by Sara Barry | Oct 17, 2014 | abundance, cooking, fall, use what you have, what's for dinner
It’s Harvest Feast night at my kids’ school.
Families bring food pot luck, and each class makes a food based on what they grew in the school garden. I’ve helped my girls’ classes make jam and thumbprint cookies and soup.
Our family is bringing this squash mac and cheese to the potluck. It’s one of my favorite fall foods. The squash adds fiber and a little sweetness. I’ve this from adapted from Elie Krieger’s recipe.
Squash Mac & Cheese
1 lb macaroni (I used a slightly smaller box)
1 quart cooked squash* (2 10-oz packages frozen)
2 cups milk
8 oz grated cheddar cheese (or other sharp cheeses)1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. powdered mustard
dash cayenne
1/4 cup plain bread crumbs
2 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
1 Tbsp olive oil
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
- Cook the macaroni and drain well. Pour into a buttered 9 x 13 baking dish.
- In the meantime, heat the squash and milk together until it starts bubbling. Stir frequently to prevent sticking. If your squash was not pureed previously, you may want to use an immersion blender at this point to smooth out the sauce.
- Stir in the salt, mustard, and cayenne.
- Add the cheddar cheese and stir until just melted in.
- Pour the cheese mixture over the macaroni, stirring to make sure the sauce spreads over all the noodles.
- Mix the bread crumbs, Parmesan, and olive oil together. Sprinkle over the macaroni.
- Bake for about 20–25 minutes.
Sometimes I add a meat like ham and/or other veggies like peas, broccoli, or kale to make it a more complete part of dinner.
* I cut my squash in half and place cut side down in a baking dish. I add about an inch of water and bake at 350 degrees F until the squash is soft. After it cools, remove seeds and scrape the squash flesh out of the skin. (You can simmer the seeds and skin to make a mild vegetable broth if you wish).
by Sara Barry | Oct 4, 2014 | fall, finding time, Uncategorized, writing
Get up early. Notice the way the red leaves glow in the gray morning. Drink good coffee. Write.
Read with your kids. Let them loll on on your lap. Make raisin toast with cinnamon (or sour dough with peanut butter if one of them is picky.)
Run in the rain. Say “good morning” to the other crazy hardy soul you pass. Realize it’s a friend you never see. Say “Oh, hi it’s you!” Go home. Clear your glasses. Take a long, hot shower.
Find a package in your mailbox. Dream of garlic scape pesto next spring. Wonder when to plant your garlic. Remember you still need to dig potatoes and pull carrots. Look out at the rain. Wait.
Go to brunch at a friend’s house. Eat, drink more coffee, have a conversation while your kids are running around the house.
Stop at the library. Pick up the next book in the Fairy Realm series for bedtime. Check out a garden book for inspiration.
Back home, smile at the flowers all over the house, the ones that this and coming rain inspired you to cut yesterday—cosmos and zinnias and mums and sedum.
Eat bacon. On a burger. With home brewed beer.
Add a side of spicy oven fries cooked in some of the bacon fat. Notice that nobody complains about dinner tonight.
Wait til the kids are in bed. Eat apple crisp for a late dessert. Wonder if your pears are ripe enough to make this. Wonder if you have time to make it for breakfast in the morning.
Put on PJs snuggle under covers. Love that it is cool enough to snuggle under covers. Sleep. Get ready to get up early, notice the light, drink coffee, and write.
How are you creating energy, connecting with family and friends, finding beauty, or nourishing yourself this weekend?
by Sara Barry | Oct 1, 2014 | fall, parenting, summer, writing
Dear Summer,
I’m done with you.
My fridge is full of squash mac and cheese and stock to make soup. My summer clothes are in the attic. And even if you entice me with beach-warm days, I’ve already packed up the bathing suits and dusted off sand for the last time.
Really, I’m ready for a change. But if you insist on coming back for a while, here’s what I’ll do:
I’ll wear my layering t-shirts with my hiking or running shorts since they’re always in my drawer.
I’ll work in the garden and pick some more green beans. I’ll notice that there are more pumpkins than I thought and that the vines have climbed up the bean teepee.
I’ll grill meat for dinner and eat at the picnic table.
I’ll let the kids stay up late (just on the weekends, they’re back to school, you know) running around outside with their friends. I’ll listen to their squeals and shrieks as they toss balls and play tag in the growing darkness. I’ll look up when they shout that they’ve seen a bat. And I’ll smile at their glee over being out so late, playing out after dark.
