Cut off

It snowed this morning, and not just in the mountains....on my deck.  And my car.  And OMG this winter thing is actually coming.  I would love to show you pictures but blogger says "no more pictures, you're at your limit little missy."  So, sorry about that.  I'm hoping to rectify that situation soon.  Needless to say I went to the coffee shop instead of to the trailhead this morning.  I'm not quite acclimated to (or excited about) miserable-weather hikes just yet.

In honor of cold, dreary weather and off-season boredom I hosted a little dinner party last night.  Small, casual, mostly vegan.  Yup.  Vegan.  And it was delicious.  I would like to show you pictures of that too, but well....there's that little blogger memory problem.  Nuts.

This is the veggie chili recipe I used.  (Thank you to my sis who emailed it to me as I was en route to the grocery store!)  Two thumbs up.  Except for the peeling tomatoes part.  Because that was a pain in my #$%.  Just sayin'.  But its a GREAT party dish.  I was able to do all the prep ahead of time so that when guests showed up I had just two pots on the stove, no more work to do, and no dirty dishes laying around.  So nice.  We roasted up some acorn squash and called it a meal.  Tasty, warm, and so filling.  I do like the cooking when I actually take (err...have) the time to do it.  And even more enjoyable is cooking for others.  What I really loved about this meal was that there happened to be a guest attending who, unbeknownst to me, follows a vegan diet and was so excited that she was at a dinner party where she could actually eat the dinner.

After dinner there were pumpkins to carve, seeds to roast, and more wine to drink.  Such a fun fall night with friends.

My problem lately is that I keep having these parties to get rid of my alcohol, yet somehow I end up with just as much as I started with at the end of the night.  Not a bad problem to have such generous guests, but counterproductive to my intent.

Other than that I'm still "gathering nuts" and watching the snow line creep toward town.  Lots on the table this off-season.