Lazy Sunday.

I'm going through one of my bouts of insomina, I do fall asleep eventually but usually a few hours before I need to get up and so I start the day with that washed out feeling.  Largely its an uncomfortably firm mattress and a desperate need for new pillows.  So, I've bit the bullet and ordered a mattress topper and new pillows and the gods willing, I will once again enjoy the Sandman's entertainment.

Inspite of a much needed lie in this morning, the washed out feeling has remained, so putting on some soup seemed a very good idea, and there was a butternut squash from the veg box from Abel and Cole before the New Year that could do with being used and some beetroot.  I bought myself a slowcooker receipe book before Christmas too, and there's a carrot and beetroot receipe in there.  My crockpot is a 6.5 litre one and is split in two so I can do two different meals at the same time.  I did change the beetroot soup reciepe a little as the main flavour is beef stock - so instead I used vegetable bouillion and a capful of balsamic vinegar.  The butternut squash soup was an experiment. I've got some oranges needing to be used up too, and it occured to me orange and butternut squash could be a good combo.

The finished soups blended.

After the soups were bubbling away in the slowcooker, Rye and I settled on the sofa and before long he was softly snoring, so I surfed the web and caught up on blogs etc.  When he woke, he wanted to go out in the snow, so we donned warm clothes and ventured out in the dark.  It's significantly less cold - that's not to say it isn't cold.. it's just not skin freezingly bitter anymore.  The snow was even beginning to melt a little and on the roads its slush.  Tis to hope there's not a frost in the night otherwise the road will be horrific.
Bless Rye, he seemed rather unsure of this monster snow ball in the park:

Once back indoors it was naturally time for a bit of pirating;  "Yer money or yer life!"  Ohh, he's a bit lethal with that sword though, there was much ducking!

Then finally the soups were finished and blended and Rye enjoyed a bowl of the butternut squash, which he said, "Ohhhhhh yummy mummy," high praise indeed. :-)  And I tried the beetroot soup - wow a revelation.  I've never had beetroot soup before and did wonder if it would taste overly earthy... nope, its delicious, the red wine vinegar, added in the last hour of the cooking time, adds a lovely sour note to the sweetness of the carrot and beetroot and the earthiness is a subtle undertone.  Plus the colour; that ruby red is just soooo beautiful.

And then finally, a bit of a tidy up, the rephrasing of, "Time to tidy up Rye" to, "Lets see how quickly we can put the tree blocks in the bag," meant he helped without once uttering his favourite phrase of the moment, "I don't want to,"  A phrase that is testing my patience to the limit.  And I untied the strings on the pirate ship because I realised when untangling the strings the other day I somehow ended up with the sail on the wrong side of the mast, and put it right.