaa? A children's fictionalized autobiography? Well, I have gotten lots of frugal ideas from the Ingalls family. OK, many of them are not practical in our time since we have a different economy and diferent scarcities than they did. For example, Ma and Laura would tear their worn sheets down the middle, turn the edges toward the outside and sew them back together to get more use out of the cloth. Nowadays, manufactured cloth is cheap and sewing skill and time are dear, so most people wouldn't bother.

And yet. I guess what I get from reading and rereading the Little House Series is encouragement toward frugal, simple living in the form of reminders of how luxurious my life truly is, even if I give up a few little niceties. I especially love reading about the Ingalls' Christmas mornings, and how excited and grateful little girls could be over a couple sticks of candy and some hand-knit mittens. Puts into pretty stark contrast the expectations of the modern American child, and provides me with plenty of incentive to keep our own holidays simple and joyful while my kids are still young enough to follow my lead.

Butternut Squash with Leek Soup

I found my camera!!! I know you were all on the edge of your seats and praying daily for me. You can stop all that now. I left it at my mom's house taking pictures of my carved pumpkin. Not Michael Landon didn't feel like carving his own, which means it's still sitting on my porch waiting to be made into soup (or pie, he hopes).

Anyways, I did not find my camera before I made this soup. I'll post a picture next time I make it - it is neon orange. Very fun and festive. It's also pretty easy - the original recipe came from some random generic 30 minute meals cookbook I got ages ago. It normally takes me longer than that, but only because there's lots of chopping and peeling and I don't like to dirty 3 pots by cooking everything at the same time. I also make large batches because it keeps well for a good long while (although doesn't freeze great) and Not Michael Landon will inhale any left lying around.

He loves loves loves this soup, which is amazing considering his culinary tastes usually don't stray far from the meat and the potato, and a safe salad here and there. This is fairly gourmet sounding. Maybe it's the potato that endures it to him, it does mellow it out nicely. On top of all these benefits, this soup is ultra healthy and cheap. How can you go wrong?

Ingredients
1 butternut squash, peeled and chopped into 1" cubes
2 medium russet potato, or 4 new potatoes, chopped into 1" cubes (peeled if you really want, but it adds extra nutrients and it'll just be blended up anyways)
2 tbsp butter or olive oil
1 leek, sliced
4 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup milk
salt & pepper to taste

Directions
1. Roast the butternut squash seeds in the oven with a squirt of oil and a dash of salt to snack on while you're cooking. They're like pumpkin seeds but smaller and nuttier, with better texture.
2. Soften the squash and potatoes. I usually steam/boil them one after the other in the same pot (not the same water), but I've been meaning to try roasting the squash.
3. Meanwhile, soften the leeks in your choice of fat.
4. Toss the (drained) squash and potatoes in with the leeks, and add stock and milk. Don't worry about mashing or ricing because...
5. Blend it all up. I bought an immersion blender pretty much solely for this soup. It makes it eleventy billion times easier. But I've done it in batches in my regular blender too, and it works, it's just a little messier (be sure to use a towel as a lid instead of the hard plastic one, to avoid hot liquid explosions).
6. Serve with some yummy bread - I'll post my olive oil bread soon.