Bald Cypress Leaf – SOOC
A leaf of our bald cypress tree rested on the deep snow last Sunday. The snow has now been washed away by a day of rain and winds. For more Straight Out of the Camera photos, visit Murrieta365.
Weekly Review with Snow on Andromeda Shrub
Here’s how this andromeda shrub looked last spring.
On My Blog
Elsewhere in the Blogosphere
- Ilana-Davita: My Friends (and Nieces) Love Books
- Pesky Settler: Her “after Chanukah scene” has a familiar look
- Imabima talks Yiddish.
- Tutorial on the Photoshop eye-dropper tool
To the many people celebrating holidays, enjoy. Shabbat Shalom to quite a few. Then there’s always Happy Festivus for whomever.
Easy Stuffing Recipe
Ever since Thanksgiving I’ve been working at this stuffing recipe. On Thanksgiving I made it with white rice (because we had a lot of leftover white rice from ordering Chinese food), but I prefer other bases for the stuffing. I have been making stuffing in chickens ever since. I highly recommend fresh sage if you can get it (see above photo – I grow it in my backyard, but it’s currently covered with snow); dried sage and other dried herbs are OK substitutes.
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken (you are going to have to make more if you are using a turkey)
- filler: 1/2 cup cooked couscous or 1/2 cup cooked rice or 1/2 cup cubed homemade bread
- 1 egg
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 stalk of celery, chopped
- 1 apple, cubed
- salt and pepper to taste
- dried or fresh sage and other herbs to taste
- optional: 1 cubed zucchini (add after the onion is translucent and cook for a bit)
How to prepare the stuffing
Start baking your chicken. You can sprinkle with pepper and fresh squeezed orange juice if you like, but don’t put in the stuffing yet. Meanwhile, prepare the stuffing. Saute the chopped onion and celery. When the onion is translucent, add the chopped apple and optional zucchini. Cook until apple starts to soften. Mix in herbs, seasoning, egg and grain filler. Now that the chicken has baked for at least half an hour, you can add the stuffing with a big spoon. Continue baking the chicken until the chicken is done (probably over an hour total). If you have extra stuffing, you can bake it on the side of the chicken. You can also add other ingredients on the side, like mushrooms or carrots.
If you have vegan friends joining you for the meal, you can prepare twice as much and cook the vegan “stuffing” separately, without the egg and far away from the chicken.
I liked the home-baked bread version the best, but one doesn’t always have extra rye-whole-wheat-sourdough bread available. In general, you should try playing with amounts to get the right proportion of wet ingredients like egg and apple to the grains.
Thursday Challenge: Light
Chanukah was last week. This week’s Thursday Challenge is “LIGHT” (Candle, Reflected, Shiny, Colourful, City Lights,…).
JPIX: Fall Holidays Edition
Welcome to JPIX, the blog carnival of Jewish photo bloggers. Click on any of the thumbnails to visit the posts.
Mottel:
Mother in Israel showed hikes; Ilana-Davita featured a synagogue window:
Leah Lipszyc:
Batya:
Pesky Settler (two on the left) and Dina in Jerusalem (chanukiah on the right):
G6:
Mrs. S.:
Seraphic Secret, Imabima, Lady-Light and Real Shaliach:
Robin (who has just opened an Etsy shop – visit her blog for details):
Leora:
And some more (by Leora, Mottel and Robin):
To participate in a future JPIX blog carnival please send in your links to favorite photos by February 24. You may also send them to jpixcarnival at gmail dot com. Pesky Settler will be hosting a JPIX on February 25. Thanks for volunteering.