HJ Waxing Moon

I made a fantastic top-of-my-head Harvest Fruit Salad for thanksgiving, and everyone LOVED it. In a meal full of rich, dense, salty flavors, this salad felt like a palate-cleanser between courses. Very bright and refreshing, tart like cranberry sauce and serving a very similar purpose. Keep in mind, this recipe is a bit of a work in progress. Besides being a dump cook, I also made a recipe twice this big for 15 people and it turned out to be way too much, though no one was upset being sent home with leftovers! Scale up at about half an apple (or pear) per person, and you should be good, even with some leftovers. Salad: 2 Honey crisp apples 2 Granny Smith apples 2 Some other kind of apples (I tried to get the ones that are pink inside but no luck; make it flavorful and visually appealing) 1 Pear 3/4 cup dried cranberries 1/2 cup sliced almonds 1 cup candied walnuts, for garnish 4-6 lemons, probably Dressing: Zest of 1 lemon 1/3 to 1/2 cup canola oil (avocado or a light...

The rule in our house has always been, "Those who don't believe in Santa don't receive gifts for Christmas." So it stands that at 30 & 33, my brother and I have never uttered words that might indicate Mr. Claus might possibly be imaginary, and certainly not in front of our mother. Magic, bringing gifts for parents to wrap (those overworked elves, you know), possibly non-corporeal, maybe even formerly-a-person but currently just an idea. But not real? NEVER. Sometime when I was in middle school and my brother was in high school, my mom had a kind of genius idea. Instead of taking the time to write tags on gifts for us from Santa, she grabbed (what I'm assuming is like 12 rolls) some wrapping paper that clearly related to each of our interests. In our case, it was the Tazmanian Devil & Winnie the Pooh. We each got a couple gifts from our parents and some years even each other, but all Santa gifts to a person were in their own wrapping paper with no tags. I...

This is a recipe I cobbled together back when I was low-carb. While I'm certain I used a number of recipes as inspiration, as I always do, I always seem to throw specific recipes out the window in favor of making my own, and I so rarely measure unless proportions matter. Much of the time, this results in having no idea what I did or being completely unable to recreate the genius. This is not one of those times! What you need: 2 lbs bulk sausage of choice: I like a good sage sausage, or a breakfast sausage, but even a spicy hot version has some appeal.  2 stalks celery 1 large yellow onion Fresh, hearty herbs: Sage, rosemary, thyme, stuff like that. Avoid softer herbs like basil & oregano, even parsley I think doesn't hold up.  1 butternut squash 1-2 apples a handful of nuts: walnuts, almonds, mixed nuts, hazelnuts, all good.  seasonings to taste What to Do: Peel the butternut squash and dice it (1/2 inch cubes). You can rinse the strings off the seed...

Given my grape allergy, you can imagine I miss out on a lot of delicious things. Chicken Marsala. Boeuf Bourguinon. Cinnamon raisin buns. Sangria. I do alright with most things, but every once in a while I feel a little deprived. Especially on the Sangria. Now, every place I've worked that made sangria used vodka in it, but my brother (whom I do trust as an expert in the field of alcohol's history) informs me that sangria is intended to be a low-alcohol version of wine, hence juicing it down. So, this is more of an exploration of sangria than a true recipe, but we're going to go for it. The important thing to note is, make the flavors work together. This recipe was intended to be a seasonal-foods recipe, hence the name. In effect, this is basically a party punch. Things You Need: Wine! You can use grape wines, obviously, but here we're using mead/honey wine. Because I had a 3/4 bottle of mead that I couldn't drink straight. Make the wine about 50% of your ...

We all have our strengths and weaknesses, our victories and failures, our blessings and our faults. Today we celebrate the good things our country has accomplished, take a break for a moment to appreciate the freedoms we are afforded by our citizenship, and renew our promise of stewardship of the American Dream.  Today we are thankful.  Tomorrow we wake up, alive another day, rested and free to roll up our sleeves to get back to the work at hand of bettering ourselves and our nation. Some people say we should be this patriotic every day. I say if we did this every day, we wouldn't appreciate it as much because it would be the new normal. Heck, some days I don't want to live in this country, let alone claim it as my own. Take a moment to appreciate the good parts, because we still have a lot of work to do on the parts that are still a bit broken. 

Each year I make some sets of goals and resolutions with varying degrees of specificity. It helps that since my birthday is just three weeks after New Year's, these goals come at a time of reflection in a multitude of ways. Of course, I make goals throughout the year as well, and don't feel as if I need to tie myself to New Year's resolutions if I find they're not working for me (especially if I've made them too specific).  Many New Year's resolutions pertain to bettering one's health and being better people. Always good projects! And having them start at a certain point in the year regularly certainly helps make them measurable, and to remind you to check back with your goals from year to year. The important thing is to forgive yourself for the ones you haven't accomplished; let go of the ones that needed to be changed after you made them; and congratulate yourself for any and all progress you've made on the rest, both those accomplished compl...

A few years ago, I made everyone in my family a gift basket for Christmas. This was the first time I'd ever given my own gifts to extended family, instead of letting my mom put my name on a tag of something she had bought for them. It felt very adult. I'd originally intended to make my own hot cocoa mix, give it in jars or bags, but I ran out of time to do that myself and bought packets of mix instead. In a basket with paper stuffing (in case of small children or pets), I included baggies of marshmallows, some cookies, and a mug for each person in the house. For the couple people who don't drink cocoa, I gave them tea. I made gifts for 27 people by spending $73, and was very proud of myself. This year, I wanted to do a reprisal of the hot cocoa baskets, though I was going to skip the mugs this time. I was going to make my own cocoa and perhaps help with the baking of the trays my dad and brother make for everyone in lieu of material gifts. However, looking at all the in...

Mr. Moon and I have been waffling on whether we would spring for gingerbread houses, which is something I've enjoyed doing in the past but wasn't sure we had time to do this year. Eventually we decided just to embrace it, and invited a friend over to join us in making them. She didn't end up being able to make it, and we ended up getting wrapped up in other things, which is how we found ourselves, two days later than we'd planned, sitting down to start decorating at 10pm. But this post isn't truly about the gingerbread houses, as much as it is about dealing with the overindulgence of the season. As is to be expected, decorating candy houses includes a bit of sampling, eating the ugly pieces, quality control, eating the oopsies, and guilt-free snacking. On candy. For someone who hasn't eaten that much sugar in YEARS, suffice it to say by the end I wasn't feeling so hot. By the time we finished cleaning up, I was already dreading the sleeplessness and mornin...