Why is it that February seems to last forever? For a short month, it does take its time. In February, I start wishing for spring, despairing over the lack of color in the yard. As a “welcome to March” gesture, Mother Nature bestowed upon us some crocuses and some daffodils last week.

I am not the only one itching for spring. Pumpkin and I were out in the driveway on a sunny afternoon last week. She was practicing her scooter skills and I was on the phone, when we heard her shriek. The person I was chatting with said, “Do you have a dog…Is that a dog I hear?” “No – that’s my daughter…she just saw a crocus bloom. It’s the first spring bloom and I guess she’s excited.” I know how she feels, but I don’t let my 42-year-old self jump up and down and shout for joy that much anymore. Well, I do…on the inside. Pumpkin celebrated nature by destroying it to cut down every last crocus to make a bouquet. It was nice while it lasted. The daffodils will take over pretty soon and I told Pumpkin she can cut a bunch of those as there will be plenty to enjoy in the yard and in a vase.

Cookbook Alert!

OK – so there has been lots of knitting content of late, and with the dour weather, well, there’s been lots of knitting. Go figure. I still endeavor to feed my family, and do so in the healthiest way I can while respecting the diverse tastes found under this roof. Now, wasn’t that a nice way to put it? In January, I checked out a new (to me) cookbook called Frozen Assets Lite & Easy: Cook for a Day, Eat For A Month, by Deborah Taylor-Hough. Taylor-Hough has been published in the Oregonian FoodDay and the Dollar Stretcher, so I was familiar with her approach to cooking freezer meals. I never pursued it beyond a dish or two because I was put off by the notion of spending a whole day in the kitchen even if it meant a month’s worth of dinners. This version of Frozen Assets is different and much easier to fit in my hurry-up-and-wait homemaking existence. Right off the bat, the book met my main criteria for any cookbook I plan to purchase: it has nutritional information for every recipe. The other attractive feature is that the entrees are broken down into “mini-sessions”, so that the cook can choose to spend a whole day in the kitchen, or an hour or two. That sold me completely. I have tried two chicken mini-sessions and a pork session and was able to pull them off with minimal fuss and muss and wound up with 8+ meals in the freezer, all cooked while my daughter was at kindergarten. Because this is the “lite & easy” version of the series, the meals are prepared with minimal fat, and 9 out of the 26 sessions are vegetarian. I have found it easy to find dairy-free recipes, or adapt the ones we like to fit my dairy-free requirements. Since discovering this book, we have made fewer trips to Papa Murphy’s, so our food budget likes this cookbook as well.

Some knitting content for the road

This wonderfully cozy shawl is brought to you by cosmicpluto and 2 skeins of Cascade 220 Paints in the Cherry-Berry colorway.