Baby, Its Cold outside.

I'm seriously hard up for anything to say other than "It's cold". On the way home tonight, I told Pat that I was really trying to will myself not to say "I'm cold" repeatedly through out the day because its truly just pointless. Its a given. Yet, not even a minute later, without even realizing it, I muttered again, "I'm just so cold."

We live in an old house with poor insulation and tall ceilings. In short, you can't get this place warm. Well, actually you can. My father-in-law had this place jacked up to 72 degrees over Christmas and we were TOASTY. But, as my daughter states daily, Christmas is over, and Mama's too cheap to keep the house at 72 degrees every day. Instead, we huddle around space heaters, frequently wear robes over our clothing, and fill ourselves with the warming comforts of things like oatmeal and tea. (I currently have tea bags in my coat pocket, school bag, car, and purse -- a cup of tea is never far from thought.) And, of course, we cook...

(Who says this can't be a food blog?)

I got a little adventurous in the produce aisle this week, and came home with some fennel, which I've been wanting to try for ages. If you're the soup type, you might really like this. You probably won't need all of the broth it calls for.

Meat and 3?
Do people really fix a meat entree AND 3 side dishes for most meals? Forget how much food that is. That's just a lot to plan, cook, and clean-up. Uf! Pat swears this is how he ate growing up, although does anyone who's ever met Pat believe he ate that heartily as a kid? Yeah, me neither. (Not to mention his mother weighed only 98 pounds until she was well into her 40's.)

As part of my bargaining to get dinner out on Thursday after a long day at work, I offered Pat the rare treat of "Meat and TWO" (although it ended up being 3 because he requested all carbs and nothing green) for dinner on Friday night. Its probably because I never cook like that, but Pat heartily endorses this easy dry rub pork loin prep....

Dry Rub Components: Dried Thyme, Kosher salt, cracked pepper, and rosemary.

Cut some slits across the top of the pork, stick some of the rub down in there, along with some slivers of garlic, and use the remaining dry ingredients to season the top of the pork.

1/2 lb. of pork loin takes about 30 minutes to cook in a 350 degree oven. Adjust according to the amount of meat.

Today's plans for staying warm in the kitchen include some festive BLUE sugar cookies for tomorrow's festivities, and perhaps some of this granola, because it just sounds good. And tomorrow, there will be Jiffy Pizza Crust breadsticks for the party as well. I won't include the recipe here because I wouldn't know how to make them without the boxed pizza crust mix, and the recipe for the breadsticks is on every package.

Go Colts!