How did we already reach the eve of the third Sunday in Advent? Extraordinary!
A large portion of this week has been spent in a monotonous blur of shovelling, with over 30cms of snow having fallen in the city; picturesque but not a happy scene for those of us with a lot of shovelling to do. Sigh.
On a brighter note, there was a surprising development in the Day Camp World with the arrival of an enquiry about the possibility of a Team spending a week at a small residential Camp for children 6-9yrs. in rural Saskatchewan.
The conversation around this has just begun, but if it does come to pass it will not be our first experience of running the program within the context of another Camp since, for a number of years we used to do just that ata Camp on the Gaspé Coast of Quebec. We also received another Montreal church’s Application and, on Wednesday morning I struggled through the drifts to a meeting at a local Presbyterian Church to discuss the Program, as they are considering applying.
Thus a surprisingly busy Day Camp week despite the proximity of Christmas. Monday will be our December committee meeting, so it looks as if we will have quite a few things to talk about!
As mentioned before, there has been much time spent shovelling, but also a slew of cooking in preparation for the dinner party for 24, which I am catering. All the appetisers are completed for the “Cocktail” on the 19th so now it is full steam head for the dinner. This week I have managed to prepare 2 of the main course dishes and today will include some baking towards the 3 desserts, as well as a cake for the committee dinner.
Yesterday afternoon I hauled out the sewing machine and put together a number of fabric gift bags since I have decided to eschew paper wrapping this year and hope, this evening, to fill them up with completed gifts. Yesterday also brought the happy news that I am to have a tree, kindly given by family friends, who have generously provided me with one for the past few Christmases. In anticipation of its arrival, I have rearranged several pieces of living room furniture and erected the stand. I can’t wait to see it!!So this is mostly a “Bake and Blog” Saturday, although there will need to be some shovelling again, and, if it arrives in time, the trimming of the TREE!
One evening this week I was reading “Light from Heaven” by Jan Karon and was moved again by this lovely Christmas poem: –
“ Let the stable still astonish;
Straw-dirt floor, dull eyes,
Dusty flanks of donkey, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain
And then the child,
Rug-wrapped, laid to cry
In a trough
Who would have chosen this?”
“Who would have said: ‘Yes.
Let the God of all the heavens
And earth
Be born here; in this place’?
Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms
of our hearts and says,
‘Yes, Let the God of Heaven and Earth
Be born here—
In this place.’”
And before I head off to tackle the snow, a recipe. Still working my way through the varieties of squash found on my kitchen counter, Thursday evening I prepared: –
Pasta with Sausage and Pumpkin
- 1 pound spicy Italian Sausages, cut into small chunks
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 2 large cloves of garlic, minced
- 2 Tbsps. olive oil
- 1 cup dry white wine (or vegetable stock)
- 1 cup vegetable stock
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 Tbsps. crumbled sage
- 1 cup roasted pumpkin or squash, mashed
- ½ cup milk
- ½ tsp. each cinnamon and nutmeg
- coarse salt and pepper, to taste
- 1 pound chunky pasta such as macaroni, fusilli or rotini, cooked and drained
In a large sauté pan, heat the olive oil and brown the sausage pieces. Remove them from the pan and set aside. Add the onion and garlic and sauté until browned and softened. Add the wine (or stock), stirring up the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Stir in the cup of vegetable stock, bay leaf, sage and pumpkin and simmer for 10minutes. Return the sausage to the pan along with the milk and spices. Mix well and heat through. Reduce the heat to low and add the cooked pasta, tossing everything together and heating until pasta is warmed.
Serves 4.