Winter Indoors

When winter truly settles in and the weather is freezing cold outside, changes occur in our house as well.














 
The air becomes very dry, and skin becomes extra sensitive. Over the years, we've accumulated quite an assortment of creams to soothe our dry hands.

Terry's favorite is Herbacin kamille hand cream from Germany (in the green tube).

I still haven't found the perfect hand cream, but for years have used Avon's moisture therapy, in the white tube on the left.

Some quilting friends swear by Burt's Bees carrot night cream (not day cream) to heal fingers pricked by needles while quilting. I sometimes try it on my winter-dry hands as well. (The biggest disadvantage of the carrot cream is that it spreads its orange color to fabrics.)















To solve the sore thumb problem, I I finally invested in a leather thimble to protect my thumb when I quilt. (Those 40% off coupons at Michael's can be very useful!)




































But my favorite defense against the cold winter weather is cooking. Today I decided to warm the house with baked vegetables and a small pork roast.

Going online to recipelink.com (my favorite recipe source), I did a search for "oven-baked vegetables".

I wanted to bake some cauliflower and potatoes that I had on hand. One recipe suggested creating a medley of autumn vegetables, including carrots and onions. After cutting the vegetables (2 potatoes, 2 small onions, 1 carrot, and half a head of caultiflower) into largish pieces, I mixed a tablespoon of olive oil with almost a cup of broth and a teaspoon of thyme. This I poured over the vegetables, stirring to coat, and baked them covered for about half an hour at 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

At the same time, I roasted a small roast of pork from Dinners by Design - http://dinnerbydesignkitchen.com/

After half an hour, I uncovered the vegetables to brown them. At the same time, I added a mix of apples and raisins to the roast, and continued to bake them all for another half hour or so.

In the end they looked, smelled and tasted great.

In winter, we have to pamper ourselves a bit just to get by!