Day 70. Pie Day.

Dinner tonight?  Shepherd's Pie and Pumpkin Pie.

Saute the onions, carrots, and celery.

Add the turkey and spices.

Simmer with chicken stock and tomato paste, add peas and corn.

Boil the potatoes.

Mash with milk, egg yolk, and butter.

Assemble, and you've got shepherd's pie!

For the pumpkin pie, grind the gingersnaps with more ginger, butter and sugar.

Press into a pie tin.

Simmer the pumpkin with half-and-half, sugar, eggs and nutmeg. 

Pour and bake!

 My family better be VERY grateful that they are getting gourmet meals every night, because when I can finally eat, the only one I am going to be cooking for is ME ME ME!

I finished my inchies piece...

It's going to look very nice with all nine pieces hung up together.

Day 68.

My drainage has decreased to very little again, so here I go, getting all optimistic once again, daydreaming of what food used to taste like.

This is the latest on my veggie still-life.

 Since it was Shabbat, I decided to make a challah.

I prayed with my family to heal this fistula.  Hopefully God will hear me.

 To go with the Coq Au Vin, I made pasta...from scratch!  It was so much fun and so easy too!

First, you run the pasta dough through to knead the dough.

 Then you change the attachment to a pasta-making attachment...

 Real fresh pasta!!!

 Then, I reduced the coq au vin sauce by 1/3, which took about 2 hours.

 Fresh challah, pasta, and chicken - now that's a meal!  Of course, I watched from afar as my family enjoyed it...

 My piece for the day:  a little whimsical daydream.

Day 66 and 67.

The days are feeling monotonous.  I feel so helpless.  There is only so much I can do to heal these fistulas and start eating again.  Just pray and let the time pass, hoping it's as painless as possible.  I want to savor my days again in every possible way.  I just want to have Chinese take-out!!!

I did a bit more on my still life.

This is a miniature canvas I did for fun out of paper and a bit of ribbon.

I also started this piece out of collage paper.

I found so much leftover pumpkin in my pantry that I decided to make pumpkin hummus!

 For dinner I started to make Coq Au Vin - but I didn't realize it will be a two day ordeal!  So this is Day One:

Boil and peel the pearl onions.

Season the chicken thighs and dredge in flour.

Saute the onions and turkey bacon

Add in the mushrooms. 

Pour in two whole bottles of wine!

Brown the chicken,

Add in chicken stock, celery, carrots, onions, thyme, ,and tomato paste.  Cover and refrigerate overnight...

I think tomorrow I am going to get out my pasta machine for the first time and make some pasta to go with it, since the dish is traditionally served with egg noodles.

Day 64 - twice as long as the doctors originally told me I'd be NPO

This is taking way too long.  Every day gets harder.

These are my two inchies for the day.

My fifth still life!  This was my set-up.

This is about 30 minutes worth of work.

I did  this out of only fabric.

...And two more inchies to wrap things up (I have to pass time every night until 9:00pm, which is my sacred Jello time, so everything is strategically planned and plotted and scheduled until 9:00pm.

 Then for dinner, I made a smoked salmon, dill, and potato tart.  I have to warn you:  My family was not crazy about it.  Oh well.  They can't all be winners.

Make the pate brisee.

Mix lime zest, eggs, milk, dill, and onion.

Boil the potatoes.

Slice them and scatter them in the pie crust.

Layer the smoked salmon in between the gaps.

Do another layer of smoked salmon and potatoes.

Pour the egg mixture over the potatoes and bake for a half hour.

It wasn't a great recipe, but tomorrow I'm going to make Coq Au Vin - everyone likes chicken, right?