When we go back in, I’ll look at the clock and remember that you are just visiting. It’s dark, but not really so late after all.
So summer, you’re time’s about up. I knew you’d be back. You have trouble leaving each year. Do I ever really welcome you back enthusiastically—or is it a grudging embrace?
Really you can go now. We’re going to pick apples and drink cider. We’re piling up wood and waiting to wear new fall clothes. I’ve got that soup to make, but I need a cool day. I know you were only half-heartedly here this year, but still I’m ready to move on.
Come see me next June, okay? I’ll look forward to your growing light and the lettuce you coax from the garden. I’ll be ready for the sundresses and the swimming hole. I’ll toss out my routines for your unstructured days. But new we’re settling into those routines, getting ready for cozy. We’ll see you next year.
Love,
Sara
Write with Me:
It’s the start of a new month, one firmly footed in fall here. We just wrapped up some summery weather that I never quite expect, despite living here my whole life.
What does the change of seasons look like where you are? How do you feel about the change? Write about it—journal, write a letter, describe a summer-fall day.
Share:
Share your writing—and this prompt—with a friend.
Comment:
Am I crazy to usher out fall or a you ready for a change too?
I savor that fall-summer night I had out in the dark with my kids, even as I wait for fall to come in earnest. I noticed the gathering dusk and the way the reds and yellows glowed for a bit before the light went. I remember too how their faces glowed with excitement.
Are you ready to focus on these kinds of details in your life? Ready to slow down and capture them? Join me for Abundance a month-long, online writing retreat that begins October 15.
Click here to learn more.
by Sara Barry | Sep 29, 2014 | fall, finding time, traditions
Imagine waking up and hearing that you didn’t have to go to work and all your appointments were cancelled today.
The bells rang out on my college campus today signalling Mountain Day. Classes are cancelled. It’s a day to be outside, climb a mountain, eat cider donuts and ice cream.
Ever since I graduated, I’ve been tempted to take my own Mountain Day when I get the email announcing the arrival of this fall tradition.
I think about going on a hike or cancelling work for the day, but inevitably I’m on deadline or catching up after a weekend away or just got a call from a client I haven’t heard from in a while. There’s always something isn’t there?
So I’m not calling off work today or pulling my kids from school, but I had a cider donut with my coffee. I’ll give my girls donuts or take them out for ice cream this afternoon.
I took a walk this morning, just around the block, no mountain involved, but I slowed down. I paid attention to the swirl of colors that has emerged recently, noticed the yellow against gray sky that has now brightened up to blue.
I’m not taking the whole day off, but I’m going to take a little break anyway. I encourage you to take your own Mountain Day today, or a least a Mountain Moment.
Take a break.
Have a treat.
Get outside.
Slow down.
Notice the beauty around you.
Happy Mountain Day!
What are you going to do with your Mountain Moments?
For a month of this kind of Mountain Moment, join me for Abundance.
by Sara Barry | Sep 24, 2014 | fall, grief, writing
Last night we had a frost warning, so I picked all the ripe tomatoes and the red peppers and two small firm purple globes of eggplant.
I filled up a colander with lettuce and green beans. I happened upon the last cucumbers of the season and cut some anemic basil.
I filled a take out quart container with flowers: mini crimson dahlias and creamy pink sedum and burgundy and ivory mums. I tucked a spring of sage in there and a couple of red-violet cosmos.
After the kids were in bed and I had tired out the puppy, I put on a headlamp and ran out into the chill that made me believe frost might come. I pulled back the sheets I had spread over the pepper plants and picked half a dozen green ones for good measure.
This is what September should be. Crisp apples. A flurry of garden gleanings. Trying to figure out how to preserve it all.
Six years ago my tomatoes sat forgotten in my garden. Lettuce was abandoned. Did I even plant beans or peppers or broccoli or kale?
Instead of working in my kitchen of an ever earlier darkening evening, I was sitting in a hospital that always seemed bright. I was waiting.
At that point I wasn’t waiting to see if my son’s life would be preserved. No, I was simply waiting to be released, to get back to our regularly scheduled life.
The one with tomatoes sitting on the counter waiting to be turned into sauce.
The one where I was tired because my baby woke in the night to eat.
The one where portable oxygen tanks weren’t needed.
