Feeling like crap

I spent most of the night hacking up a lung and with a stuffed up nose. Between the coughing and blowing my nose it was tough to sleep, add the pain to the mix and it was impossible. I should probably go grab some kind of expectorant and get with the Doc or pharmacist to see which one I can use in conjunction with the pain meds.

Since I was tossing and turning I came downstairs about 5am and made the coffee. I am looking forward to a nice Pumpkin bread bagel from Panera. Since the nearest one is about 30 minutes away I bought 2 dozen and froze some of them for next week. I also grabbed 4 foccacia bred to make some panini for lunch. They have some great bred and while I love to bake I have been unable to make something even close to what they sell.

It is supposed to be a fairly nice day. I am thinking maybe we should take the boys pumpkin picking. There are a few good places in my area where you can actually still pick your own off the vine rather then like some of the places where they put them in a bin and you pick out of that. How boring is that? The closest place also has an apple orchard and squash vines. I got some great spaghetti squash last year and my mouth is watering for that and some acorn squash.

With the spaghetti squash if you bake it just right, which to me is cut in half and placed face down in about an inch of water, you can scrape it out with the form (looks like spaghetti then) and add some butter and Romano, asiago or other hard cheeses and mix it in. It is wonderful!!!

For the acorn squash I like to cut it in half and bake it with some butter and cinnamon in the cavity where the seeds were removed. Then there is the butternut squash which my wife loves to make a soup from. She is not much of a cook (by her own admission) but what she does know how to make is awesome.

I got lucky and grew up with a family that loves to cook. I am also a bit of a mutt when it comes to heritage. While I am mostly Irish (even have the red hair and temper) I have Greek & Italian. I do have a few others in there but so minor it is less then 1/16th of English, Scottish, Welsh. My mother is 50/50 Irish/Sicilian(NOT ITALIAN) and my dad is 50% Greek, 25% Irish and then all the minor ones above. I remember my Ya-Ya (my paternal grandmother) making Dolmades and Spanikopita when I was growing up and the great aromas that were always lingering in her kitchen. It continued into our house where both my parents were in the kitchen cooking. It all rubbed off on me and I love to cook.

This is the time of the year I really like to cook though. When it is cool outside the food seems to be richer and full of flavor compared to the warm months when we void the hot kitchen like the plague.