And yes, the one where I was scheduling appointments with PT and OT and speech, follow ups with the cardiologist, and check ups with the ENT and ophthalmologist, because I had accepted that those were parts of our new normal.
The hospital visit wasn’t part of the plan any more than the Down syndrome or the NICU stay had been. We had been settling in to our new, post-surgery normal. And then a cold. Okay, a cold is normal.
An ambulance. No.
A ventilator. No.
Another ambulance. NO.
The hospital.
After a week, we didn’t really know what was wrong, and there was no sign that we would head back to our life any time soon.
On these bright September days when summer and fall are struggling for dominance and the school bus’s twice a day arrival is part of the way we tell time, part of me walks those halls again. I’m wearing a temporary name badge and avoiding the people who look too familiar with the place. We’re just here for a quick visit after all. We’re going home to visit the farm and let our five-year-old neighbor hold Henry. We have tomatoes to pick and buses to wave to and baby group to go to. We have a life to live. Or so I think.
On these bright September days, even in the midst of all the winding down, I feel the hope of all that is to come.
Your Turn
Write with Me:
I wrote this last September. I started out looking at the pile of garden gleanings filling my table and counters. I didn’t know where I was going to go with it. I just followed and kept writing.
Today start by looking around you.
What do you see? Your dog, the toys the kids didn’t put away, a framed photograph from years ago, the butternut squash you were thinking of cooking . . .
Start with one thing you see. Describe it. React to it.
See where it leads you.
Share:
What prompted your writing today? Where did it take you? Tell us in the comments (even if it was a dead end).
by Sara Barry | Sep 22, 2014 | fall, finding time, Uncategorized, writing
It’s the last day of summer, but I’ve already embraced fall.
We’re digging potatoes, stacking wood, crunching apples.
My garden is still putting out kale and chard, beans and herbs, zinnias and cosmos.
I sauté deep green kale and pair it with bright orange squash. I simmer big pots of soup and chili, bake pork and apple pie, fill up the freezer.
I notice the beauty, the color, how much we have.
I invite you to notice the beauty and fullness in your life, harvest your own ideas, preserve your memories, and savor your own abundance. I invite you to make time to think, space to write.
The school bus rumbles down our street, squeals to a stop, bright yellow against a deep blue sky. Watching my big girl climb the high steps I remember holding her—then holding her back—as we watched our friends get on the bus, back when the bus was a break in a long morning.
I collect that memory, sit with it, gather the details, write it.
***
Saturday orange-red globes and dusky cherry tomatoes spilled over my friends counter. I set down a bag of peppers, chunky fir green poblanos, narrow yellow bananas, mid-green bells. We chopped and simmered, moving easily around each other in the comfort of old friends.
It is the last of our summer canning. Apple sauce yes, but that’s fall. Green tomatoes maybe as frost threatens. I’ve step out at night with the dog and smelled the cold already. When I get out of bed for my early morning writing, I pull on a sweater, slide into slippers.
Sunday was sticky and warm days are in the forecast for this week—summer hanging on, but the crispness of the days before, the days to come, it energizes me. I’m running more regularly and settling back into a better writing routine after a lack of summer schedule.
I am more motivated to do. But I take time still to sit outside writing, watching, reading, letting go of the weeds in the garden, letting go of my lists.
Later when my girls are in bed . . .
Tomorrow morning before they are up . . .
In the car after preschool drop off before I start work . . .
I’ll write.
I’ll describe this late summer day, the quiet in the house, the steady buzz of bees in the carpet of alyssum around the kale. I’ll shake off a morning meltdown or shift back my to my own kindergarten days, little snippets—red shoes, a yellow record, a batik project outside. I’ll start with the sensory details of making salsa and see where it takes me.
Take the time to write, to explore your ideas and memories, tap into creativity.
It’s Monday. Lunches to pack, school drop off, call with a client, meet the bus.
It’s Monday, and I’m taking time to write, creating a pocket of calm, holding space for myself.
I’m noticing my world in all its messy glory.
I’m capturing bits of today and harvesting memories, palpable, and sometimes as elusive as the potatoes I need to finish digging up.
I’m preserving the moments in words, filling notebooks as I fill my canning cabinet.
And I’m slowing down, savoring it all—even the chaos of a Monday morning.
You can too.
Take time for yourself. Notice your world. Write it. Join me and embrace your own abundance.
